taz_39 | Entries tagged with jobs

...it's the end of August already.

After a 10-hour drive to get back to Florida, I frantically unpacked and did laundry and cleaned the bathrooms and watered the plants and packed a lunch and prepped for work. That was pretty much the evening, that and catching up with Jameson.

Then it was right back into the work week.

They have already taken my team away from me.
I came in to find out that all of my captionists have been reassigned. Which is good, I mean they would have been reassigned anyway.
I guess I thought they'd wait until I was closer to leaving to scatter them to the winds, though.
Well, I made sure to meet with each of them and tell them they'd be on a new team soon.
Some were surprised, some could care less.

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There's really not much to say about the "work week". It was only three days long because of my visit with my aunt.

On Monday, steno class was ended at 7pm for an "assembly".
That just goes to show that some things are meant to be: I had a TOOTSIE production meeting/orientation at 7pm the same day. So I lost no class time, conveniently.

The meeting was very informative, plus I got to see a lot of the people who will be my coworkers and traveling companions as we all popped into the zoom meeting.

The majority of the meeting had to do with company policies regarding covid, anti-racism, covid, anti-discrimination, covid, sensitivity training, media training...and covid.

All pretty normal for 2021.

The main takeaways for me were:

Any trip over 500 miles is likely to be done via plane. That is somewhat more plane time than I had expected. On one hand I'm glad because we'll get to each city faster and I'll get more comfortable with flying. On the other hand I'm bummed because I'll still have to pack very lightly most of the time, and at the moment I still dislike flying and will have to get over that. Gotta say though, now that I know this, I'm really glad I signed myself up for PreCheck.

By the end of this tour I will be very used to having a swab stuck up my nose. Not only do we need to be vaccinated, we will also have to complete a rapid test basically every week. Welcome to the new normal!

There are absolute loads of covid provisions and guidelines that we will be following. I was really impressed at how thorough and thoughtful this company has been about protecting everyone.

We will still be allowed to visit with friends and family in each city. We're just asked to be responsible and use good judgement. Yay!

In coming weeks we will hopefully continue to get info and training sessions and who knows what else.

Exciting!

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My work week ended with working from home on a computer that was lagging like 90's dial-up for no apparent reason. I did manage to complete my work, but not to the usual standard, which was very annoying. I also managed to do some chores and get in an hour of trombone practice, 30 minutes of steno, and reading through some of the information packets we got during the meeting. I got some groceries, but forgot pine nuts for the pesto (it's a rule, I gotta forget one thing and make a wasted trip the next day. Sigh.) We had Bento for dinner, ice cream for dessert, and a few hours to relax.

I feel a lot of pressure to get things done this weekend, but there is still, STILL plenty of time.
Wednesday I plan to make "faux sourdough"--I'll explain this later--and the pesto, then for dinner I'll cook the homemade gnocchi that I made several months ago and that has been languishing in the freezer. To be served fried in sage butter sauce with peas and lemon chicken.

I'll still have steno class that evening, and after that Jameson has rehearsal and I'll practice trombone.

On Thursday I want to empty my large planter and do a little cleaning on the pool patio, and possibly clean the shower too if I'm not too tired. And of course, steno and trombone practice.

There's still loads to do: get my car cleaned for storage, change my car insurance, make a haircut appointment, complete more tour paperwork, look into rapid tests available in Florida, reserve some practice rooms so I can really make a racket. And more.

One thing at a time, and it'll all get done.

Tuesday after work I drove up the coast to North Carolina.

Because I left work two hours early, I was able to get past Jacksonville before rush hour and this saved me a great deal of time, probably at least 20 minutes. Then I had brought dinner so only needed to stop for gas once, and to pee. I got to a hotel in South Carolina around 9:30pm. I could have continued driving for another two hours and gotten into Raleigh that same night, but the hotels are more expensive around Raleigh and I didn't see any reason to kill myself over the remaining drive.

You know what was interesting?
Staying in a hotel and looking around and thinking, "Hotel rooms like this are about to become my new home for the next nine months".

I definitely felt a strong shift in perspective with that in mind. Like, my mini skillet is all fine and good...but where exactly do I plug it in and cook? Most outlets are either by the bed, by the tv, in the bathroom, and wherever the lamp is in the room. Some hotels have desks, some do not. I'm guessing my best chance is going to be the bathroom...easy cleanup, the sink, and those outlets usually have a surge protector too.

Nine months living in hotel rooms is WILD. But lots of people across lots of industries do it, so it can't be that bad.

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The next morning after a nice hotel breakfast (oatmeal, egg whites, a peach, coffee) I completed my trek, ending at Sweeney Brass Repair.
The owner, Scott, went to the same school as me (NC School of the Arts) and then continued his education in NYC for Bass Trombone performance. I don't know his background in instrument repair, but he has a good reputation and I think I'm leaving my "baby" in good hands. All it really needs is a cleaning and slide alignment, and even that shouldn't be so bad, I keep my horns pretty well cleaned. But it's nice to make sure everything is in order before launching into the tour.

It also might be a massive waste of time, because if I have to check my trombone and the luggage folks toss it around, any slide alignment work will certainly be undone before I even get to Buffalo :( Let's cross our fingers that that doesn't happen.

Anyway, Scott seems like a cool dude. He showed me around the shop a bit...I felt a little shy, so didn't pry too much, but did appreciate seeing the awesome vintage lathes and shaping and metalworking equipment and chemicals and, well, everything. It's always fascinating to me to see different repair shops and the types of equipment they use, each shop is different.

Scott assured me that he'd have my horn done by the 27th, and we parted ways.

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At my aunt's, I hugged everyone (yay hugs!) and we spent a great deal of time just talking and catching up all day. After pizza for lunch my uncle had to go back to work, so my aunt and I went to the community pool, blessedly devoid of children thanks to back-to-school. We continued our conversation as we swam back and forth.

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Starting to make a plan for rehearsal week/month in Buffalo.

Now that we have our flight and hotel info, I did a little mapping and found that the airport is about a 15 minute drive from downtown Buffalo. As with most major cities, the big box stores tend to be outside immediate city limits. So what I'd like to do once I've landed is get either an Uber or a rental car, stop at a Target outside of town for any necessities and groceries, then proceed to check in and unpack.

This would potentially happen with my new buddy Yael, our female trumpet player.
This chica has never been on a tour before, plus she's only 21 years old!

Obviously she's gonna be an adult and capable of handling herself on this adventure. However at 21, she can't just off and rent a car when she needs one. She might not have a lot of savings to afford Uber rides before we've even gotten a paycheck. And practicalities aside, I selfishly want to be a helping hand and a reassuring presence for her on her first experience with touring. She may know a lot already, but if she has questions or needs help with something, I want to be there for her.

Not surprisingly, this is because when I was young and vibrating with excitement for my first gigs there were wonderful people who helped me along the way. And I remember that, I know what a treasure it was to have such people in my life, who took it upon themselves to protect my starry-eyed enthusiasm from the ugly attitudes of many jaded, road-weary touring musicians. These were the people who showed me where to find the best food in each town; or how to get in with the roadies; or how to get all around town and back in time for the preshow with only a few bucks in your pocket.

I owe so much to those people, many of whom are still in my life, still incredible mentors and friends.
It makes me excited and happy that I might be able to be that person for someone else.

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On Friday, work was work.
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Friday was just a day to get through.

Nothing of interest whatsoever at work.
I read another LJ friend's post about the jobs she's in consideration for, and I felt embarrassed and ashamed, because she has skills for jobs that would pay $50 per hour, or $70k per year, and I will never in my life be worth that no matter what I learn to do.

Well anyway, after wrapping up my $14 per hour day, I drove home and ate a hurried dinner with Jameson before he took off for a performance at Epcot. I allowed myself a little time to relax, then did an hour of steno and a load of laundry and some dishes. Then I made the mistake of googling my rarest trombones (an Earl Williams 6 and a Minick .500, if any nerds are wondering) and found a pretty pristine Williams 6 for sale by a very reputable seller. Argh.

You see, my trombones are, like, VERY rare. They were handmade by some very skilled dudes back in the 50s and 60s.
To have one at all is really a privilege. I found mine while on the road with the circus, at the top of my performance game, so at that time I was able to detect misc subtleties about how each horn played, blah blah blah. The bottom line is, they are truly one of a kind. I think it's fair to say that the Williams at least is like the Stradivarius of the trombone world. No one has been able to replicate his work, and if you've got one, you've got gold.

So you can probably guess my concern. If something happens to my Williams or my Minick, it's OVER.
I can't have another one made. Any sort of major repair means they will likely never sound the same again.

To find another one for sale is kind of a big deal. My boss spent almost a decade looking for a Minick trombone before finding one. Minick .500 trombones are even rarer than a Williams of the same size, it's estimated that between 10-20 exist in the whole world. But tbh, Minick was more of a custom mod guy, so his horns have been found to be less consistent than Williams. Either way, when these trombones do go up for sale it's a rare event.

Argh.

I can't afford it, but wrote the seller all the same to ask if he'd take a payment plan. So lame.
All I can think about is having to check my trombone for a flight at some point in the next nine months, and the luggage guys flinging it around...

Anyway, anyway. Let's think about something else.

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Saturday is a day off since my schedule got all messed up this week.
I'm happy for the day of rest, but annoyed that I then have to go back to work for two random days before my weekend hits. I should be glad, but I'm annoyed. Maybe I'll get glad later.

So, Saturday I woke up and saw that one of the keyboardists for the tour has "made it public". Yay!
I am giving notice on Monday (I wanted it to be tomorrow but HR is not in on Sundays).
I can't wait, but also, time seems to be moving so quickly. My excitement and nervousness levels are definitely creeping up.

For breakfast, I decided I should test some of the equipment I'm bringing on the road with me!

First, the immersion coil. Following the directions, I stuck it fully in the water BEFORE plugging it in.
After a few minutes it was clearly doing its job.

While that was happening I set up the cute mini-skillet. Rubbed it with some olive oil.

This got hot WAY faster than I was expecting! I kinda messed up because I didn't leave enough oil in the pan, and then what was there started smoking before I'd realized how hot the pan had gotten. The eggs were still fine to eat, but I had to scrape some overcooked egg-flakes off the bottom of the pan.

The second attempt went much better. More oil, same temp but eggs went in almost immediately.
Eggs turned out perfectly.

This pan does not cook evenly whatsoever. For some reason the heating element is hottest farthest from the handle.
Not really surprising, this isn't exactly Michelin-star cookware over here.

All it means is that I will need to utilize the lid to help distribute heat when I turn the thing on, and also stir whatever I'm cooking a lot so that everything passes over the actual hot part of the pan. Yeah, it would be nice if it cooked evenly, but I have a feeling sending this back and getting a replacement would not make a difference...it's probably just how this cheap little skillet IS. Rather than trying to cook a whole chicken breast and have it cook unevenly, it will be better to chop my chicken up and stir it, that's all. This should work very well for most ground or chopped meats, eggs, and vegetables. I was hoping to be able to make rice in it too, but with the uneven heating that's probably not a good idea.

Meanwhile the immersion coil seemed like it was not going to get the water actually boiling (I've read that a lot of travel versions in the US will not *actually* boil water), so I unplugged it and poured the hot water into my French press. It certainly worked to make decent coffee, and it will be perfect for tea. Yay!

After breakfast I enjoyed some "Saturday morning cartoons" in the form of Boku no Hero Season 5, then wrote some emails to family, just to see how everyone is doing.

Now I'm typing this up, then will weed around the house, practice trombone and steno, and hopefully spend the rest of my day reading or relaxing, maybe even taking a dip in the pool for once.

The end of September creeps closer and closer.
Still can't believe this is happening.

Monday I felt sad. Because MONDAY. And a full actual work week ahead.
I mean, I work a full week normally anyway. But somehow having my days off separated makes it feel like a longer week.

Nothing special happened on Monday except that the fleece "jacket" that I ordered is too big and I'll have to send it back.
I had steno class and it was ok, but at this point I just want to pass the tests. I wish I could do a better job of focusing.

During lunch break I made an appointment to take my trombone to a shop in Cary, NC while visiting my Aunt.
For whatever reason, there are ZERO professional brass repair shops in Orlando. My trombone hasn't been played for two years, and while it's behaving "ok" it's also hanging up somewhat in second position, and I'd like to get that looked at before launching into a year of daily playing. It's convenient that this shop is only 20 minutes from my Aunt's house. Hopefully she won't mind; it shouldn't cut into our visit more than an hour.

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Tuesday. My aunt says it's fine to do the trombone cleaning while I'm visiting with her. Yay!
At work I discovered that the training department doesn't actually need me at all this week. I'm a little miffed because I've lost my consecutive weekend for the week AND my work-from-home day AND I had to use two hours of PTO to cover the doctor appointment that would normally have been on my day off. But, I can't really blame them. If you're not sure if you'll have enough coverage, you make a contingency and cover your butt, and that's exactly what they did.

So, I'll have a normal work week, just no days off until Saturday. Sad trombone noises.

