Stormy weather

The rain and wind commenced Wednesday, early.  It seems I'd only just heard Laura leave when a clap of thunder rattled everything. I looked at the clock to see if I should get my sorry self up to the bus stop, but, fortunately, it was 6:40, and the bus better have left.

I got to work early, to get payroll done, the rest of the bills paid, and everything in order for the night's board meeting. I had a project to finish at the house before the 1 pm knitting group meeting. That project did not happen because the electricity went out. It had stopped raining, so we neighbors commiserated up and down the street about the state of utilities, until the chilly air drove us in for warmth.

But, there is no warmth inside with no electricity to circulate it around the house. I decided to go to work to keep warm. Kendall Road, down into the valley, was closed near the top. Not a good sign. I turned around and went down SR 303.

The first clue was there at the bottom, in Peninsula. The traffic lights were swinging wildly in the wind, and not working. Most of us were politely making a four way stop of the intersection, but in waiting my turn, I counted more than a few had no idea why the car in front stopped, and went on through the intersection with them.

At the town hall, at 303 and Riverview, Riverview was closed. There was no problem apparent in the few hundred feet to the town hall drive, so I squooze the car past the barricade and went on down. One garage door was open, so I moseyed on in there to hear the latest. The road crew was just in from clearing roads of fallen trees, and it did not look good.

I came home and took a nap until time to pick up Laura from book club. The power was on in Hudson. I think the sun was shining, too. Laura and I went to a restaurant for supper, because you cannot cook in an all electric house with no electric. 

My neighbor texted me; the power was back in my little house on top of the hill. I texted the road super, expecting the same. However, no power in the valley. No word from the powers that be cancelling the meeting, though, and I went back down.

Our meeting was not cancelled, though it was among our shortest in my thirteen years. This morning the road super texted me, "Don't rush down here. Still no power." I didn't rush, but I did go, to get the bills in envelopes and mailed while there was sunlight to see. I still had to rig up a flash light to see well.

On my way home, behind a county road crew. The fellow by the middle truck swore at me as he waved me around. Road crews probably have not been to bed in the last 36 hours. That middle truck lifts tree trunks up and off the road.

Like this one, further up the road. Look at all the scrape marks across the pavement, to the other side. The winds were up to sixty mph, I read in today's paper.

In like a lion

I seem to be on a whippersnapper rant of late. After hours on hold to enroll the township bank account in on-line access, and another two hours of staring down a bank manager, yesterday I pulled the February bank statement. There were no copies of checks. The bank told me to call my account manager. I’ve left him two voice messages to date. Townships are required to have copies of all cancelled checks. Don’t ask why.

There was meeting in February for instructions on reporting the township’s waste. Don’t ask. 

It’s called the SummitAkronSolidWasteManagementAuthority. Tim and I used to call it Sa-swampa. It’s a quasi-governmental authority. They collect fifty cents per ton from all waste haulers operating in the county (Summit), and redistribute it to foster recycling. Every municipality receives a “grant” based on population. There is a not too complicated application involved, and an on-line report no one understands, including the people who run Sa-swampa.

I have not attended the mandatory meeting for the last several years because I cannot walk the approximately one mile from parking to the meeting and back again. Last year all the old employees of Sa-swampa retired, and new whippersnappers came in. I de-RSVPed the meeting. I downloaded, completed and sent in the application for our $707. I assembled our waste hauler information for last year. I called Sa-swampa, because I refuse to attempt this report unaided.

There is a new whippersnapper in charge of a new form. We both struggled. In my defense, it is her form, not mine. At some point she icily informed me “this is why we encourage you to come to the meeting.” Long pause as I attempted to regain my composure, but I failed. “You do know I cannot walk,” I replied in an equally uncivil tone.  She struggled on. In the end the form was submitted incomplete. She was crying. I didn’t care.

Oh, did I mention the tornado in the middle of the night as March first dawned. For thirty years I lived in a house with a basement dug into the side of a hill, and missed the only tornado, in 1988, because I was driving in it. Now I live in a trailer!

I knew this one could happen, and I slept restlessly, waiting for it. I listened to awful wind and wondered if my rain barrel would survive. I heard raindrops hit it like sling shotted rocks. At 5:45 my storm alert blasted me out of bed. I turned on the local TV, with the same message. We went into Laura’s closet, with pillows.

