Day One-hundred-and-forty-four: The Dependable Mail

Two days ago, Wednesday, I thought it was interesting but not significant when I recycled all my mail before I made it back into the house. Then yesterday, Thursday, I didn't get any at all. Now, I must admit that I don't really wish for much of the mail I do get, but ever since I listened to The Secret, I have been expecting checks. Now the time that each day's mail is delivered can vary so I didn't think it was significant that it wasn't there when I check throughout the afternoon. When I checked at 10:40 PM, I finally had to concede that I wasn't getting any. (I don't want to ruin a good story but I actually go into the garage for other purposes and check while I'm out there. Finding all those separate reasons to go into the garage could be quite taxing if I didn't recycle so much.) I didn't check until 6:30 PM today. There was mail but no checks.

I mixed up a batch of Almost No Knead Bread last night. Before I could bake it, I had to clean the kitchen. I probably would have done the cleaning anyway but it did require getting on it early so I could have the bread for lunch, a late lunch. While I thought about eating it all, I restrained myself. Besides, after the Spicy Mole Oatmeal Chili and the Mango Black Bean Salad, I was so full I could only eat one slice. It made a great dessert with honey on it. Even though I have some more Earth Balance spread, I forbore to applying it.

I learned today that my brother-in-law was laid off today. There's a lot of this going around. Unlike me with my empty nest, he still has all of his children at home, with one heading off to college next year and the other soon to follow. With the crashing stock market and the burgeoning unemployment, my Life after Layoff is not as stress free as I would have liked, but I remember back to early 1994 when I had much the same situation. I was really stressed then.

I don't know whether or not it was this by way of this blog or not, but I have received emails from others who are out of work with families. I can't get my mind off of the old joke: "Recession is when you are out of a job. Depression is when I'm out of a job." The I's have it. Too many people are in a depression. My savings is down over 40% from its high, including the thousands I put into it over the years from its high to now. I should be able to continue my freedom through next year but without some recovery, I will need more income than I had hoped after that.

I don't know how long my trip back for my visiting, particularly now that I have some work to do on that end of it, but I had thought to make stops at casinos along the way and call it my "Den of Inequities" tour. I'm willing to share my winnings, particularly since I had some visitors who left grubstakes. It can't add that much time and may help me win as I will quit while I'm ahead more easily to get on the road and avoid long losing streaks to get back on the road.

I started printing my Christmas letter but stopped less than but almost half way through. I knew I couldn't just load the printer and have it print so after printing the first one, I tried printing five. The first page/side printed fine so I restocked them to print the second page/back side. Those didn't feed correctly, ruining three of my Christmasy bordered sheets. So I printed a bunch more of side one and printed the back side individually. Then I doubled the number I was printing for side one, except I put them in the wrong way and printed three with the first page on the back. After I corrected my error, while printing the rest of the first page batch, there was a misfeed. In short, including my draft sample, I've messed up eight of my 100 sheets and it is taking far longer than I thought it would. Only two aren't useable, as in illegible, so if I absolutely need to, my family will be getting less than perfect Christmas letters. Since I wrote it, it is pretty well guaranteed that all others will as well, but some of them will look better.

I just wish I could find her other address book.

Day One-hundred-and-twenty-three: Walt Disney Concert Hall

Another first! My daughter and son-in-law took me to see a silent movie at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was the 1925 "Phantom of the Opera" with live organ music. It was great start to finish. The organist started by talking about the movie, which was actually the third release. Then played some superbly choreographed music, non-stop. The door chime, or alarm, was so superbly matched up it took me a while to realize that it wasn't part of the film.

Great conversation on the Metro going and coming. A lot of people were dressed up for Halloween, or in the warm weather, not dressed so much. Certainly many of the females had on relatively short skirts. Several had on weird leggings or stockings or whatever they were. If they were characters, I didn't recognize them. Sitting in our row at the hall was a Joker, straight out of Batman. I saw a guy with the "Back to the Future" colander on his head. As we were riding back to their place, a gaggle of butterflies got off the train as we boarded. There must be a party somewhere downtown.

Nobody came around before we had to leave for the treats I brought down. My daughter did take some to the next door neighbors and at least got rid of three.

I will now get less sleep when I visit as they have wireless. It is too easy to sit on my bed and use the Internet. At least I will be current in my blog entries. Staying current in my Life after Layoff is something to be desired.

I had a good drive down here. The day started out a little on the wet side. There were a couple times I had to put my wipers on constant rather than intermittent but once out of the Bay Area, the rain stopped even though the clouds didn't. They were spectacular the entire trip. I also noticed quite a few less pleasant sights, the cattle feed lots and the super sized bales of cotton. I know that cotton takes a lot of water to grow and the feed lots are sick cattle hell. The latter makes me glad I'm once again a vegan. California has a proposition on the ballot, Proposition 2, that mandates better treatment for the animals in the factory farms. I don't recall whether or not there is anything in it about cattle but chickens are supposed to be able to spread their wings.

I listened to The Secret again all the way through. It's long enough to take up most of the trip but still short enough to get all the way through. But then again, I didn't always get it paused when I got phone calls, one of which was yet another attempt to sell me an extended warrantee for the Prius, which I better already have.

Tomorrow, which is already here, wake up will come rather soon so I need to head to bed. As I can say with some regularity, "I'll write more later."

Day Sixty-six: Loss of productivity

I couldn't watch the Republican convention last night or the repeats. I find that I'm getting tired of the political speeches. This doesn't mean I don't have an Internet addiction. In fact, it's obvious that far too many people do. I read the blogs and particularly the comments, the comments that are added to before I can read all the ones that have already been posted. This is a tremendous drain on my productivity, or could be without some severe self-imposed restrictions.

I only do it while I'm waiting for something, or at the end of the day. Now it takes a certain amount of creativity to find things that have built in waiting time. Take this morning for example: I chose to fix myself steel cut oats because they were supposed to simmer a whole thirty minutes. I could have done something more productive with that time but my very portable laptop was on the table so I declared it "waiting time." Of course, my laptop being on the table also meant that I could "wait" between bites.

Leisurely meals are supposed to be healthier for a person...

The rest of my morning was truly one of productivity without progress. I did a load of laundry after I changed the sheets on the guest bed. I made a pot of chili, primarily to use up the cilantro that I had left from the earlier Mango Black Bean Salad, and to use some more of that delicious chili powder my daughter got me. I also made a double batch of chocolate cupcakes, 24, for Saturday. I enjoyed the chili for lunch and licking the bowl was dessert, although I didn't eat them in the traditional order. I do hold with the philosophy that since life is uncertain, one should eat dessert first. Eating when I want and what I want is The Secret of Life after Layoff.

I'd like to say that my productivity continued into the afternoon. I did start a couple loaves of bread possibly for Saturday. Both are Whole Wheat but one also has olives. I also put a lot of effort for little result in washing the truck's wheels, well two of them, one of them twice. I was following the instructions, including the use of rubber gloves. With my lack of progress and noticing holes in one of my gloves, I decided to try again when the sun wasn't so bright, hot, and burning. Oh, I did dry the laundry I washed this morning. My final bit of work this afternoon was the creation of a list, a list of all I still had to do. I kept it very high-level so as to not be overwhelmed. Lists are good for at least one thing, the crossing of completed items off of them. It is also a reason to put things that I know I will do, like bake the bread I now have raising. At least I didn't put things like get up (each day), ... But maybe a computer program/scheduler would be a good place for all of that. I know, I'll put it on a list.