waiting for next week

Mother had a heart catheterization done today. My uncle sent a message saying there is, of course, some damage to a heart valve from the Fen-Phen she insisted on taking years ago and, with her genetics, she has a 90 percent blocked artery. I spoke to her this afternoon after the procedure and she sounded like she was in fairly good spirits. She had not yet talked with her doctor - that will happen tomorrow - about what they found and what she would choose to do or not to do about it.

I am still constantly looking for work here. I have a temp gig (minimum wage) for a catering company next week. Orientation is tomorrow in Greensboro. I am wonder if we should plan a trip to Atlanta again this weekend to visit my mother. If she is still in the hospital by then, it would be easy to visit her. If she is home  already, I can't count on being able to see her if I come down. After a 6-hour drive, it is really too long of a trip to make to be unable to to see her and after  two previous failed visits in the last year, I don't want to make that investment for nothing. Next weekend, if all goes well for me, I will be working long days and traveling will not be an option. I can't do anything in Atlanta on short notice.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of a weeks' work and without any money other than the plastic kind, I spent $49.00 on a haircut today so I could submit a photo for my security pass.

family. parties. food.

The surprise birthday party for my mother went quite well. She was completely surprised and burst into tears several times. My niece arranged the entire gathering, including finding an affordable guest apartment for me and MonsterMustDie to stay in. Reservations were made for the group at one of her favorite restaurants that was near her home. I pointed out a couple of facebook links to a couple of close friends to invite. I regret my youngest uncle was not there with his family but someone else decide not to invite them because 1. they probably could not afford the dinner and 2. he probably would not have time to come anyway. I know he probably would not have been there but it seems like the gesture of inviting him and his family would have been the right thing to do. Still, seems like they did not mind, being in different worlds now.

After the birthday dinner, we went to the annual Tequila and Porn party at B&G's home nearby. Great to see so many people that I haven't seen since we moved away from Atlanta. Made me really homesick.

We finally made it to the old neighborhood to return and distribute several things we should have delivered months ago.


We also were able to make it to the Peachtree Road Farmers Market and to Buford Highway Farmers Market to buy things we just can't find local equivalents to yet in North Carolina, like meats from the Spotted Trotter and Pine Street, Red Rock Gingerale, and Ginga Kogen beer. I wish we had bought some of the beautiful mushrooms we saw at the Peachtree market but, without immediate plans to cook them, some of those beautiful fungi would have gone to waste.



This week has been spent cooking some of last weeks bounty.

Looking forward to this weekend

The swelling in my leg has finally gone down so I look much less like the elephant man now. My skin is remaining clear for now too. This is good news, since we'll be traveling to Atlanta this weekend. We'll be in MonsterMustDie's car, so I won't have the freedom of movement to choose what to do with the earlier part of the day unless someone else volunteers to drive me around - my choices will probably be riding with the old Dutch man as he goes antique shopping at all of his old haunts. That, or I could just stay at the Buckhead apartment that my niece arranged for us to rent for a couple of nights. Some time late Friday or early Sunday, I hope we'll be able to work in some visits with friends. 

We'll be in Kennesaw on Saturday, celebrating my mother's birthday in a surprise dinner party at one of her favorite restaurants. We are hoping her health and spirits are good on Saturday. She stays in a very delicate state most of the time now and how she will feel from one day to the next is unpredictable. 

Sunday, we'll be heading back early, after brunch and some shopping at the farmers market for things I can not find where we live now. There are a lot of little delicacies I want to stock up on. There is now NC equivalent to Red Rock Gingerale and no markets sell sprouted wheatgrass or fresh carrot juice. Not even Whole Paycheck. If I can find dry ice to keep things frozen, it would be great to make it to one of the weekend farmers markets for Spotted Trotter meats or some hard-to-find organic produce. I believe we'll have a freezer at the apartment so I should have the option of shopping for things that need refridgeration without fear, as long as things are well-iced and the drive is straight up without stops at more antique shops. Really, just this one time, please let me have a good trip. He's welcome to make all the stops he wants to on the trip down. Friday can be all his if I can just have the Saturday morning market and Sunday's return trip with goodies.  

WTF is my body doing?

Weird body issues tonight. Two weeks ago, I had a rash that spread to several place that I assumed was poison ivy. Only going through a prescription of prednisone last cleared it up and I still have to be careful not to scratch those spots. Tonight, my left ankle is really swollen for no reason and my skin feels dry and papery. At least there is no pain in my legs and ankles but it is strange and disturbing. I suppose I might go to an urgent care clinic in the morning, if it is still as swollen, just to try to have a medical professional look at me. My back hurts but it's just the same discomfort I've had for months now, since I pulled a muscle while stripping wall paper from the kitchen.

In better news, we now have a new fan in the main room that works well. MonsterMustDie installed it on Thursday night.

Underneath that, we have a rug composed of grey Flor tiles that makes the room look more complete.

Moody Blues

Yesterday,  I was unspeakably sad. All I did was look for work online and sleep.  I could not pull myself out of the hopeless I feel now.

Today,  let's combine that with anger at every door slammed shut in front of me. I can't even find minimum wage work. 

