This was a crazy-busy day at the office. I'm not kidding. But the morning started out with me having a flareup of hip pain first thing today. And it was my LEFT hip (!!!) that was bothering me, rather than my right hip (which is normally the problem). The annoying thing is shifting back and forth in bed because you can't get comfortable... Hahaha. Regardless, I got up fine and ready pretty quickly. This was a training day for me. Marilyn and I ended up at the office around 9:00. We had agreed not to go to Starbucks, because walking would bother my sore hip (and Marilyn wasn't up for the group thing we usually do). I immediately got in and had a meeting with Christie and Calisa -- I wanted to get to why Maleah has been Remoting into the office, which Donn had told me about. It turned out that Christie's keyboard and mouse weren't working (the dongle was broken -- Donn had to replace them entirely). Anyway, Marilyn and Rich were taking Adeena to coffee -- and I was better by then, so I went, too. Adeena and I did her re-train. Then we had a website meeting with Calisa and Caitlin up at my desk. All day it was difficult for me to get there to my desk because Donn was working on a major project for me that required him being on my computer on and off constantly. It was annoying, but necessary! We had the website meeting, then Adeena and I met about script writing. (She has the important task of doing parade scripts this year.) I haven't discussed my meeting with Donn, but we had worked that in first thing. So by now I've had four meetings, and it was time for Communications (we delayed it to noon today). Communications went long. We were talking about elements of this week and the next -- plus some items for later in the month. It's hard to believe today was May first! After that, Marilyn and I were going to take a break. We drove off, planning to get me some food, but Sue B. Texted us, so we had to skip that ride. We turned around and went directly to the dry cleaners to take our uniform jackets and drop them off. We were blocked getting out, but finally managed to head back to the office, only to find someone parked in our spot (the Lashers had come by the office!). We had to park behind Carol. I almost forgot! While we were in the car cousin Linda called! I haven't talked to her in ages. She said her Yahoo mail wasn't working, but she wanted to ask about wristbands and tickets for the festival. She's always the first one to turn in her order every year... Sue came in shortly after, bringing gifts for Marilyn and me. Marilyn was going to talk to her about the Starlight Parade. They went into a closed door meeting. I chatted briefly with Jeff, congratulating him about the golf championship. He made the handicap. But it's an entertaining story. After all his work to lower his handicap, they changed the requirement based on all the inclement weather we've been having. I kept trying to get to my computer to work, but that was difficult all day. Then it was 3:30, and time for our Quickbooks meeting. It was delayed, because Jeff had a meeting before that, and Marilyn was still meeting with Sue. But we finally got together and had our discussion. After that I was going to try and get something to eat. Adeena and I walked out, and ran into a security man who told us the businesses had all shut down early because of the expected protests for May Day. We went back to the office. But eventually I suggested trying McDonald's for food. Marilyn, Adeena and I walked up there. Kate had told us it would be safe going there, and it was. But we could HEAR and see the mess around us! At one point it sounded like a bomb went off! And news helicopters were all over the place, with sirens going. Very noisy! And you could see huge clusters of people, police in riot gear and people with signs. We got back to the office and told people they should plan to leave. It was around 5:00, so many people (hourly staff) were leaving anyway. But many of us had planned to remain at least until 7:00. Anyway, that plan changed. Marilyn and I packed up and took off. Fortunately we had no trouble getting out of town. We went the St. Johns bridge direction and stopped at Safeway to get some dinner. Again, I almost forgot! June called while we were still at the office to check on us! Isn't that sweet??? She'd seen all the trouble on TV. (I did call her when we got home to tell her we were okay...) We got chicken tenders from the deli, and ate it with cottage cheese when we got home. We watched some TV. And I finally gave Henry his pill and treated his eye, before lying down for a much-needed nap. I was dealing with the cats trying to lie down with me -- but fighting with each other. I finally went to sleep, and kept waking up with leg cramps. I got 7,000 steps today, ironically enough. Hahaha. As Marilyn said, all those steps on a day when my hips were killing me! By evening BOTH hips were making me crazy. I had taken an Aleve in the morning, and took another this evening. Between my hips and leg cramps, this was a painful day. Anyway, it's almost time to get up for another day, and !'m finally blogging. Hahaha. I'm going back to sleep now until it's time to actually get up (pretty darn soon). I hope all of you slept well...  - Feeling:accomplished
