Job-hunting teaches you so much about what other people don't know. Punctuation, grammar, proof-reading. Little things like that.
Sometimes you can figure out what they're trying to say. Sometimes you can't.
The following knowledge’s are required - Why do people abuse the poor apostrophe in this fashion?
Able to think consequentially - A job ad shouldn't read as though you used a thesaurus to compose it.
....a very employee-friendly work environment!! - The exclamation point was not born a twin.
This position is responsible for some calculations of products - I can't decide if this means they want you to go to the shelf and count what's there, then subtract what's been sold, or what?
Compensation: $35000 per month - I am all about getting this job!
Sometimes, I think that what companies really need is someone to write their job ads for them.
So. Three prospects today. I've bookmarked them and am creating cover letters at the moment. Nothing in the writing arena, so I might have a better chance at getting an interview for one of these. Office Manager, Product Development Coordinator, and Logistics Coordinator. I have a weird collection of skills (or "knowledge's") that fit into a lot of different job descriptions.
Otherwise, another day with not much planned. Grocery store. Laundry.
I'm going to a friend's house for dinner tonight. She also has an aging mother with health problems, so it's probably going to turn out to be a mutual support group kind of evening.
And now, if I don't want to spend the day looking like Howdy-Doody, I'd better go dry my hair.
(Mother-related digression below the cut)
The thing about being unemployed is that you tend to lose track of things like holidays. I mean, I just realized that there's no reason to think that any of the three companies I applied to this morning are actually doing business today.
This whole "writing sample" thing is becoming a nuisance, too. One of the jobs I was applying for this morning wasn't actually for a writer, and they still wanted a writing sample. I'm not sure why. (Maybe they're trying to screen out illiterates who paid a professional service to write their resumes and cover letters?) Anyhow, I wasted half an hour writing something I could attach to use as a writing sample and I have no idea if it will fulfill their needs or not. (I suspect that I've only proven that I know what a paragraph break is and that I abuse commas.)
I guess if I get desperate, I could be a phone sex person. There seem to be plenty of ads looking for "creative" women who can spin "fantasies" and who like to talk on the phone.
What's up with my life otherwise?
Well, the seedlings are--seedy. I swear none of them have grown a fraction of an inch in the last week and one of the forget-me-nots lost two of its six leaves. I can't figure out if I'm over-watering, under-watering, over-sunning, under-sunning, or what. Stupid plants.
In the arena of fun and frolic, the R.C. and I took ourselves out to the Chamberlin Observatory last Saturday evening. The R.C. heard tell that they were having an Open House and letting us mundanes come in and take a peek at Saturn through the Big Telescope for the modest fee of a buck a head, so we trotted out, wrinkled bills in hand, to take a peek at the rarely open historic building and the "20-inch aperture classic refractor telescope."
(I don't know why I got all folksy there, but I'm better now.)
The building was fascinating, especially up top, where the telescope is housed. We got to watch them rotate the dome and reposition the telescope. Several times. Sadly, billowing cloud cover prevented them from finding any astronomical bodies that anyone could actually look at, but it was 'way cool to watch them trying. Well worth a buck, we both agreed.
Checking the literature, we see that we can make reservations almost any Tuesday and/or Thursday evening and, for three dollars, get another chance to actually look at something. It's definitely on our list of Things To Do This Summer. (They do an Open House once a month, but we have a small hope that the extra two bucks a head will cut down on the hordes of shrieking children present.) (That's sour grapes on my part--every time we wondered aloud what this or that bright spot in the sky was, some eight year-old piped up to inform us that it was Saturn or Venus or whatever. Little know-it-alls.) (It's true, though, that the Tues-Thurs opportunities are limited to a dozen people a time, where the Open House evenings are for all comers. It would be nice to have the opportunity to look through the telescope for more than three seconds without the uneasy guilt of picturing a line of 50 people waiting impatiently for their turn.)
Yesterday, I did--pretty much nothing. A 30-minute walk to check a flower bed where some peonies should be bursting into flower any day now. A short conversation with my mother* on the phone where I confirmed that I'll be back out her direction in a week or so. A lot of reading.
