That's no ugly duckling

I'm the kind of person that is always looking out the window to see what the neighbors are doing. Luckily for all you humans out there, my windows look out over a lake instead of houses.

I have enjoyed watching the Sandhill Cranes, Great Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Canadian Geese and Mallard Ducks that frequent the area, but I have always wished for my favorite bird of all to settle in: Swans!

For years I would see a single swan (bachelor) come along in the spring and swim around, all lonely-like. After a few weeks, he would leave. Finally, last year there was a pair. He found a lady! (FYI Swans are known to mate for life)

Jeffrey named them Ricco and Daisy, and they were beautiful and not at all mean like people say swans are. I think this might be due to the type, which I think is Mute vs Trumpet.

Last year we watched them build a nest, but then they left it unattended, and when I eventually went to investigate on my kayak, I saw a pile of cracked eggshells on it. There are many possible predators out there such as those cranes, a pair of enormous Red-Tailed Hawks, and muskrats.

They swam around looking all sad for a few weeks and then flew away.

And then this spring they came back! And built another nest! I watched anxiously and was glad to see only one swan at a time swimming around for the last several weeks.

And today, a beautiful, sparkling day, I see this:





Is it possible for birds to look proud and happy? Could be my imagination but that's what I see here. A joyful day!

Now I'm trying not to think about the snapping turtles.

Fish wall window

Jeffrey started complaining early this morning. His room is too cold, because of the double window. But it's too small of a room, why did the builder make it so small? If it was bigger, there would be space for a large fish tank.

And then he had this brilliant idea.

"Mom could you cut a hole in the wall in between my and Tim's bedrooms and put a fish tank in it?"

"That sounds pretty complicated, honey." Visions of chainsaws and reinforcing walls and running electricity and leaks ran quickly through my head.

But Tim said that would be a cool thing to have too.

"We could stand on either side and wave at each other through the water as fish swim by."

And then Jeffrey totally cracked me up as he stated in all seriousness:

"Now there's something I would NEVER get tired of doing!"

It's fun to dream. At least he wasn't complaining anymore.

Snaked

We've been having a beautiful, sunny Spring this year, and I just couldn't wait to get out there an plant some pansies, my favorite flower. I kept asking at the local garden center and actually managed to buy a flat on the very day that they came in.

(In case you don't already know, pansies like the cold and can be planted as early as mid-March around here in Michigan, if you can find some for sale to buy.)

So I put some in pots on the porch, and some more in the ground around the landscaping by the walkway in front of our house. They looked so pretty! I was very pleased and went inside to get a drink of water. I came back out to put away my gardening things and stopped to admire my work again. In the short time that I was inside, a 3 foot long garter snake had made it's way out and wove it's slimy snake body in and out of each plant that I had so carefully placed in the ground.

Naturally, I began screaming like a maniac and got Timmy to come out and get gloves and a bucket and extract the hideous thing from my flowers and my sight. As he bravely performed this heroic feat, I stood there shrieking with a full-blown case of snake induced heebie-jeebies.

With the snake removed my pretty pansies went back to being a happy sight, until first thing the next morning when I came out and saw that each and every plant had been chewed down to the ground. Probably by a rabbit.

Yeah, I know. If I'd let the snake stay there, I'd still have the pansies. Doh!

A picture of Timmy

When I opened up our local newspaper this week, there was a picture of the High School Track Team.

This is what you see:


And here's what it looks like to me:




You might think that it looks like any other High School sports team picture but this one HAS MY KID IN IT!!!! This is the first time for this so far as I know in generations. The closest I ever got to a jock was assigned seating in Geometry class. Sure, my boys have played in different recreational sports for years now, but this is High School, with real uniforms and professional pictures in the newspaper. Where people pay money to go watch them compete. Where you earn a letter like Danny did to impress Sandy in Grease.

I am so very proud.

And who knows, maybe he will even make it over the hurdles.

Ready for Spring

The lake is still frozen so it still looks wintery outside, but there are some signs of spring such as the presence of many more birds around here.

I am delighted that the swans have made an appearance, but they look awful silly standing and sitting around on the ice.

The cranes are back too. Every once in a while they will fly in, stand there on the ice, and then honk like crazy, as if they are complaining about the situation.

