Simon just entered my office and started to hack while standing on my treadmill. The treadmill has been thrown up on multiple times so I pushed him off of it. He took it out to the hallway and spewed like a drunken college student.
So. Aren’t you glad you came here this morning to read that?
During the time I was laid off and I was finishing school, we decided it was time to make a big change in our lives. We had so much fun in the small town where the graduate school was located that we thought it might not be such a bad idea to find employment there. I did interview in that town and was one of two finalists. The other person got the job. Sad. But, I kept looking at employment there or in another town or city other than where we currently live (outskirts of Richmond, VA). None of that worked out.
Instead some consulting firm found me on Monster and now I’m working through my conversion time period at the non-profit in Richmond. I like the folks there and I think it’s going to work out…one month down with two to go.
We’ve decided that we should re-embrace our roots. I’m not talking about the outskirts. Jeez Louise, yesterday the local news was on for two minutes and two horrible stories were on about our county. Both involving violence of the worst sort (seriously, a woman axed her young blind, cancer survivor son and then set him and the house on fire) and there was at least one confederate flag spotted in the background. I’m not going to turn this into a rant on how effing sick I am of seeing those flags but JESUSGOD THE SOUTH IS NOT GOING TO RISE AGAIN SO SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP ALREADY. Also, dumbasses, take your meds because clearly there are some issues going on out here.
Whew, where was I? Oh yeah, embracing our roots.
We had friends who had a long layover on Saturday and so we drove around so one of them (he lived here awhile) could reconnect with some of the neighborhoods and monuments. We had lunch down near Richmond’s canal walk. It was a good visit and it was neat to hear him talk about what had changed since he moved out of town ages ago (we’ve known each other for almost 20 years so it’s hard for me to even think about when he left town because I’ve known people I met as a fully-fledged adult for 20 years!?!). After visiting with our friends and after the walk along the river on Sunday, we decided to make a list of all the “very Richmond” things there are to do and we are going to do them. Dagnabbit!
We didn’t list out food festivals because we’re already pretty good about that and we left off going to concerts/plays because we’re already pretty good about that too. I’m talking about things like renewing our membership to the art museum, participating in the First Friday activities (also art), going to see our farm team play baseball and other things.
If we’re going to stay, we should be involved (and yes, I really did embed that video down there).
We went for a walk today along the river. You knew Richmond was at the fall line of the James River right?
We saw the city from south of the river:
I told the better-half that that’s about as far south of Richmond I’d want to be. It’s an inside joke, but it’s true. I rarely cross the river and head into southside.
There was a group of trees growing right out of the rock. The better-half climbed up the hill and took this picture:
When I was a young teen my family used to go hang out on the rocks a little bit south of Belle Isle (Pony Pasture to be precise) and we foolishly rode some of the rapids. Foolish because the James is not very deep through here and full of boulders (the river was less than 5′ today). Hello head trauma.
There were several tags like this on the pedestrian bridge that connects Richmond to the island. If there’s a good piece of graffiti, the better-half will take a picture of it. Doesn’t the poor thing look a little apprehensive?
There’s a problem with the network at the office and so most if us are sitting idle. One co-worker is taking care of personal phone calls. I’m noodling around on my phone.
The thing is when this stuff happens no one is allowed to go home. I realize the system could come back up in a minute or it could be hours…it has already been nearly two hours of downtime. So while I get that we need to be here, it is hard to do nothing. And I mean nothing because all of our files are stored on servers.
So short of starting Angry Birds over from the beginning, what’s a girl to do?
Well, things have been busy. Mostly the only thing I have been able to think about posting is a rant. My rant isn’t very well formed but here it is anyway:
Have you ever noticed how GD tone deaf some folks are on Facebook? For instance, your friend posts that they had a wonderful time at X and they link to X. Then some dumbass friend comments, “where were you”. FOR CCCCCCCCHHHHHHHRRRRRIIIISSSTTT’s sake, you stupid mook.
Or another one I like: A local brewery uses Facebook to tell their followers which food truck will be in the parking lot on whatever evening. Then some idiot says, “where’s that restaurant”. It makes me want to hunt them down and assault them with the beer bottle they’ve obviously been sucking on way too hard.
Feel free to add your own peeves into the comments.
So, I’ve been at the new job for four days now and I’m deep in onboarding training. Some of it is highly interesting and some of it makes me want to take a nap. Pro tip: Do not sleep at your desk. No matter how boring the videos or training content might be. You must not sleep.
In the plus column, I’m being treated as a full-time employee rather than as a contractor. So, I’ve already alerted the media that I’m taking a few hours off in March for various reasons. My manager is cool like that. I have no idea how the contracting company will feel about it, but I don’t know that I need to tell them. If I make up the hours, they won’t know. A conversation for next month.
On the drive home today I was deep in thought about ways to get home from the office. I was so engrossed that I missed the exit I have taken for years. I had to go about 10 minutes out of my way to get turned around. I actually had to take a completely different highway to get home. When I told the better-half, he commented that I found another way home. Ha!
