nlbarber

My father and I drove up to Atlanta on Friday, getting here around 11:30 AM--in time for me to get to Weight Watchers (up 1.4 lbs after the not-so-careful eating last week). Can't recall what we did Friday afternoon, but it must have been errands and/or working on the list of pre-bat-mitzvah chores. A grocery store stop was in there somewhere, I know. Oh, put the replacement torchiere together, after having to steal a missing part from the light socket of the broken one. More stuff, too, I'm sure.

( Saturday--Walk for the cure, exhibit at the Carlos )
( Sunday--more chores )
I'm going to try to work a short day tomorrow, but after a week away and with 2 conference calls scheduled, it might not be much shorter than usual. Tuesday will be a half-day, though--I've got a service appointment scheduled in the afternoon for the dishwasher, to see if the problem with the soap dispenser can be fixed. And I'll be doing more chores while waiting on the repairman, of course.

Elder niece's bat mitzvah is on the 28th, and before various relatives descend I have a list of things I want to get done in the house. A long list. Which is, however, shrinking rapidly due to Real Life. (Note that a similar list exists next door where niece lives, resulting in such recent events over there as a new driveway being poured, the house being painted, etc.) ( Items that are done, and the wish list of not-done )
The new carpet purchase for the living room was on the list, and the carpet got installed today, according to my sister-in-law who supervised the job. She also discovered that the plan to shut the cats in the Cat Room is a non-starter, as Fish, the Cat of Very Little Brain, can open the Cat Room pocket door in nothing flat. So much for the use of the Cat Room as an isolation area...

Spent at home and vicinity--no trips, no Dragon*Con (even though I debated going for one day to meet Elizabeth Moon and Esther Friesner who were both there).

( Decatur Book Festival )

( first Ga. Tech football game of the season... )

( ...and a musical )

And the final weekend activity to mention was moving Summer, the younger of my brother's dogs, back to her yard. And again. And again. It seems once Summer figured out how to get into my yard, it became a haven for whenever the older dog got too alpha. We thought she might be jumping the fence (it's a low chain link) or the gate, but B. spent the afternoon filling holes along our common fence line, and thinks that the deepest one might be how Summer was getting in. Out. Whatever. He's filled the holes and put concrete pavers along the base of the fence, and Summer has been scolded and put on a tie-down after 2 incursions, so perhaps between barriers and behavior modification she'll be convinced to stay in her own yard. We'll see.

First baking in the new oven: the nephew's birthday cake (he's now 7). As I haven't moved anything in yet while waiting on the punch list work and the contractor's cleaner, the cake process included such things as checking the kitchen inventory made while packing to see what could be obtained (cake pan yes, by turning one box upside down and opening the bottom--the pan was packed early; cooling rack no, so borrowed from next door), moving the KitchenAid mixer from the floor of the guest bedroom to the kitchen counter, and finding various odd-sized containers in the pantry to use for mixing frosting colors. The cake decorating tools live in the pantry (untouched by the remodeling) so those were easy to find, but the spatulas were in a box and had to be dug out.

( More on the cake and the party, and a picture ) A good time was had by all including the adults, as a lot of the outdoor supervision of the 7 year olds was done by the nieces and a few of their friends.

At my nephew's school, the second graders are divided into tables for various activities, and every 9 weeks the tables change. Each table group gets to come up with a name for themselves. My nephew informs me that the other tables in his class are called Tigers, Jaguars, and Daredevils, IIRC. Nephew's table is the Undead Chicken Spirits.

The day started with a couple minor office crises (Yet Another Database Bug when we're trying hard to get this thing out to beta testing), then I headed out to go to a meeting with on a pilot project that I'm semi-involved in--no funding for this yet, but in the hopes the project will turn out to be big and get funded, I'm involved. Anyway, I went to one meeting at the offices of this private firm, then we all headed to a meeting with an official of Fulton County Water, which is held at the admin building for one of their extremely large wastewater treatment plants. Watch out while at the security gate, 'cause the sludge truck behind you is coming through...

Anyway, had an interesting meeting discussing the data they have available and will share on their water and wastewater systems (database of thousands and thousands of manholes, with depths, coordinates, and surrounding land cover, for instance...or the videos of the inside of every sewer pipe they own, taken every 5 years), and tomorrow I'll be out with some of these guys going to each of the water facilities we're interested in. I had my choice and picked water over wastewater, thanks. When the meeting broke up I drove the 30 miles or so from this rather distant office to home, then scrambled to help make the chicken and goopy rice for dinner with the folks next door, and then to get to Jazzercise just a little late. Sister-in-law departed with two of her kids and one extra to got to karate classes.

