Summer awesomeness

It's officially too hot to breathe here, so that means summer. We crept out to the Farmer's Market and got local peaches; made jam out of some of them and cobbler out of the rest. Heavenly. There was a special on strawberries so I got a big box of those and we committed some strawberry jam/preserves as well. Omigosh. Homemade jam is amazing. The peach was beautiful, the strawberry had some pink foam, but both make you happy you need a sandwich. Homemade strawberry jam with Nutella on bread is good enough to make you need to eat it privately because of the humming noises you will make while chewing.

Fishing Expeditions

I've been out of work for almost two months now. At first I was concentrating on getting my course requirements done, but now I am applying for at least one job every day. It's grueling, somehow; I hate paperwork and forms beyond reason and have to deal with several every day. I have had two nibbles from travel companies and no local nibbles yet.  One of the travel companies had me waste about five hours doing various computer tests and forms; I sure felt cheated when that job didn't materialize.  I've told myself I will break down and take a job I don't want but can barely do, like in home health, in the next two weeks if nothing better comes along. My school didn't process my grad paperwork in a timely fashion and I missed my cert exam deadline by a week, so now I have to wait until October to take the tests. I just have to decide if I want to keep trying to get a job in my new field, until my money runs completely out, or get something to stop the worrying and try to study anyway. No four-leaf clovers have turned up in the backyard so far.

Big Gay Sam, come in please

So I got on here and started yacking when I met a great guy on the Dooce Community who called himself Big Gay Sam. He encouraged me...hell, told me how to set it up. I loved talking to him through the community and loved his blog. A kinder, funnier person I've never seen online. Anyway, some members of the DC got their collective heads up their butts the other day and posted a huge, unpleasant list of hatefulness. He got fed up and quit and now we can't even see his hilarious and sweet blog.  The two-hundred-fifty-plus of us who followed him on there are totally sad. We all hope he will come on one of our blogs and let us know how to keep in contact with him; maybe send us a link to his new blog if he starts one.
Sam...I was so miserable all fall and talking to you all night on the DC, when I hurt too much to sleep, was such a lifesaver for me. Maurina, Mihow, and firecat and I all wish and hope to hear from you again.

More Stories about Airports and Hotels

It's Groundhog Day again, back to disguising my contempt for TSA agents and wishing the guy in the seat next to mine had better manners or thinner thighs. Work is walking through hospitals, giving the same inservice over and over, rattling it off with the same jokes in the same place every time. My perfectly beautiful new room in the Residence Inn was riddled with formaldehyde; to stay in it the first night I had to drive to Wal-Mart and buy candles to burn up all the fumes. Now that my eyelids are not swollen to bulging, it is very nice to look at, and is nearly the size of my house. Super spiffy stainless fridge and granite countertops. Muuuuch fancier than my house. But I won't miss it when I go back to my shabby house, not one bit. And I got canceled for next week so I will be hard at work trying to get a job that will let me keep the shabby house. Here's hoping.

Long Marching

There was a lot of "weaselly fucker" mumbling in Atlanta when Delta canceled my connecting flight, offered me a  substitute flight out the next night, and wouldn't try to get me my suitcase. So a few hours in the Renaissance Hotel and a 7 am flight out the next day on a different airline didn't really help. And the first day walking around the hospital, teaching, was brutal with the foot pain. But yesterday I pulled out a big bag of pain control tricks; a huge increase in my night medicine, some anti-inflammatory gel I haven't used lately, and my TENS unit stuck to all the nerve pathways in the bad right leg. The big hospital I had to do was actually super nice and very manageable, and my feet never started the horrible screaming, crushed sensation. I'm going for another pool swim and hope today goes as well too; this is a big job in terms of daily hours over six days, but I really needed the money. Two down, four to go, c'mon pain relief strategies. I am thinking of getting hypnotized when I get home to help with the RSD pain; since the neuropathy has no cause, maybe I can block it.

Weasels and fuckers

Traveling to work these days is like having a weasel in your pocket; you can slap the pain down but it never really gives up. I got roped in to a hospital that "credentials" you through a horrible organization called RepTrax; basically they charge you $200 to tell you the minimum of information, then e-mail you back when the credentials you submit do not meet some esoteric standard; one you have no way of foreknowing. I gave them their damn money, then they start telling me, "Now send this. Now we will put off finishing these credentials, not in the two days you paid for, but two more days." Weaselly fuckers. Now after four phone calls, three sets of faxes, and a whole shitload of money for nothing; basically I just faxed them the crap I carry to the hospitals myself, they finally said they will have my account updated and ready for me to work Sunday. Fuckers better be right.
So then I traipse through the heartbreakingly stupid security theater that passes for TSA screening, get my shoes on for godsake; at least they let us wear our underpants still. Get locked back on the gates and the Shreveport airport has gone Coca-Cola free. As in, they only have Pepsi products in the machines and the one pitiful cooler. Fuckers keep you from have a damned Coke zero. How can they justify trapping people back here and not even having a Coke in a machine? Fuck Pepsi and its exclusive agreements. I'm already pissed and I haven't started my 68-hour workweek. I usually wait for the hell that is Atlanta Hartsfield airport before I start mumbling, "Weaselly fuckers." I'm already there. Weaselly fuckers.

Holy Mother

So I managed to start off this weekend's college graduation festivities by slicing an enormous hole into my left hand. It was a very sharp can pull-top that I grazed my left thumb with while assembling specialty food for the stuck-poop kitty we were leaving in charge of a catsitter. I had opened the skin more than half an inch wide and nearly as deep. It needed about three stitches.
I glued it shut with some skin glue a rep had demo'ed to us earlier in the week. Pretty cool stuff; made all the blood stop rolling down my arm. The next day, driving through Texas, I saw it had flaked off and the wound was trying to reopen; glued it again. Did that about three times and now it looks like it's healing: after hauling huge amounts of daughter's belongings down three flights of stairs. OoA#2 did most of that hauling.
Her grandparents showed up late to the graduation, where saving seats was not allowed. So one of them sat with me and my SO. Who knows where the others went. Her father was wearing a polo shirt, and her grandmother had evidently left her hearing aids at home. During the procession, we could not figure out why we couldn't see her marching with her class; I spotted her friends but could not find her anywhere. But she turned up walking across the stage. Turns out she fainted in the assembly line and was revived by campus security and then sneaked into her seat so she wouldn't faint again waiting until her turn to process, since she was fifteenth to last of  about 500 graduates. Damn alphabetical order. Then the grandparents wanted to take three pictures and leave instead of coming to lunch. Her grandfather, who had said he would use his big old huge auto to help her move, wanted to change and leave town and pay for her couch and boxes to be shipped home. As if we could have gotten them somewhere to ship them out; plus the nonsense of paying more for shipping than the worth of the items. He did deign to come back that afternoon and get them in a rush and set off for home.
And her grandmother made a huge point of giving her a necklace with a "family" diamond in it. She had told her it was pear-shaped, and it was round; no big deal, very pretty. But on the ride home, it was apparent in bright light that the diamond has a flaw in its center so large it appears cracked.
Outlaws. Texas is full of them.