Actually, I was thinking about ways to avoid the immediate interchange and bridge because that bridge is not long for this world. I suspect when a major project is finally completed a few miles down the road (dear god let it end) that the Shockoe Valley bridge will be next. It has been patched so many times that the patches have patches. A couple of years ago as some patches were being laid down, a co-worker and I joked about how we could see through the bridge. Not a comforting thought when you are sitting in traffic.
I ran errands this morning beginning with the post office. Normally, if I have to interact with postal people I go to a tiny post office way out of my way because the post woman is professional, fun and quick. Today, I had a bunch of things to do in the ville and so I went to our regular post office. Which is where all other post offices send their workers and customers to die.
The line was practically out the door and by the time I left it was. Examples of how my soul was rendered: woman did not know the zip code and then talked on her phone; man wanted to know what denominations of stamps he had in his large envelope because he couldn’t see the tiny print (and he drove there); woman was packing quite adorable baby shower gifts but couldn’t find the tape or the correct box size; woman had about 5 things and a money bag in her hand and I was behind her–she waved to someone in the back–she’s a regular and that locked money bag worried me about how long she was going to take. Finally, someone from the back came out and asked if anyone was dropping off something that was completely ready to go (me) or were picking up parcels. I fell over myself thanking her and sprinted (seriously) out of there.
Then I went to the pet supply store to get Lucy a new scratcher. I was in and out of there in less than 5 minutes. Bliss. The bliss was destroyed by the MORONS who shop at the big box wholesale store. I always have a straight-forward list when I shop there and I pretty much follow the same pattern as I navigate the store. I can get in and out of there in 15 minutes from the time my tire hits the parking lot to the time I pull out of the lot. Except today I discovered an entire section had been moved. It makes sense where the stuff was moved to, but for heaven’s sake. Then I could only buy quart-size storage bags in quantities of 200+. Yeah, I don’t need anything in that quantity. I got behind several packs of people who just stopped in the middle of the aisles. These are the same people who do not signal when driving and drive over the yellow line into my lane. I am convinced these actions are all correlated.
Also, the kid who was following his Morlock mother and grandmother? You did not sniffle, cough or limp. Therefore you are not sick enough to stay home. You weren’t calculating up prices per unit so you weren’t out on a home-schooled practical math exercise. You were truant. Get back in school and study. You do not want to end up like 90% of the bozos who live in this town.
The other day someone called me and started off the conversation with “I know you know all the good places to eat in Richmond” and then the conversation ended with think up some restaurants in this specific area of Richmond that serve a late lunch, is something different than what we would normally do and (unsaid, but true) it can’t be expensive or too far into the city because OH MY GOD we don’t drive in the city and how on earth would we park on the street?
So, I gave it some serious thought and expanded the search a little because the specific area is at a mall and there’s nothing but chain restaurants in the immediate surrounding area. I looked on some websites to double-check lunch availability and I thought about price and I thought about parking lots. Then I sent an email with restaurant websites of about five suggestions. My criteria and list were:
A) interesting
B) not a muther-effin’ chain
C) a little different from their usual pattern of eating (see B above)
D) not expensive
E) off-street parking
I got an email back today. They went to Olive Garden. I banged my head against the wall.
Last night we went with a friend to a paint studio. We painted The Scream.
I was a little disappointed the instructor didn’t know how to pronounce Edvard Munch’s name. The only factoid she knew was a recent auction price. Maybe that’s all classes require.
We ate small plates, drank some wine and painted:
We woke up this morning without electricity. We have no idea why not, but we assume it’s because the power company can’t handle the demand at 6am in 16 degree weather. Yeah, because they are a power company and demand doesn’t increase in the winter. I’m guessing we were without for three solid hours.
We found out our generator can’t run the heat strips of our HVAC system which is a real pain in the butt. We already knew it wouldn’t run the AC as witnessed by our several day camp-out last June. The better-half built a fire this morning and even though I don’t like waking up without power, I did like having a fire through the morning.
I will say when it is cold outside we find out how poorly insulated our house is. There are many things we like about our house and many things that we despise. One of those things is the CHEAP-ASS BASTARD who built the house. Seriously, from the septic system that had to flow up hill, to the broken seals on windows (yes, they broke those before the people before us moved in. And, yes, no one has fixed them.) to the lack of insulation (or at least inferior R-values) there’s just so much slipshod around here that it ticks us off sometimes. Today I was on the floor in front of the stove and cold air was pouring in from somewhere. No idea where it was coming from because we actually know that area is sealed. Perhaps there’s a big hole behind one of the cabinets. Seems likely.
I know the builder isn’t the only one to blame. Apparently, the county’s building inspectors during the late 90s were high on the same crack pipe as the builders. I can only hope now that every Tom, Dick and Harry can’t get a loan and houses aren’t popping up like mushrooms that someone will think back to when houses were built with pride. Maybe I’m smoking the crack pipe too, but a girl can dream.