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Marilyn and I actually slept in this morning. And we took our time getting ready to go out. Watching TV (a bunch of HGTV) and playing on our iPads. Then we got Starbucks at the local drive-through place and McDonald's and then drove down to Sauvie Island. Such a LOVELY day!!! And after that we decided to continue driving and we went up the Columbia River Gorge. We ended up having a late lunch at Charburger Country in Hood River (no website). This is a quaint place that we've eaten at before, which cute decor. Marilyn had their 'Pony Burger' -- it had Brie cheese, strawberry jam and jalapeno buttons (deep friend slices of jalpeno). I had a guacamole burger. And we got an order of the jalapeno buttons, too. Let's just say we both were paying for those 'buttons' later on! Hahaha. A bit too spicy. But we had GREAT FUN going there! Second unexpected spur-of-the-moment dining out in a two day period. After that we had a lovely, sunny drive back to Portland and straight in to the office to work. I had to focus on IT, getting ready for tomorrow! Donn had also been in today and moved three computers for me: Jessica's, Adeena's and Katie's old one. I found that he had NOT moved Jessica's mouse, however! So I did that myself. I did a BUNCH of crawling around on the floor today (over and over, actually). I did get Jessica's mouse moved, but found that her dual monitors (UltraMon) weren't set up correctly -- so I took care of that. Then I was having a hassle with my own 'new' (replacement -- but actually old) right monitor at my desk. And I couldn't get the wired mouse for Adeena to work! I was chatting with Donn and finally ended up swapping the USB ports for the mouse and keyboard -- and somehow that worked (after half an hour of trying other crap that didn't work). Anyway, I'm ready to train Adeena. Jessica's space is ready to go. And Donn has started the other project I asked him to work on... I had also forgotten to set up Adeena's phone! So I did that. And moved Jessica's extension to her new spot. She went from Location L to Location C -- and Adeena is now in Location L. It had been some time since I set up a phone with a computer, but I reasoned it out just fine. Hahaha. I need to remind Donn how to create an account for someone (no big deal). Anyway, it was a GOOD THING that we went in there to work! I'd have been screwed trying to do all that first thing in the morning! And it's better to be annoyed with equipment when you're working alone, rather than surrounded by other staff members... I just went to the website and adjusted the Staff page (removing Katie and changing Adeena's title -- and sadly, removing Najib). Marilyn, Jeff and I have our meeting with Sheila tomorrow (around 3:30). Hopefully we can make some decisions about Quickbooks going forward... I'll try and re-train Adeena quickly so we can move on to discussing both the website, and script writing (she'll be doing both). As I'm the script editor, we'll be working closely together. (And obviously I'm the webmaster, so...) Donn has agreed to come in tomorrow and work on a project for me. I hope he can get it done tomorrow! (fingers crossed) It would be a HUGE help to me!!! We didn't go shopping tonight, but will need to go either tomorrow night or the night after. Marilyn and I had a lovely weekend -- with another mini-vacation that we really enjoyed! Plus we had fun taking our drives today. I got my 4,000 steps in today, which is a miracle. I haven't been doing all that well with my steps lately (and leg cramps again yesterday and today). I'm going to try harder! Marilyn and I had some long talks about diet, exercise and health. We both want to continue our trend to improve our health. Hard to believe it's the last day of April! Where does the time go??? Never had to turn on the furnace all day long! It's about time, considering tomorrow is the first day of May! (Grandpa Ed's birthday, by the way...) And now it's just barely past midnight, and it's time to head to bed! Sweet dreams and healthy days for all of you!  - Feeling:happy
