Sunday Catch-Up

Andy now understands where I get it from, and said that compared to my relatives, I wasn't quite so bad. The matter: leaving when someone says they will. Aunt Eileen, Chuck, Kim, and Justin were going to leave at 11am the latest; preferably 10. Uncle Rich was going to leave at noon. Aunt Eileen and co decided to visit Grandpa and took Susanna (Uncle Rich's daughter) with, leaving Uncle Rich and Dave to turn everything which wasn't nailed down upside-down. Hilarity ensued, and I have pictures.

Andy, Dave, Mom, Pamela, and I also exchanged our "real" gifts. Mom loved what I made for her for Christmas as well as her early birthday present. She had told me before that she loved blue topaz, so I found a really pretty silver filigree heart pendant, some heart earrings, and a few topazes, and I set them. I gave Pamela a kangaroo pin since she has loved kangaroos for as long as either of us could remember. I didn't make the pin, but she was really happy with it. Dave, Mom, and Pamela went in on my gift, and Andy gave them the pointer they needed, then made sure I didn't buy it on my own. It was a Glass Eye paperweight, limited edition, in my favorite color combination: blue, green, and yellow. A girl and her ferret shock -- it's a lovely thing (as is the paperweight). Andy had made origami boxes in which to hold the jewelry; I think they loved the boxes as much as the gifts.

It was a gorgeous sunny morning, so we decided to go to Old Forge, where leaves are in peak. We would leave after we saw Uncle Rich and Susanna off. Pamela and Dave decided to get a quick lunch and meet us at Grandpa's in Boonville. Fast forward to 2pm, when Aunt Eileen and co arrived back. They and Uncle Rich left about the same time (after Uncle Rich turned the kitchen table and chairs upside-up). By then, it had become gloomy, but we headed to Boonville in hopes that it would get sunny again or that the clouds were only in Rome. En route to Boonville it started to rain.

At Boonville, Pamela and Dave had been worried they'd take too long for lunch and get yelled at, but they beat us there handily. We visited with Grandpa for a little while, then took off for Old Forge, hoping the rain would let up in Adirondack-land. When we got there it was raining hard enough that Pamela and Dave decided to shop and we decided to go back to Grandpa's. Almost as soon as we decided that the rain turned to a drizzle and the sky got lighter, so we decided to go back and see if it stayed nice. In the end, Andy and I decided to take the ski lift, while Pamela and Dave decided to give it a miss -- Pamela didn't want to aggravate her cold.

Even without sunlight, it was absolutely gorgeous on top of McCauley Mountain. Almost all the leaves had changed, so we could see reds and oranges and golds and occasional green for, well, as far as we could see. There were also several beautiful little nooks on top of the mountain. Since it was chilly, drizzling, and Andy suspected he might be catching Pamela's cold, we didn't stay for very long. On the way back to Boonville, we made a few stops along Moose River, which had incredible foliage plus rapids and rocky outcrops. I only took a few pictures at each little stop, and Andy stayed in the nice heated car.

When we got to Boonville Stu, Mary's brother, was there. Just to give an idea, Andy's observation of him was "I can see how you can overdose on him in relatively short order". Anyway, I did manage to get in enough words edgewise to ask Grandpa about the tape recorder project, and his reply was a definite "yes". We went over how to use it and he said he'd also RTFM because he likes to know what he's doing. We tried the tape recorder and it is really good at picking up voices. There is no hiss, and even with Mary in the next room we could hear her clearly in playback. Mom was stunned: she had been certain Grandpa would want nothing to do with it. Grandpa is a natural salesman and loves to talk, though, so I had a feeling he wouldn't mind.

Mary had the wonderful idea of having Andy and me drive home in Mom's car, and Mom staying to play cards and get a ride home with Stu. We did so, and when we got home just had some quiet time together. Andy got pictures off of the digital camera's very full flash card, and I did some cleaning before we sat together and breathed for a while. Then Andy worked until bed time while I played around with some crossword puzzles. I had discovered them on my last plane ride and nearly solved the two in the in-flight magazine this time, so now I was doing those which come in the Rome paper's comic section.

