Industriousness Spurt

Every once in a while, I have a spurt of industriousness. It would be nifty if I had more of them, but I do my best to accept myself as I am and aim for being the best me I can be. Today, I was industrious! Not wildly so, but mildly so.

After a leisurely morning, I did my ablutions and had some lunch – I made myself part of an Augustus sandwich – it wasn’t exactly an Augustus, but it was close – toasted bread (Polish Rye in this case) (that was a little moldy on one corner – sigh) mayonnaise and a little dijon mustard for condiments, sliced pepperoni, sliced dill pickle and shredded sharp cheddar cheese. A real Augustus has Genoa Salami (hard salami is good too) and the cheddar is supposed to be sliced (and more sharp than the stuff I get in the bag) and lettuce. No lettuce. Still, a tasty sandwich. Yum. Oh, and I watched an episode of The Office (American)(which I haven’t decided if I like or not it is so painful – I bet the British one with Ricky Gervais is even more painful).

On the docket were the following: work in the basement and clean out my big trash can – my brother left a present from his kids in there a long time ago and, sadly, I was just now planning to doing something about it. First step, basement. Since the roll-off/dumpster/skip is leaving on Tuesday, I wanted to toss as much as I cold bring myself to toss as possible. And I think I managed a credible amount. Many trips up and down the stairs, many bits and pieces biting the dust. I did keep more than I probably ought to have – I still don’t know what to do with oil based paint and things like that, but for me, I let go of a considerable amount. Rah team! While working, I found one box that was soaked – the evil Servpro people hadn’t bothered to move anything from that particular shelf, despite it having been underwater for a considerable period of time. Grrr. I took pictures. Maybe it will help the judge to realize that they Servpro people are not all they crack themselves up to be. (Is that a legitimate use of that phrase? Hmm…)

After my foray into the basement, I tackled the trash can. I love it when things work as expected. In this case, I am referring to the outside water hose. It survived the winter! Yay! And when I turned on the water, it came out as it was supposed to do! Huzzuh! The poor trash can was way dirtier than I had thought and I think it was happier for its bath.

So, missions accomplished! I even did a bit more than I had told myself I was going to do. Funny, even with myself, I under promise and over produce. Work done, I headed off to the nursing home to visit mom. With a quick stop to Aldi’s – where I purchased much needed lettuce and two small bags of peanuts in the shell, I made it to mom’s before dinner time. She was in the main/common room, busily not watching some strange WWII movie on the tv in front of which she was parked. I gave her some water, as I find that she is often dry mouthed, and tried to talk with her. But the TV was loud and though she was sort of awake, she didn’t really seem to be there. Sigh.

Home again, home again.

I don’t think I am alone in this: watching a movie and waiting for the tragedy to happen, even though the movie isn’t a tragedy…

Watched Clouds of Sils Maria tonight – starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart and Chloë Grace Moretz. I am sure it ended up on my list because of Chloë. I am not a Kristen Stewart fan. I do like Juliette Binoche, though. Anyway, a decent movie – not sure if I liked it or not, yet. A couple of ambiguities – which I don’t really enjoy. I like my movies to be on the explicit side. Well, I just read some questions and answers about the film. Still ambiguous, but I feel a little better about the whole thing!

Also watched Reclaim – John Cusak, Rachelle Lefevre and, ew, Ryan Phillippe. I really don’t see the appeal of Ryan Phillippe. Not at all. I have always liked John Cusak. One of my favorite movies is Gross Pointe Blank. Anyway, I don’t think I have ever seen Rachelle in anything before – but I will probably look for her in other things now (and not because of her acting…). Badly scripted. I hate when characters make stupid and bad decisions. Overall, the movie was not awesome. Wow. Really stinky. I am surprised it gets even 5.4 on IMDB. More like a 3. Not the best advertisement for Puerto Rico either…

My featured image is some patriotic flowers at my mom’s nursing home (the one where she is, not one that she owns…).

 

Two French Visitors!

