Day One-hundred-and-fifty-seven: First destination

Since I knew I didn't have far to go, I decided to sleep in. But, I woke up around 4:00 AM anyway. I wrote a little bit then turned the TV on and went back to sleep. (I don't know whether I bored myself or it was ultimately the TV that did it.) I finally got up around 8:00 AM. By the time I went down for breakfast, read the free USA Today, and went back up to my room for cleaning myself up and packing, I was checking out at 10:00 AM. I then drove across the road to a service station to pump up my low tire, again.

It was indeed a short drive into Columbus and a stop at one of the two Columbus, well, one is in Upper Arlington, Whole Foods. (There may have been others on my trip across the country but I didn't have the right city name to enter in my Prius' navigation system.) While at the Columbus Whole Foods, I purchased the ingredients and some of the cooking implements to make cupcakes, gingerbread, and whole wheat olive bread. I also dropped off another flyer for the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund.

Of course, they didn't have everything I wanted, so I went on to Sur La Table. It's really nice having a navigation system. What was even better, the only Sur La Table in the area was directly on the way to my sister-in-law's. The store next door was the Diamond Cellar, so I bought a longer chain for my and Marilyn's wedding bands. They are also fixing the engraving on the heart. I am to pick it all up December 23rd. (A Christmas present from me to me.)

Of course, I forgot to get all the stuff I was intending to get at Sur La Table and still needed to go out for olives. So once I got my car unloaded, I went out for the olives.

The nice thing about all the driving I've already done in and around Columbus is that I happened to drive by the Toyota dealer I will be taking the car to tomorrow for servicing. I won't even have to set up the navigation system. It's nice knowing where I'm going in my Life after Layoff. I just wish that were true in all aspects of "where I'm going." (Hey children, if you are reading this, note the correct use of the subjunctive mood.)

Day One-hundred-and-fifty-six: Last hotel, for a while

Another four state day but in 135 fewer miles with almost 40 of the 565 I did log due to my going around Indianapolis to deliver a Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund flyer to a Whole Foods north of town. I also delivered one to a Whole Foods in St. Louis earlier. Yes, I'm finally in Ohio but couldn't drive on any more.

When I got in my car, just before 8:00 AM CST, I noticed a weird symbol lighted on the dash. I looked in the glove compartment for a Prius manual but finally figured out that it meant a low tire. I stopped at the very next exit, which fortunately had a gas station with an air pump. It cost $0.75 to fill it back to where the light went off and it didn't come back on throughout the day's driving.

The day was overcast all day and started spitting rain the middle of Illinois. This left me driving with my wipers on either intermittent or low continuous the rest of the trip.

I tried drafting behind trucks in Missouri on my way to St. Louis. The first truck turned off. I turned off for a rest area from behind the second one. (Caffeinated tea this morning.) I traded the third one in on a faster truck but gave up on all of it when they all turned in to a weigh station. The last truck I had trouble keeping up with, which may have mitigated the draft effect, if there was one to begin with.

Driving behind trucks for whatever reason has a couple major drawbacks: my visibility as a driver was very limited and I couldn't use cruise control. The truck's speed, regardless of how fast they were going varied constantly.

Just after I made an appointment to have my Prius serviced Friday morning, my "MAINT REQD" dashboard light came on.

I listened to most of the albums on what was Marilyn's iPod in today's drive. I just started going through them in alphabetical order. I tried but couldn't listen to Placido Domingo's "Perhaps Love" album, perhaps because I bought the CD especially for Marilyn as a collection of romantic love songs.

I don't know whether it was a joke or real, but it was cute regardless. St. Clair, Missouri, had two water towers next to each other. One was labeled "COLD" and the other was labeled "HOT."

In St. Louis, my Prius navigation system kept wanting to send me on I-64 to get to the Whole Foods. The only problem was that the road was being completely redone and not open for any cars. I finally got far enough away by going at a right angle to I-64 that the Prius calculated a route that didn't involve it. At least the attempt to find an alternative way took me through an area of quite upscale houses.

As it turned out, just before the Ohio border, there was a gauntlet of billboards. While I first thought the Ohio border occurred just before that line up, after I saw the location of the real border, I realized that it was Ohio that had the greater billboard restrictions and the border Ohio businesses were using Indiana's looser laws to advertise their businesses.

Up until Indiana, the truck and car speed limits were the same on the expressway. (In Texas, they were the same on the country roads as well.) In Indiana, they were just five miles apart, typically 70/65, with the 65 for truly huge trucks. Once in Ohio, the speed limits became 65/55 and for much smaller trucks. Of course, this had the effect of making the right lane a solid wall of trucks that frequently slowed the fast lane down as the somewhat faster trucks would slowly pass the somewhat slower trucks. As a result, I guess I drafted a little more than I really intended. While most of my Life after Layoff thus far has been simply slowing down, it's hard in traffic to avoid hurrying up both in an attempt to avoid slowing down but ultimately only to slow down anyway. I did consciously try to avoid having it affect my mental outlook, but that is an old trap that was too easy to fall into. Deep breathing while driving helped, when I recognized what I was doing.

