Beaker's Ballad

list of top sad songs

What songs would you choose as the saddest you know?

Something I can never have - NIN
Spider - Oingo Boingo
Dirt Clod - Kelly Hogan
Numb - The Cure
Hey Jupiter - Tori Amos... See More
St. James Imfirmary - Cab Calloway
Nothing Takes the Place of You
Mood Indigo - Duke Ellington
Gloomy Sunday - Elvis Costello

cassoulet and 401k

Went to the monthly Potluck dinner on Saturday night. This month was at the GothFather's cottage in Conyers. At first, I wanted to make mushroom bourguignon but that was what I made last time I brought food to his house so I decided to change things this time and try a new cassoulet recipe. I made Jamie Oliver's Quick Cassoulet, which I found online. I had not tried his recipes before because Oliver has a reputation for being a bit bland. The cassoulet was good and, while not the star of the dinner, it was reasonably well received. The mess that it made of my oven was extraordinary. I really should have taken a photo of the splattered oven the next morning because I will try to avoid making such a mess in the future.

Sunday, I met friends for brunch and Monster had the oven cleaned when I got home. For that, I am quite grateful because I was not looking forward to filling my evening with oven cleaning. I had put off and then forgotten to start the oven cleaning procedure in the morning because the oven cleaner was, for reasons unknown to me, in the shed with Monster's bits and bobs. I texted him to please locate the oven cleaner in the shed and put it in the kitchen while I was at brunch. He then made the next logical step and started cleaning the oven himself and when I got home, that task was finished. Last night's dinner was leftover cassoulet and baguette.

My uncle phoned with a job opening he heard of at an office near me for a position digitally retouching and processing photos for school portraits. Sounds like a very easy job that is hopefully quite close to home. Question is whether I can get an interview and if they will offer me a full time position. The pay is a fraction of what I've made. It pays less than anything I've made hourly in the last 15 years, but I'll take anything I can get at this point if it will provide regular hours, health insurance, and the usual benefits. The lack of money might also be more than made up by the prospect of less time spent driving and less wear on my car than working farther from home and full employee benefits, including 401k and paid vacations. But it really must be a full time gig for me to be able to take it. If I can get a foot in the door. Fingers crossed.

nighty night

Almost sleep time. Climbing into bed now with a book. Miss Gilli. Tomorrow is the birthday of three people near and dear: my brother, The GothFather, and Kisa Bastet.

I get around by car

I live too far from work and from my Post Office box to cycle or walk. I would love to be in walking distance from work and shopping.

New Indian food shop offers spices, teas and meals to go | ajc.com

New Indian food shop offers spices, teas and meals to go  | ajc.com

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update from rancho de weremonster

My bank account balance continues to plummet while I'm looking for a new full-time position in printing or advertising.

Monstermustdie is doing pretty well financially at the moment, so maybe it kinda balances out in some ways. He is picking up a new end table at Room and Board today that will match the one he bought last month. He seems to be in a nesting mood of sorts, buying furniture and checking into establishing some sort of credit rating for himself. He has not used a credit card in years, not since his divorce, so he has NO credit rating, good or bad. Ultimately, he wants to buy a house but I don't see that working out any time in the next few years. What he needs is a car, so he really should be concentrating on that. The condition of the old van he drives now is the reason he won't go out of town without driving my car.

On the upside, we're planning to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus on Sunday evening. I think that will be great big-screen eye candy. A new fantastic film by Terry Gilliam.

parasites

MonsterMustDie has found out his mother, who is in early stages of dementia, is being fleeced by distant family members (by marriage) who have taken unknown amounts of money from her for "medical treatments" on a daily basis. One of the two people involved (daughter) has a police record a mile long and is, like many other relatives of his, a drug addict. Her mother is also taking money from his mom for undisclosed medical bills and services. His mother does not know how to say no and my thought is that it might be highly dangerous for her to refuse to pay them. They know where she lives. They know she lives alone. They know she's not quite in her right mind any more. It's a sad situation and I don't know what, if anything, he can do about it. His mother is willingly giving them money. It's her money from savings that, I suppose, she can do whatever she wants with.

On top of all of this, he also feels very strongly that she does not need to be driving any more after a recent accident, which totalled her car. She simply 'went blank' while driving.

At the end of the day, the only way he could probably help her is to actually be living with or near her in Alabama and he can't do that. He's got a great job here, working for friends who treat him well. Pell City, where his mother lives, is a small town in a rather rural, depressed area. I can't imagine him making a living there. Thus, he really should try to make trips there to check on her a weekly event. He does not want to do this because he does not want to drive his old van more than necessary and I don't want to make my car available to him every single weekend.

I think he's going to have to be there more often and he's going to make at least half of those trips on his own. I think he should definitely be there for her every week for a day or two to manage things.

milking the clock

They run me off as soon as everything on my desk is done so I only get one or two hours in a day. And yet, it appears my one remaining co-worker, the pressman, has gotten into the habit of taking a nap in the top loft as soon as the boss leaves for the day. I often get here and, though his car is here and he's clocked in still, he's nowhere to be found. Then I noticed the loft door open...

This is no less productive than all the time he spends here playing Star Wars online or reading Star Wars paperback books, which the boss is aware of and doesn't do a thing about. He practically lives here now since his divorce.

He is, in fact, so nerdish that he was asking me if I could read runes or had a book on runes here at the office because he was trying to make out a Star Wars message in runes. He really thought there would be something like that here.

She can hear. Some things.

MonsterMustDie made an odd mechanical rolling sound that made Doris Kat jump - twice. It no doubt proves she could hear some things at a loud enough volume. Indeed, a furry winter miracle. What's going on in that small head?

Thinking about my friends

I notice a friend of mine is not, for once, online tonight. His wife checked herself in for a month of rehab for an eating disorder, flying out of town this morning. We had dinner last night with them and several mutual friends. I saw sadness underneath laughs too loud. It's killing me to think of them a month apart and the underlying mood of the evening. Maybe its projection but I feel crushed tonight for her absence. So I'm venting tonight on a Blog that I'm pretty sure they don't know about.

pros and cons

The new roof on the house is great - drier and warmer now. However, when they re-installed the skylight, they let water in between the layers and now the skylight is permanently fogged.

The long holiday weekend is over.

Back to a normal week tomorrow.

Nearly all holiday decorations are taken down now. I have all but one bit of blue lights on a tree outdoors taken down now and boxed. Must wait for someone else to help me remove the xmas tree now - all lights and ornaments are in their boxes, waiting for next year to come out again.
Went to see Sherlock Holmes tonight. Good movie - lots of fun- but then, I love everything I've seen Robert Downey Jr. in. He's definitely one of my pop crushes.

Had Lisamin over for dinner and catching-up chat. I don't see enough of her but I hope we'll be able to hang around more together. Dinner was very last-minute after going to the movie rather than planing a meal. We decided on breakfast food dinner - eggs, salad greens, turkey sausage, toast and jelly. I modeled my snuggie robe look and she reclined in the bird chair as we discussed movies, books, crafts, geekery, and such.

Tomorrow, I must:
1. send out a new flock of resumes.
2. go by the post office to pay bills and, if I feel up to it, look into renewing my passport.
3. deliver one baby gift to a friend and neighbor who just last week added a third child to their family. (He's going to have a great life, with creative parents and two older sisters to guide him through life.)

Statuesque