Fylfot

Unemployment Log:  Entry date 20130323  Location, in my library

Fylfot; noun from Middle English meaning a sign or device used to fill the lower part of a painted window.  Also used in Heraldry; the name given to a form of swastika with truncated arms.

Yes Dongs was Jeff's word as well.

 

Fylfot now also means, proof that my husband cheats at Words with Friends. 

 

Honestly how to you just happen to put down a bunch of letters and come up with a word that no one has used in 400 years.  I am a big enough nerd to have read books on medieval glass and window making as well as heraldic symbolism and I did not know that word.  To add salt to the wound he got 92 points for it. 92!

 

Yes these are the sourest of sour grapes.

 

I know I owe you all an explanation for my long absence this week and I promise I'll get it. For now I have 100 + point deficit to make up for.  I am calling in the big guns, Merriam, Roget and Webster.

Getting Fit

Unemployment Log:  Entry date 20130318  Location, Bedroom floor; corpse position

So I joined a gym this weekend. Probably should have done it 15 years ago last month to really capitalize on my free time.  But better late than never right?

What sent me to the gym was my recent trip to Seattle.  I had parked on 4th but I needed to be on 5th, so I walked up James St.  When I got to the top I thought my legs had turned to rubber and I was sucking down wind like a 40 year smoker after a jaunt out to the mailbox.  In all fairness though, I was in boots with 4 inch heels and James St. has an almost 20% slope between 4th and 5th.  It's one of the roads they send Jim Forman to when it snows because they know all of Seattle will tune in, hoping to see him flattened by a car spinning out of control down the hill.

Putting aside fantasies of a flattened Forman I knew it was time to quit talking about joining a gym and to actually do it. So I did.  Yeah...let me tell you how today went.

I am going to skim right over the 2 hours I spent rummaging through my closet and dresser trying to find appropriate gym clothes.  I made it to the gym after I finally found something that didn't have grass stains, or paint spots, or bits of dried concrete hanging from the cuffs.  It was much busier then when we were there yesterday.  My fear of crowds and unknown environments kicked in big time.  My heart rate was at peak levels and I had only walked through the door.

"You can do this." the voice in head kept saying.  "You can do this.  Find a treadmill like yesterday and just start walking." 

Instead I veered off to the stretching station, sat down to put my head between my knees,  Pretending to stretch so I could regroup and plan how to gracefully exit the gym.

"You are NOT leaving.  Really?  You're a grown adult, you can do this.  It's okay if you don't know what you're doing.  You're not going to look silly and is it the end of the world if you do?"  My inner voice was not going to let me leave without a fight.  So I caved. I quit "stretching" and headed back to the line of treadmills which had just been vacated.  I guess I had come at the end of a peak time of day.

As I started the machine I saw a guy in his seventies clinb onto a treadmill a few machines away.  "See, it's easy.  Look at that old guy coming to the gym, doing his work out.  Don't you want to be fit and active like him when you're 70?"  My inner voice was now smug and annoying.

Five minutes later, old guy starts running.  "Okay, yeah you should probably set the incline up a few more notches and speed things up.  Not going to do yourself any good if you don't push yourself."

Seven minutes later, old guy is still running and I am putting the incline back down 5.  "Now that I really look at him, he can't be any more than 60." my inner voice says, some of the smuggness leaking away.

Four minutes later, older guy is back to a fast walk and I am thinking about kicking up the incline and speed again.  I will show James St. who's the boss.

Five minutes later, old-ish guy starts running again.  I am putting the incline back down and trying to figure out if 170 beats per minutes is okay or too much. "When you think about it, he's probably in his mid to late forties and just shaves his head everyday."  All smugness is now gone from the inner voice.

Ten minutes later, I am a few minutes into my latest 'hill climb' and the guy on the other treadmill is just slowing down after setting what had to be a new treadmill speed record.  "I bet you he's in his thirties and just looks older because he's one of those outdoorsy types.  His doctor probably told him to stay out of sun for his skin and that's why he's here."  My inner voice has retreated to a corner and is speaking in hushed wonder.