Hurry up, spring!

wii little me

Around Christmastime Larry brought home an extra gift he got "for the boys," which was one of those "wii" gaming systems where you stand in front of the TV waving these white controllers in the air in a way that slightly resembles doing a sport. Everyone says that this is better than regular video games because you move your whole arms instead of just the thumbs. Although the boys were happy enough to get it, I wasn't very enthusiastic about bringing yet another time-wasting electronic into the house.

After the initial excitement, guess who was the one spending the most time of all strengthening his elbows? That would be Larry. And then he went and bought another game to upgrade from what came with it, this one called "wii sports resort."

He quickly mastered Frisbee golf and then went on the 100 pin bowling. I observed that he seemed to get a sense of satisfaction out of watching the ball smack down all those bowling pins, sending them flying and bouncing away. It must meet some testosterone-fueled need to dominate, crush and destroy passive objects. Maybe this is a good way to take care of that. But still, not my thing.

But then I found myself with all of this extra free time recently, and the boys have had a lot of days off from school due to breaks and snow days. Desperate to get them away from the TV screen, I had the idea that if I was taking a turn at it then they would be forced to find other things to do. I asked Jeff to show me how the wii worked, and he helped me to set up my avatar. We made a wii little Mindy in a purple shirt, and I kind of liked watching her bopping around on the screen.

I really didn't want to go to all the effort of standing up in front of the TV, so I found a game for flying an airplane that I kind of liked, and I saw that there was one for bicycling that I could do while sitting down.

It seemed silly at first, sitting there on the couch pedaling my arms in the manner that my feet would go, which has very little to do with riding a bicycle, which is the one sportly thing I actually do in real life.

But after a bit of practice I found some things to like about it. The way that the perspective is set up on the screen, you get the feeling that you are actually there, traveling through this happy sunny digitally created place, with the fake wind blowing through my fake avatar hair. And although the pedaling action is weird, to take the corners on the paths you kind of lean over to the side, very similar to steering a real bike, which for me is nearly an instinctive reaction with all of the bike riding I do when there isn't 12 inches of snow on the ground like there is now.

And so I got kind of good at it, and I started to enjoy the false reality of whisking around the island. I think it is the same thing as watching an Imax movie, where your peripheral vision takes in the motion on the screen and your brain and body react as if it was real.

I got so good that I earned the chance to go up a level and unlocked a new course that travels up the side of a volcano on a windy little path. That visual perspective trick was also at work here, and I truly had the feeling that if I didn't keep in control and steer just right, I could fall right to my death by plunging over the rocky cliff.

And then I did!





Ahhhh! It was a horrific moment as I virtually experienced my worst fear of losing control of my bike and plunging to my rocky death below. I closed my eyes because I really didn't want to know if I would see a bloody wii little Mindy lying at the bottom, or being carried off by the wii paramedics to be pronounced dead on arrival and prepped for her wii little funeral.

Alerted by the sound of their mother screaming at the TV, Tim and Jeff appeared to see what was happening. After they got me calmed down, Jeff showed me what to do.

"See mommy, you just go right back to where you were, a little farther behind than before, and then you keep on going."

Of course. As always, he has it exactly right.

Easy come, easy go

I was going to follow up on that last post with some silly speculation about what might have happened to the disappearing workers at my temp job. Such as finding dazed former employees roaming the parking lot with stapled-up flaps on the backs of their heads. Or experimental but dangerous productivity enhancing chemicals being pumped through the air vents. Or some kind of Truman-like fake work environment as cover for some sinister activities.

But all that's not quite so funny anymore, because now I know what happens to their former contract employees.

They get a call on their cell phones on a Sunday evening while they were doing laundry so as to have enough clean dress pants to wear for the week, and it's from the job shop rep saying not to go in to work the next day. No explanation, just a request to turn in the laptop computer.

I'll have to say that I was somewhat stunned, because I had recently gotten to a point where I had figured out how to do the tasks that were assigned to me, and could finally begin producing at the speed they seemed to be expecting. But I also had a feeling that this made some sense, because on Friday I had sent an email to whoever I thought might be the right person to tell that I would not be coming in to work "for all Saturdays in the forseeable future" as a recent mass email had demanded that we either do or provide excuses for.

When I accepted this job assignment I was not told that there would be mandatory overtime, and since I had been there it was very unclear to me what the expectations were for hours of work. But it was made clear by the job shop that I was not to work overtime without "prior approval" which meant to me something more direct than vague whining about "we're way behind and everyone needs to pitch in."