K texted from the old house, “Tornado warning. Want to come over?” I answered we were staying in the closet, it was that imminent. Straight line winds in the sixty mile per hour range raged past. The all clear was 6:30. We got dressed and went our ways to school and work.  Note to the future: next time go to the bathroom first. The next 45 minutes will be far more comfortable.

February friends. I've sat in my car fifteen minutes at a time watching them. Sparrows don't disperse until I get out of the car and approach them.

Aconite at the library. I neglected to add aconite bulbs to my list last fall. Next spring I'll have them, too.

It can’t be fixed

My township moved its meager funds from the Bank of Peninsula to the Bank of Hudson, eight miles down the road. That was in the late twenties, just before the Bank of Peninsula closed its doors.  Bank of Hudson has survived for close to a hundred years, under one name or another. Its iteration when I became my township’s clerk was First Merit Bank.

The second thing I did as clerk was go into First Merit and tell them I wanted to look at the township account on line and, gasp, glup, get monthly statements there. In 2004 this was a new concept to this bank, but the threat of moving our substantial cash flow to another bank got their attention, and they enrolled us.

Fast forward to last year, when First Merit had become a relatively weak bank. They faced down several takeover attempts during my terms of office, but last year Huntington Bank closed the deal. We received multiple warnings and instructions by mail; this transition would happen over President’s Day Weekend. Beginning last Tuesday, I could enroll our account again.

I made no enrollment progress by Wednesday evening, when I did report to the trustees that Huntington has achieved a new low in juvenile intelligence; the recorded voice on hold sooths me: “Thank you for your patience. The next available Customer Care Callee will be with you momentarily.”

I listened, mesmerized, trying to decipher and understand “callee.” It finally came to me. I was the caller, and the poor call center person is the callee.

When I finally got through, one time, that person could not help me because Huntington had directed me to the wrong department. I went back into the endless caller loop until I hung up and went home.

Thursday, I called the help line, put the phone on speaker and laid the receiver on my desk while I worked for the next three hours waiting for the next available Customer Care Callee.  Friday, ditto.

Today I went to Huntington in Hudson. It is grass green, and every wall screams WELCOME. There is a white board that says, “Yep, you have come to the right bank.” I joined the end of the line of disgrunt-er’s waiting for a banker.

When my turn came, I told my disgruntee it was Huntington’s last opportunity to retain a hundred year old account that currently has a lot of money in it (real estate tax settlement I cannot access and move to investment!). When I left, I would have access to the account or it was adios to a lot of cash flow.

I stared over the desk for one hour as my disgruntee made phone call after phone call. She even put her phone on speaker and left the office to consult with another disgruntee.  In the end, success.

I missed cards with the Methodists. I am not happy.

Closer to spring

We had the six a.m. call today; school is cancelled. Not surprising; freezing rain forecast and freezing rain the obvious meteorological phenomena when I actually got up at 8. In the Secret Life of Grandma, which Laura puzzles over occasionally, “Eight am is when you get up and school starts.” But, not today.

It was thirty one degrees here, all day, until an hour ago, when it rocketed to forty. That is a diversion, so we won’t believe we will wake up again tomorrow to thirty one and freezing rain, and probably another snow day for school.

I eventually went to work, a treacherous jaunt behind and in front of folks who have no idea how to drive in winter. Hint: do not try to idle through slush and snow. Without power to the wheels, you car is nothing but a two ton sled, that cannot be controlled. Grrrrr…

To continue, it was awful getting into the door at work, and that after the road guys unloaded ten pounds of calcium whatever on the bricks that should not be called a sidewalk. They glazed over again as soon as more rain filled all the nooks and crannies.

Once behind my desk, I finished up the monumental country dance that is closing one year and opening another in government accounting. There is a trustee meeting tomorrow, the annual organizational meeting, as well as forty or fifty odd checks to sign (we call them warrants), so best to be as organized today as possible.

My mother-in-law gave me that Revereware pot when I was married, in 1964

Another side bar: for five years I attended the meetings of one township board to take minutes. I have no membership on the board, or authority (of course), but I do like two of the board members well enough to see the minutes are properly taken. I was notified of a meeting tonight, and I simply said to the nice board member, “You’re on your own. Herself (who is the Secretary of the Board), who despises my snotty attitude, can take her own minutes.” I’ll pay for that tomorrow, and don’t give a rat’s patoot.