Nine minutes later, I am wiping down my machine and getting ready to leave.  I am waiting for the slight wobble in my legs to settle down before I can cross the length of gym to retreive my car keys.

As I left the gym that 20 year old punk was still running like the wind on his treadmill.

No Title



Unemployment Log: Entry date 20130315  Location, New couch of course

 

New couch.  Sorry for the crappy photo.

I am loving the new couch.  It's nice to have something to sit on again in the living room other than a pillow on  the hardwood floors.  Naturally the cats love it as well which drives Jeff crazy.  So last night we made a quick run through of Costco and picked up a Dyson, with a handheld pet hair remover vacuum head.

 

I also bought a flat of tulip that I need to go plant under the maple tree. I dug up last years bulbs to store in hibernation and use again this year.  But I lost them.  However I obviously missed a few bulbs because I currently have two tulips growing under the tree right now.  I love surprise flowers

 

Life has been pretty routine this week, not much to share.  The job search continues.  The president of one of the companies I worked with at EB sent my name and resume to Nike this week.  They asked me for more information, which I sent. This turn of events prompted Jeff and I to discuss the possibility of moving to Portland(ia). Not a prospect William is thrilled about.  I tried pretty hard to get him to think about the good things moving to a new city means but then he opened the garage door and just stood there. 

 

He looked at it.  He looked at me.  He looked back at the garage.  Then he shut the door. As he walked away he tossed over his shoulder, "Enough said."  Yup, that killed my enthusiasm right there.

 

If we move, we have to move the contents of Jeff's garage. Nearly the entire Craftsman catalog lives in that garage.  The contents of a medium sized RC car shop call his garage home.  All that stuff shares space with every last bit of audio and video gear that Jeff has picked up over the 15 year course of his career.  I could hold a Turkish Bazaar in that garage every weekend for an entire summer and still not clear it out.

 

Sigh

 

Okay, I am off to plant my tulips.



New Things

Unemployment Log:  Entry date 20130313  Location, Staring bewilderedly at my living room

In honor of the new year I gave myself new bookshelves.  Which was a good thing because because it made me finally sort out my books and put them into a semblance of order.  It was also a bad thing because I then realized how many books have gone missing over the last few years. No, I don't know exactly how many books I own, but I do know when some are missing. It's like being a guy, he doesn't know how many hairs he has but he can sure see the bald spot when some are gone.


Please don't judge me by the roosters

I recently found a box of my books in the attic and it was with great joy that I started to put them away.  Joy gave way to concern, which then fled in the face of brutal reality...I was out of shelf space.  And I am still missing books.

Jeff has made clear however that no new bookshelves are to make their way into our house until after the new couch arrives.  Maybe not even then.  I would get mad except he's right.  Floor space in our house is at a premium.

After the bookshelves when up we turned around to survey the living room.  As one, our eyes fell on the old futon sofa Jeff had picked up from outside the back door of the Rent A Center his cousin worked at. When he got it, it was broken and needed a new mattress, but it was free.  Which at the time was Jeff's only criteria.  Now it was just old and sad looking.
"Probably time for a new couch." Jeff said
"Yup."
"Think I can get another free one?"
"Nope."
"Well hell.  Get the measuring tape."
"Yippee!"

After endless hours of talking about it, visiting furniture shops, and looking on-line we finally made a decision.  I got to pick the style, Jeff picked the fabric.  Well really the fabric picked him.  It's chocolaty brown microfiber softness called to him from across the showroom floor.  He sank down, face first, into it's fleecy goodness and sprawled across the length of the showroom couch like a dying man at a desert oasis.
"I want this one."
"It won't fit in our house."
"I don't care." Jeff said, "I want to take my clothes off and sleep on this for the rest of my life." His hand running up and down the couch cushions in a rather R rated way.
I stared at him in wonder/horror.  This was unexpected.  "Alright Plushie Boy." I said, "Quit fondling the cushions and help me find a couch that will fit our house and I promise we'll get that fabric."

So the new couch arrives today.  Which is why I am in the living room getting the place cleared out and ready for the delivery guys. I have also chewed off three of my fingernails worrying over how to get it into the house.  I honestly don't know if it will fit through the front door.  I may have to remove our front window.

