Read my fax! You’re fired!!

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Two nights ago I dreamt I heard a noise in my sideyard and I walked to my kitchen window to look out. There was an old-fashioned black car parked there with the deepest tinted windows. I heard a pop from the car and my kitchen screen split, and a bullet went into my chest.

I slumped and P. was behind me, holding me up under my arms.

“I’m dying,” I said.

“I’ll call an ambulance.” He is always very calm when someone is dying or really hurt. Then I got lightheaded and woke up.

After I woke up, I realized it was a hearse. Then I remembered it was my birthday. THANKS BRAIN. This does not bode well at all, does it?

Last night I watched Back to the Future 2 with the girls, as many people did last night, I think. The opening credits played as the DeLorean flew through clouds.

“This was like, the best moment of my young life when these credits rolled,” I explained.

“I couldn’t even follow this movie the first time I saw it,” Strudel confessed.

“It’s convoluted as fuck,” I said.

P. popped in and out of the room as he made cookies. “I always forget that most of this movie is Marty fucking things up.”

Franny had her own observations. There was a scene where Marty returns to what he thinks is his home, but it belongs to a different family and is in a run-down and crimey neighborhood in a dark 1985 timeline that he returns to. He slipped into his window to discover an African-American family living there.

“Mom, so that’s actually racist,” Franny said. “Now that the neighborhood’s bad, there’s a black family in his house.”

“That’s true,” I said. “The director made the choice to put that family in there to show how upside down everything is in this 1985.”

Later we noticed when Marty was tailing Biff, the antagonist, Biff lived at his grandmother’s house, who had a lawn jockey in her yard, which was framed by the camera as we were shown the obligatory “keep off lawn” sign. The viewers were meant to understand these were bad, backwards people.

I still enjoyed it. I always do. It was a happy childhood memory.

In Other News: Bothering P on chat, who actually has things to do unlike me

I sent him the link to this image, which I think is an internet golden oldie at this point.

Presently:

Outlook hates my name.

More Corn Dramz

When I mentioned “troubleshooting myself” in the above chat, I was being kind of silly but I really did figure something out this month. When I started work I didn’t bring a mug right away, but wanted some tea. I always bring a mug, just like how I always bring a bag, and always retick my mattress with sheared pubes and lentils. It’s just what you do in Seattle.

After many years of working in the same corporate veal-fattening pens with the same pretty okay corporate tea offerings, I thought the English breakfast was making me ill now. I was disappointed. My face broke out and burned, I got very tired, my lungs got “smaller” and congested. My joints hurt. And I was so crabby I could laser someone in half with a single glare.

I started having my crazy thoughts. “Maybe I can just GROW MY OWN TEA.” (wat) “Maybe I can just whittle down to one basic meal template of rice, chicken, and broccoli three times a day like I’m a dog. SJ Chow.” (No)

“I think there’s something going on with the teabags or something,” I complained to P. I stopped drinking tea for a few days and completely improved. Then I brought a mug in yesterday and cautiously experimented on myself. No effects but +5 to Caffeinated.

Then I fell down the rathole…okay International Paper Company, what are your cups coated with? Surprise, a polymer made from dextrose (corn). Don’t worry, gentle citizen, it’s inert and safe for allergy sufferers. Okay. I feel much better now.

I want to also tell you a story about how Franny asked me last night if I think she should be participating in more “teen activities” and all the outrageous high school stories she’s been telling me lately, but I think that will have to wait til the weekend! Happy Thursday?

Assholes what do they know do they know anything let’s find out

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“And so I rose in good temper, finding a good chimneypiece made in my upper dining-room chamber, and the diningroom wainscoat in a good forwardness, at which I am glad, and then to the office, where by T. Hater I found all things to my mind, and so we sat at the office till noon, and then at home to dinner with my wife.”

SAMUEL, you don’t even know! This is pretty much my exact day here. Okay, there was no new chimneypiece, but we did talk about having our first fire this weekend. And I painted the wainscot a long time ago. BUT I am out of here at 12:45 as they’ve been working me 9-10 hour days and I’m running out of time on my clock. I will be home to dinner with my wife, who made me garlicky eggs for breakfast.

News news news! I got an email yesterday letting me know I passed the electrician test and was actually above the bar needed for the branch I want to go in. Based on my test scores alone, I can choose any route. The scoring is weird, so roughly speaking, I got a ‘B.’ What a great feeling! Hard work has paid off, but I believe it would simply not be possible for me a year ago to study and retain math on and off for months. I am supposed to hear if I get an interview in 2-3 weeks. I wonder what happened with the woman sitting next to me who was visibly squirming and groaning through the whole thing.

What a long process. I left my FTE position of 3+ years on Halloween 2014, and I’ve been working toward this change since then. It’s been discouraging and tiring at times, but I think I’m most of the way through this marathon. I am so excited to have a math class once a week, and to be walking around working and moving on the other days.

I’m dicking around with my new camera that was a graduation present this summer. I wanted to embed some pics but my photo service is acting up. I will have to be content with linking to my flickr for now. I’m not great at this camera yet! Blurry shots! I don’t really give a shit with my little point and shoot, but I want to take better pictures with this one.