After work I got home where Jameson was getting ready to go out for a game night with friends from Head Over Heels.
I was invited too, but on Monday I did not get to practice trombone and I'm starting to stress about passing my steno tests and also being "ready enough" for the tour, so I opted out. We talked as I ate dinner, then after he left I packed my lunch for tomorrow (chicken salad, homemade wheat bread, kiwis, egg whites, edamame, a piece of chocolate) and then got to work.

I did trombone first because a lot of times that gets me focused and attentive, and I was hoping that would carry over to steno afterward.
Trombone practice went well, but I discovered ONE SINGLE NOTE that requires ONE SPECIFIC MUTE that is never used again for the entire two hour show. I can't find a recording of said note to understand why the specific mute is needed, either. Is it a solo? It's not marked as one, and it's marked "piano" (that means "play this quietly" in Italian). I'm already bringing four mutes: straight/cup combo, bucket, plunger, and a practice mute. Do I really need to bring a fifth just for this one note?

I mean, I totally will if I need to. But DO I need to?

It finally ended up bothering me enough that I emailed our conductor about it.
I feel like it could be perceived as an amateur or unprofessional question. But y'all didn't hire me for my mute collection, right? We're living out of suitcases here. I think it is legitimate to ask about the whys of bringing an extra mute for a single note.

I worded my question as delicately and politely and professionally as possible, cringed as I hit send, and will just hope that it's not taken the "wrong way", whatever that is. The obvious answer is, "It's in the book so clearly it's required." But, sometimes what's in the book is a misprint. Meh.

Speaking of "meh", I took a steno test and did "meh", got an 89. It's probably a 90 after some of the formatting is fixed, but that's still not passing. Sigh.

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Wednesday. It was extremely slow at work.

Last week I had written to our music coordinator to confirm that everything was going ahead as planned, no changes due to Delta variant? She responded that as far as she knows it's full steam ahead. Awesome. I just needed a little reassurance. It's been a year (or two).

Then the conductor wrote back to tell me that, in fact, I do NOT need to drag the harmon mute across the country for a single note in a two hour show. He wrote to the music supervisors to ask about it, and their response was "That bar is getting reorchestrated anyway. We'll have her use a different mute." Thanks guys! One less mute to worry about. I'm glad that I asked rather than chickening out and bringing the mute anyway.

Nothing else to report all day except a good friend dropped off a harmon mute for me to borrow, and now I'll have to get it back to him. Whoooops.

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Thursday. Work felt very slow because I knew I was gonna get to leave early for my doctor appointment.
It was also a very annoying day because call volume was high, so we kept having to get on phones and it was hard to get some tasks done even though there was sort-of enough time to do them all. Also, people kept asking me to take on tasks that needed to be done AFTER I would have left for the day (and yes I had reminded everyone first thing in the morning that I was leaving early). Even my boss, who was the one who approved my leaving early, asked me to take phone coverage at 3pm.

It felt like one of those frustrating dreams where you are trying to get somewhere, and the clock is ticking and you know you need to leave now, but every time you try someone stops you and insists that you do this one other thing first, until you start to hyperventilate in your sleep (at least I do). Of course no one was trying to stop me, but just the fact that I kept having to explain,

"I have a doctor appointment today."
"No, I cannot reschedule it."
"I got approval a week ago to leave early today."
"No, I cannot do that task because I NEED to go to this appointment."
"Yes, I DO need to eat something right now because I am leaving soon and this is my only chance to eat."
"I would love to help you but as I reminded everyone this morning, I'm leaving early because--"

etc etc. It was very frustrating and stressful.
I go to the doctor VERY rarely, and I am NEVER absent or late to work, and I gave plenty of notice, and the only reason I even had to give notice in the first place is because THEY changed my schedule all around! And then people have the gall to question it all day! ARGH!!

My job is not that hard, and I do enjoy it, but today it felt very RETAIL.
I should not have to feel guilty for taking ONE day out of the 365 to look after my health. Very unpleasant.

And then, THEN...

I went to the appointment. And waited in the 98 degree parking lot for almost 30 minutes.
And then someone called and said, "Were you a follow-up appointment?"
And I said, "Um, NO. This was a PCP."
And they said, "Oh! There's been a mistake. We had you booked for a 10-minute follow-up appointment."

Oh my god.

She added, "I can book you for November, how does that sound?"

Oh my god.

I said, you know what, never mind. I'll call you again.
In nine months. When I'm back from tour.

Welp...at least I had some extra time after work today, and I took full advantage.
I went to Target for some small things, got dinner, got to the house and cleaned up and packed my lunch. Cleaned both bathrooms, and dusted the furniture. Ate dinner with Jameson, watched Cobra Kai, practiced trombone for an hour. Jameson left for rehearsal and I practiced steno, took a test and AGAIN got an 89. So f*cking frustrating. I only have like five 100wpm tests left in my bank, I'm terrified to fail all of them, and then what??

So now I'm typing this up, then I'm having a half-shot of vodka just because I'm ANGRY.
Then I'll shower and get to enjoy, let's see, it's 9:20pm now, I should get about one hour of time to "relax" before I should try to sleep because tomorrow it's back to work again.

Then I will have Saturday off, and you know what? I am doing NOTHING.
I will still practice steno and trombone, and will probably weed around the house. But NO chores. NO cooking. NO bread.
Lots of sleep and sitting on my ass.

BECAUSE I'M A LAZY-ASS MILLENNIAL WHO IS RUINING EVERYTHING. You're welcome.

Well it seems the cat is dangling halfway out of the bag.

Friday at work the call floor manager---not my boss, my boss's boss---came over "just to say hi". Uh huh.

After a while of small talk he finally said, "So I heard something from A---- at the Tampa location..."

Of course with that said I knew right away what this was about.
Several months ago I was asked to interview for an HR Assistant position in Tampa. This was well before I had been asked to go on tour, so I said sure, I'll apply if you think it's a good fit. I applied, and a few weeks later got the tour offer. Then a few days after that they set up an interview date.

At the time of the interview I had a temporary, incomplete tour contract, and that was it. So I went ahead with the interview because I didn't know how things would turn out. Probably a week after the interview I had the final tour contract, and the week after that came the I-9 and other paperwork. At that point I knew I would not be taking the job in Tampa.

I forget the exact date, but a few weeks ago the Tampa interviewer called to offer me the job. And of course I declined it. But they weren't expecting that at all. Up until this point they had assumed that if it was offered, I would take it. So they had called the Orlando offices to let them know they'd be poaching me down to Tampa.

So when I declined, it was (I assume) surprising, although the interviewer hid it well. They did ask if there were any reason, and I felt that they deserved an explanation after I had applied and interviewed quite seriously. So I told them. I'm not a good liar, and this employer has treated me well, I do not want to lie to them. She understood, we thanked each other, and hung up. And I knew that this would get around, one way or another. It was only a matter of when.

I guess the two locations don't talk to each other all that much...there's really no need, they have separate payroll systems and HR processing. If I wanted to work in Tampa I'd have to fill out all-new employment paperwork, that's how separate the locations are. So it's not really surprising that they're finally talking about this just now. Maybe they have a conference call once a month, and it finally came up: "Hey, whatever happened with you guys taking Megan down to Tampa for that HR position?"

However it went down I'll never know, but today my boss's boss said, "So I heard something from A---- at the Tampa location. She says you're thinking of leaving us?"

I sighed and said, "Well, yes. It's not quite finalized yet." (white lie, but I AM kind of waiting for a travel itinerary)

He said, "Ok. Sorry, I know you probably didn't want me to know that yet."

"Oh, I don't mind," I said. "I was going to let you know in the next two weeks."

"Oh!" He seemed surprised at that. "Well, yeah, it doesn't change anything. Please know that this won't change how you're treated, or anything like that. We just really want to know--"

"You'll get a month's notice," I said. "Nothing is happening until October."

This seemed to be a huge relief for him. People ghost out of that place all the time, so maybe he thought I was planning to just not show up one day or something. But I'm not that kind of person. And hey, now they've technically got an extra two weeks of notice! Lucky them.

So yeah, there it is.

I'll still wait the two weeks for an official anouncement on my social and stuff.

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After work I went to the Toyota dealership because my car was screaming "MAINTENANCE REQUIRED", but it turned out it needed nothing at all. Next time I'm just going to call and ask them to check their system to see if it needs something. But it was a good thing because now rather than sitting at the dealership all day I could get some stuff done.

Jameson was at a gig so I had dinner on my own, and visited Sprouts because they sell flour in bulk and I only needed a small amount of wheat. Then fought traffic home where I vacuumed, and practiced both steno and trombone. I wanted to take a steno test, but felt my focus was not good enough.

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I didn't sleep well Tuesday night.
Kept dreaming about trying to make the TinyMod work with CaseCAT.
Probably because I was in a chat discussing the issue right up until I went to bed.

Anyway, despite what my subconscious brain thinks, it's not the end of the world if I can't get it to work with CaseCAT.

I got up and had breakfast, messaging the TInyMod creator to let him know I'm available for walkthroughs if he has time today.
Then I did a little research on pretzel recipes...most of what I could find was in American measurements, a pain in the ass but I at least looked up a cup-to-weight flour equivalent before launching into making them.

It's a fairly simple dough of warm water, yeast, sugar, flour, melted butter, and salt.

Came together very nicely...because I've been working with so much enriched dough I forgot what it's like to have a nice non-sticky ball of regular dough to knead. It's so smooth and easy to work with! I made a few small changes to the recipe: reduced the salt by 1/2tsp and added 1.5tsp sugar (there was no sugar in the original recipe), added two tablespoons of vital wheat gluten, and used walnut oil to knead the dough instead of flour. I'm also going to use an egg wash. I'm obsessed with shiny bread.

Here's the lovely dough ball after rising for an hour.
That's the other nice thing about pretzels, they only take like an hour to rise.

While the dough was rising I cleaned up the kitchen and washed our sheets, ate lunch, and thought about what I wanted to do for the rest of the day. It turned out not to matter what I wanted to do, because what happened was the TinyMod creator got onto a Discord chat with me and wanted to have me wipe the software on my machine, and replace it with something else to see if that would get it working in CaseCAT.

I was all for it, but first had to finish these pretzel buns!

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Friday was a rather cringe-y day of spending more money than I would like.

I've already bought the mess kit, eggwich maker, fleece sweater, trombone mute, yoga pants, packing cubes, immersion heater, luggage scale, and mini steno machine. After work I ordered two bathing suits, another fleece JACKET, a travel hairdryer, and a 6" electric skillet.

This is all in addition to the cost of updating my passport, getting TSA Precheck, copay for doctor's appointments, a year's supply of birth control, and probably other stuff that I'm currently forgetting about.

To be fair, it's probably at or around a thousand bucks for all of that.
And all of it is useable whether I go on tour or not. But I don't typically spend this much on myself/on stuff, at least not all at once like this, so it is making me cringe.

I've had bad luck with bathing suits, so I've sent back the one that didn't fit and have ordered two more from somewhere else in the hopes that somewhere exists a one-piece that I can actually wear. I'd love to shop in a store for one, but the way covid and the supply chain are going it doesn't seem likely I'll find what I'm looking for. So at least I'll get some money back when I return one of them.

I should have sent back the fleece sweater. It wasn't what I wanted or was expecting...I was trying to get a fleece JACKET, something more fitted and sleek-looking. But I threw out the tags and packaging without thinking, and anyway it can serve as a liner for my Ringling shell coat (I lost the fleece liner for it somewhere along the way).

The passport and doctor's appointments and birth control I would have bought at some point this year anyway.
The mute I should have had already.
The other stuff I do feel guilty about. Eh, hopefully that feeling will pass if/when all that stuff comes in handy. But today it stings.

Jameson had about seven friends over to play D&D in person. Kind of like an old-school LAN party!
Although I'm not very social and have never played D&D, I enjoyed watching and listening, and just having the company.
I did practice some steno, and had wanted to take a test but felt too distracted.

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Saturday was a little rough, maybe because I was tired from the previous late night.
There was a lot of drama at work: people quitting unexpectedly, people quitting as expected but leaving behind scathing reviews of the company, people anonymously emailing the entire company with their built-up angst...honestly. I think a lot of these people have not ever had a "real" job before.

Anyway let's not get into that.

I've been feeling frustrated with my body lately, so I've started doing what I call "cubicle exercises" again.
Usually first thing in the morning, when no one's around to see or say "Why aren't you working?", I do some leg lifts and some side-to-side standing crunches. Then I'll go for walks around the building on each of my breaks, and squeeze in some girly push-ups or a plank, and do another set of leg lifts and crunches. That's usually all I'm able to sneak in, but it's better than nothing.
Earlier in the year I weighed 119-121, but now I seem to be hovering around 122. Which isn't bad, especially if any of it is muscle, but I don't think it is. So if I'm going to gain a pound or two I'd rather it be muscle.

I have a pair of dress pants that I like to call "Honesty Pants" or "Pants of Truth", lol.
They're made by INC, and they contain no elastic whatsoever, not even in the waistband. The waistband is also super thin, so if the pants were too tight around the waist you'd know right away by how they would painfully cut into your gut like a cheese wire through a gob of mozzarella.
I've had them for years, but rarely wear them (dry clean only) so I know they haven't stretched out or anything.
The Pants of Truth still fit. Test passed.