Day One-hundred-and-fifty-two: Nevada Backcountry

I didn't look in the Atlas for the "as the crow flies" distance between Reno and Las Vegas, but I followed the short route on my Prius navigator.  This had me going NW, SE, E, and S.  It also had me on a wash board dirt road for what turned out to be only 14 miles.  The maximum speed I could go on that road made me believe the Prius' navigation estimate of 11 hours.  It was actually closer to eight hours.

The scenery before it got repetitive was really great.  Even the repetitive parts were great, but literally two or three hundred miles of high desert caldera looking land.  Every once in a while I had to cross the rims that it looked like the caldera through up.  I did take some pictures.

I had my doubts about the dirt road that got worse.  About a mile from Alt 95, right at Fortchurchill, it became paved again. I thought that I was coming up on a town but it turned out to be a Nevada Auto Test site.

The mountain tops were dusted with snow but the road level was clear, even at the plus six thousand feet.  While still on the dirt road I passed a formation that looked like a small version of the Devil's Postpile.

The dirt road ran along Carson River.  I took a picture but all that can be seen are trees.  Of course in a desert, the only place a tree can grow is where there is water.  This route took me through Virginia City.  Marilyn and I did make it to Virginia City once because she wanted to see the city that the Cartrights rode to from the Ponderosa.  (We drove by the Ponderosa a couple times near Lake Tahoe but never stopped there.)  We toured "The Way It Was" museum and I thought about stopping and taking a picture but that was when the Prius was telling me it would take 11 hours to drive to Las Vegas.

I'm sure Marilyn would have liked Tonopah and Goldfield.  She probably would have had me pull into the 20-mile beach at Walker Lake.  There were long stretches where we couldn't have stopped for a rest break and I made it all the way to my exit in Las Vegas, which was surprising, given the amount of water I drank.  The air is dryer.

I set the Prius up to take me to a Whole Foods in Las Vegas to post my flyer for the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund.  As I was leaving Reno, I happened to be driving right by a Whole Foods, so I stopped in.  They didn't allow customer postings.  All the way to Las Vegas, this stuck in my mind.  But when I got to the Las Vegas Whole Foods, as I was checking out, I asked the clerk about posting it.  She said, "Sure, just put it on the bulletin board over there."  There was a perfect open space for it.  I'll still have quite a few left when I get back to Ohio and West Virginia so I will have to take a different way back to California.

Early tomorrow I want to leave for Zion National Park.  I don't intend to stay there long as I also want to get all the way to Gallup.  I had thought to take a more northern route into Taos but that would be even further on roads that zig zag as much as my Nevada travels today.

Even though I have not burned through all the money I set aside to gamble with, I will not be going out to a casino tonight.  Conflicting desires mean that I'd prefer to go to sleep early to be able to get up early over getting all smoked up again.  Tough choices in my Life after Layoff.  Oh well, there are Indian Casinos in New Mexico and River Boat casinos in Saint Louis.  And there is always the return trip.

Day One-hundred-and-forty-nine: Domestic Day on steroids

This morning has been just like I dreamed it would be, a nightmare of work but without the horrible feelings or ending.  Right off I did the dishes.  I started unloading the dishwasher only to realize that I had not in fact run it yet.  So, I quickly put back the things I had already taken out and added what I could.  Then, while really running it, I hand washed the remaining.

While they were drying I mowed the back yard, but only in one direction rather than cross-hatched like I normally do, and put my kitchen garbage and the clippings in the compost, along with the shredded newspaper and compromising documents.  Since I had noticed that the agapantha blossoms were all now seed stalks, I decided to cut them off and stuffed them in the green bin.  (Another reason never to take the compost from the recycling yard and agapantha seeds aren't likely to be the worst seeds in it.)  By this time it had started to drizzle but I decided to go ahead and vacuum out the Prius' deck.  It held off the serious rain until I had done so.  As I forgot to water down the compost, with its covering of paper, it is fortunate that I also did not put the cover on.  Now the rain is watering it down.  Hopefully I will remember to put the cover on before I leave.

Next I went inside and did the syrup for ginger bread and made two dozen vegan chocolate cupcakes.  Of course this required additional dish washing because I needed the mixing bowls and measuring spoons later today.

After a quick lunch of salad, a mix of the Fresh Herb Salad, green onion, garbanzo beans, radishes, and my flax oil apple vinegar vinaigrette, I took off for Whole Foods and REI.  After mailing the last of the Christmas Letters for which I had addresses, I remembered that I didn't have anything to hang the flyer with.  So, I turned around and went back to my house for the push pins.  Whole Foods approved its posting.  I almost wish I had a hammer.  It was not a cork board but one of those wood chip ply boards.  I also bought stuff from Whole Foods.

