Ok, I gotta put this here…

We received a question via our intranet feedback form that said (edited to remove bits you don’t care about):

The first column in these tables contain a date. The year in these dates appear to be incorrect. For example, currently the table shows the following dates:

Last update Synopsis
Sep 18 0941 EDT Post 1
Sep 11 2102 EDT Post 2
Sep 2 0945 EDT Post 3
Aug 27 2255 EDT Post 4
Aug 28 1242 EDT Post 5

Can you please investigate this issue? Thank you for your help.

Oh my. Oh my.

And finding it difficult to concentrate. The lantern’s been brought out. Candles are ready. Yard is cleared of materials that will fly around. Generator is purchased ;-)

Now it’s just a cross-your-fingers-and-wait kind of thing.

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I’m blaming my current insanity on a low-pressure zone causing my head to spin…

(I’m on a roll because I don’t want to clean up my house)

When we were in Chicago, I saw the cutest bug — what is he?

I spent the weekend in Charlotte, helping my mom take care of my Grumps, who is in a nursing home, and needs to have someone with him 24×7. At this point, he’s disoriented and unhappy enough that the someone needs to be someone in the family. My Aunt Sister (whose real name is Jackie, and who, unsurprisingly is my mother’s sister) has been there for almost a month, staying with Grumps all day and all night, with relief from my mom on the weekends.

I went to Charlotte this weekend to relieve Mom, at least as much as I could. Grumps wanted Mom around at night, so I was there Saturday and Sunday during the day. It was a good thing in many ways (I got to spend some time with Grumps), but it was also really difficult because he’s not well, and he’s not himself (there’s a whole book that could be written here, and perhaps I’ll feel up to it tomorrow, but for now anyone who’s watched a love done get older and less able will understand).

On the positive side, the place he’s staying, Asbury, is really nice. It follows what’s called an Eden Tree philosophy which aims to maximize the “people-ness” of the place and de-emphasize the institutional. There are gardens that the residents can visit whenever they want (freedom of movement), lots of caregivers who seem to really put their heart into it (everyone I spoke with knew my Grumps’ name), real flowers, art therapy and animals. While I was there I met several *very well trained* dogs (washing hands afterwards and having had double-Clarinin’d), one really fat cat and a large cage full of budgies (parakeets? little colorful, chirpy birdies). There was a nest box, and inside the momma (and sometimes the poppa) birds sat on about 6 eggs. This, for whatever reason, made me really happy.

So there was a big, old and very dead pine tree in my backyard that my roofer was kind enough to point out. In light of the aforementioned storm, it seemed prudent to have it removed. I called around for several estimates, and ended up choosing Big Blue Tree Service. David (Jennings, the owner) did a fabulous job of removing the tree.

He even took down a few more branches and a small dead tree at no additional cost, and left me with a lovely pile of mulch, per my request (and cleaned the rest of the bits up).

He also looked like Robert Redford, but about 20 years younger…

So, having lost power for non-trivial amounts of time[1] three times[2] in the past several years, and now being faced with another natural disaster on its way, I got into a wee bit of a panic yesterday. Jeff and I had been thinking about a generator since the last big storm (Ice Storm 2002), but hadn’t done anything about it yet. Yesterday some calling around revealed that there were no generators in a 75-mile radius around the Triangle, which, of course, caused a panic-reinforcing effect. Further investigation revealed a generator in High Point, and damned if we didn’t haul patooties there last night to get it.

The bonus was that my hairdresser[3] was able to squeeze us in thereby saving us a trip[4]. Wheee!

[1] anything long enough that you’re worried about the food in the fridge spoiling
[2] Fran, Floyd and Ice Storm 2000
[3] who is in Greensboro
[4] we were due to go next Monday anyway

Meghan and I went shopping last week and I saw the ugliest shoes ever:

Eeek! It’s like a Manolo mated with a Timberline and this is the ugly product of their tryst.

Ew.

Today I worked from home (not particularly funny or frightening), and around 4pm went out the back door to check the mail (again, not funny nor frightening). As I was reaching for the door handle on my way back inside, something moved (frightening!). I started and immediately ran through my little “do not panic” bit in my head, but when I stopped to more closely examine it, it turned out to be a cute froggie (funny!). Just a’hangin’ out on my back door handle!