A Local Multiverse

Vineyards. Old Churches. Abandoned train depots. Train tracks that no longer go anywhere. Sonoma is a very old, well-preserved town. You could fool yourself that it might be 1911.
But don't look too closely behind the carefully landscaped wineries to see the state of the art machinery that puts out 300,000 bottles(?) barrels(?) gallons(?) of wine a year. Giovanni the old winemaker isn't there--but there's a wing of chemists and professionally trained tasters.

Did you know that the roses planted so carefully along the edges of the vineyards are not to please the tourists? They use roses much the same way miners used canaries in coal mines:  the first nasty mold, virus or plague to come near the precious vines will be picked up first by the roses.

Look closer and you will see train tracks running everywhere but going nowhere.

The depot has graffiti and is now used to store pesticides. The nostalgia for all things trains can send one spiraling down pretty quickly--good thing the Irish Pub is close by.

A new discovery today was an old pump organ in the local Congregational Church.

My years working for churches stood me in good stead as I easily found the weak link in the security system and was able to uh, gain entry and snap some quick photos of a once-grand instrument that is now replaced by a piano. At least it was a real piano and not some appliance that pretends to be a piano.

Dang but it gets harder and harder to sort out the fake from the real. Parallel worlds--a Multiverse indeed.

Hey! You! Get Offa Mah Cloud

I take my technical continuing education seriously so when Amazon began the hard sell with its 'cloud' I was curious. After all, cloud sounds like such a nice concept. I was promised 5 somethings of free storage and if I bought even 1 MP3 album and put it on this cloud I could have 20 somethings free storage. Now, I don't understand a word of this but I knew something had to be done about storing some music for our RV trips.

Let me back up. My 12 loyal readers will know that I have suffered with a POS Dell laptop for 4 long years. It was born a lemon and it stayed a lemon with no recompense from Dell and left me with a lifelong determination to badmouth all things Dell for the rest of my days. I taunt you, you Dell people--your mothers are hamsters and your fathers smell of elderberries!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSo0duY7-9s&feature=related

Our last RV trip to Arizona left something to be desired in the music department.
http://toccatamundi.blogspot.com/2011/02/music-left-behind.html

So---when I read about keeping music on a cloud and being allowed to play that music from a total of 8 'devices', I thought I should pursue this.To sweeten the deal, Amazon went through a mad spree of giving away FREE MP3 downloads--if they went onto the cloud.



The cloud is like a TV--you don't have to understand it to use it. The free part I don't believe but all the free music was too much to ignore. Then they added the hook to sweeten the deal--the entire opera Don Giovanni for just $2.98!!!! That gave me my 20 somethings of storage for an entire year at no charge!

Now add a new laptop. Yes, the POS Dell is history and I'm trying out a new Sony Vaio. All the cloud settings have to be reset. In the midst of doing this I saw that Amazon was giving away a FREE album of Gregorian Chant. Somehow, I ended up with the new computer playing--I kid you not--simultaneously--a Bach Brandenburg Concerto, "Blessed Assurance"( free daily MP3 download) and the Gregorian Chant FREE album I was trying to upload to that cloud. I couldn't find any OFF button for the cloud. I could pause it but there would still be 2 of the 3 pieces going at once. Mr. T was practically begging for "Whiskey Lullaby."

I never did solve the problem. I had to turn everything off and don't dare go back to my cloud to see what is happening. Speaking of clouds, I will tell you more about this recent trip up to see the giant coastal redwoods. It has not been our finest hour.

Good Taste Above All Else

In the midst of trying to plan a 3 week RV trip and Mr. T deciding retirement wasn't exactly what he had in mind when he retired last year, Mah Mama had a small stroke. She is living in Assisted Living which is yet to become assisted living so I am keeping a closer watch on how she is doing. (They took in residents with the promise it was only a few weeks from being fully credentialed for assisted living and that was 5 months ago!) I don't want my blogging to turn into a depressing chronology of trying to provide care for an aging parent with dementia but it might. Unfortunately, there's not much humor in dementia and watching the sad decline of a loved one--but Ah Declar'--mah Mama found it.

I'd called doctors, gotten ignored, sat in the ER for hours, treated by doctors who looked barely out of Junior High, rounds of tests, etc. The medical conclusion is "nothing can be done" which might be true but not what I want to hear. I hired a caregiver to come in each day just to make sure Dah Mama gets her meds and to take her down for at least one meal. DM can find her way to the dining room--she just usually finds her way there at two in the morning.

Anyway....I was helping her get dressed and we were doing pretty well. (Translation: she agreed to put on the clothes) But then we got to the shoes! I had pulled out some white sandals that I know don't hurt her feet. 

STOP THE TRAIN! No, she was not going to put her bare feet into sandals--she wanted to wear hose. I talked her out of that by convincing her that it was acceptable to just wear sandals in May. Okay, that might be alright--she didn't think she'd run into anyone she knew anyway. 

STOP THE TRAIN!! Daughter! What are you doing? Those are White Sandals!  Yes, Mama, they are indeed.

But Daughter, is it after Easter???? I simply will not wear White Shoes before Easter!

Now how can someone have dementia when they can remember one of the first rules of dressing like that? True, she didn't know Easter was the week before but hot damn! she remembered not to wear white shoes until afterwards. Things are not as far gone as I thought.