I'm already thinking of holiday cards for the upcoming year. The R.C. pointed out that now, while I have a lot of time on my hands, might be a good time to start working on potential designs for cards for the fall. It's not a bad idea, even if I am seriously considering buying cards this year. I mean, why spend hours making cards when for $20 I can buy enough cards for everyone on my list and then come? The commercial ones are prettier, too.
Still. Pretending that I might make cards was a good reason for me to dig out the paper, paste, and scissors yesterday.** In fact, I amused myself for an hour reorganizing the box I keep paper and scraps in and digging around to figure out what bits and pieces I have that could be turned into cards. I even came up with one potential design.
And, speaking of digging, I did finally get around to pulling out the drawing supplies this past weekend. I spent some time on that, as well. Mostly flipping through the pages of old sketchbooks and admiring or condemning various drawings. If the amount of time I've spent thinking about drawing translated into practice, I'd be all limbered up and ready to produce something recognizable by now. (I seem to be using Harold Hill's Think System for learning to draw these days.) I was almost there, back when I was taking classes but of course daily practice helps a lot.
My teacher had a certain amount of contempt for creating shading and depth with pencil effects (See example), something I was reduced to learning out of a book when, in despair, I looked around the class and realized that everyone there was a thousand times more creative and experienced than I was.
You're supposed to do a lot with line, of course, but even though this was ostensibly a "beginning" drawing class, she didn't teach us about that. I'd like to use that as an excuse for why I'm unable to produce the desired effects when I try to sketch, but I know better.
Drawing is just like writing. Those who have genius do go farther, but no one goes anywhere without practice and anyone who practices regularly can achieve a certain minimum proficiency.
I need, for instance, to practice until I can achieve with pen-and-ink, the same 3D effects I learned to achieve with pencil. More than that, I need to learn to look at things, until I can see shapes and patterns. (You might wonder why someone so auditory took on a hobby so visual. I know I do.)
So. Plans for today include....
Well, I don't have many at the moment. I got up. Drank coffee. Did the job-hunt thing. Now I'm blogging. At some point I need to gas up my car. I intend to go out to lunch.
Life's pretty exciting in the Unemployment Lane these days.
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* I hear she got all fired up Saturday and demanded that we all appear on her doorstep next weekend and help her wind up her affairs so she could check herself into a nursing home, but by the time I talked to her on Sunday, the mood (or the problem or whatever it was) had passed. From what she tells me, the disease is progressing faster than anticipated, but I won't believe that until I see her again. She's--not reliable on things like that.
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** In Anne's World, you're never too old to play with paper and paste and scissors.
The sun is shining. (After the rainstorms we've been having, this is a blog-worthy event.) There's a promise of spring warmth in the air. It's gonna be a golden day.
In other news.... Well, not much is going on. The housecleaning desperately needs to be done. The laundry pile is growing. I'm trying to care.
Oh! And there's some kind of SGI* thing going on in the building.
When we were in the stairway yesterday, we noticed that back in the corner, behind the shopping cart someone stole from Whole Foods, there was a flat, white box of the Inexplicable Electronics variety.
In spite of the fact that the two cords or cables hanging from the box were connected to nothing, the box featured a number of glowing green lights of the UFO variety. It made no noise and seemed not to be labeled with anything that might explain its function or purpose on the floor of the stairwell. It just--sat there. Glowing.
Very suspicious, don't you think?
I have a credit card payment due on 6/17. The minimum (although I don't normally pay just the minimum) is $247.00. Wincing. Looks like those medical bill payments landed. Sigh. So. I have less than a month to get a job and get a paycheck. Or, you know, start selling body parts and/or personal belongings.
With only one recent interview under my belt and that company not planning to hire until 6/1, the odds don't look good. I wonder if it's time to hit Starbucks or someplace like that and get at least a part-time job?
I have no plans for today, unless the aforementioned household chores suddenly take possession of my brain. It's not easy to think of things to do that don't cost any money, you know?
(Speaking of Starbucks! The R.C. just returned from her morning walk and brought me a latte! Isn't she the just the greatest?)
