Often Music Helps

Brilliant statement coming from a piano technician, huh?

Working on a set of keys got delayed for far too long.  First is was that Friday grand piano damper job, then Saturday, umm, kinda went by.  Oh yeah, ordering flowers for P's funeral, a run to the dump, the bank, a tuning at the art association...time just gets used up.

So Sunday rolls around and I find that I have an incredible amount of catching up to do on the key job.  Aside from a fun little jaunt to do some antique and junk shop browsing, the entire day was spent in the workshop.  And I needed motivation to keep working along.

What better than some upbeat music.  What did I choose?  The first selection was Enchanted Carousel.

The second was Carousel Memories.

One of these recordings, I believe it is Enchanted Carousel is of a 165 band organ reproduction built by Verbeeck Organ Manufacturing of Belgium.  The only info I came across was that it replaced a Seabreeze Wurlitzer 165 after that organ burned.

Anyway, both recordings are a great deal of fun and kept me 'at it' rather than bemoaning the time involved.


And...while I was in that kind of mood, I ordered a calliope recording!

Life with Sad News

Which of course is much different from My Sad Life.  I was out doing some major piano work on Friday.  The job was far more involved than I anticipated, so I called home and asked my mom to drive a sandwich over to me for my lunch.  She did.  And she commented that the daughter of a long time friend had left a message on the answering machine requesting that my mother call her.  My mom couldn't figure out the number left to return the call.  Evidently when 'A' got home from work, she couldn't figure it out either.
I got back home at about 4:30 to find that the numbers they had been trying weren't correct.  I listened to the message...carefully...and jotted down  D's phone number.  My mom gave her a call while I went upstairs to change into comfy clothes.  Within a couple minutes my mom was calling me downstairs to take the phone.  She was very upset, shaking.  I talked to D and found out that her mom had died suddenly.

Fourth of July 2005, my dad and D's mom and dad watching the Rockport parade    Gloucester Times photo     

My mom and D's mom have been best friends since childhood.  My mom and dad and D's mom and dad had double-dated, traveled together, and shared a home briefly.  My dad and D's spent their careers working for the same company.  Our extended family.  Services will be next week.  Our thoughts and prayers are extended to D's dad and to the rest of their family.

Keeping Busy

being watched

Before I start on the end of yesterday, today a rather LARGE truck arrived next door to pick up the tree trunk left from yesterday's entertainment.  Yes, I watched it being loaded.  Yes, it was fun watching.  If people can't find fun in some notsoeveryday stuff, I don't care.  I can.

a wagon load of Marini Farm pumpkins

mom trying to find a good one

Yesterday afternoon the girls trekked to Marini Farm in Ipswich to buy pumpkins.  Actually it was my mom that wanted to buy two, then 'A' decided she needed one as well.  I like Marini Farm.  It's just a cool place with good food and yes, entertainment.  The corn maze is now open and I expect 'A' and I will traipse through it again this year.  Maybe I'll even take my camera so that you can see what it's like to be lost in a corn field.  This year should be better than last...we now know how the 'game' part of it works for 'collecting' rewards, so to speak.

My Sad Life

I suppose I should start by saying that last week a neighbor told me that a rather large tree at our backdoor neighbor's house was going to be cut down.  I should also apologize for the poor photo quality...shooting into the sun...no choice.

Great, I thought.  Something going on to watch.  A 40 to 50 foot spruce tree being cut down.  And it is sandwiched between another tree to the back, power lines to the front, and a house to either side.  This should be cool!

This morning they arrived at 8:30 and got all their equipment ready for the job.  A 'cherry picker', multiple chain saws, a shredded/chipper, and two large trucks.  I was hoping that they would get working quickly as I had to go volunteer at the historical society, but I also wanted to see at least some of the sawing action.

Wow, they did work quickly!  By the time I left at 9:25, you can see that they just had to whack off the trunk. (which they did in sections)

Anyway, while I was out watching, the property owner came home.  She parked her car down the street, out of the way, and walked on by me.  As she did I said, "Hi, T___, thanks for providing some entertainment this morning!"

She responded, "If you think that this is entertaining, you have a sad life."

And walked on.

Huh.  That was kinda mean.

Night Vision

'A' and I went for a walk in the dark tonight.  This is always a bit challenging in Rockport where sidewalks can be either rather narrow or very uneven...or both.  This seems to be mostly on Main Street.  And mostly on the busiest traffic section of Main Street.  Add to that the scarcity of street lights and the glare of oncoming headlights.  Challenging.  Tonight, as we walked back up the hill a brisk headwind was added to the rest of it.  The plus side of late season, nighttime walking is that there are no tourists to avoid.  I don't think we saw more than a half dozen people in our 2 mile walk.  One of those was Policeman Bob collecting the meter money.  I like playing around with taking flash photos in the dark of night.  Looking for possible good subjects and then taking a semi-calculated aim.  You just never know what you'll end up with.  At night a blue lantern can turn white.

