random thoughts – Day 1,501 – (Friday) – town and city planning

It’s usually feast or famine with my social calendar, and this weekend is a feast. But it doesn’t mean it’s all fun. It’s requiring planning, with which I have an intense love-hate relationship. I like when there is a plan, but I hate having to be the one making the plan. This is why my job title is not event planner.

When there is no plan, I often end up doing nothing. The sit on the couch and stare at Netflix while simultaneously messing around on my phone kind of nothing. When there is a plan, I can move from one thing to another and it’s lovely. 

Venue map.

But again, there is the dreaded making of the plan, which is a lot easier when it's allowed to be sequential -- Event A at Location A at time A, then Event B begins at Location B after Event A is done and everything is just a few steps away. Saturday afternoon art receptions sometimes work like this, or pretty close.

This weekend’s issues include the two-day (nights really, but let’s not nit pick) The Town and The City Music Festival. On the Friday night roster, there are several bands I’d like to see, and they are all playing at overlapping times at different venues that aren’t necessarily near each other. Robin Hitchcock at Christ Church United? Heck yes! But why does it have to be so far from the main cluster of venues which has Muck and the Mires at Smokehouse Tavern at an overlapping time? Seriously, why? 

Do I park at the first venue then hope for parking for the second (4 minute drive, who knows how long to park)? Do I park for the second venue and walk to the first (12 minutes, per Google), then hope I still even feel like going to the second one? Park in the work garage sort of in the middle (10 minutes to first place, five minutes from the second)? What in the actual blankety-blank?

Night two of the festival puts it in direct conflict with an event commitment in another town, so I’ll be, as Dad used to say (and still might, but I’m no longer in the audience of his dinner table tales to know), “high-tailing it” from Dracut to downtown Lowell where I will most definitely miss David Amram (Academic Arts Center), but might be able to catch Roger Clark Miller (Thirsty First) or Jen Kearney (Warp & Weft). Who knows? I sure don’t.

Trying to plot a schedule for this music thing feels way too much like the planning and scheduling I do at work, but at least at work there is a monetary reward doled out every two weeks. Figuring out where to be at what time is just giving me a colossal headache. I can't even highlight my choices on the schedule because it is printed on a glossy cardstock that doesn't take ink and is a pain in a butt to fold. Normal paper would have been fine. 

And then there are the wardrobe issues. What jacket do I need tonight? Will it be crowded? Do I have suitable pockets, or do I need a purse? This will be followed tomorrow by full blown panic over dressing for the fancy Saturday night Dinner and a Show event. What fits? Will I be cold? 

I’ll be fine with whatever show I’m at. It’s the coin toss and decision-making on the front end and the related logistics that are giving me heartburn. It’s 2024 dammit, where is my personal jetpack and the “Scotty, beam me up” technology? Elementary school was so full of lies.

random thoughts – Day 1,500 – (Thursday) – outwitted

I have been outwitted. Clever, crafty little Miss Kiki’s levels of psychological warfare and cunning are more sophisticated than I suspected. 

Stationed at the top of the stairs.

Within the first few days of her arrival in February, she ferreted out the box spring supporting my mattress. The box spring had ben sawed in half on the long sides and center support, and folded in half to get it up the steep and narrow circa 1930 staircase to the bedroom. Once upstairs,  it was spliced back together with strips of wood and the fabric at the sides and underside of the box spring had duck-tape covering the slices. 

Over the years, the tape came off when caught on a storage bag or box in transit. It was mostly a nonissue. The loose fabric had no effect on sliding the storage boxes and bags under the bed. Non-issue until Kiki arrived, anyway.

Clever little Kiki found her access point in the detached fabric within days of arriving at The BungaLowell, and spent half a week tucked up in various corners of the box spring. The sliced fabric on the sides of the box spring allow for sliding my arm in, but she is always too far away for me to reach with anything but the beam of the cell phone flashlight.

One day during that first week, I sat patiently in the living room, ear cocked for sounds of movement from my feline roommate. When Kiki came downstairs for a sip of water or whatever it was, I sprinted upstairs and closed the bedroom door. Then I congratulated myself on my success.

