My Life in Bags

Lots and lots of bags

I have a lot of bags around my house. All shapes and sizes and materials. A lot of them are filled. Most recently, I emptied out my car and put the stuff in bags. ANd then I sorted those and put some of the stuff in smaller bags. Sigh. Oh, and before you ask, yes, I do have bags filled with bags…I don’t think I have a bag filled with bags that are filled with bags though…

I was lying (not laying) in bed and was thinking, goodness, I don’t have a lot on my plate today, when I recalled that I actually do have a few things that need to be done. I guess I better get motivated. I was planning on just heading to JC and EC’s around 2:15 so that I can help them with a video chat. But, instead, I will be heading out around 1 to do my errands. And then head south.

A new errand that just popped up is buying a new cartridge for my printer. I think that the cartridges that ships with new printers tend to be under filled. Since selling printers is really about selling ink. I’ll check staples’ price and then see what the cost would be online. I don’t think the printer is going to stop printing today.

Taxes must be paid! Death and taxes. Though if we lived in a non-capitalistic world, taxes wouldn’t be a thing.

Being me, I volunteered to bring JC and EC some groceries if they needed anything. They did. Which means the grocery store is now on my list of errands. Yippee!

I called and left a second message for “Kay” at state farm. She didn’t return my message from yesterday. So my hopes aren’t high that she will call me today. I need to start car shopping this afternoon, after I get finished with JC and EC. Maybe tomorrow I will take a trip out to the EV place in Farmington and see what they have on the lot. And I want to ask them if their prices are negotiable.

The Alice movie’s first draft is complete. I just watched it. Overall, I am pleasantly pleased with how it looks. Next time I watch it, I will have a pad or something to write down what I think needs to be done. There is one glaring editing error that I will probably fix. And there are a lot of pops and scary edit frames that I can probably cut out. We shall see about that one. There are also a few places that could use timing editing – speed up the slow bits and slow down some other bits. But it is in pretty good shape, all things considered. Maybe I will do some work on it tonight.

Errands accomlished. I printed out the items that SM wanted printed. And delivered them to her. My first foray into the wilds of Wegmans netted me the groceries that JC and EC wanted. Then two banks to deposit money and pay the first round of taxes. All of that, for once, took less time than I had thought it would. So I got to JC and EC’s house early!

There was a bit of trepidation to tackle East Lake road again, site of the accident. But I made it to their place without incident. While there, I made them sit through a viewing of my film, such as it is. It definitely needs some tweaking, but overall was decently reviewed! The video chat that I was there to help them with went very smoothly. And then I toddled off. To Wegmans again to do my own shopping. Three bags of chips, and a bag of popcorn. Sigh. And a couple of cans of beans. A successful expedition.

Now I am home and getting mentally prepared for dinner and the third section of the day.

Oh, I finished all of Veronica Mars. It is too bad that they didn’t have another season or two. I am now watching through a not so great show called Rizzoli and Isles. It is a crime procedural combined with women being friends. It has its good moments, but overall, not so great. Fodder. Sad about Catherin O’Hara. Honestly, though, I was not enamored.

One more thing. I had a chat with someone at State Farm and they said that the payout might be higher than I was imagining. That would be great! Oh, that was frustrating by the way. For some reason, I couldn’t swipe up from the phone app to get to the sign in screen to get into the phone. The caller wanted my mileage and I couldn’t get to the Tesla app to get it to him. I have it written down now. In case they call back…someday. I guess I need to take another trip to Baldwinsville, too.

Augustus for President: I am not looking at either March 15 or the end of March for leaving for my trip. Or, I could just wait to make the first day of my trip my 65 birthday (In the beginning of April). Thoughts?

Weekend Excitement!