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Marilyn found out today that she is receiving the female executive award for 2016 from the Portland Business Alliance's annual event (A Place with No Ceiling). The idea for her being nominated came from Jeff, who firmly believed she should win this award. This notification was originally sent on June 8. So why didn't we find out then? Then sent it to .com instead of .org (the .com address doesn't exist) when using her business email. Funny, huh? I'm telling you, it would have been a perfect time for some good news (that was a HARD, HARD week). But it's WONDERFUL news whenever we hear it! Her letter told her she was nominated and that the committee proudly selected her as honoree for this year. Additionally: "This award honors a female executive who has not only succeeded in her field, but also supports and mentors women in the community." Marilyn has smashed the glass ceiling, there's no doubt. But it's very true that she's not only experiencing personal success, but has mentored and inspired many, many other women over her many years serving the community in her role at the festival. Sister Sue and I are very, very proud of her, needless to say! There will be an event in September where she'll be honored, and we look forward to attending it. So even though LAST YEAR was her year for special honors (celebrating 40 years working for the festival, and honors from so many, including City Hall naming a day 'Parade Queen Day' in her honor), this is yet another occasion recognizing how special she is. Marilyn never fails to amaze, that's the truth. As for me... I just couldn't get myself to wash my hair last night. I was too puny to face it. I'm sitting typing this and knowing I must go and do exactly that after I finish up. (sigh) You know you're pretty sick when you can't even face standing up in a shower to wash your hair... I was sure I was ready to go to work today anyway -- right up until this morning, that is! Marilyn suggested I stay home, and I jumped at it. Even though it meant missing the staff lunch that I'd been so looking forward to. Marilyn suggested we simply use Marlo's Profile for Maleah. She said in the future we should be using a generic Profile for that position. I'm not sure if we will or not, but anyway I'm ready to do that right now -- at least for now. If we can resolve the Remote issue, then this wouldn't be such a big deal. (sigh) But I'm too out of it to care right now. So I will go in tomorrow and train Maleah (using Marlo's Profile). And get her up and using the computer. Adeena has volunteered to bring me home after that, so we'll see how it goes. I just might take her up on that... Hahaha. Hopefully I'll be able to do okay, in spite of STILL having laryngitis. And hopefully I won't get a lot worse from all the talking I have to do. Marilyn had a really difficult experience downtown today. I won't go into details, but it was really awful for her. She hasn't been feeling that great this week. But she had no clue she'd end up in such a terrible mess. She got through it with her usual strength of will. Then came home, pulled herself together and went right back to work again -- and worked quite late. The things that woman can do! (Little wonder she's being honored...) I was proud of how she dealt with adversity, I have to say. I did gather up the garbage in the house today. As tomorrow is garbage day, there should be very little more to do, except to put out the recycling and change the cat boxes. (And get any garbage that I might have missed today.) It's 'real' garbage week, so that's a good thing... We ate some macaroni salad and baked beans we bought in the deli at Walmart when shopping there for our dinner. (Other than that I'd had little to eat all day -- and Marilyn had salad at lunch.) The baked beans weren't as good as Marilyn's (which I love!!!), but they weren't bad. And I wish I didn't love macaroni salad so much, but oh well. Hopefully tomorrow I'll do and turn in my invoice for my annual script editing job. I did it much earlier last year! Nicole finally got our graduation card and check. Marilyn increased the amount and forgot to tell me, but it made Nicole, her mother Candy and our her grandmother (our sister) Sue all very happy. I assume she'll be putting it toward her new (used) car. And I wrapped the (heavy!) package for Ebony (Leslie's daughter) this morning. Her wedding is this weekend. That was a challenge! But I had planned it out in my head, and it worked perfectly! I used to be a professional gift wrapper years and years ago -- and this was the sort of challenge we frequently received. (It was one part of a very multi-faceted job I held, but an interesting part!) Let's just say I haven't forgotten those skills, even though I rarely ever use them now. I think that's really all I have to report. I spent my day mostly DOWN again. Lying or sitting around, watching TV or reading. Well, off to wash my hair and head (back) to bed for work tomorrow. It's now 2:00 a.m. -- I'm glad I finally woke up! Best of dreams to all my friends!  - Feeling:good