Otherwise I am just kind of living! It’s nice not be be gripped by paranoia or despair or just pain at random times. When you don’t have to manage pain constantly, it’s freaky how much space you have for other things. Everything feels consistent and often very boring. I feel like it took me about a year for my body to really open up and have some kind of foundation for hard work or going for a longish run. I struggled to exercise for years–my lungs always felt too small and my back/joints always hurt somewhere. Now I just glide along and if I go slow enough I feel like I could run forever.

This, of course, adds to my confidence in being able to do more, like a major career change on the doorstep of 40. Ha! Samuel Pepys always inspires me. I need to push on a little farther in my progress, meaning secure an apprenticeship, but then I am thinking about getting back to writing. For my own pleasure, as usual.

I thank God I have no crosses, but only much business to trouble my mind with. In all other things as happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me, and if my house were done that I could diligently follow my business, I would not doubt to do God, and the King, and myself good service. And all I do impute almost wholly to my late temperance, since my making of my vowes against wine and plays, which keeps me most happily and contentfully to my business; which God continue!

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUILD SOME DOG STAIRS?

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It actually has to be some dog stairs

I keep realizing I’m not capturing things from this summer in anything resembling a timely fashion. This was my final project in shop class. When I get paid I will carpet them. I’m feeling…berber. EH? These are going at the foot of the bed when they’re done so the spaniels don’t have to go all DB Cooper on me every time they have to go pee.

In case you have a sharp eye, you will see the jigsaw hole I cut was wonky. I was down to the last five minutes of time! Whoops. I am also reminded that I need to get rid of my liquor decanters, since we don’t really drink brown liquor anymore.

Todd Chavez has displaced their old home. My new hobby of aquarium-keeping has replaced the old hobby of despair and malnutrition. Anyone need some cut crystal decanters? Also, don’t get me wrong. I still like some wine or vodka sometimes, which seems pretty safe as long as I don’t go for the super cheap stuff.

P. got soap on himself while doing the dishes, and then stripped off, and THEN went out to give the bees a little fall snack of heavy syrup. Naturally he just threw his beecoat on. He thinks he has invented Topless Beekeeping and wants me to start the website. N-O. But I had to snap him.

“Har har,” he said, as I papped him.

So here’s me and my face, which will be 38 in a couple of weeks. WHAT HOW DID THAT HAPPEN.

For fun, here is me ten years ago, at 27:

On this day in history I went to the electrician’s union and took the math and reading test. Reading test–very easy, of course, and I was the first one finished. Algebra test–I dunno! I think I got a majority of them. But ENOUGH? I will let you know in two weeks. I am allowed to call then and inquire about results. I think a letter will be coming and there are interviews next month and in December.

There were three ladies in the room, out of maybe 60 people, and one of them sat next to me. Which was cool. She started talking about her kids immediately, which was also nice. I like people who are like that, though we were told this summer to keep being a mother a secret. She was going for limited energy, which is stuff like data comm and alarm systems. I’m signed up for indoor wireman, which pays very well but I will not be swinging from cherry pickers at 2 a.m. in a power outage. I didn’t get a chance to speak to the other lady.

I saw the new members of the Ladies Hammer Club filing into the building, which is housed with the electrical union. They looked harassed and tired in their exercise clothes and I wanted to talk to them but they looked so serious, which is the same as I was.

Here are some things I was told this summer.

1. “There is one ‘hen’ per jobsite, so watch out. Wait no, not really. But actually yeah kind of.” What we should watch out for, I am not sure.

2. “If there is a gossipy man on the site and he is trying to bend your ear, you will be the one fired for being the distraction, not him, so get rid of him ASAP.”

3. “Your pants are all too tight.” To be fair, that day most of us were wearing pants that were too tight. I pulled a page out of the Americorps workers’ books, who usually showed up to Habitat for Humanity in the those really stretchy lady jeans that are more like denim-colored leggings but do not cross the line into jeggings. Boy howdy are those nice to work in, though. What I finally ended up doing was buying enormous bib overalls. ZOOP! Gender vanish!

4. “This one guy wouldn’t leave me alone about my hair when it was down this summer, so I had to you know, corner him, and deal with him privately.” There followed meaningful jaw-clenching. I imagine this guy’s remains are entombed in a column of the new 520 somewhere. “Now I wear it up every day even though it’s brittle (sigh).”

5. “Sometimes guys will whine that they are special and should have a key to the female portajohns for some weird reason. HELL. NO.”

6. “DO NOT date on the job site. Whatever you do, don’t marry an ironworker. Don’t ask me how I know that.”

7. “Females.” I am no longer a woman, chick, lady, or girl, but a female. Females can be trouble, but the union needs females, so that’s lucky for me. Females cannot expect special treatment on a jobsite. They have to work harder and faster. Don’t let that 26-year-old white knight lift things for you. Help females out when you can, but look out and know a lot of them will try to stick the knife in your back.

8. DON’T TALK ABOUT YOUR KIDS. OR YOUR PERSONAL LIFE. OR ANYTHING THAT IS NOT THE JOB. DO NOT REMIND ANYONE YOU ARE A FEMALE. You may give 5 minutes to how the Seahawks are doing.

9. “What is the sounds of two turtles fucking?” ?? BONK *Get bonked hard with riddler’s hard hat*

I am going downtown to work tomorrow until Xmas, thank god, shoveling consumer goods into the maw of capitalist desire. I mean, I’ll be doing marketing again. More number-crunchy and less copywritey this time. HOORAY MONEY. And waiting for that call. That call for the scrappy, oldish, last chance, eight-of-nine-lives female to go to work. C’mon, phone. Do your ring thing.