After I came home and ate a very late lunch, I asked the kid who wonders about the Secret Life of Grandma if she would like to go to Jan’s new studio and deliver the armload of quilt tops we have finished. And, so we did. Jan sent me a picture of a couple. Remember the tree? It’s ready to have its binding whipped down.

There was a bonanza surprise. Right next door to the studio is the deli where I buy pierogis (in the Secret Life of Grandma). Laura got to pick. We have a six pack each of mashed potato and cheddar, and chicken parmigiana (judgment reserved) in the freezer.

I'm just called for dinner. And it’s one day closer to spring.

Marking time

School recommences Wednesday.

We've watched a lot of movies.

Laura's explanation of sci-fi and horror movies finally sank in.

"They're not real, Gramma!"

Among others, I've now watched The Mummy and 2012.

Tonight we're queuing up Harvey and The African Queen. 

Laura spend a day shadowing at Elements Gallery, the porcelain studio in town.

She came home with a spoon rest and an invitation to come back.

I got the wonderful little man there. He's an egg separator.

We had egg separating issues when we baked cookies.

I once made 500 single bed quilt tops for my sister to quilt for shelters.

Emily moved out, and we made a sewing room

I asked Jan if she needed more tops.

Yes, she was down to the last three old tops to quilt.

I now have a layout artist, and a supervisor.

We've made quite a few. I'm not keeping track this time.

Laura irons them, too, which I am unable to do.

Jan used to iron them.

Win-win.

 And, I played cards with the Methodists today.

I keep my back to the refreshment table.

Those thumbprint cookies were really tempting, though.

And Wednesday I must get serious about closing 2016 and tidying up for the auditors. I did continue my unbroken streak of distributing W-2's and 1099's before the end of 2016.

That's thirteen years in a row.

Which means, three years and three months to go.

A fine Bazaar

For a couple of weeks I have passed the demure sign on the left,

announcing the Community Christmas Bazaar

to be held today, at our town hall.

Laura and I were there when it opened.

Our new road super had a hand in this.

Isn't he something.

We passed him in the hall, whistling while he worked.

There were more vendors this year,

everywhere we looked.

This is the township administration office,

converted for the day.

Someone you know is considering.

I bought ringing bells for our front door knob,

some more ornaments,

a Christmas sheep.

 I think Toby finds him extra interesting, so he's hanging with the stockings.

And some soap.

Tweaking technology

When we started the township web site some nine or ten years ago, one goal was to publish all the township minutes. All the minutes on 14" paper, held flat for a hundred years, I could scan and upload myself. But many machinations were involved. 

I used some forgotten Microsoft picture program to splice several pages of minutes of one meeting into a contiguous whole. I think I used the same program to strip extra pixels from the file, then used a free program to make a PDF file. All the years and years of minutes I first uploaded have PDF file created by free version of PDF Factory stamped across the bottom. Actually, meeting minutes I typed have the same information stamped; it was not until Windows 7 that Word could be saved as a PDF file.

At some point all minutes we had, from 1811 to present, were uploaded. The original 25 inch ledgers were outsourced to a scanning company, but I stood at the scanner and scanned, collated, resized and uploaded 1936 to present. It took a long, long time, and I simply labeled it my gift to the township. 

There were three gaps in our minutes. When some noble citizen took one missing book from his shelf and turned it in, I needed to think hard how to get these into usable format. Several computer upgrades later, I could not run several sheets through my photography program to make one set of the pages. Every solution I looked at cost more money than I cared to spend. The book of minutes sat on my credenza, awaiting inspiration.

One day and eureka. I realized that in scanning a document to an email (magic that is beyond me) I got one file with continuous pages if there were more than one page. A bit more experimenting and I realized the scan was a lovely PDF file that I could drag to desktop, then save and rename. Or rename and save. Such control. So, that found chunk of our history was scanned and sent to the servers. Two more books to find.

Not too long ago our township legal counsel decided to clean out a storage unit (and save the firm $400 a month!) He has been counsel for thirty odd years; he has a lot of files.He came into a meeting recently, dropped several battered expanding folders in front of me, and said perhaps I was looking for these. Several more missing years. Now we are down to only three years missing.

But the folders our attorney gave me look rode hard and put away wet. They have been stored on their 14" edge, the opposite edge unprotected from sleeves rubbing across them, other files dropped on top, and other indignities that happen to paper. The scanner at work is not a 14" flat bed; it is a workhorse 8 1/2 x 11 inch copier that handles 14 inch copies through a separate unit that sends the paper around a bend as it takes the picture. Adequate for paper nicely stored in a heavy binder all these years, but sure destruction to sheets with torn and ragged edges.