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I was at home today, working on the formatting of the Grand Floral Parade script. It's more difficult than it sounds... Does anyone remember WordPerfect? Hey, SURPRISE, they still make it! I used to be a whiz with that software, way back when. The next thing you know the whole world is using Microsoft Word -- and I had to dump WP. (sigh) WHY did I love it. I can explain in TWO words: Reveal Codes. You could open these and actually SEE every bit of formatting you had applied to your text -- I kid you not. Word? Hell no. Good luck with that! So getting a CLEAN version of your formatting is nearly IMPOSSIBLE (no, Microsoft does NOT CARE if you can). I spend a lot of time cursing in my head -- and sometimes out loud -- while trying to take a document that has many 'cooks' involved and cleaning it up for a fresh start in a new year. No, Word's Show/Hide option does NOT replace the really wonderful Reveal Codes of WordPerfect. But it's the best thing we've got. So I always try to get people who are working on the script to use it. It's UGLY, no doubt. If you've never seen the Reveal Code option, it's pretty damn nifty, as it open at the bottom of the screen and displays your text with the code written around it. All you have to do is go into that window and eliminate the code there to make it GO AWAY. It's marvelous -- and you can still see your text displayed above clearly. In Word, when you turn on the Show/Hide button, you'll see elements displayed that will help you to work better. Such as small dots between words that indicates spaces (two dots would be two spaces, for example). It doesn't mean you can easily change formatting, but you kind 'sort of' see things enough to TRY and fix them, anyway. Hahaha. Word should have found a way to COPY the Reveal Codes feature, I'm telling you. But maybe they weren't SMART ENOUGH to understand how valuable it was. OR, maybe they were too damn arrogant to know a weakness in their own software application (probably true). There's a third possibility, when it comes to Microsoft, though. They just don't give a damn. I have that feeling so much of the time when I use their products, especially when I'm dealing with one of their 'known issues' -- which are two words I get really, really tired of saying all the time, as IT Manager... (big sigh) Well, I finally finished formatting the script. Then I turned it back over to Katie (Marilyn's assistant). And I Remoted in to her machine so we could go over how to keep the formatting clean while working with the document. I'm actually glad to help her with the work, if she'll let me, because there's a lot to do. First you 'roll over' as much as you can -- cut and paste entries that have appeared before. You can tweak this stuff later, if necessary. Otherwise, if the information hasn't changed, I always say 'don't reinvent the wheel.' The goal isn't to put your own stamp on the work (nobody really gives you a script credit, anyway, believe me) -- you just need to get it done. After that I was feeling bad about being home and missing Float Maneuverability, which always happens on Memorial Day. (I already missed the Moment of Silence and symphony concert today!) But Marilyn offered to come get me before she went! So I dashed to get ready and she and Adeena came by to pick me up to go along. The new space for our float building is at Funtastic headquarters, which is awesome, by the way! In order to build floats, you have to have warehouse space with BIG DOORS and water (for the plants) and lots of electricity (for the machinery) and so on. The framework contains a lot of metalwork and soldering, but they work with a ton of materials. Liquid foam and so on. They create the base which has to drive (obviously), then the artistic elements that will be covered in living plants -- beautiful flowers, seeds, bark, leaves, fruits, vegetables, and other natural materials (as ours is a floral parade). They come up with very clever ways to cover the floats! Today we go out there and watch them running each float to make sure it can drive, plus training drivers to work with float marshals who walk beside them and guide them -- especially for the turns! I'll be especially glad about that on parade day, when they come up by me to make that first VERY DIFFICULT TURN into the coliseum!!! I had Souvenir Programs for Kendra and Gene and some pins for others there. And Nona, who has known sister