The Blue Lantern

Trying New Stuff

Thought I'd try posting a video.  I'll have you know this took a bit, having never done it before.  You see when I had dial-up, it took way too long...a very, very, long time.  So this is one of my favorite commercials (it is not a product endorsement).

Duet in the Loo

Waiting

The darn loo is presenting more and more photo ops.  The first title that I thought of for this post was, "Pause and Rest".  Then, no offense to all my readers, it occurred to me that it might be a narrow knowledge field.  So it doubles as "Duet".

Yes, I'm bored.

Priceless Praise

So, the book "Priceless" by Robert Wittman hasn't been in the Recent Reads for very long..Having enjoyed it tremendously, I decided to loan it to a friend I thought would be particularly interested.  She's an art and antiquities lover.  I don't usually loan out books.  Those of you who have borrowed from me may consider yourselves to be among my trusted friends.  Anyway, I came home today and checked my email.  I found this message (identifying email addresses eliminated):

Subject:   Priceless

Darn you.  I can't put it down.

That was it!  I had a good laugh.  Yep, it's one of those.

555 Brings Some New In

Oh, don't bother to ask.  It's obscure.

So you notice that a change has happened around here?  I've had to keep challenged somehow.  Yes, it's fun playing with blogger.  Frustrating, too.  I want to put one of MY pictures in the background here.  And it IS possible to do it.  IF.  Yes a BIG IF - you can figure out how to size the image appropriately.  I still haven't.

When I get the pixel size large enough to fill the background (per the blogger recommendations), my file size is too large to upload.  I'll keep trying...now that I know how to get back to where I was...which is now here - with a blogger stock image.  If any of you have any helpful hints, please share!

So that's what I've been doing.  Oh, I've been working too - a bit.  Scraping by is all.  Need more work so that I can have more play.

When You Were My Age

It was 1987.  Where were you then?  In a beautiful home in Florida.  Not too big, yet certainly not small.  Very comfortable in it's period details which you were careful to preserve.

You were happy, mostly.  Yes, you were discovering that Florida was not where you wanted to be, but that didn't matter so much.  You had a husband willing to sacrifice for you.  To try to make you happy.  You missed Rockport?  No problem, you got to spend summers there.  He drove you back and forth each year.  Yes, he too was happy.

You were retired.  From what?  No career.  You had worked a retail job while your husband was still in college, another for 'fun money' later.  After I left home for college, yet another job for extra spending money.  Never was it necessary that you work.  He provided as you both expected that he would.  When he retired, so did you.  You were 49 when that happened as you were ten years younger than him!

When you were my age you had a 5 year old grand-daughter.  Not the girl-y girl that you had dreamed of, but at least you could buy her dresses!  No dolls, though...a stuffed animal loving child.  Your only child, your daughter, had a home of her own.  Husband and child.  You were free to enjoy her companionship as a friend.

And your friends.  Yes, they were retired, too.  You living in Florida attracted them to visit and they did quite often so that you never felt abandoned or alone.  You enjoyed their company so much.  Just as you enjoyed your family from 'up north' coming to visit you.

Life was pretty good for you...when you were my age.

My life is so different at the age you were when you were my age.

Because Today Has Been Lousy

I am choosing to ignore it and post about other things.

The first other thing can be found in the sidebar.  I think I called it Happening in Rockport.  Not sure and I'm not stopping writing this to check.  You get the idea and can find it.  Clicking on it will take you to a blog that has information about some of the goings on in Rockport.  I meant to add this a long time ago.  Life got in the way and I totally forgot about it until today...when life was so much in the way that I had to think of other things to remain sane.

Second new thing is the latest 'Recent Read'.  An engrossing book that explores the ins and outs of undercover work in retrieval of art treasures from around the world.  Written as a memoir, of sorts, "Priceless", by Robert Wittman was more than worth the price!  One of those hard to put down reads, stay up later than you should at night, and also blatantly honest in relating the difficulties working with and within the FBI.  Click on the image of the book to go to Wittman's website.

Tropical Days...

and nights.  It's been a very hot and humid summer here.  Not complaining, you understand.  I do like hot weather.  I like it better when given the opportunity to cool off under a swaying palm, floating in turquoise water, or some air conditioning to seek shelter in.  It's much easier to tolerate hot weather when you have acclimated yourself to it...like 18 years living in Florida.  Once you spend a couple winters in the cold, hot and humid becomes, well, barely tolerable.  Especially without the three above mentioned opportunities.