After I left Jazzercise, the major crisis: a call from my sister-in-law saying she was on the way to the emergency room as it appeared that younger niece (age 10) had broken her wrist. I threw on other clothes, went next door to check on dinner (cooked on a timer, and almost done) and told older niece what was going on. Then it was off to the hospital to collect my nephew, see that it was the forearm, not the wrist, and that it was definitely broken, and depart. I then manned the home front for the evening--my brother went from work to the hospital with my blessing, so nephew, older niece, and I ate chicken and goopy rice, did a few chores, and then I nagged nephew until he got through the cleanup and bedtime ritual. (Older niece took her shower unprompted, and then waited up with me.) Sister-in-law and the injured niece finally got home about 10, wiped. My brother got to make the drugstore run--I didn't stay long enough to see him.

Now I'm for bed--got to be moving a good bit earlier than usual in order to be in Alpharetta (30 miles away in morning rush hour traffic) at 8:30.

No, I'm still a cat person. But my family next door have 2 dogs, and the people part of the family are still out of town. I've been doing a little dog-visiting to add to the time the dog-sitter gives them.

Lindy is the older dog. Summer just joined the household a couple of months ago, IIRC, and is still under a year old, so she's still puppyish though she's taller than Lindy. Last night I was over in the kitchen and watched Summer successfully keep control of the two prime toys of the moment--a stuffed chipmunk, and a large bone-shaped item made out of tennis ball stuff. Both of these squeak, which is required for Interesting Toys. Lindy could manage to pick up one of these when Summer had to drop it (both toys won't fit in her mouth at once), but Summer would quickly force her to give it up. Lindy might then try to get the other toy unless Summer had managed to step on it, but Summer would just make her drop it. Scene repeats until Lindy gives up in disgust.

Today things were completely turned around. I went over in the afternoon while the dogs were in the backyard, and was greeted by Lindy alone, barking loudly. Summer appeared around the corner of the house, but Lindy charged fiercely at her and Summer tucked her tail in and ran. That repeated a couple of times until Summer gave up--Lindy basically had Summer confined to the corner of the deck, against the door.

I went over later on when I was still just seeing Lindy in the yard, and saw another repeat, but this time Lindy appeared to be guarding or hunting something at the base of the bushes. As Lindy is a pretty effective hunter of the small mammal population (chipmunks, squirrels, possums), I took a look, hoping not to have to dispose of some remains. What I eventually found was the stuffed chipmunk toy, which the dog-sitter had mistakenly allowed out of the house. I suspect that's what Lindy decided to defend for the day, and that's why she kept Summer penned on the deck most of the afternoon. I have rescued the poor toy, and it's shedding dried mud on my card table.

There's a short poem that is often read at funerals in my home town in south Georgia, and at some point we had a conversation about where it came from. No one knew, and we speculated that it was some fragment of a poem by someone obscure. But it appears that it's an adaptation by Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens of a part of a poem by one Robert Richardson. It appears on the headstone of Twain's daughter.

The poem is:

Warm summer sun,
   Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
   Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
   Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
   Good night, good night.

Citation, which looks fairly authoritative, complete with a photo of the headstone. This other
citation, though looking even more academic, omits the Richardson source and says the poem is on Twain's wife's tomb, not his daughter's. I've written to the second site to suggest they check their source. Update: got a nice note from citation #2 regretting the error and saying it had been corrected.

I was just zapping some leftovers for dinner when this loud pounding came at the door. Took a minute to figure out which door and flip on the light, to see that it was Wayne the pet sitter, who is taking care of my brother's dog Lindy while they are in Arizona. (I'm a cat person, and while I like Lindy, the full dog-care routine is not for me.)

Lindy had escaped when Wayne went in to feed her, and she bounded off toward Pangborn Road at the entrance to our subdivision. Wayne came to ask if I knew if she had done this before and where she was likely to go. He got in his car and headed out: I collected a jacket, put the leftovers out of reach of the cats, and started walking down the street.