Sue forever, cooks hot dogs for all of us -- our version of a Memorial Day picnic, I guess. Hahaha. Nona always asks about Sue and was sorry to hear about how poorly she's been doing... We ate hot dogs there and took another 'to go' (as we do each year). And hung around looking and watching and chatting with people. Then we drove Adeena back to her car at the office and finally came home. We had our second hot dog for dinner (no cooking!!!) and enjoyed a slab of chocolate cake we got at the store yesterday (it seems like days ago). We watched the movie " Remember" over again -- and I loved it more the second time! You see a lot once you know what's going to happen, so it's a movie that's best viewed twice! I couldn't wait to watch it again, I have to say. I even had a dream about it last night. (It has a 71% rating at Rotten Tomatoes -- and the audience rates it 79%, higher than the critics do.) I've decided I want to create a 'wall of heroes' for myself -- and include a lot of amazing older people. I recently read about John Johnson Craighead, who is currently 99 years young. He and his twin brother Frank Cooper Craighead, Jr. (who dies in 2001) were amazing conservationists, naturalists, and researchers. They made important contributions to the study of grizzly bears (among other things). I normally NEVER tear apart my National Geographics (which I treasure), but I did it for John! I love this photo of him at 99 sitting inside a teepee. I'm going to scan it for sure!!! I'll talk more about my HEROES as we go along (and, YES, my sister Marilyn is certainly one of these!!!). There's something about seeing this man who is more than 30 years older than me that inspires me a great deal. Yes, I'm older now. But I've got a lot of good years in front of me -- so I need to keep on going and do the very best I can. Old age is NO EXCUSE for anything, in other words. My cat is howling and just scratched my ankle for attention! It's clearly time for bed. (It's now 3:30 a.m.) Good night, friends!!! - Feeling:accomplished
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First off, the Henry Tudor Cat update!!! (grin) He's being a very, very, very good cat. Which has been true this entire time, of course. He's pretty sick of being treated, but still cooperates. And as far as I can tell (fingers crossed), he's NOT scratching at all, much less his eye. I sure hope it stays that way! Marilyn and I didn't get in to the office until past 11:00 a.m., what with one thing and another (and Henry). That's okay. We did get a bunch of work done, even so. In my case, I FINALLY was able to take the eNewsletter I'd created for the Grand Floral Walk (GFW) and make it work as HTML inside Outlook. It's a fairly nifty trick, I'm telling you!!! And, remarkably enough, it does NOT require any special software to do. At some point I need to teach others how to do it, but probably not this year. It's just too damn complicated for me to write out until I have more free time. I also 'found' the permalink for one of our recent eNewsletters that our president, Frank, had wanted -- and that Carol had promised (???) to Executive board members. (Um, why would you DO THAT if you weren't sure you could provide it? I mean, Carol couldn't have come up with it on her own. And she hadn't discussed it with me when she told them she'd get it. Oh well. I guess it's a good thing I can figure this stuff out!) We used to ALWAYS provide a permalink for our eNewsletters between 2008 and 2013. Amazingly enough, it's provided by our eNewsletter service, CoolerEmail -- and that's a pretty wonderful thing for them to do! Anyway, I worked on our templates (yet again) today, and added a place for the permalink to go. We have a couple of options, actually. We can put the eNewsletter up at our website and link it there. I'd been having issues with that previously, but TODAY (in fact tonight -- just minutes ago!!!) I figured out how to make it work! That's a very big breakthrough, I'm telling you. I reasoned it out while deciding I wanted a permalink for that GFW eNewsletter -- and because we're not sending it out via CoolerEmail, we needed another host. I feel like something of a (very minor!) genius today, I have to tell you. I'm pretty convinced that even FISH wouldn't have had some of the answers to this stuff I got done. And happily I didn't have to ASK ANYBODY ELSE how to do it. Sometimes I'm like a dog with a bone, seriously. Hahaha. The work today was one thing, but Marilyn, Adeena and I took a day trip to the beach! We drove down the 'fast' way (which only takes around 90 minutes). The weather in Portland was WET today, and we did have rain on the drive. But it was dry in Seaside, believe it or not! We did invite sister