klsiegel320 | Hello for today!

Hello for today!

Gonna be a pretty busy day, but here's today's "placeholder" for the collection of any messages you may want to pass to me during the day. Certainly a unique and unusual way to use this service, but I'm all for any way to stay in touch with the outside world.
kls

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Hello from cold, wintery upstate NY. The weather thingie in my system tray says 9 degrees. Truth be told, I'd rather have bitter cold without much snow to worry about rather than warmer temps with lots of precipitation.

Did you see last night's West Wing? I really like the actor James Cromwell, who played the fictional ex-President Newman in the episode. He had a wonderful story arc on ER a couple of seasons ago, playing a dying bishop.

New Friends and ER tonight -- there's no way NBC is tricking me into watching The Apprentice which is sandwiched between them. I'll turn the TV off and read until 10:00.

So, I suppose I oughtn't to be rhapsodizing about the nice mid-60's to low-70's (and sunny) weather here? Hey, let us remember that the last time I got sent to Florida, it was south Florida in the summer, and let us also remember that last winter I got sent to Montreal...

I liked the West Wing; I remember the story arc from ER - he did that very well, too.

And I also am not being tricked; I'm watching the tail-end of a repeat CSI, followed by the new one, followed by ER...followed by sleep so I can be out to meet my co-worker at 7:30 to get to the office by 8. Sigh...long hours, being teamed with dedicated people for rides...but for the weekend I'll have a car, because there's another guy with a mini-lease who goes home every weekend.

So Saturday I'm doing all the running around - pick up night-lights (because the ones from Atlanta mysteriously died on the way here - they're plugged in but they do not turn on), and some other small stuff...a spare lamp for the bedroom...and really dedicate myself to unpacking and putting stuff away, as well as bundling up the unnecessary stuff and shipping it home to get it out of the way.

Sunday they come to install my cable internet service - which I'm paying for out of my own pocket because the project budget won't cover it; my appointment "timeframe" is 8-11 a.m., so it's unlikely I'll make the acquaintance of a church this time around. And Monday we're back at it again...

Expect posting soon about the move and the adventures of the new project...

It is lovely for you that you are in Florida in the winter instead of summer. I'd forgotten about Montreal. . .

Re: West Wing -- I found it slightly odd that Walken, Bartlet, and Newman were so congenial with each other. It would be interesting to know if there is really such a feeling of brotherhood amongst real life former Presidents. Hard to imagine Clinton and Bush (either one) getting chatty like that. . .

I'm glad you'll have a car for the weekend. . . what have you been doing for dinners if you haven't had wheels during the week? Hope the takeout is good around there!

I also thought it a bit odd, that congeniality, considering that I think Bartlett really hates Walken's guts. But maybe not; maybe they were all making the distinction between politics and personal...don't know.

Let's see, dinners...well, last Monday night, Don and I went out to Copeland's (it's a chain, but it's a good chain) - mostly New Orleans-style, cajun, etc. Very good. Tuesday I believe I finished my leftovers from Monday.

Wednesday...I think I had soup, and nibbled a lot. There was a cheese ball left over from New Year's, that we'd managed to bring along in the rolling cooler my wonderful husband found at Sears to carry the cold stuff in, and I had that with melba toast to go with the soup...Campbell's Italian Wedding Soup, in one of those soup-to-go thingies.

Thursday night, LC and MJ and I went out restaurant-hunting; we'd been told about a really good seafood restaurant called Clark's Fish Camp (sounds promising, doesn't it?). LC is somewhat like my Dad - adventuresome, curious, willing to take at least limited risks - and he was clearly in an exploring mood. So we set off in the midst of 5:00 traffic (not a wise thing to do in Jax), and wended our way through to the back of beyond to this restaurant.

From the outside it is entirely unprepossessing; looks rather like a dingy sort of hole-in-the-wall. It's bigger on the inside than the outside, and better put together than it first appears...and it is decorated entirely in Early Taxidermy. It's a bit like being in the modern animals exhibit at the Museum of Natural History; there are critters of every imaginable kind and variety, and they are everywhere...

It's right on the water (I think the water it's on is the intercoastal waterway), and the seafood is, in fact, excellent. Also the clam chowder, and according to MJ, the filet mignon. He was the only one of the three of us wise enough to save room for dessert.

Friday...I think I just nibbled on an assortment of things; I cleverly missed lunch on Friday, because we had a lunch-time meeting and I neglected to go fetch lunch beforehand, and then I was trying madly to finish things up and get somebody to the airport, so I had some nibbles from the vending machine around 2ish, and then wasn't all that hungry for dinner. So I think I worked on the cheese ball and melba toast some more, and I know I had some leftover beef stick snacks (also from New Year's), and I think I had a bowl of cereal...same thing Saturday, pretty much...

I never made it out Saturday to run errands; just never got sufficiently organized to go. Kept meaning to; never quite got there. Mostly just rested.

Yesterday they came to install the cable internet connection - which might have gone better if it had occurred to them that taking the network down for maintenance while their technicians were out trying to do installations was probably stupid...Anyway it finally worked. It has some quirks; it went into this odd spasm of disconnects about 10ish last night, and just generally stopped cooperating. On the other hand, even quirky cable is better than dial-up.

Between episodes of the cable installation, I went foraging for little necessities like a step stool and something to hold up a lamp in the dark corner of the living room, and nightlights for the kitchen and hallway (the better to not break my neck with on midnight trips to the bathroom, my dear); a couple odds and ends of groceries; some needlework supplies. And of course, because it was between episodes and I had to get back to be there when I'd said I would, I couldn't take the time I would have otherwise to browse - which may be a good thing, because in general the more I browse, the more I find. So.

The takeout is hard to tell; I can at least get Papa John's pizza, and I'm assuming some of the local Chinese places deliver. There doesn't appear to be anything like Take-out Taxi or Atlanta's Restaurant Delivery Service, but then, there didn't appear to be anything like that in Atlanta until their brochure appeared in my mailbox, so it's possible I just haven't located it yet.

That's about all for the moment; gotta get some work done this morning.

I'm glad that being sans car (or having to share) doesn't mean you aren't ever able to go out for dinner -- while eating in the room might be just what you desire many nights, I'm sure conversation and not having to cook sometimes would be nice, too. You must've been glad to get some groceries over the weekend. Not that cheese ball, melba toast, and soup don't sound good. Mmmmm, cheese. Tied with chocolate for nature's most perfect food.

Hope the unstable cable (hee, I rhymed) turns out to be more reliable than it first appeared; you're right, though -- it's still better than dial-up! :-)

I'm thinking that perhaps that was only because of the network maintenance that had been going on the day it was installed; it hasn't been doing that since then.

And really I don't mind not having the car most nights; I found in Atlanta that I mostly went out on weekends, if I went out at all, and besides Mark's really very accommodating about letting me have the car if I need it. And he's only here until the end of February - so I suppose then I'll have it to myself unless they put somebody else there in the complex (assuming that I'm not transitioning to half time by then).

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Hello for today!

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