I looked to see who might have read my latest blog post and found that besides the usual suspects – US people and my beautiful GF Alice in London, two people (or bots?) from France checked the post out! Bien!

Today (Sunday) I did more yard work. The leaves have accumulated big time in the front yard. I think the rake I am using might end up in the dumpster when the roll-off goes away. Which looks like it will happen on Tuesday. I don’t really want to pay another $50 for another week – and I won’t have a lot of time to even think about throwing stuff in it for most of the week. I will be in Rochester from Tuesday through Sunday working with DCT. So, today and tomorrow (Monday – Memorial Day observed) will be it for dumpster tossing. Too bad Alice hadn’t been here, she would have helped me to have the thing overflowing. As it is, I feel like I did a pretty decent job letting go of stuff. I also now have a couple of little bags of books that I am donating to the library for destruction, er, sale. And a teeny pile of stuff for the house of concern. I mean, teeny. I am still working on that. I know that I have a lot of stuff in my mom’s room that has to go down there. I wonder if they accept winter stuff now. Hmm. I will ask FB and see. Anyway, yesterday, I pulled all of the old, dead christmas trees out of the back yard, where our fruit and vegetable patch has been off and on throughout the years, and had them sleep with the fishes (in the dumpster). And all my rakings and some of my bush trimmings also made it there. Today, I moved a stack of old stuff up into the dumpster. Some of it will back up part of my claim (based on fact) that the Servpro people didn’t do a professional job and don’t deserve to be paid professional rates. Will that fly? I doubt it. I am totally prepared for the judge to be pro-business and anti-the little guy. It will be interesting, no doubt. Back from my digression, I got a good pile of leaves out of the front hedges and bushes and lilac bush. I am still wondering how to get the lilac bush to flower more prolifically. Any thoughts are appreciated – hopefully ones that will take little effort.

Movie watching continues! Last night (Saturday night) I watched two more movies: Elysium and Inferno. Both were entertaining and worth a watch. The former because it was from the director of District 9. The latter because it was the latest Dan Brown/Robert Langdon movie. Still directed by Ron Howard who is a solid, if rarely exceptional, director. I have liked most of the movies he has directed but haven’t found any of them to be spectacular. I still have one more library movie to watch tonight. I will return them all on Tuesday before heading up to Rochester. I also spent a few minutes checking my list against the libraries (in the OWWL system) holdings, and reserved five more movies!

Turns out that Charlie (who I mentioned in my last post) drives a pick-up truck – so maybe I will be able to convince him to help me with getting the metal stuff down to the metal recycling place. That would be nifty.

The featured image today – well, can anybody guess what it is? Anyone? I will tell you then. Back when I was younger, I had this love affair with GiJoe action figures. Not the little ones from the 80s onward, but the 12″ tall ones from 60s and 70s. I would often imagine that I had remote controlled craft (car, boat, plane) that would follow me around as I traveled. And I drafted (doodled mostly, though I did do a few drafting sketches) a big GiJoe base that I thought about building in the side yard. On the way to that, I built this little building for my GiJoes. No doorway, but who needs a freaking door? Hmm? I was going to treasure it still (it has been hanging around since I was 13 or so – 43 years) but today decided for sure it was going in the dumpster, where I took its picture. Sigh.

Don’t Tell

So, today (Saturday), I did something a little out of character. I spent 15 minutes working in the yard. Raking. Leaves. What has become of me?! While getting ready to rake, I got a visit from Alice’s squirrel (which reminds me that I need to buy some more peanuts at some point soon for it/her/him – Alice thinks it is a her – me, I can’t tell) looking for handouts. Nothing for it today, unfortunately. What prompted me to this break from character? When I was doing a little work in the basement, I came across my old hedge trimmer. I was tempted to get it out today, but might do it tomorrow. We shall see how I feel when I get up. So, instead of doing any trimming, I did some much, much needed raking. Home ownership is a bitch!