After work I brought some frozen pesto to a friend, then came home and ate dinner with Jameson and practiced trombone for a solid hour because it's about to be August up in here. Then I did some steno and chilled for about an hour before bed. Jameson seemed down, I couldn't tell if it was something I did or if this was just his mood. I always think it's something I did no matter what the reason.

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Sunday, work was very slow and I was very distracted. I'm going to be giving my notice soon (since I'm a supervisor I feel it's polite to give more than two weeks) and I found out what questions are on the supervisor exit interview. So I spent a lot of time writing up responses. Most of the questions have to do with suggestions for improvement, and I have a lot of those. It was more enjoyable to do this than my usual work.

There was a pleasant surprise schedule-wise: I've been asked to help out in the training department next week, and it so happens that the same week I've been asked to play a church gig. My boss ended up shuffling my schedule around in such a way that I was given the day of the gig off! Now I won't have to spend PTO to get it. Sweet!

Back home we had tacos for dinner. Jameson seemed in a slightly better mood, having spent several hours working on Christmas music with his friend. We watched Cobra Kai (I'm shocked at how good this show is) before I marched off to take some steno tests. And I actually did well! I may have even passed one! Even if not, it's the best score I've ever gotten on a 100wpm test. I'll take progress in any form!

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Monday was rough. It was just one of those days where Murphy's Law was in full effect. Every time I tried to complete a task, something interfered, either dragging the task out twice as long as it should have gone or stopping me from completing it entirely. For example, while on phone coverage my coworker needed to use the restroom, so I said I'd answer the phone while he went. It was only 10-15 minutes, but in that time so many calls came in that I could no longer transfer calls, there were too many people on hold, then one of the calls was from Quality Assessment to deliver me a project on top of my usual work. By the time my coworker returned I was about an hour behind in my day. All from 15 minutes of answering the phone.

That's the kind of day it was.

Then at the end of the day, right before I left, I was told I had to come in to work tomorrow instead of working from home.
Sigh, mope, but I'm glad they told me today and not tomorrow. This way at least I won't lose an hour of PTO because I had to commute in the middle of the day.

On the way home I picked up a coat from the dry cleaner's, ate my dinner in the car, and on the porch waiting for me was this TINY hairdryer! Someone in a facebook group recommended this as a good one to bring. I've never seen one so small.

Then it was steno class, which went ok. Then I caught up with Jameson a bit, he'd had a day because people had come over to install the pool heater and fix one of our screens on the lanai, then his co-director was coming over to review the audition videos for their production of RENT. That took them quite a few hours, so I was antisocial, watched Rick and Morty in the spare bedroom and just tried to find some chill. They wrapped it up around 11pm.

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Tuesday. I was disappointed to have to go into work, mainly because when working from home I can get a logged practice session in. Now I'll be two hours behind on my practice for the week. Oh well.

I didn't feel very good (not the covids, just general ickyness) probably due to stress.
I still don't believe this tour is happening, because now we've got delta variant and some things are shutting down again.
Spirit airlines cancelled 2700 flights yesterday and left thousands of people stranded at airports.
The tour directors still have plenty of time to say, "It's too soon. This is too much trouble." and cancel the whole thing.

Meanwhile I've spent a lot of money on things for touring, and prepared to give notice, and all sorts of life-changing steps.
We haven't heard anything from the tour administration since receiving our paperwork and a nice welcome letter.
Not that they have to be in touch every week. It's only that silence makes me wonder. And worry. And stress.

I'm stressed about the what ifs, and about the money I've spent on stupid things, and about potentially giving notice and then finding out the whole thing is cancelled, and about my relationship with Jameson. Makes my stomach hurt.

Work was ok, just normal. I got a little credit for suggesting that we redistribute flyers for the Employee Assistance Program, a free help hotline for people who want to complain about work, need help with various personal issues, substance abuse, depression, etc. With all the employees quitting and/or leaving scathing exit interviews and/or sending anonymous nasty emails, I figured it would be good to remind people that there ARE options available to them. Management jumped on that suggestion (why not, it makes them look good) and I got a little pat on the back for it (while someone else gets a raise I'm sure).

Back home I was happy to find that my TinyMod steno machine had been delivered! It's SO SUPER TINY!

Here it is sitting on top of my student machine.
Hopefully you can understand why I spent the money on this.
The student machine has a case and a stand, bringing the weight to 5lbs and the size to more than a foot long/wide in the case.
The TinyMod weighs less than a pound and can fit in an 8" tupperware or pencil box.

We ate dinner and I practiced trombone for about an hour, then tried to get the TinyMod to work.
It works very well with Plover (steno freeware software), and my test website, meaning I'll be able to log my practice.
I didn't try it on a test, but as long as Plover saves my input uploading the files to the test page shouldn't be an issue.

I would like for this to work with CaseCAT, however, and so far haven't had any luck getting that to happen.
It doesn't seem to "see" the TinyMod. I've asked for help from the creator and on social media, and I may also ask my teacher or CaseCAT's helpline if no answers are forthcoming. But for now, I'm just happy that this WILL work. It will take some getting used to, but it can totally be used in place of my student machine. Yay!

Now it is the weekend. Tomorrow I want to make pretzel buns, practice trombone and steno, and get some stuff together for the thrift store. If there's time I'll make burgers for dinner (on the pretzel buns of course), but I have class so not sure that'll happen.

For one reason or another, this week kind of went by in a blur.
I didn't really document anything day-by-day like I've been trying to do.

Saturday and Sunday were both normal work days, and during lulls I tried to math out how I was going to pack suitcases or calculate the price of putting my car in storage vs letting someone drive it while I'm gone. To and from work, I stopped at grocery stores for items to stock my food box that will live in my luggage. I'm certain that there will be access to a grocery within the first week or so of rehearsals, but as an experienced road-person, I find it is ALWAYS a good idea to have a stash of nonperishables in case you get stuck.

My food box is usually a shoebox, or something about that size.

This time, I want it to contain:

- some type of jerky
- single-serve tuna and chicken pouches
- dry-roasted edamame
- single-serve peanut or almond butter packets
- granola bars (Clif minis are a perfect size)
- a healthy fruit leather
- instant oatmeal packets
- ginger (for motion sickness)
- crackers or Biscoff or both

In addition, since I plan to be cooking at some point on my journey, this time I am bringing

- salt and pepper (grinders if possible)
- olive oil (I got two tiny 3oz jars from World Market!)
- pie spice (for oatmeal, to avoid separate nutmeg and cinnamon containers)
- flax seeds (also for oatmeal)

The spices will be stored inside my mess kit, the oil and peanut butter and other liquid-like things will get their own ziploc before being placed in the food box, in case of leaks. Once we're actually touring, I'll use the food box to throw snacks into my purse in case we get stuck in a rehearsal without time for lunch, or for those times when I go exploring and find myself in a pickle for healthy food. It'll also come in handy on the jumps from once city to the next, most of which will be by bus and between 5-8 hours long. I can restock it at groceries or rest stops. It's definitely a lifesaver, and worth the luggage space.

There are still about two months until tour starts, but I want to gather as much as possible now so that I can do a luggage test run. I want to pack all that I plan to bring and see how much weight/room I have left after that.

So that took a lot of my focus. I also started researching what to do about my steno machine. It's just so BULKY. It's not even that heavy, but the keys are very sensitive so it needs to go in a case, making it about the size of a thick square throw pillow. That's a HUGE amount of space to take up in my luggage. I could try shipping it to myself, but then what happens on the bus? The next time we fly? If it doesn't fit in my luggage, how does it travel with me consistently? It's been worrying me.

So I trolled around the steno forums, and eventually found this:

(photo courtesy The Plover Blog)

It's called the TinyMod, and it's pretty much a very basic steno machine.
As you can see from the picture, it fits inside a pencil box. And supposedly, I can use this to participate in all of my classes.

There will be downsides to this of course...it'll feel different from a true steno machine, and it doesn't come with a stand for me to adjust, I'll have to use whatever surfaces are available. But if it will save me a big section of space in my luggage while allowing me to continue steno, well, I'm all for it. I've reached out to the creator and now we'll see if I can get one before hitting the road.

I also got confirmation that my TSA PreCheck has gone through, so I'll be getting a card for that soon. Yay! Forwarded that info to the production company.
My passport is still "processing", no surprise there.

Nothing else exciting happened during the week except I had a pair of black yoga pants shipped in the mail, which I hope to pass off as dress pants for this gig. I practiced steno every day, and trombone too, sometimes more of one than the other. I finally felt comfortable practicing trombone without listening to the soundtrack for the first time on Sunday, that was nice.

I'm no closer to passing my 100wpm class, but now that I'm dividing my practice time between trombone and steno my productivity is halved so it's not really surprising. If I can maintain, that'll have to be good enough; I still hope to pass before the end of this semester.

Monday felt like a very slow day at work, I almost felt guilty for how little I got done. Almost.
It's a time of year where a lot of people have graduated and are moving away, or going to college, or going on vacation, or hunting for higher-paying jobs. So about a third of my captioning team is absent for one of these reasons, leaving me few people to review or check in with. What can ya do?

Monday's steno class was ok, my brain was all over the place though so I didn't do as well as usual.
I brought up thoughts on storing my car to Jameson, and he was like, "Why would you do that? You could just leave it here."
I swear we had this conversation already, and he had said something about having to move it frequently and/or not feeling confident about being responsible for it, which is why I was looking for storage options in the first place. Guess I imagined that, or put too much weight on his feelings on the subject or something. It wouldn't be the first time. Anyway if he's willing to move it once a month or whatever, great, I'll leave it here. Not 100% pleased about having it parked on the street for much of that time, but it's cheaper and probably still safer than leaving it stored with a stranger.

Tuesday was WFH, for real this time. It was even a very slow day, so I was able to do a load of laundry and practice steno.
After work I drove to Whole Paycheck because Jameson expressed an interest in having Philly-style pork broccoli rabe sandwiches again. I made them once before, and he claims he really enjoyed it. I personally found them kind of gross, probably because I overcooked the meat. Well that won't happen again, dangit! I got a pork shoulder and some provolone, broccoli rabe and garlic and italian rolls.

I also found a small packet of high-fiber crackers, which I think would be good for my food box.
It took ages to get back home, where we finally ate dinner and relaxed.

This weekend there will be no bread-baking; there are enough carbs in this house right now, and I want to take care of test-packing my luggage and going through some stuff for the thrift store.

Alright, so, in the interest of not sounding like an idiot every time I post from now until Stuff and Things actually happens, I'm going to basically say what I'm doing without saying exactly who I'm doing it with/for. You've all probably picked up on it anyway, you're not idiots.

I've been contracted to go on a national tour with a musical for nine months. There, I said it.

I won't say what show, or give any details, until the show has been announced. I think that should be contractually acceptable for me to do.
For those of you who've read the Friends Only post, apologies because some of the info below you'll have seen already.

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Nine months is a long time to be away from your S.O.

That is the biggest struggle with this whole thing so far.

We've talked about it briefly, but this was something we truly discussed in-depth years ago when we first got into a relationship. It was necessary, since we're both professional musicians (or at least he is). There's always been a possiblity that some opportunity would take us away from each other. And we had to establish our perspectives on that, and where lines, if any, would be drawn.

It turns out that we draw our lines in a very similar place. Yes, it's going to hurt really really badly for both of us to be apart for a long time. And yet we are both very much in agreement that it would be even more awful and painful to turn down a rare music opportunity in order to be together. From that could spring regrets, and what-ifs, and resentment, and we both know why we became musicians and what we value most. So at the least, we can both agree on that. And we've built our relationship knowing that this could happen. Now it's time to put it to the test.

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This whole thing has been one of the biggest blindsides I've ever experienced.

I have not applied for anything musical since the pandemic started. What would be the point? All the shows were closed and there was no telling when or how things would start back up again. Disney laid off something like 95% of its live entertainment, and still hasn't hired them back. Not to mention that even before the pandemic hit, it wasn't like my phone was ringing off the hook for gigs, which is kind of why I ended up focusing on a career in court reporting instead. It never occurred to me that I'd be doing anything in music any time soon.

This opportunity came about because of a Letter of Inquiry email that I sent back in 2019. Some music coordinator found that email (how do you go about finding a two-year-old email? maybe she searched her inbox for "trombone"?) and reached out because they must REALLY need a trombonist. I got that email on my last night of visiting family in PA. I couldn't believe it...in fact I messaged the sender on facebook because we are acquaintances and I was concerned that her account had been hacked, because there was no way this was real. But no, she called right away on the actual phone and said, I'm serious, are you interested? Well...I guess I am!

After that it was a lot of resumes and references and audition materials back and forth, then a whole lot of suspense waiting to see if I'd be offered a contract. As it turns out, I have some really amazing references (thank you Brett, Jane, Jim) who probably clinched the deal for me. So I got the offer, and a few weeks later I got the contract.

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And so now here we are.

