Ternaugh

I'm not sure if this should be in the Nice Happy thread, or here, which I guess describes a lot of life events. I'm back from Maine. Mom's apartment has been cleaned out, the mail set to forward to me, and the keys turned back in to the office. I had a wonderful chat with several of the folks there, from the director, through the administrators, to the maintenance people. All of them really liked her, and her sudden death touched each of them. I talked to the director again on Thursday, and he was inspired by our conversation about Mom to help a motorist in distress on the Interstate--a way of passing along Mom's belief of watching out for each other, helping those who need it. In that spirit, pretty much everything that could be used by someone in her apartment has been passed along--kitchen goods and non-perishable food to the senior council at the retirement community, her walker and cane to someone who could use it, a bunch of clothes and linens to Goodwill. Her window air conditioner will be cleaned up by the maintenance folks, and set up for someone in the community that wouldn't necessarily be able to afford one. I've taken a small amount of family documents (including my Dad's Army Air Corps certificate from 1943, something that I didn't even know still existed), and a few family photos, as well as some happy memories of times shared with her. I went over to my Aunt and Uncle's house on Thursday, and picked up a picture of Mom that used to hang on my Grand-mere's wall, as well as a few other documents. Sadly, my Aunt has been hard at work isolating my Uncle from his family, and Thursday was no exception. She had her kids and grandchildren around the kitchen table, and announced casually that there didn't seem to be enough chairs to seat me. I smiled, and said, "That's okay. I understand," while trying not say what I was thinking. My Mom was extremely intelligent with a quick wit, and a sometimes sharp tongue. I've learned to hold mine, as I did then, but I longed to say, "That's okay, I never really expected a seat at your table." I was only able to talk with my Uncle for a few minutes before other matters pulled him away. He asked if I might stop by Friday, and I said that I'd try. Friday afternoon, I completed closing out Mom's bank account and safe deposit box, and called my Aunt and Uncle's cell phone. It rang about 6 times before I was shuffled to a message that the voice mail wasn't set up. I tried again Saturday after I checked out of my hotel room, but the phone rang 5 times before the same message came. I tried the home phone number, and she answered, and explained in a flat, cold voice that it wasn't a good time to come over, because they were preparing to go to a meeting* in Augusta at 1 PM (it was about 11 AM then, Augusta is about 20 miles away by Interstate). I apologized for disturbing them, and asked her to relay my love to my Uncle. I didn't push; I doubt that she would have turned over the phone to him. It was with a sense of melancholy that I realized that the hurried conversation on Thursday will probably be the last time that I see him face-to-face. My Aunt has been systematically cutting my Uncle off from any family that he had, and, sadly, she's pretty much completed her mission. I had said my goodbyes to the other family members Thursday and Friday, and, for the most part, they seemed to have calmed down over the last few days. "The lamp" was still an issue (a Tiffany-style reproduction shade), but I'm pretty sure that it was broken some time ago. I offered to buy another lamp if it would make peace with everyone, and that has apparently ended the discussion without the person coming forward to take me up on the offer. I found out from my Mom's cousin's son that the morning that Mom passed he saw 5 crows across the street, watching everything quietly, and not moving from the spot. I figure that was the full extended family: the mother and father crows, junior and its mate, and the baby from last year. Friday morning, I was putting out the trash and found a weathered crow feather on the lawn, placed where I would see it (but not where they would leave gifts). I examined it, but returned it to its spot, as I think that it might be a remembrance for them. The place used to have a bunch of squirrels and birds that would visit and hang around, but this week, I've only seen one squirrel, a hummingbird, and a chickadee feeding at the next-door neighbor's feeders. And now, I'm back home, taking a short rest before returning to work tomorrow. It's funny, I usually have a song playing in my head just about all of the time. During this week, the default choices were "The Closing of the Year" from the Toys soundtrack ("If I cannot bring you comfort/Then at least I bring you hope"), and the Warren Zevon song, "Lawyers, Guns and Money" ("Send lawyers, guns, and money/The sh*t has hit the fan"). *Her AA family is "very important" to her.