Sue to come along, but her leg was bothering her (from her fall of weeks ago), so she declined. I totally understand that. When you're sore, it's just not pleasant to take a long ride in a car! We three stopped at the house and I actually changed into longer pants (I'd had on what I call my clam digger jeans, that go to just below the knee) and from sandals into boots. Just to stay warm enough. We drove in and went to the Shilo Inn bar for food and a drink (introducing Adeena to Lemon Drops!). We love to go there, because it's right on the beach and the view is fabulous!!! (Marilyn had the waiter take a photo of us so she could text it to Jeff and tell him he should have been there with us!) Gosh, we really like their food! We went there to celebrate back when we first got our house, by the way. Such a nice place. After we ate we went over and played Fascination. Adeena had never played before! She and Marilyn both won several times -- and even I managed to win twice. We gave Adeena the tickets to start her collection. Someday she'll be able to get something nice with them. We need to trade some in, as we've got an awful lot now... Then we went to the candy store and I bought some Sea Foam (which I adore and haven't had in ages!). I totally FORGOT to have Adeena try it (Marilyn is not a fan). And finally we got ice cream, before heading back to Portland. We needed to get Adeena back before 7:30 and were actually in the parking lot of the festival office by 7:14 p.m. Then Marilyn and I talked over the project she needed my help with -- the formation map for the Grand Floral Parade. I went upstairs to get started with that, and she was working on her many projects downstairs. The cleaning guy was there as we were working. It's a bit distracting, but I suppose not as bad as when the staff is around (always needing things). Henry came in at some point and is lying in his chair behind me. Colin, however, refuses to settle down. He keeps messing with things in my bathroom and making a bunch of noise. I guess he wants some attention. Colin, timing is everything! (smile) Finally we both hit the wall and decided to come home... It looks like I'll be staying home AGAIN this week. It's not like I can't get a TON of work done here. First thing tomorrow morning I'll continue my work on that map. Marilyn needs to have it by afternoon for a meeting with Gary. I have some website stuff I really need to get to! I can't believe I haven't done that, yet. And I should check in with Marissa and Katie on parade scripts, too... And now I need to teach Kate how to code the permalink into the eNewsletters. Ideally I'd like to Remote in and watch her work on an eNewsletter, seeing as we had some coding issues last week again. I think I need to see what it is she does that messes up the code so I can help her avoid that. I guess it could be easy to cut pieces of code (???). It wasn't that hard to reason out last week. And Kate seems very eager to do the work without help (I get that). But it is my job to make sure these eNewsletters end up working the way we need them to. Well, I guess it's time for bed, seeing as it's going on 2:00 a.m. I still can't believe we got away for a few hours to the beach. How lovely! Yes, all three of us had a lot of work we could have been doing -- but sometimes a few hours of recreation and make all the difference, we find. And we're all willing to put in early and late (and long) hours to make up for it... Anyway! Goodnight! - Feeling:happy
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I started my day with yet another low blood sugar incident. Considering I had ice cream before bed, I think I have to 'blame' the quinoa we had for dinner. Look, it's good to be low, just hard to be very low. I was shaking and feeling lousy and confused. Very confused.
I tested my blood, then went to the kitchen and wolfed down a bowl of cereal (I felt like I was starving, which is often true). Then I went back to bed as it was very early...
I was moving slowly when I did get up. And I had to shower and wash my hair because I didn't do that last night. The morning was more than a little annoying!
I get to work and can't find my wallet! Marilyn and I search around, then dash back home and find it in the garage. Back to work -- I've left my external hard drive at home!!! It's very hard for me to function without it, but I just had to today. There was no way we had time to run home yet again. (sigh)
Marilyn tried to get me to stay home today, but I did okay today. In fact, both Marilyn and I had more than 9,000 steps today on our Fitbits, what with lunch and walking to the park.
I did get a bunch of stuff done at the festival website, both during the day and late in the evening.