Snore Club

No I will not wear the cone of shame

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This week we are focusing on things like multiplying binomials and solving inequalities in systems of equations. Have you flashed back to tenth grade yet? FOILing?? I woke up in the middle of the night last night a few times and I was kept awake by the idea that maybe I should be reviewing volume. WHAT IF THERE IS A VOLUME QUESTION? I think I was supposed to go through this 20+ years ago with the SATs but I never bothered paying for them. Too busy buying Boone’s Farm (sangria flavor, because that’s the classy one).


Post apple picking in August

I don’t think I felt this way ramping up to the GREs either. If you have seen the melodramatic, snot-silently-running-into-your-mouth fest that is Les Miz! then you know there is a super maudlin scene where a bunch of children in pirate shirts are all Morrisseying about how they need to pour one last one out for their homies, etc, before the next morning’s last stand, where they will be bayonetted into curly frites. That was my run-up to the math portion of the GRE in 2002; the freedom fighters were unprofessional and doomed, but had to make a good showing so historians wouldn’t call them little bitches later.


Stepping stones I made at the cement masons union way back in July

Now, I actually have a shot, because stuff is staying in my head now. I get what everyone meant about math building on itself. I have that crazy hoover-it-all-up cokehead feeling like the more I cram in the better because it’s only 30 questions! If I miss just one or two I actually know how to calculate that percent now! AGGH.

On the positive side of things I am getting a lot of rest right now. I think I had a successful in-person yesterday for a temp holiday gig, after a good phone interview with them. I have a better feeling about going back to tech now for a short time. Mostly because I feel like it’s going to be A SHORT TIME. And a paycheck to boot. They told me they want someone “yesterday” but I am hoping that means Tuesday (the day after my exam) so I can take full advantage of this time to obsess and lick my hot spots.


Dinner Doge would like more gravy plz

Of course I am focused on other things right now, also, like making sure the girls are transitioning back into school smoothly. Franny has an analytical writing class that’s based on the films of Hitchcock and Kurosowa. She is also taking bio and geometry, as well as her usual Japanese and art. She is about to turn 15 in less than two weeks and very shyly asked if Boyfriend, Neo, could come over for dinner and cake. Hell yes, as long as he takes the bus home later. It’s a Friday and what is happening is yoga pants.

Strudel is having a VERY good fifth grade year so far and is over the moon in her advanced program. She can now also hoover in and retain all the information now, like me, but better, because her brain is new and spongy. Her teacher is very organized and enthusiastic, and apparently has the whole class enraptured. We hear that her terrible teacher from the third grade, who told the dead bunny story and screamed at people most of the time, now has a classroom monitor. There is justice, albeit slow justice. I hope the angry emails I wrote from when I was sick in bed are stuck to her file like glue, along with the other parent complaints.

A turkey sleeping in my armpit who is much larger now:

I’m the cool dad, that’s my thing.

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Can I make a normal face? A: no, I think you have to have a normal face to make one. ANYWAY. I graduated. It wasn’t pretty. One of us didn’t make it and has to make up shop classes. D:

I’ve been super stressed this month–having nightmares, I stopped losing weight (plateaued) and, shockingly, didn’t have a period this month. I haven’t skipped periods since I was an irregular kid 20+ years ago. The program itself was fine, in fact it’s a great idea to prepare women for the trades, but the people who run it are absolute nightmares. Our primary teacher left at the end of our session to become a bureaucrat with the city. I was interested to talk to someone who knew a former teacher for the program quite well, and was able to comment on how it’s in the toilet right now, insofar as it’s being run. I have no fear of writing about this because I’m already on the shitlist with them and have already been on the receiving end of some minor retaliatory behavior. YAAAAY! Expect the worst from humanity and you won’t be disappointed, eh?

BUT, I made really excellent friends and contacts with my peers. The esprit de corps happened in spite of all the jackassery.

So now I am in a weird place. I have been invited to take the electricians’ aptitude test on the 5th, which is algebra and logic and reading and I think some personality test. I have already taken and passed test for the sheet metal union. I need more money and I am being recruited for holiday high-tech contracts again, which makes my stomach churn. I am also applying for work in sheet metal and machinist shops, but my resume says high tech. What a great place to be! Someone give me a job. URRRRGH

My math class this summer was very rudimentary compared to the electricians’ test, so I am now jumping back into my solo algebra studies. And just trying to keep busy.

Just kidding. My life is now peeing into cups.

Good timing to finish–I needed to get the chicks outside safely. Usually I let chicks fully feather in the house, but this batch is different. I think Laura the turkey poult might be extraordinarily messy with her water, or playing with it, because every time I turned around, it was empty, and the water was on the chips/box floor. Not good, and the box was starting to go funky, and the chips smelled worse than the chicks (the chicks are dusty, but aren’t too bad as long as you change their chips once a week).

Historically I’d been able to keep 3-4 chicks in a Uhaul wardrobe box until they were feathered out and ready to go outside, but I knew the box would disintegrate before then. I like having them in a basement or garage because they get lots of attention and handling, and get very used to people noises, but they had to go.

I decided to make something that I hadn’t before called a “chick playpen.”

This cage goes inside the coop, taking up part of the space so the chicks can come in and get warm. I cut a hole in the top with a hole saw and hung their brooder lamp inside it.