Well, I've tried to write this post about 3 times a few days ago, but the hotel Wi-Fi kept eating it.... I watched BvS on the plane ride up to Maine. Lots of stuff happened, many a sequel was set up, key comic book panels were shown to apparently give deep meaningful moments, and almost no one looked like they were having any fun doing it. I found myself frequently checking the progress bar on the video, wondering when they'd get to the point, or whether I'd be better off doing something else for the remainder of the flight. Simply said, they managed to make superheroes boring. I did enjoy some of it. I'm firmly convinced that there's the seed of a really great detective/spy movie hiding in there with Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince that I'd have paid money to see, but it was sadly over too soon. The banter between Alfred and Batman was enjoyable, and I'm still looking forward to more Wonder Woman. I'm probably not going to see Suicide Squad until it hits video/Netflix. I'm not really invested with the characters, but I understand if others like it.

Gewing, I'm sorry that you're going through that.For this year, my work eliminated the 80/20 PPO for a high deductible monstrosity like you mention. I'm lucky, though, because they also had an HMO that I could switch to. My regular doctor's not on the HMO list, however, so we have made other arrangements for office visits.

Today would have been Mom's 76th birthday. I celebrated by eating a rare steak and a rich dessert (that I shouldn't have), and tipping the server $20 on a $25 order. The day's actually been pretty good. I'm almost done with sorting through Mom's stuff, I dropped off her cable box to the company, and called up her telephone company to cancel service. The cable box owes the estate $11, which they'll send as a check, and the phone company will send a final bill to me (which will be probably 10x that, knowing the phone company). I haven't had to deal with any relatives today, so that's a bonus. I've mentioned before that Mom used to feed the animals around her house, including a family of crows. I hadn't seen any of them for the last couple of days, until today. One of the crows was keeping a lookout in a tree across the street, and as I went out to check her mailbox, I heard a call from it that I always associated with when I'd feed them, or when I'd put the trash out during previous visits. On the way back from the mailbox, two other crows arrived, and all were visible on the lawn watching me, and keeping an eye on her house. we looked at each other (at a distance), and then they all quietly took flight. I have no doubt that they know she isn't there, and I almost took it to be paying respects.

So, it seems that a police officer was the one who walked Mom's set of keys to her apartment to the office on Friday--after they called for backup to deal with my relatives who were in the apartment at the time. They then almost got trespassed from the office for bad behavior trying to get the keys back. Back on Friday, I was juggling the various calls to and from relatives, work assignments, arranging with HR and my boss's boss for bereavement and leave of absence, and occasionally trying to look up tickets for the flight. I ended up having my session time out a couple of times from inactivity (locking your computer and coming back 30 or 40 minutes later will do that), but the last time, the site just didn't want to pull up results. So I gave up, and decided to buy the tickets later on Priceline. Later arrives, and I start configuring everything. Basically, my choices are always American Airlines (post-merger) and Delta. I prefer Delta because the seat pitch on the smaller jet is terrible on American, and generally the level of amenities was a little higher. The "let us get the lowest price" deal came up American. Well, so be it, Delta's site was the one that gave me the timeouts before. Yesterday was my travel day, and I got up really early for my flight, and looked at a news site, only to see that Delta's computers decided that they wanted a vacation, and there were massive delays and cancelations. I had never been so happy that my tickets were with American Airlines in my life. Even though I told one of my relatives that I'd call when I got settled in the hotel, I received a call on my cell as I was waiting at the light to turn into the driveway. I explained that I was going to go down the following morning, and get the keys, and call them sometime afterward. So far, so good. This morning, I met Mom's medical technician, who was going to do a few things around the apartment to help me out, and to turn in her set of keys to me so that I could return them to the office later in the week. That meant, of course, that I get a call about an hour later asking "what is she doing there?" (They've obviously driven by and seen her car). I've had enough of this crap, and calmly stated, "Right now, she's cleaning out the toilet." My relative then starts to go into a tirade about the medical technician, and I demonstrated, at an extended volume, my knowledge of colorful metaphors and their application in expressing displeasure. That got a response of "and I want my lamp back!" before she hung up. I waited for several minutes before calling back and informing her that she is welcome to any lamp in the house, as I don't really know which is hers. I've been reinvited to dinner tonight, and I'm about to leave right after I finish this to go there. There are not enough words to express my joy at having dinner with them tonight (though a few colorful metaphors might do).

Trump was a no-go for me ever since one of his branded entities told a former boss of mine that they had no intention to pay the final payment for our software because they didn't really have to, that they'd sue our company if we stopped supporting the product (without us receiving any further payments), and if we didn't like it, we could sue them, but they didn't believe that we had enough resources to carry through the years of litigation necessary to collect.

