Pow Wow!

Who here has been to a Pow Wow?

Up until yesterday, I would be someone who would say they had never been to a pow wow. This will not, I hope, be my only pow wow.

Today, I got out of bed very slowly. I hadn’t slept well for whatever reason. So I was feeling more sluggish than I normally feel in the morning. But I got my morning Duolingo accomplished and headed to the free breakfast. Sadly there was someone using the waffle maker and I didn’t really want to wait. Though I did have to wait for the breakfast bag as well…

At the Pow Wow, I checked in and took a quick gander to see what if anything was happening. Nothing much was going on. So I headed back to the car where I listened to my book while it charged (the car, not the book…though the book was playing through my phone – which was charging – as was the car…). I charged almost to full so that I wouldn’t have range anxiety about the trip back home. At the pow wow, I parked in the parking garage instead of in the lot outside. The lot may have been a little closer to the action, but the parking lot was less hot and I could get there without going outside. True, when I went back to my car at one point, I didn’t find it right away. Sigh.

I got in to the event space and sat in the “Elder’s Tent” – two sections set aside for the elderly and for people with accessibility concerns. I qualified as an Elder because I am over 60! Woo hoo! It wasn’t the most awesome seat – but many of the best seats were already spoken for. When I first sat down, around 12:15 I think, the space was about half full. It took them a while to get the program started.

Off to a slow start – literally. The first group of dancers were military veterans and they moved really slowly. But eventually they got where they needed to go. This was followed by a few speeches. And then a few competitive dances. The prizes were all going to be announced on Sunday, which I will miss. Boo hoo. There were also a few “inter-tribal” dances where everyone could get up and dance. I did not, yet again, get up and dance.

At one point, I checked my casino card, only to discover that the $15 credit was only good for 24 hours. Poo. Oh well, life is that way sometimes.

At one point, I had planned to stay until the bitter end on Saturday night. Then drive home. Then I changed that to leaving at 9. Then 7. Then 5…which stuck. I thought of getting food for the road, but decided I would just leap in the car and toodle home. I did all the driving in daylight! The backroads ere much more pleasant that way.

Pizza was calling my name. I stopped at the Cam’s in Penn Yan and picked up a slice of pizza, 5 wings and a soda for dinner. Which I ate when I got home, 15 or so minutes later. I still have some wings. Maybe I will have those and some dolmades (which were still in the fridge) for lunch.

No presidential stuff today. It was mostly a day to absorb. I didn’t even do much talking with my seat mates. Tomorrow is another day.

Too Many Plans

Too many plans ruins the life. Is that the saying? I guess I need to think again about what I want the next few years to look like. Do I want to focus on this, or that? Or the other thing? How important is money and where does that come from? How much travel is enough travel? How important is it really to have a significant (That is the weirdest sounding “c”) other in my life? And what time frames are we looking at?

Plodding (or even floating) along and going with the flow are perfectly acceptable ways to live life. And I guess if all of your material needs are met, then life is a bit easier. So which comes first, the going with the flow or the getting of one’s material needs taken care of? Can one do both? Because that’s what I seem to be doing. At least so far.

On the macro scale, I don’t know that I really want to get involved. Sure, I wouldn’t mind being president of the US. But it would take a lot of work. Same for Sirius Theatre. A lot of work. A lot of focus. And for what? A legacy? And how long does a legacy actually last? I mean, sure, in some cases, a name lives on for millennia – even if the person that we think of when that name pops up wasn’t at all like the image we have of them today. I mean, who was Gilgamesh, really? Or the Buddha? Or more recently, Shakespeare?

On the micro scale, what do I want to do about my current plight: too much crap and a paralyzed feeling when I start to think about what to do with it all.

I always come back to the notion of tortoise steps. Little moves hopefully in a good direction. Good of course being a matter of perception. Who knows what any choice will really lead to? But what is my ultimate destination, besides death and oblivion?