Of course I'm guessing here, because for all I know the reason they let me go was something to do with the way I fix my hair, but if it was the overtime issue then that's a shame because the confusion could have been easily cleared up by someone from the company having a direct conversation with me about what the expectation was.

But that would have been the first and only direct conversation I'd have with anyone there about any subject including how to do the documents, what to wear on Fridays, who to call if there's a snowstorm or when the department meetings were. They just didn't acknowledge the new contractors there as actual people. We were more like a line of boxed up computer monitors along the wall that you look at and think "I wonder when they're going to install those."

And that bothered me. I need my personhood to be acknowledged. Just a little quirk of mine. I do totally get it that we are in a recession and there is an unlimited supply of unemployed people out there plenty willing to step in and take any work they can get, but to me that is still not an excuse to treat people with any less respect, or none at all.

So this is how this goes. Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do next, again.

Suspicion

So this new job of mine, there's a lot to do, which makes the days go by quickly, but the work isn't always all that interesting to me. Also, since I've started there's something about the place that doesn't seem quite right, and I've been thinking about that.

A few days ago, one of the coworker who I hadn't gotten to know very well disappeared without explanation. Suddenly, her desk was empty and her name was off of the work schedule, but nobody was talking about it.

As a new contractor doing the exact same job as she was, I wanted to know more. If she was fired, was it the quality of her work, her attitude, the speed of her work, punctuation, personal hygiene, what? I guess I wanted to know what not to do, in case I wanted to stay here for a while, or the converse. It would be good information.

Since no one was talking, I was left to my own devices. MaryAnn told me that she had gotten one of the assignments from the separated worker. I told her to be on the lookout for anything that might indicate a reason to be fired. She said that she would have organized the topics differently herself, but that was about all that could be said to be wrong with the document.

Meanwhile, I was on the keen lookout for suspicious activity. I started to realize that although everyone around me constantly appears to be frantically busy, I have never seen any actual results of all this work.

Then the other day as I was driving around the series of connected building to get to the spot in the back parking lot, something caught my eye. It was a man in a white lab coat coming through a parting in the chain link fence between some other buildings in the industrial park. I watched as he went to an unmarked door to a building that is connected to my building.

The next time I drove around I took a closer look. The only markings on the door said "CAUTION: eye protection required." I thought it was unusual that this part of the complex is inaccessible from my area, and does not have a sign anywhere. I peered through the fence opening and saw another series of unmarked buildings. And then another lab-coat guy came and went through!

Back at my desk, I had been complaining about how dirty everything seemed to get, and with impressive speed a never-before-seen "maintenance worker" appeared with a ladder and used a paint brush to clean the "dust" off of a large vent that's nearly right over my desk. Most unusual.

I tried to put the pieces together. I told MaryAnn to take another look at that document, to check for things like the first letter of every other word spelling out a secret plea for help when read backwards.

I'm still working on it, but there must be a way to connect these occurrences into a single explanation. There just has to be one. Or not.

Screenwriting Class

Well I went to my first screenwriting class. I worked late and did some fine dining at the Taco Bell, and got to the community house way too early. What can I say, I was excited!

I've always liked the vibe of Birmingham, and when I got to the Community House the lady at the desk told me that my class would be in "The Library" and I could go in there and wait.

The room was like something out of a movie: wood paneled walls with a fake bookcase, chandeliers, and a gnarled wood conference table polished to a high shine. I loved it that we would be in a place with atmosphere, and I settled into one of the pointy-backed chairs and set up my notebook and papers with the work I'd already done on my screenplay.

I sat there and looked at the empty chairs and imagined what kind of people would soon come in and fill them. Maybe some super-cool Quentin Tarantino types, or the undiscovered genius of a Charlie Kauffman. I wondered about the instructor. There was a short bio of him in the course catalog, it said he has written award-winning screenplays and had many things produced. He could be my link to the Hollywood insiders. I hoped to make a good impression. Maybe I shouldn't have brought my Taco Bell cup in here.

The first person to join me in the room was an older man named Pete. He was telling jokes that didn't make sense and talked too much, in a nonsensical way. I could tell that he was the kind who distracts the teacher and dominates discussions to lead them off topic. Great. Crazy Pete.

Then the teacher and the rest of the students started to fill the room. There were all kinds of problems with registrations and late-comers, and lots of confusion before the class finally got going, way late.

There was a round-table of introductions and of course I was far off in my predictions of the kinds of people who would be joining me in this class. The majority were senior citizens. Bobbling old ladies and stern old men. Some unemployed people, a security guard, and an unusually large amount of lawyers. None of them were glamorous Hollywood types.