Here it is in situ.

The hens still have space to lay, perch at night, and can get used to the chicks existing.

I “meshed” off the back section of the coop’s attached run, which is roofed as well. The chicks will have an outdoor space that is completely covered and enclosed with hardware cloth on the outside so nothing can get them, and the hens can see them but not peck them.

At night (or anytime) they can go up into the coop in their playpen and be warm. Food and water is on the ground level, on pea gravel. When they get a bit bigger I can cut a hole in the temporary internal mesh so they can enter the main yard with the hens, but pop back into their area for their special grower food and in case they are being pecked. Eventually the mesh comes down and the playpen is removed.

Goethe is my shadow when I’m outside.

A WILD BUTTHOLE APPEARS!

Assholes can do anything

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“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.”
–Douglas Adams

Have you ever been part of a group and have just known you’re despised by the people who are in some way responsible for or are otherwise forced to interact with you? I’m not talking about being a libertarian, or a vegan, or a mommyblogger, either. My pre-apprenticeship is going down in FLAMES, people. IN. FLAMES. It’s open revolt, except it’s not us, it’s our keepers. Everywhere we go everyone knows what a terrible group we are and how awful our attendance is, and we were told with a month left to go that absolutely NO ONE will qualify to receive recommendation letters.

It’s rather freeing, actually.

It’s freeing in part because I know it’s absolutely hooey and none of this really matters. I’ve gotten a lot of skills, and have made a lot of contacts, and have learned so much, and as far as that goes, it’s been completely worth it. I’ve learned about trades that I never would have known about or applied to, and have learned that I really like volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, especially when they let me run the nail gun.

But what these people think about me and my classmates, who are actually an awesome, capable group of women? It don matter none.

Today we went out to Kingston where the laborers are. I didn’t know until a couple of months ago that laborers are a trade that do almost everything but licensed work (like electrical and pipefitting). Mostly we talked to women there, but a guy came in and talked to us and said things several times to the effect of, “Despite what everyone says about the laborers, we work really hard/are very skilled/are constantly working” etc. Finally I took pity on the poor man, who seemed to be getting crushed under the enormous chip on his shoulder about his chosen profession and interjected: “Actually, no one has anything bad to say about the laborers. It’s mostly the ironworkers people talk smack about.”

“Ironworkers! Well, those guys are REAL ASSHOLES,” he said. We all nodded.

Due to a typical lack of communication on the part of our unwilling stewards, I didn’t know I was supposed to park and walk on the ferry to be picked up on the other side, and so paid and drove on. Finally the thousands-of-tons ferry made its gentle and miraculous kiss against the rubber of the dock (how is that even possible almost every time?) and I drove myself to the site, parked early in the back lot of the training center, and pulled out my trusty book.

Currently it’s Anybody Can Do Anything by Betty MacDonald and BOY HOWDY is it speaking to me. It’s memoir by the Mrs. Pigglewiggle/Egg and I lady about her 12 jillion jobs she held during the Depression, mostly engineered by her psychopath sister.

So I’m sitting there and I hit on this phrase that MacDonald drops about the ancient-by-1930 house she lives in with her mother–she says it has “elastic bedrooms.” What is this, some kind of 19th-century magic? My mind raced. Did they change size? Was it some kind of terrible wall covering? I’d heard of coin-operated heaters….

I was distracted. And my smartphone is DRAWERS. If I tell it to go on the internet it just has an aneurysm, wets itself, and wakes up with 3% battery, claiming it has no idea who or what I was talking to it about. It’s your selective-hearing granny. So I texted P.

>Do you know what an elastic bedroom is? Depression era

P: No, but I can look it up.

HOLY SQUANCHY, IT WORKED. I am actually interrupting this busy important guy who is at work solving real problems and he is looking up something stupid for me.

>Thanks Poogle I am desperate reading my book here

Later, P.: Best I can come up with is that they hold as many people as need be.

OF COURSE. MacDonald had a large family and they crammed into a three-bedroom. Ask a librarian indeed.

After dinner, Franny’s birthday came up and I was trying to get out of her what she might like to do, since she’s not keen on parties. I told her she could go to the mall with her little friends and I would even kick in a sawbuck for a virgin mangorita.

“What is a sawbuck,” she AND my sister (over for Monday night dinner) said, almost at the same time.

“You know, a ten?”

I had to explain I was reading a Depression-era memoir and I was enjoying some of the slang, old and new to me. I think I probably picked up sawbucks in all the noir trash I am often reading or watching. I started telling my sister about the memoir, thinking it would be of interest to her since there’s many mentions of the Seattle streetcar and the Public Market and they live in the University District and at one point she works out past Skid Road. I told her I’d texted P. earlier that day about something in the book.

“…Poogle, because it’s like ‘Google,’ GET IT?” I was saying when P. came in from the kitchen where he was doing dishes.

“What book is this?” he asked.

“Anybody Can Do Anything.”

“Is this about that–”

“Elastic rooms, yeah.”

“Oh, that was the book I found that I was using as a source to answer your question,” he said.

CONTEXT! Go figure! I’m running off to my first test at a union tomorrow. I am VERY TIRED so I think I will sleep long as well tonight. And then…MATH.

Act Three

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It’s that funny part of summer where I feel like I’m assessing every day. Is this the last warm day? How about this one? Are the rains coming back? The clematis is blooming again. It does this little last hurrah mini-bloom, I think when the light gets the same as the beginning of summer.

