It's probably just me

A scary little story for you...

The property taxes are due on the house tomorrow. Yesterday Jim told me that he needed me to take care of a portion of it. (I would have liked a little more notice as to the dollar amount of my portion, but that's a different story.) So, he told me how much and I figured that instead of FedExing him a check, I could just send it directly to the town clerk, especially since it has to be sent Priority (not Standard), which FedEx guarantees for delivery by 4:30pm. (Uh, I guess when you're out in the boonies, 4:30 counts for early.) So, I call the town clerk for the street address (can't use PO boxes with FedEx), I writes me check, prepares me shipping label, and drops it off with the rest of the company FedEx packages.

I should tell you that my company allows us to ship personal stuff using their FedEx account so long as we reimburse them for the cost. Since a Priority letter costs about $6 with their account, this is way cheaper--and much more convenient--than using the Postal Service!

So fast forward to this afternoon. I go on to fedex.com to track the shipment and I see that it's been delivered--to another address. A residential address--4 miles up the road from the Town Office! A couple of blocks off the state road! WTF?!?!?!?!?!?

Now I'm starting to freak out. What's up with the f%&!@'n FedEx guy? This money's due tomorrow! How the f@&k are we going to get the check from this house to the town clerk? Could the FedEx tracking be so very wrong? So I try calling the Town Clerk's office. I get the voice mail. They normally close at 2 (shit!), but on Wednesday they have office hours from 5 to 7:30 (whew!). So now I gotta wait what feels like an eternity until they reopen.

At 5:10 I try calling. Busy signal. I hang up and try again. Busy. Busy for a good 10 eff'n minutes. And now I'm thinking "great, she's got the phone off the hook." Finally, it rings. The Town Clerk answers. I start to calmly tell her that I'm calling to confirm that they received my FedEx with a portion of our property taxes, and she says "Elizabeth [my last name]?, and I say "yes," and she says "a check for $XXX," and I say "Yes! I was concerned because the FedEx tracking said it was delivered to a different address," and she says "oh yes, they delivered it to my house."

Huh?

Yeah, apparently when the office is closed in the afternoon, the FedEx guy delivers town stuff to her house. WTF?!?!?!?

I don't get it. It must be a rural area thing., but I'm guessing that's what's always going to make me the city mouse.

Oh, and by the way--the name of the street she lives on is... Poverty Row.

The irony of this does not escape me.


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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

When the frost is on the pumpkin...

...it's probably because some idiot left it outside! That's not the case here at Chelsea Market.

Wow!

Happy Halloween!

Hello...

My name is Edith Ann...

Me in a giant rocking chair outside the Brandon Inn.

One of the participants our the Elderhostel program sent me this picture. It was taken after we arrived in Brandon--while we were waiting to see where we (the guides) would be sleeping. (You see, the inn was full of Elderhostelers from two programs, so they had to make other arrangements for the guides and bus drivers.) Ultimately Jim and I stayed at a small bed and breakfast a few doors down, but for a while there I thought we'd be sleeping in the park!

About that "to do" list...

Here's what's left from that delusional lovely to do list I made on Friday:

• Insulate 12 4 windows.
• Fill holes and cracks around the house with that expanding foamy insulation stuff.
• Replace doors sweeps.
• Mow grass. (Damn! It's still growing! Even with this cold!)
• Prepare membership lists for LHA's annual meeting (which is tomorrow in Deerfield).
• Finish reading assignment for Litigation class; re-read pages.
• Read four cases. Write 30-minute essay about them for Litigation class. (Time limitation imposed by the instructor so we won't obsess about them and will concentrate on the reading assignments.)
• Write demand letter for Legal Writing class.
• Finish citation assignment for Legal Research class.
• Go into town for a little food shopping.
• Replace screens in storm doors with glass inserts.
• Pick up mail at post offices.
• Make dinner for my betrothed.

Uh... yeah. That's a done list, alright. :-(

Actually, that was the list as of Saturday morning when I left the house. I did most of the school stuff when I got back to L.I. Saturday night. (Not all of the reading assignments, though.) So here's what that list really looks like:

• Insulate 12 4 windows.
• Fill holes and cracks around the house with that expanding foamy insulation stuff.
• Replace doors sweeps.
• Mow grass. (Damn! It's still growing! Even with this cold!)
• Prepare membership lists for LHA's annual meeting (which is tomorrow in Deerfield).
• Finish reading assignment for Litigation class; re-read pages.
• Read four cases. Write 30-minute essay about them for Litigation class. (Time limitation imposed by the instructor so we won't obsess about them and will concentrate on the reading assignments.)
• Write demand letter for Legal Writing class.
• Finish citation assignment for Legal Research class.
• Go into town for a little food shopping.
• Replace screens in storm doors with glass inserts.
• Pick up mail at post offices.
• Make dinner for my betrothed.

OK. That's a little better. The house stuff will have to wait until my next visit, or maybe Jim can do one or two things. (He has his own big list of stuff to do, so we'll see.)

At least my trip wasn't all house work and meetings. I went to the Franklin Fiber Twist for an hour!

Jim even came with me! Doesn't he look thrilled?

Seriously, he was just kidding. He was OK with it. And if you look closely, you can see he's carrying something...

Nearly 6 ounces of Coopworth roving (plant dyed--madder and cochineal) from Woolies of Shirkshire Farm and a new Journey Wheel drop spindle! (It's mine, not his--didn't want anybody confused.)

