Category: Work

The non homily

I am doing a homily at church this morning – actually a minihom – which I won’t be posting to my blog.  I am unemployable enough as it is, currently, and since I’m not actually going to make a living as an activist, giving employers yet another reason not to hire me is not high on my list of things to do.

I’m going to make a living as a creative person yet.

All my telephone interviews have turned into nothing.

I am not sanguine about getting a job this week, but I am still sending out resumes every day and I’m working on my skillset by learning accounting software.

Sundry and various

Today, churchy stuff to do with bookkeeping.  I know that voluntarism is the root of civilization but GADZOOKS sometimes there seems to be a lot of it.

Perhaps an inch of dense wet snow fell yesterday, and is still here.  Given that they weren’t much use in the car I’m glad I moved the crampons indoors where they will hopefully prevent my brother and I from skidding around the back deck like very bad acrobats.

There is nothing like having an appropriate midnight snack in the fridge.  I mooshed up the overcooked veg from Sunday’s roast beast dinner with the leftover cheese sauce and it was nommerly.

I really think at this point it’s time to change my ring tone to something less annoying than a fax squeal.  It went off in church on Sunday – the Leonard Cohen service, and how good it was, less the stupid phone going off.

Jeff and I had a Tom Hanks fest yesterday; we watched Joe vs. the Volcano and Cloud Atlas.  I have to say I loved both movies although obviously for different reasons.  I am definitely interested in reading the book of Cloud Atlas.

I have joined (hopefully) some form of trope bingo; I will be writing songs instead of stories though.

I have a job lead that I am working.  I would be so happy if I could be working before the stipend from being laid off runs out.

I’ve seen both of my kids within the last couple of days so that little bit of soul hunger has been satisfied.  They are thinking of tag teaming on a trip to Australia; I would love that and would even make with a subsidy.

Okay, time to make a list of all the things I want to do today, mostly so I can feel guilty when I ignore it….

Happy happy joy joy

Let’s see, what was so nice about yesterday?

I got called by a recruiter for a job.  That, friends, is a shot in the arm!  My updated resume has been fired off and he will get back to me by the end of next week, AOTBE.

Katie and Kyle fed me and Paul and Keith home made lasagna.  Jeff didn’t go cause he has to stay away from cheese, and it was cheesy.  Cheesy and DELISH.  I got to watch the grandsnake Izzy eat a live mouse.  He struck so hard at it he banged his noggin.

Katie gave me back my camera, which has some great pics on it so she tells me…. pics a G’ma might like to see.

The sun shone all day yesterday and looks fair to do the same thing today.

RIP Aaron Swartz.

And here’s a little diagram showing how agriculture leads to war.

Today I have cleaned out my car, which it desperately needed, and been to brekky care of Jeff (wherein we talked about a business idea we like and could do together, although likely not in the lower Mainland), and later I’m going to do some churchy stuff, including going out and getting ingredaments for Tom Ka Guy for SOUP LUNCH.  Because feeding people is important.  Must remember to google where the nearest T and T is, I have a tremendous craving to put fresh galangal in the soup this time.  O SO OM NOM NOMMABLE.

I should probably make a list, but my procrastination is pushing back on me.  Have fun it whispers….  NO DAMN YOU TIME TO FOLD LAUNDRY.  Or watch an episode of Galapagos….  back, back foul fiend Procrastineo!

 

 

What the Grand Joculator brings us

1.  Jeff says he’s paying too much money for rent.  In Vancouver that is not true but he sure could pay less rent elsewhere in the province, someplace on the Island for example.  He says he’s going to give me plenty of notice so I am very relaxed about this.  Not having in house tech support would just about kill me, as would giving up the flat screen and cable and the PVR, but life is full of interesting times and changes.  It definitely means I might end up with a different roommate though, and that raises the specter of a whole other series of maddening things; Jeff is/was the best roommate evar, as I believe I have stated a number of times.  I can see his point though and we all have to take care of our own needs.

2.  The new Galapagos BBC 3D documentary from David Attenborough is ABSOLUTELY STUNNING.  Highly highly recommended.  Don’t forget to watch the “making of” too.

3.  Signed off on my taxes for the last 4 years.  I should get a large amount of money back, but of course the feds will have to look at the returns before that happens.  I remain sanguine.

4.  Job hunting is interesting.  I got a lead from my network of contacts, and it is wonderful that it happened BEFORE I started instituting the new job search parameters (working the network).

5.  South Fraser Unitarian Congregation may get me as a speaker for Easter.  I’d whip out my previously provided Jesus service.  We shall see; I have not yet received a response.

6.  The sun is out, and I walked around in it, and of course the world seems like a better place.

7.  (link removed for safety) This.  Oh, this.

8.  I came up with a really cool idea for a science fiction story and forgot to write it down.  It has something to do with old people and robots, and damn I’m mad – I have a pad downstairs for all the ideas I get while I’m watching tv and there are tons of them so far.  Why, o why, blarp blergle.  I could have just written it down.  That’s what pen and paper FOR, SILLY APE.

9.  Did I mention I am on the waitlist for the Translink busker program?  If I’m still not working, I may do that to raise cash.

10.  I’m going to have some of the roasted squash and roasted garlic soup for lunch and then back to the job hunt.

11.  I’ve been sleeping downstairs and completely NOT HAVING ANY SCREENS in my sleeping room.  As a consequence my back is much better.