The bees are packing away the honey and the combs are getting really heavy. The girls are also getting shitty when we crack open the hives now. The theory there is because they have something to protect and know the season is ending. Wasps descend and attack when we open the lid now, and we try to help the girls kill them with the pairing knives we use to cut propolis off the bars. I didn’t know wasps and bees would literally tear each other apart until we starting keeping them.

The orange hive, which is the one that lost its queen, is still struggling. We have moved more bars over and they did hatch some queens, but I think they were suffering from a lack of food. We’ve put syrup feeders inside the back of the hive, behind their active bars, where they can access them without fighting with wasps.

So imagine taking the roof off of the hive and looking down into it.

You would see a horrible Paint drawing. Just joshin. The point I am trying to make is that the fragile orange hive bees are protected from the kamikaze predations of the wasps because you’d have to go in through the front entrance, where you’d hit a solid follower board with a hole about the size of a small plum. Then you’d have to fight past all the comb covered in bees, who know you smell funny, make it through the last follower board/small hole in the back, and then get the syrup and come back out again.

We have found dead wasps in the very back of the hive. It feels like an Indiana Jones thing when we open it up–behold the skellingtons of the foolish tomb robbers who have come before. We don’t see a lot of that in the purple hive because they have SO MANY FUCKING BEES OMG so there’s always a clean up crew.

Ladies’ Hammer Club was busy busy this week but not very satisfying. I didn’t expect to have my head turned by any of the trades we visited this week, and I was not pleasantly surprised. I think because it’s summer and people are very busy working that we are kind of getting the bum’s rush quickly. Ironworkers were supposed to have us for six hours, but we got there and our guide said, “The usual guy is out crabbing, and we don’t have any ladies to pull in to talk to you today.” We cut some steel with a torch and were hustled out in two hours. The brick and tile masons seemed kind of similarly unprepared and indifferent about having us there. The trades that have been the most gracious, surprise, surprise, have the highest numbers of women and want to recruit them. I want to talk to you about the gender politics I’ve observed but I’m going to have to put a pin in for now since I have a frittata in the oven and am heading out to pick apples this a.m. Soon!

I enjoyed being at the plasterers, but I don’t really want to plaster for a living. I wasn’t aware that McMansions, which look like stone, etc from a distance, are made of thick foam siding with a plaster or faux stone overlay.

It was a great workout though. The mud is very heavy and you’re holding 10-20 pounds of it all day on your hawk and trowel, or heaving huge buckets of mud.

I had fun pressing the hemp threads into the molds, which keeps it from crumbling.

Yesterday I went back to Habitat for Humanity. They’re trying to expand into maintaining communities in need, rather than just building new structures, so I helped with maintenance at a retirement community. An area utility was there as well, providing LED lightbulbs, and the mayor of Renton gave a little talk. I changed furnace filters and fire alarm batteries while my Americorps partner gave a disaster preparedness talk to the home’s residents. I worked with her on the build I went to a couple of weeks ago and she taught me how to use a nailgun. She likes women in my program because we are handy efforty buttkickers and I like her! She said she was hoping I’d join her group.

I was the only person in my cohort there, in part because yesterday was extra and voluntary. Lots of my classmates have to work around class time this summer. I really, really like my group, but it was fun to be solo. It reminded me of when I was doing apartment maintenance right out of high school–landscaping, change light bulbs, dig ditches, whatever. I was outside for most of the day and as soon as my head hit the pillow I fell asleep. We had a second partner, who was my sister’s age and had never done basic home maintenance, and expressed amazement when I could do things like take panels off furnaces without obvious handles or screws, and knew different models of fire alarms and how they worked (which I used to sell/copywrite for at Amazon, plus I’ve always been a little handy).

I heard a lot of stories yesterday, about 50+ year marriages and divorces and children and retiring from good jobs from the state 30 years ago. I cannot fathom being retired for 30 years. I don’t think it’s going to happen.

I’m in the home stretch now–four weeks left. We all have senioritis. I have two more three-day weeks, and then a four day week the week of Labor Day, and then my last week is a five-day including graduation. Next week we are going down to King County Metro to see the mechanics’ shop where they work on the busses, and to a real working construction site to get the lay of the land.

I thiiiiink I may actually get a job when this is over. Whew.

Et tu Useless?

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I got up on the roof on Saturday, ostensibly to install gutter guards. We have a pretty serious pine needle/fir bud clog issue here, to the point where the gutters want to overflow if it does more than mist.

Got up, looked around, doot doot. Could not get near the edge of the roof. I’m okay at heights, scaffolding, but sloped roofs always made me freeze. This has not changed, apparently. In fact, OSHA videos may have made things worse. I did manage to talk P. into buying an extension ladder, so he could do all parts safely, including the driveway where there is a 2-storey drop.

“This project is going to double in cost if I buy this ladder,” he said.

“Your life…is worth a $250 ladder to me,” I replied. ~DRAMATIC ORGAN MUSIC~

He was like “oh ok” after that.

Instead I went off and got some new chicks, since my numbers have naturally dwindled again.

