Idiots No More

Kurt and I are moving. We actually purchased a house this time so this should end the saga of us having to share walls with noisy neighbors or put up with their cigarette smoke entering our unit uninvited (the most recent rental fiasco had both issues).

Alas, we couldn’t afford to do so in German Village, but we are staying in Columbus. We are moving NE of downtown in a neighborhood called Kenmore Park. We officially move on Monday.

While we are excited about home ownership and the presumed peace and quiet, we hate to leave German Village. We also dread the actual move process (“Didn’t we just move?” we keep thinking to ourselves–and yes, yes, we did). Today I will be busy at the new house supervising the delivery and installation of a washer/dryer set, the thorough cleaning of all the carpets (former owners had pets), and the re-keying of the locks.

Moving also creates a good reason/timing for retiring this blog. For starters we won’t be living in German Village (at minimum the name would need to change), and secondly, my rate of posting to this blog has dwindled to about once a month. At that rate I can return to my previous mode of sending out the occasional e-mail updates.

In closing, I leave you with a picture of our new digs:

Work, and other mundane things

A friend recently pointed out to me that I hadn’t really kept my blog up-to-date in terms of my job situation, so here is an official update:

As most of you know, one of my previous jobs, an exploration of self-employment, involved what I liked to call “chasing robots”. In a nutshell I worked for a project manager on closing out the installation of a system of Auto-Guided Vehicles, aka robots, at the Ohio State University Medical Center. My duties ranged from producing a training video for the employees to archiving architectural drawings. Previously on this very blog, I mentioned a second project that we were planning to work on in Greenville, SC, but that one didn’t pan out in the end.

Following a hiatus from self-employment where I interned at Highlights for Children, and work for various temp agencies, I am back in self-employment, working for my previous boss on a similar project, this time at the Cleveland Clinic. My boss is in an owner’s rep role this time, working on the Clinic’s behalf to make sure things run smoothly for installing all of the equipment in a (very) large service center that is going to be distributing supplies of all sorts to the main hospital buildings, using robots to transport the supplies from the service center (in the basement of a 4,000-car parking garage, currently under major construction).

So far my job description has varied from setting up a construction-trailer office, to finding a corporate housing solution (we are typically in Cleveland 3 days a week), to creating a spreadsheet comparing the equipment offered by various vendors bidding on one portion of the service center. All in all, it’s been a good fit so far.

This week I also expanded my work options by signing on with a Columbus catering company to serve food and drinks at various events as I can fit them into my schedule.

In other news, this weekend we are collecting the last of our farm-grown food (from the Community Supported Agriculture program we signed up for this year). I was hoping to post a grand tally of the produce we received through the weekly program, but somewhere in the middle, between dashing back and for to Cleveland, my record keeping fell behind. Suffice it to say we have enjoyed countless pints of green beans, many tomatoes, zucchini, and yellow squash, bunches of sweet corn, and occasional surprises (eggplant, Chinese cabbage, and melons).

Roadtrip/Walk Down Memory Lane

The past weekend we drove up to Wisconsin for a memorial service for Kurt’s father who died in February. Kurt grew up in Pound, WI, or as he likes to say: “I was one of the last people to grow up in a Norman Rockwell painting.” Having not made a significant visit back to his stomping grounds in about 20 years, the memorial service provided a good excuse for us to visit.

Things have changed, of course: new buildings here, missing buildings there, new highway here, etc. Many of the farms Kurt grew up around are no longer active. Many areas are even being taken over by the adjacent forests. A barn on one of his family’s plots of land was almost completely hidden by trees (of which there were none when Kurt left). The one-room school house that he attended is still standing, but abandoned (see below).

The service itself was part memorial service, part family reunion, part church potluck, and was mostly for the benefit of the extended family and church friends.

We decided to take the scenic route back and drove over the top of Michigan, and over the Mackinac bridge, a suspension bridge connecting Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas.

We also stopped in at a mega “Christmas” store, possibly the largest in the world, in Frankenmuth, MI. It was truly ginormous.

Total miles driven round-trip: 1500.

Thoughts of running off to join the circus

I’ve got a new gig. I’m working as an usher for Corteo, the most recent Cirque du Soleil production to stop by Columbus, OH on its touring circuit. Yesterday we had a 4-hour training session, which was mostly boring (I volunteer as an usher all the time, so a lot of the training seemed redundant). The people were great, though, and completely enthusiastic, and I think I’m going to really enjoy the experience.

One highlight of the day was sitting under the big top to learn the finer points of seating people, and in the background we got to watch several of the performers rehearsing. Then, we got to actually interact with one of the performers as there were some actual training points we needed to learn about her particular act. The performer appears to be a middle-aged woman, but she stands only about 2 1/2 feet tall (perfectly proportioned). In her act, appropriately titled “Helium” she is completely suspended in the air by six (large) helium balloons. The main character of Corteo (a clown who is imagining his own funeral celebration), sends this little character sailing out over the crowd inviting them to put their hands up to help her out. Being just slightly under neutral buoyancy, she can fly around as long as she wants to if she can jump off people’s outstretched hands when she floats too low. As ushers we needed to know what to expect as well as problem areas where we may need to step in and provide our own hands to keep her from floating down to the floor prematurely.