The instructor seemed like he knows his subject but kept getting distracted and had no idea how to keep control of the too-large group. I guessed that I may have over-interpreted his Hollywood connections and later went and looked him up. It turns out that he has done writing for documentaries but the one screenplay he wrote was never produced, and I think the award it won was one of those contests that you pay to enter so that you get enough credentials to qualify to teach an overpriced community ed screenwriting class.

Towards the end of the session he had us go around the table and tell about our main character and what their motivation was. He started on the side where Crazy Pete sat, so I would go next to last. I listened patiently as each person droned on about the sort-of idea that they kind-of had for their story. None of them had a main character or any idea what motivation was. Or any knowledge whatsoever about plot structure. Which I know for a fact is taught in the fourth grade. I decided that they ALL were crazy, and that if the teacher kept letting each of them blabber on like that they would never make it to me before the class time was up.

With just minutes left on the clock it was finally my turn to talk and I proudly stated my main character's clearly defined motivation, and then as a bonus I showed them the line chart I'd made that plotted out all the major turning points of my story. They all looked at me like I was crazy. And then we were out of time.

OK. So maybe their vision of a glamorous future Hollywood screenwriter hadn't been of a super-geeked middle-aged housewife/former engineer who eats at Taco Bell. I guess we'll all just have to accept each other for who we are, (crazy) and get on with it. That's alright.


Even though this class didn't live up to my too-high expectations, I am still excited about having the motivation to finish this screenplay I am writing. I have to write a treatment and character outlines for next month, and I'm looking forward to doing it.

Aim High

Well now a couple of weeks have gone by at this new job, and I am only now starting to become productive at it. As I figure out things or finally ask the right questions, new information is revealed to me, that, if I had known it from the start, would have gotten me productive much sooner. So the ramp up has had a pretty low slope. Which hasn't kept them from coming at me with impossible due dates for things I could have gotten done already if anyone had bothered to show me how.

So it's kind of a crummy job and the place is pretty seriously screwed up. It's stressful, BUT:

-The days go by very quickly

-I don't really mind it all that much.

Somehow, having this crummy job isn't bothering me like you might think it would. Maybe it's because I know it's temporary. This job has clarified for me that this isn't something that I want to do for the long term. But since it isn't for the long term, I can stand it. And getting paid and being busy right now "in this economy" is something to be grateful for, so I am.

And although this job has more than enough frustrations with it (today I couldn't help myself from asking if there was a Task Code for "Futile Searching") I'm noticing that there is a difference from the way I felt when I was back at GM. That difference is the prevailing sense of despair that I felt for the last few years I was there. Maybe that had something to do with the feeling that I was in it for the long haul, until retirement, and whenever things went bad I knew there was an element of it that would affect me in some way for the rest of my career. It all just built.

But when you're a temp, the possibilities of the whole world are out there ahead, full of potential. I'm not burdened with worries about what's going to happen to the company, or how to get to retirement, competing for promotions, getting enough exposure to management, all of that. I only need to get through each week, and then there's this:

Yeah, I have the best neighbors in the world.

That's a double-barreled frozen Margarita machine, and it knows how to make the aggravations of the week gone by disappear very
nicely.



And there's another thing that makes a temporary crummy job easier to live with.

It's the hope that there's something better out there for me, and doing something that makes it seem like there's a chance of getting it. Even if it's a very small chance. Some people I know get that from playing the lottery. They can handle anything as long as there's a ticket in their pocket that symbolizes the opportunity to hit it big.

I've never been one for the lottery, since I don't like the odds, but I have something going now that gives me the feeling like I can dream big.

That would be my screenplay.

Back in November I had this idea for a script that I thought was really good. So I went to the library and checked out some books on screenwriting, and started writing it. Then I hit a wall, and stopped writing, and those books sat here on the counter accruing overdue fines.

But, I happened to have mentioned this project on Thanksgiving to my cousin Marisa, who happened to think of me when she was browsing through the schedule of course offerings at the Birmingham community house, and she decided to send a link to a course called "Finish Your First Screenplay in 6 Months." She sent it as kind of a joke, but I kept thinking about it.

The course is once a month on Monday evenings for 6 months, and it is a little pricey for community education, but I just went and signed up.