I was looking for pullets at Portage Bay Grange (provisioning everything for the urban hipster hobbyist, thank god I don’t have to drive out to the hinterlands for the privilege of buying unsexed chicks anymore), but all the breeds I was interested in were snapped up. Plus I’ve learned at this place the clerks will guess at pullet breeds and then you’ll bring something else home. Last time I got a pullet I was told “Easter Egger” but I think she’s a welsummer. Gingersnap is a fine bird, though, whatever. She does not lay green eggs however.

Franny was oohing over the beeps and I asked her if she was staying put here for the rest of the summer so she could help supervise when I am gone all day. When they’re new they need a light bulb for warmth and someone to make sure they stay out of trouble. Of course I had all the supplies except for chick waterers, which have been repurposed to feed the bees syrup. Also chick crumble, which I don’t keep around. They tried to sell me antibiotics and probiotics, which was new. I’ve never fussed with them so I passed. If this was my livelihood and I was raising hundreds, and not a hobby, I would probably go for it. In my experience chicks drop dead right away or you will probably get 3-4 years out of them.

The dogs are losing their minds about the fact that there is a small aquarium-sized bin in Franny’s room full of delicious bird-snacks. When they get a bit bigger in a couple of weeks I told her they have to move to the basement since they get so dusty as they feather out.


No Name Manson (waiting for a name from P.)


Audrey Horne chicken


Clementine


Laura Palmer

Should be a busy week–heading to the Ironworkers today and then speed mentoring with tradeswomen tonight. This was announced at the last minute, but the consolation prize for staying late is that I get to watch everyone eat pizza. Ha ha. Then plasterers tomorrow, and brick masons on Wednesday. I will be tired by Thursday!

Say Goodbye to Your Old Friends

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WELL. Yesterday I went to my awesome dentist of a dozen years for the old semi-annual cleaning. I expected someone new because my hygienist of many years got promoted to more of a management position at the office and is now doing advanced dental work. She filled some of my teeth a few months ago. She was THE best and dealt with years of my sad bloody-as-a-stuck-pig mouth, which has since toughened up post-proper nutrition. She promised she would hand me off to someone who was a good fit.

So I showed up yesterday and my appointment started 20 minutes late, which is unusual for this office, but shit happens and I didn’t have anywhere to be. A hygienist emerged who kind of looked like Angela Merkel, but with worse highlight work, and said, “Alexander?” I get that all the time and kind of shrugged it off. Most people apologize once I correct them, but not this lady. “Well that can be a first name, though, right?”

She seemed kind of awkward and out of it at the same time. I had this funny feeling like she was really ill at ease and her sentences would start out kind of quiet and hesitant and increase in volume and certainty by the end, like she was at a terrifying interview and giving herself little pep talks every 10 seconds.

I mentioned my allergies, because I could see some of the products out on the table that I knew had corn in them, like the tooth polish. “Oh, I didn’t see that. I’ll make a note in your chart about those,” she said. I thought this was weird because I knew my old hygienist had taken extensive notes last time I was in.

I’ll skip past the rest of the weirdness, like her way of questioning me about what corn actually does not me (not a weird question–she just phrased it oddly like everything) and then her telling me all about how she went vegan five years ago and all about vegan cheese. I had to tell her like three times that yes, I have made cashew cheese. I felt like she didn’t believe me because she started quizzing me about the ingredients, which I knew and was able to tell her. And did I know about almond and coconut milk? What.

There was some folderol with the water pik thing, which is so painful it makes me twitch involuntarily.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Well, no. I forgot how painful that thing is. It’s not been used on me for at least five years, thank god.” I didn’t want to explain to her that I thought I’d try it, since my teeth are overall less sensitive now. STILL PAINFUL.

She switched to the old school metal picks, which is great with me. My previous lady did a great job with them, even when my mouth looked like the elevator in The Shining. Now I barely bleed. I noticed she was skipping around a bit, and being fairly perfunctory with some teeth when she stopped abruptly and I heard a “ting!”

The pick had hit the ground. She bent over, retrieved it. I did not hear it being placed on the tray or put aside. Did the floor pick…go back in my mouth? It couldn’t be. I felt myself tensing up a little. She was letting the sucky tube hang on the edge of my mouth, like it was a hanger and I was that dry cleaning flippy in the backseat of a car. I started really tensing up.

Okay, this is very pathetic but I got really anxious then. She was reminding me of the dentist who did my first filling when I was six, who had me hold my own Novocaine shot still inserted in my gums when he went out of the room to get something. I was very scared about the shot anyway, but to have to hold the needle in my head and be alone in the room was a bridge too far. I felt like I was right on the verge of being a little teary.

I told myself to GET A FUCKING GRIP; it was just a terrible cleaning. Then the sucky thing fell out of my mouth and landed on the floor. I listened for a sign that she was changing the plastic, or the straw itself…nothing. It went back into my mouth. Something flipped in my head then, weirdly. I began to find the situation humorous somehow. “Just get through this,” I told myself. I think she dropped a pick twice more. When she finished my teeth weren’t clean. I was a tiny bit heartbroken my old hygienist had seen fit to pair me with this person.

I asked myself in the car why I didn’t confront her right then and jump out of the chair. That was an extremely valid question to be asking. I think I still have this habit of shutting down sometimes when shit gets weird or off script. It’s a bad “habit,” and an old one. Shit got weird a lot when I was growing up, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to change or control it, so I always got pretty poker face. My sister had the opposite reaction. When she got pushed too far she would scream! I remember thinking to myself, “I did not know that was possible.” Part of me admired it, in a way, even though ideally she wouldn’t have had to repeatedly react to trauma with earshattering screams.

