Mercury in Retrograde

Is Mercury in retrograde?  Isn't that when everything is supposed to go wrong? Or at least isn't that the excuse everyone uses when a day seems to build disasters on disasters.  Well, not exactly disaster, but just little annoyances.

The project for today was getting a document notarized for my mother and send it off to her financial guys.  She had also called to ask me to get her some toilet paper.  Last week we had gone out together to get her some toothpaste.

I bought the toilet paper, came to the apartment and handed it to her.  She put a new roll in the holder and the rest in the cupboard and then walked out of the bathroom and said "When we go out today, we need to stop at a store.   I have things I need to get.  I need to get toothpaste and toilet paper."   I reminded her I had just given her toilet paper not 2 minutes before and she went back into the bathroom to check and make sure I was telling her the truth.  She also checked for toothpaste and was surprised to find an unopened tube.

Before we went to the notary, I looked over the activities at the facility for the day.  I saw that something called "Keep your brain sharp" was starting in about 3 minutes.  I suggested we go check that out, have lunch, and then go to the notary.  She agreed

We met the woman who runs this particular brain class and found out that it had been rescheduled, but we talked with her about it and it sounds like fun.   Even my mother thought it sounded like fun, and the activities director talked about what improvements in brain function she has seen people have from playing the games in the class.  The next class is on Friday, before the hair appointment she has scheduled, so I will go with her to that (Walt says "don't tell them it's for you too or they might charge you."  Harumph.  Smart aleck)

With no class to attend, we drove down to the notary office.   The first thing he asked for was her ID, but she'd left her purse at home.   That was really my fault for not reminding her, but we had to return to her apartment to get it.  So we drove back (by way of Logos, so she could see the book store) 

When we got to Covell, I dropped her off and was going to wait in the drop-off point in the foyer, but a Covell bus came in, so I had to circle back and park behind it.  There is enough room for the bus to park and a car to pass it, but two women got out and just stood there, watching me trying to back up and maneuver around so I could get out.  They didn't even make an ATTEMPT to move to let me pass the bus.

Then we went back to the Notary, this time with the proper identification (once she found it in her purse, which is THE frustration of all trips.   She can never find the right card.)  She tried her AAA card, her Visa card, and her MediCare card before I reminded her where she keeps her driver's license, and even then she couldn't find it because she didn't know what it looked like.

Turns out we need a super duper notary, not a run of the mill notary.   Something called a Medallion notary for large money accounts (my mother's is NOT a large money account, but her brokerage handles large accounts).  The notary tried to find out where there was a Medallion Notary near here, but he could only find one...in Orangevale, at the other end of the state. But we tried a work around and hope that it will satisfy the folks who need to have the notarization.

She wanted to go to "a nice place" to eat, so we went to Panera for lunch.  Instead of being surrounded by old people pushing walkers she was surrounded by young people on computers.  She pointed out to me several times that there were 7 women around her with black hair down to their waists.

After lunch, I dropped her off at home (did not go in with her, which is nice that I can do that now) and then came here.

My plan was to spend the afternoon catching up on some DVR stuff that had been recorded while we were in Santa Barbara and to finally start working on transcription for the history project again.  This project is becoming the albatross around my neck.  My co-author finally had to admit that she just doesn't have the time to work on it, so it now is all mine, which would be OK except that there is such a stack of work to be done...which should have been done 2 years ago.

For one thing, there is finally someone to work on the huge database, but nobody thought to check and make sure the on-line database had an unlimited storage and they have reached the limit of entries that can be stored, with lots more to go.  Secondly, I had asked for help with transcription and nobody has volunteered, so now they are going to try to hire someone to help (never mind that nobody has offered me anything for doing everything else...not that I want to be paid, but hearing that they will hire someone to transcribe, but not offer me money to interview [which usually involves 160 miles driving each time], transcribe, write the book, and then design it is kind of a slap in the face). In fairness, if I asked for money to do this, they would probably give it to me, but I'm enjoying being a martyr. 

But that may be a moot point anyway because it seems that the sound on my computer is not working.  It was working a couple of days ago, but I get no sound on anything, including especially the interviews to be transcribed.  I've checked all settings and everything seems to be the way it is supposed to be.

Tomorrow we have a fun activity planned, which should go off without a hitch.  I hope.