Berkeley Farm Girl

This house is a lot untidier at the moment than its recent status quo. High on the list for tomorrow will be picking up one or more of the rooms.

Well, I should have crossed "Clean out the car" earlier. The missing sandals were in it, under a lot of other stuff.

Here's hoping all the lost things get found again soon. (Elissa, I am working on being able to get under the dresser. Ugh.)

As I said earlier on FB, today is FIRED.

I wakened on my "holiday" day off to a buzzing pager. Turns out that the lovely developers brought in a worm, again, which has rapidly spread to all the systems that same lovely developers insisted AV be turned off on. This put paid to my previous plans to meet an in-town Shipmate.

I have been on the conference call off and on since about 9:15 am.

During a break in the action, I called the altar guild directress (yes we still use that word. LOL) because I had volunteered to sub with her for a vacationing member and wished to set up a time to set up.

Turns out her husband, an old buffer of whom I am very fond, is dying. Like, "call the priest for last rites" dying. I was glad that I wasn't in charge of the conf call because I was crying.

Two breaks in the darkness: The deacon (who is on sabbatical, so hadn't been called about Dick's dying - she said she was clergy of last resort, but someone else was available) saw it and made some phone calls. One was to me to pat me on the back.

The big political news of the day also has me Very Interested and Not Worrying About My Own Stuff. But today is still fired. (Not a quitter here. ;)

(Of your mercy, please say a prayer or whatever you do for Dick as he passes, and Clara and family as they cope.)

Starting about this time last year, a lot (and I mean A LOT) of "supporting equipment" in my life started breaking down. My laptop was wonky; I got its long-term battery issues and the hinge fixed, only to have its hard drive go slooooowly south. My car engine died completely (my fault) and even after the replacement, needed to get things fixed on a distressingly frequent basis. The dishwasher died on the first of June (I remember that for other reasons), then the dryer. Over the winter the fridge started making funny noises.

I was trying to pull myself out of a decline, but it felt that the Hardware Gods were against me. About the time the engine died, my friend Mark went into the hospital, and came out in a box about a month later. I was also struggling with the whole "working for a living" thing at my still-new job. So I really was in a "the center is not holding" mood. My life was out of order. About the only consolation was when someone who used to be a friend flipping her dry-drunk shit AGAIN and throwing other friends under the bus AGAIN, it didn't have a lasting negative effect on me (unlike the previous iteration). I was not holding things together very well but I figured at least I had much, much better reasons for being out of it.

In the general chaos, bills did not get paid, and things did not get renewed. It took me six months to get the renewal tags for my car (mainly because a couple of things had to get fixed so the smog could get done). The home warranty didn't get renewed, so I could not call a repairman and have them look at the dishwasher. I have been meaning to try to renew it but they're only reachable on weekdays and mine have been chaotic. But over Easter weekend, I finally got the laptop fixed (I punted and sent it out) and the car smogged and tagged. At long last, SUCCESS and CLOSURE in dealing with the issues that had been running since before Mark died. I realized that the dishwasher thing was cramping my style. I did a reconnoiter one weekend on a lark (arriving at the appliance store shortly before closing) and on the Saturday before Mother's Day, I walked in with my checkbook and ordered one.

It got installed last Saturday and already I have been doing more food prep for myself (since I don't have to wash the damn dishes as well). I brought my own lunch in to work most days this week. This should help with my ballooning weight because I can now do more Stress Cooking instead of Stress Eating, but more importantly, I feel like I am taking care of myself in a way that is sustainable.

New fridge arrives on … the first of June. I'm busy mucking out the old one and in general cleaning up a storm in the house. It feels good. I'm not out of the woods yet but I can see daylight from where I am.

To the moms on my f-list.

laundry out to dry
Cheese Board
pick up dry cleaning
Charles Chocolates for M-Day treats SAMPLES OM NOM NOM NOM
appliance price comparison
shower
dishes
empty cat boxes
take out trash
find extra church key for Hot Meals
make cheesecake bars for Evensong
deliver paper plates to church
clean fridge
start R2 copy on server (work) - update: massive power outage at neighboring terminal, may need to wait
pedicure - YES WE CAN HAS PINK TOES
buy dishwasher
contemplate buying fridge- YES WE CAN HAS
go to bed early for truffle dipping and 8 am church
errands to do on way out of town:
gas car
Fatapple's for jam
find checks and deposit

I hauled myself out of bed to get downtown to settle this fixit ticket I got, to avoid getting myself hauled into jail for a Failure to Appear.