I consulted again with the trustee/historian/curator. We decided I needed archival tape. In the end we decided what the heck; good Scotch tape cannot be any worse than what the pages have suffered for the last thirty years. Forge on.

The very first page and I realized I could not get tape on the mangled tears until....

With a nothing to lose mindset, I went to work:

Edges too battered to go through the scanner:

A cotton towel for padding, a percale pillow case for protection, 

 My iron. I straightened those pages right out.

(Aside--this is the best iron I've ever owned. It's the same on both ends and doesn't make wrinkles ironing the back stroke.)

Scotch brand's finest "archival" tape.

Another important tool--the oblong hole punch, so those repaired pages still fit oblong posts in official Record of Proceedings binders.

Low tech scanning of 14" pages.

The ultimate discovery--that PDF file in an email that will never be sent can become a PDF file to send to the server in the clouds.

Drag it to the desk top,

and back to the working folder.

 I have two years scanned and uploaded.

A year a morning (or afternoon) is all my back will put up with.

But, where do I vote?

My camera has not been out for a spin for so long, I threw it over my shoulder this morning. There could be one decent picture lurking in our drought out landscape.

One turkey vulture hanging over the salt shed. Far fewer take their morning roost here, since the two dead trees were removed, after they fell, one through the salt shed roof.

You may recall, the vultures lay eggs on flat roofs, like the school house roof, and leave them to hatch. Or, roll over the edge.

I had a turkey vulture morning.

There was a call on my machine,

"I used to vote right there in your schoolhouse, but I moved to Parma. Where do I vote now?"

Actually, I do a lot of public service stuff.

The caller now lives in a different county, and needs to register the new address with the Board of Elections of the county.

So, I looked up that county's Board of Elections before I returned the call.

"Now you live in Cuyahoga County. You must register your new address with them, and they will tell you where to vote."

"How do I do that?"

"You can call them. The phone number is ......"

"I'm driving. Can you text it to me?"

I keep reading the expression "facepalm moment.' I used it, and then texted the number on my personal cell phone. I could call it a turkey vulture moment, but facepalm has it covered without knowing about eggs rolling off the roof.

I paid the bill for the blocks to build a new material bin. The old wooden bins were collapsing and rotted to dust, thirty or forty years later.

Of course there was controversy when the new road super asked for authorization to buy these blocks. The iconoclasts at the decision table could not bear the thought of concrete replacing the wood.

The new road super brought in a quote for building two new wooden storage bins. It was, of course, twice the cost of the concrete blocks. The decision makers compromised; one bin this year, one next.

Not before they had a decision maker conversation on how to make them more attractive, including placing them at an angle to the building. Eventually the person of no authority said, peevishly, "It's a road department yard for crying out loud. It will never be pretty; let it be."

The discussion moved along to real topics, and today I paid the bill.

Leaving, I encountered these tourists with four kayaks.  

"Where is the river?"

I sent them back the way they came in.

How can you miss a river when you crossed it on a bridge?

In closing, a stand of black eyed Susan's that the winter salt in the parking lot has never decimated.

Hardy things, black eyed Susan's.

Story number two would always have a happy ending, but it got better

 December 2012

You all recall, I know, the township property that interested me so I could be accused of stalking. It was a small family campground named Lazy Acres.

It was a fifties and sixties kind of place; then the laughter and fun moved on to new attractions. Lazy Acres went on the market, sold by the sons of the owners,(in their seventies, I learned) to two families; grandparents and one of their daughters and son-in-law.

March through September 2014

Demolition continued

Laura and I went exploring one day last summer

We found a big house and a little house.

The stuff of stories.

We decided the big house belonged to Mama and Papa,

the little house the Grandma and Grandpa.

I intended to stop back and meet someone, but I never saw anyone.

Yesterday I did.

I drove straight back, introduced myself, and confessed my obsession with the place.

I met the Grandparents, 

who live in this house, since last August.

Weekends, holidays, and come this summer,

thirteen grandchildren have the run of the main level.

How cool is that.

The little house belongs to a daughter and son-in-law, who hope to occupy it this summer.

Now, I must take my watermark off my collection of pictures, and send them to the grandparents.