A Saturday

It is great to get out of the house, as much as I love to be in my house. 

Look at me right now. 

Happy. 

In the house. 

Looking for things to do that do not require me to move. 

Ahhh.

Yesterday was quite different. Precious nephew and I met up in the city to go see Josh Johnson.

First stop off of public transit was the jewelry store to pick up a repair. My new friend at the jewelry store is very complimentary about how I managed to find such an expensive ring for so little (used). I only spent $175.00 to get the ring replated. I felt guilty about the vast amount of cat hair I left on the chair.

I made better time than I thought, so I walked around looking for somewhere to have lunch. The jewelry store was pretty close to what mrguy calls the International Bad Behavior Zone, so I took my time and found a sunny spot to check my phone before going anywhere worse. I wanted to go to that place that has creamed spinach. Closed until 5. The fancy cafe where mrguy and I have been? Also closed. Permanently. So I walked and walked. Took photos of interesting architecture, and signs for clubs I'd never seen that I could look up later.

Finally I kinda gave up. There was a pub across the street and a marginal looking Japanese restaurant. Marginal Japanese sounded depressing, but I was hungry. It was marvelous.

My waiter resembled Edna Mode, only super nice. They had anago on the menu and in reality, which made me an immediate fan. Plus they had tenzaru soba. Cold.

They served me an immense mountain of food and I was convinced it would take me an hour to eat it. It almost did. The ladies next to me were telling each other their origin stories. One was married to a man whose ambition only derived from his wife's prodding. The other actually said that he felt uncomfortable if his wife was more educated than he was. Both men, it turns out, had lied to their wives about finishing college. The wife who wanted the Masters degree took the kids and got it. Her daughter resents her choice of a career to this day. The woman must be in her 50s. I excused myself, told them that I was not doing a good job of minding my own busines. That I thought their stories were fascinating, and I advised the woman who wanted the career to record what she'd just said, as she'd just said it, and share it with her daughter. Their stories were *fascinating* and there just isn't enough testimony out there about the lives of women as they began to enter the workforce in a time that simply wasn't ready for it. She worked for Nelson Rockefeller -- all so interesting. Then I tried to find something more interesting than the ladies and finished my meal.

Where was the venue, anyway? Maps told me it was only about 400 feet away. But it was at a 15% grade, looking like this:

Once I got to the top, and our venue, our seats were several flights of stairs above. I didn't feel so bad about the vast lunch after all.

Josh Johnson was great. His show was amazing -- all the performers!! Woo to my Ivy Leaves!! The warm up act was Mia Jackson. She told a funny story about being a tall lady of a certain build, and how someone came up to her to ask a directional question about the bus or something. She said that she realized that she had "transit directional body". Reminded me of the time in Ikea where tiny but mighty and I were shopping for a sofa for work, and wearing our crew jackets for the latest forklift, which were Ben Davis bomber jackets. Someone stopped us and asked a directional question -- "Where is the..." and we looked confused and he looked confused and it was clear that he thought we worked there. 

Anyhoo...

We had a great time and I got to share the latest company mishegoss with the nephew, who is in HR and therefore interested in all things personnel related. AI says we can expect more layoffs on November 6th, December 6th and January 2nd. 

Any of those work for me.

Bringing Back the 90s

A few weeks ago I broke the dog mug when I was loading the dishwasher. This mug has had several lives. I think that originally mrguy and I originally each had one. There is some connection with the Big Guy, and we're not sure what it is. Maybe it's just the time frame?

After it lived as a coffee mug, the dog mug it had a second life in the cat medicine cabinet
as a holder of syringes, tubes of hairball ointment, and the like.

In the last year or so it came back into circulation as a coffee mug. It is sooooo 1990s!! Love it.

And then, as the Big Guy would say "The chick BROKE it".

We paused for a sad moment and then I decided I'd find a replacement. Within a few minutes I'd ordered a dog mug on Etsy, and who knew but there was a companion CAT mug on ebay. We waited until this morning to open the packages. While drinking his coffee out of my Charles and Diana mug (also a replacement for a favorite broken mug) mrguy was extolling the virtues of the dog mug's capacity and handle, while indicating that he was possibly drinking out of a lady mug. He'll drink out of my Hardanger dancers mug (bought in Ballard with the Big Guy) because it has a good handle, but that dog mug was just right.

Here they are, together for the first time:

Thank you, ebay and Etsy, saving my bacon yet again.

OK, But Then

On the first day that the laid off people did not come back to work, John Deere offered voluntary retirement to leaders 50 and over. These folks aren't deadwood. They're the people who make the forklifts, and we are a forklift company. I'm asking everybody -- did you get the email? And then they ask me the same and I tell them that I'm not even a manager, and we continue the conversation.

Lots of people will take the offer and leave to work at our competition. Whole (very small) departments who serve what John Deere asks for will implode if everyone takes the offer. What Deere doesn't realize is that at Hammerslag, even if you are Director-level, you're an individual contributor who is holding an important part of the company together.

Developing...sometimes I laugh at the madness.

I Graduated! If By That I Mean I Got Kicked Out

Oh August, you surprising motherfucker. 

Today, on the day that the fired people stayed home, I promised to pivot away from sadness to acceptance. I made a point of eating my lunch away from my desk, so I could get used to who is missing. Then while I was in line to order my food I got an email suggesting politely that I move along from my Alzheimer's caregiver support group, since my mom is dead. True, I haven't been on-topic since mrguy got cancer. But I do talk about Alzheimer's, and I've been holding down the fort for 10 years. I am the OG. The suggestion was that I join a cancer support group. That this is not a social group.

Message received. 

I am not returning to say goodbye, although these *are* my people. It would just be too sad. I wrote to one of the group members, sharing my situation and thanking her for the years of support. Her person is also departed, so she got the same email. 

During another August, in 2010, we got kicked out of our ukulele band. Our bandleader referred to it as us graduating. Over the years we'd heard in whispers about people graduating. Where's Kaunaloa? Oh, she graduated. After a while you'd learn that the person committed some offense, and was asked to leave. I've shared this story, I know, but it still smarts. Our offense was creating a small group and practicing together so that we could play the open mic at the restaurant owned by our bandleader. At a band event where our bandleaders expected to entertain one another.

I want to repeat that in that situation our bandleader's son was so upset with the graduation that he didn't speak to his parents for a year. And they changed the band rules that they'd made up in order to fire us and asked us to rejoin the band. 

It's a different situation, but it still smarts and I did burst into tears. It is time to move on, but I will miss these people. I love them and want to hear about their struggles and their lives.

Oh well.

I'll try to pivot again tomorrow.