Monday Catch-Up

The plan for Monday had been to visit Pamela and Dave in Syracuse, then head over to Oswego. There was a professor in particular with whom I wanted to chat, and I also wanted Andy to see an Oswego sunset. When we got up, though, it was cloudless and sunny, and we changed our plans. We decided to try Old Forge again, then visit Pamela later when Dave would be out of work. Since she works for a bank, Pamela had Monday off; Dave is an EMT on a rotating schedule, and he'd be off by 18:00, unless an emergency came up near the shift change.

We visited Grandpa briefly; Andy stayed in the car because there was now no doubt that he had Pamela's cold, and he didn't want to give it to Grandpa. If I was at all worried that Grandpa might have only agreed with the tape recorder thing to make me happy, that fear was allayed: he said he'd already begun recording.

Between Boonville and Old Forge, there is one main road; Moose River Rd. It has several scenic stops, some of which we'd taken advantage of on Sunday. Today, with the sun out, Andy ventured out of the car and had a ball with the camera. He took who-knows-how-many panorama shots with the digital camera, and that was only at the first stop. While he was doing that, I wandered through the woods (and encountered every burr and thorn bush there) so I could take the last picture on the last roll of film I brought. In retrospect I should have waited, but I hope the picture will be a good one.


When I got back we went to the second scenic stop, which was just breathtakingly beautiful. While Andy offloaded pictures from the flash card in order to have room for more, I went out and discovered that it was possible to get to some outcropping rocks. Andy and Mom joined me, and several panorama shots later (plus some pictures of us) and we headed back to shore...briefly. There is a little island in the middle of the area, and I went exploring to see if there was a way too it. It turns out that it seems to be navigable via stepping stone, but since it was a nippy day and I was wearing a skirt as well as boots so worn down that they have only token traction, I opted out of actually trying it.

Andy saw me and came over, though. I'd already left, but he wanted me to show him where I'd been, so I retraced my steps. He took more panoramas, then began clambering over rocks leading in a direction away from the island. Once he'd gotten a fair distance away he beckoned me over. I was only brave enough to get about a third of the way, but he kept calling me over so I finally got there. The view was just wonderful from there, and we took some pictures together with the island as the backdrop. Then he took some more panoramas as I made my way back. Mom had long since retired to the car, so we joined her and headed to Old Forge.

If it wasn't just so incredible looking at the other mountains from atop McCauley, I might have said the ski lift was an anti-climax. We took a bunch of pictures and filled up the flash card (it was a race to see if the flash card filled or the battery ran out first), and Mom even got one of us together with a backdrop of trees as far as could be seen in any direction. It was still sunny but also quite chilly topside, so we headed down and then called Pamela to tell her we were on the way.

It took two hours, to the minute, to get from Old Forge to her place. We didn't go back on Moose River, which would have added time to the trip, and not because of photo opportunities. Anyway, while we waited for Dave we watched Muppets From Space, which neither Andy nor I had seen before. It was a good way to spend the hour or hour-and-a-half, and just as we were trying to decide what to do next, Dave called and said he was ready for dinner when we were. He came over and we looked at Pamela's pictures from the weekend, then headed out to a buffet dinner which actually had food I could eat.

After dinner we headed home and I started a load of laundry while Andy packed. We were still trying to figure out how to get everything home, since my mom is adverse to shipping things and I'd sent some stuff ahead. Since I left behind all of my special flours and such it wasn't so bad, but we also had some breakable things in forms of ornaments we received and some framed photographs, plus my paperweight. We decided to figure it out on Tuesday and went to bed -- the thing about being out all day in the fresh air and scrambling around for quite a bit of it is that sleep comes rather more easily.

Tuesday Catch-Up

We managed to get everything packed into our suitcases, one of the backpacks, and the box I'd sent pillows in two times ago. There was a bit of a worry when we couldn't find any packing tape, but that could have been easily rectified with a trip to any number of stores. It ended up not being a problem when Mom found the last of the tape Pamela had used when she moved to Syracuse. We ended up not having to borrow Pamela's large suitcase, so one less thing to worry about.