( The dog chase )

When Wayne came over to drop off my improvised rope-leash, he said she'd just tried to escape again. (Of course--she had a great time!) And that he'd taken her on a long walk already today...clearly, that just whetted her appetite.

Yesterday evening we had leftovers, with added soup. My brother's family had been packing part of the afternoon, when the kids could be pried away from their new toys--they go visit sister-in-law's family in Arizona every year right after Christmas. Then we had the dessert (the strawberry squares tasted just as always with the Splenda Blend), and then s-i-l dug out the menorahs and lit the candles for the first night of Hanukkah. Busy holiday period...

This morning I rode with them to the airport and brought their van back--I'll pick them up Saturday. Then we loaded Daddy's luggage into my car, packed a small cooler with some of the leftovers, and hit the road to south Georgia. The ride down was smooth--almost no trucks on I-75 (a welcome change), though there were cars enough to make up for it. Got there in just about 3 hours, which is about as fast as I ever manage it. We unloaded, I went to the bathroom, and then headed back. Had to stop for gas and lunch at Perry (halfway), and then hit the traffic at McDonough about where it had backed up the day after Thanksgiving. After about 13 miles of slow-to-stopped, it opened back up at the I-675 shortcut to the east side of Atlanta. I got back about 3:45 or so.

Now I've raided the fridge next door for more of the leftovers than were already at my place, eaten a selection thereof, and I think I'm headed for bed. Maybe with the audio book of Paladin of Souls--I was listening to part of it as I drove north (having started the paper version for some comfort reading over the weekend), and now I'm up to Arhys's last battle. Should be good bedtime reading.

Current Mood: sleepy

After the various disruptions to family life in the last 2 weeks (death and funeral of a cousin, medical problems for niece), we've managed to pull Christmas together pretty much as we'd have liked to have it. We'd been talking about giving the adults' presents on Epiphany, if necessary. But the shopping got done (thank heavens for online stores, esp. Amazon), the menu has been planned and adjusted for diabetic concerns, and I'm just waiting on the prime rib to get to temperature before we start the last-minute dinner prep.

The nephew (age 6) is thrilled: he got lots of huge boxes, bigger than his sisters and more of 'em, mostly toys like Playmobile stuff. Much is dragon/castle/knight themed, as his room now has a dragon painted on the wall. Younger niece is buried in her Gamecube (I think it's a Gamecube--some variety of handheld game box). Older niece has the "iPod grin"--there was a iPod nano in her stocking. Big Christmas this year. Adults, having made extensive use of Amazon wish lists, have Good Stuff, too.

The dinner menu is prime rib, sauteed mushrooms, scalloped potatoes, squash-cheese casserole, green beans, broccoli with buttered almond topping, and whole-wheat angel biscuits. We'll save the dessert for tonight, which will be strawberry squares made with Splenda Blend instead of sugar. Oh, and the dog (next door) and my cats are happy--they get the dried beef that's trimmed off the rib roast after it dry-aged in the fridge all week.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it!

The niece who's newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes is not a big candy cane eater, but having one in the Christmas stocking is traditional. So, we need sugar-free candy canes.

Off to Google. You can by a huge package of them at diabeticcandy.com, or some such. We need one. With additional searching, I discover that Bob's Candy makes a sugar-free candy cane along with all their other variants, sold in packages of 8 or so, but they don't do retail.

Turn to the online yellow pages, and start calling local candy stores. After about 7 calls with no luck and no one who can offer suggestions, I finally got the idea to call Bob's, now owned by Farley's & Sathers, and ask them where to buy the things. And the nice lady tells me that Publix should have them, and maybe Wal-Mart.

Start calling nearby Publix stores, starting with the largest. Toco Hills, no--sold out (that's the store with a heavy kosher emphasis). Northlake, sold out--the nice guy even searched in the back for me. Shamrock Plaza, sold out. This is not looking good.

So I leave the office to head home, and stop at the little Publix on Shallowford Rd., with its heavy Hispanic foods emphasis (DeKalb County is very diverse, ethnically...), to pick up essentials for breakfast. And they have sugar-free candy canes!

