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There's a thing at the gym in October called Hell Week. The idea is to do five one-hour classes, amped up over the intensity of the usual ones, in the eight days ending on Halloween- all for a free stinkin' t-shirt they will sell you when they have extras after it's over. I'm two classes into that- "up a mountain" on Friday, back down yesterday- but I had far more hellish Hell in the week and change before that.
It started nicely enough on Friday the 18th. I'd only been out of town once, on the previous Tuesday, which went well, other than forgetting I'd left my EZ-pass in Eleanor's car. Fortunately, one of the lame duck toll takers took my word I'd only been on for two exits and charged me the $1.10 for that and not the 15-plus they're allowed to charge from the furthest entry in Yonkers. I had no court or appointments that day, and plans to be out for the second time in three nights (Eleanor and I had gone to the author lecture series at Kleinhans Wednesday night). Lake Street Dive was in town; I'd seen them in a large venue setting last summer, but this night they were at Babeville- the former downtown Methodist church that Ani DiFranco saved from the wrecking ball and turned into a wonderful setting for mid-size acts.
I'd gone home first to change and feed the animals. A previous coworker was also going, and a current coworker of hers spoke for the extra ticket I'd bought months ago, so I headed down the 90 to meet them before the show- in an unusual-for-Buffalo inbound traffic jam.
This guy ahead of me on the exit ramp didn't look happy about it, either.
But I got there, parked, and met up with the rest of the threesome, first at Chippewa's chocolate bar, and then at the former church. My tickets were standing-room, but it turned out that everybody else's were also, except a relative few in the former church balcony. We wound up three "rows" (had there been rows) from the stage for the entire three hours of waiting, listening to the opening act (an electronica duo from Brooklyn called Mmeadows- pretty good), and then having them set up for the five members of the headlining band....
... and, it would appear, their lead singer's throne?
Rachael Price has quite a regal presence, don't get me wrong, but I didn't remember this setup from the Eastman Theatre or any of their many videos. Then, each member came out and took their place, Rachael last, and I understood:
She quickly explained: she broke her foot dancing in her apartment, but The Show Must Go On, and so it did:) She did most of the set from that chair. For an acoustic set they do all around a central mike, with the drummer just tambourining, McDuck on his trumpet and the keyboardist on a cross between a piano and harmonica, Rachael got back on her roller and sang a couple of songs from that. For the pre-encore finale, "Good Kisser," she got up and blasted out the final lines standing on one foot. We were close enough to catch her if she fell, which fortunately she didn't. The encore was their cover of "Rich Girl" rolling right into the title track from "Side Pony," and we were done with an amazing and happy night.
And we got our picture in the paper:)
Michelle, longtime coworker and friend to my left; Julianne, her current officemate to her left, and Kirsten, Julianne's fiancee, on the other side. (I have a running joke about the newspaper running these "Smiles at...." photos for bigger shows in the same issue as police blotter listings of people arrested at those same shows. Fortunately, this former church didn't lend itself to any such bad behavior:)
----
Over the weekend, we got much-needed help with some nagging roof problems. During a particularly nasty downpour a couple weeks before, rainwater started coming in through the bathroom vent. A neighbor has experience up there, checked it out for us and while the roof itself seemed sound, the various things drilled into it to vent or connect things (known as "boots" or "jacks," depending on whether you pronounce "insurance" with emphasis on the first or second syllable) were in need of resealing and/or replacing; some seemed original to the 1960 build of the house. (As a 1959 model, I can relate;) So he was up there most of Saturday, first checking, then hammering and sealing. His girlfriend has been out of work since they moved here to help take care of her parents, so the payment we gave him for it was much appreciated- and in the several storms we've had since, no sign of drippage:)
He did leave one recommended task for us, which we tackled last Sunday. There are two trees in our back yard very close to the roof back there; a Russian olive that Eleanor planted not long after we moved here, and a mulberry that self-seeded between it and the back wall of the house that's even bigger now and, we suspect, had become the Squirrel Expressway for one or more varmints to get in through the former holes around the boots. With a combination of various hand and power cutting tools, we cut both back from impinging on things up there, and filled five Rubbermaid Brute™ garbage cans with the leavings from that, which went out to the curb Wednesday night.
