Plans

I'm going to head out to my parents' house in a little bit here, and spend a chunk of the day out there, getting their mail and sorting through things and taking care of the place. I'd intended to go to the Gardens first but I woke this morning feeling very stressed, and discarding that idea makes me less stressed - I think because it takes time pressure off the day. I'm not sure if I'll want to go to the Gardens this weekend at all, but if I do, I can do it tomorrow morning. Tomorrow I won't have so much to get done.

On the way back from my parents' house today, I need to do some shopping. I've got a list. There is not much on it - we still have plenty of any number of things - but I need a couple items, and the bland microwave meals I use for work lunches, since I plan to go into the office next week. Not sure yet if I will work full days - work is being very accommodating about 'take as much time as you need' but at the same time, I don't have a ton of stuff that must be done right at this moment, and I think being around other people and being busy may actually be a good thing right now. If I end up having to take a walk and cry a bit at some point, I can do that. I also need to get my allergy shots - I've almost gone a month, so they'd have to step me back if I let it go longer. I'd rather not do that. (One will have to step back anyway, due to a reaction last time, but not all three.) I want to go in for that because the shots are two blocks from the office, and also I like being around people for a few hours afterward just so I know I won't be alone if I have an improbably bad systemic reaction, and someone can call 911 in that case. (Odds: pretty much zero. However, it's much easier on my nerves to know that there're people around if it does happen, however unlikely. Sad, innit?)

I still owe a letter to one person that was on Dad's "please tell these people" list (the only one I couldn't reach by phone or email - I have only a physical address), and several letters to people who weren't but were in his address book and appear to be family or friends, or people who weren't on his "please tell these people" list but have sent cards, letters, etc. to him after Mom's death. It seems rude not to explain why he will never thank them.... Anyway, I am going to work up one generic message and that I can email or print as needed.

I'm not sure what to do about his former coworkers. Some already know because of who was on his notification list, but I see others there who have left the company (according to his notes) but that he still had contact info for. Often only a phone number. The people on his primary contact list, if I had a number for them, I called. I'm not sure if I should bother the people he didn't put on there - and I'm not sure how many of those conversations I want to have, either. I recognize some of the names from when I was a child, though, people he spoke of in a friendly fashion. I assume they hadn't spoken as much in recent years, after he retired and/or they moved on, yet they were still in his contacts and presumably might wish to know.

Basta is moving better this morning. Based on what the vet told me, that shouldn't be from the shot - it should take a couple days for it to hit. Huh.

Anyway, I'm off for however long I am out there. I will likely be back home in the evening and doing some of the contact letter-writing prep stuff. And then I may scan stuff. I'd like to play World of Warcraft and veg out for a time, except I've made an error - all the scanning and everything else is on the same machine that primarily runs WoW. So, I either have to get the patch onto my laptop (which I rarely play on, and which has thus not received the last major patch - aie!) or I have to shut down a BUNCH of programs I've got up on the desktop, because trust me, between GIMP (twice), five IE windows with I'm not sure how many tabs, the juploadr for Flickr, Eudora, and an OpenOffice document, that machine is not really likely to enjoy running WoW right now.

Oh well. I'll figure that out tonight. Actually, lemme see if Scott wants to do anything significant on the 'net today. If not, I can set the laptop patching while I'm out.

And flowers, and memories.

I'm also trying to figure out what to do with some of the things sent as condolences. Cut flowers are easy - keep them, then discard, as appropriate. Food baskets are easy - eat them or, if too many (trust me, we had tons of fruit), pass some of them on. But the live plants...those are harder. Some are quite pretty, but at the same time, do I want them around to remind me of when and why I got them? (Some of those are easy too. If they're not pretty enough to me and are potentially poisonous to the cats, they find a new home. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the two that I like, though.)

As far as my parents' plants, I expect we'll keep the Christmas cacti, but not the other that I asked what it was. The berries can be poisonous to cats, and while that's not major (I doubt they'd eat them and we could work to prevent them from being there at all), I don't find it a terribly pretty plant either. It's a weed in Florida - and it looks rather weedy to me, I'm afraid. Still, I'm not entirely sure. If we don't keep it, I'll make sure it has a home if I can - I hate to just toss a living thing, even a plant.

