Overheard: There's Always Been a Radio in My Head Edition

Yesterday I was at the salad bar in the cafeteria, crafting my lunch. A woman next to me said, "I never met anyone else who hums to themselves like I do." She was talking to me. I've been doing it as long as I can remember, but I don't always realize that I'm doing it audibly. I remember from my childhood that my aunt did it too, so maybe there's a genetic component.

Festival of Disappointment

When George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic are playing at a festival a couple of miles from your house--with food trucks and local craft brews--you go. But when your significant other has reached her crowd tolerance point and the headliner still hasn't gone onstage despite being half an hour behind schedule, you leave, unwillingly. At least I had a banh mi and a very tasty IPA...

Mute Button

It's been a challenging week month year for right-thinking Americans, and by "right-thinking" I mean the vast majority of us who believe in and model tolerance, respect, and acceptance of others, regardless of where they come from or what skin they happened to be born in.

I've found it very difficult to listen to or watch any news reports. I have to keep them at a distance. Even reading the newspaper is stressful. I'm so disgusted by the behavior of our alleged leader, and that of the toxic far-right factions that he's so afraid to alienate, that I just can't allow any of it into my brain. I used to believe that as a country and a people, we were better than what we have seen in recent times (not just last weekend). Now, I don't know what to think.

It's one thing to have lived through the Reagan and Bush years feeling that the leadership did not represent my views, and quite another to have as the occupant of the White House a person who does not seem to have enough human feeling to condemn an act of violence rooted in hatred, or even the vile words and behavior of extremists who believe the wrong side won the Civil War. Esquire's Charles Pierce has the right idea: he refers to the president with an asterisk. It requires no explanation, the meaning is quite clear: an egomaniacal buffoon with no experience in government, while technically the holder of the office, is not deserving of the title.

I find myself wondering frequently how the rest of the world views us, and how much damage is being done to our country's image and reputation. Will people hoping for a better life stop believing in the American dream, out of fear that coming here might not be a better option than remaining where they are? Or will they choose to go somewhere less fraught and less divided?

And let's be clear about something: I'm not expressing my feelings from an ivory tower. Boston does not have a shining history with regard to civil rights. I haven't lived within the city limits since the late 1980s, but I work in the city, and I have for much of my adult life. It feels like things have gotten better, but the challenge is still there, every day, but for many it's now economic as well as societal.

The ideals of free speech codified by the founders of the United States mean that we have to allow a white supremacist rally to take place today, but we don't have to attend, or watch, or pay any attention at all. I wish the media would do the same, because without the benefit of an audience, the message would have even less of an impact; it would be merely background noise.

For some time I have been concerned about the future of the United States as a country and a society. Now my feelings have gone from concern to deep worry and a degree of fear. How bad will it get? When I was growing up I didn't think I would see even the beginning of the country's decline within my lifetime. Now I wonder how far it will have progressed by the time I'm gone.

All of that said, humor helps. #sheetcaking

Changes

Life is funny. Things happen when you are not expecting them. Generally, the older you get, the less surprised you are when something unexpected happens, but occasionally a genuinely surprising event occurs.

For the past year or so I have been working two jobs. For the second half of 2016, I was regularly working more than 50 hours each week. Plenty of people do this, but it was new territory for me. When my W-2s came I saw that I had done all right for the year, but the effort required to get there was significant. But certainly, let me be clear, it was better than not working and not being able to get a job.

I think I have mentioned before that my second job was for one of my former supervisors. What I don't think I spelled out explicitly is that this was at the employer I was laid off from five years ago, the one I had thought I'd be able to stay with until I was ready to retire (remember, I'm closer to the end of my working life than the beginning).

For a while after I started working for her again, I used to think about the possibility of being rehired full-time, but it seemed a lot more likely that the most I could expect from them is that someday they might offer me 20 hours a week. Even if that happened, I couldn't see how I'd make it work; my main job was not the sort of thing that could be done part-time, and 20 hours a week wouldn't pay me enough to live on. I stopped thinking about it.