12.  WOWZERS.  Great news for deaf people.

Lovely long chats

In the last week or two I have spoken on the phone to Lois and Terry and Bonnie and Carrie and Ron (an old family friend I probably don’t often mention) and Tammy and Dave the poet and my mother and the minister…. I keep forgetting what it’s like to really talk to somebody who knows me from when I was a pup.  And sometimes I am doing more listening than talking, but…. I believe there’s something about friendship which occasionally requires this ‘sacrifice’.  Tammy more than anybody I know makes me feel heard.  It is a most wonderful sensation, even if we are murder on each other as travelling companions, heavy sigh.  Carrie is being driven spare by repeating earthquakes and aftershocks and her moronic and supposedly no contact order former spouse.

Chalice circles start up again tonight.  There is homework, darn it and we have to COMMIT to going twice a month for four months.  It’s down at Sue’s place which is nice and close.  I hate that there is homework.  The free form chalice circles of yore worked a lot better for me.

Out to brekky with Jeff this am.  I am hoping to convince him to combine it with a trip to Thrifty’s first as there are tiresome holes in our larder, like eggs and cream for coffee and white sugar (we have brown but it just doesn’t cut it for certain kinds of baking).  Yes, he has agreed – as long as we don’t get anything frozen.

RGIII’s knee injury last night during the Seahawks Bengals game was just about the most disgusterpating thing I’ve ever seen lovingly replayed about a hundred times.  Blergh.

Between now and shopping and brekky, it’s JOB APPLICATING TIME!!!

KATIE was at CHURCH YESTIDDAY!  I haz a happy!  (Song went okay).  JEFF fixed KYLE’S COMPUTER.  I haz a happy!  I can’t get hold of the new bookkeeper!  I haz a panic attack!  TRE AND BATTERY dropped by for an impromptu visit and TRE PLAYED ON THE PINBALLS while BATTERY AND JEFF CHATTED!  Tre is three and really really enjoyed it, although Margot wishes him to the uttermost pit.  We haz a happy about dese tings!  EDDIE IS UPSET AT SOMETHING in the yard.  We haz a scaredy.  LIZ MCINTOSH FRIENDED ME ON G+.  Yay, my second oldest friend has gotten back in touch with me electronically.  I HAVE AN EVIL PLAN TO MAKE MONEY IF I CAN’T GET A JOB.  I can haz a scheming plot!   And so, from asterisk to asterisk, from ALL CAPS TO italicized, from call to call and packet to packet and cheque to cheque and cheek to cheek and from plug to drain, these are the expostulations of our lives.

 

 

 

 

My favourite story about myself

My favourite story about myself brings together many of the threads of my life in one place.

I was working at the Canadian Mental Health Association Ontario Division office in downtown Toronto.  I had a job I liked, a boss I adored, and coworkers who taught me a lot and accepted me as I was.  I was expecting my first child and they threw me a surprise baby shower.

Like most expectant moms I was reading baby books as fast as I could and had absorbed an incredible amount of information.  I was planning on breastfeeding and the night before the shower had read how doctors had once told mothers to run bristle brushes over their nipples to toughen them up for nursing.  I considered this to be entirely barbaric and even complained to my then spouse about it, and he agreed with me.

I was so flabbergasted and so touched when they brought me into the boardroom for presents and cake that for a brief moment I was speechless.  Then I started reviewing the gifts which were thoughtful and kind, until I got to a present that was a brush, labeled ‘Nipple Brush’.

I got quite irate.  “If you think I’m using this on myself you’re out of your mind!” I said firmly.

Then.

I realized.  This was for a baby bottle, not me.  What I had been reading the night before was so close to my mind that I had just assumed….

As realization flooded over me I blushed to my hairline and muttered “Never mind,” while my coworkers sat around me and laughed until they cried.  Pretty soon I was laughing too.

Not all of the misunderstandings in my life have been so funny.

Things ta do

I have already applied for two jobs and it’s just gone 6 am.

I will continue to look, however.  I’m supposed to hear back about the job in New West today.  Hope I do, it’s a fifteen minute bus ride.

Kitchen clean up.

STACKS of church paperwork, but I have been given an energy boost by positive interactions at church yesterday.

Laundry…. the continuing saga.

Trying to figure out a mandolin part for the keeping bears happy song.  Or a guitar part, but I hear mandolin.

Justin Timberlake clogs.  In a movie, not a drain. 

Margot was running around the house doing the crazy cat thing.  Since she’s never done this before, she’s now laid up in the cat hotel in the corner of the living room and breathing with an astonishing stertorousness.

I need to find out what those folks are doing with my tax returns.

aw hell, I don’t work there anymore anyway

So once upon a time I had a customer.  A nice one.  Polite, friendly, helpful.
He needed a replacement unit for a customer, we couldn’t ship.
So the customer’s customers, a married couple,  got their litigation on; lawyer’s letter, ugly words exchanged on the phone, BBB threats, I will ruin your reputation, full court press.
Unit FINALLY ships & gets installed.  Customer goes to homeowner getting paperwork signed off and she purrs at him (this the woman who hired a lawyer to sue him) “Wanna go for dinner, my husband’s out of town!”
As I said to the customer, from lawsuit to linguine in one fell swoop.  His comment “I’ve taken one for the team plenty, but I’ve never done THAT.”
We were both howling, it was so funny.  And even funnier because this is an awesome guy, nobody ever LESS deserved to be sued.