Low Hgl is a PIA

Slept well. Stayed in bed till 9, no rats woke me up for a change. Spook spent some time on the bed, but mostly spent the night in the guest room cat bed and in both bedroom closets. It got cool overnight.

Started in on the to-do list with marigolds. Needed the big shovel to break up the dry ground where the bee's friend flower patch had been, dug a trench deep enough to plant the 4" marigold pots, minus the pots. Flooded the trench, planted the flowers, filled in around them. Next step was to rake the rest of the BF patch, throw about 1,000 marigold seeds in, and rake the dirt over them, then water everything.

By now it is about 80°, so I took a breather inside.

Next was pulling out a section of ice plant which looked pretty scraggly, rake all the redwood chips to the side, and plant 4 4" pots of ground cover, filling in with the rake & shovel, then watering.

Another breather.

Back outside, the project was to move the dirt from between the back of the house and the retaining wall, which was done first with a wide broom, then with the jet spray setting on both the hoses (one on each side of the house). After seeing what that revealed, it was clear that pushing steel wool into the little gaps on the carport side of the house was a joke as far as rat control goes, I'll need to move some bricks against the back of the house, but not today.

Another breather, watched bits of the Maryland-WVA game and Cal-UW. Was not pleased with either of them.

Lunch was a bagel from work yesterday, with cheese, hard boiled egg and white fish piled in there. Ice cream bar for dessert. I shot up my usual pre-meal insulin, which usually covers ice cream pretty well.

At about 3:30 started feeling totally whacked, so I took a nap. Set the alarm for 5, woke up at 4:30, back to sleep and let the alarm wake me. Still felt whacked & disoriented. Hgl level was 57. Had another ice cream bar, and some chocolate milk when that didn't pull me up enough.

6:30, off to Palo Alto, read in the park behind the theater until the box office opened, and there was much to watch, picnics and a girl scout troupe which started in the GS building, then went to the playground, then to the field where they played a variation on tag. "It" would tag someone, then the two would do rock-paper-scissors, with the loser sitting on the gress, out of the game and the winner the new "it".

Got my ticket, sat in the lovely wooden seats in front of the theater (there's a garden) and read some more. At 7:45, put the Nexus back in the car, then went inside to see Chicago.

I had great expectations, because many friends gave it rave reviews. But it was the biggest WTF of the year for me. The director went way overboard stylizing it. First thing is the orchestra is on tiers which start halfway upstage and go to the back of the stage. They are all dressed in B&W, with roaring 20's costume touches. This means there is no way for the orchestra to not drown out the singers. The theater has a pit, and the acoustics are all wrong for an on-stage orchestra.

Hanging from the proscenium was a bed sheet which had been torn in several places, including in half horizontally, and roughly stitched together, sort of. Distressed, is what they call it. Before opening, the logo of the musical was projected on it, but with all the distressing it was unreadable. They did a cute thing where they projected some 20's era movie clips as the overture played, and interspersed in that were the usual announcements such as "here are the exits" and "silence your cell phones", but the text was where the center crease was, so unreadable.

The cast was miked, but only the featured singers, so they sounded artificial while the chorus could not be heard hardly at all.

And then there was the costumes. Or lack thereof. The chorus/dancers were in underwear. The women were in unflattering knickers with garter belt and stockings, and a bra or chemise. The men were in long johns or T-shirts and long-leg tightie whities. At times the men wore pants, but not shirts, or shirts but not pants. The six women convicts sometimes wore a plain one-piece button-down-the-front shift in mottled grey, with a sewn on off-white almost a rectangle with a not quite black ID number. These were done by hand in pen instead of stenciled, and they were all slightly different. Mama's uniform was an Army general's.

The choreography was way overdone, the audio was painful to listen to, and Roxy was boring. And she kept hitting wrong notes.

I left at halftime.

Home, fired up the laptop, loaded some updates, did a virus scan and tried out the new (from amazon) power adapter. Instantly got a message that the power supply was not the right one, and the unit might not charge. And sure enough, it only charged for a few seconds. Pulled that and hooked up the one which came with the laptop. And ordered an official one from Dell. And a spare battery.

Plans for tomorrow:
Maybe do the brick thing
YOTB concert & potluck - need to stop off somewhere for something to bring

Potluck is pot luck

Slept well again. As soon as I was ready to get up, Spook decided to join me in bed, close enough for me to pet her. For 30 seconds.

Lazy morning, overcast and not very hot, but it was going to be a summer-like day so I wore the black cutoffs I'd made from a pair of $10 Walmart pants. They have my size in dress pants, but not in cutoffs. Go figure. And my YOTB uniform polo shirt & cap.

Watched some football, wrote some FB posts, inspected yesterday's garden and back-of-the-house work, then left for Los Altos.

Stopped at Safeway, bought goodies for the potluck. There was plenty of parking in the two lots at park level, and since this would be my last time there, I grabbed a spot. Brought my goodies into the clubhouse so they didn't melt in the car, then walks to the far side of the park and started reading a new book on the Kindle app, Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal. I had put off reading it because it had been hyped as a romance novel, but it didn't take long to see it is a fantasy work in the form of a romance novel. The reason I finally gave in is Mary is a heck of a writer. Her Hugo winning The Lady Astronaut of Mars is a miracle of story telling.

As I read, my peripheral vision picked up the work I was shirking, someone had already set up all the chairs, and pairs of people were bringing out the risers. But this time there was a difference. In the past, we carried them, this time they had discovered they had wheels. So it was not much work at all, and I decided not to run over there to help.

Put the Nexus back in the car at about 1 pm, and hauled my horn & music stand to the concert area. We started a few minutes after 1:30, and it was a pretty good concert. The conductor singled out my section in for praise in one of the numbers where we had a soli. When he was thanking people for helping set up, he mentioned me. I had helped last month, so I didn't say anything.

Our last concert of the year, followed by the traditional potluck. This year's offerings were less than usual, both in variety & quantity. But there was enough. Ditto with desserts. I sat with some people I did not know, who turned out to be rookies. A new French Horn player, and a new Tuba player and friends who had come to hear them. I got some gardening tips.

Home, changed into civvies, unloaded laundry from the dryer and started another in the washer. Watered the plants I'd planted yesterday, tied a tomato vine to the trellis.

Two boxes from Amazon were delivered. In one was a tea kettle (to replace the Revere Ware one which heats up the handle as much as the water) and three knock-off Epson black ink cartridges for the printer which does checks, shipping labels and card stock. In the other box was a hot oil diffuser and two vials of camphor oil. And four boxes of cat treats. Under separate cover, as they say, will be oils of menthol, peppermint, eucalyptus and something called "breathe easy".

Fast forwarded through the Raiders' game on Tivo, was pleased with the outcome but not with their 2nd half meltdown. Watched the end of the Denver game live,  was displeased with the Lions' almost-but-not-quite offense. Golden Tate is wasted there, he needs to go back to Seattle.

Dinner was a couple of pieces of fish fillet and some mini egg rolls, because they have been floating around in the freezer for long enough to clog the works.

Finally changed the SodaStream charger, which has not been producing much for the last week. Now it bubbles just fine.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Call the denture clinic for an appointment for Tuesday
Flu shot? Maybe not with the cough still hanging on
Look at the schedule for Convolution (which is next weekend) and see if it has enough to make me want to go. I totally blew it by not putting my name in for panels.