I mean, I could happily wallow around the house, reading or practicing drawing, all day, every day, except that being that inert gives even me a headache after a couple of days. The weather hasn’t been nice enough to go walking just for the sake of getting out (although today looks promising) and I'm not a huge fan of walking just to be walking anyhow. I have no objection to walking in order to go somewhere, even if it's a couple of miles away. But just random walking isn't that amusing. (The R.C. is always up for a walk, because of her back problems, so I can make her go with me to talk to me I guess.)
But it's not fabulously interesting to look back on your day and think, "I went for a walk." Feels sort of geriatric, in fact.
Meghan asked me about a syndicated feed on the blog. It doesn't have one and I have no idea how to set one up. I know bloglines offers a feed using annezo.net/index.xml but she uses LiveJournal and I have no idea how to set up whatever kind of feed that site uses. (Let's face it--if it wasn't written by the people who designed the site for me, it doesn't exist.)
You know, I have the time, now, to stop and learn about stuff like that. I should do that, shouldn't I? Once you dive into software stuff, it's usually much simpler than you expect, to learn how to do things. (I'll get right on that, as soon as the R.C. agrees that it's fair for me to hog up the computer for six hours a day.)
I have thought of at least one "no money required" activity that I should undertake during this temporary hiatus from being a productive member of society. I really should get over to the storage unit and start cleaning things out. (Also? I could bring some of those boxes of books back to the apartment.... If I tried, I'm sure I could find room for another hundred or two.)
That's about it, at least for now. It's only 10:00 and I haven't done that much today.
Further bulletins on the SGI, the job-hunting process, and/or my daily activities as events warrant or as the mood strikes me.
(Web stats continue to bemuse me. You and I both know there aren't 70-80 people a month reading this blog, just as we know there aren't 300+ people reading Peevish every day. Why can't I get the "hit count" stats cleaned out of the spammers or whoever it is hitting the blogs?)
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* SGI = Secret Government Installation
This is an abbreviation the R.C. and I have developed to describe any and all weird and/or inexplicable buildings, events, or occurrences we might encounter.
Thanks for the good wishes yesterday afternoon.
I'm not sure how the interview went. Generally during an interview, there's a magic moment, an instant when you can feel the interviewer's guard go down and you really start to bond with them. I didn't get that from yesterday's interview. I did very well with Lady #1, the one who handled the initial phone screening and who chatted with me about the position for a few minutes while we waited for Lady #2 to show up. Lady #2, when she appeared, wasn't quite as easy to read and I never really felt I was giving her the answers she wanted to hear. (That's important, since Lady #2 is the boss of the department in question.)
Oh, well. It was an interview, right? At least if someone likes your resume and cover letter enough to give you a call, you feel a little less like the unwanted tidal trash on the beach of life.
Today's catch wasn't big. Two writing jobs, though, which made me happy even just to apply for. (I'm so glad they changed the rule about ending sentences with prepositions.)
One was a tech writer position (thank you to my friend, Megan, who forwarded the link to me) that I probably won't get because I have no "official" tech writing experience, even though I've written half a dozen or more technical and user manuals.
Another ("Full Time Writer") I probably won't ever hear about again because I have no idea what to submit when someone requests "writing samples" with your resume. Also, that one was a "work from home" position for a company based in CA. I'm not sure I'm looking to spend my professional life home alone, but who knows? (The thought occurs that if I got a job like that, it could be done even in Missouri....)
A few days ago I also applied to a "Writer / Researcher / Editorial" ad. Candidates will be responsible for a multitude of research concerning various important historical figures, creating compelling non-fiction prose, while also assuring compliance with standard English usage and grammatical rules. No, you don't have to tell me I'm not qualified for that one, either. I know my grammar is appalling and my punctuation is erratic. (I could learn, you know. If I wanted to.)
Still. It makes me happy to apply for writing jobs. :) I like to fantasize that I could be a writer.
Got a call earlier this afternoon, and I have a job interview at 2:00 MT tomorrow.
Send a few good vibes my way, okay? :) Thanks!
Posted by AnneZook at 10:40 PM | Comments (4)Garden-wise, Monday was a huge success. Most of Denver's Botanic Gardens were in full bloom, making a tour through the winding paths on a warm, sunny day a sheer delight*.