Stood in line for about 45 minutes - it was long but the clerks were efficient - to learn there was no record of my citation in the system. So I have to keep checking back. At least with the tag ON I won't get pulled over for it again ;).

It's 9:30 and I am home, even after a quick stop at La Boriquena for tamales and chile powder. Considering whether to get my Healthful Exercise for the day by walking to the bank then to Homemade for PANCAKES, or to scrounge in newly-cleaned fridge for moar breakfast and get some cash when I go on my North Berkeley errands trip after 11 am (when computer place opens) and make my Roth deposit.

MOAR COFFEE first.

My parish loves food. During Lent we traditionally scale back our usual stellar coffee hour to plain crackers (and no sweets) so Easter is a big blow-out. We have a big party after our Vigil service - usually a potluck breakfast with ham, coffee, OJ, and champagne provided - and a blow-it-out coffee hour after our main service.

I bought two 4# punnets of strawberries (excellent Safeway special), two loaves of bread to use up 3 cans of chicken for curried chicken salad sandwiches, and made the peanutbutter-brownie bars that madeyou_look recommended recently. They were a tiny bit overcooked and I will use Trader Joe's Belgian chocolate instead of chips next time for the ganache, but they were worth redoing.

Everything went except one loaf of bread and a little chicken salad (which we did not assemble). I brought home one of the decoration baskets with candy and about a bowlful of strawberries with my leftovers - I was far from the only person to bring strawberries, there were two flats at breakfast alone.

My breakfast offering was something that didn't require a lot of fuss for me. It was very tasty and I will definitely do it again at some other time, maybe next Easter.

If you have a crockpot, Beth Hensperger's "Not your mother's slow cooker cookbook" is a godsend. I took her "Green Chile Grits" recipe and added buttery, cheesy goodness.

( recipe follows )

I napped till 5:30 so missed out on Trader Joe's, which closed at 5 pm today! I got something pre-pack from the fancy grocery by my house, so I going to call it a day and hit up the Trader tomorrow for catfood and other supplies.

Although it seems like I spent a lot of time at church, or doing things that are related to church (peanut butter cookie-brownie combo things recommended by madeyou_look just came out of the oven), today is Officially Nothing Happening as far as Easter goes.

Vigil starts at oh-ass-thirty tomorrow, as one of my fellow worker bees said as we were enjoying some leftover soup in the parish hall after our various setup tasks.

I miss themagdalen, Mr. Mags, and B-Dawg, who are enjoying Easter in Austin. I also miss Mark, who is in heaven. Since I learned Altar Guild under fire with him on Easter Sunday 2005, I suspect this season will always recall him to my mind. I also found one of the post-its he used for Bible marking in the lectern Bible; it may have been there since last Good Friday.

It's a good day to ponder.

"I had not thought Death had undone so many."

As many of you have heard on the Big News (I think this even made Beeb World Service, which is my standard of Real News), Oakland lost four police officers in the line of duty last weekend. The funeral was on Friday.

The venue was the arena, which I drive by en route to work. So I knew I was likely to encounter traffic, even though I was driving in a couple hours before start time.

When I came over the junction flyover from I-980 (note to self: must ask my father what the actual term is), it had already started. The freeway was packed and the left lane was full of police cars and motorcycles as far as my eye could see, all with the blinkenlights on. The first two I saw were from Culver City (L.A.), although I heard there was representation from all over the country and from the RCMP. Go Mounties!

I was never so happy to be a part of a traffic jam, although I was pleased that I was able to manuever my car off at Jackson Street and go the rest of the way to the office on surface.

On the way home I noted that the OPOA had put up an "In Memoriam" billboard in the industrial noman's land between the freeway, train tracks, and BART tracks. That's when I cried.

(Minor note: Did not recognize Jerry Brown in the pix of dignitaries on the dais. "OK, there's Dellums, Boxer, Feinstein, Barbara Lee, Ah-nuld .. Who is that bald guy?")