Assuming everything doesn't fall apart, I'd leave in a few months. So there are things I'm doing now to prepare, but I also need to keep working and taking steno classes and going about life as though nothing has changed. Which is so weird.

Now you're all caught up with the exception of what show + details, and hopefully some of my vaguejournaling makes a little more sense.
We can all enjoy details later once the show has been announced.

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The first things I did when I realized that this was actually happening was to send my passport out for renewal, and also request a copy of my birth certificate. I don't technically need either for this tour, but having those things ready can really save your a$$ if they do become needed. Plus you need one or the other to get TSA PreCheck, which I'm told may also save my a$$.

Next I made All The Doctors Appointments, because trying to get one on the road is a pain. Better to be up to date before I leave.

I worked on getting my trombone parts, and once those were obtained, started practicing.
I've been doing a lot of research by trolling facebook groups for touring musicians, and have made a huge list of all the things I'll have to take care of. What will happen with my car? Will I be able to practice steno still? How much, and what, should I pack?

That last one is something I can work on at least, and so once I'd made a pretty extensive list I started to purchase a few things that could come in handy.

For one thing, I have never owned a neck pillow. With nine months of travel ahead of me, I think now is the time.

I was going to pack one set of dishes--plate, bowl, silverware, cup--out of what we already have in the cabinets. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much ceramic plates and coffee mugs and metal silverware weigh (I gotta stay below 50 pounds in my checked bag, remember). I considered plastic, but most of those dishes are surprisingly non-microwavable, and that is a must in this situation. I ended up deciding on a mess kit made from polyeurethane. It's super light and compact, the mug collapses, and the plate and bowl seal together to form a tupperware (so now I won't have to pack that either). When the container is empty on travel days I'll probably use it to store kitchen spices.

I bought two sets of travel cubes (not pictured, they're boring) so I'll have two large, two medium, and two small cubes to work with. I'd hesitated to buy them, but pretty much every touring musician has suggested them. If each large cube has a weeks' worth of stuff in it, and the mediums and smalls are used for toiletries or cooking supplies or dirty laundry or whatever, I can just pull out the cube(s) I need for one week and leave the rest in the suitcase undisturbed rather than having to dig around and repack constantly.

Two more items of interest: laundry detergent sheets, and an immersion heater.
I found the sheets on amazon by accident, and was thrilled. Even laundry pods weigh more than these and require some sort of container in case of leaks. These I can treat like paper. And there are 32 loads in there! Plus, there are lots of reviews on them from musicians who have loved them on tour so I know they must work!

The immersion heater I learned about on the cruise ship while I was trying to smuggle a hot water kettle into my quarters (technically we weren't supposed to have those). It's basically a metal rod that performs the same function as a heating coil on an oven stovetop. You stick it in your cup of coffee or water or whatever, and in a few minutes you've got boiling water. Far more compact than a water kettle, and far more versatile. I felt that this was a must-have.

Other things that I bought include a black fleece jacket (for easy layering while not looking frumpy), a luggage scale, a bathing suit, and a trombone cup mute. Bringing mutes is going to suck, they're the exact size and shape of an empty wine bottle and take up SO much space in luggage. I may ask the show admin if I can mail them to the rehearsal venue, along with my steno machine. Wastes of space!
There is more that I will inevitably have to buy, but I think it'll be mostly small supplemental things (ziploc bags, batteries, socks, stuff like that). I'm glad to have these components in my hands and checked off the list.

At some point this week my birth certificate copy arrived, so now I have an appointment to get the PreCheck sorted out. The passport check has also been processed so hopefully I'll get that back soon too. I've also started clearing out my garden, taking unneeded stuff to the thrift store, and looking into car storage options or possibly lending it to a friend (with a contract of course).

It's a lot of cautious prep while waiting for more paperwork and information. There's still a lot of time, and being patient is key. But I've been VERY excited, and it's been hard not to say anything! So I wanted to at least spit out what I'm actually doing, which hopefully does not generate problems for anybody.

Moving on...

( Read more... )

Friday, back to work.
I brought some slices of chocolate babka to share even though we're not supposed to be sharing food. Too bad! I'm responsible. I basically "tag" people and tell them where the food is for them to go grab it themselves. It's never out for everyone to take, always in a container with my name on it, and each portion individually wrapped so no one is fingering all the food.

Everyone enjoyed the babka so it's worth the risk :p

During my first short break I checked my email and saw something from the production company I've been in touch with about Stuff and Things.
I felt my heart skip a beat.
And yes, it was there. A contract!

I'm not going to share dates or details just yet for two reasons:

1 - The production company has not announced the Stuff and Things yet, and
2 - I haven't given notice at work yet because there is still a lot of time before anything would start.

For those reasons, please wait a little longer (or friend me so you can view the entry with the details).
At some point I'll be able to share what's going on.
A lot of you can probably guess.

With that news, I spent the rest of my workday trying not to freak out.
Made it through the day, got home and reviewed the contract, signed it, sent it. Let my family know, let my dear boyfriend know.
Made a huge list of all the stuff I'm going to have to do to prepare. Woof.

After dinner I went out to the garden and finally pruned the basil plant for REALS.
Look at these lovely, fragrant, emerald leaves.

Here are the stalks after being washed.

All of this made about 3 cups of basil leaves, which really isn't that much once it's been through a blender.
There is still about 1/3rd of the plant left, however, so I'll probably get to make another batch this summer.

I put the leaves in the food processor with some pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, Parmesan, black pepper, and just a liiiiittle bit of sugar.

Then it went into these weird potion jars. I'll take some to work to share, and keep one for us.

The rest of the evening was normal. I did only 30 minutes of steno, but some is better than none. Then of course I had to email family to let them know about the Stuff and Things. Jameson and I talked about it for a bit. Because we're both musicians (or at least he is), there's an understanding that if something like this happens to either of us, the other would NEVER try to stop the other person from taking the opportunity. I certainly would never do that to him. Of course it's gonna hurt for us to be away from each other for a long period of time. This is the hardest part, actually, and I don't know how I'll handle it or how he will. But we've done it before, and frankly I know who I chose to be my partner, and I think we can handle this. And if not, well, we'll go from there.

Anyway, I can tell he is happy for me, but I know it also hurts in a lot of ways for both of us.

Saturday, I got up slighly eariler to pack up the pesto jars and slice some more babka for a coworker who missed out yesterday.
For some reason I unrealistically assumed it was going to be a normal drama-free day, but I guess not; as soon as I came in it was being discussed who would be moving where because there were too many supervisor for once. So I ended up across the building in the Spanish section, which wouldn't be so bad except being over there triggers a sort of PTSD moment for me from March, when there were WAY too few of us and I ended up in that zone by myself, handling Spanish and staffing and the daily task distribution all alone.

As a result I was snappy and grumpy, until I actually got over there and wrapped my head around the fact that I WASN'T alone, there were people to ask if I had questions or needed help. I felt bad for being so cranky earlier in the morning, but also still felt annoyed that it was just assumed that everyone is comfortable handling the Spanish portion of the building. I'm definitely not. But whatever.

It also didn't help that I brought the pesto to share, and more babka, but the people I brought it for weren't there or didn't show up. Which meant I had to take it all the way back home. Which may not seem like a big deal, but it was 98 degrees today and that pesto and bread had to be in a hot car for essentially two hours. I'm trying to do something nice by bringing food to work to share. But today it felt like an inconvenience that was not appreciated.

After work it was dinner with Jameson, practicing the trombone and steno.
God, I suck at both of them. WTF! Sometimes I wonder what I even practice for. But I need to be patient, somehow.

Sunday, work was alright, nothing to report.
I decided to get a haircut because my last one had grown out very poorly, and I hate feeling awkward and more unattractive than usual. I've already got a horsey face and crooked teeth and bad cowlicks, I don't have high expectations but at least I want to be able to not be self-conscious about how I look.

I went to Floyd's where I got a bob, apparently.
The instructions I gave were, "Could you please cut the bottom layer shorter than the top, so it doesn't curl out? Also it would be great if I could still tie it back."
Result = short bob with no possibility of tying my hair back until Christmas. Not to mention it's longer on one side for some reason. I had a nice internal sigh about it, but there's nothing I can do, I'll just have to endure exclamations from my coworkers tomorrow and wait until it grows out. Maybe I'll start getting my hair cut less, but spend more money on a "better" salon. Anyway it's not terrible, just not much better than what I had. If I had spoken up and said to the stylist, 'I don't like this, I would have rather had...'"...what? I wouldn't have known what to ask for. So really, I have nothing to complain about.

Back home I put the pesto in the freezer because apparently it's not wanted by anyone but me.
Jameson was in a dark place, so I tried to leave him alone and went to take some steno tests (an 86 and a 98 on a practice test, so that's good). Ironically I think getting my hair cut drastically differently might have depressed him even further, due to upcoming Stuff and Things. I don't know what to say about any of it.

Monday, work, nothing new at all.
Ate dinner in the car, went into steno class minutes after walking in the door.
It went surprisingly well. Maybe I really can get out of the 100wpm class this semeter? But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I checked on the garden, I now have three lemons somehow which is not a complaint.
The cowpeas are turning purple. Um...now what do I do with them? Lol.

Jameson watched the home run derby while I ate some of my chocolate babka and did updates on my work computer and generally contemplated life.

Tuesday was WFH, it was a slow day and I spent a lot of it wiping my computer and reinstalling Windows 10.
After work we ordered sushi, and I started my challah dough.
I've been so looking forward to making challah, but I'm already frustrated by this dough.
It has a LOT of honey and vegetable oil instead of butter, and the dough was very, very sticky.
In fact it's probably the most difficult dough I've ever worked with. I could not get it to do ANYTHING. I kneaded it as best I could but felt like I lost half the dough in the process, what with it sticking to every surface and my hands and the bowl and the scraper.

It's in the fridge now and we'll see how it comes out over the weekend.
I feel anxious, because there's so much to do, and yet so little that I can do right now, to prepare for Stuff and Things.
Hopefully some peace will hit me on the weekend.

Having made the brioche dough the night before, I felt comfortable sleeping in.
I got up around 9:30 and had breakfast. It was a little blustery due to Elsa passing through, but otherwise the weather was just normal Florida weather.

I started assembling the chocolate filling after Jameson got up and while sipping my hot coffee.
It was cream, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and butter.
I also added some instant coffee to help enhance the flavor of the chocolate (because I watch too much Food Network and they're always saying to add coffee to chocolate), but I added a little too much. Someone online had suggested between 2-4 teaspoons, and I went with two. But when I stop to consider that 1 tsp coffee makes about one cup, one would have been enough. It's not ruined, but now I can taste the coffee in there so it's become a chocolate coffee babka. Whuuuups.

When the filling was made I let it cool in the fridge, and rolled the brioche dough out on the counter. I tried to get it as thin as I could, but more practice is needed with that. Also the fudge ended up being a LOT of fudge, and it was pretty thick, so I found getting lots of swirls to be a little difficult. Oh well, it's a first try.

When the filling had been spread I rolled up my dough and chilled it for a minute, then cut the roll in half lengthwise and twisted the two halves together, cramming them into a bread pan. It looks nice...I wonder how it will turn out!

Then it was into the microwave with a hot mug of water to proof, while I ran to Target for La Croix and batteries and something for dinner tonight. I've never been deeply into seltzer water, but sometimes I get that craving for fizzy drinks. The nice thing about La Croix is, they don't add acid to it, so it doesn't hurt my stomach.

Back home we had lunch, then Jameson got to work on the Christmas production music he's doing for a friend while I kind of lazed around, feeling rather unmotivated. I did make two doctors' appointments, one for my PCP and one for the OBGYN, just because I'm due for regular exams. When the bread was ready I threw it in the oven, then forgot to put on the egg wash so pulled it out, then saw that the chocolate was running everywhere so opened the oven again to put a pan under the loaf in case of leaks. So now the bread probably has to bake for like 10 minutes longer, sigh.

While it was baking I wrote some letters to friends and family, and listened to some music related to Stuff and Things.
Finally the babka was done:

Looks pretty good! It was good that I thought to shove a sheet tray under the pan because chocolate leaked EVERYWHERE. Maybe next time, a different recipe for the filling so it won't go all over. Still, some babkas are like that, it's just your personal preference. This one looked great and tastes great too. I'm very happy with it.

I cut up half the loaf to bring to my coworkers (shhh don't tell, we're not supposed to be sharing food re: covid) and bagged the rest, then went into steno class. I still suck but felt glad that I'd practiced, I was at least able to keep up.

( Read more... )

I got barely any sleep at all on Thursday night due to some exciting news (available in a friends-only post; I'll start posting publicly about it when everything is confirmed). Nevertheless I woke up excited, and went to work excited, despite being really tired.

Work was normal, except I spent half of it making lists of all the stuff I've got to do now that Things are Happening.
Gosh, this will be a lot less annoying when I can go into detail!

One thing that I've wanted to do, regardless, is update my passport.
I stupidly let it expire last year, so now I need to send in a form and a check and the actual passport itself and pray that the government actually gets it and turns it around before the end of the year. So I filled out that form at work, and got my new passport photos taken at Walgreens on the way home.