(That's the four of them that fit up against that fence. A sixth can got filled this morning once the cans came back empty.)
We made an early night of it, and at some point I worked on my time entries for the previous week at work- and found my first word of what wound up eating my brain most of the past week.
----
I was referred a client to do a fairly routine, if larger, collection case over the summer. It's been progressing, through an odd detour into federal court, but it's been going about as expected. On the Friday afternoon before this past week, they began sending emails about another case involving a different tenant of the property. None of it specifically asked me to do anything, much less on what fee arrangement or anything, but I did see they were lacking one rather important element of proof I would need if I ever did get hired- and arranged for that rather quick-and-easy step Monday afternoon.
By Tuesday, it was all-encompassing. I worked on my laptop between court appearances (including one in my other case in federal court for them) getting things ready, had drafts by Tuesday afternoon and their contact person was in my office to sign things Wednesday morning. But sometime right before I left Wednesday afternoon, I got this snippy email from one of their local people saying, in essence, I don't understand why you couldn't have gotten this all done Monday. Well, other than not exactly being hired for it until later in the week, and giving them a much better chance of actual success because of what I DID do on Monday.
Thursday, things seemed to settle down. The court system did what it does, I got instructions for service, placed the papers in the hands of someone to do the job, got confirmation that the client had gotten what they wanted by 6:00 Thursday night,....
and got fired the next morning. It was clear they wanted some big sweatshop to have put 20 people on this around the clock, for about 5-10 times the cost my one sweet self was costing them, and they'll have that now. It's still a significant amount of revenue I hadn't been counting on, assuming they'll pay it (and I have emails promising that they will), and while I don't lose many clients, most of the times that I do, I breathe a sigh of relief that I won't have unrealistic expectations or personality issues getting in the way of doing my job.
This is one of those times.
----
I did work on a few other things in between their little project. One was trying to wrap up getting payment for a client who did things A Certain Way before I was even hired, and is now facing the consequences of that. I successfully settled the case, but it requires two court offices to do certain things in ways that they usually don't interact with each other. I had time Friday to see how it was going, so I put in a call to the law clerk of the judge I was pretty sure had received it. I got her voicemail, saying, in essence, I will not be in the office or checking my voicemail for the immediate future. Call the judge's chambers directly. I did so, and was first told, what else, that I should've called the law clerk. When I did explain I had done just that and the law clerk in question was X, I heard a pause:
X passed away back in August. God only knows what's becoming of the rest of her voicemails.
----
Somewhere in there, I also attended one other musical function. It was my third time out in six nights; there are some recent years I don't think I've been out three nights. This one was a fundraiser for the local Pet Emergency Fund, which provides low-or-no-cost services to Furmommies and daddies who can't afford full cost for them. First up was a friend I met through the Buffalo Friends of Folk venue a few years back- Davey O.
Davey's the one who had signed a CD to someone named Mark, which would up in a used album bin 70 miles away that I picked up. I brought it and he "voided" Mark's signature and signed it back to me this time. Another Buffalo Folk friend, Tyler Westcott, wasn't playing the show, but he was there. He's always there;)
Sportsmen's is another of the smaller-act venues that Buffalo is blessed with. The beer is cold, the friendliness is just as intoxicating, and when the cause was good as it was this night, you're happy to be there:)
----
Yesterday was relatively quiet once I came down off the "mountain." We visited an art gallery Eleanor is hoping to exhibit at somewhere down the line, continued our binge of the British series Doc Martin, and I'm making plans to see Tuppence Middleton playing one of my distant relatives, Thomas Edison's first wife Mary, in the film Current War. Tomorrow, I get back to the rest of the clients who've hung with me while I was chasing this other tail for the past week.