Current Mood: pleased

I've made it to my father's house in Moultrie. Not a pleasant trip, as it was raining steadily for about 3/4 of the drive, and I-75 was full of trucks (as usual) throwing lots of spray. Luckily the freezing rain last night and this morning only deposited a light coating on my trees, and I then headed south and got out of any possible ice problems. ( conference call, then Wal-Mart )

Tomorrow I'll help clean and straighten the house, do some food preparation for the post-funeral lunch on Saturday, and we may host some of the family for dinner tomorrow night by getting barbecued pork from a local place, making my favorite "Brunswick stew from cans", and adding some salad stuff. We'll just see if this appeals to anyone, or if my Aunt Joyce instead holds an open house supper at her place. She's hosting the post-funeral lunch, as my father's house won't really handle feeding 30 or so people.

It has been a fraught week. ( Kids and hospitals shouldn't have to mix ) We've decided that Christmas present exchanges between adults can just wait. I like

joyeuse13's idea--Ephiphany celebrations. By tradition that's supposed to be when the Wise Men brought presents to baby Jesus, after all...

Current Mood: tired

In an attempt to not lose December on LJ again (like last year), I'm just going to post without an attempt to catch up on all those lovely things I thought about posting on since before Thanksgiving sometime...

My father called this morning to tell me that my cousin Paul died somewhat unexpectedly last night. Paul had myotonic dystrophy, a genetic disease that can show up as fairly minor muscular weakness, to more severe weakness, and as mental retardation. All of my father's siblings had MD in the milder form (which wasn't dignosed until they were adults), and about half of their children had more severe forms including mental retardation.

( Cause of death, and some memories... )

Burial will be in Moultrie, Ga., probably next weekend. The shrinking group of first cousins will gather again (those who can make it)--we started out as 16, and are now 11. If it's on the weekend, I and my younger brother's family will drive down, and we'll bring my father back up here to spend Christmas. If it's mid-week, probably only me and my brother will go, as the kids still will be in school.

Once again, LJ has been the low man on the totem pole of online activities, and got bumped for a couple of weeks. Oh, well...

So, Atlanta's had an ice storm this weekend. Freezing rain and sleet started Friday night and continued most of Saturday. I woke up Saturday morning to a partly white yard--the grass didn't get covered, but the patio and pinestraw-covered areas of the yard were covered in what looked like snow. On closer examination (Fish and I went out--he bounded vigorously across the yard with only the occasional foot-shake to note the new groundcover), it was more an accumulation of sleet--big granules. But the kids next door found that it would pack sufficiently like snow to make a 12-inch high snowman. OK, maybe 14 inches. But that was about it.

( afternoon with Bujold )

( evening birthday celebration by flashlight )

This morning things were already starting to melt when I went out for the paper, and the streets were mostly clear. It'll be mid-forties this afternoon, so the drive to work tomorrow will be fine. I keep staring at the tree limb on the back fence, but as there's a steady rain of icy clumps falling from the pine trees in the back yard, I think it will wait until later in the week.

Gacked from several:

1. Go to Mapquest.com
2. Click on "Directions"
3. Enter your current address and the address of your childhood home (or at least the town if you don't remember the exact address)
4. Put the time and distance in a post like this.
5. Don't forget to repost these directions. (Not the door to door ones).

For me:
Total Est. Time: 3 hours, 45 minutes Total Est. Distance: 213.84 miles

It's a lot further than that in terms of culture. <g>

Maximum it has been was for 2 years in graduate school:
Total Est. Time: 15 hours, 57 minutes Total Est. Distance: 930.76 miles

For my father, Mapquest won't do it. YahooMaps says: 0.0 miles, blank travel time, with detailed directions of:
1. Start at 617 3RD ST - go < 0.1 mi
2. Arrive at 605 3RD ST, on the Left

He lives next door to the house in which he was born--literally, as he was born at home.

Hope the others of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving today had a good one.

We had our turkey and fixings in the middle of the day. I got the turkey into the oven around 9:15, and headed out for a jog to get a little exercise this week (missed Jazzercise Monday night because the facility had to be set up for the Tuesday runoff election, and then left town on Tuesday morning). After lots of storms yesterday, it was clear and brisk--I was in shorts and a T-shirt without being too chilly, but the temps kept going down during the day so I won't try that again this trip. Then it was back to the house to turn the turkey over, then take a quick shower and start the serious cooking. Everything turned out well, with the minor problems of the bottle of wine having a cork that disintegrated with age (1992 Riesling, not stored well)--substituted something from mini-bottles that were already chilled. And I forgot about the almond topping for the broccoli, so that will have to be taken back to Atlanta and used later.