And there is no other path to try.

Fanimation ceiling fans

My advice - Don't use any ceiling fans manufactured by Fanimation. They look great but are not designed to function in the real world.  The light has no venting and becomes intensely  hot (kinda counter productive for a device meant to cool a room ).
Our electrician said we were lucky it did not start a fire. 

The fan stopped running within weeks of being installed.  Then the light would not respond to the remote control.  The heat from the light had warped the housing,  making it impossible for the fan to run and ultimately frying the light.  Although the fan and light are designed to work separately, we would have needed to run the fan at high speed constantly just to keep the light cool.
MonsterMustDie put together a professional quality box to ship it back to the manufacturer today so we can get a refund or exchange for a different model.

Urgh! 

Politics

Eavesdropping on conversations at lunch,  I hear one older woman say she's  probably voting for Hillary... unless Trump is running... in which case she'll vote for Trump.  The table agrees that Bush will probably be the Republican candidate. They seemed to like Jeb Bush, not because he was a good candidate, but because he was so funny to them. 

giving up this weekend

I had plans to go to the Triad Geeks gathering this evening in Kernersville, NC.

Both John and my next door neighbor have been discouraging me from going by myself to spend an entire evening with people I have not met face-to-face yet, possibly driving home late on a holiday night, possibly in the rain.

I also have a bad skin rash that I have been dealing with all week that only seems to be spreading despite my efforts to keep everything covered and taking Benadryl.

Meanwhile, I woke up this morning is a fit of existential angst, knowing if anything happened to me or my car, I would not be able to fix either. There is no work lined up in the future. Not a thing.
So, maybe I should not be spending any time outside around green things, dirt, insects, and unfamiliar beasties until I have all of this small health issure cleared up. I cancelled my plans for today and tonight and am planning to go into the local Urgent Care clinic on Monday.

Another Interview

Sitting in the office of a staffing company.  I have a digital portfolio on a thumb drive. I don't bother carrying my old portfolio book most of the time unless someone requests it. Nearly all companies only want to know what software and systems I am familiar with and an online portfolio slide show or Acrobat file is sufficient. 

I am waiting for my interview when another person, obviously seeking the same job, walks in. She is a foot taller than I am, long blonde hair, in a new dress and high heels and a recent graduate. She has a large bound book with her in a plastic case. It looks like 16 x 20, with huge black letters on the front that say "Thanks for looking!" 

I realize I don't have a chance, even on my perkiest days, to compete with that. 

*sigh*

(Otherwise, my interview went quite well it before it was her turn, so at least I can still moderately impress people with what I can do.)

This might have been a big mistake... but what could I do?

My household relocated from Atlanta, Georgia in November 2015. I took one for the team and dropped out of my life - I was already underemployed but busy enough to fill in gaps in the budget - so MonsterMustDie could keep his job when his employer closed their Atlanta showroom and warehouse to consolidate things in High Point, North Carolina, where they opened their first production site in the USA.

Previously I worked as an art director and graphic designer in print, publishing, and advertising; also worked in numerous roles in the film industry as a graphic designer, background extra, production assistant, and makeup artist. Now, I am trying to find a place for myself where all my experience and professional relationships don't matter. The main industry is either banking and manufacturing or education.

High Point is a ghost town; a WASP retirement community wrapped around an Ivy-League university. I am too old to be attractive in the service industry and too young, bored, poor to retire. I told myself I would give this at least a year before any more changes were made in my life. I am thinking this move was not what I should have done. I think I should have found a cheap room with friends or family, making just enough in the film industry, until I could go back to living in the city. I long for my friends and all the great cultural events and activities I was part of. This place has been a series of doors slammed shut. 

yard thoughts

Modern. Native. Edible. Functional. Social.


We live in an older, traditional neighborhood so I know the front yard needs to have to traditional green turf and neat landscape. We are trying to keep a clear view outside the windows with low-growing shrubs and plants like heather and dwarf conifers. We'd like to add a few more large rocks to those arrangements.

I cut out and pulled up a ton of English ivy off the trees, fence and house, where it once festooned every tall tree. We removed the tacky plastic non-functional shutters from all of the windows. A few of the windows need to be replaced due to cracked glass. We plan to build or install as large a shed as we can in back to become a mini-workshop and tool storage building. John wants to have a compact woodshop with a small outside deck that he can work at. We also need the space to store large things like ladders. We still desperately need house numbers either mounted on brick or posted in the front yard and on the mailbox.

We would like to use mostly native plants and edible landscaping for the back yard, which has a wood fence that we plan to replace. We also have a laid stone retaining wall on one side at the back of our lot that needs to be repaired, preferrably using all the original stones so that we don't have to purchase too many more. I think 2/3 of the wall could be original stone - maybe more. We had crepe myrtle trees that had been attacked by ambrosia beetles that have been cut down along the rock wall side of the house that now have stumps that need to finally be removed/ground down. My guess is that some sort of new plants and shrubs need to go along the rock wall to help with erosion control.