I've also missed saying anything about my sister's 52nd anniversary or niece's 50th birthday this past week, or what would have been my mother's 103rd today. Not to mention not mentioning anything about my own Significant Sixty at the end of next week.
It started nicely enough on Friday the 18th. I'd only been out of town once, on the previous Tuesday, which went well, other than forgetting I'd left my EZ-pass in Eleanor's car. Fortunately, one of the lame duck toll takers took my word I'd only been on for two exits and charged me the $1.10 for that and not the 15-plus they're allowed to charge from the furthest entry in Yonkers. I had no court or appointments that day, and plans to be out for the second time in three nights (Eleanor and I had gone to the author lecture series at Kleinhans Wednesday night). Lake Street Dive was in town; I'd seen them in a large venue setting last summer, but this night they were at Babeville- the former downtown Methodist church that Ani DiFranco saved from the wrecking ball and turned into a wonderful setting for mid-size acts.
I'd gone home first to change and feed the animals. A previous coworker was also going, and a current coworker of hers spoke for the extra ticket I'd bought months ago, so I headed down the 90 to meet them before the show- in an unusual-for-Buffalo inbound traffic jam.
This guy ahead of me on the exit ramp didn't look happy about it, either.
But I got there, parked, and met up with the rest of the threesome, first at Chippewa's chocolate bar, and then at the former church. My tickets were standing-room, but it turned out that everybody else's were also, except a relative few in the former church balcony. We wound up three "rows" (had there been rows) from the stage for the entire three hours of waiting, listening to the opening act (an electronica duo from Brooklyn called Mmeadows- pretty good), and then having them set up for the five members of the headlining band....
... and, it would appear, their lead singer's throne?
Rachael Price has quite a regal presence, don't get me wrong, but I didn't remember this setup from the Eastman Theatre or any of their many videos. Then, each member came out and took their place, Rachael last, and I understood:
She quickly explained: she broke her foot dancing in her apartment, but The Show Must Go On, and so it did:) She did most of the set from that chair. For an acoustic set they do all around a central mike, with the drummer just tambourining, McDuck on his trumpet and the keyboardist on a cross between a piano and harmonica, Rachael got back on her roller and sang a couple of songs from that. For the pre-encore finale, "Good Kisser," she got up and blasted out the final lines standing on one foot. We were close enough to catch her if she fell, which fortunately she didn't. The encore was their cover of "Rich Girl" rolling right into the title track from "Side Pony," and we were done with an amazing and happy night.
And we got our picture in the paper:)
Michelle, longtime coworker and friend to my left; Julianne, her current officemate to her left, and Kirsten, Julianne's fiancee, on the other side. (I have a running joke about the newspaper running these "Smiles at...." photos for bigger shows in the same issue as police blotter listings of people arrested at those same shows. Fortunately, this former church didn't lend itself to any such bad behavior:)
----
Over the weekend, we got much-needed help with some nagging roof problems. During a particularly nasty downpour a couple weeks before, rainwater started coming in through the bathroom vent. A neighbor has experience up there, checked it out for us and while the roof itself seemed sound, the various things drilled into it to vent or connect things (known as "boots" or "jacks," depending on whether you pronounce "insurance" with emphasis on the first or second syllable) were in need of resealing and/or replacing; some seemed original to the 1960 build of the house. (As a 1959 model, I can relate;) So he was up there most of Saturday, first checking, then hammering and sealing. His girlfriend has been out of work since they moved here to help take care of her parents, so the payment we gave him for it was much appreciated- and in the several storms we've had since, no sign of drippage:)
He did leave one recommended task for us, which we tackled last Sunday. There are two trees in our back yard very close to the roof back there; a Russian olive that Eleanor planted not long after we moved here, and a mulberry that self-seeded between it and the back wall of the house that's even bigger now and, we suspect, had become the Squirrel Expressway for one or more varmints to get in through the former holes around the boots. With a combination of various hand and power cutting tools, we cut both back from impinging on things up there, and filled five Rubbermaid Brute™ garbage cans with the leavings from that, which went out to the curb Wednesday night.