Just to let you know, that although I try to get every blog post out at around 7 pm my time, it doesn’t always happen. And I am sure that when I start campaigning full time, posts will become more sporadic in terms of times being posted. I still hope and plan to blog every day. But when I am on the road for five hours plus a day, that may cause some scheduling problems for blog publishing. No worries, though, I don’t head off into the wilds of the country until February next year. So for now, it will only be a challenge when I actually am getting out and about socially. Like tomorrow night. The blog post will be written – but I don’t know when and I don’t know when it will be published. Thank you for your understanding!

Today was one of my weekend days – no dashing! Woo hoo! Instead, it was a bill paying day. First up, paying my school taxes. I am almost 65 and from something I read or heard or something, school taxes, at least in NYS, go way, way down once one reaches 65. At least that is what I am hoping. They are insane at this point. I gave them a check which won’t bounce. Though I wouldn’t be upset if it did. Education in this country, Geneva included, is less than optimal. Grrr.

Next stop was Living Center South to chat with EC and JC for a little bit. We have plans for the upcoming week and I wanted to get them on board. And EC had a library book that needed returning. And since I live within walking distance of the colleges’ library, I happily agreed to take it back for her. I like to do my errands in a non-overlappy sort of way. Is that weird?

From there, I headed to the public library (not the same library as mentioned above) to pick up a book I had forgotten I put on hold. I guess I will have to read that in a timely fashion. I think the other two library books I have out aren’t as popular, so they will probably auto renew. The speech book is taking a long time to read. Mostly because Door Dash has kept me on the move most of the time in the last two weeks. Which is, of course, a mixed blessing.

My last stop before heading home was a quick trip to the Dollar store. For reasons.

At home, I did some puttering, washing dishes and such. And I did some searching on the internet. And before I knew it, it was time to head to SM’s to help her out before dinner.

She needed to check in for her flight for tomorrow (the one I am taking her to in the morning). But it wasn’t working. Turns out there was a small mistype which was preventing us from getting to her record. A nice American Airlines support person fixed the problem and waited till we were successful in getting to her record. Five stars for them!

Dinner at the German Restaurant in Canandaigua

Neither of us had given thought to where we wanted to go for dinner. We ended up choosing to go to the German restaurant in Canandaigua. A bit of a drive, but neither of us was in a terrific hurry. Sadly, neither was the kitchen or our server. We got there and waited. And then waited some more for our server. And then more for her to bring our salads. Eventually we were fed. I, of course, brought back a lot of the food. Easily enough for dinner on Monday night! The potato pancakes weren’t as good as they have been in the past which was unfortunate, but overall the meal was tasty and the conversation flowed smoothly! Huzzuh!

Now I am home. Duolingo is done and soon this blog post will be too. I need to get up and out in a timely fashion tomorrow to get SM to her flight. And then it will be shopping for me. I haven’t heard back from either of my helpers, which is irksome. No common courtesy any more. Sigh.

Tomorrow, it is also concert time! And dinner. I plan to get to Turning Stone a bit early and scope out the places to eat. DM mentioned a place she thought sounded interesting, so I will definitely put that one at the top of my list. And then the concert. I hope I don’t sleep during it. If it were a dance or ballet concert, I would definitely nap for the first half hour. This concert, no idea.

Augustus for President: I have started to research bad policies or decisions that presidents made during my lifetime. Partly looking for things I would like to reverse. Like the bill that allowed insurance companies to enter health care. And the bill that got rid of the fairness doctrine in broadcasting. Both happened during Nixon I think. But I will keep looking. And I have also started researching each president’s finances before entering the white house and when leaving the white house. Lastly, I looked at more AV stuff…

More Lumberjacking

I was really hoping that Fountain of Youth would be a good movie. It had a lot of the elements. Great cast, Guy Ritchie, a potentially interesting story. But it was terrible. Really terrible. Way over written. And stiff. And just icky. But I watched the whole thing – because Natalie Portman!

