Sunday, May 04, 2008
Jay: Happy Birthday
To attorney Walter Galas.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Jay: Farming
We have the option of planting stuff on a small patch out back. We’re talking maybe 3 tomato plants of decent size and maybe a couple other odds and ends, depending how much of the false bamboo I want to try to eradicate. I was thinking that we could throw some stuff in containers on top of where the bamboo grows, effectively quashing it, but that begs the question of what for containers.
So I’m trying to decide whether to buy seeds and such and start tomatoes inside, or if I should just buy some. Trouble is, a flat typically has more plants than I think I can fit, so I’d probably want to share with someone. That and trying to decide what else. Tomatoes are obvious, and reasonably compact. The neighbor has promoted the idea of cucumbers, but those take more space. Though it could be fun to plant something that roams and encourage it to encroach on the bamboo. Peppers are fussy, in my experience. I don’t care for leaf lettuce.
Anyway, half the reason for this is the kids - teaching them how stuff is raised, and where things like tomatoes come from. Sadie will think it’s cool.
Jay: Fess Up
Someone appears to have made us, in Deb’s name not spelled out fully, the recipient of a credit card rewards program. We’d love to know who. I have a couple possibilities in mind, one of whom would be anonymous and presumably want to remain so.
We first received an Amazon gift certificate out of the blue, with just enough credit card oriented material to make it look like it might be one of those things where you’d be signing away your soul by using it. As far as I could tell on close examination, it was legitimate and from a rewards program of which we are not part. That meant someone directing it to us instead of themselves.
Then we received a gift card for Papa John’s, clearly from the same program, mentioning a different card issuer. There’s exactly one anywhere around here, in Stoughton, so it’s not an obvious gift card for someone here.
So. Anyone want to tell us who you are? And if not, thank you anyway.
Update:
Mystery solved. Not an anonymous benefactor, but a friend of Deb’s, who thought they’d say who it was from.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Deb: This is what you do…
if you haven’t managed to find a job that pays all the bills: you find a job that pays some part of them, however small. So tomorrow morning I’m due to show up for orientation for my fancy new gig stocking shelves at a local branch of America’s most hated RetailMegaCorp.
So many things I could say about this, starting with how amusing I find the full-circle aspect of the job and ending with how much I hate so much of the bashing on this particular company. But I’m short on time today, so I won’t.
Just wanted to share a little update with y’all, since you’ve been hanging in with us through all of the drama.
Jay: Sunday
Was supposed to be the annual Easter egg hunt for the little kids, at my grandmother’s house, but I don’t even need to discuss it with anyone to know it’s off. The weather is, well, the kind of weather that makes us do this well after actual Easter in the first place. Cold. Rainy. Completely unsuited to scampering around the yard on a search and consume mission for plastic eggs and their contents.
My mother would be handy in a drought. Pick a day, have her plan an outdoor event on it, and voila, rain. It’s very nearly uncanny.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To Grandma Dorothy, Deb’s grandmother in Fresno.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To Adria Crum.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Dave Winer, who is 52 today.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Jay: One-Hundred
Who wants to trip the odometer? Deb’s Neatly Tangled Shop is now at 99 items sold (in under a year - very nice), and this is your opportunity to be the big one-oh-oh. The century buyer. The triple digitizer.
Update:
Yay! 100 Items sold! In well under a year. Go Deb! And, yeah, don’t let the benchmark being reached stop you from buying, even if the shop isn’t as well stocked as it was. She’s working on it.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Sarah Dopp.
Jay: Blargh
I feel lousy this morning. Got enough sleep, even if much of it was in Sadie’s bed because she apparently decided our bed would be better and warmer. Well, “even if” makes her bed sound bad, and actually it’s awesome. I may have gotten deeper sleep there. I noticed Valerie eventually abandoned her bed too, presumably joining the crowd in ours.
I woke up from one of those crazy mashed up dreams. It involved starting a job, and the place or aspects brought in elements of multiple past employers and situations. The place was named Halliday, which is one job. The lobby was right out of Corporate Software, which later became Stream. I was supposed to start at $8.00 an hour, which happens to be minimum wage in Massachusetts currently. I speculated they might start at slightly higher, which Flatley Company did when I worked at Waterford Village. Minimum wage then was $2.90 and they paid $3.00. Then minimum wage went to $3.10 and they paid… $3.10, which completely destroyed some notions I had.
I was talking with someone, speculating that the company might pay me a little above the minimum. Sure enough, it was going to be $8.02, which somehow morphed into the exact same thing as the $12.02 I started at with Corporate Software. Anyway, even the reference to pay rate is a reference back to prior jobs.
The exterior of the building was some kind of generic cross between places, hard to say one more than another, but there might have been elements of a Christy’s Market, adding another old job.
Later, when I was on the job, there was a scene in an apartment. Apparently apartments were part of what the place did, which goes back to Waterford Village. It was vacant, had been mine, still had some of my stuff in it, and was not going to be rented any time soon. This was like the office I had in Easton, which took me a month extra to move out of after the last official month, with them in no hurry for it. A guy named Matthew showed up in the dream. We once shared an apartment in Greenfield, and I was telling him he might soon want to get his stuff out of this one that he’d left it in with me. He hadn’t even realized I’d moved. Shades of former partners having left stuff in the office in Easton, which had to go to them, be disposed of, be adopted, or be stored.
Confusingly, in a related sequence, I was showing someone how many bookcases I was going to be able to fit, in a ridiculous arrangement, in just the entryway/kitchen area alone. The someone was an amalgamation of a former partner and someone I didn’t work closely with at Stream, but who was similarly brilliant.
Very strange. I also remember thinking that I could crash in the apartment if needed, like if I needed to stay over at work since the place was vacant, I had access to it, and they’d made me welcome to use it, short of actually moving in.
Lots of stuff to do today. Hope I can remember what it is! I have some e-mailing and calling and going and researching and writing and food storing and cleaning and organizing and so forth to be done.
We received a book yesterday that we’d order super cheap from Half.com, a used copy of Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. I need to do more than skim the intro, but it should be interesting. Sadie is beyond ready. She fell asleep last night with a book named “Ted” open, pages down on her chest. She studies and recites books from memory. She knows the letters. She has an idea of some words, like the Q thing she identifies with closing a program (Quit), that made he so excited to learn about how q and u go together.
This morning she spent some time on my lap while I didn’t write and I did an impromptu tiny lesson on m and s, which are the first ones covered in the book. She can point them out on the keyboard (and sound like I’m stupid to ask her) and I had her say the sounds. The actual lessons take about 15 minutes. Not a bad amount of time to devote, once or twice a day. I doubt she’ll need the whole thing or want to be held back to that speed once we’re rolling.
Anyway, I need to go take care of stuff in the kitchen. And post the birthday I didn’t know about before I started this. Sooner or later I’ll have no birthday-free days.
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