Whew …..

So since we’ve been back from Yorkshire, I haven’t had a single day with nothing on the calendar. There’s been:

1. UW-Libraries Friend’s Book sale – that was my Weds. and Saturday right after we got back;
2. On the first Friday after getting back, I had Jasper and we went to the park after music class – see below – and then in the evening a Madison Symphony concert;
3. The first Saturday I volunteered at the Farmers Market info booth, selling the cookbook and doing EBT transactions;
4. And that Saturday night was Jeff Tweedy at the Barrymore he joked about playing the 12-string – “ya know I’ve discovered that if you put all these guitars on the stage and you don’t play them, it makes people mad”. He did play the 12-string eventually;
5. Sunday I went to the gym with Susan 1st thing, then I had an election training, then friends over for dinner. We had Hailee Catalano’s squash soup (I used some little yellow beans that I precooked the day before instead of lentils) and rolls and salad and then a chocolate cake with a spider web in cream cheese baked on top;
6. Monday morning I had a bunch of doctoring – blood tests and dermatologist, then I stopped by the Library to straighten out a few things post-sale, then my cats had their yearly vet visit;
7. Tuesday the landscapers came to put in a drain and dig a swale to try to keep the basement from leaking – the 2nd Weds. after getting back we had hella rain and it stayed dry, and the check was lying on the counter to get mailed to pay the balance. I also had to go pick up an at-home blood pressure cuff because, in the continuing saga of doctoring, see item 6, I can’t seem to get my blood pressure low in the doctor’s office and they want me to monitor at home;
8. Also that Tuesday was yoga class and a haircut and groceries and a Costco run, restocking after vacay still;
9. Wednesday another Jasper day and we discovered fork toast, and later my first online Willy St. BoD meeting;
10. Thursday I had an eye doctor appointment for the clinical trial I’m in, then lunch with the chancellor, then we went to Chicago for an overnight to see Noises Off at Steppenwolf and Don Quixote at the Chicago Symphony. FWIW we made our 6:00 dinner reserve before the show easily;
11. On the way home from Chicago Friday I learned that Phil Lesh died;
12. Saturday was my first IPAV – In Person Absentee Voting shift – how we do early voting in WI where ballots cannot be counted until election day. People show up and mark a ballot then it’s sealed in a special envelope and counted on Election Day;
13. Sunday morning Susan and I went to the gym then I came home and made brunch – pancakes made with slightly out-of-date vanilla yogurt from the bucket we had bought for giving the dearly departed Katie her meds, and I made apple scones at some point in there too, and finally another IPAV shift from 2:00-4:00 where we only had four people and could’ve used 5;
14. Monday I had to go sign a form for the clinical trial that the PA forgot to have me do on Thursday, then I volunteered at the library and then I had a courier shift where I picked up ballots at a polling place and took them to a processing center;
15. Tuesday was Al’s 36th birthday, and I went in to work at the absentee ballot envelope sorting center from 6:30-9:30;
16. HALLOWEEN
17. Friday November 1 I worked another IPAV shift at one of the libraries and we had 466 voters, it was nonstop for 8 hours for us workers and people waited in 2-hour lines all day;
18. Well, you get the idea – I think I’ll stop the litany now and add pictures. And narrative.

One of Jasper’s new words that he learned while we were in Yorkshire is Ha’ween and we saw a lot of Ha’ween on our walk. The fanciest thing was an inflatable that was a flying saucer tractor-beaming up a cow. It got really windy Halloween night and they took it down.

Here’s a few pics from our overnighter in Chicago. Friday morning we slept in at the hotel and then went and ate coffee & pastries at Floriole near DePaul, then walked through Lincoln Park to the Red Line at Division and took that back to almost the Loop fir the symphony. All good except it was too warm, almost 80° on October 25.

On the way home on the train a friend texted me with the news that Grateful Dead bassist and founding member had died.

This show from 1989 has a Gimme Some Lovin’ with Phil and Brent Mydland singing and signature bass line from Phil.

David Dodd, librarian & deadhead who compiled the Annotated Grateful Dead lyrics (used to be a cool online resource but I think it’s not being maintained so well anymore, buy the book I guess), posted this memorial that closes with a lyric from Gimme Some Lovin’.

King Arthur apple scones. Pretty good I thought. We ate half & I froze half.

On Al’s birthday, I made lunch for one of the Democratic Party offices. There were 3 kinds of sandwiches on homemade focaccia: Cheese, tomato jam, arugula, and mayo; Smoked deli turkey, white cheddar, apple, and honey mustard; and salami, ham, pesto, provolone cheese, and giardinera. And two kinds of bars, King Arthur pumpkin spice latte bars that were much better than I expected them to be but I tried not to eat too much of the espresso glaze because of trying to reduce my caffeine intake for the blood pressure – see item 7 above – and Hootie Swirls, that Al likes so he got some for his birthday, too.

When I did that Costco run (item 8) I bought a giant $19.95 bag of all-chocolate Halloween candy assortment. Snickers, Milky Ways, Twix, M&Ms plain & peanut, Kitkat, Reese’s, baby Hershey bars, and I think there was one 100 Grand bar that I ate. I took a gallon bucket of it to my first IPAV shift on the last Saturday in October, and it went. I made a big bowl for Halloween, and some went, but we really only had three trick or treaters and they were all kids who know us. I wanted to take a shower abut 8:30, so I put the bowl out on the stoop with the pumpkins with a note that said, “Help yourself but please leave some for others”. I went back out at 10:30 afte the news and more went. Leaving just enough to separate out a few Snickers bars for Mark and a few Milky Ways for me, and I took the same gallon bucket of it to Friday IPAV shift, just not quite as full. Of course I’ve eaten all my Milky Ways already while Mark still had some from last year in his fridge and I added this year’s to the bag.

John and Megan closed on their house in Chicago on Halloween. We got to see it the following Sunday morning.

And now I’m getting ready for election day tomorrow by baking cookies. I’m working at a campus polling place and there’s a big crew of workers so I thought I should bring cookies. And I will go do one last shift at the absentee ballot envelope sorting center tonight.

Whew.