I also don't know if I should just lay out pillows and blankets on it for when Jeff get's home or make him get them himself.

Funky Town

Unemployment Log:  Entry Date 20130311    Location,  In a funk

I don't know if people still use that term anymore but I am bringing it back baby.  Okay maybe not.

So why am I in a funk you ask.  Well thank you for asking, I appreciate your interest.  First off, the obvious one, I, like most of America was robbed of an hour this weekend. No, I don't know what I would have done with that hour (probably just slept or read a book) but it was still mine and it was unceremoniously taken from me.
Second, now that spring is around the corner I am planing out my yard projects and once again I have fallen in love with plants that I can't buy. Oh Sterling Silver Caryopteris and Orange Rocket Berberis you will never by mine but you will always live in the garden of my heart.

Caryopteris from www.provarplants.co.uk

Berberis from sunnyside-gardens.com

Third, it's been over a month and I have yet to find a job. Many friends have told me not to worry, there is something out there I just need to keep looking.  They have also shared stories of their long months on unemployment and how they managed to survive. I have such wonderful friends and family.  Thank you all.

Now onto happier stuff. Because this is some of that naturally.  We went to North Bend last week and I snapped a couple of pictures of the snow line.  So close to our house, but oh so far away.  One more winter without snow. Sigh. I will say that it's much prettier to look at then it is to drive in so I am never too heartbroken when we don't get snow.

From I90 heading east

In North Bend

Then because we were in the neighborhood, we stopped at the Falls.  I tend to forget this is in our backyard so to speak.

Snoqualmie Falls

There is a beautiful Lodge at the top of the Falls and while we were there I told Jeff I would like to stay there sometime.  He said he had tried to book a room for my birthday a couple of years ago but they were full.  So he tried again the next year with the same results.  "By chance," I asked him, "did you try to get a room, oh say, a week before my birthday?"  Of course he did.  So to review, very popular destination, birthday close to a major holiday...you can see why he struck out.  I suggested that he try to get something a couple of months in advance. "But if I call in September, I don't know what I'll be doing in December so how will I know which weekend to get." he replied.

o.0

To save my sanity, I closed my mouth and just kept walking with him back to the car.

 

Speaking of renting lodging.  My deposit check cleared so we now have our apartment in Galway reserved.  I am getting very excited for our trip.  In less then a month we'll be setting up shop in Dublin.

Apartment building we'll be staying at in Dublin

After a week of exploring the capital we'll take a train across Ireland and spend a week in Galway.

Apartment overlooking the ocean in the Claddagh area of Galway

I am doing a little happy dance in my head now.  Funky Town far behind me. One last reason to be happy - today's Google Doodle celebrating the birthday of the late great Douglas Adams.  So long and thanks for all the fish.

Married Life

Unemployment Log:  Entry date 20130307  Location, In denial

 

“I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” -Rita Rudner

 

Ah Rita, how right you are. I just didn't know until recently that Jeff felt the same way.

 

For eight years the foundation of our relationship has been Jeff playing straight man to my comic genius. Even if that genius is only in my head.  My goal has always been to make him laugh at least once a day. Like when I told him about my 28 point reverse Pollock rotational turn to get out of Seattle's smallest parking garage on Tuesday.  Or when I penguin walked my way through half of Belle Sq. because I was wearing a skirt and my underwear was falling off my butt.  I didn't want to be "crass" by pulling it up in the middle of mall, so with thighs and knees firmly locked together to stop the downward trend of my underpants I waddled 128 yrds to the nearest bathroom.

 

Jeff is the logical, rational one in this partnership.  I am given to flights of fancy and grandiose thinking. I'll decide to dig a 4ft by 30ft trench in our yard for bamboo.  Jeff will rent me a backhoe.  I'll want to pour a 5ft by 15ft concrete front porch.  Jeff will rent the cement mixer and recruit our neighbors.  I like to tell him - You make all my half assed plans, fully assed.  That's my own special twist on the old You complete me.

 

Will I guess even Ricky had to cut loose once in a while and Lucy just had to sit back and let him go. So it is with fond amusement this past week that I have watched Jeff learn how to make music on his iPad.  Tired of being the middle aged white man with no rhythm he is now endeavoring to become the next Macklemore.