Traffic was shockingly OK for the Friday before the 4th. I made it home just a quarter after five, which was perfect, because I wanted to make lemon bars!

If you have ever visited the NYTCooking website, at some point you've probably seen an ad of theirs featuring photos of beautiful, luscious-looking lemon bars. It's torture! I want them SO BAD! And they're one of Jameson's all-time favorite treats. Tonight it just had to be done.

I assembled the crust, which turned out to be very simple: flour, sugar, lemon zest, salt, and frozen grated butter, blended in a food processor and pressed into the bottom of a lined 9x9. While it baked I made the lemon curd on the stove: lemon juice/zest, sugar, salt, corn starch, eggs, butter, and olive oil. The trick with curds is to continuously whisk or at least stir; to be gentle and patient with raising the heat and waiting for things to boil; and to neither boil too short (runny curd that won't set) or too long (lemony eggs) in order to get that silky, luscious gel texture.

I timed it just right, and the curd was done only a few minutes before the crust. I poured the curd on top and put it all back in the oven for about 15 minutes. Here again things can go wrong; it's easy to see that the middle of the curd still jiggles and assume it's not set. But it is! The edges should start bubbling and turn slightly darker than the rest, and that's when you're golden. Literally.

I let it cool to room temperature, then put it in the fridge for an hour or so until it was completely chilled.
Then I pulled it back out and removed it from the pan, dusted it with confectioner's sugar, and cut it into squares.

HOLY HELL you guys. This is one of the best things I've ever made.

https://instagram.com/p/CQ2VPfoMHmp

They are absolutely PERFECT. Creamy, tangy, silky, with the crisp and slightly salty shortbread a perfect match to the smooth cool lemon curd. Oh my god, I want everyone to have some right now. Very pleased with how they came out, if you can't tell!

Jameson will lose his mind when he has one.

( Read more... )

Tuesday I got to work from home all day, nothing exploded, everything was great.

It was kind of a slow day, so I was able to do laundry, run the dishwasher, practice steno, sweep and mop the tile, and clean the bathrooms.
Jameson had to leave for a rehearsal in the afternoon, hopefully it's a good fun one.
He's been kinda down lately, and I'm not totally sure why, but part of it might be how he's not happy with himself and part of it might be the changes that seem to be happening quickly now that the pandemic is winding down. Things are definitely not back to normal, but suddenly I'm seeing a lot more entertainment jobs popping up, and a lot of people in my news feeds suddenly whisked away to participate in this or that show, band, or tour.

I know that these jobs were available pre-pandemic, but maybe because they're all recruiting at once right now it feels like a free-for-all.
Maybe Jameson isn't getting as many calls to participate as he'd like. I know I'm not! But I've resigned myself to that, and he hasn't, so it must be a lot harder on him. Anyway that may not be it, I'm just speculating. But I do know that the arts are scrambling to come back and get in on the "let's finally go out and have fun" action.

I was supposed to start the English muffin dough, but felt very tired and lazy about it, probably because the weather was rainy and I am actually very tired for reals. After work I gave myself permission to relax. I watched some anime and listened to the rain pouring down outside. Yes, pouring for like an hour, buckets. No exaggeration. Welcome to monsoon season in Florida.

https://instagram.com/p/CQuRuoCnRd1

This is why I've got to go pull weeds tomorrow; I pulled them right before vacation, and twice as many have grown back.

There was a short break in the rain, and I used it to check on my garden and make a mental list of what I'll need to do over the weekend.
A lot of cutting things back, mostly.

One of the leaves on my java banana tree.

The vanilla is as thick as my finger. I wonder if it will ever bloom? But I'm glad it's happy.

This green anole was judging me. He's got pretty eyes.

Jameson returned just in time to scarf down a sandwich and go into a production meeting for Encore, then he and I chatted while he played video games. Then he went to have drinks with some friends, I opted out because A) I hadn't been actually invited and B) they weren't getting started until 9:30pm and I am just not a night owl. After he left I curled up in bed and watched stupid TikToks until I fell asleep.

Wednesday, I resolved to only check my email three times per day so I don't obsess over hearing back from People about Things.

I made myself some lovely coffee syphon coffee, egg whites with jalapenos from the garden, and PB&J on my last King Arthur Flour English muffin. Then I mixed up a preferment for a new batch of English muffins, this time using a recipe from the Bread Baking facebook group I'm a member of. This version is less complicated than the King Arthur recipe, using only four ingredients, no milk or sugar. Supposedly adding milk and sugar reduces the nooks and crannies. I don't know, but it's worth a try.

The dough was really wet, but wasn't as hard to work with as I thought it would be. I used half white wheat flour, so maybe that helped reduce the goopiness.
These are less photogenic than the last batch I made, and I also overcooked a few of them, but overall they turned out looking just like the pictures in the recipe.

For comparison, here are the ones made using King Arthur's recipe a few weeks ago:

Sadly, there were STILL no nooks and crannies. This batch look exactly the same on the inside as the King Arthur recipe.

I'll be eating these all next week, and will decide which recipe to go with, or maybe I'll choose neither.
My goal in making these is to have a homemade replacement for the Arnold's Sandwich Thins that I used to buy. So these have to be at least half whole wheat flour, and at least somewhat nutritious. Ultimately whether they have nooks and crannies or not isn't that important, I just wanted to see if I could achieve them. I think possibly an overnight ferment would help? Adding an egg, or vital wheat gluten? Reducing the flour? I might have to experiment.

I was supposed to weed, but it was thundering at noon so I held off. I went to the grocery instead for ingredients for "pastapalooza": I'm making two pasta dishes this week, mainly because we're going to have lots of pesto and what the heck else do you do with pesto, and we have lots of half-used boxes of pasta and I'd like to clear some of them out.

Tonight's dish was one I've made before, a sort of grown-up version of Hamburger helper.
Whole wheat fusilli with lean ground beef, spices, onion, garlic, tomato paste and roasted tomatoes, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, beef broth, spinach, and sharp cheddar cheese. Easy to make, easy cleanup, and always a hit.

After dinner we kinda lounged around a bit, I did go out to prune some of the larger crazyplants but that's about it.
Jameson had a brief rehearsal for a gig at Disney Springs, but his call time wasn't until like 9:30pm, so we watched LEGO Masters and goofed off online. I should have practiced steno but I was feeling irritated about it, I'll practice tomorrow. Overall it was a restless day, and there will be a lot of restless days until I find out what's going to happen with my job(s).

Thursday, I ate breakfast and did my meal prep, then made the pesto.
I cut four huge stalks off my basil plant and it STILL doesn't look like I made a dent in it.
And I also think I could have put even MORE basil into this pesto, as it turned out a little runny.
It also only made about 5 oz, way less than the recipe claimed -_-
(and yes, I measured everything properly.)
I ended up with two tiny "potion" jars of pesto: fresh basil, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, pecorino romano, pine nuts, and black pepper.

Once that was finished and the kitchen was cleaned up, I went outside to weed the pool deck and the yard.
The crab grass is terrible, my right hand is cramping from pulling and pulling it up everywhere!
But when I was finished it looked decent. It's going to keep raining for a long time so there's really no point in picking every little weed, but I at least got the large weeds pulled and the crab grass off our pavement and away from the house.

After that dusted our ceiling fans, which was gross. Then I got a shower, and shortly after that Jameson got a call about a gig for November with one of the founding members of the TranSiberian Orchestra, very exciting! He has played with them before so it's not surprising that they'd call him, but it's also another great sign that the entertainment industry is trying its hardest to bounce back.

Just minutes after Jameson got his call, I got mine...from a New York number.
I will share details in the next post if you guys can PROMISE me that you'll not spill the beans on social media!
I may make it a friends-only post.

For now:
Remember how in last week's post I mentioned two job opportunities?
One that would change my job description for my current employer, and one that would "really turn my life upside down?"

Well...this is the second one.

I prepared dinner in a fog, my brain on overdrive slamming through all the preparation I'll have to do, all the changes I'll have to make.
But chances like this don't come along often. And this one was 100% unexpected too, the result of a letter of inquiry sent in 2019 that I'd completely forgotten about. Anyway, details later.

Dinner tonight was, not surprisingly, chicken penne pesto. Whole wheat penne, homemade pesto, more pecorino cheese, toasted pine nuts, asparagus, lemon juice. It was very good, I should make this more often.

I had a glass of white wine "to celebrate"--I had planned to have a glass anyway, but now there was a reason, lol.
After dinner we relaxed a bit, then Jameson had a D&D session while I was supposed to practice steno but ended up emailing everyone in my family and also thanking my references for basically getting me the gig.

Now I'm going to actually try to do at least an hour of steno, but I still need to pack my lunch and empty the dishwasher and etc etc.

I will post details tomorrow in a friends-only post. At some point before September this will all be public anyway so no pressure to friend me, just if you want to know NOW you'll have to be my LJ friend.

Stay tuned...

In the morning I woke up in the guestroom in my Aunt's house, forgetting where I was for a moment before remembering.

I made the bed, got dressed, packed up, loaded the car, had breakfast, then locked up the house and sent a text to my Aunt thanking her for letting me crash at her place. Although I would have liked to drive for a few more hours the night before, I also need to save some money since I'm now out the cost of four tires and whatnot. Plus it forced me to stop and stay for a bit, and sometimes that's just a good thing to do.

What WASN'T a good thing to do was to hang around Cary for an additional 30 minutes waiting for La Farm Bakery to open.

I really should have hit the road at 7am, but instead that's when I got up. Now I knew I'd be hitting rush hour traffic in Orlando, but I had really wanted the extra sleep. And since I was leaving late anyway, why not visit my favorite local bakery!

Like many other restaurants, La Farm is having to reduce hours due to limited staff, and they've also upped their prices. But their bread is SO GOOD, and who knows when I'll be in the area again, and I wanted to support them! I waited in line, oogling at all the stuff that I wanted to buy (pretty much everything). They sell local honey and their own heirloom grain flour and French pastries and exquisite sandwiches, not to mention the array of rustic and loaf breads. I always have a hard time deciding what to get in there. But I settled on a sourdough multigrain loaf, since I won't have time to make bread for us this week.

Here's what it looks like, I didn't take a picture of mine but it's pretty much just like this only less staged and in a bread bag, lol. It's amazing, chewy like a sourdough yet hearty and fluffy like a wheat bread. I love it!

The rest of my trip back to Florida is hardly worth mentioning, except that it took about an hour longer than planned due to A) it being the Friday before a major holiday and B) it was raining cats and dogs from the moment I entered Georgia and everyone immediately forgets how to drive when there's water falling from the sky. There was a point where no matter how much progress I made, the GPS continued to say "2 hours remaining". Every few miles there was yet another fender-bender caused by some gaping tourist or oblivious cell phone addict. It was infuriating.

Jameson was waiting for me at the house, but as my arrival time was pushed later and later he finally had to give up and leave for his Head Over Heels cast party. I didn't blame him one bit (and plus, him leaving meant I could pull into the garage and unload out of the rain) so I decided to stop at the grocery so I'd have something to eat for the week. Once home I texted everyone to let them know I was ok, then unpacked, vacuumed, packed my lunch for work, did breakfast meal prep for the week, descaled the kettle, put away the coffee pot we'd gotten out for Jameson's dad, tore the sheets off the guest bed, dusted a little, ate something, and finally, finally, got a shower and went to bed.

Jameson came home around 2:30am, from the pictures it looked like he'd had fun :)

I wanted to catch up and all that but I had to be up for work in three hours and passed right back out.

My first day back at work was uneventful. I had almost a thousand emails to go through, so instead of wasting time with that I simply asked a coworker for the important updates which she had flagged for her own reference already. I had a little catch-up work to do, but otherwise it was like I'd never left.

After work and the commute home I enjoyed dinner with Jameson, and we got pretty much caught up on each other's doings. We're both in "summer break" right now, me from steno school and him from teaching, so we had a relaxing evening of just chilling together. I took the Pennsylvania rye and AP flour out of of their waxed paper bags and transferred them to sealed OXO containers. And I finally had a chance to check on my garden and it is OUT OF CONTROL.

First of all, the little cowpea sprouts I planted before I left are now massive vines taller than me and taking over the entire planter.
I pulled one of them out. Had no idea they'd get this big!

I think some of them already have peas growing? I've never grown peas before.

And the BASIL. Good lord. It's an absolute unit.
From soil level it's about 2 feet, 5 inches tall with at least four primary stalks. Guess I'm making pesto instead of bread this weekend!

The banana tress are also significantly taller, coming up to my chest now.

My single meyer lemon is almost the size of a golf ball, I have hope that it'll stay on the tree and grow into something useable.

The carnivorous plants are very happy. I'm going to have to start giving away baby sundews I guess! There are at least ten baby sundews.

Next morning, back to work. Uneventful.
I feel a little tension, a little suspense, because there are things in motion work-wise that could end up being Good Things for me.
But it's all pending, so I've got to be patient and wait. Which is the worst! I hate being in suspense!