NO English Ivy! I am still removing it everywhere I can, mostly concentrating on taking it off the trees. My neighbor shares my hatred of overgrown English ivy. She's working at ridding her yard of it as well. I am also taking it upon myself to pull out poison ivy where I see it. Slowly, the old roots of the poison ivy are going away and I cut down any flowers/seeds from the poison ivy when I spot it trying to reproduce, whittling way at it as best I can. I am a one-woman ivy-killing warrior. I'm not agains all vines - just those troublesome invasive or poisonous plants. Grapes are cool. Muscadines are cool. Grapes would be great. I even turn an occasional blind eye to Virginia creeper if it's not in my way.

The inside of the back yard is mostly mud, mulch and shade. We have new plantings of edible and/or native plants like elderberry, chokeberry, blueberry, trillium, ferns, golden seal, jack-in-the-pulpit and I'd like to add more variety so that I could have year-round blooms for bees and birds (and humans). I have a dinky herb garden that I am still figuring out.  We are also planning to place a small fire pit/grill and seating area to the side of the future shed.

And the drive way needs to be repaved - preferably with some sort of simple roof added at the top for the cars. The car shelter is not a priority but it is something that would make life a lot nicer.

extortion?

Oh, North Carolina, why don't you love us? Should we have been prettier, richer, funnier, younger?
I got a phone call this afternoon from someone at a business named R3Z Solutions, who was calling to offer one-on-one classes for deactivated Uber Drivers at $100 a class. I told him I had no interest in his company's services unless Uber was willing to pay for it. Good riddance.


Speaking of scams, I was also walking around with our next-door neighbor yesterday evening and looking up in amazement at the horrible job someone did on her roof. She hired someone who actually was recommended by an associate and came home to a roof full of holes made by nails far too long to use in roofing. The nails on the shingles went all the way through the plywood and moisture barrier under the shingles and came out the other side about a quarter inch. The roofer insisted that this was just the way it was always done and then tried to reprimand her, saying he didn't expect her to be "so difficult". I think women get taken advantage of by contractors a lot. Everyone does get the bad end of a deal with builders now and then but, just like mechanics, everyone assumes if your female, you're an idiot. *sigh* It makes me sad looking at her roof.


MonsterMustDie just found out his employer is hiring a new supervisor for the department that he is in charge of. In other words, he is being demoted or replaced by a guy in a suit. He says he is not worried about it but I do not trust any employer that much. So, on that note, I really believe we need to be dedicating every weekend solely to finishing this house that he has taken apart, just in case we need to unload this financial burden and relocate again soon.

A New Low

Looks like Uber has fired me.

I did not get any calls this week. Uber just a text explaining that since my ratings fell below 4.3 out of a possible 5, I have been dropped.  There is no reason given for the rating. There is no phone number to all or any source for feedback or debate. So, one more possible source of income gone but, on the plus side, no more college students to take to four at a time to multiple locations that they don't input on the client app all around the Triad area.

I must resign myself to being a stay-at-home housewife here.

Not feeling the love this week

So far, this has not been a good week at all.

I've had only one job interview this week on Tuesday, at another temp staffing agency, for a creative position that would actually be close to home. I showed up for the interview, on a very hot day, in office casual attire - dark slacks and a long gray boyfriend-style shirt. The job is budgeted for $10 to $12 an hour, depending on how good a fit the employee is. The interviewer advised me, if I wanted to work in this area, to dress differently and to change my hair style to something natural. I have no idea how I am supposed to look here. I can guess that my hair should be shorter and a light natural brunette or ash brown - easy enough to do. Not sure how to dress, especially with no budget for new suits.  I told the interviewer I could look any way they wanted me to for the client interview. This interview was just with the staffing agency and I would still have to meet with the client later.

The staffing company phoned me today and, as it turns out, I didn't get the job because I have no experience in QuickBooks, an application I have never been asked to use before. It seems like I can't win here. I probably will go ahead and change my hairstyle for a more conservative area anyway just to see if that improves my chances. I can not see myself wearing high heels or skirts so that is not going to happen. If I could find an affordable lightweight linen or cotton weave suit, that would be good too. It's hard to invest hundreds of dollars in new clothes that might not get me anything in return.

As for office software, I have a copy of MS Office 2011 but anything outside of those apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) is something I don't know outside of graphics work. Most of what I use is in Adobe CS (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, DreamWeaver).  So, it looks like the only work I can get here is driving for Uber. The summer will suck because most of the Uber business is High Point University students. This is the last week of the semester and graduation ceremonies are this Saturday, so there will be a long dry spell in student business after that.

Lastly, I was looking forward to driving down to Atlanta for Mother's Day, hoping to finally visit a few friends as well this week. I spoke to my mother this morning about her plans this weekend. I am trying to schedule a day to go out to eat or just visit her. She doesn't want anyone to see her home these days because she is not physically able to maintain it. She said she is having dinner at my brother's house on Sunday, which is good, but that excludes time with me on Sunday. Many of my friends are going to a big wedding this weekend that I am not invited to, probably because of hard feelings with MonsterMustDie and the groom over facebook sociopolitical rants on both sides. The rest of my friends are mostly going out of town to visit family or tied up with their own families.

Next week, MonsterMustDie will be working in NYC and I will be here alone with no work. I really hope something good pops up between now and then.