 

Jeff, finding his beat.

He played his first song for me last night.

 

This is going to be a very painful stretch in our hopefully very long marriage.

Project Update

Unemployment Log:  Entry date 20130305  Location, Project command center

It took a lot of pestering but Will and I finally agreed on a color and decorating idea for his room. It was like dragging a sugared up toddler out of a Toys R Us. 

Last Friday I took myself down to the Home Depot and bought some primer-sealer to remove the skyline from the walls.

So long Space Needle.

See ya never, random rectangle shapes.

When Will came home from school he said it looked like it had snowed in Seattle.  We spent Saturday turning that dusting of snow into a complete white out.  Then it was back to Home Depot to have them make a custom color sample for me from an old towel. 

While we were out Jeff wanted to run a few other errands.  Not a problem except while clearing out William's room I had found an old copy of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. So now there I was traveling through town with a towel on my lap...yep I brought it with me on every stop.  Don't Panic and Bring Your Own Towel.  God I love Douglas Adams.  Jeff tolerated the towel at the bank.  He gave me funny looks when the towel joined us for lunch.  But when towel and I joined him in the auto store he snapped.
"Why the hell are you bringing that towel everywhere today?"
"A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have." I quoted and gave him my duh don't you know that? look.
I had obviously stunned him with my superior logic and knowledge of 30 year old literary quotes.  Or, more likely, he was once again trying to figure out what he'd done wrong to end up married to me.

Running errands with Jeff always takes a minimum of 4 hours so we arrived home in time for me to cook dinner.  After dinner I painted a portion of the wall with my sample paint and declared the day done.

I dubbed it The Smoke Monster.
And bid a good night to William who got to sleep next to it.

Sunday brought....what else, another trip to Home Depot for a gallon of my Smoke Monster grey.  Then back home for another day of painting.

My hand started to cramp at this point

Here's where my shoulder gave out.

Four ibuprofen, a slice of cold pizza and I declared my day done.  Too bad the room wasn't done as well.  I tend to wear out before my project do. Hmmm.

After my minor panic attach yesterday I set to work painting the trim pieces and the ceiling.  Because I was on the phone with the passport lady early in the morning I missed catching my neighbor before she left for work.  I had wanted to borrow their sawhorses.  So I improvised.  One thing I have plenty of around the house is bricks.  Couple of brick sawhorses later and I was ready to go.

Yes Virginia there are sunny days in Seattle.

I was moving pretty slow but by the time William came home from school I was done.

While he was happy the painting part was done, all
he really cared about was that his computer was available.

 Well actually I am about 90% done.  I still have some tape to remove and I discovered I had missed one of the door trim pieces.

Ignore the tape and the missing trim.
And the teddy bear.  William definitely doesn't want you to see
The Teddy Bear

The next phase, and the last 10% of the project is...a surprise.  You'll just have to wait.

Passport Panic

Unemployment Log:  Entry date 20130304  Location, In the middle of a minor panic attack

A rep from the State Dept called me this morning about William's passport application.  Turns out they had sent me a letter in early February requesting a new copy of the parental consent for a minor from my ex. The one I sent in with the application was expired.  The letter was returned to them "Undeliverable".

Undeliverable?!?  USPS can give me ValPak mailers 3 days a week and other junk mail but a letter from The State Department is undeliverable? 

The most likely cause is the ridiculous addressing system down here. It's like they only had a dozen house numbers they could used so they used them over and over.  Let's say we live at 123 23rd St.  There is a house one street over that is 123 24th St. and there is another at 123 22nd St.  This being the situation for over 40 years you would hope the Postal Service would be aware and be careful.  You'd also hope that whoever lives at 123 22nd St. would be kind enough to bring over misdelivered mail.  Sadly none of these things happen. Jeff and I deliver mail to people all the time but that kindness is NEVER returned.  So the next time Mr. 123 24th St.'s mail order perscriptions come to our house he's out of luck.

Okay I am done ranting.  Now I just need to wait on the ex to get his form notarized so I can pick it up and drive it to the regional office in Seattle.  Where I will throw myself upon their mercy and beg them to process William's passport in time for us to make our Dublin flight in April.