Aren't they beauties? Now if I can just learn how to use it properly...

Sunday Scenery

After all the rain on Saturday, it was a beautiful day today. This is where I had lunch between classes.

Saturday sky

...and autumn colors...

Brrrrrrrrrrr...

ETA: I was mistaken---the morning low was actually 27.
Yeah--twenty seven freakin' degrees!

29 27 degrees. That was the overnight low here in Southern Vermont. It's up to a whopping 39 degrees right now, but after all of those weeks in the 80's, this is really freakin' cold.

I'm up here for a whirlwind weekend-ish visit. (I'm timeshifting my weekend because I have to be back on LI for classes Sunday morning.) Jim's up in Brandon finishing up an Elderhostel program and won't be home until mid to late afternoon. Tomorrow we've got a half day meeting down in Deerfield, Mass. Here's what's on my "to do" list for today (since that's all I've got):

• Insulate 12 windows. (That shrink-wrapped plastic stuff really does make a difference.)


• Fill holes and cracks around the house with that expanding foamy insulation stuff.


• Go into town for a little food shopping.


• Replace screens in storm doors with glass inserts.


• Pick up mail at post offices. (We've got boxes at two different post offices.)


• Finish reading assignment for Litigation class; re-read pages.


• Read four cases. Write 30-minute essay about them for Litigation class. (Time limitation imposed by the instructor so we won't obsess about them and will concentrate on the reading assignments.)


• Write demand letter for Legal Writing class.


• Finish citation assignment for Legal Research class.


• Replace doors sweeps.


• Mow grass. (Damn! It's still growing! Even with this cold!)


• Prepare membership lists for LHA's annual meeting (which is tomorrow in Deerfield).


• Make dinner for my betrothed.

You think I'm going to finish this whole list in the next 12-14 hours? Do you think I'm on drugs??? Oh well, better get my ass in gear so I can get started. I'll leave you with the view out of my condensation-covered, uninsulated window.

I'm baaaaack

Of course, I didn't return directly to New York from the final hotel. It was more like Baltimore to New York by way of... Boston!

I'm home now. Have been for a little over a week. Started classes last Sunday, and I've been plodding through my reading assignments for my Litigation class. (Not light stuff!) Managed to stop at knit night for a bit Thursday night and then Saturday afternoon (to use my coupon), but that's about it. It's been all about work and school. No knitting, no blogging, not even reading blogs. Certainly no Rhinebeck this weekend. Once I get a better handle on the class workload, I'll be able to get back to a little knitting and blogging.

This coming week is going to be really hectic. We've got a meeting in Deerfield, Mass. On Saturday, which just so happens to be around the corner from the marketplace for the Franklin County Fiber Twist! And--even better--our meeting will be over by 2pm, so I can go play!!! Unfortunately I have to head back to L.I. right after that because I've got class the next morning, but still--I get to go to my first fiber festival!

Time for me to make nappys, so I'll leave you with some random photos from the tail end of my 12-day Elderhostel trip.

Here's Jim in front of my favorite ice cream shop in North America!

They even have penguins!

And finally, here's proof of my vacation knitting--a whole ball of Valley Yarns Northampton knitted up!

I really do love this yarn. A worthy substitute for Cascade 220 in any project!

I finished up the last few stitches as we arrived back at the original hotel. How's that for timing?

This is a vacation?

I'm trying not to ask myself that question because this trip has been tiring--for both of us. Jim has been falling asleep pretty much the minute he lays down at night. I've been up until around midnight getting paperwork organized, downloading pictures off the camera, checking my work e-mail, etc. Not so much the elements of a vacation, eh?

Regardless, I'm going to try and focus on the fun aspects of this time off. After all, I am out of the office and nobody's called me with any emergencies (yet)!

This morning we left Philly and are now heading down to Mount Vernon. We had two good days in Philly, although the weather was more like July than October. On our free afternoon we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

We just had to do the obligatory Rocky picture.

Didn't see the Renoir exhibit, but instead concentrated on early American art. (This is a Revolutionary War tour, after all.) Look at these sculptures of a spinner and knitter!

And speaking of knitting, I'm making progress on the Wallaby. Bus time allows for good chunks of knitting time.

Geez, from that look on his face you'd think it had cooties!

Bottom ribbing is almost done. Yesterday I was wondering around the Brandywine Battlefield visitor's center with the ball of yarn in my bag while knitting. It really feels good to do some mindless knitting. I can't wait to get to the endless stockinette!

Oh well, time to get back to knitting. Later...

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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

On the road again

I've been on the road with Jim since Tuesday and man, am I tired. We've got 33 Elderhostelers. Trying to keep them on schedule has been like wrangling cats, but after 4 of them were 15 minutes late out of the hotel and onto the bus this morning, and Jim gave them all a little talking to and they seemed to have straightened up. We'll see how long that lasts.

Tonight we're in Albany. Tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for West Point, and then onto Philly. I barely have the energy to blog, so I'll post a few pictures.

Early morning at Hubbardton Battlefield.

My handpainted sock over Lake Champlain.

The Wallaby looking at Fort Ticonderoga from the lake.

By the way, you know how I said I would finish the Wallaby this during the trip? Yeah, well, I must have been tripping. No way is that happening! But that's OK.

OK, off to sleep for me now. Maybe some blogging tomorrow?