It’s funny how you can step on an old rake, isn’t it?

My dentist was also new, since I had to reschedule my appointment due to Lady Hammer Club. The dentist seemed very young and was wearing red Converse and sitting on a yoga ball. I felt about 90 then. Then he told me my teeth were “cute” and there was marveling over my intact, straight wisdom teeth. WHAT. (Again.)

At the front desk on the way out I was scheduling my next appointment with the office manager, whom I have known from that office for many years.

“Sooo is Angela Merkel new?” I asked.

“Why, what happened,” I got from the manager, deadly serious.

I told her about the dropped tools and she blanched and apologized. I told her my teeth didn’t feel clean. I told her that she was generally clumsy and kind of mashing my nose and face. I skipped the part about veganism because I wouldn’t say she was proselytizing or being mean really.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” I told the office manager. “I eat food off the floor. I’m an animal. But I like to choose what comes off the floor and into my mouth.”

I was given a free reclean for next week. Then something good happened. The office manager said, “Angela Merkel is covering for your new hygienist, who is visiting her family in Europe for a month.” She was just a sub! Whew. Anyway, that is enough about my trip to Spain, my childhood pain.

Lady Hammer Club Update

The apprentice wrangler at the carpenter’s shop was upset we’re spending time in shop class building birdhouses and not cement forms. Also we are not carrying enough plywood or driving enough nails. We’re being timed on 3 at various angles and I came in under a minute and was proud of myself. HA. Apparently the test at the carpenters’ is 21 nails in two minutes. NO FUCKING WAY. I do not want to be a carpenter. My sad hand got bruised just doing a total of 21 over the course of an afternoon.

We have also been to see the glaziers’ (glass splinters, horrifying) and have had mock interviews. I showed up after being in bed for two days with my coffee glutening, thinking I was rolling into a math class. NOPE. Schedule change. I sat in front of a panel consisting of a cement mason (who I already knew), a machine operator, and a brick mason, and got highest marks. I wore my Adblock hoodie zipped up all the way since I was also wearing a shirt with a swear on it, genius. I think I brushed my hair.

Then I got dinged for my absence. ARGH. “We want to see you at 90% attendance, or we won’t be able to give you letters of recommendation.” They also don’t release any of your certifications until and if you finish the program in September. They really have me by the short and curlies here, but the good news is I think they will be able to stuff me into an apprenticeship pretty quickly as long as I do the cha cha with them. Ironworkers is on Monday–very excited.


It’s pouring today and Goethe is hiding under the eave. Stretching, not being furce. Horace is medicated due to thunder today.

Let me take a page out of Pop Culture Happy Hour and say what is making me happy this week.

1. Todd

I’ve been buying 17-cent feeder goldfish to keep in my wee ceramic pond, which is a thing by itself I really enjoy, and waters my bees and wasps, but draws mosquito larvae. Drop some goldfish in there, and BOOM, no more larva in about half a day. The first batch croaked, and I went back for three more. Two of those croaked, and then Todd was The Fish Who Lived. I started feeding him, and the pond was looking like murky nitrogen city, so I brought him indoors to live in a pickle crock with the world’s ugliest mug that I got contracting at Amazon six years ago (we were near Kitchen). He can go back outside when the larvae come back.

I forgot how much I like keeping a goldfish! I used to keep one for Franny when she was going through an intense Elmo thing at two.

2. Vacation week

P. took the week off last week and I wanted to hang with him, but I was sick for part of it and in class. But he had a nice time, and finished the electrical and did some insulating in the basement. When I had days off we did things, like renting a canoe.


Look, he’s even happy trapped in some bitchass lilypads.

We went downtown to the piers and ordered NOTHING BUT HAPPY HOUR OYSTERS and some neat vodka (me) with a lime and scotch for him and did not get ill. I had a feeling about going to a place with a dedicated oyster bar and I was right! We haven’t been out to eat anything since May.

3. Camp

During that week, Strudel had a MARVELOUS time at Celiac camp and did not get ill once! They were so good. She made a bunch of friends and I got her a photo album to put her pictures in. One of the first things she said when we picked her up was, “CAN I GO AGAIN?” Hell yes. Next year we might even go out of town during, but stay close enough in case she breaks a leg or something.

How’s your summer??

I am the thumbmaster

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This is a good one. I’ve been sleeping and in bed for most of the day after “poisoning” myself this weekend. I was in South Seattle this morning getting ready to cut aluminum cubes on a big machine–living the dream, eh? We were getting the safety talk and I was only half-listening, rudely, because after feeling better this morning on waking, I felt worse again. I was making a list of everything I’d eaten since Saturday, since that was when I started feeling funny. Homemade everything, scratch mayo and ketchup, scratch spice blends that hadn’t bothered me before…. I took another pull of my coffee, still trying to wake up at 10 a.m. after over nine hours of sleep.

I zoned in and the teacher was telling a story about being 19 and in a hurry to go water skiing and spitting his finger right down the middle. That got my attention again.

“And in a second, there went water skiing,” he said. I saw the shiny scar that bisected his fingernail and finger, 30 years later.

That was it for me. Fuck machine cutting, I was going water skiing right then. I pulled my case manager aside.

“I’m not feeling well,” I said. “I have really bad food allergies and I ate something contaminated this weekend. I don’t trust myself to operate heavy machinery right now.”