Sadly, I haven’t accomplished all I wanted to accomplish today. Yes, there are still many hours before I go to sleep, so there is still a chance. I wanted to try to get a teeny bit of work done on a website project. And a letter to the city about the flood in the basement. I have the latter mostly drafted, I just need to tweak it and finish it and send it. And the website project – well, I just haven’t done as much on it as I would have like to have done by now.

I ran into Charlie, a man who worked with and for me at the Smith, at Wegman’s. I mentioned that I was working at DCT and he has agreed to come volunteer there if I need him. Next step, finding times for him to help me out! Huzzuh!

I also saw a woman working at Wegman’s who plays trivia at the same place I do – I had never connected those dots before, though I have seen her in both places for months now…weird.

Last night (Friday), two more movies – Miss Sloane and Keeping Up with the Joneses. Miss Sloane was the better of the two, by far. It took me a few minutes to get into the movie, but after that, it kept my attention easily. It was a look into the seedy side of politics (lobbying) and one person who was playing the game way beyond everyone’s expectations. If you like that sort of thing, this is a really good choice to view. Keeping Up with the Joneses I got from the library – it was on my Netflix list for some reason. Gal Gadot perhaps? Or Isla Fischer? In any case, my new movie crush is Gal Gadot – so I guess I may have to go see the Wonder Woman movie in the theatre. The movie I saw last night was ok at best. It had a few fun moments but it was pretty simple story-wise. If you are a fan of Zack Galifianakis, Jon Hamm, Isla Fischer or Gal Gadot, it might be worth your time. Otherwise, steer clear.

The featured image is a selfie from not too long ago. I wonder where the heck I was…

BTW – I did end up doing some evening hedge trimming.

Catching up with Movies

I have been watching a large amount of media, which is nothing new, really. Most recently, I have been watching movies, trying to whittle down the backlog of interesting movies that have come out and I haven’t seen. The other night, well, two nights, I have watched two movies each evening. Wow! My eyes are about to fall out of my head. Oh, wait, they did that while watching all of How I Met Your Mother. What I have now are replacement robo-eyes. Huzzuh for technology.

I treated myself to a night out at the movies a week or so ago. Time has little meaning for me at this point. Weird. Anyway, I had liked the first one and this one looked fun too. Most movies aren’t worth seeing in the movie theater, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the movie theatre experience – just not the cost. The ticket prices are high compared to the minimum wage and the prices for concessions are just crazy. I know that it is the messed up world economy that makes these things so expensive (and greed of course) but that doesn’t mean that I can’t call it out…So, I ponied up the bucks for the ticket and sat through Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2. I was not disappointed, because I did not have high hopes or expectations. Truth be told, part of the reason I wanted to see the movie was because Karen Gillan (who played Amy Pond on Doctor Who) played a role. In her make-up, she reminded me (a lot) of Teri Hatcher. Or maybe Demi Moore. Anyway, it was a fun movie and ok to see on the big screen. Not as good as Doctor Strange, but I am glad I saw it in the theatre.

The four binged watched movies mostly don’t bear talking about. One was pretty darn good, the others were ok at best. Starting with the worst, I would have to say it is a toss-up between Last Knights and Serena. Last Knights was formulaic yet enjoyable. Not a deep movie or one with lots of surprises, but it kept my interest pretty well. Serena, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, was pleasant in a different way. It had logging, a nice scary guy and a few good moments here and there. It is worth a watch if you are really, really bored one night. Next in the cavalcade of so-so movies, was If I Stay starring Chloë Grace Moretz. It was one of those movies with lots of flashbacks and teen love. What I enjoyed about it was the celebration of the arts in general. Saving the best for last was The Danish Girl starring Eddie Redmayne. I liked this movie way more than I thought I would. Eddie did a great job. I didn’t know the story at all. Well done overall!