After work was dinner, and Jameson had some arranging to do for a friend, and I had to practice steno.
Then we enjoyed some chill time.

On Monday I woke up pensive, because of the pending stuffs.
I wish I could talk about it, but I'm sure that day will come later this week.
Basically I have two pending job opportunities, one of which would take me to a new department at work and change my entire job description, the other that would really, truly flip my life upside down. Neither has been offered but both have been hinted at. Every day until I hear something from one or the other feels like a freefall. I just want to knoooooooooow

At work I had a "calibration" with my boss, which is where I get evaluated for how I evaluate others. An evaulation pyramid, I guess. I did my best and everything turned out fine I thought. Otherwise work was ho-hum, nothing new.
Getting home was hell in a handbasket, traffic was awful because apparently the 4th of July holiday starts NOW for a lot of people and they are all very busy rushing to Walmart for sunscreen or whatever. I hope it pours all day on the 4th (yeah I'm a curmudgeon about traffic this week).

On the way home I heard some positive noises from some of the people on my references sheet.
I thanked them again for speaking to my work ethic, and tried not to get my hopes up or down.
I also picked up some 2 oz jars for which to gift pesto to my coworkers. I can't think of a better way to use THAT MUCH basil.

Now it is Tuesday morning and I am typing this up 30 minutes before I can start my work from home day.
Although I hate getting up early, I do enjoy how quiet it is, and how it's time just for me. I can sip coffee and eat slowly and ponder lots of things.
During my breaks I'll probably do a load of laundry, do a garden check, practice steno, and start the dough for English muffins.
I'm using a different recipe this time that is supposed to yield better nooks and crannies. We'll see!

Here we go again!

Friday! Work! The same old!

I had a monitor calibration. This is when my supervisor watches me watching a captionist to see how I score their work, and correcting me on it if needed. It's supposed to make the process more fair. It went "ok", although the person I was monitoring got a poor score. I selected her specifically because I thought that might happen, she's pretty new out of training and just now qualified to learn our new captioning program, so it was not surprising that there was a lot of confusion and poor call handling from her while she was trying to figure everything out. She's not my captionist so not someone I'd normally monitor. I tried to coach her in a supportive way, because learning both the programs and then how to handle switching back and forth can take some practice, and I felt she was putting in a good effort, just getting overwhelmed.

Getting home was hell, it's definitely a holiday weekend. Finally made it around 6pm, ate dinner with Jameson, he took off to rehearsal, I cleaned up a little because he's having friends over tomorrow, made some mint mojito popsicles in an effort to use at least some of the mint before it dies, vacuumed, watered the plants, wiped down the bathrooms, did dishes, packed my lunch, got my clothes ready, and after all that, finally, at 8:40pm, got to practice steno. Stuck with it for the full hour+, got a shower and did a few more chores that I'd forgotten about (empty the trash cans, put out a new hand towel for guests, etc), then finally got to relax for a few minutes before falling half asleep and getting woken up by Jameson coming home around midnight.

But all I need to do is stop baking bread and there will be SO much more time for steno, right Peanut Gallery?

Probably got about four hours of sleep, then wash rinse repeat except after work I stopped at the gym, eating a light dinner in the car during the hour drive. If I want to get exercise, this is the only way it's going to happen on my current schedule. Going to the gym after work on Saturday or Sunday will be best because traffic will be lighter, I usually get home around 5:15 on those days so if I can get to the gym at that same time and get on a machine by 5:25, I can be out of there by 5:55 and still get home just a little later than I would on a typical weekday. It worked out well today, so I'll try again next week. Did the elliptical for 15 minutes and weights for 10, 5 minutes to pack up and leave. I'd like to spend more time but, steno.

So I came home, got cleaned up, unpacked my lunch dishes and washed them, packed my lunch, got my clothes ready, had a snack, practiced steno for an hour's worth of "time that counts" (90 minutes of actual practice) and then allowed myself to stop around 8:30pm, a half hour early, so I could wind down, feeling all guilty about it because here I am complaining that I don't have enough time for steno but taking 30 whole minutes to myself instead of practicing more.

Sunday, one of my favorite work days because there are no supervisors onsite at least until 2pm.
Not that I behave any differently when they're not around, it just makes for a more relaxing work environment. It's the only day of the week where I KNOW my boss is not there to ask me, "Hey, why didn't you do this task back in October?" or "Here's an audit of everything you did last month, you need to improve xyz." 99% of the mistakes I make at work are exhaustion-based, and there is extremely little I can do about it besides drink more coffee and tea.

Anyway, I drank water.

It was a slow day, which was nice. Back home I had dinner and made the rest of the quickly-staleing brioche into French toast to pack in my lunch, then packed it, ate dinner with Jameson, he went to rehearsal, I practiced steno and even did two tests in which I got an 82% and an 86%. I guess that's a small improvement.

Monday, because it was a holiday where people don't necessarily call each other up, it was very slow at work. I was grateful but also bored. When the day was over I got a lot of the groceries I'll need for breads and dinners, then came home. Ate dinner with Jameson and thought I'd try an overnight brioche recipe because doing it overnight would allow me more time throughout my day. Unfortunately I overworked the dough because I still have no idea what I'm doing, and instead of rising it just weeped butter for an hour until it was a dough ball sitting in a puddle of oil instead of doubling in size. Lesson learned, I guess. At least I screwed up 24 hours earlier than usual so I'll still be able to start over with the brioche from my lesson book instead.

Working on that dough took two hours, so I totally missed any steno practice (Bronx cheers and loud "I told you so's" from the Peanut Gallery). Since it's a holiday I'll forgive myself, but that doesn't mean I wasn't mad. I was. Now I have to do extra steno Tuesday and over the weekend.

Tuesday was supposed to be my much-treasured work from home day. But right away I knew something was wrong. Citrix kept asking for my password--which I gave--and it kept saying nope, that's not it. Well, I have no other password for Citrix but the one I've always used. Luckily I had set up Office on this actual computer rather than the remote desktop, so was able to access my company email and see that everyone working from home was experiencing the same issue.

Surprisingly they let us wait it out for about two hours, during which time I frantically packed a lunch and practiced steno, knowing that the problem would not be resolved and I'd be driving an hour to work and back, losing yet another day of steno. This is how tight my schedule is, one change, one little thing throws the whole thing off and I lose my time. So yep, got called in, went in and was cranky about it because now in addition to losing my WFH day I also had to pay $5 in tolls to avoid Disney traffic, and had to fill up my gas tank, and lost two hours of my day to the commute, and lost three hours of work so I'd have to spend the rest of the workday playing catchup.

Which I did rather well if I may say so, I did all of my assigned work in half the time. I'm sure many errors will be discovered later, but the choice was to get it done with errors or to have to delegate it to someone else.

After work I drove like a maniac to get home because
A) Jameson had rehearsal earlier than usual and I wanted to make sure I got dinner to him before he left;
B) Since my brioche failed I decided to do the next lesson book recipe, which is an "orange blossom" brioche requiring orange zest and orange flower water, and I needed to pick up both, and
C) I was irritated and wanted to drive fast. And a greyish-blue Corolla is like 99% invisible to cops.

At home we ate and Jameson left for rehearsal. His show is in just two weeks...it's June already, damn.
Time has sped up now that covid has loosened it's grip.
I checked on my plants and practiced as much steno as I could handle (which wasn't much the way this week has been going) and had a large glass of wine. I should mention that I could not find orange flower water ANYWHERE--there are some international groceries that probably carry it, but taking that route home would have cost me 15-20 minutes of commute time--so I had ordered it from Amazon Prime in the morning while waiting to get called in. It was delivered tonight, and I'll be able to use it first thing tomorrow. The most First-World Thing Ever, to be able to order something not available in stores and have it delivered that same evening. I was lowkey amazed.

Finally, I received a very long email from my steno teacher.
About a week ago, I had emailed her out of frustration. I wanted to seriously, sincerely ask her: what else can I do? Here is my schedule, where else could I cram more steno practice? How are other students meeting the 10 hours per-week minimum when only half our practice time counts? I expressed my frustration, and how I was worried about my progress.

Here is a portion of her response:

"Everybody is different in the time they have to spend on [steno], and practicing in general, and the responsibilities they have. Some folks can treat school like their job, while others have actual jobs. Try not to compare yourself in that regard since practicing and the time you have to do it is very subjective. All you can ever do is the best you can in all areas, and you're the only one who knows what that is. That's where accountability comes into play. Your best efforts will always bring rewards.
"As for everything else you have going on, it looks like a full plate to me. And you should never compromise on having some time to yourself. This is a very demanding program as it is, and you need those moments to unwind, especially when you have such a full day. I don't know how to stress to you that you can only do what you can do. Yes, sacrifices have to be made sometimes, and if you're really concerned you could maybe use a couple of days a week to work in that 9:30 to 10:30 time slot. But when you start taking away time from yourself or your family and friends, it does tend to wear on you. And I don't want you to start not liking the course or doubt your ability to do it. If your time is limited to practice, do what you can. Will it affect your progress? Maybe, maybe not. In your case, go more for quality than quantity, and that would be breaking down and spending time on drills until you can write them at the required passing percentage."

Wow.
To be clear, I've been SUPER-stressed about meeting the 10-hours-minimum practice requirement because at one point this teacher confronted me about it (in a nice way), asking why I wasn't meeting the school's requirement. It's hard to interpret nuance via emails and texts, so I interpreted her asking as, "You're not trying hard enough" or basically "This is unacceptable", even though all she did was ask. Reading the UNDERLINED part about "quality than quantity" took a huge weight off my shoulders. As a former musician, I absolutely know how to maximize practice time, and I'm doing it. But if all this school cared about was whether I met the "time spent" criteria, well...it was frustrating and stressful to operate with that hanging over my head. And now I know it wasn't...it was just that my teacher was concerned, and wanted to touch base with me. And my insecure self took it the wrong way.

And that's how ruined brioche and stressful unplanned commutes were mitigated by empathy and understanding from one person.
And of course, now I want to try even harder at steno. I probably will never make the 10 hours per week. But now I know, that's OK. I can still progress at my own speed, and that's OK. That was seriously all I needed to hear.

Grateful.

(Suck it, Peanut Gallery! I will bake bread!)

The endless cycle of work -- eat -- sleep -- repeat continues.

Friday, we were profoundly shorthanded with only four supervisors total to cover seven wings of captionists (to give an idea, my wing usually has five supervisors in it alone) and my boss also called out. Luckily it was a relatively slow day, but unfortunately it really was just too much for only four people to handle, so some pitiful souls had to be called in from Work From Home. My heart cringes for them.

I am fortunate because my WFH day is typically Tuesday, which is usually a slow call day plus there are five other people working from home that day, meaning I have much less chance of being called in. I also make it a point, every Monday, to send a nice email or message reminding my bosses that I would appreciate lots of notice if I'm to be called in, because I live an hour away and we are both going to lose an hour of productivity if I have to drive in halfway through my workday. If there are five other people to call (all of whom are guaranteed to live much closer than I), my odds are usually good for being allowed to keep my WFH day.

But, if I do get called in, I'll mope a little and just do it. It's sad, but we were all warned that it was contingent on coverage needs onsite.

After work it took me longer than usual to get home because someone's car broke down(?) in the middle of the three-lane highway and they just LEFT it there, apparently. Traffic was backed up for miles, no cops in sight. Florida!

But I did get home, we ate Chick-fil-a salads and I felt very jealous of Jameson because he'd gotten to go to the gym today. I want to go, too! But when I'm going to start squeezing that in, I have no idea. Definitely on at least one of my days off, ideally both. And then one workday too, probably Saturday or Sunday. That will be rough because I'll either have to get up earlier (4:30am?) or go right at dinnertime after not eating for four hours or so. Maybe on those days I can eat in the car on the way there. Idk.

Jameson had rehearsal, and I wanted to make us some tuna salad for the week and also had to do breakfast prep I'd been too lazy to do over the weekend. And then I got all distracted looking up details on how to make rye bread, because I am suddenly charmed by the idea of making my own rye bread for reubens. Rye is complicated, however, so I may need to wait.

All of this meant starting steno very late, but I still managed to get my homework done by 10pm. Which means I had an hour or so to try and sleep before Jameson returned and kept me up for another hour or two. Not that I mind, I like to hear how rehearsal went and all that. But in general, I wonder if I'll ever have a lifestyle again that allows me to get eight hours of sleep.

Maybe that's why I'm feeling very down lately.
Saturday was just...hard. I've rarely felt less motivated at work. I just kind of stared at what I was supposed to be doing, not thinking anything in particular, other than I wished, very badly, to be able to have a few days to sleep. To read. To go for a walk in the woods. To do anything other than what I've been doing, day after day, for almost two years now.

But there is no sleep. There is no vacation. There's a visit with family in June, and that's all I'll get. And we all know family visits are more about accommodating each other and airing dirty laundry than relaxing.