I’ll keep talking about this issue in the future. For now, I am a bit disheartened. Not in a huge way. But a little way. I can’t find the box of Genealogical research that I had put together. I know it is in a plastic container. I thought it was under my bed. Which is where it lived when I was sleeping in the Orange room. And then I thought it might be in one of my bedroom’s closets. It wasn’t. (Anyone in the family interested in coinage and money – not from a utilitarian aspect, but from a collector’s or perhaps a potential area of work sort of way? – I found a lot of coins from a lot of places and times – I just added some money from Colombia to the boxes) And I thought maybe I had put it with the pictures that are in the front hall closet. Nope, not there either. Which means it is probably in the attic. Which is too cold to really do anything in just now. But I might make a quick foray up there and see if the box is easily gotten to.

I did come across a whole box of stuff that Adele Stevens (Aunt Dell) had on the other half of my mom’s heritage (her mom’s family). Someday I will look at it in more detail. I bet there are a few cousins lurking about that might be interesting to track down one day.

And I decided that if I were to start scanning pictures from the myriad pictures I have collected in the house so far, I would start by only scanning pictures with people in them. And then work up to cool images – if there are any – but I would think that there are – amongst all those pictures, a few really spectacular ones.

Speaking of pictures, about 10 years ago I think, maybe a few less, I scanned and emailed out some pictures that I had found that I thought might be pictures of Pa’s father. And Pa. Black and white images. One was on a boat/ship. If anyone has easy access to those, please let me know. I know that 10 years ago we probably all had different computers and phones and email addresses etc…

I even folded everything and put it all away!

It’s been a while since I made breakfast for dinner. I think I will make an omelet tonight. Plus hash browns. And bacon. So excited!

Not so Black Friday

My T-Day plate

Happy Day after Thanksgiving. I hope that everyone who celebrated had a great time. I had a very pleasant evening. And had fun trying (and not really succeeding) to get everything to be done and hot at the same time! The turkey was a tad overdone, I think. Still, I do like deep frying it. Maybe next year I will listen to my inner chef and cut the darn breast into smaller chunks since my deep fryer, though large, isn’t that large! The stuffing box made enough stuffing for a family of twenty! The Brussels sprouts turned out pretty tasty as usual. And both potato dishes were good. All in all, yay.

And here we are on Black Friday. Not what it used to be, with door buster sales. Do brick and mortar stores still do this? I did succumb to the self imposed pressure yesterday and bought myself a new toy. It is supposed to come on Monday.

I am at home, in bed and don’t really want to do anything. But I also want to feel like I am being productive. So, I am writing a bit of my daily blog. And then, I am going to read! It is the one of the best ways of doing nothing and being productive at the same time, imho. (I didn’t read. I did work on the Finelo app – learning about stocks – much of which I already know…)

If I am going to dash for another year (as it looks like I might be doing), I am going to start another spreadsheet. I’ll keep both going until the end of March and then just keep the one going for a year. Why? Because I like spreadsheets and it keeps me engaged. I like that. This one is going to be more micro in scale. I would like to see what the tipping versus everything else really is.

For some reason there was the aroma of baking cookies in the house. Which is weird since I haven’t baked cookies for a while now. But, that made me think of french toast. So I decided to have French toast for lunch. Until just now. When I chose to have leftovers for lunch. And then make breakfast, featuring stuffed french toast for dinner instead. If I ever get out of bed that is…when do I get my personal robot who will bring me my lunch in bed? Hmm?

Yay! I have a plan for the rest of the evening. I like it when that happens.And I am executing it. Including getting this blog out before I start dinner. Woo hoo! And I did eventually get out of bed.

I put down the storm windows where they weren’t already down. It looks like we are going to be below freezing for much of the next two weeks here in beautiful Geneva. Brr. Good thing I have long underwear. I took a quick trip out to take in SM’s mail before she came back today. (She had gotten a lot of packages this week!!) And I found my hat and gloves. Happy to say that the gloves work the touch screen in the car! Woo hoo! Next up, a quick shower and then cooking. I haven’t made French toast in a while. But it is pretty easy, really. Bacon, a couple of over easy eggs, and a hash brown patty to round out the meal. So excited! I love breakfast foods.