Back in the box.

In the two months since her excommunication from the box spring, Kiki has set up a rotation of preferred lounging spots – halfway up the stairs, at the top of the stairs, behind the couch, behind the chair, in the hidey bed. When I went to bed, she would camp out under the dining room table randomly meow at odd hours. 

If the meowing seemed excessive or sounded especially plaintive, I would leave my bed to check on her. Sometimes she would let me close enough to pet her, with “close enough” being equal to the length of my arm plus a little extra smidge so I have to stretch. She would even back up a bit if it seemed the position was growing less cumbersome for me.

In the most recent week or two, there was another shift and anytime I approached her, or even entered the room she was in, Kiki ran and hid. When I went up the stairs, she sped down, then would pause at the bend in the stairs to look at me. When I entered the living room, she'd slide off the chair and run behind the couch. To attempt to pet her required me hanging over the back of the couch to barely reach her, wood frame digging into my ribs

Last night, I went upstairs to bed and Kiki ran down, into the living room, and behind the couch. Once I was settled and warm in my bed, she meowed and scratched outside the bedroom door. Quietly. 

This morning, when I opened the bedroom door, Kiki was outside on the landing. This morning, she was very close to the door and when it swung into the room, instead of dashing down the stairs like she has done for the better part of the past two months, she bolted into the bedroom, over to the far side of the bed, and disappeared into the box spring. Clearly she had not forgotten.

Good work, Kiki. Clever, clever girl. Luring me into the relaxation of a routine over a period of months, and then boom! When my defenses were down, she made her move. So that's how it's going to be.  I’m doomed.

random thoughts – Day 1,499 – (Wednesday) – moods and weather

Mother Nature had a bit of a mood swing today. The morning was a bit chilly, but not awful, just enough to make we walk faster. It got cloudier and by late morning, the rain rapped sharply on the skylights in the roof over the suite. The rain came and left quickly and the clouds lingered for a while, but at 1:00, as we gathered for the monthly S&M team meeting (Sales & Marketing, pervs), the sun was shining against a spectacular blue sky.

Sunny and cloudy at 3:00.

By 3:00, sunshine splashed on brick buildings against a cloudy sky tinged with gray. By 3:30, rain slammed against the half circle window from which I often monitor the weather and the world outside, and a brisk wind whipped the flag down the block. The closed deck umbrellas at Cobblestones across the street flapped in the wind. And then the wind died down (for a while) and the rain let up.

The weather was calm outside at 5:15, the traffic was an unpleasant cluster. When I finally arrived at home after a 20-minute, two-mile crawl along the cluttered streets, the wind seemed to be reactivating and the teenage across the street neighbors were tossing a basketball at the hoop, blocking access to my driveway. They moved, they always move, and overall, they are decent kids, and there are far worse things they could be doing than tossing a basketball. After changing for the gym, I interrupted the game again by exiting the driveway.

Training mode isn't so great.

The gym included a test of the Training mode on the fitness watch, which seems to depict a person running on a treadmill. It was mostly a failure. The readout on the treadmill was 1.5 miles. Most of the first mile was done at a pace of 4.0 mph (about 15.5 minutes) and the remainder was at 3.5 mph before the five minute cool down slowed things.

The total readout on the watch after 25 minutes on the treadmill, the half-mile round-trip trek between garage and office, a trip to the coffee shop, and countless trips to the water machine and the restroom at the office is 1.85. The heart rate readout was the only thing that matched with the treadmill.

I posted a review on Amazon a couple days ago about the pros and cons of the watch, including the scant product info. Yesterday, I received two emails from the company. 

One included an apology for the shortcomings and pointed out the user manual located on the Amazon sales page – a link found way, way, way down on the page. Silly me, I had looked on the company website for info, as noted in the tiny guide in the watch box about how to charge the battery and turn it on and where to go for "more info." 