Then, unexpectedly, before Christmas my former/current boss asked me in an email: "If we had a full-time position, would you be interested?" Just like that, with the "if" italicized. I knew there had been some staff changes and that resources were being allocated differently in their budget, but I was not expecting that sort of proposal.

I told the Mrs., who was suitably pleased. I decided not to say anything to anyone else until I had some certainty about what was happening. I made one deviation from that: I told my family, but only after a couple of weeks. I had to get through a medium-sized obstacle course of bureaucracy that took a few more weeks. I needed some idea of when they wanted me to start, so I could figure out when I needed to give notice to my other job. (I've only had that experience a couple of other times in my working life.)

The structure of the job is a little different from what I used to do, and a little better overall. Some of it is the editing work I've been doing for the past seven or eight months, which I really enjoy. Other parts of it are just what I used to do before, and while that's not necessarily as exciting or interesting, it's worth it. Some of the processes have changed, and not necessarily in ways that can be considered improvements, but I don't care; it's worth it.

Even though I was working full-time and then some for a successful and growing company, I was technically an employee of the agency that placed me in the job; the work was stressful but also tedious, I was not being paid what the work was worth, and the benefits available to me were not especially competitive. Making this change means that once again I'm part of an organization with thousands of employees, and able to benefit from that in all the ways you would expect.

So, while I am still disheartened and disappointed by what's happening in our government and in our country, on a more personal level this is a distinct turn for the better for me. And the office will be moving in a couple of months, which will provide a figurative fresh start to accompany this more experiential one. And I expect I will be able to find more time to blog...

End of Year Reflections 2016

When I wrote a similar post last year, I said I'd check back in to see where things were; here we are on December 31st, and I don't want to make a liar of myself.

Unlike the past several years, I had plenty of work to occupy me this year. My day job demanded my full focus and attention for pretty much every minute of every workday, a marked departure from most of my prior work. I find the work quite stressful, and initially I considered not committing to the assignment, but a combination of inertia and guilt kept me in place. I made a verbal commitment to remain in the position through the end of June, and since nothing better had presented itself by that point, I kept going. By the end of July, the volume of work had increased to the point that I started working overtime hours, and regularly logged an average of 45 hours per week for the rest of the year.

I also took on additional part-time work for one of my former bosses. Initially that involved migrating several years of content from one platform to another, somewhat rote but not entirely uninteresting. I finished that project near the end of July, and within a few weeks I was being asked to copy-edit and proofread material, a task I find much more engaging. For most of the year I put in five of six hours a week on these projects, which was good for my bank balance and my resume.

Elsewhere, we said goodbye to our dog in early February, and got another dog near the end of June. I quickly fell back into the routine of walks and feedings, all of which is much easier with a younger, healthy dog. This dog's personality and quirks are still revealing themselves to us, which is a big part of the appeal of having a dog.

Otherwise, things around here were pretty normal. Like a lot of people, we are kind of ready to be done with 2016, though along with that goes apprehension about what's to come. At the same time, we are grateful that this year has brought some measure of stability back to our lives. The other day I had the thought that 2016 should be sent off by symbolically burning something, perhaps the calendar that hangs on the inside of our back door, but as renters we don't quite feel comfortable lighting something on fire, even outdoors.

So tonight we'll sit down with friends for a home-cooked dinner, and toast to our collective good fortune. Here's hoping that everyone has a fun and safe night and weekend, and that 2017 brings good things to all of us.

Dark Days

Hello out there. I know it's been a while since I've surfaced. Things have been pretty busy around here, leaving me almost no time for thinking, let alone blogging. Between my two jobs, I am regularly working more than 50 hours a week, which includes some late-evening and weekend hours. Sure, it's nice to have a steady income, but it's also stressful.