And now I have a dream. Instead of being a former engineer in a crummy temp job, I can imagine seeing my name flash up on the big screen after "written by:"

I can envision myself holding a check for $150,000 for the rights to produce my story. Heck, if I'm going to dream, let's make that a million!

Hey, there's me, accepting my Oscar for best screenplay, while I smile down at George Clooney sitting in the audience of stars.

I do understand that tens of thousands of screenplays get submitted every year, and something like a couple dozen of them ever get produced. I know. But I've got my big dream now, and I'm really looking forward to going to the first class this coming Monday. It makes me happy. And even for the price, those odds are still better than playing the lottery.

Newbie Jobbie

I went to this new job thinking that if I could quickly get past that "new person" fog of cluelessness, and get set up with the access and equipment that I needed, then getting busily to work would be a welcome change for me.

IF.

I know from my own experiences and seeing how contractors were often treated at GM that things don't often go that smoothly. Still, I chose to go in with a hopeful and positive attitude about it.

When I got to the lobby at my designated time I found an anxious looking woman sitting there. I took a guess and asked her if she was starting a new job today. She was, and I introduced myself and learned that her name is MaryAnn.

After quite a while a very rushed man whom I had interviewed with came out and led us over to a busy woman named Robin who then led us to Jessie and told her that she would be responsible for orienting us to the job that day. Robin left and we sat down with Jessie, who looked unsure of what to do. I thought she looked extremely young and asked her how long she'd been with the company.

"Oh, I'm just an intern!" She told us and explained how she'd be going back to school in February. I suggested that she show us how things are organized in the online system and any procedures that she knew of that were published online. We did that for most of the morning had probably exhausted most of her knowledge. I suggested that we find Robin and ask if there were plans to set us up with computers, desks, and access badges.

Robin was still seeming very busy but she did say that she thought someone had put in orders for computers, and that she knew of at least one desk in the area and maybe there was another one somewhere else that could be available. We walked over to the known open desk and I quickly surveyed the area. There was an actual window nearby, and a man across the aisle who was tall with white hair. I thought of good old Bob. This guy looked too grumpy to ever be singing me showtunes but, still, there's comfort in the familiar. When Robin asked who wanted this desk and MaryAnn paused I quickly jumped in and said I would take it! Assertive Melinda!

I later felt slightly guilty when poor MaryAnn was shuffled around to different desks in a faraway part of the building. I decided that I would try to be helpful to her however I could, to make up for it.

I ended up having to sit at my nice new desk without a computer trying not to look useless as all of the busy people around pretty much ignored me for the next two days. I hated that but tried to focus on the positives as I found them:

-The building was kept at a comfortable temperature for doing desk work. How nice it would be not to shiver in my coat trying to type with numb fingers!

-There is a fully stocked supply cabinet! I tried not to stagger backwards in shock as I was invited to take what I needed from the selection of post-its and pens, something they had stopped offering at GM in response to some lucky fool's cost savings suggestion.

-The parking is awesome, this is a building with sort of spread-out wings and there are parking spots all around. I could look out of one of the windowed doors and see my car waiting happily for me just outside. Then I noticed that someone had parked an identical Blue Saturn VUE right next to it. I have decided that I will find out the owner is and they will be my friend.

-This place is only slightly closer than where I used to work but somehow it cuts out the worst part of the drive and my commute is a good 15 minutes or more shorter. Also there are less people on the road these days. Now the drive feels reasonable as opposed to unbearable, even when we got hit with a big snowstorm on the second day.

I continue to be unclear about the reporting structure around there, and have not been able to see any kind of org chart. Back at GM that was always the one thing everyone wanted you to know was who-reports-to-who, even if it was in some zany basketweave matrix. To a some people that was the only thing they needed to know. I guess I can figure it out somehow.

I did eventually get a computer and start to understand what my job will be and how to do it. MaryAnn is still waiting for hers. I've been showing her the things I learn when I can. I'm kind of glad that this is only a short-term assignment. I'm even more glad to have That First Week behind me, and looking forward to finally getting to do some productive work.

Just so Jeffrey

The boys have been out of school since December 18. I have enjoyed being able to spend this much relaxed time together as we've worked our way through the holidays and celebrations. I have been especially appreciating Jeffrey. I already know he won't be a cute little kid for much longer, and I want to cherish every moment with him while I can.