The second email offered both an apology and a full refund, my feelings about which have vacillated like the day's weather. I think I would find more satisfaction revising and expanding their skimpy info to make it more accurate. The watch works great for walking the streets, so there is that.

random thoughts – Day 1,498 – (Tuesday) – signs aplenty

Spring seems to have officially arrived. The signs are now everywhere. The music truck, from which people sometimes buy ice cream treats, drove down my street spewing its tinkly tunes. Instead of last year’s parking strategy of parking diagonally across the street, the driver backed the truck partway into my driveway. The neighbors from the nuisance house across the street, always regular patrons of the ice cream truck, filed from their dwelling and crowded the window for treats. I was tempted to step outside and demand a treat as a parking fee, but I am mostly a coward and think about a lot more things than I act upon.

First dainty blossoms this year.

It was another night of blowing off the gym, but like Monday night, I carried myself out to the yard for a bit of light yardwork. The prize for the first dainty Bleeding Heart charms goes to the plant in the backyard flower bed along the side property line. 

The orange day lilies and irises have spread. A few clumps of irises and lilies were moved from one flowerbed to another. 

The irises next to the shed ramp have grown thick and crept closer to the ramp over the years. Last year, the iris stems were often slammed by the shed door when opened. The trowel nearly broke tonight while attempting to dig out some of them and I may need to pull out the big pointy digging shovel. Things are growing so quickly I will need to act soon.

Lump-faced woodchuck.

The plants aren’t the only thing suddenly growing quickly. This morning, I woke up to my week-and-a-half old bangs being suddenly too long. I feel like a sheepdog, and all day long, they were tickling my forehead. The tickling sensation causes me to try and shake them off, putting me at risk of whiplash. I’m probably going to need to learn how to trim them myself. Or get ready for a big fluffy neck brace.

A thinner version of Chuck/Chuckina wandered the yard today. This version of the yard critter is much narrower in the hindquarters and even through the window screen, I could see it seems to have a large lump on one cheek. Oh, dear. I hope the lump is temporary, the woodchuck is okay, and the other woodchucks aren't being mean little buttwipes about it. 

Shiny silver moon.

After dark, the moon hung in the sky, bloated and shiny like a silver medallion. It shone through the tree in the yard of the house behind mine. 

It won’t be long before the branches fill with leaves that will block the sight of the morning sun and the evening moon, so I paused to enjoy the sight of it while I could. 

random thoughts – Day 1,497 – (Monday) – tested

Bunny blending in the yard.

Things had been seeming mostly sane lately. The official lowering of the benchmark to “tolerable” has been helpful in setting and managing daily expectations. Recent weeks featured primarily mild stress and mostly low-level annoyances that could be forgotten pretty easily and acknowledged purely for the sake of conversation. Little brown bunny has been hanging around the front and back yards, nearly blending with the dirt and dead grass.

Today did its best to collect payment for some of the recent low-key, tolerable days.

Three emails with sample ads attached were sent to different parties early last week for a new project without a single response received. Today, all parties were sent revised emails, sans attachments. I love having to do everything twice. There were two responses in a couple hours.  

Another email had been sent the same day to a media rep for advice on handling a change to a radio spot, with no response, highly unusual for this contact. A follow-up sent several days later, sans attachments, yielded a response confirming that the original email hadn’t been received. By then, half of last Tuesday had been reconstructed.

A project with a different department was close enough to approval that I could smell it and it smelled like success. Minor edits had been requested and made, but the project sat with the business line for approval of the accuracy of the changes for several days with no feedback, updates, or even an acknowledgement it had been received. A follow up was sent to nudge it along. A response finally arrived today, and in the end, the project was issued a bullet. I hate having the plug pulled on projects I have 95% completed even more than I hate having to do things twice.

An ad delivered for an event sponsorship was acknowledged by a request to change the ad to include a middle initial in the event name. The event name is referenced three times in the sponsorship info, without the middle initial every time. But sure, tell us we listed the name wrong.

Over on the so-called-life side of the work-life seesaw, there is more friction. The shipping label still hasn’t arrived for the return of the Verizon Home Internet equipment, originally requested on March 28. And again on April 4 after the “return kit” arrived with a shipping box and no mailing label. And again on April 10. Today, a fourth call was made to request it again. For the fourth time, a label was promised by a human on the other end of the line. Meanwhile, the unopened equipment box has been sitting on the dining room table since March 23 and my frustration with Verizon grows.