(That's the four of them that fit up against that fence. A sixth can got filled this morning once the cans came back empty.)
We made an early night of it, and at some point I worked on my time entries for the previous week at work- and found my first word of what wound up eating my brain most of the past week.
----
I was referred a client to do a fairly routine, if larger, collection case over the summer. It's been progressing, through an odd detour into federal court, but it's been going about as expected. On the Friday afternoon before this past week, they began sending emails about another case involving a different tenant of the property. None of it specifically asked me to do anything, much less on what fee arrangement or anything, but I did see they were lacking one rather important element of proof I would need if I ever did get hired- and arranged for that rather quick-and-easy step Monday afternoon.
By Tuesday, it was all-encompassing. I worked on my laptop between court appearances (including one in my other case in federal court for them) getting things ready, had drafts by Tuesday afternoon and their contact person was in my office to sign things Wednesday morning. But sometime right before I left Wednesday afternoon, I got this snippy email from one of their local people saying, in essence, I don't understand why you couldn't have gotten this all done Monday. Well, other than not exactly being hired for it until later in the week, and giving them a much better chance of actual success because of what I DID do on Monday.
Thursday, things seemed to settle down. The court system did what it does, I got instructions for service, placed the papers in the hands of someone to do the job, got confirmation that the client had gotten what they wanted by 6:00 Thursday night,....
and got fired the next morning. It was clear they wanted some big sweatshop to have put 20 people on this around the clock, for about 5-10 times the cost my one sweet self was costing them, and they'll have that now. It's still a significant amount of revenue I hadn't been counting on, assuming they'll pay it (and I have emails promising that they will), and while I don't lose many clients, most of the times that I do, I breathe a sigh of relief that I won't have unrealistic expectations or personality issues getting in the way of doing my job.
This is one of those times.
----
I did work on a few other things in between their little project. One was trying to wrap up getting payment for a client who did things A Certain Way before I was even hired, and is now facing the consequences of that. I successfully settled the case, but it requires two court offices to do certain things in ways that they usually don't interact with each other. I had time Friday to see how it was going, so I put in a call to the law clerk of the judge I was pretty sure had received it. I got her voicemail, saying, in essence, I will not be in the office or checking my voicemail for the immediate future. Call the judge's chambers directly. I did so, and was first told, what else, that I should've called the law clerk. When I did explain I had done just that and the law clerk in question was X, I heard a pause:
X passed away back in August. God only knows what's becoming of the rest of her voicemails.
----
Somewhere in there, I also attended one other musical function. It was my third time out in six nights; there are some recent years I don't think I've been out three nights. This one was a fundraiser for the local Pet Emergency Fund, which provides low-or-no-cost services to Furmommies and daddies who can't afford full cost for them. First up was a friend I met through the Buffalo Friends of Folk venue a few years back- Davey O.
Davey's the one who had signed a CD to someone named Mark, which would up in a used album bin 70 miles away that I picked up. I brought it and he "voided" Mark's signature and signed it back to me this time. Another Buffalo Folk friend, Tyler Westcott, wasn't playing the show, but he was there. He's always there;)
Sportsmen's is another of the smaller-act venues that Buffalo is blessed with. The beer is cold, the friendliness is just as intoxicating, and when the cause was good as it was this night, you're happy to be there:)
----
Yesterday was relatively quiet once I came down off the "mountain." We visited an art gallery Eleanor is hoping to exhibit at somewhere down the line, continued our binge of the British series Doc Martin, and I'm making plans to see Tuppence Middleton playing one of my distant relatives, Thomas Edison's first wife Mary, in the film Current War. Tomorrow, I get back to the rest of the clients who've hung with me while I was chasing this other tail for the past week.
I've also missed saying anything about my sister's 52nd anniversary or niece's 50th birthday this past week, or what would have been my mother's 103rd today. Not to mention not mentioning anything about my own Significant Sixty at the end of next week.