It was a bonus to discover that Monday was one of the rare no-admission days**, a clear savings of $8.50! Beautiful and frugal! (Frugality is important to those of us who have thrown away perfectly good jobs just because our bosses were lunatics and we were disinclined to undertake a daily 80-mile round-trip commute for the pleasure of continuing to work with them.)
My baby digital camera has two settings, for either high- or low-resolution pictures. Up until now, I've always used the 'high' setting, thinking that any outing I undertook could probably be sufficiently documented with 20 pictures. For Monday's BG outing, I reset the camera to 'low', thinking that I might just want 80 pictures. I took 40, only three of which came out decently, so I don't really have anything in the way of really gorgeous photos to share.
The BG features Romantic, Herb, Victorian, Water, Monet, Montana, Japanese, and Rock Alpine Gardens, among other "themed" areas.
Making lavish use of micro-ecosystems (I think that's the term), every area, including in the amazing Tropical Conservatory, walking through each area was like entering a new and entirely separate garden.
On to the 
Pansies are not only the easiest to photograph, they're the easiest to grow, so we saw bazillions of them all over the place (outside of the "themed" areas.)
Some of them were in unusual colors 
, including one bed full (and here I really regret not getting better shots) a bed of almost true black blossoms. 
I have a weakness for irises and those were also sprinkled throughout the gardens. I've never seen "champagne" colored ones before. 
Columbines abounded, in many colors.
I tried photographing one of the many 'water features' of the place, this one in the Monet Garden, but…. 
And, of course, there were tons of blooms I couldn't identify at all.
It doesn't show in the picture, but this 
gigantic plant, in the Tropical Conservatory, was probably twenty feet tall. The flower you can see blossoming in the center there was bigger than my hand.
It's too early in Denver for roses and either it's too early or we missed the Lilac Garden, so we're going to plan to go back later this summer.
Anyhow. That's the Public Gardening portion of the program.
More personally, my own little incipient balcony flower garden is--much the same. Flowerless. (Never again with the seeds. Next time I buy full-grown plants, already in flower!)
The sunflowers are growing like--well--weeds. Which, since they're practically a weed back in Kansas where I was born, surprises me not at all.
The marigold shoots are starting to take off although not yet developing that bushy aspect that leads to blossoms. Still. There must be fifteen or so potential plants among the five pots, so I feel fairly confident that at least a couple of them will eventually flower.
I think I have a second forget-me-not seed sprouting! I planted 20 or more seeds, so having a potential second plant developing is very exciting. This morning I ruthlessly destroyed a sunflower that seemed to be growing too closely to the new sprout. Time will tell whether or not these unexpectedly fragile little plants can be coaxed to thrive on my balcony.
There's a weird sort of thing on the leaves of most of my plants, although not on the R.C.'s, which is odd since they live on the same shelves. (We bought rolling shelves to keep them on.) A sort of brown speckling or something the R.C. refers to as "mange". I'm afraid I've been over-watering them. I'm going to try leaving them alone for the next two or three days and see if that cures the problem.
We've had to move them all indoors for a few days too, since temperatures dropped from the 80's down to the 60's in the day and 40 at night.
My bromeliad is surviving just fine since I bought it as an already-healthy plant. I don't see that it's grown much, but a bromeliad never seems to be growing until the day you realize you need a pot a yard wide to hold the fool thing. Anyhow, it and the begonia aren't really part of the garden. Not properly. They both have burgundy-colored leaves and I bought them as decorator plants for the bedroom. (I didn't even realize the begonia was a flowering plant until it flowered one day.)
I've been roaming around with my little camera taking a lot of flower pictures recently.
That's about all I had to say today.
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* Not being a fan of bugs, big or otherwise, I paid no attention to the special Big Bugs Gigantic Eco-Sculptures exhibits. I've seen giant ants (in Them!), Praying Mantis's wig me out, spiders are just gross, etc. Ignoring twenty-foot representations of such infestations added, I think, largely to my enjoyment of the day.
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** On the drawback side of the equation, well, it was a free day. Which means Denver's ubiquitous stroller-brigade was out in force.