It's almost Christmas, but to be honest I'd kind of barely noticed. Of course I am in the process of getting gifts for my family, but that happens largely from the chair right here in front of my computer screen, so I have not been out in stores all that much. I used to be more enthusiastic about holiday shopping when I was younger, but age does change us, whether we want to admit it or not.

We're in the midst of the shortest days of the year, when it's dark by around 4:30. This confuses the dog, who thinks that the darkness means it's time for her evening meal. She has a bed in the room where I work, so she comes in from the other room and parks herself there, keeping an eye on me to make sure I don't forget about feeding her.

We go for a walk after she's had her dinner, and I do enjoy seeing the houses in our neighborhood lit up for the holiday season. It takes some of the edge off the early sunsets, and cheers me up a bit. If I remember correctly, by the end of January the sunset happens around 5, so it won't be long before the days start getting longer again.

Anyway, there are more important things to be concerned about. Our country is about to be plunged into an experience the likes of which we have never seen. I suppose the most optimistic way to view the incoming administration is as a gigantic four-year (minimum) experiment in which all 325 million of us (or whatever the US population is these days) are the mice that are being experimented on.

The Mrs. and I have plenty of reason to be apprehensive about what's going to happen in 2017 and beyond. All of us do, whether or not we realize it. To be honest, I am somewhat less worried about what the government might do than I am about the kind of behavior that some Americans think it's okay to exhibit, as though the change in leadership has given them some sort of permission to bring to the surface their worst impulses toward their fellow citizens. This is a far bigger threat to our country's future than whoever happens to be occupying the White House, or any other elected office, or even the seats on the Supreme Court.

But we also have other things on our minds. We have to keep doing our thing, and I think it's crucial to try to maintain some sense of optimism in the face of the ignorance and blatant bigotry that's out there. I made some charitable contributions this month, simply because solicitations arrived in the mail from organizations deserving of support. We are at a point where we can think about planning a real vacation, something we have not been able to do in several years.

I hope all of you have a holiday season filled with friends, family, and happiness. And if I can close with a bit of advice for the coming year: look inward, look outward, pay attention.

A Thoughtful Response

Ooh boy, it's been a while. I'm working a lot, you see, sometimes 50 hours a week. It's challenging and draining, and at the end of the day I don't have much energy for anything beyond TV. I wish I was reappearing here with something witty or funny or just interesting, but I'm not. Well, I do find it interesting, but not in the way I prefer to use that word.

Okay, so it's been kind of a terrible year or ten for those of us who consider ourselves progressives. I'm not going to attempt to get into why our country is in the place it is; I admit to not following every nuance of politics closely enough to do that capably (my late father-in-law was exceptionally adept at it, and I wish he was still around). There's a lot of toxicity in our everyday lives, and while not all of it comes from the political arena, much of it does.

I'm sure a lot of you have heard by now of the various heinous things spewed out of the noise-hole of the governor of Maine, who clearly views the Republican candidate for president as a role model in all the wrong ways. The plain truth is that the governor is a racist asshole who is doing his part to destroy any semblance of civility left in our society.

But the reason I have emerged from my bunker/hiding place to write a post is this: the Portland Press-Herald wrote an editorial apologizing to the rest of the country for this man and his behavior. It's brilliant and candid and dead-on, and you should go read it. Unless you share the views of what's-his-name, in which case then please just go away.

Geography and Convenience

We've been going to Trader Joe's since the store on Memorial Drive opened in... 1999? I'm not exactly sure when it opened, but it was quite a while ago. I even worked there for the better part of a year. There are now 18 stores in Massachusetts (plus two in southern New Hampshire and one in Rhode Island), but we've never managed to get a store closer to where we live. Sometimes we go to the TJ's on route 1 in Saugus, not because it's closer or more convenient but because it's an easier drive from our house, compared to driving through Somerville and Cambridge's always-terrible traffic.