California and Chicago.

Speaking of phones and frustration … today, the barrage of out of state calls resumed. My phone is on “do not disturb” during work hours, and when I finally checked it, there were three missed calls from a Chicago number, and four missed calls from California, but no messages.

A fifth call from California came while my phone was in hand, and I answered it. It was yet another call for Nancy L of some credit union in New Jersey (it usually sounds like they are saying N J or E and J Credit Union, and I always regret not interrogating). 

There was a nice chat with today’s caller, who, like all the others, was told there was no Nancy at my number, nor has there been since 2013 when I was assigned this number, and further, my number is a personal number and is on the do not call registry. The callers are always apologetic when I explain all this, and I recognize it is not their fault the database they are using has bad info. Several callers have said the number is from ZoomInfo, and today’s caller confirmed this.

Instead of going to the gym after work, which had been the plan all day, I played Nancy Drew, trying to hunt down info on the other Nancy with the many callers. There are no results for a name search of Nancy L, but this time, I noticed the phone numbers on a New Jersey credit union listing had the prefix “973” and maybe that is the issue, a typo on some source file, 978 instead of 973. It’s today’s best guess to an irritating situation that has been going on for years.

The only help on the ZoomInfo site was an option to delete my own listing, not that I know there even is one, and anyway, it’s Nancy L’s listing that is the issue. There is no guidance for getting your personal phone number off someone else’s business listing. There are no obvious departments for the handling of such, nor is it addressed in the FAQs.

Wait, there’s more, just in case the work hiccups and calls for Nancy weren’t enough.  It was trash and yard waste pickup day. When I collected the empty trash bin and yard waste barrel, the trash bin was empty and waiting. The yard waste barrel, one of those big, heavy duty Rubbermaid barrels with a lid and the city issued, orange “Yard Waste” label affixed, which are emptied by hand into the back of the truck, was gone. The lid sat on the ground at the corner of the fence where the barrel had sat beneath it a few hours earlier, but there was no sign of the barrel. It wasn’t in front of my house, in the street, or at any of the neighboring properties. The current best guess is it landed in the truck with the dead leaves and stuff from the flowerbed that were in it.

Good luck, little transplant.

While outside, where the weather was dry and pleasant,  front flower beds were tidied, but there was no barrel to put the stuff in, fueling the cycle of aggravation. Luckily, there was a brown paper leaf bag leftover from who knows when. The big Bleeding Heart at the steps was divided, and chunks of it were placed towards the sides of the yard. 

Today felt a lot like a test. At least the yardwork was okay. I think. I'll reevaluate if I wake up and the transplants are dead, with a note from the mysterious Nancy L laughing about all the phone calls.

random thoughts – Day 1,496 – (Sunday) – annoying and imaginary

It was a mostly regular Sunday. There was dance class and performance group. Now that the Earth Day performance is behind us, we are starting to learn a very cool new choreography, which is exciting.

Gary's is now Dale's.

The ride home included a stop at Gary’s Too Farmstand, except now it’s called Dale’s Market. There was an assortment of flowers out front, with more tables suggesting there will be more plants, and there are still fruits and baked goods and small flower pots inside. I like pansies, and I will certainly regret not having bought any today, but I drew an imaginary line in the imaginary sand and declared that I really need to have a plan before shelling out money for plants and then standing in the yard wondering where to put them. Also, any time I have planted flowers before Memorial Day there has been a late snow, so for the sake of the pant budget and all fellow citizens, I’m waiting. You can thank me later. 

Two motorcycles were driving up my tailpipe along several miles of Route 113 and every time I had to brake because the two vehicles ahead of me had hit their brakes, I was quite certain I would suddenly have a couple back seat passengers. Some people really annoy me. There were a couple colorful words uttered. It was a relief when they finally turned off at Route 3 and I could stop imagining our destruction.

At Market Basket (Fletcher Street, Store #1, baby), some knucklehead chose to stop their vehicle halfway around the turn to the parking lot, and I very nearly hit them as I turned from the street. The rear passenger door was open and a woman was on the sidewalk engaging in some sort of transaction with a guy standing there. They chatted for what felt like an excessively long time for someone who was blocking access into the parking lot. They finally finished talking, the guy walked away, the woman closed the back door and got into the front passenger seat, and the car (finally) moved. Even more people annoy me.