( Which sparked some memories )

Okay, off for now. Starting the WoW patch.

Updatey-ness

Trying to get the WoW patch on still. The download completed, according to Scott, but when I restarted it it did not recognize it. So I tried copying from the other machine which does appear to be working for the moment. It didn't at first and I was getting frustrated, but then I noticed that while I didn't have a file with the patch name, I did now have a folder with that name. Duh! So we'll see. It seems like it should work at this point since it's applying it while I type this.

Barn cats fed, birds fed, mail collected. Did a load of laundry that needed doing also. Must do dishes next time I'm out there, I think....

At any rate, I went looking to see what other family memories I could find. Quite a lot of letters that I believe Mom kept, some photos, and - Mom's folder of articles! I didn't even know there was such a folder, but apparently she'd done a couple articles. Also in that folder? Copies of her letter to Ford about the Escort station wagon we used to own, the lemon. The letters that Dad had said he didn't think we had copies of any more because they were a couple computers ago. I'd resigned myself to not having them - but there's a hardcopy of them still in existence. I am so glad. More stuff to scan, though, aie, but still cool.

I have often felt guilty for my level of clutter-bug-ness though I know my parents (Dad especially - Mom tended to confine messes where she could hide them from company, at least most of my life) share it. Well, one of my bad habits is picking up puzzle magazines and never quite finishing them, so I have umpty-zillion magazines I don't get rid of because they aren't quite done. As I was looking through stuff (and basically skipping anything that wasn't immediately obvious sentimental value - my goal was letters, notebooks, pictures, and that sort of thing), I found a couple stacks of Mom's puzzle magazines, some solved, some not solved. Some date back to the late 1980s but most are from the 1990s (I think she did eventually stop buying them since she had stopped doing the puzzles, so I don't really expect to find any in the past 4-5 years). I was so amused - and at the same time felt such a connection with her, about that.

I ought to resume scanning stuff. I don't really want to do the scanning but I do want to have it done, because I want to share Mom's recipes, and those are the current project. Presumably this means I should clear the stuff that's accumulated on the scanner lid off to some other location....

Read Hoffman's Spirits that Walk in Shadow last night, and very much enjoyed it. I wish it didn't have to go back to the library - I would like to have Scott read it but it took me too long to start and it's due Monday, and there's a hold so no renewing it.

The Japanese Gardens called me sometime in the past two weeks about a photo CD that I had made for them, trying to find out what rights I'd given them. Silly people! I put that in a readme.txt file on the CD. At any rate I told them and they are happy. And I am happy because they want to use some of them. (Short form: if they're not selling it for money, they can use my images, with credit. If they are selling it for money, contact me and we'll sort something out. Mostly I want a donation receipt for the last case!) I'm pretty pleased by that, though there's the little twinge of "I wish I could tell my parents". So I told them - though if there's an after-life, presumably they already knew if they wanted to and can watch us, anyway. Told them anyway because it felt right, and it helped.

I'm not sure how fond of me the cats are just now. I think they've mostly gotten over it, but they both got dosed with Advantage to deal with fleas less than two hours ago and they were sure not amused at the time!

TIRED. Gobed now.

I've been scanning recipes, so I feel fairly accomplished about getting as many in as I did. Ironically, this was a project I'd brought home (but not yet started) before Dad died - I was going to scan all the recipes, then return the box with the originals to him. My current plan is to upload them and share them with people - since I know there are several folks who know me or knew my parents or both, who enjoy cooking and might like some of these. I might even try my hand at a few.

But for now I'm calling it a night, only I wanted to link to today's photos first. These aren't all the photos but they are all the more I got processed and uploaded, so they'll have to do. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/archives/date-posted/2007/01/06/ to view the day's photos on Flickr, and http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/348687259/ is the "photo of the day" and is of the vineyard, which Dad had meant to photograph weekly through this year. I may do that for at least part of the year, but I haven't decided. He was going to pick a single spot and angle and take each photo from there. I'm not going to be that precise, if I do it.

Got the laptop patched for World of Warcraft. Then discovered the screen is too dark (I knew that before, and had forgotten) to really work well, and I can't get it to adjust gamma. Also discovered I wasn't in the mood. Went back to scanning recipes and was much more content.