I think I may have mentioned this epiphany before, but it bears repeating: libraries sometimes (always?) have movies to lend. I took my computer to the library yesterday (and will do so again today) so that I could look to see if they had movies on my Netflix list. I found three yesterday and hope to find a few more today. Yippee! Free movies! And I can shorten my absurdly long Netflix list. It wouldn’t be so absurdly long (yes, this again) if Netflix hadn’t slowed down its turn around time for getting movies out. I used to be fairly certain I could watch two movies a week from my queue, now I am happy if I get one a week. Super sized sigh.

Today is laundry day. Yippee! I can hardly wait. I need to strip my bed. Wait, it would probably help to not be lying on the bed as I try to strip it. What a conundrum…Ok, laundry done, and I managed to not wash the one thing I needed to do: my mom’s stuffed duck. Sigh.

The photo is gratuitous. Me in May of 1961. Yay?

The Pile is dead – Long live the Pile!

The basement detritus pile has been almost completely transferred into the dumpster. (If I get my act together, I hope to have an animated GIF of the pile…one day)  I called Lyons Road Trash and found out that I have the thing for two weeks, not one. I was planning on doing a bit more sorting and emptying out of the basement, but today (Thursday), the first day this week that I haven’t driven to Rochester to work for the Downstairs Cabaret Theatre (DCT), is a rainy and cool one. Ew and brrr. So, no basement work today. Hopefully tomorrow and over the weekend. And it is a holiday weekend – Memorial Day in the US is observed on Monday, though the actual date is the last day of May, which is Wednesday…

So, what has happened since last I wrote? Mom rolled out of her low bed onto a pad and was not injured in any way. I like that the nursing home called me and started the message with “This is not an emergency.” I went to visit her today and she was, surprisingly, asleep. I went to check on her room – her boom box was on, but playing radio. Sigh. One of her balloons had died, so I culled it. The rose bush that Karl sent her for her birthday was a little on the dry side, so I gave it some water. (Wish it luck – I don’t think it stands a chance, personally). And her chicken was in dire need of a bath. So it is stinking up my car with the lovely scent of stale strawberry nutrition drink. Yum.

Sometime in what was supposed to be spring, my lawn mowing guy sent me a letter saying that he was no longer able to mow the lawn here. He suggested another guy and said that he hoped that he (the other guy) would be able to do my lawn for about as much as I had been paying the first guy, which was $30 a mow, and to not mow too frequently. I think he (the first guy in this story) might have mowed ten times last season. Anyway, I called the potential new guy and didn’t hear anything for a couple of days. Then he called and said he would gladly mow my lawn for an upfront payment of $1300. A) Who has an upfront payment of $1300 available? And B) is my lawn made from gold? I asked him how many mows he was thinking – 26. The math meant $50 a mow. For a lawn that takes maybe 20 minutes with any mower of substantial size (25″ deck or wider)? What? I told him no thanks. I just mowed it myself yesterday, so I paid myself $30. I bet I don’t break $300 for the whole season of mowing. And I used a battery operated mower! Yay battery operated mower!! I broke out some sneakers and was reminded of the summer that I was a lawn mower (tougher on the teeth than one would think) and called the company “Green Sneakers.”

Speaking of lawns, did I mention that the NYSEG (New York State Gas and Electric) people, or their contractors, came and tried to make the lawn piece they tore up a little happier? We shall see if anything comes of it.

I also had a really delicious burger in Rochester the other day. I just finished the leftovers for lunch today. Yum city! Still a few more little places within walking distance of the downtown location of the DCT to explore. Yay exploring.

Track and Field

Working on the pile and the dumpster the past few days put me in mind of my brief flirtation with field and track events back at Andover (high school). Not a lot of running, but there were a few other events touched on: when launching thin pieces of wood, I was reminded of the javelin. When aiming books toward the back of the dumpster I was reminded of the shot. And when getting bags filled with unknown crap into the dumpster, I was reminded of the hammer. I think I was better at dumpster events than I was in the actual events. Oh, no discus – oh, wait, there was a smidgen of discus – when I launched the lids from paint cans into the depths of the dumpster! Huzzuh!

