Boring Meetings

Everybody has been to boring meetings where you weren't really interested in the thing the meeting was about.  I went to a meeting this morning where A.) I was bored to death, and B.) I didn't know what the hell they were talking about most of the time.  It was an exit interview with the finance committee of the Bay County Council on Aging by our auditors, and I really never knew what was going on.

Actually, that's not entirely true.  They started the meeting by saying our audit was fine, and that's really all I wanted to know.  It was never clear to me what happens to that audit report, if anything.  It was never clear to me how much of this audit stuff is required by law because we're a non-profit and get government grants, how much is to let the Board know nobody's stealing money, and how much of it is professional practice by CPA's.  If it was just CPA obfuscation, they won.

Ironically, the two CPA's who gave us that exit interview are totally down to earth, personable, and likable.  They did their audit while our building was undergoing major renovation, and they were right in the middle of the "Big Room" of the senior center.  They heard everything that went on, and every day Tom, who sat next to the filing cabinet that had the money in it, would see me come in and drag out huge bags of money from our Trolley System.  I mentioned that, and he said they had thought that was weird.  I made/make bank deposits every day, and the Trolley money was in sacks of coins that each weighed 60 pounds or so.

At one point I told them that I was reasonably well educated but I didn't understand what they were talking about.  At that point Tom admitted that, even though he's a CPA, he had seen an audit of a condominium that even he didn't understand.  "How can the condo owners possibly understand it?" he asked.  Answer: they can't.

Anyway, if you're ever invited to an audit exit interview for an organization you serve on the board of, decline the invitation.

ED

The Very Little Sixth

We found out today via Facebook that the Big Eight, Little Six, and Very Little Five will soon be expanded by another little boy.  The four couples of the Big Eight have been Best Friends since the early 1970's; the Little Six are our children; and the Very Little Five are our grandchildren.  Thus far only three of the Little Six have contributed to the Very Little Five, but that will definitely change in a few months.  Lauren, the youngest of the Little Six, is with child, and the baby's going to be a boy.  Dr. Lauren is a veterinarian, and Jason, the Baby Daddy, is a lawyer, or will soon be.  So I don't really anticipate squalor and economic hardship for Very Little Sixth, just as I don't anticipate squalor and economic hardship for any of the Very Little Five.  Here are some pictures of the Very Little Five on Easter Sunday this year:

Jacob, Laura, Christopher, and Liza (trying to seduce flirting with Christopher; LOL)

Laura, Liza, Jacob, and Christopher looking at Uncle Larry's boat

Catherine Susan holding Natalie, the Fifth of the Very Little Five

Pictures by Mr. Bill

We are so excited about Lauren's and Jason's baby that we can hardly stand it.  These friendship ties go back 35 years or more, and the Big Eight, Little Six (and their spouses), and Very Little Five (soon to be the Very Little Six) are as much family as anything.  There will soon be 26 of us, and that's pretty remarkable, but there are many more besides in that constallation of family/friends: Aunt Judy and Uncle Larry; Aunt Thelma; Aunt Betty Sue; Grandma Jane; Grandpa Len and Grandma Joyce.  There are probably others I'm forgetting and leaving out.  They say it takes a village to raise a chld.  Well, our village is in place and ready.

ED

Music Video

Unlike many other bloggers, especially those of the teenage persuasion, I typically don't post music videos on Ironknee.  I have to make an exception, though, for this absolutely outstanding choir from Slovinia.  The first part of this video is utterly amazing, and you should feel free to opt out after they start singing the song.  So, here's my first music video after almost six years of blogging:

I think the first part of this thing is amazing.

ED

Fourth of July

I had intended to make a belated post about the fantastic time we had last night celebrating the Fourth of July with our friends, but since typing the title, the tray that holds my keyboard collapsed.  Actually, I hit it with my desk chair yesterday, and it broke then.  I thought I had fixed it, though, until I did the same thing today and it fell apart again.  I tried unseccessfully to fix it, but I couldn't.  I went to Office Depot and bought a much better one than the one I had, and I knew there was no way on earth unhandy me was going to be able to install it.

One of my very best friends is a guy named Richard.  I called him, and he stopped what he was doing (which was reading a mystery novel) and came over.  It took about a hour, but he got it installed.

The reason I mention this is to talk about what a good friend he is.  I offered to pay him for his efforts, but of course he wouldn't hear of any such thing.  It goes without saying that I could never pay him back in kind, but I'll come up with some way of showing my gratitude.  Anyway, it's not really ironic that I would have good friends, but it is a little ironic that one of them would be willing to drop everything on a Sunday afternoon to help me out.

ED

Cherry Pits

This morning I went to the grocery store, and I bought a box of those yellow-red cherries that are so sweet and so good.  I washed them and set them on the counter next to the sink.  I've been eating them all day, three or four at a time, and I've been throwing the stems and spitting the pits into our garbage disposal.  Tonight, Beth saw me doing that.

Beth: Don't spit those seeds into the garbage disposal.  It won't grind them up.

Ed: Why not?  I've been doing it for decades.

Beth: I know you have, and I've been taking them out for decades.  They're like rocks.  It won't grind them up.

Ed: Oh.  Sorry. 

And she laughed.

Who knew?  We've been married 36 years, and I've been spitting cherry pits into the garbage disposal for 36 years.  That stopped tonight, but I honestly had no idea it didn't grind them up and that she was digging them out.  I know it doesn't grind up spoons, either, when they accidentally fall into that thing, but it puts some nasty jagged edges on them.  I've had more than one tongue wound to vouch for that.

I guess I didn't read the manual.  Probably because she threw it away before I could get to it.  Yeah, right.

ED