After post-meal somnolence was shaken off, I offered to take the nieces and nephew to the rail-trail to expend some energy--nieces on bikes, nephew walking or running with me. Then sister-in-law got the kids involved in rolling and cutting out a couple of batches of her Chinese gingersnaps, which involve lots of grated fresh ginger and tablespoons of white pepper. At 6 we headed downtown to the festival for the lighting of the Christmas lights. (More on this later.) Came back and had sandwiches or chefs salads (with turkey, natch), and pie. That's it, I've had my limit of the chocolate chess. Besides, there's only a tiny sliver left, and surely someone else will get to it before me...

The turkey carcass is in the crockpot to make stock, so we can have the traditional turkey chowder for lunch tomorrow. (Saute onions and celery, add stock and white rice, cook until rice is done. Add milk and some chopped turkey, and heat. Season with salt and pepper.) Chicken pie is defrosting in the fridge, and Beatrice, the long-time housekeeper, will deliver some cooked vegetables for us to have with it tomorrow. She worked today, clearing most of the kitchen mess while we were eating dinner, but she said she'd rather bring the vegetables fresh tomorrow so she can do fried okra, knowing how the kids love it. Maybe I'd better go jogging again tomorrow...love Beatrice's fried okra, and of course, there's the chicken pie.

We had Thanksgiving dessert tonight. No, we're not confused: Thanksgiving dinner will be midday tomorrow. The idea is to spread those calories around a little, and maybe enjoy the dessert more because we're not stuffed from turkey and fixings. Supper was soup, fresh bread from the bread machine, sandwiches for those that wanted one, and pie.
( Pie details, and fridge-shopping )So, there's a new fridge, the floor got scrubbed under it and the trash compactor (which had to move to get the fridge in), various ancient foodstuffs from the back reaches of the fridge and freezer compartment were pitched, and we're still on schedule with the advance food prep for tomorrow. The turkey has been brined and is air-drying in the (spacious new) fridge, ready to go in the oven around 9:30. Then we'll make the squash casserole, get the green veggies ready to cook, stir the shrimp into the jambalaya stuffing, cook it all, and Eat!

Can I go to Balticon? It's a matter of time and energy: I can get a plane ticket with frequent-flier miles, and the hotel and con costs are doable.

But that week has:
--family gathering in south Georgia centered around a bank board meeting on Tuesday May 25
--eldest nephew graduates from high school in Durham, N.C. on Wednesday
--youngest nephew "graduates" from pre-K in Atlanta on Thursday
Looks like I'm skipping the first one no matter what, but will go to the next two. Also, I was supposed to be in Denver the whole week for work: I'm going to back out of that completely, if I can.

I'd need to fly out first thing Friday morning to get to the earliest con activities Friday afternoon. It's certainly physically possible, if I think I'm up for that much stress. And even though the con sounds like it's going to be a wonderful Bujold gathering, I'll be stressed.

I'm still debating...

The plan was for me to ride along with my sister-in-law to south Georgia as she carried my niece and a teammate to a gymnastics meet in my home town. I could visit with my father, perhaps attend some of the meet (having been warned that gym meets at this level are....um...less than exciting, I didn't say I'd go to the whole thing ), and be company for Robbie as she drove. The other girl's mom had been on previous trips but had a conflict for this one, so Robbie agreed to take both girls. We were going to drive down Friday after the girls got out of school, the meet was Saturday afternoon, then we'd spend the night and go back to Atlanta early Sunday.

The plan changed Thursday night when my father called to say that his first-cousin-by-marriage, Nat Jones, had died in Jacksonville, Florida of complications of Parkinson's Disease. Even though we never see much of this part of the extended family, we enjoy them (and vow to get together more often), so my weekend plan changed to include a trip to the funeral. ( more... )

Current Mood: drained

Weekend, where'd it go?

Bat mitzvah prep, then off to the farm show

Labor Day Weekend

Christening the kitchen

Second grade

Long day, with crises

Dog dominance games

Small mystery solved

Aerobic exercise for the evening

Quiet, with leftovers

Christmas came together after all

In search of sugar-free candy canes

Travel day

Just jumping back in

Weekend ice storm

Mapquest meme

Happy Thanksgiving!

Life is short: eat dessert first

Debating...

Weekend plans, changes thereto

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November 2016

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