KPTV 12 did their annual special show about the festival, and Marilyn spoke at one point (great job, as always). Also, they played the feature today about the mini floats for GFP. I was in it quite a bit, even though I never spoke a word. (I was painting like crazy, however... Hahaha.)
Tonight was the VIP Party (Marilyn and I did NOT attend -- we stayed in the office and worked), plus a concert in the RoZone (we went over briefly, but didn't stay long).
I got the GFP script late today, and have barely started to edit it. I'll work on it tomorrow until it's done. Marilyn finished up the Coronation script and is ready to start the GFP script for inside the Memorial Coliseum.
I'm really excited about some of the website changes I made. They really improved the look of several pages.
Have I mentioned there are 16 (!!!) various CityFair pages at the website? That's actually wrong. There at 17! Hahaha. I had to edit every single one today.
Zander (Christine's son) walked with Marilyn and me to the park (CityFair). I gave him some $$$ to eat, as he'd left the money his mom had given him at home. Seriously, I love that kid all to pieces! He's a sophomore in high school, and just the nicest guy ever. I don't know why he'd want to hang out with the two of us, but he stayed right up until his shift sitting in the museum.
Oh, I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. Again, it gets so busy it's difficult to remember all the details of a long day!
We were at the office until really late. We got home right around 11:30 p.m. Gosh, it was a long and tiring day...
We both made ourselves peanut butter sandwiches and had some diet Orange Crush, while watching "Jeopardy" (taped). Now Marilyn is sound asleep in front of the TV (on the sofa), and I'm blogging before heading to bed.
Damn leg cramps, by the way! I'm still having them all the time. And now it's worked up into my butt muscle on the left side! So annoying and painful. I was having trouble sitting today. (sigh)
Well, there's a very busy weekend in front of us, so I need to head to bed.
Tomorrow morning is special needs, with autistic children visiting CityFair. All the noisy stuff is toned down, and the kids can move around with other children like them plus their families. It was very popular last year. Eventually it would be nice to make it available to more kids, but it's a rather small group right now.
We did see the lion today at CityFair. They used him to replace all the snakes, reptiles and spiders! Marilyn loves those and was disappointed.
More tomorrow. - Feeling:tired
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Yes, I'm backdating, because it's now nearly 2:00 a.m. in the morning. But I want to relate what happened on TUESDAY of this week!
Fairly early on we figured out that I needed to be the photographer to go over to the Hollywood Theatre and take pictures of Spidey (whom we will NOT be calling Spiderman) and the Clown Prince (Angel) -- that we'll use on Social Media to announce our Junior Parade Grand Marshal (who is Spidey). This is because Mariah is out sick, but I really don't mind -- I often end up taking photos for various reasons.
So the question was: How will we get the Hollywood sign of the Hollywood Theatre to show up, as well as the two characters in the foreground? I remembered how difficult that was back in our Centennial year! Marilyn suggested that I shoot the pictures LYING ON MY BACK. No, I'm NOT kidding! Happily I had my camera along with me. Amusingly enough, I'd worn nice pants rather than my usual jeans to work.
Rich goes along and Marissa (who manages the Junior Parade), with Angel (in costume) and me. We're meeting Spidey there. I grab a new, clean flattened cardboard garbage can and off we go! The weather looks threatening, but thankfully it holds! Spidey is NOT in costume and has to change. Then I put the cardboard down and lie on my back and start directing the action. We take several shots.
Meanwhile Rich gets a call from the office. The annual meeting with the photographers that he and I always attend is happening and we're late to attend! We finish up and bid Spidey farewell, dashing back to the office where we have our meeting (they totally understand us being late).
Dick Powers' granddaughter Emma is there, carrying on the family tradition by being one of our NEW photographers!!!
We finish that meeting, then Rich practices his speech where I can both listen and work on my computer at the same time. I get him to slow it down a bit. By 1:30 p.m. we're outside the building at the Salmon Springs Fountain. I've visited with the men fixing the fountain to turn it on tomorrow for the festival! Exciting. Then I shoot photos of the gathering meeting for the Naito Pilot Project (described as a temporary opening of public space and traffic safety during the festival). There are several TV cameras and tons of photographers there -- and I'm right next to the guys from Portland Public Parks.