Anything in Denver that doesn't cost money attracts hordes of women pushing strollers laden either with their yelling offspring or a selection of coats, purses, and hats (while the offspring run riot through the passing foot traffic).
What I think I object to most is the tendency of a significant percentage of these women to use said strollers as battering rams to force their way through crowds.
Also? The size of the strollers. Years back, a stroller was a thing designed to carry a child too small to walk any distance. It was a compact device, combining convenience with portability.
Today's strollers are the SUV versions. Extra buckets front, back, and sometimes side, make them handy for carrying your offspring, a week's worth of groceries, and probably the dog. A woman pushing one of these is a serious force in a crowd of pedestrians.
I'd like to make it clear that I am very fond of babies and even toddlers. (Of the non-yelling variety.) Nevertheless, I don't yield for strollers. Regardless of the amount of debris you've chosen to burden yourself with on today's outing, you're entitled to the same amount of space as anyone else--meaning 1/2, and no more, of the width of the sidewalk. And you're no more entitled to take your half out of the middle than anyone else is. Which means, not at all.
I guess it's fair to say I haven't been up to much since I got back to town. That and intermittent internet access problems have been keeping me offline. The Little Man came to fix the net access a day or so ago, though, and now we're back to our usual blazing-fast, incredibly reliable service and daily blog posting will be easy.
That doesn't mean I have anything to say.
So, monotonously:
Seedlings - All remaining growths seem to be surviving. A few even seem to be thriving. I'm embittered by the realization that the joy of growing your own plants from seeds has to be balanced by the frustration of having to wait months to see any flowers.
It looks like only one of those forget-me-not seeds actually sprouted and survived the first 30 days. The one seedling that's left is, very slowly, starting to show signs of progress.
The marigolds are looking sturdy, though. I think most of those are going to make it to the blossoming stage.
I really should have started these three months ago. At the rate they're going, it's going to be September before my little flower garden has flowers. If I had the money, I'd go out and buy a handful of already-flowering plants to add a little color to my balcony-based garden. Sigh.
Yarn-based pastimes - Largely all stalled. The mood has not been upon me recently. I ripped out two projects (one "completed" and one "in progress" to start them again because I didn't like what I'd done. I need to get back to them.
Maybe later today. I can knit while I watch the last two episodes of ReGenesis that I'm behind on. Or while I finish watching Veritas, a show that annoys me with its wasted potential and yet remains just good enough that I'm watching the DVDs and musing on What Might Have Been.
Drawing practice - An idea that's still in the conceptual stage. I'd like to spend some of this unexpected free time on drawing practice. Really, I would. But being unemployed is depressing and I can't write or draw or do anything very creative when I'm depressed.
So, the downer topics:
Job-hunting - The process continues. I send out resumes into oblivion. It's one thing to know that it always takes months to find a new job--it's quite another to be in the middle of the process so often, as I seem to have been for the last five years.
Mom - From what I'm told, she's gone into a bit of a tailspin since she got the 1-2 year diagnosis. I don't blame her and depression is one of the things to be expected when someone has received notice that they only have a year or two to live, and that the quality of their life is going to be going down until then, but it's worrying.
The R.C. was planning to make a trip down there before I went again, but I think I'm going to have to schedule a return visit fairly soon. I'm getting questions from the L-i-K-S and sometimes from Mom about the promised return visit. I don't know what I can do, even if I go. Mom needs someone to really discuss her finances with, someone to bully her into making a will, someone to start the process of vetting nursing homes, since she's going to need 24/7 care before the end, someone to arrange for her sister and b-i-l to get some kind of care stipend each month, etc., but my mom isn't amenable to discussing such things. I'm not really the Take Charge kind of person to do it, not in my own eyes, but--I'm the one who needs to do it. I'm the oldest, except for my brother and he's the least-suitable of all of us.
Less depressingly:
The weather is gorgeous and I've talked the R.C. into a visit to Denver's Botanic Garden tomorrow. I'm planning to take my little digital camera, so maybe I'll have pictures to post!
Fun-wise, I've gotten together with friends a few times in the last couple of weeks, mostly for conversation. While I enjoyed it, it doesn't make for interesting blog-fodder.