Another part of it is, in every aspect of life right now, I feel like I'm failing.
Especially steno. Every single day, no matter how hard I try, I can get a max of two hours, and that's if I do FOUR hours of work. I simply do not have that time. I am losing a day this week to a rehearsal for a charity concert I'm performing in, in which I'm expected to do a great job because I was a professional musician. But I haven't played in a year and a half, and I already know this is going to be a very embarrassing experience. I don't know why I said I'd do it. And then my steno teacher will want to know why once again I fell short, and how do I explain to her that I volunteered to do a charity concert this week without it sounding like an excuse, because charity concert or no I STILL never meet the criteria set by the school.

And now I want to go to the gym. I want to get some damned physical activity, for once, omg I just want to take care of myself for a half hour to an hour, three days a week. And I just do not know how I'm going to manage it.

And there seems to be no way out. I HAVE to be in school for SOMETHING, because I have NO SKILLS at the age of 37. I have to go to the gym, we've been paying for the membership all this time, I have no other chance at physical activity except our random walks. I have to do the concert, and try to ignore that the people sitting next to me will be cringing with embarrassment because their loved ones are in the audience and I'm ruining it for others.

And then I'll make bread, or garden, or spend an hour watching stupid youtube videos so I can keep some sanity, and feel guilty about all of it because I SHOULD be doing steno and why aren't I PRACTICING for the concert and couldn't this time be better spent at the gym?

I feel so trapped, this week. So overwhelmed.
Things will get better I'm sure, I'm just ranting here because I can't do it anywhere else.
I just wish I could STOP, for just a few days. I was so grateful for the covid vaccine, because for once, I had a good reason to just STOP and get an actual eight hours of sleep and have ONE DAY of not doing anything at all. I felt awful, but I got to do nothing.

Anyway, Saturday. I stopped at Whole Foods and got rye flour and bread flour, still really jonesing to make that rye loaf. I got us some wings and threw them in the air fryer when I got home, we ordered pizza and watched TV. Well, Jameson watched TV and I cleaned up after dinner, packed my lunch, marked my trombone music, gathered my stuff to take to work and rehearsal, prepped my work clothes and my breakfast, watered my plants in the garden and pollinator garden, and then "just chilled" for about 20 minutes before it was already 8:30 and I needed to start steno or I'd not get any done at all. When I've said, "We ate dinner and relaxed for a bit", THIS is what I'm actually doing when you read my posts and they mention dinner + relaxing afterward. This is my "relaxed for a bit".

When do I ACTUALLY get to relax?

Sunday morning at 6am I emailed my teacher my practice for the week, once again only about half of what the school requires.

To recap:
- Wake up 5:30 or 5:45am
- Eat breakfast and leave for work around 6:45
- Arrive at work 7:20-7:30, brush teeth in the company bathroom
- Work 7:45-4:15
- Commute an hour home, arrive between 5:15-5:45 depending on traffic and whether or not I'm picking up our dinner
- Eat dinner, unpack and repack lunch, prepare work clothes, check garden if needed, shower, spend a max of 30 minutes trying to sit still and have actual time with my boyfriend
- Between 7 and 8pm, start steno practice
- 9:30 stop steno so that I can check email, pay bills, make appointments, etc before bed (remember I cannot have my phone on at work because of confidentiality so I can't do much of this throughout the day)
- 10pm-10:30 try to enjoy 30 minutes to myself if possible
- 10:30 or 11 to midnight, in bed trying to fall asleep while Jameson watches tv.

Do you guys see a point where I can add more steno? Because I don't.
Yes, I DO do more on the weekends, about twice as much. But I will lose my mind if I don't get at least seven hours of sleep once in a while. Or if I can't even eat one meal that's not fast food. Or go for a walk/exercise for just 30 freaking minutes.
What is the solution? I don't have one right now. The only thing I can think of is finding a job closer, so I'm not losing 40 hours per month to the commute (that is NOT an exaggeration, I really do waste 40 hours per week commuting. That's two hours per day I could have back.)

I wish that having QUALITY practice were worth more than the actual hours.
Whatever, I emailed my teacher and that's all I could do.

After work I drove out to some random church and had rehearsal for this concert.
It didn't go as poorly as I expected, but it wasn't great either. I did my best, the concert is Sunday, and supposedly there's "communion" beforehand, winkwink. Small mercies.

Monday, I must have looked like crap because the cashier at WaWa gave me my coffee for free. That was something nice to get me through the day. There were more people to help out at work, so I tried to buckle down and get things done.
I ate dinner in the car on the way home so I could do dishes and water the plants immediately when I got home, rather than "wasting time" eating dinner like a human being at a table with a chair and a person I love. Then went directly into steno class for two hours, then swept and mopped the floors while Jameson had a production meeting. Boy, what an eventful week, I tell ya. What IS it all for.

Tuesday was a blessed Work From Home (WFH) day.
I *could* use my extra hour from 5:30am-6:30am on WFH day to practice steno, instead of enjoying a sixth hour of sleep. That may need to start happening. But for now, I'm sorry, I need the sleep. Work was work, I was "bad" again and completed some steno practice during lulls in calls.

After work I went to fetch tacos for us, but ended up waiting nearly 30 minutes for them for unknown reasons. So much for fast food!
I got back and we ate quickly because Jameson had rehearsal and I had...well, I wanted to go to the gym. But not to exercise just yet. First I wanted to get a Fit3D body scan!

I last got a body scan in December 2019, just a few months before covid.
Naturally I was very curious to see what differences might be apparent after 18 months of no gym, minimal exercise, and a sedentary job. But also keeping in mind that I am very strict about my diet, I don't sit still very often, and I've got genetics on my side (read: Japanese).

All of that said, here are some of my results.
My body looks exactly the friggin same. No surprises there. All of my clothes still fit.

Here's something interesting, though. In this chart we see four columns: the category of thing being measured; my "Baseline", which is the data from the 2019 scan; "Current", which is the data from today's scan; and the change, or difference, between the two in the final column.

As you can see, I've lost six pounds! But that's no reason to celebrate. Almost all of that weight loss was due to losing muscle mass.
Now granted, at least my fat mass didn't go UP to make up for that loss. I am extremely grateful for that. Other measurements were also provided (arms, legs, torso, etc) but the changes can be measured in millimeters and fractions of inches so I didn't consider it worth sharing.

In my case, sticking to a dietary routine plus clinging to my genetics has kept my body relatively unchanged for a whole year and a half of inactivity. I am very aware that not everyone is so fortunate, and want to say that me sharing this is NOT AT ALL meant to shame ANYONE for anything their body may have done during quarantine. I simply was curious to check this out, and found my personal results interesting.

After that I came home and ate the rest of my tacos. Because apparently I can.

Next comes the weekend.
Wednesday I will NOT bake bread for once due to a) wanting to go to the gym, and b) a dentist appointment at 2pm, and c) class at 5:30. After class, though, I'll start the rye "bread sponge", which will then become an overnight dough that I'll tackle Thursday morning. No real plans Thursday other than possibly another gym trip, loads of steno, making reubens for dinner, and watering the plants. But I SHOULD do five hours of steno instead of just two, right?? Sigh.

Friday and Saturday were the usual junk: work, eat, steno, sleep.

There is still not enough coverage at work for us to get our work-from-home back. I'm sorely disappointed. But they are still trying to give us one day per week for now. My assigned day, supposing no one calls out pretending to be sick, is Tuesday. I'm grateful to at least get one day.

Jameson is performing at Disney for several nights this week so I generally get the house to myself after 6 or 7pm.
Not like I use the time to do anything special. I prep things for work, practice steno, and go to bed.
I'm also practicing trombone a little because I was asked to fill in on an upcoming benefit concert.

I haven't played a single note since before the pandemic started. Probably about two years.

Picking up the trombone made me cringe in anticipation of what I'd sound like. Some noob middle schooler, no doubt.
But actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought. I guess 20 years of calling myself a "professional" outweighs a few years of pretending the trombone doesn't exist. It does make me feel sad to play, though, and somewhat emotional. This was something that I used to love, and now I avoid it as much as possible. I poured so much of my heart and soul into performing. And no one gave a shit. I was never good enough, or I never put out enough, take your pick, but either way that dream died on the vine.

Well, it died with the circus. Because apparently I'm some sort of evil animal abuser by association.
Never mind that I worked and lived with those animals for FIVE YEARS. People who've never even been to a circus saw a 3-minute edited youtube video and now they're all The Experts. Ok, wait, stop, I've got to stop right there or I'll be seething for the rest of this post.

This week is the anniversary of the circus closing. And clearly that wound is not healed and I doubt it ever will be.

Anyway, I played the trombone for a few minutes each night, and I've practiced more steno than usual this week but still not enough to meet the minimum standards set by my school. I just am not understanding how people are getting ten hours of non-class steno practice each week, especially since the program we're using only accounts for time spent typing IN the program, not editing the transcript or adding to the dictionary or anything. For each hour I put in about 30 minutes are counted toward my total, and it's incredibly demoralizing.

Maybe I'm just not dedicated enough. Or maybe I've learned from my years as a musician that locking myself in a practice room for hours is just not all that helpful.

Honestly it's been stressing me out all week. This was my first serious, dedicated attempt at reaching the weekly goal, and I barely got five hours, much less ten. And that's just with my normal weekday stuff...no cooking, baking, gardening, or outings. Just work, eating, steno, sleeping. I just don't get it. And I'm NOT going to spend my days off practicing 10 hours of steno each day in order to get five hours "that count" to meet the goal. F*ck RIGHT off with that thought.

I didn't get to practice steno on Saturday night because my sister called and it's been months since we've talked. We're both visiting our parents in June, and she wanted to plan things out a little bit. I'm driving up, she'll have to fly. She's bringing her kids, of course, so we're trying to figure out where they'll stay and how they'll get around. It was great to catch up with her :)

After that I cut up the tomato from my garden. It looked great.

I toasted a ciabatta and spread it with pesto, then layered it with the tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil from my garden, and balsamic vinegar (too lazy to make the thickened syrupy version). Caprese sandwiches are SO GOOD. And tomatoes and herbs taste better when you grow them yourself.

On Sunday I woke up feeling stressed, no particular reason. Work was fairly chill, but near the end of the day I noticed a captionist on a long and difficult call, and her audio sounded like she was falling asleep and her quality was dropping. So I popped over to her cubicle to remind her to maintain her captioning voice, and to suggest she take a little break when she reached our minimum call handling requirement (10 minutes). She seemed ok with that, but as soon as I got back to my desk I got a supervisor notification from her, so I went back. She then proceeded to tell me I was "rude" for coaching her, and complained that calls had been non-stop all day long.

I was taken aback, but simply said, it's Mother's Day. Of course there are going to be a lot of calls back to back, people are calling their moms. I glanced at her clock and saw that she was past her ten minutes, so suggested that she take a break. She responded by sarcastically asking if there would be fewer calls when she came back, and went on to bitch about how rude I am again, etc etc. At this point I would have LOVED to have a nice refreshing cat fight, but being obligated to follow the social construct I couldn't do that. So instead I told her that if she wasn't feeling up to captioning today, she could clock out and go home. Would she be penalized for that, she wanted to know? I don't know, I replied, you'd have to ask your actual supervisor.

She turned her back on me and said, "I'm done with this conversation. I have to finish this call."
I said, "Please speak to HR if you have a problem with your work or with me," and left to go file an incident report.
I hope she does talk to HR. Although I also pity HR for having to talk to her, and then probably me, before issuing her a policy violation.
The job is literally captioning phone calls. I don't know what else this chick expects to be doing during her workday.

As icing on the cake, there was yet another "Unionize!" flyer stuck to my car today when I left work.

I think every person working here needs to spend a month employed by Walmart, McDonald's, or any gas station before they even think to complain about sitting in an air conditioned cubicle, getting paid to read and knit and study their schoolwork while captioning calls for the hearing impared. This captionist losing her absolute mind today because she had to actually do her job (which requires almost zero effort on her part) absolutely blows me away. It's really difficult to be empathetic when people whinge about the minimal work that they're asked to do. Fortunately we'll all be replaced by software at some point, and she'll have to go complain somewhere else. Byeeeeeee

Back home I got to see Jameson for a few minutes before he left on another performance. I made myself another caprese (so good!) and immediately did a 90-minute steno session, including two tests. And how much time gets added to my total for the week? 30 minutes.

I give up.

Then I cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed to work off some frustration, then made a grocery list. Jameson came home late, and we tried to sleep. Neither of us has gotten much sleep this week.

Monday felt good because I knew I'd be working from home on Tuesday. It was also extremely slow, a post-Mother's Day lag, I guess. I had all of my work done around noon and resolved to leave early so I could relax a little, eat dinner, and get to steno class on time. Turns out class was cancelled because my teacher had a family emergency (hope she's ok), so in addition to an hour of steno practice I did a load of laundry, watered my plants, researched jobs, and had a look at the music for this gig which someone kindly dropped off to me this afternoon. Jameson returned from rehearsal at some point, and we watched Grey's Anatomy before falling asleep.

Tuesday, work from home! Yay! I got a little extra sleep and got to enjoy my coffee in a mug.
I was also a Bad Person and when there were lulls between calls, practiced steno. I didn't want to use the scripts we're given from class today, just didn't feel like it, so used some short stories from the 1900s instead. That was fun, lots of strange words and poetic descriptions that are unlikely to be useful in a courtroom but at least kept me engaged. Doing little snippets between chunks of work got me one whole hour of practice! I'll have to do that more often.

