the deep moans round with many voices

Yesterday morning I gave blood, after which I was so tired I decided not to go do any office work, let alone stage any apartments.

This, I think, is a side effect of getting older. It used to be that I could donate blood and then work a 9-hour retail shift the same day, but in the past couple years I have been noticeably draggy for a day or two after a donation.

I was still pretty tired today, but I hauled myself up to do coffee hour cleanup at FUSIT. It was more of a production than usual, since coffee hour was doubling as a presentation by the environmental committee and a representative from Cornell Cooperative Extension about energy efficient heating systems and was therefore held up in the annex instead of in the parlor. That meant the hospitality team had to use the annex sink and sterilizer, which are part of the youth group room and don't have much actual kitchen apparatus around to make things run smoothly.

It was starting to rain by the time we wrapped up at 1:15pm, which of course increased my desire to sleep. However, I had pre-purchased tickets to a 3pm chamber music concert by the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, so I ate lunch instead of napping. Today's concert featured a Brahms string sextet and a Schoenberg string sextet (from before he abandoned keys and jumped into tone rows). I made the mistake of sitting next to a radiator and almost fell asleep several times, but the music was very good and I am glad I went.

For obvious reasons, I took a 2-hour nap immediately upon returning home! I have since then been puttering around doing nothing in particular, but the afternoon/evening rain seems to have finally let up, so it's time to take the recycling out to the curb and go to bed.

As of a couple years ago, I accidentally got myself onto all four of FUSIT's hospitality teams.

The idea behind hospitality teams is that you sort the congregation into quarters, and each quarter does ushering, coffee hour, etc. for one month before handing off to the next team. Taking summer services into account and doing either September or May on an ad hoc basis, this means every member is only on the hook for a few small things on a couple weeks each year, and hopefully it spreads the labor across a broader swath of the congregation. In practice, there are some stalwarts on each team, a bunch of other people who will maybe volunteer for one task one time per year if you poke them multiple times, and a LOT of people who ask to be removed for whatever reason -- that's standard for any opt-out volunteer project.

But because I actively enjoy washing dishes, I tend to volunteer for cleanup on every week my team is up -- and because the people coordinating the teams noticed that, I got put on the "will fill in when needed" mailing list, and made an official member of every team.

This is not really an issue -- like I said, I actively enjoying washing dishes, and I usually volunteer to bring snacks as well, because baking brownies or buying some cheese and crackers is not a hardship for me. But it does mean that once tax season gets into full swing, I have to remind people that nope, I can't do cleanup until tax day. I am going to be at work instead.

Today was the first day that really kicked in, so I did a quick drive-by to drop off this week's cheese and crackers and then vanished to the sound of lamentations :)

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My shift at Not the IRS was very boring. I had no appointments, and there were no phone calls. The only thing of interest I did was scan some documents for other tax preparers, since I have been stuck sitting at the desk with the scanner because the computer in the cubicle where I prefer to sit has been broken for three weeks now.

I mostly killed time by watching some videos for a Coursera class I am taking for free (Christian women's spirituality in the European middle ages), and reading another chapter of Bridge and Tunnel Boys, which is a book about Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. The course is interesting, but I need to watch the videos with subtitles. The book is also interesting, but DESPERATELY needed another proofreading pass.

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I left work a bit early, after blocking off my schedule with a fake appointment. (I have begun using Nick as my placeholder client.) I had to resort to this scheduling sleight of hand because management did NOT take me off the schedule even though I told them two weeks ago that I wouldn't be available after 2:30pm.

I then attended a chamber music concert by the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. I very nearly decided not to go -- this is because I parked, got out of my car into the pouring rain, and then suddenly realized I'd forgotten to bring my ticket. By the time I got back to my apartment to retrieve the ticket, I was feeling grumpy and uninclined to go back out into the rain. But I reminded myself that animals need enrichment in their enclosures and that I knew I would enjoy the concert, and managed to prod myself back out the door.

I did, as predicted, enjoy the concert. :)

Tax day is Tuesday the 18th and after that I am FREE.

...until then, I am booked solid at the tax office and my main job is also getting busy, which is not an ideal combination, blargh.

I did give myself a small treat this evening! I went to a NYS Baroque concert (Marcella/Marcello, "Cantatas and instrumental music by Benedetto Marcello and his wife Rosanna Scalfi Marcello"), which I enjoyed very much despite getting hushed by another attendee when I got a little too caught up in the beat of a very fast and rhythmically oriented piece and started tapping on the back of the seat in front of me, whoops.

And on that note, I will go fall into bed and get some sleep before Sunday's tax prep marathon.

Today was a very slow day at work, aside from the part where the on-call maintenance guy called to see if I could go let a Collegetown tenant back into their apartment so he wouldn't have to drive to and from Ithaca (90-minute round trip) and charge the tenant a $75 lockout fee.

I said sure, drove up to Collegetown to fix the issue, and promptly got my left rear bumper mangled. *headdesk* Collegetown traffic and parking has always been a disaster, but it's twice as bad this year since several blocks of important roads are totally closed for construction projects, so every other road gets even more gummed up.

Honestly, I am shocked that I have never had any car accidents/damage there before now.

I will call either my Toyota dealer or a bodyshop on Monday and schedule a repair appointment for Tuesday afternoon.

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In better news, this evening I attended an NYS Baroque concert featuring music by Vivaldi and some contemporaries inspired by his work. It was lovely! The instruments involved were harpsichord, violin, cello, lute, theorbo (which is basically a lute with its own attached bass strings), chalumeau (weird period ancestors of clarinets) in two registers, period recorder, period oboe, and period bassoon.

The oboist (Geoffrey Burgess) was very good -- I am a lapsed oboist myself, so I always pay close attention to oboe players and parts -- but I was absolutely blown away by the bassoonist (Stephanie Corwin).

A few days ago I got an email from Delta saying one of my vacation flights had been cancelled (no details as to which), they would try to auto-rescheduled me, but I should contact them to make sure I got rescheduled onto new flights that worked with my plans.

This has been A Week, and I have come home basically fried and useless every day, but tonight I finally had a free hour and enough spoons to take action. So I looked up my trip itinerary on the Delta website, and discovered... that I was booked on the exact same flights at the exact same times as the last time I checked. Which was baffling, so I called Delta to see if I was missing something.

After about thirty minutes of hold music from some hell dimension, I explained the situation to a Delta agent, who confirmed that my itinerary was indeed what I had found on the website. She had no explanation for the email. Current best theory is a random computer glitch. I mean, it's possible it was triggered by the multiple schedule changes Delta ran me through in April, but that was literally a whole month ago, so that feels threadbare.

I am annoyed at having to emotionally deal with this stress over what turned out to be nothing. :(

...

On a brighter note, tonight I went to a very nice concert via NYS Baroque, featuring the Diderot Quartet and baritone Jesse Blumberg. They performed various Lieder by Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, as well as a Haydn string quartet and a Felix Mendelssohn string quartet, with a Robert Schumann Lied for an encore. It was lovely, despite the continuing heat. (Today hit about 95 Fahrenheit, and was humid to boot. UGH. Tomorrow should have a high of about 85 F, after which a thunderstorm should break the heat for a few days.)