But then a couple of months ago, it was announced that Trader Joe's would be opening a store next year in the Assembly Row complex in Somerville that is roughly two miles from our house. (Our previous residence in Somerville was technically within walking distance of Assembly Square/Row, but it was a bit treacherous to get there.) The newer buildings that were constructed a few years ago were set up for smaller retail and don't have the amount of floor space required for a grocery store, even one like TJ's that's quite a bit smaller than a modern supermarket.

But the older part of the complex, which at one time was a traditional enclosed mall and, long before that, a Ford auto assembly plant (hence the name), is composed of medium-size floor plates and currently occupied by stores like Staples, TJ Maxx/Home Goods, AC Moore, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Christmas Tree Shops. A vacancy came about due to the demise of the Sports Authority chain. I have no idea how Trader Joe's secured the space, but someone must have had someone else on speed dial because it seemed to fall into place pretty quickly after the Sports Authority liquidation and closings were announced.

We've been going to the movies at Assembly Row since the AMC theater opened there, and the popularity of the complex has brought plenty of traffic. It's all right on the surrounding roads, but within the complex itself things can get chaotic. I imagine this will only get worse when the Trader Joe's opens, but I am hoping that Somerville will allow this store to be open until 10 pm like the ones in Brookline and Cambridge (most close at 9). That would give us some flexibility in when we shop and might help us avoid some congestion.

There's also a grocery-related development happening here in Medford. The Wegmans chain, based in Rochester, NY, has been growing quite a bit over the past decade and currently has four stores in MA. They distinguish themselves from competitors by building enormous stores (100,000 square feet is not unusual) with huge prepared-food sections, a response to our culture's desire for greater convenience. Wegmans has agreed to open a store at the site of the Meadow Glen Mall on route 16, about a mile from our house (and closer than the nearest Whole Foods).

The mall was awful, mostly empty with a few tired, sad stores kept afloat by a Kohl's on one end and a Marshalls on the other. (It was used by some seniors for indoor walking, and I don't know where they will go now for their exercise.) The property owners arrived at an interesting solution: the anchor stores have remained and are open while the middle section of the mall building has been demolished, and the Wegmans is going to be built in its place. We have heard that the store will open next year, but the Wegmans website lists it as TBD.

Meanwhile we have made a couple of visits to the closest open store, in Burlington, to sample the offerings. While not life-changing, they were certainly tasty, no more expensive than comparable items one might purchase elsewhere, and the staff were uniformly very pleasant and helpful. (The chocolate-chunk cookies with pecans are worth a repeat visit.)

Again it will be interesting to see how traffic is affected; there is also a proposal for an almost 500-unit apartment complex to be built on land directly across the street from the mall property (ironically, there used to be a Shaw's supermarket there). Neighbors have protested that the housing development would be too dense for the size of the property, and the Wegmans is likely to add significantly to traffic in and out of the area.

The Wegmans was announced first, but the Trader Joe's seems more likely to open first. Either way, upon hearing of the latter the Mrs. responded, "I guess we can never move." That remains to be seen...

Milestones

Some events have occurred in our lives in recent months that I did not specifically discuss here, mainly because I find it difficult to devote time to blogging on my current schedule. So I'm going to take advantage of the long weekend and the brief pause in my regular activity to do a little catching up.

In February we had to say goodbye to our beloved greyhound London. She was 14 and a half, a ripe old age for a dog, and as would be expected that age brought with it a general decline in her health. For most of 2015 we were able to manage her needs, but by January nearly every aspect of her everyday life had grown very difficult. She had a hard time getting up from her bed, she needed to go out every couple of hours, she needed to be supported when squatting outside and when going up and down the ramp.

While she still enjoyed going outside and still had a good appetite for the food that the Mrs. cooked for her, she was on a lot of painkilling medication and had reached a point where she could no longer stand up by herself long enough to finish eating a meal. She was not suffering, but she was definitely struggling, and after some soul-searching and an objective assessment of the situation, we came to the conclusion that propping her up with higher doses of medication for another couple of months, or however much longer she remained with us, was not worth pursuing. We did not want her life to end in suffering, so we made a humane choice to have her euthanized.

