Sunday: Daughter Goes Back

I woke up at 9:00 a.m., this morning, when the alarm went off, fed the cats, refilled the outside cats' water bowl, turned off the porch lights, etc.  I had planned to get up and cook the salmon steaks so daughter could take some back with her.  But I felt very tired, after yesterday's wedding, so, I went back to sleep and slept until 10:30 a.m., when daughter came for a cuddle.  By the time I had coffee, got dressed, and had my Sunday morning chat with my neighbor T who called, it was already past 11:00 a.m. and too late to cook the fish.

Daughter finished packing the last bits, which included the food I gave her to take back - the last of the rotisserie chicken, half of the fruits and vegetable I bought on Friday, the rest of the mung beans I had cooked, etc.  I put the cooked food in containers and put the containers in gallon sized zippered bags.  She is able to take food like that, in her carry on luggage, without any problems.

I dropped daughter off at the airport at noon and came home.  She called to let me know when she boarded the plane, when she landed at Oakland airport, and, again, when she reached her apartment (she has an hour-long subway ride from the airport to Berkeley, and then, she walks the mile or so from the subway station to her apartment).  She said she planned to unpack and do a load of laundry and get ready for next week.  She has a course of Statistics seminars and work shops to attend, at UC-Berkeley, next week, 8:30 to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.  She says she's excited about it and is looking forward to it!

I spent the afternoon writing the wedding blog post.  One of my cousins sent me some pictures she had taken at the wedding, and we texted back and forth about it.  Later, after trying the tea cousin P had given me, I called her to thank her, again, for the ride, to ask after her daughter's feet (she said they were OK), and to tell her that I tried the tea and it was good.  She brought up the subject of the wedding and we discussed it a bit more!

By the way, daughter says she is unable to upload the videos she took of the wedding dancers without uploading them to YouTube, first, and we don't want to do that.  Does anyone know of another way to upload videos from a cell phone to a blog post?

Later in the evening, once it had cooled off a bit, I watered the front garden with the garden hose and the back yard with the sprinklers.  I might need to cut back a bit on my watering, though!  I received my water and electric (and other municipal services, such as sewer and trash collection) bill, earlier in the week, and it showed that I had gone over my Tier 1 limit of 16 hundred cubic feet (hcf) of water during the billing period (two months: 5/17/18 - 7/18/18) and used another 2 hcf of Tier 2 water.  Tier 1 water is billed at the rate of $6.23/hcf; Tier 2 water is billed at the rate of $8.35/hcf.  My water bill is $116.43.  The electricity portion was $52.64 and I had used 283 kiloWatt-hours of the 1,000 kWh of the Tier 1 electricity that I am allowed; I have never gone over my Tier 1 electricity.  Sewer charges came to another $26.55 and the solid waste removal fees came to $74.03.  The combined total of my bill for water, electricity, sewer and solid waste amounted to $269.65; I allocate $150/month in my budget for this combined bill (or $300 for the 2-months billing period), so I am under budget.  However, I had gone over the Tier 1 water allocation.

About a day after I received my water/electric bill, I received a call from someone, claiming to call on behalf of the Department of Water and Power, doing an energy audit, stating they showed me in the Tier 2 category and asking about my electricity usage.  I knew the call was not from the Department of Water and Power, itself, but one of the many companies looking to sell various products designed to help with energy conservation.  Their first question was, "Do you use over 1,000 kWh of electricity?" and my answer to that would be a "No, I used a little more than one quarter of that amount".  Because my Tier 2 usage was in water and not electricity, I declined to participate, said, "No, thank you", and hung up.

I already do many of the things we are urged to do to conserve water.  The only way I could conserve additional water usage is by watering my garden even less than I currently do.  As it is, I have no lawn in the front and I've planted succulents and other drought tolerant plants.  This is the middle of summer and I live in one of the hotter areas of the city; we've had no rain since the end of May and we are not likely to get any rain until the rainy season starts again in October.  I expect my water usage to go up a bit in the summer, and, as long as we are not in a drought and under mandatory water restrictions, I think it is OK to do so.  However, I shall try to keep below my 16 hcf for the rest of the summer (in winter, my allocation is reduced to 13 hcf, or is it 11?  I can't remember, without looking it up.)

After I watered the garden, I called friend R and chatted with her for a bit.  Then, I finally cooked the fish!  I had some of it for dinner, but I will freeze the rest.

Still later, I video chatted with daughter. 

Monday's To Do List:
- Do the dishes/run dishwasher
- Call to schedule a maintenance service for the car (maintenance required light has come one)
- Do a load or two of laundry
- Do some paperwork (pay bills, etc.)
- Take the trash cans to the curb
- Cook the ground beef
- Grocery shop for bread

How was your Sunday?  What are some of the ways in which you conserve water?