I was watching him and noticing the way he gets when he is super-excited about something that is coming up. He was like this of course right before Christmas, and I saw him doing it again yesterday as he anticipated his cousins coming over for ice skating and a game of nerf wars. He gets all jumpy and antsy, like he can't concentrate on anything other than what he's waiting for. Like he's just about to explode with the anticipation inside of him. I like to say he's all "bursty" with excitement, if only that were a real word.

***

Yesterday he was outside with his dad and brother shoveling off the ice to get it ready for skating. It was very cold out at that time. When he came in all pink cheeked and shivery, he announced to me: "It's so cold out there I have booger-sicles!"

***

Over the break he has been doing a lot of skating on the frozen lake behind our house. At first he was joined by his usual companion Jarod from down the street, but then a new boy starting coming out there, named Alex. I am friends with Alex's mother and we had been hoping that our sons would eventually form a friendship, so I tried to encourage it.

"Jeffrey, do you like spending time with Alex? He seems like such a nice boy, and I think he does well in school too, just like you!"

"Yeah, better than being BAD and STUPID like Jarod!"

Oops. There I was trying to be subtle and encouraging, only to be smacked back with blunt and derogatory. Of course I explained to Jeff that he shouldn't say that kind of thing out loud about anyone who is also his friend. Regardless of what he thinks is true.

***

We went to Target and there was a bird flying around in the store. Jeffrey was enchanted with the idea of it. He saw it land on a rack of clothing and went to see how close he could get. This led to lots of speculation about pooping on the merchandise, what in the store would make good nesting material, and how on earth the employees would go about catching it. (Nets from the fishing dept?) He is so much fun to be with, wherever we are.

***

A couple of nights ago the boys had been asleep for a while and I decided to see what was on television. Unfortunately, the last person to watch the thing had left the volume way up, so I was greeting with a blast of noise that lasted until I could stab the remote enough times to delete all those volume bars. A few moments later a sleepy eyed Jeffrey came shuffling down the stairs. I asked what he wanted and he said:

"May I use the restroom?"

I think that he had been dreaming about being in school, and was talking to me as if he was still there! I gave him permission and he went into the downstairs bathroom, and then came to me for a hug and then went on back up to bed.

***

Then this morning we were eating waffles and Jeffrey looked up at me and asked if I was nervous about going to my new job next week. I was touched that he was thinking about how I was feeling about the changes coming up, rather than just how it all would affect him. I tried to answer his question in a way that he could relate:

"Yes, I am nervous. I'm worried about being able to do the work, and having to learn so many new things, and meeting all the people there and whether they will like me."

We talked a bit more about how it was kind of like going to the first day of school, and then Jeffrey said:

"Maybe you can bring a bag of chips."

I wasn't sure what he was talking about now. I asked if he meant that eating the chips would make me more comfortable or something, and he explained:

"Everybody likes chips, so you could share them there, and make friends!"


I love this little guy so much that I could burst!

New Year New Job and a Goodie Bag!

Up until November I was getting severance pay from GM, and when that stopped I applied for unemployment benefits, since I'm eligible. Part of that process is to fill in a resume-type questionnaire in the Michigan Works job database. Shortly after I did that I started getting calls from recruiters who were looking for Instructional Designers, which is the title of the job I was doing for the last year and a half that I was with GM.

I went on an interview, and I thought that it went well but then didn't hear back about it for over 2 weeks. Then the recruiter called and said they were doing some shuffling and wanted to interview me again, with different people. So I put on my black suit and drove all the way to Troy for the second time. This one went well also. The recruiter called the next day to let me know they were offering me the job.

I had to take a drug test (they mailed my pee to Idaho!) and fill out a bunch of paperwork but now everything is a go to start on January 5. I like it that I've had a nice long time of knowing that I have a job but not needing to go and do it yet. The pressure was off, what a Christmas present!

I feel like I am lucky to have this all happen so easily. I have many engineering colleagues who have been out of a job and searching hard for a long time. The word is that there aren't very many jobs in that field right now in this area, and that the competition for them is fierce. So my recent, kind of random foray into the field of Training Development might be the very best thing that could have happened.

If I want to torture myself I could second guess what it would have been like if I'd stayed at GM. I heard they are going to be getting raises soon, and I had a lot of vacation days and other perks built up after all my time there. But I knew that I really wanted to leave and I just got paid to have the most wonderful spring, summer and fall, and the opportunities for that don't come along very often either.

So this new job is temporary (6 months) and the pay is much less than I had worked up to at GM. I will be a "contractor" to the company I will be working at, and get paid for overtime but not for holidays or vacations.