Be assured this was a very difficult decision, one we had hoped we would not have to make. Every day I quietly wished that she might go to sleep and simply not wake up, in order to be spared any further decline, but that didn't happen. It is an inevitable part of the cycle of being a pet owner, or pet parent, or pet caretaker, and it's incredibly hard but it must be done. We have never doubted that we made the right decision, and beyond that I feel more human for having had this experience. We miss her every day.

At the beginning of June we marked ten years living in this apartment. We lived in our previous home for nearly 11 years, and I did not think we would remain here this long, but I have no regrets about it. My lengthy period of unemployment certainly got in the way of any thoughts of moving, and with the housing situation in greater Boston being what it is, living elsewhere would certainly be costing us a lot more; in the time we have been here, our rent has not increased, an extremely fortunate circumstance.

We are starting to feel that it would be nice to have a bit more space, like one more room that could be used as a dedicated office, so that we could then have a dedicated dining room. But I don't feel like my situation is stable enough yet to consider trying to find another place to live, so we will be remaining here for another year, at least. We really like our community, which is a definite asset, and if we do end up moving, we hope we can remain in this city.

Forms of Communication

As I have mentioned previously, my longtime friend Just Bud Fox is on tumblr, but I'm not. I don't fully understand how tumblr users communicate with each other, but they often "quote" each other's posts in order to reply to or comment on them publicly.

In response to another user's comment, "Remember the ‘90s, when getting email was fun?" JBF responded:

Come grow old with me? Some Assembly Required and I have been friends since 1985. Of that time, we lived in the same place for less than two years in the aggregate. We used to write big long letters and have periodic two hour phone calls. Then email took over. More contacts. Less content. Lately, we mostly text. We are aging through technology together. Gracefully, I hope.

I hope so, too. It feels a little weird to have known someone for that long, but also gratifying.

Unexcused Absence

Hello there.

I know it's been awfully quiet around here lately. Life has just been hectic, as it is for many people. For a long time I had the luxury of a job that wasn't all that demanding, which allowed me time during the day to compose ramblings here. Then I was unemployed for a significant chunk of time. Now my work days are busy from start to finish, and I do some extra work at night and on weekends. It's hard enough to motivate myself to do that, so swinging by here often gets pushed aside.

We also just got back from a long weekend away, something we have not been able to do for a while. I may be able to whip up something about that in the next day or so. It was really nice to take a break from everyday life and go do stuff, see friends and family, and have some great meals.

I just want to tell you that I'm not giving up or going away, but maybe temper your expectations about the frequency of postings here. Life goes on...

Laundry Solutions Unit: Smoke Gets in Your Clothes

Having purchased plenty of used clothing items over the years, from both thrift shops and eBay, I have occasionally had to deal with the problem of lingering smells. Not gross, sweaty smells, but most commonly tobacco. Sometimes all that's needed is to hang the garment outdoors (I installed a hook on my back porch for this purpose), but sometimes that isn't enough.

With many eBay sellers, they are not selling their own clothing but rather items that they have acquired to resell, so they may not know an item's history. Even if a seller states that they have a nonsmoking home, an item could arrive smelling of smoke. This happened to me a couple of months ago. I bought a flannel shirt, nothing special, for only a few dollars. In this instance I did not pay close attention to the listing regarding info about the household, so it was up to me to try to get rid of the smell.

My first step is always a normal run through the washing machine, but I avoid the dryer because it can "seal in" stains or smells, which is what I think happened to this shirt before I ever got it. Next I soaked the shirt in the washer with some Oxi-Clean, which also yielded no results. I had recently learned that Oxi-Clean now sells a more specialized odor-fighting product, Odor Blasters (I am unclear as to why it's pluralized), so I decided it was time to try it.