I hadn't gotten to see Grandma Shad the whole trip, so we invited her over for lunch. We had Chinese from the place with addictive wontons (when I went to Rome in August and September, I'd had wonton soup daily), Grandma's first exposure to Chinese. I think she liked it. She was also interested in the tape recorder project, and we found out that the "pause if no one is talking" function works. That means we're two for two on the posterity project. I also got a pleasant surprise in that Grandma is giving me some books I adored as a child. And, unlike Mom, she doesn't mind shipping things, so we didn't have to try to fit them into our luggage.

We got to the airport in plenty of time, and the gate agents and flight attendants all liked the flowers. There were no problems checking the box (which would not have fit under the seat or in the overhead bin) and Andy's suitcase (with all of his origami cutting tools), and except for a glitch which delayed takeoff on the second flight by half hour or so, everything was uneventful. I had the window seat and very much enjoyed watching the fall leaves on takeoff. On the second flight we were in between two cloud layers, and I saw some beautiful cloud formations, including a bunch which looked like baby harp seals. There was also a point when the sun was illuminating the upper layer, so the edges of the higher clouds were limned in a glow which seemed sometimes to be gold and others to be silver.

Then we got home, played musical monitors, and got some sleep in our own bed with Thena taking turns between sleeping on Andy and on me. We apparently had a lot of rain while we were on our trip; they no longer have the countdown of days of water left, and have said the reservoirs are 63% full. They are still asking people to observe voluntary restrictions, however: unless we have a wet winter we'll still be in drought territory.

Poing!

Andy had a meeting today. None of his committee had any major concerns about his work (most of what Dr Brooks pointed out were needs for examples or figures to back up the info, plus grammatical nitpicks), so his defense is on for October 23rd. Now we just have to keep his cold from getting worse, if not get rid of it, before then. Chicken soup for dinner tomorrow, yay! I also need to get some ingredients to bake bribes for his committee. It's really not yet sunk in that at this time next week, he'll be Happy and we'll be calling him Doc (he's already been Bashful and Dopey when he started, and has since progressed to Grumpy, Sleepy, and Sneezy).

In other news, a while back I mentioned a potential employer wanted to have a chat with him, after which they might interview. Since we didn't want to get anyone's hopes up we've kept quiet about it, but the chat occurred on October 1st. After two agonizingly long weeks, Andy got a follow-up call today. NVidia will be flying him to California for a second interview on a date TBD. It definitely will not be before he defends. There are two reasons for this: first, because he needs to incorporate all of the changes his committee has given him and work on the defense itself.

The second is due to a former colleague. Said former colleague (from here on out referred to as "FC") was a very nice guy, and Andy says FC was way smarter than even he is (I have my doubts). Unfortunately FC also had the focus of a hummingbird on stimulants. FC was hired by NVidia, with the understanding that he'd defend before his start day. Before either happened, FC vanished off the face of the Earth. He never went back to school and hasn't answered e-mail or been heard from at all since then.

Rumor has it that NVidia is still peeved about FC, and Andy has a lot in common with FC: same school, same advisor, quite possibly the same references (or at least two of the same references). It may be that most of Andy's interview will be spent convincing them that he won't pull an FC. Having his PhD already finished should go a long way in quelling any fears along those lines. We're going to try to work it so that I go along, both for moral support and to get a chance to hang out with Bay Area folk.

Andy and I went shopping today, and I have some new footwear. The first is a pair of everyday shoes by Ecco (the same folks who made Andy's new dress shoes); the second was a pair of sneakers designed for walking, also by Ecco. The latter needs to be broken in a bit if tonight's uneventful six-round walk is any indication.

Otherwise it was a quiet day, if you count four journal entries in any given day as quiet. I spent most of the rest of the day unpacking, cleaning, and spoiling some kitties. I'm hoping that since it's finally cooling down that I can start getting my walk done earlier, and perhaps get myself back onto some semblance of a sleep schedule. But not until after Andy defends. Seven days.