I have gotten the side yard almost empty of basement items. There is a decent size pile of stuff that I would like to take to the metal recycling place. I just need to find some kind person with a pickup truck. Anyone in the Geneva area with a pick-up truck? I am guessing it will take about an hour total – load, drive, weigh, get paid, drive back. Anyone?

Today is totally unplanned. I had thought I would have more dumpster tossing to do – but I don’t, really. I am think I will spend a little time in the basement and see if I can let go of some stuff that the evil Servpro people (ok, they weren’t all evil) didn’t bring up into the light. And this blog post. Maybe a visit to see mom. Maybe not. I have to figure out dinner at some point. Oh, and lunch. And I probably ought to write some letters – lots of letters on my to do lists. But I probably won’t write letters. Sigh. Laundry will wait until next week sometime. And I have a website to work on. Hmm, maybe more napping is called for…

The featured image is from dinner couple nights ago. I made chicken tostadas. Mainly because I bought tortillas that are teeny!

Into each life

Into each life, a little sewage shall seep. It seems that I haven’t mentioned much about the basement flood of 2017. True, the basement has been known to have a little seepage here and there during deluges. Even up to two inches of water on the basement floor. Which is why most everything is up on bricks or, in the case of the furnace and the hot water heater, up on cinder blocks. But I wasn’t expecting what seemed to me to be 3 feet of water. On a Friday morning at the end of April, I woke to hear the the furnace repeatedly trying to fill itself with water. So, I dragged myself out of bed and went to see what I could see. This is what I saw:

It was a little clearer in real life. What I was looking at was a lot of water where it oughtn’t to have been. Long story short (which I will expand on in future blogs, I am sure), the basement was flooded. Hence the dumpster and the pile of, er, stuff in the side yard.

Yesterday was a cool day. I met an actual rocket scientist. Well, optics scientist who contracts for NASA. She gave a talk for a group of science oriented RIT alumni about the soon to be launched James Webb Space Telescope (infrared). How often does one get to meet a rocket scientist?!

I ran the event, which was fun as well. And I started to do some neatening and organizing. Sad how I can neaten and organize work spaces, but am not so good at doing the same thing at home…

Finally finished all of How I Met Your Mother. Some good moments. Glad I watched it! Now, what? Oh, right, Season 2 of Sense8 amongst other things. What I really need to do, is to take a screen shot of my Netflix movie queue and see if the Library system has any of them. My queue is way too long!! Speaking of Netflix, I was having some issues with Netflix and my Apple TV. Frustrating when technology doesn’t work as smoothly as one hopes…

The featured image is a bed tulips outside the front of mom’s nursing home. Pretty!

Tote that bale

The pile is slowly diminishing. Diminishing ought to be the key word in that sentence. Unfortunately, slowly seems to be the key instead. Sigh. Anyway, since I spent all day (well, 12-5 plus two hours commute time (one hour each way)) at DCT yesterday, I didn’t get a lot accomplished on the pile. I did a bit before I left and a bit after I returned. Alice wanted me to do six bags because it was an even number. I told her I would do five, as it was a cool decimal based number. Digits, don’t you know…

Captain Fantastic was thoroughly enjoyable. Good cast, good story, good visuals. Some great dialogue and some great scenes. Yay Netflix DVD service! Expensive, especially with the way that they have slowed down delivery of DVDs, but still, a good way to see movies that aren’t available readily online.

Visited mom at lunch time and saw her eat quite a bit. The mashed potatoes weren’t very well received, but she did a good job on the ice cream!

Took a drive to Canandaigua to look for a cordless Lawn Mower. I found one but just wasn’t in the mood to actually purchase it. Weird.

Feeling very tired – woke up at 5am this morning and haven’t been back to sleep. I think I need a nap.

Still on the docket for today – more dumpster filling, grocery store to pick up some food for dinner and trivia, if I can keep my eyes open for it…so maybe a short nap.