The product recommends using hot water, but depending on the garment that might not be a good idea. In this case I went with warm water, and since I soaked the shirt for six hours it didn't stay warm long anyway. The product itself has a fairly strong smell (I generally use unscented detergent and unscented regular Oxi-Clean), so after hanging it in my basement I needed to wait a few days for that smell to dissipate.

Once the Oxi smell had faded I could still detect a smoke smell, but it was much fainter than it had been. I decided to do one more round, and I left the shirt in the machine for longer this time, roughly a whole day. (You can opt for an overnight soak if that's more convenient.) When doing a soak with any Oxi-Clean product, I find that it tends to remain in the fabric, so I run a second rinse cycle to remove it more thoroughly. This time, when the shirt had dried and hung for several days, I couldn't detect any sort of smell except a very, very faint trace of the Oxi. A regular wash will probably get rid of that.

Occasionally I receive an item that has been washed in a very strong-smelling detergent. People do this to reinforce that a garment is clean, which is well-intentioned but unnecessary. I find most detergents have an annoying smell, which is why I prefer ones that are free of perfumes and dyes. I recently got another shirt from eBay that arrived smelling "aggressively clean." A run through the regular wash cycle did not remove the detergent smell, so I again turned to Odor Blasters. This time I soaked the shirt for only an hour, then ran the regular wash and a second rinse cycle. After drying it smelled clean, and nothing more.

Obviously the results will vary depending on the fabric and the nature of the smell, but Odor Blasters has earned its place among my laundry products.

Checking Back In

Wow, where did that week go? They have been feeling like I'm in a tunnel lately. I emerge from the tunnel for weekends, but as I said to the Mrs. last night, it almost didn't even feel like I'd had two days off. And just like that, it's Monday morning again.

I didn't write anything about the passing of Glenn Frey last week. With apologies to him, I never felt about The Eagles the way I did about David Bowie. The Eagles were a constant presence on Top 40 FM radio during my formative years in the 1970s, so of course I knew their songs. But I never owned any of their albums, not even Hotel California. Their music was always there on the radio, like background music, and I didn't feel strongly enough about it to want to be able to play it whenever I chose. By the end of the decade I had embraced new wave, and figuratively turned my back on much of what was coming out of the Top 40 stations.

That said, 67 is quite a young age at which to go. It's also a reminder that none of us knows how much time we have. It sounds corny, but every day is a gift.

End of Year Reflections

[Apologies for the silence around here lately. In addition to work and holiday stuff, I got an early Christmas present last week: a cold. It's mostly gone now, but it definitely kept me from tending to some of the things I wanted to be doing.]

Christmas is over and we're counting down the last few days of the year. At this time we naturally become reflective on the months that have passed. While this has not been what I would call a banner year (that fourth Super Bowl championship banner aside), there has definitely been progress.

I started 2015, as I did '14 and '13, without a job. I was well beyond disappointment and frustration with my situation, and was starting to think it would be necessary to return to dreaded retail in order to sustain myself. A former supervisor offered me a bit of freelance work, and then in April I was hired by a grocery-shopping service, but I got only three shifts during my first several weeks, so it became clear that option was not viable.

In May and early June, a couple of work-at-home temp assignments came my way. Both were relatively short in duration but put my skills to use. While I was working on the second of those, the agency offered me a three-month onsite assignment. I was hoping it might turn into a permanent job; it did not, but I was asked to stay for an additional month. Another assignment offer came soon after, which catches us up to today.

Working at home full-time is an odd experience. Depending on where one lives, it may or may not be possible to go out for lunch. In my case I've had to make the effort on weekends to plan ahead and have food on hand for daily lunches. The hours are a little awkward, and I'm busy pretty much all day, so I don't really have time to deal with little personal stuff like most office workers are able to.

Being home means I am also responsible for the dog's needs, which at this point are many and frequent. Before starting that temp gig in June, I was also home and taking care of her, but over the past six months or so, with age and increasing frailty, she's come to need us more than ever. When she appears, roughly every couple of hours, I have to stop whatever I'm doing and take her out, or feed her, or both. Handling it all has been challenging, but at the same time I'm glad that I am able to be here for her.