One of my tasks today was going to be cleaning out the trees from inside the large lilac bush that is in the front of the house. But I didn’t get there. I started cutting trees down that were in front of my porch windows instead. I think I took down 6-10 trees of varying sizes. Go me! Next time the weather and my free time intersect, I will cut some more trees down. And maybe even cut down some of the older Lilac bush pieces. I will try anything to get my lilac bush happy.

Speaking of happy, I realized that I am a big person and can plant anything I want, anywhere I want in my yard. What made me think of this was seeing a patch of Iris in EC’s yard this morning. I love irises. So, I guess I will have to find some bulbs (lots of places online) and plant them. If only I had a helper who actually helped, I would ask them to do it. Hope springs eternal. Maybe someone will turn up. I wonder if JM’s kids are old enough to help…

This morning, I got out of the house at just a little after 9 am. I went to my bank and got 3 2’s. Woo hoo! Then I headed to LNB and paid the second half of my taxes. I don’t even know which taxes these were. School taxes maybe? Who knows. They are paid and I don’t have to worry about them until next year. I still have the big tax bill to pay in November. Still angry that Geneva chose to only have one payment. Hell, they ought to allow people to pay monthly. That would make too much sense, though…

After finishing up at the bank, I dropped off a book at the library and then headed to SM’s to see if the trash had been picked up. It hadn’t been. And it hadn’t been when I went again in the afternoon. I will check tomorrow and see.

Then off to JC’s. He was still a bit confused about the mortgage thing. I think I helped calm him about that a bit. I took time to set up his computer so that I can get in remotely if necessary. And I also started collecting his passwords and logins. It makes life easier if I know what they are and don’t have to ask him. Though he did have one password saved in a reasonable place. Woo hoo! They also asked me to help them find an endless pool fixing guy. I have written to the company to see who they recommend, and I will follow up with a phone call on Monday. I also asked JM but have no faith that I will ever hear from him again. Sigh.

Back home, I reheated the leftover pasta from the other night. And instead of putting a sauce on it, I put some of my garlic hummus on it. That was tasty. I think I could have been more generous with the hummus, but that is good information to have for the future.

While I was puttering around, I got a message from AD asking me to pick up a prescription for him. Which I did. And I also purchased three more curtain rods for the porch. I don’t know when the curtain rods will make it onto the walls, but they will eventually. BSUC. Unfortunately, AD didn’t let me know that he wanted something else, which I ended up having to head back out to get. Sigh. Hopefully he is all done being needy for the week. I like him, and am ok helping him. Just not all the time!

In there somewhere, I went to see my insurance agent. She told me that the reason my premium went up so sharply is because I had two incidents in two years. They weren’t really incidents, just stupidity on my part. But they and their computers and algorithms don’t care. She did, though, help me to reduce the bill a little. I have to take a stupid defensive driving online course to get a chunk of change off my insurance for three years. Which is good. Except the course costs money. And it is boring and slow! You can’t just click through the text. You have to wait for a timer to elapse. And I read a lot faster than the timer. It also asks me to type a phrase now and again to make sure it is me taking the test.

Back at home again, jiggety jig, I got the chainsaw out. It still seems sharp enough as it went through all the trees easily. I am happy that all it takes, though, is a new, $15 blade to make it happy again if it comes to that. Yay electric chainsaws!

Look at the felled trees. Ok, a few saplings, but still…

Next stop, playing. I could sit and play Hogwarts Legacy for hours and hours. There is so much to do. And the world is pretty large. I have barely started and it is really enjoyable.

And now I am ready for the evening to commence. I have gotten the next Mistborn book – a really long tome! And I am trying to read Verity, though it really isn’t a sort of book I would typically read. Too much graphic talk about sex for my taste. But I will persevere. I have no idea who recommended it. Anyway…I was going to make the artichoke and ricotta tart this evening. But I just can’t be bothered. So, I am going to have the other half of my sub, some fries and a salad. That will do, pig.

Does anyone else find my non-dashing day blogs more interesting than my dashing day blogs?