Rainy Day in Everyday Ramblings

From this morning, a rare dry patch where I managed to get out for a short walk by myself. These are anemone seed pods.

Mr. Sherlock has been in the hospital most of the week. A crazy thing for them both to manage with the move and downsizing in progress. They are hanging in there, but it is hard. He might come home tomorrow. The last question I heard was about if he is going to need oxygen at home. This stuff doesn’t get easier, does it?

I don’t know when Mrs. Sherlock and I will get to walk again.

There was a sweet thing that happened at the end of my class yesterday. One of my long-term students suggested an old friend try the morning class out and she has and enjoys it. She is in rural British Columbia. My long-term friend had family visiting and she asked if the two of them could stay on the Zoom call after we finished. I turned off my camera and puttered around doing end of the week chores and they all gathered around their computers and visited. They were all so happy to see each other! It warmed my heart.

The person who was the previous Treasurer of the League told me that she would do the taxes this year as she was active during the fiscal year in question. Last Saturday she texted and asked me to look at the numbers for the investments, that she didn’t understand. I took a look, but it wasn’t exactly clear, I couldn’t figure out how the previous person, acting as a bookkeeper had come up with her numbers. I kept thinking I should be able to figure this out, even though the reporting was less than ideal.

The taxes were due yesterday. Kind of late to get started on them.

In the end, Tuesday night, we filed for an extension. Those were some very stressful days for me. I was exhausted, as we had met Tuesday evening way past my bedtime. I did however get to see the adorable kittens, Pecan and Pumpkin. That was fun.

Then our new office manager ended up in Emergency and hasn’t been back. We don’t know what is going on with her and if and when she will return. Our President has been down at the office covering for her and surfacing things. Not bad things, just things no one really knows how to do, and people have questions. Lots of questions.

On Thursday we had invited one of our coffee group irregulars to come read to us and talk to us about his new book. Nazis at the Watercooler.

I know it sounds like about the last thing you would want to talk about right now, but it was interesting, and the thing I found so fascinating was the fact that he found it important to study and document how it happened after the war that so many war criminals ended up back in the West German government. How that worked. It was a different side to him than I have seen before.

And of course, with this flurry of announcements of people to fill positions in our new government this last week it all felt pretty darn relevant. And we talked about that.

I am still pretty tender about listening to people pontificating on what has happened to us as a country, but this gave us an interesting historical perspective. He did say he was mindful of what happened to the U.S. Government after the civil war, after reconstruction. An era I think we are still paying the price for today.

This next week I am leaving for Seattle on Wednesday and my niece’s surgery is Thursday mid-morning. With teaching and the board meeting and… it feels like a circus around here, but this is by far my least favorite time of year. I do know it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. I get home next Saturday, and I am very much looking forward to that.

I don’t know what my new upstairs neighbor is doing up there. I have been here 15 years, and this person has heavier feet than anyone before, and she moves around a lot. The good news is that it isn’t affecting my sleep other than that first night.

Maybe while I am waiting for and with my niece, I will have time to catch up on notes here.

One can dream, right?