I've made it in and out of two bookstores without making a purchase. I was doing well with Frugal Living until Friday when I fell for a book at Tattered Cover LoDo. No, I didn't need a $16 anthology of the stories that inspired some of today's top SF authors to write themselves (The World Turned Upside Down), but I don't care. I wanted it, I've been reading it, and I've been falling in love all over again with some of my favorite Golden Age SF authors. I may have to go to storage and dig out some of those cartons of SF books I put away a few years ago.
Other than that, I've been re-reading Alexander Kent's Bolitho (naval) series. It's gotten me back into the mood for Napoleonic War era stories again, so I think I'll re-read Dudley Pope's Ramage series next. I'm finishing the last of Cornwall's Sharpe books and being happy that I went to the expense of buying them--it's a series I'm sure I'll read again.
And now I'm brooding on books in general. I don't particularly care for contemporary fiction, but a couple of friends are suggesting that we start our own knit-lit group (knitting and book discussion) and I'm a bit concerned. I'm scanning my bookshelves and wondering if there's anything I read that they'd enjoy, wondering what they, themselves, read when no one is looking, and wondering if I'd have anything to say in a book discussion group anyhow. Sure, I've read 50,000 books in my life, but outside of a classroom, I don't think I've ever done any organized discussion.
I mean, yes, they're friends, so I don't have to worry that either of them will throw offf the mask and stand revealed as a Harlequin fan or anything, but not reading sloppy romances still leaves a lot of book territory.
The R.C. likes biographies, for instance. I'm not a big fan, so I probably couldn't "discuss" a biography. (Just by way of example. She's not one of the people talking about starting the group, although she's welcome to come along.) I mean, you can't read just one, right? If you actually care about what a person's life was like, you have to read from a dozen sources to evaluate how accurate the biography is and to fill in the gaps and stuff. Sounds like a lot of work.
I like mysteries and SF/F, but I read very little that's contemporary. As the aforementioned anthology suggests, I have a fondness for Golden Age stories, in both genres.
I read some nonfiction, but usually writing-related or history stuff. Or mythology. Or, very rarely these days, philosophy.
It's very worrying. What if they hate everything I like?
Yes, I made it back from Missouri last week with no problems. Intermittent internet access combined with a run of gorgeous weather means I haven't been spending much time at the computer.
Mom got stronger and feeling better every day while I was there, which was very reassuring. On the other hand, and in the less than good news category, the prognosis is 1-2 years.
Random updates:
Yarn stuff: Haven't been making progress.
Seeds stuff: Most of the seeds I planted have sprouted but they seem disinclined to actually grow big enough to develop flowers. |-( Maybe I'm not being patient enough....
Job stuff: Many resumes sent, no reaction from the business world yet. These things take time. Maybe i'm not being patient enough....
Drawing stuff: Having wasted much of this week in ways that wind up merely passing the time and not using it, I've decided to start spending at least an hour a day on sketching practice.
More soon, I promise.
Posted by AnneZook at 07:45 PM | Comments (2)My return to civilization draws nigh. In the meantime, the rest of the trip has gone reasonably well. Especially when you consider I've spent the last six days (about ten hours a day) with people I don't particularly like and who don't particularly like me (my mother excepted, of course).
I wouldn't say we've all been on our "good behavior" since these aren't people who think "good behavior" should be wasted on family, but we've all remained reasonably civil.
I've dodged a few bullets and let pass, with an absent smile, several remarks that, in other times, could have been the foundation for a major family feud. I've accepted being characterized as a superficial, shallow, homeless ("an apartment is not a home") old maid with no feeling for the importance of history and heritage but living large on the abundance of my ridiculously large salary. Among, you know, other remarks that I didn't bother to remember.
Anyhow. Everyone seems to be settling into a routine with Mom still getting just a bit better every day. There are some things to work out around finances and getting occasional "relief" help for Billy Jo and Billy Bob, but that will come with time. Right now, I'm planning to make another (shorter) trip back out here in six weeks or so to see how it's all shaking down and to make sure this arrangement is still working for Mom for the foreseeable future.