Roll Off

Roll away the dew. Nope, that isn’t it. Role call, Sound Off! Nope, not that either. I will call it as I see it. It is a dumpster. Yes, a very large dumpster, but still, a dumpster. The trash people call it a roll-off because it rolls off (well, slides off with a teeny bit of rolling action) a large truck. My girlfriend, Alice, calls it a skip. She has been haranguing for almost our entire relationship thus far to get a skip (or six) and empty most of the house into it. I bet Juliet would agree. But other than that, hoarders and collectors and people saving things for a rainy day (see my earlier post about a win for us) would think it is generally too much too quickly to just toss everything into a skip. Grrr.

After the roll-off was dropped off, I started to fill it with detritus lugged upstairs by the Servpro people. As I did this, I found that a few of the bags (so far) were way too heavy for me to try and toss over the high(ish) sides of the dumpster. I thought – oh, I can cobble together an inclined plane of some sort (a ramp) and get things in that way. Then I noticed some hinges on the container. After a bit of pushing and lifting, I eventually got the gate open, revealing a low (ish) step up to the inside of the container. Something that I could manage with the bags. Well, all but two so far, I will go back for those later.

After working for about twenty minutes, I can tell that I will get this mostly done – if I don’t stop too frequently to check on the actual wetness of things – in a week’s time. Huzzuh! That would be nice. I need to get some kitty litter so that I can let go of a bunch of rusted old paint cans in case any of the paint is still wet. I am thinking a lot of it will be dry.

Still waiting to hear if I need to go up to Rochester today or not to help out with a show at  the downtown location of the Downstairs Cabaret Theatre. There is an “on again/off again” jazz concert that happens on Tuesday nights, but it didn’t happen last week, so I am not sure if it is happening this week. I will wait for a bit longer before reaching out again and seeing what the story is. (Going to Rochester now…)

 

Meatloaf! Or is it?

Adventures in cooking (in space…). Ok, not in space, just in Geneva, NY. I was sliding  (scrolling, I guess) through my FB newsfeed (which, thanks to Fluff Busting Purity is always in “view recent” mode) a few days ago and came upon a bacon-covered meatloaf oozing cheese! Yum, I thought, I would eat that. Heck, I would cook that. And that is what I did. I found the recipe, downloaded it and put it into action last night. And boy howdy, was it tasty! I didn’t use enough cheese, but will do better, should I opt to attempt this culinary masterpiece again one day. I will not admit that I ate more than half of that last night for dinner…

I was effective today, I think. I made some calls to get balls rolling (yard and roll-off). And checked in with DCT (Downstairs Cabaret Theatre) on a couple of issues. Visited mom and trips to the bank, the post office, gas station, and the grocery store. Huzzuh! I also plan to change the linen on my bed today. I don’t think I can stand the awesomeness that is me, when I actually get motivated and accomplish miracles (albeit fairly teeny weeny ones)! I might even try to fix my less than happy Wifi router. Ok, that might be over reaching my level of motivation…

Mom was sleeping when I visited her. So I put her music on (Mozart Piano Concertos) and watched her for a little while before heading to my rendezvous with destiny (or the grocery store, whichever you prefer to imagine).

Tonight Space-X is supposed to launch another satellite into space – but won’t be retrieving the booster. Yay and boo. Did I say this already? I would like Elon Musk to come up with a way to clean up the space trash that is in orbit around the planet. Instead he keeps adding to it. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that he is doing what he is doing – making space travel more cost effective, making cool solar tile roofs, helping to transition people from gas powered personal vehicles to electrically powered ones, etc. Even the boring company, though I don’t really see that that will be very effective for the main stream, but more of an elitist way to travel…Anyway, go Elon. Rah. Oh, what is cool about the launch tonight is that it will be the second launch this month by Space-X. Part of Musk’s plan, I thought I read somewhere, was to make space launches as common place as plane take-offs (takes-off?) and just as economically feasible. AIP. Too bad Elon isn’t taking on the Medical Industries…Did anyone else see John Olivers show about dialysis? Sigh.