If I were to do a straight comparison with where I would like to be in my career at this point in my life, this job offer would seem like a major disappointment. But given the circumstances, and the economy, maybe it is more like a blessing.

Also, I was really feeling like I wanted to go to work. Once the kids got launched back in school, I liked being at home but I started to realize that I wasn't learning new things or meeting new people anymore. As much as I enjoy the low stress of not commuting and having enough time to keep up with things around the house, I started to feel like I should be going somewhere. I started noticing that everyone else seemed to be going someplace and doing something important, and I was just making the beds and filling up the dishwasher every day. I was ready.

So on January 5 I will start this new assignment. I get to go someplace. Learn new things and meet new people. And...today when I went to the consulting company to fill out the paperwork, they gave me a goodie bag! I LOVE goodie bags!

Time Out

A few months ago both of my two watches stopped working. Or, more accurately, their batteries ran out. In the past I have had a heckuva time trying to get new watch batteries, so I put it on my to-do list and then started living a life of not always knowing what time it is.

Since I left work, I have found that I don't really need to know. I'm no longer rushing to meetings or stressing to get things done, or wondering how long until I get to go home. And I went through the summer without getting that obnoxious tan line on my wrist that is impossible to cover up when I want to dress up without the watch as part of the ensemble. Thick bracelets?

Well I've finally been off long enough to reach the lower echelons of my to-do list, so I plopped the watches into a plastic baggie and put it in my purse.

Since I live out here at the edges of civilization, the most frequent place I go is our local Meijers. They sell watches, and batteries, but refuse to open the watches up to replace them. They are afraid of getting blamed for damaging them.

I have tried, and I cannot get the backs of the watches open myself. Maybe there is some magic secret trick to this but I don't know it. Please share if you do.

Once I ventured further from home I also asked at Target and some jewelry places at the local mall. Wouldn't touch it.

I stared to do mental calculations. How many people in the world own watches that have batteries that die after two years or less, and where are they all going to get them replaced? Do they just give up and buy new ones, giving the watch-making industry incentive to continue to design inpenetrable backplates?

Then last week I was at the Somerset Collection (mall) to meet some friends for lunch. I got there early and went to Macy's, where they would typically sell the kinds of watches I have. (Anne Klein) The man at the sprawling watch counter told me that they don't do that, but he did offer the name of some place that they go, some jeweler out in Rochester. Not helpful.

As I continued to browse and shop around the mall (collection) I had to keep digging my cell phone out to check the time, so I wouldn't miss our meeting time for lunch. Somehow it always ended up underneath the baggie of watches.

I made it over to PF Chengs a little early, so I walked on past and encountered a store with a giant watch-face on the front of it. Since the battery issue was now on the top of my mind, I ventured inside. The place was gleaming with a sort of reverent hush. It was a little like walking into a grand church. There was an image of a watch face projected onto the ground from some unseen source, and many rows of glass cabinets with glittering watches artfully displayed.

One of the very polite salespersons asked if he could help me, and, feeling lucky, I asked if they replaced watch batteries there.

"Yes, we do." he told me and I think I jolted a little in surprise. "It costs $15 each." I calculated that the $30 probably exceeded the current value of my two watches, but not the cost to replace them. I pulled the baggie out of my purse and handed it over.

After lunch I went back in there to pick them up. The man pulled out this velvet folder and gracefully laid out the two crumply old watches for me to inspect. I leaned over and peered at them. Yes, the second hands were moving around once again.

I paid the man and asked for something to put them in, since I didn't know where that baggie went. As he looked for an envelope, I suddenly tuned in to the conversation going on between another salesperson and a customer standing nearby.

"That's an extra thousand with the diamonds." The customer was holding two watches, trying to decide. This isn't my usual kind of store.



So now I have the time of day ready on my wrist whenever I should desire to look at it. But there was still something I was wondering about.

I looked up the name of the store on that envelope, TOURNEAU. The website shows the prices for those fancy watches I was in the presence of, you can search them by price in ranges of up to $10,000+.

Then I saw it: "Free Lifetime Battery Replacement." It's true that you get what you pay for.

Wreck the Halls

FOTF (friend of the family) artist Tom Allen is doing his hilarious 12 days of Christmas where he posts photos of Christmas trinkets found at the thrift store. Hard to explain, you'll just have to see for yourself.

Go here:

http://thomasallenonline.com/2009/12/15/wreck-the-halls/