Pastiche - Or - The Sticky Sweet Smell of ... Dog????

Well, many thoughts.

I saw Nancy on Monday, in Trumansberg NY. Too wonderful! It had been 2 years since I saw her face in person, great to hang out. She took me into Ithaca, and I will go back. Fun, funky town and I had not been for some years. On the way, we stopped in Taughannock Falls - and I have this pic as proof!



She and I talked about life in California, her business (FullCalendar.com), our elderly parents. She said something that resonated with me - her parents think she's the same age and capability as them. So does my Dad! He'll say to me "Carole, I don't want you to have to walk that long hallway, so I'll meet you at the door." and I'm like, Dude! I walk 5 miles a day!!! (unfortunate lapse into ValleySpeak, but it illustrates the point.)He thinks I have the same (severely deteriorated) capabilities that he does. So Nancy's story tells me that this is an 'old parent' think, not just an old person thing. Note to Self.

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So I'm going to move up the schedule on replacing the flooring on the ground floor of the house. I want to Greg & Andreas' over the weekend, to help with getting ready to bring Mom there (!!!) and also to borrow the carpet cleaner. I was sure that the last time my carpet was cleaned (by Greg, yay for brothers!) that he didn't rinse and I was smelling carpet shampoo. Well, they had just done a rug in their house, and the smell of the shampoo was not the same. Hmmm. Greg said, "That sticky sweet smell? That's dog pee!" EEEUW!!! I had lived with a dog, long ago, but she didn't pee in the house. So I shampooed and rinsed twice and the smell is still there. That's it, the floors are getting redone. I had wanted to wait until I had earned some income this life but I can't even eat in my dining room as the smell is rising with the warming weather.

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Another fun thing I did this weekend was fight with Microsoft Works, Word and Excel. Andrea is the secretary for the Grandview Heights neighborhood association, and she is trying to get the newsletter out (while getting ready to move Mom into her house !!!) So I was trying to get old excel files to do a mail merge to print labels out. She's only got MS Works, and it didn't. So I ran back home, got my laptop, ran back to her place and set it up. Converted the names file into excel and finally figured out the mail merge. Had to install her printer drivers, and it brought my laptop to its knees three times. Needed a hard reset to get going again. But finally, we have labels. And I need to get a desktop machine. I want an OSX Mac. Again, was wanting to wait for income before I splashed out for the new computer. Oh well.

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At least I have been having lots of fun pushing metal around in the gym. That, plus Yoga plus the crazy busy days have led to my new jeans purchase. My Lucky jeans, size 10, were from before I went to Germany. A bit large so I went to replace them a couple weeks ago. Lord & Taylor in Eastview Mall carries that brand and I got a replacement. Here I am, wearing my size FOUR Lucky Jeans!!! Whoo hoo!!