My Cat's Doorman

Unemployment log:  Entry date 20130301  Location, On Door Duty

Awhile back I caved to William's ongoing campaign to get a pet. He really wanted a dog, and to be honest so did I.  But Jeff will not budge on his No Dogs law.  Instead, I cruised Craigslist until I found a local family that had some kittens for sale.  The family had moved earlier in the summer and a pregnant stray cat had decided to move with them.  The vet said the kittens where healthy and flea free so a little grey fluff ball came home with me.  William was instantly in love.

Who couldn't love that face?

When I was a kid my family had a variety of dogs, cats and rabbits.  With the occasional bird thrown into the mix. We lived way, way outside city limits so neighbors who kept chickens, geese, cows and peacocks weren't out of the ordinary. 
I think it was the first year my mom planted her garden when the cows across the back field got loose. One of them developed a taste for whatever my mom was trying to grow. Probably strawberries because I that's what I was always sneaking into the garden to get. After the third or fourth time my mom came home to find this cow standing in her garden munching away, she exchanged some harsh words with the runaway cow's owner.  We didn't see the cow for the rest of that summer.  Then, in the early fall we came home to find a huge cooler on our door step with a note that said, Sorry for Tess eating your garden.  Since you fed her I think it's only fair that she feed you.  Enjoy.

My mom was over the moon.  Half a cow, in neatly wrapped packages of butchers paper.  She was a single mom on a budget, this was like hitting the lottery. I was horrified. Not that the cow I had come to know and like had been killed but that her name was Tess. None of the animals I had ever known up to that point had had a "human" moniker.  And to have mine?  It was more than my six year old brain could take. Since then I have met many a pet named Tess and I have mostly gotten over it. It is hard though when your best friends open their back door and entice their elderly Pomeranian to go outside by saying, "Come on Tess.  Good girl, wanna go outside? Come on Tessie, let's go outside and go tinkle."

William was in charge of naming the new kitten. He doesn't know how he came up with Shamrock but that's the name that stuck.  When she was still little and would come tearing into his bedroom chasing a toy he would yell, "Sham-Rock-In-The-House!"



Shamrock, giving her vocal chords a rest.

Now our little bundle of kitten fluff has grown tall enough to reach my chopping board and fling bits of onion or carrot on to the floor. And her once cute little kitten cries now sound like a yodeling duck. Shamrock is VERY vocal. She is the feline equivalent of Jon. Pretty much equal amounts of hair too.

 

We've all become accustomed to her yowling for breakfast at 6:30 am. Then yowling to be let out at 6:45 am. Things are pretty quiet for awhile after that. Shamrock patrols the bamboo and has run a cat trail diagonally across the side yard to the front porch.  Then around 8 am she'll sit outside the back door and yowl until I let her in. I spend the rest of the day opening and closing the back door for her. Out, then In and back out again. At least a dozen times a day.

 

 I have tried wearing headphones around the house to block out her duck yodeling yowls but they don't work. Even when she's outside I can hear her. Yesterday our neighbor across the street, who is deaf by the way, called me to ask if I would kindly let the cat in. I said I had no idea what he was talking about.

"You can't hear your cat outside?" He asked me.

"Nope. Not a thing."

"She sounds like a yodeling duck. I can't hear The Price Is Right."

I told him to turn down his hearing aids if she bothered him.  He didn't like my suggestion. So I let her in.

 

Jeff laughed his ass off when I complained about her last night.  "I don't know what she did during the day while we were both at work. Did she just sit at the door and yowl for 8 hours?" I asked him.  He gave me is squinty eyed, one eyebrow in the air, look and said, "No.  She probably just slept all day. But she sure has you trained now to jump at her every command." I hate it when he's right. I am now a cat doorman.  I've put it on my resume.

 

   Accomplished professional in project development and execution. Skilled communicator able to operate in a fast paced environment with minimal supervision. Current Notary Public in Washington State and member of the Puget Sound chapter of the Project Management Institute. Ably trained feline doorman.

 

If you hear of any openings please let me know.