Ebert started out with SF fandom (fanzines) before he went into journalism. I believe that it's why he'd rate movies on the merits of the film compared to others in the genre, as well as whether it was just a great movie in general.

A little over an hour ago, I received a call from the humane society in Mom's town--it seems that Mom's med-tech managed to sneak them in to rescue the cat. They've promised to try to find him a good, quiet home, and will have him up on their adoption page soon. It's probably some of the best news that I've heard all day. Work normally gives 3 days for bereavement, but it takes me pretty much a whole day to fly up and a whole day to fly back. They're going to let me burn a few vacation days on short notice to pad out the trip. Thank you all for your condolences and prayers, it is deeply appreciated.

Phone rang just as my alarm went off, was my Mom's number. Her med-tech found her dead this morning. That part I can deal with. It's the damn family who live near her who all swooped in and have to put their egos into things. They've already decided to have animal control come in and euthanize her cat. They're pissed off that I asked to make sure that the apartment was locked up by the med-tech (who has the key) because she isn't "family". And another one is confused as to why they have a safety deposit box key left with them for me if they aren't allowed to open it by the bank.

The layout reminds me of the program ads in TV Guide when I was growing up. It just needs a blank space for the local affiliate information and time/day.

I think that it may be fancy modern wording for "long pork" from very specific sources. You know, like certified organic Soylent Green.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/7/30/1554556/-Sham-Group-Election-Justice-USA-Set-Up-By-Dead-Enders-To-Smear-Hillary

We're in the mirror universe where Spock has a handlebar.

Looks like a warped one of these: http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Sontaran

"Hail, Hydra!"

"Do you want me to pull this convention over?" "But Mom! They started it first!"

So, it's Australian poutine?

Disney in the early 80s was a studio in trouble, and they really didn't know how to break out of the "G" ratings, and into more adult material*. I'm sure that the powers that be had approved Something Wicked This Way Comes without realizing just how dark the film would be, and I can understand them having some jitters about the director's cut that was handed to them. They spent another $5 million on changing the score, rewriting and reshooting several of the scenes with a new director. There are some scenes that are referenced on the Intrada CD release that correspond to parts which were completely changed during those reshoots. Here's a sample of what the score was like**: *It was Michael Eisner who ultimately found a way for Disney to do "R" rated movies--by releasing them under the Touchstone Pictures imprint. Eisner took over Disney in 1984, the year after Something Wicked was released. **I'd recommend going to the Intrada site and listening to some of the available tracks. The "Main Theme" is actually a bit more intense than the portion referenced in the Youtube clip, and the "Calliope (Mr Dark Theme)" and "Mirrors" are definitely moody. http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.9969/.f

"Funeral March - Version 1 (Mr. Dark Theme)" from the unused Georges Delerue soundtrack for Something Wicked This Way Comes. The score was seen as "too dark", and the movie was re-scored by James Horner before its release.

I voted for him in 1988, mainly because he wasn't Michael Dukakis.

That actually looked entertaining.

I can understand that. Many of the big candy companies have been tinkering with their chocolate mixtures (taking out cocoa butter and substituting in palm and coconut oils), and I generally find the results to be somewhere between blah and disgusting. I'm generally good with the premium chocolates, but then I eat only a very small amount, before I'm done. I also find that, when I'm out, there are very few chocolate desserts that I really enjoy, because they don't really have enough contrast in flavors*. *One of the local pubs does a chocolate bread pudding with a stout-based hard sauce. It's extremely good, but also requires several friends to finish.

Shadows on the sun Another night's begun It's always dark in Luna Park Wind across the moon Electric storms and soon a flying spark in Luna Park And when we're getting higher we're happy Somebody's eating fire we're happy The big wheel in the sky will make you scream Come on, join a line The ghost train leaves on time It's always dark in Luna Park On the shooting range the plastic prizes never change So make your mark on Luna Park And when we're getting higher we're happy Somebody's eating fire we're happy The big wheel in the sky will make you scream Thunder. I wonder? A storm will come one day to blow us all away like dust on the moon In Luna Park it can't be dark too soon A storm is coming soon Like dust on the moon Every night we go to the latest horror show and hear the screams in Luna dreams Fortune-tellers muse on palms that bode bad news The future's dark in Luna Park And when we're feeling scared we're happy With circuses and bread we're happy The whirling fair machines are all we need Thunder. I wonder? A storm will come one day to blow us all away like dust on the moon In Luna Park it can't be dark too soon

Definitely, feel better soon.