As ushers (also called Cirquadors), we will, of course, get to see the show multiple, multiple times. The majority of the usher positions are actually inside the tent, but there are a few positions outside the tent as well, and we will all rotate through all the positions.

We met a small group of usher-folk, called followers, who actually ‘follow’ the show around the country as it tours. I don’t imagine the pay is outstanding, and room/board is not provided, but if I was single it would be somewhat tempting to do for awhile as an excuse to travel the country. After all, what kid hasn’t dreamed of running off with a circus?

I guess my eyes are getting older…

For the first time in my life I have to start thinking about the possibility of wearing glasses. I’ve been so proud of the fact that I’m the only one in my immediate family and much of my extended family that hasn’t needed glasses. I still don’t need glasses, but I now have the option of improving my vision via glasses or contacts. As it’s been several years, I finally made an appointment for an eye exam for the sole purpose of checking for glaucoma (my family history requires that I have that checked every year). The good news was that the pressure in my eyes is perfectly normal, and I have no signs of glaucoma. The bad news was that the optometrist said it was time to start considering whether to improve my vision with glasses or contacts. He showed me what my vision would be like with glasses, and I must admit I was surprised to see how sharp and clear it made the world look – almost the difference between regular television and HD-TV. *sigh* I ‘m not quite ready to commit to such a big change, but it’s now a possibility to consider.

Xmas Redux

Christmas this year was filled with friends, family, and travel. Pre-Christmas, Kurt and I hosted our first real ‘party’, a holiday get-together with hot drinks and snacks (it wasn’t quite themed, but many of the food/drinks had a German or Swedish angle). We were mostly celebrating the rearrangement and furnishing of our living room, which gives it a much more welcoming feel (of course, once more people arrived than could be comfortably seated in our small living room, everyone gravitated to the kitchen and stood). My parents also came to visit Columbus, OH for the first time. Their train was delayed coming into Chicago, meaning they missed their flight and didn’t make it in until the next morning, but Amtrak did put them up in a hotel and paid for their taxi fares so it worked out okay.

For Christmas itself, Kurt went to take care of his parents in Kentucky, and I travelled with my parents (flight to Chicago, train to Minneapolis-St. Paul) to visit relatives in Wisconsin, primarily to help my grandmother celebrate her 90th birthday on Dec. 23. Loads of relatives showed up. I think I counted a total of 24 out-of-town guests. I found it a bit overwhelming at times – just the sheer number of people who were there.

There was one uncomfortable moment when I tried to refrain from participating in the $10 gift exchange game (because I didn’t find out that we were planning to do this until the last minute) and several people volunteered to put an extra package into the mix so I could play (which someone did) and then I was pressured into playing (and, of course picked a gift that I’d probably never use in my life – and one that no one else wanted to steal from me), but mostly I had a good time.

Unfortunately, the travel gods smiled unkindly in my family’s general direction once again, and I too found myself on a train, six hours behind schedule, and missing my initial connection in Chicago – a mirror event to what happened six days earlier when my parents were on the same train schedule, trying to catch the same flight to Columbus. Fortunately, Amtrak came through for me as well and put me up in a hotel and even paid for the exchange fee that Southwest charged me to change my flight to the next day. Still, one does wonder whether mixing modes of travel like that is really the wisest course of action.

It’s good to revisit family connections occasionally, to feel that sense of community, to share in good food, and play games together, but it’s also good to be back home again.

I’m not quitting my day job…

I am finally a volunteer usher for CAPA, a local not-for-profit organization that owns and operates three beautiful and historic theaters of columbus (Southern Theatre, Ohio Theatre, and Palace Theatre), and manages the Vern Riffe Center theaters. I started the process to become a volunteer months ago, but they only take on new volunteers at designated times throughout the year, and there is an interview and 5-hour orientation process you have to participate in before you are allowed to begin. They ask for a minimum committment of two shows a month, and you are welcome to sign up for as many shows as you want.

There are several reasons that I became a volunteer usher. First, it’s an opportunity to meet other people who are into theater and the arts. Second, it keeps me connected to the local theater scene. Third, I’ll get to see a lot of shows of all kinds, many of which I would never have seen otherwise. I have already seen a local orchestral group playing movie soundtrack music, a touring play, a men’s choral concert, and a group of 75 mostly-gray-haired women singing love songs and show tunes. Later this week I usher for an Australian Pink Floyd Tribute Concert, and I’m extremely curious about one of my December assignments — Moscow Cat Theatre.