After cruising the aisles with my red shopping basket, my few items were rung up by a young cashier who barely looked at me and didn’t utter a sound. This was a relief from the annoying customers yammering away on cell phones in the aisles (on speakerphone, of course, for double the pleasure and fun). Even better, she packed the bread in the bag on top of the cabbage and not under it. Thank you, and bless you dear cashier, for not being annoying. You have restored a tiny glimmer of faith in humanity for me.

In the hidey hole, avoiding me.

Kiki continues with the annoying psychological warfare push-pull behavior. Her favorite action is to almost let me near her, then she runs away and hides behind the couch, behind the chair, or in the little hidey house. After I go to bed, she sits on the stairs and meows. 

Over the course of a week, I'm lucky to get a total of seven minutes of time within an arm’s length of her. If not for the vet bill, adoption fee, and the few photos I've been lucky to grab, I might think she was merely a figment of my sometimes overactive imagination. 

random thoughts – Day 1,495 – (Saturday) – dance day

Waking to the sound of pouring rain, yet again, was depressing. The disheartened feeling was amplified by it being the day of the Earth Day Festival in Townsend. Troupe Salaamati was scheduled to dance outdoors at 11:30. The rain was forecast to stop around 10:00.

Preparations began inside, while the rain fell and blew outside. Coffee, but not too much, because makeup needed to be done. The regular day makeup is usually some light eye shadow, pencil liner, and mascara, but stage makeup requires a heavier hand.

There would be a full face – foundation, blush, eye shadow, liquid eyeliner, lipstick. It looked chalky and felt garish, but the intent is to define the features from a distance. I prefer sunny days when I can wear sunglasses to hide all the stage eye shadow on the drive to a performance gig, but today was not one of those days. 

When the weather forecasters are on, they are really on it. At 10:00, I was in the parking lot across the street from the festival, having arrived a half-hour before our scheduled meeting time. It was no longer raining, but it was cloudy and a bit raw.

Waiting in the chill.

The ten of us gathered in a parking lot. There were two full-length mirrors leaned against two dancers’ cars. We layered our skirts, hip belts, and veils. The weather called for leggings under my skirt. We had on our coats as we crossed the street to the festival.

The wet grass prompted us to reconfigure our entrance. Instead of entering from the grassy side, we entered and exited from the side with the concrete walk. It took just one quick walkthrough and we were set. Our slot was between the cheerleading group and the magician.

Lovely, but gets hot in the sun.

As we waited for our time, the sun broke through the clouds. Bright. Squinty. Wonderful. In our faces. It definitely beat rain. While we stood there, finally warm enough to take off my coat, a discovery was made. The sun, rather quickly, heated up the big metal necklace I was wearing, which I noticed when my skin under it began to feel hot. Ouch. Apparently, it’s a cloudy day piece. Or maybe I need a turtleneck for under my dance tops.

The show was good and in 24 minutes, we had danced five pieces, and then we were done. A couple attendees asked for photos with us before we headed around the corner of the building to a more secluded spot for some group photos. Friends and family members captured us in pixels before we scattered our separate ways. 

I wandered the festival for a few minutes, scoping out the vendors. Honey, jewelry, upcycled clothing, décor, and more. I didn’t have much time, as I had a lunch date with my sister across the street at Bailey’s.

The dining room at Bailey’s had a wait, so we took a table in the bar. It was a tall table with tall cushioned booth seating. At some point, we heard a thud. My small purse had tipped over, and the noise was that of my wallet, phone, and keys hitting the floor in the gap between the wall and the seat I was parked upon. Oops. It required crawling under the table to fetch the items. I have to wonder how many times that has happened.

Back at home, I was wiped out. After an hour, I was napping on the couch. When I woke up, I realized the fitness watch seems to track sleep only during set nighttime hours. It certainly couldn’t tell I was sleeping for a chunk of time between 4:00 and 6:00. Hmmmm.