When work was done I drove to a nearby Greek place for dinner and brought it back to Jameson, and we watched a documentary on Blockbuster Video together. I worked for Blockbuster for a short time, and before that, Family Video. The documentary was informative and nostalgic.

When Jameson left for rehearsal I made us some tuna salad for the week, ran the dishwasher and prepared my breadmaking materials for tomorrow (food scale, bowls, flour, etc). I spent a little time in the garden and was glad I did, because apparently passion fruits have been dropping and I didn't even know! I realized it because I smelled one, they have a very distinctive smell. I followed the scent until I found the little half-purple fruit lying in the weeds, and several more alongside it. Not sure how they will be on the inside, but these are small fruits, about half the size of what I hope will be my main crop, so they should be a good indicator of what to expect from the larger fruits.

I dug up pretty much everything in the large planter as well: two golden beets, a carrot, and the lettuce. The lettuce has brown spots this time and is not edible. The carrot actually looks like a carrot, but it was way too woody to eat. And the beets actually looked pretty good, but I let them go too long and as a result they had split underground. It's too hot for them anyway, I need to follow the Florida gardening calendar more closely. On that note, I may pick up some black-eyed pea seeds this weekend as they're one of like three veggies that will actually grow in the Florida summer heat.

Then it was time for a relaxing shower, a big glass of wine, and researching sourdough starters because the last chapter in my lesson book is all about sourdough. There's still a lot of time before I reach the end of the book, but I know starters take a while to get going so I might try to start one before I get there.

Tomorrow starts the weekend. I have no special plans, other than making a brown sugar spiced oatmeal loaf, putting topsoil around the plants in the pollinator garden, and practicing steno and trombone.

Friday: back to work. I woke up dreading the whole day because I was afraid to mess up in training, and I was afraid of what my steno teacher would say to me when I logged in to meet with her after work.

Like with most things in my life, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Training was just fine, I did exactly what I was supposed to do for the most part and had help when I needed it. Everyone has been so helpful, I really like all of the people who work in that department. They're patient and very good at what they do, so I want to try and emulate them very much. Today was probably my last day helping out for a while, and I'm glad it went well.

During my lunch break I went outside to take my usual lap around the building. I was texting my sister while walking, and I heard this weird slapping sound. Looking up, I saw a softshell turtle plodding at full speed across the hot parking lot, his little webbed feet slapping the pavement and making the weird sound. It was 90 degrees out, and he would book it for a few feet and then stop to rest, book it and stop, probably hot and possibly in pain from the hot blacktop. I walked over to him and he tucked his head into his shell a little, but when I didn't do anything he actually stuck his head back out and looked me over, pretty bold for a turtle in my experience.

I later learned that this type of turtle is just as aggressive as a snapping turtle, and can also do some damage with its bite. Not having much experience with softshells but knowing they have super long necks, I went around to his back end and picked him up gently on either side of his shell. It felt like slightly sticky leather. Softshell turtles are weird.

When he didn't try to bite or react aggressively, I looked to see where he had been headed. It was obvious he was trying to get to the lake across the lot and across a short strip of grass. So that's where I took him. We walked across the parking lot, and he didn't pee or try to bite or squirm as usually happens when a turtle is picked up, and kept his head out to see what was happening. When we got to the grass he started pedaling his legs and actually stuck his head out even further (DANG they have long necks!) So I didn't take him all the way to the lake, but set him gently on the grass. He sat there for a moment, then headed off toward the lake. It was cool to see this type of turtle up close, and hopefully I helped him to not get run over or overheated on his way to wherever.

After work I went home, had dinner with Jameson, opened my mail and found my glorious new mousepad which I ordered from Etsy.
It's TOTALLY RAD, wouldn't you agree?

Yep, I'm old. And I don't care. VHS was life.

I reluctantly signed on to wait for my teacher, doing some steno practice while I waited. She signed on a few moments later, and after checking my settings and observing me going through my practice routine, made suggestions for how I can avoid some of the technical issues I've been having. She also gave me a new method of practice within our school program that will allow me to log hours across different programs, something that apparently was given out at the start of the semester but since I was a transfer I'd missed out. That alone will make a HUGE difference to my practice time! So often I've wondered how the heck people are getting 10 hours per week when they can "only" use our school program, well because they were NOT only using our school program, they had the ability to log hours elsewhere! Argh!

Well now I have it so that should be helpful.
She didn't even say anything about me needing to practice more. I was so grateful for that. I already criticize myself enough, I don't need any more outside criticism, promise.

Saturday, back to my regular supervisor work. It was a fairly relaxed day, nothing to report.
At home I did some cleaning, figuring if I get my second shot and feel like shit I won't want to be scrubbing a toilet.
I also started soaking some sweet rice overnight, to hopefully make mango sticky rice. It seems easy enough to make.

Sunday, work was pretty chill. Then back home we had Greek takeout, and I made the sticky rice.
Somehow it was oversaturated, I think because I forgot to account for the extra water in the bottom of the steamer? Anyway it turned out more like rice pudding or porridge than traditional sticky rice. It still tasted good, though.

I received two amazon packages, one was a battery which I'm hoping will resurrect my poor bricked GoPro 4 (if not, I guess someone at the thrift shop is getting it) and the other was a "carton" of "egg" stress balls! They look like a shelled egg, whites with yolk, and you can squeeze them and move the yolk around. Stupid? Yes. A cheap way to brighten my day because lately I'm feeling down? Also yes. I gave one to Jameson and he seemed to enjoy it.

Monday, the day seemed to fly at work, probably because I was dreading my covid shot. Not until Tuesday, but why wait to worry, right? Sigh. I got as much of my work completed as possible. I got groceries, did laundry, and went to steno class. After Jameson left for rehearsal I drove out to Lowe's for some topsoil and 10-10-10 fertilizer for my bananas, which are getting bigger and will need double the fertilizer soon. I folded the laundry, got a shower, did dishes, and assembled the equipment and ingredients for this week's bread, "kindergarten honey wheat". I stressed about all the stuff I probably won't get to do this weekend if/when the symptoms from the second shot knock me on my ass (again).

The plan for tomorrow is this. I'll have breakfast and go get the shot ASAP after eating. On the way home I have a few groceries to pick up, then once home I'll start the wheat bread and while that's rising I'll work in the garden. At some point it'll be time to bake the bread and make dinner, then after dinner I'll practice steno.

On Wednesday assuming no side effects yet, I'll finish gardening and also make some pickled jalapenos for my coworker who gave me a jar of her homemade blueberry jam (yum!), then we're on our own for dinner because I'll have steno class. It would be really nice if my symptoms started kicking in BEFORE I went to bed, so I don't wake up in the middle of the night with a full-on panic attack like last time.

Thursday I expect to be a total wreck, so I'm counting it as a lost day.

Wish me luck y'all.

Friday, a pleasant surprise...I'm going to get to work from home two days a week again!!!

Wow, I was not expecting that. But apparently the company had ordered us a bunch of brand new Dell computers, and with the delays in the supply chain the plan to send us back home has been on hold for months. The computers finally arrived while I was out for the weekend. I went to the office to get my computer and find out what days will be my Work From Home (WFH) days. Friday and Monday! Last time it was Friday and Tuesday, which was nice because it felt like a long weekend. But actually WFH on Monday is WAY better because now I will be on time for my Monday steno classes!! Yay!

It's a lot of work to make up the class, so I'm very excited that for three weeks of each month I'll be able to attend. (The fourth week I have to work on-site, that's part of our rotation so that we can all enjoy WFH).

Work itself was fine, nothing to report. I got a rejection letter for one of the internal job openings I applied to, no surprise as it's an HR position and I have zero HR experience.

Back home I ate dinner then checked out my new work-toy. I won't take pictures because my company is suuuuper all about confidentiality, proprietary information, etc etc, so suffice to say it's a Dell All-in-1 with a touchscreen and an external FCC sound card. This is the same equipment that captionists use onsite, which means that if we need to caption from home, we will be able to (not right now but at some point). I'm really glad, this was one function we'd all really wanted last year because sometimes there are outages or we get shorthanded, and the more people can caption the better.

Anyway, when that was set up I did my steno homework and shopped for bras. I HATE shopping for bras online! I've got tiny, limp boobs, and it's not easy to find something comfortable + the right shape for me, even in a physical store much less online. So I pretty much just used Poshmark and Ebay to find bras that I know will fit, and ordered them. Hopefully they don't arrive with sweatstains on them or something. Sigh.

Saturday was pretty slow, it was hot and humid outside, but like an icebox at work. I felt tired and droopy, but did my best.
Got home, checked on the chrysalides, everyone looks fine. There are now four chrysalides in my pollinator garden.
20+ eggs, 12 caterpillars, down to 6 caterpillars, and now 4 chrysalides. I'm sure there are more hiding somewhere, but dang, survivability is poor.

After dinner we had an exciting Actual Social Event, a band with a lot of Jameson's friends in it was playing over at Margaritaville, outdoors, socially distanced. We sat down at a table full of former Disney performers, all fully vaccinated except for me and like one other chick. It felt very "Before-fore Times". And it was nice. I got to hug people. No, I'm not fully vaccinated. But also, no one around me has gotten sick. Ok?

Some idiot at the table was buying WAY too many shots, so we ended up with at least two free drinks which was two more than I'd intended to have. But hey, it felt good in the moment. It was a nice moment of socialization, and pretending things are normal again.

https://instagram.com/p/CN0ygj2H7IL

Sunday, work again. It was a slow day, I was glad because I wanted to wrap up as much as possible before working from home on Monday.
At home we had BBQ from a new place we'd found, it was ok but overpriced so it probably won't be a regular stop for us.
After dinner I quick-pickled the jalapenos from my garden because five of them were ready to use. I added a thinly-sliced carrot as well. Boiled with equal parts vinegar and water, and salt and sugar for a few seconds, then left it to brine and cool with crushed garlic. Should be really nice on eggs or with cold cuts.

Then I cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed, and did not-enough-steno-practice before getting tired and going to bed.

Monday, my first day of working from home! It was nice to have the extra hour of sleep, and to drink coffee from a mug instead of a lockable thermos. It was nice to be able to go to the bathroom when I needed to, and to break my work into manageable chunks without interruption. Some things did need a litte extra work, like downloading all my spreadsheets and figuring out how they want us to use Zoom now, but overall it was a more relaxing way to work and I'm very grateful for it. Saving four hours of driving, two hours of sleep, and a thimble of sanity. Worth it.

During breaks I checked on my chrysalides (no change) and spent time with Jameson, who was doing classwork in the bedroom. After work we had pizza, then I had steno class while Jameson relaxed, then he had some theatre meetings while I relaxed. Then we rejoined again for Spring Baking Championship before going to bed.

Tuesday, very stressful. I notice that Tuesdays usually are stressful, no idea why, but it's very annoying.
I can basically assume that we'll "somehow" be shorthanded and I'll have to cover more work than usual.
I can assume that something unusual will happen during the day that will prevent me from completing my usual tasks, so that I feel frustrated and fed up at the end of the day.
And of course, I can assume that whatever-it-is will happen right before my shift ends so that I'll be desperately rushing to finish my tasks and finally leave much later than usual.

Because Tuesday!!

I escaped work nearly 10 minutes late (doesn't seem like a big deal until you try to drive past Disney World at 4:55 instead of 4:45, give it a go if you don't believe me) and stopped at the grocery for dinner ingredients. Back home, said hello to Jameson, ate dinner, checked the chrysalides. There was a big storm in the afternoon and one of them had fallen down.

It didn't seem damaged, so I did what Google said and carefully tied a bit of string to the torn caterpillar silk, then re-hung it in the enclosure with a safety pin. Lookin' good.

While poking around in there I noticed that one chrysalis is darkening, and the wings are starting to form. Very cool to see!

The four chrysalides in my pollinator garden all seem fine too. The one who pupated on the fence was kind of glowing in the setting sun, looked very pretty.

There you have it, my week.
This weekend I'm baking raising walnut bread per my breaducation, and might crack into the apple butter I made over Christmas to enjoy on top. I've also got to put all of the milkweed into the garden, the pool deck is getting cluttered with all my potted plants. And I'm making steak for dinner on Thursday, and steno class in on Wednesday night, and somewhere in there I hope to finally attempt to make macarons.

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taz_39

June 2025

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Page generated Jun. 28th, 2025 07:11 pm

goofball on a train

(adventures of a touring musician)

Entries tagged with jobs

Just Like That...

A Good Visit

Prep and Trip

Closer and Closer

No Pictures Needed

Frantic Rest

Being a Pretzel

Tiny Things

In a Blur

Partial Reveal, I Guess

Whistle While you Work

Never Enough Bread

VagueJournal

Green Things, Brown Things

Back in Florida

Miffed

"You Pass Butter"

Just Weekday Stuff

"It's Gonna Be May" (had to do it)

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