So my life is feeling somewhat circumscribed at the moment. I have episodes of several TV shows on the DVR that I have not found time to watch. And that isn't going to get any easier, as I have agreed to take another freelance assignment in order to make up for what my main job is (not) paying me. Everything is very stressful, and that's not something I'm used to dealing with.

But as I have said to a couple of people, I have to look at this year as a net positive. These are steps that I need to take as I work to restore my circumstances to what they were before I was laid off. I enjoyed my work and was able to live satisfactorily and comfortably from it. There seem to be more jobs now, and anecdotally I think that people my age and older are doing a little bit better than they were a couple of years ago. Obviously I will continue to blog, but let's check back in at the end of next December and see where things are...

Of Dogs and Driveways

I had a weird encounter one day last week, and I've been meaning to write about it. I was out with the dog before starting my work day, and a neighbor was having a new asphalt driveway installed. Since the dog tends to be nosy about people, she wanted to check out the workers, and we were heading in that direction anyway.

A guy who appeared to be in charge was standing by his car, talking on the phone. As we approached he finished, saw us, and asked, "Whippet or greyhound?" I answered greyhound, he looked over the dog for a moment or two, then said, "Your dog's in pain, it's time to put her to sleep."

Now, I have mentioned before that our dog is 14, and she has been dealing with some pain from arthritis, mainly in in her hind legs. We give her medication for it twice a day, and we pay very careful attention to her movement and behavior. We are always on the watch for any signs that she is in greater discomfort, or that her overall condition might be worsening. And I suppose it's possible this guy had some experience working with racing dogs. But however well-intentioned he may have been, it's highly presumptuous to say such a thing to a stranger. So I responded only by saying, "It's not time yet. We'll know when it is."

Then, as if things weren't weird enough already, he moved around the corner, toward where a few other men were finishing removing dirt from the driveway area before beginning the asphalt pour, gestured toward the waiting truck, and said, "You want some of this? We're definitely gonna have some left over." I didn't know how to respond, so I remained silent, and he kept going: "Where do you live? I'll just bring the truck around when we're finished."

For a moment I considered accepting his offer. Our driveway has parallel depressions from the car driving over it repeatedly, and I thought it might be nice to get those filled in. But I didn't want to get involved in dealing with asphalt without talking to our landlord, and I also did not know if it would be a bad idea to cover our older driveway surface with new asphalt, or the ramifications of covering only a small portion of the surface. So I thanked him for the offer and said I had to get back inside, which was true.

Checking In

Still here, still really busy. I'm also working slightly off hours, so I'm frequently not finished until 7:30 or 8 pm, leaving precious little time to relax and even less time to think about blog posts.

I have car show photos gong back several months, but I haven't had time to pull them together into a post. I had an idea for something else I wanted to write about crawl through my brain a couple of times, but of course right now, when I have a few minutes, I can't get it back. (I knew I should have made a written note about it.)

But I do have a long holiday weekend to enjoy like many other people, so Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Enjoy yourselves.

Analog

This morning I came out of the subway and was walking toward my office. I am generally on the lookout for people moving more slowly so that I can move around them. Ahead of me I noticed a woman with her head down and her right arm bent up at the elbow, in the now-common posture of someone looking at a smartphone while walking.

I moved to my right, and as I came up behind her I saw that she was not looking at her phone, but in fact was deeply engaged with written material on an old-fashioned clipboard. I was pleasantly surprised and a little amused.

Adjustments

I've been back in a full-time work situation for two weeks (not counting the day off for the holiday), and I am still getting used to many things.