After that Rich and I go have lunch. Marilyn hasn't felt well in the morning, so she's eaten some yogurt and called it good. Rich and I go to the Turkey Place Deli (I had a tuna sand).
In the afternoon I help with an eNewsletter that Marissa is doing just for the Walk event. She did our actual eNewsletters last year, so she understands when I explain things about the code.
I also work on the website, making a CityFair change (which is tons of pages). I actually dozed off during that for a few seconds! The website is such a pain to work with. I also did News items.
One item was necessary because apparently an entire event we have for June 6 will NOT display correctly! So the only way to link people to it is to have a News item. Good grief. The other item was for Rich's speech for the earlier event...
I also helped Marilyn who was working on her Formation Area Map for the Grand Floral Parade -- but she actually did the work. She's great with graphics, but doesn't remember that software very well because she usually uses Apps on her iPad.
I also caught up on emails, which is a lot of work this time of year!
I should be posting photos, but I'm too tired to transfer them from other sources here to LiveJournal. Facebook had both my photos of Spidey and Angel, plus Marilyn posted a picture Marissa took of me lying on my back to get those photos!!! Hahaha.
Anyway, Marilyn and I were the last ones in the office, leaving at 8:00 p.m. We went shopping to pick up our meds.
I forgot to mention that she went to her dental appointment (without me) this afternoon. The news there isn't good. She currently has a serious infection, so we had to get her an antibiotic to take. Then they discussed the procedures that need to take place for her various dental woes, which are complicated. We're talking what sounds like 10,000 dollars worth of work (or more), so it's going to wipe out our savings. But we're both feeling lucky we can afford it at all. (Yes, that's WITH insurance.) After all, many people simply wouldn't have the money to do the work, period.
We were finally home by 9:00 and watched part of Dancing With The Stars. But I was tired and didn't feel that well, so I went in to lie down. I just woke up now and needed to blog. I also need to take my nighttime medications and to remove my contacts. Marilyn's asleep on the sofa.
We never had dinner...
The next two days are HUGELY BUSY for Marilyn and will be late nights. I'm staying HOME to do my work tomorrow (Marilyn will be way too busy to deal with me -- plus she'll be very late).
Forgot to mention that I had a meeting with Jillian who was back but still not feeling too well, about the GFP script (that I worked on yesterday). She's plugging away on that!
I also met with Ashley and Marissa about the Starlight Parade script, which should be done and given to ME to edit soon. I need 24 hours with it prior to it going to print THIS FRIDAY. (We need it for the meeting next Tuesday that I run -- and obviously Monday is a holiday for everyone besides us!
There's simply no way to convey how insanely busy it is at work right now. But I think the above list of work does give you an idea, anyway.
I'm sure I'm leaving things off that I did...
I'm tired, so I'm going to do my thing and head to bed soon.
I totally forgot to mention being up in the middle of the night LAST NIGHT in order to wash and do our hair! I recall being awake around 2:30 and washing my hair around 3:30. Then I gave in and went to bed at 4:00 and I remember that I heard Marilyn finally going to bed at 5:00.
I forgot (!!!) to bring my morning meds to work with me! At one point I was convinced that Marilyn's meds were mine (!!!), so I took several of HER pills. Good grief. Anyway, I tested my blood at one point WITHOUT MEDS (even those few I took of Marilyn's later) and I was 99! That's amazing. I'm still dealing with lows, clearly. But there's certainly no time now to see my nurse practitioner...
Tomorrow I'm hoping sister Sue and I can have coffee and chat at some point. I will have a lot of work to do in my home office, though. Plus I'd like to clean the kitchen up, do some laundry and maybe even color my hair.
I whacked at my own hair yesterday, as I've given up on getting it cut before the festival. We're going to try and work in a manicure next Saturday, as we both really need one.
And that was Tuesday. - Feeling:accomplished
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