She's still having visits from physical therapists and occupational therapists and a "bath lady), each twice a week, but those services are due to run out in another week or so. (It's something the hospital here provides as part of the service for four weeks after release for seriously ill patients.) If she continues to need such assistance (especially for personal care), we can arrange to hire someone to come out two or three times a week.
I looked into changing the date of my return flight, so I could be here for the Big Appointment next Wednesday, when she's supposed to get a lot of information about what to expect, disease progression, services available, etc., but the tab was $670 , which felt a bit steep for an unemployed person whose credit card is already starting to smoke a bit. I'm going to call them next Wednesday evening and find out what the specialists had to say.
Today went quietly. No "company" but me (and the occupational therapy lady and the bath lady), and everyone seemed relaxed and ready for a quiet period of adjustment. We ate lunch (Campbell's beef & vegetable soup and spam sandwiches on white bread and would it be rude to say that I dream about decent, reasonably healthy food?) ("Trapped in Missouri--send sushi!") and then picked up the mail.
The bulk of the afternoon was spent reading sale flyers and catalogs. (For anyone feeling a need, Goat Ration is on sale at $9.95 for a 40 lb bag. Bull gates, squeeze chutes, and assorted straight ducks are also available at bargain prices.)
For one reason and another, the afternoon's conversation touched upon such rarified topics as the VietNam War, foot fetishes, the school system twenty years ago, neocon scariness*,and furries.
Eventually the excitement of this palled on me and I returned to Mom's trailer to work on tidying up. I'm stripping all the beds and washing all of the towels and sheets and whatnot, cleaning the perishable foods out of the cupboards and refrigerator, and doing some of the other things that have to be done to prepare a house to be largely uninhabited for the foreseeable future. Cleaning and stuff. Also. Packing. (I'm going home!)
I may go back there for another short visit this evening. Depends on how the cleaning and tidying go.
Mostly? I want to sleep in my own bed, wash in my own shower, ready my own books, sit in my own chair, and be able to reach more than one store (grocery or otherwise) without an hour-long drive.
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* This bunch, as dirt-poor borderline southerners, were rabidly Republican thirty or so years ago. They ranted about "government handouts" for old people who hadn't had the sense to save for their retirement, wanted more money spent in schools where their kids were being educated, and yet were mostly in favor of small government with everyone fending for themselves because they had a rooted hatred of the "welfare state", a thing they complained about a lot without actually having any understanding of what a "welfare state" really looked like.
Now that they're old and getting infirm, they're incensed about the lack of social and government programs to help the elderly, the ill, and the poor. They're furious about the amount of money spent on schools, considering that schools and kids have too many programs devoted to them.
And they're still for "small government" and still harbor a lot of anger about the "welfare state" although they have family members who are certifiable (and a few certified) who wouldn't be able to feed and clothe themselves without their social security mental disability payments.
Things I wouldn't have expected to hear 30 years ago?
They loath Bush Junior and all of his cronies and colleagues (although they're so poorly educated that they refuse to believe that the "West" has now or ever has had anything to do with the development of the current situation in the Middle East) and are adamant in their hatred for "Republicans" (by which they mean the current crop of neo-cons).
Things I heard 30 years ago and heard again today? They're all for "state's rights" and they have no more idea what that means now than they had three decades ago.
A meeting of the minds was achieved with the agreement that the money being sent over to use for killing people in Iraq could have been spent here in the USofA to 5000% greater advantage. (They refused to accept that the USofA has now or has ever had any responsibility for the situation in the Middle East.) And they bitched about the high price of gasoline.
In case you were wondering, I'm surviving the wilds of Missouri pretty much intact. The upside to it raining every day is that it's chased the bugs back into the tall grass and I'm not faced with quite such an onslaught every time I step out of the house.
Every little bit helps, right?
I can't quite get used to the people. As I drive myself over to see Mom every morning, everyone I pass waves at me. It's a sort of small-town (read: "miniscule" with Pop. approximately 82) thing, and you have to wave back to be polite. I find myself waving at some scary-looking people, the kind I'd cross the street to avoid in Denver. And I'm related to some of them.