“Oh,” she said, making a serious face.

“I’ll try to be back tomorrow, but I’ll stay in touch.”

I walked over to my personal piece of heavy machinery, the Elco. P. used the Honda to take the kid to drop her off at camp this morning, so I was in my magic carpet of highway gas-guzzling. Not the best choice for my site visits, which were often many miles away and required stop-and-go highway traffic. I calculated if there was any way I could get P. to pick me up, since I felt kind of drunk, like I’d taken sleepy meds. I knew it would take him hours to get down to where I was by bus, a fortune to cab it, and a hassle besides.

I knew I could drive glutened, I’d been doing it for years. My only concern was that I thought I might vomit once I got back on I-5. I looked at the empty vessel that is my hard hat forlornly as my mouth watered in the bad way.

Anyway, it was a hard weekend. I had half a pot’s worth of coffee beans Saturday morning, and got some more at the store and then made another pot after I got home. I started feeling a little loopy by Saturday night, but chalked it up to waking up too early on Saturday morning. I woke up on Sunday, made coffee, checked in with the bees, ate, and was useless by noon. I kept napping and tried to play the Wii and didn’t have the patience for that. I barely broke 100 in Scrabble Sunday night.

I came to bed Sunday night, determined to get lots of rest for this morning. I was really dreading going on the site visit or even leaving the house. I found myself asking what the point of any of this was. Why was I being so negative? I wondered.

“I feel like I’ve been drugged,” I told P., getting under the sheet. “I reached for the cat food just now and I could barely lift my arm.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Maybe you’re getting sick.” I didn’t like that. No one around me was sick, it was summer, and I just don’t get colds anymore.

So I got back this morning after a loooong drive without a radio (scream-singing “Come a Little Bit Closer” by Jay and the Americans and “Corcovado” to stay alert), the garage door grinding and the big blue beast announcing my presence.

“What’s up?” P. asked. He’s home on vacation this week.

“I’m sick.”

We did our usual detective work. He’d been super tired all weekend too, but the kid was fine, and she mostly ate the same things we did. I thought it was something I’d put in a frittata, because I had that reheated for breakfast, while she dined on leftover meatza from last night. My mood and alertness started tanking again after I’d eaten breakfast and showed up at at the site.

We’d gotten a couple of new things, but I didn’t think it was the dried figs…finally, I realized I started feeling bad when we’d gotten home on Saturday and I made a pot with the new coffee. Bringo. I felt worse Sunday morning (and for the rest of the day) when I made a pot, and again this morning. Something gluteny was in it, I didn’t know what. It doesn’t matter.

It is weird to drink coffee and have it make you feel more tired! P. cycled some vinegar water through the pot, and cleaned the grinder. I don’t really know what to do now. I love coffee. I normally drink Stumptown but we got a Costco membership recently to save money, and they don’t carry regional boutiquey brands, only big bags of Kirkland brand Good Luck with This. The first bag I bought was fine, though I did have a tiny twinge of worry as I do whenever I try anything new, even if it’s “100% Your Mom,” because that is often not quite true. This second bag was not okay. Last weekend in Twin Peaks I drank Starbucks at the meetups and even hotel room Keurig bilge water and did fine. It’s like red wine–I just can’t tell by looking at it when it’s going to have corn additives.

The bummer part is that I was all jazzed to sit for a math test with a union tomorrow. I think that would be a terrible idea now, like showing up for the SATs drunk. Really self-sabotaging. So I’m going to give it a couple/few days and then decide when to go. My test will be when I can spin up 4-plus letter words in Scrabble again, I suppose.

I have been wondering if I should give up coffee, since I am afraid of anything that will interfere with the work I need to do for the next couple of months/years. Inside I am screaming because I don’t want to give up one more thing. I really love it. When it’s good, I’m at Gilmorian levels of abuse. But being wiped out for the next few days isn’t worth it. I hate the confusion, the tiredness, the blunted affect. I hate being even more nervous about one more food.

I mentioned my worries about my future with coffee out loud after we’d figured out what was fucking us up this weekend. I had given it up in the past and had done fine.

“I’M NOT QUITTING COFFEE,” P. informed me. He’s out of good vices, too.

“Okay, okay, no one’s asking you to,” I said.

The good news is that Strudel is booted off to Celiac camp for a week. One of the directors emailed and asked me what she eats, like what brands of things, since the kids will be eating chips, pizza, and cookies. SHARP intake of breath from Strudel at this revelation, since we don’t usually go that processed anymore. I was thinking “HA! HA! Brands! How droll.” I did give her a list of things that have worked in the past, but I said you could probably feed her chicken/rice/veg all week and she’d be fine, she was used to eating differently, and could I send extra food or a food fee because PLEASE TAKE MY KID I REALLY NEED HER TO HAVE A NORMAL CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE AGAIN.

P. and I were worried they were going to write back and say she couldn’t come. My novel-length thesis on “what can your child actually eat” was sent on to one of the chefs, who has Celiac disease, as does her daughter who was diagnosed at birth. She knew about that and things like food dye allergies, the difference between xanthan gum and guar gum, and corn allergy flipouts. She’s convinced she can feed Strudel safely. I actually wept when I read it.

I hope she’ll be okay. I think she’ll have a good time. As many wise people have remarked over time, it’s simple, but it’s not easy.