The only palm in sight

Last night, after 9 p.m. 'A' and I went for a walk.  The air had cooled down a little bit...maybe the low 80's...and there was a not-so-swaying palm..

Cheerful

is what I'm trying to remain.  Most days I do okay with it.  Sometimes not so good.  I'm working out some details on life things that are too involved to report on here. 

Anyway, the other night when we were going through the old photos, I came across a favorite.

Al's yellow Harley

Now that's a cheerful bunch of people.  The photo is labeled Picnic at Summit Grove.  Family and friends having a good time...my dad taking everyone for a ride around the block on his motorcycle.  It seems it was my great aunt Alice's turn.  She could be quite the cut-up.

Of course this picture was taken a few years before I was around, but I still remember many of those simpler, happy days and I miss them.

Seeing As It Is Still August...

I feel okay posting this.

Dad's envelope art, 1945

Mom and I were going through old photos and whatnot this evening and I came across the drawing above.  This drawing was done by my dad and decorated the envelope of the first uncensored letter that he sent home to his parents.  The postmark is September 2, 1945.  In the letter he relates the jubilant atmosphere aboard ship with both radio and jukebox blaring simultaneously, the rumors of the voyage back to the states, and the anticipation of going ashore in Japan the next morning after 66 consecutive days at sea with no anchorage.  He also mentioned that the bugler was so ecstatic that when he played reveille that morning, he put a little swing into it and was immediately thrown into the brig!  My dad was an original crew member of the USS Alabama, thus a plank owner.  He served on the Alabama as Chief Fire Controlman.

As a kid, I was always in awe of the little envelope drawing.  Kinda still am.

VuThrouLoo

Stopped at the downtown loo while on our morning walk.  I've seen other people taking this picture, so I thought, oh why not...

The Steinway on stage at The Loo

So there it is, on a clammy, dreary, and soggy day.

A New Experience

Aerial of my neighborhood in FL

 I've been officially welcomed to the new century.  Yeah, I'm a bit slow.  Well, I was.  Now I have DSL service!  So...in the midst of having to do some changing around of emails and changing notifications on various accounts, I discovered that Blogger was moving ahead, too.  So this is my first post using yet another new, improved version of Blogger.  Over the next few posts I'll be checking out some of the features.  Back is the Strikethrough feature so I can change my mind as often as I want.  See?  And photos are supposed to be drag and drop, so the one I tried to insert here:   Should now be here:  Did it work?  Hmmm...Okay, I guess I don't get that one!  But I did get it to change from center to left and small to medium.  (My house is as close to center in the photo as you can get.)  Back to reading up on features.

Getaway

Oh yes, we did. And now I need a vacation where I can split the time doing my kinds of things and relaxing. All in all, this little getaway of the three gals wasn't as disastrous as it had the potential of being. We all managed to get along and we did have some fun times. I'd just like to get beyond the whining when something doesn't work out exactly as someone anticipated, or the bored looks when there is the slightest moment of inactivity. Sometimes it's just nice to sit and look around, or aimlessly wander and maybe discover an interesting tidbit. Ah well, two and a half days of "what are we doing next?" can tire a person.

What we did do next involved a lot of shopping and very little buying...at least on my part. 'A' managed to spend the most, of course. On clothes - the gal could clothe an entire small country. Mom only spent some change on a cookie cutter and I bought a few postcards. Our biggest expenditures were on accommodations and a major outing by train.

Seems the North Conway area is extremely overbooked no matter the time of year. The last few weeks before the school year begins brings new meaning to "no room at the inn". We did finally find a suite that was considerably overpriced, but weighing spending half a day looking for the potentially non-existent something better, grabbed it and settled in. After some afternoon shopping, Amanda and I played 18 holes of miniature golf at Pirate's Cove. We chose the 'Blackbeard's Challenge', having tried the other course a couple years ago. Neither of us approach the play with any type of competitive attitude...just fun. I did beat her by 13 points, though!

Our next biggest expense was a super cool trip on the 'Notch Train' from North Conway to Crawford Notch. An outstanding trip in my book, mom thought it was okay, 'A' came in third with a not enjoying it so much. Anyway, there was beautiful scenery, interesting towns, historic sites, and generally just lots to look at.

Some of the pictures in this post are taken from the train ride. Including this one of our train personnel relaxing at the Crawford Depot before the return trip.

How Much

...am I suppose to put up with?

This week is 'A's vacation week. Mom and 'A' want to do something so, per the norm, I must be involved as official driver, organizer, and (duck quickly) ...go between.

They decided, once again, despite the fact there could be upteen places other than 'the same old place' to go to the White Mountains.