First I had to figure out my commute. Getting almost anywhere from where we live requires taking a bus into Wellington on the Orange Line. That bus is pretty predictable most of the time, and the Orange Line runs pretty frequently in the morning. In this instance I'm going to Harvard Square, so I decided my best option was taking the subway two stops to Sullivan and catching the 86 bus. That has worked fairly well, though the 86 is a crawl in the mornings due to the volume of ridership, traffic congestion, the large number of traffic lights, narrow streets, road construction, etc. On average it took 35 to 40 minutes to go the 2.5 miles from Sullivan to Harvard Square.

By accident I left the house a bit later one day last week, and I found that the trip was somewhat less painful overall; the 86 was slightly less crowded, there was a little less traffic, and the trip took about 25 minutes. I did my trips that way this past week and it was basically the same each morning, so I will probably keep doing it that way regularly. Evening trips on the 86 from Harvard to Sullivan are also somewhat easier.

Getting up early enough to make it out of the house on time has been probably the biggest challenge. I've never had a problem getting up when I need to, but I have a hard time adjusting at the other end of the day, to get to bed early enough to get a decent amount of sleep. I'm used to staying up until 1 am or so, so trying to warp up and get into bed by 11:30 or thereabouts, and to fall asleep, is not easy. Eventually I will get tired enough that the routine will take.

My work environment is perfectly pleasant, with a lot of natural light and infrequent need for the dreaded overhead fluorescent lights. My one real issue is that the kitchen/lounge area does not have comfortable seating for eating. There is a counter, but it's on the low side, and there are no stools or chairs to use with it. There are couches and chairs, and a couple of coffee tables, but these are too low to eat on comfortably.

At my old job I was used to eating at my desk so that I could blog, read websites, and do whatever other personal pursuits I wanted during that hour. The people in my little area do not seem to eat at their desks, and as a newcomer and a temp I feel it might be overstepping for me to do so; also I try to be sensitive to the fact that food smells sometimes bother others. I would like to think that someday I might have an office of my own, but who knows if that will ever happen.

I'm scheduled to be on this assignment until some time in September. I was supposed to be starting on a work-at-home assignment, but I have essentially been "borrowed" from that until this one ends. This meant we also had to arrange for a dog walker on short notice. Our dog-caring neighbor now runs a day-care business in Somerville, so she is not available during the day, but fortunately she was able to recommend another walker who was able to step in. The dog has not been so thrilled at this change in routine, and has been somewhat less than cooperative when taken out. Due to the Mrs.' schedule, we only need a walker three weekdays, so we are all adjusting.

Status Report

Sorry for the relative silence this week. In addition to the short-term work thing I did, I've been working on trying to do some cleaning, organizing, and general de-cluttering of our living space, so I've been spending less time in front of the computer or the TV.

I also got, without much advance notice, a three-month, onsite temp assignment that starts this coming Monday. That means posting is probably going to be less frequent, but I'll be doing my best to keep up and maintain at least a nominal presence during the week.

Trashy Matters

This winter's record snowfall posed multiple challenges, including not being able to put the trash cans out on the curb. The curb disappeared with the first blizzard in January, and while I usually attempt to keep a space cleared for a trash can or two, the volume of snow was too great and I had to abandon my standard procedure. Since the front of our house faces north, the area along the front sidewalk and curb gets the least amount of sun during the winter, so it takes much longer for the snowbanks in front to melt.

Also, before the first big storm I neglected to take the trash can out from where we store it under the back porch, and the door got blocked shut by a thick slab of ice from where melting snow drips off the roof, so we missed two weeks of trash pickup.

After I finally excavated the can, I had to put it at the end of our driveway each week, which in turn meant I would have to wait until the Mrs. had left for work. But her schedule is irregular, and I started to worry that the truck might come by before she had left. It got to where I was following her out the door on Monday mornings, rolling the can into place as soon as she'd driven away.

After several weeks of this, there has finally been enough melting so that yesterday morning there was a small space at the edge of the driveway that's wide enough to be out of the way of an entering or leaving car. And the forecast for this week has temperatures approaching 60 on Thursday, so perhaps the snow banks along the curb won't be around much longer.