Yesterday I went to the post office to get Mom's mail and there was a "parcel at window" slip in her box. When I went up to the window, the guy gave me a phone book. He said the only way he can get rid of them is to hand them out with the mail. He thought that was a pretty clever ruse.
Mom's getting stronger every day. She still tires easily and of course her diagnosis is pretty firm, so she's never going to be what she was a year ago, but she's much stronger and more coherent than she was when I got to town.
This week mostly involves a few therapist visits and one consult with a sleep apnea clinic. She going to have a sleep apnea test, but we're not sure what day yet.
The real key comes next week, on the 9th, when she goes back to the ALS specialist and sees all of the other people he has lined up to give her information about services and support and suchlike. Unfortunately, I didn't know about that appointment when I booked my trip, and I'll be back in Denver by then, unless I can ever get through United's phone lines and change my return flight.
Either way, I'm leaving here on Friday. If I can change my return flight, I'll just inflict myself on the L-i-K-S for a few days, then come back down here just for the Tuesday doctor's visits.
Yes, I admit it. With 2-1/2 days still to go in my visit, I'm pretty much against the wall. After starting the week as the fair-haired girl, with everyone delighted to see me and being nice to me, I'm now settling back into my original position of the "failure" child.
This isn't my mother's estimation, you understand, but that of the sister, Billy Jo, that mom is currently living with. Billy Jo has actually never liked me, not since I can remember*. Normally I can face that fact with equanimity since she's a thousand miles away from me and I don't actually care what she thinks. Sadly, right now I have to care, since she's taken mom in to live with her. Much of my energy for the past four days has gone into 'making nice' to her and ignoring her increasing hostility toward me.
Actually, it all sort of started on Monday. Up until then, there were lots of visitors and family members coming and going in every direction and she didn't have a lot of time to remember how much she really disliked me. On Monday morning we had one of Those Conversations where she laid our what she thought life should be like, and I disagreed, and things have been going downhill since.
To make a long story short, I made it clear that if Mom needs a place to live, she's welcome and more than welcome to move in with me in Denver and I'll work out how to handle the 24/7 care needs somehow, but the thing that's out of the question is me giving up my life and moving here, or even to the thriving metropolis of Joplin.
I cannot live in Missouri. Just contemplating it makes me feel like finding a ledge to jump from.
That's not an easy conversation to have with someone without making it sound as though the place they've chosen to live is a dank, depressing hole where people "exist" more than "live". I skated the line pretty closely a few times and now every time she sees me, Billy Jo remembers more and more that she's never liked me.
My mother's life is important to me, but it's not more important than my own life. It's as important, of course, but it still makes more sense to me that she should come to share my life than that I should give up my life to come and sit around the kitchen table for eight or ten hours a day with this lot. (That's how they occupy their time. They get up, and spend the day sitting around the kitchen table, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, and don't even get me started on how grotesque it is to spend days on end with people who live in a permanent haze of cigarette smoke, talking to each other largely about each other. After four days of this, I can already feel brain cells, not to mention lung cells, dying.)
Figuring out how to care for an elderly and infirm parent who needs more care than you can personally provide is just hell. Mom doesn't need "nursing" care, she just needs someone to be around 24/7, in case she falls or something and needs help getting up.
Also, as a symptom of her ALS, occasionally she has trouble breathing and chokes. Someone has to be around to make sure it doesn't get serious and to call 911 if she gets to where she really can't breathe. And, yes, she needs help with personal care like bathing and fixing meals and suchlike. I'm sure all of these services are available in Denver, along with doctors who specialize in her condition, although I don't know what they'd cost, but I'd happily look into them and take on living with her if I could convince her to move to Denver.
She's not going to do that, and I'm not going to move here, so we have to think of alternatives which, at least for the short-term, means her living with Billy Jo.
Whiny today, aren't I?
Sigh. It's 9:45 and I'm grossly late in showing up over there this morning, so I'd better get moving.
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* It's near-inconceivable to Billy Jo that a woman wouldn't get married and sprout at least a couple of kids, and she has never been able to reconcile herself to the idea that a straight woman might still not choose to marry or reproduce. Still, this isn't the root of Billy Jo's dislike. She's disliked me since long before I was old enough to make such choices.