I HAVE to be here Monday morning to ship some keys. Then 'A' decides that she wants to be here Tuesday, for some TV show grand finale marathon airing. What can I say? The stuff is important to her. Mom watches the weather (for here, not the destination) and decides that the weather will not be good enough for a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday trip. She wants to leave on Tuesday.

See what's going to happen?

'A' says she won't go then. Or maybe even not at all. Mom's mad because she doesn't understand the importance of 'A's TV plans. Honestly, I'm not thrilled about that taking precedence, either, but it is her vacation time.

So today works out like this: 'A' is in a bad mood. Sulking. Hardly a word to say to anyone, never mind making it a pleasant word. I finished the kitchen tiling for Mom, just to work off some of the anger I was building up. Mom spends the latter part of the afternoon and dinnertime not speaking to me.

Fool that I seem to be in all this, I decide to try one more time. First I approach 'A'. And she agrees to a Wed. through Fri trip. Weather pending. Then I go to Mom, who denies giving me the silent treatment and starts arguing about 'A's behavior (even manages to dredge up everything she can think of to throw in the mix). Mom wouldn't give me a definitive answer so I pushed it a little. Managed to get her to say that she would go Wed. through Fri. weather being good enough. Then she adds...but it won't be and that's the only reason I'm agreeing.

Since then, they have both approached me with argumentative overtones. I'm not biting. 'A' came close to giving up her Tuesday, then came in to tell me that the weather didn't look bad for the end of the week. Who knows?

What I do know is that, once again, both of them have shoved all blame, evidently, in my direction. At the very least I am being punished for trying to please each of them. Both say that I do more for the other. I say...

I'm going to start saving for my own trip. And as soon as it's possible, I'm going. Without them.

Have You Missed Me?

Mmmm, that's what I thought.

Oh well.

I've been busy. Most of the stuff I've been enjoying. There has been other stuff, too. Like tiling the backsplash in my mom's kitchen. It's almost done with just the grouting to do. Not today. Probably not tomorrow, either. While I was using a rented wet saw on Tuesday, to cut all the partial tiles that were needed, this flew over.Nearly a couple dozen times. Looked military. I haven't heard anything explaining it and, as I predicted, nothing was written up in the local paper about it. I think they were just practicing right turns (that's all they did until they left). Hahaha!I like the clouds better in this picture.

I had a set of keys come in to the shop. The customer wanted something very yellow to match the discolored keys that the customer had become used to seeing. I called in a special order, they sent the wrong thing. I called and explained, returned the wrong ones and waited for the correct shipment. It arrived. It wasn't correct. It was the same as the previous wrong item. Bleck, called the supplier again and got told I was wrong...even though I had a supplier sample sitting right in front of me and it was different than what they sent. I gave up. I worked it out with my customer.

Our neighbor is finally getting a new fence. This is the same neighbor that got a 'new' drive put in last year. The drive that is slowly washing away and growing weeds in it. Anyway, this is a good thing because their fence has been falling apart, piece by piece, on to our property...or leaning so far over I've had to be careful backing out of my parking area.

'A' and I have been doing a lot of walking. The weather has been a bit uncooperative with high temps and humidity, but we've managed at least an hour each day. Sometimes two.Here's some determined squash growing over shrubbery on Pleasant Street.And an evening beach view from the end of the walk alongside the Toad Hall Bookstore.

So that's what I can tell you about what I've been up to.

And if you didn't miss me...I'll admit, I...

Out the Side

The morning ritual has become coffee and toast at Mom's end of the house AND feeding the Bubbas, our bluejay family, peanuts. More recently the Bubbas have been joined by a distant relative, a blackbird. Squirt no longer visits as we have spent some weeks trying to discourage him. He got far too demanding. In his place, however, is Chip our garden chipmunk. Chip has been taking every opportunity he's found to sneak through the fence and 'steal' peanuts from the Bubbas.

This morning we had a new visitor. Another squirrel, definitely NOT Squirt, as this little guy wasn't at all interested in the handful of peanuts that I had just thrown out on the deck.This straggly one looked like he had gotten into some bad berries.He staggered along a bit and then stretched out for a nap.5 minutes later, a scratching episode, nearly tumbling off the fence, then settled down for more napping.Moved along the top of the fence, scratched, more napping.Came right up to the corner and peered at me through the ficus tree, (can you find him back there?) turned around and scratched, then more napping. This went on for the better part of a half hour before mom had decided enough is enough and scared him off. The rest of our morning crew needed time to get more peanuts.

Today was a gorgeous day. Breezy, warm not hot, and sunny. A perfect day NOT to do work. And I didn't. Well, no work, but I can't do nothing without someone to do nothing with, so...I did something. I baked cookies. Peanut butter ones. And just this moment it has occurred to me how weird that is considering this post.

The stained glass window at the top is located in a door at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Rockport.