Then to REI for my Trekker Sleeping Pad and if I had stopped stopping there, I would have been home much sooner.  Instead I went to Macy's looking for a memory foam cushion.  They didn't have one but I did get a memory foam pillow on sale with a 20% discount on top of that and a 15% discount, if I used my Macy's card.  I didn't have my Macy's card and thought the card that Marilyn had was her card.  When I entered her SSN, there was no card.  (Yes, I still remember it.)  When I entered mine, it found one.  I don't know whether they have the right address or not.  I'm sure Marilyn didn't use her Macy's card since we moved.

As I was leaving Macy's my oldest daughter called to ask me to get some MandMs and a can of Fosters for the grilled beer turkey they are making tomorrow.  I went to Costco for them.  I'm glad I called back to find out which kind or I would have only bought Peanut M&Ms.  Since they wanted Plain MandMs, I got both, after I found them.  I had to walk all over Costco and ask a couple of people, unsuccessfully, before I found them.  However, I did find Beano.  A vegan diet that is heavy in legumes should use a lot of Beano.  The alternative isn't pretty.  Of course, MandM's and Beano aren't all that I bought.

Since Costco didn't have Fosters, Australian for beer, I stopped at Safeway.  There again I bought more than what I stopped for.

Finally back at home I mix up the Gingerbread and set the timer for 30 minutes.  While the Gingerbread was cooking, I completed the flyers by attaching the card holders.  I plan on giving my daughters a few, leaving me with nine or ten for posting across the country and in Columbus.  After I finished the flyers I realized that my timer should have gone off.  I hadn't started it.  The Gingerbread was done.  It may be dry but it doesn't appear to be burned.  Then I mixed up the whole wheat olive bread and whole wheat bread that I am baking tomorrow morning.

Some where in all of this, I fixed and ate my dinner.  Surprise, surprise, this leaves me with a kitchen of dirty dishes full circle back to this morning.

Still to go tonight, after this posting, I will vacuum the floors, which will require a decent amount of picking up, and clean off my HP laptop.  Today has been quite fulfilling, possibly the most so in my Life after Layoff.

Day Seventy-nine: Eating and shopping, grocery shopping

After the final two of my sisters with two of their daughters left this morning, my parents and I settled in for some real down time. This involved playing cribbage, watching TV, going out to eat lunch, and buying food. When we returned home and actually started fixing the food, I discovered that I had forgotten to buy two key ingredients. What else could we do but go out to another grocery store.

After all the walking of the previous two days, a vegan day of vegetating suited the old and older folks just fine.

Dinner was great with lots of left overs. My mother made vegan potato salad. I made mango black bean salad. We also had tomato and onion open face sandwiches using the two pound tomato my father had found at Whole Foods. (There was even some of that left over.)

I have a loaf of whole wheat olive bread raising in the oven.

Everyone of my sisters left me money, money they could use more than me. Christmas gifts are funded... (The problem with gifts is that they require shopping. Since I love it so much, not, I'd better get started.) Maybe I'll do some of it on the road to Ohio and West Virginia as I drive there for December.

Before I can go to bed tonight, I need to fold the clothes that are on my bed, one of three loads that I've done today. (The last one is still in the dryer.) There always seems to be some last thing to do in this Life after Layoff.

Day Sixty-two: Officially out of the rat race

I'm now taking it as as a sign. When I picked up the dead rat, a fairly small one, and put its stinking carcass in my trash can I wasn't. It was just another chore that was added to the list I made in my head as I was driving home. I was just glad that it was trash night. And trash night was the reason I had to come home before Labor Day. It would have been nice to drop in on my Pasadena daughter and her husband on my way home rather than breezing by their house. But, I had missed the two previous trash nights and needed to clear out some green bin stuff or the brown weed would have been here for my son's wedding.

Besides, having an extra day to work on the house, particularly cleaning my vehicles can only be good.

Since I made my entry early yesterday, I should say that I had a great dinner that was topped off by fireworks. Across the water there was some symphony for which the last piece was associated with fireworks. Couldn't really hear the music but we were perfectly placed to see the fireworks. The real neat part was that I had just decided to walk outside of the restaurant and was out there for all of the fireworks.

I didn't wake up to an alarm clock this morning, but I might as well have done so. I woke up at the same time the alarm was set for the previous days. At least this morning I was a little, well a lot, lazier getting around. I made sure I didn't leave anything but got out of there as soon as I could, I really wanted to get back and water, haul trash, unload and unpack, log on one last time to my work computer. Well, not that I really wanted to do any of that stuff but I didn't want to suffer the consequences of not doing them: dead plants, a stinky house, ...

The house was stinky enough with no air circulating for a few hours more than a week. So, even though the outside temperature was around 57, I still opened up a couple windows. The stink may have been from my stewing worm food. In the rush to leave, I didn't get it taken out. If it was the source of the not so bad odor that was taken care of by opening a couple windows, I didn't want to open the somewhat sealed garbage bucket and confirm a worse odor. Besides, come to think of it, I just took out all my paper in the paper recycling.

I had thought to fix dinner so stopped at Whole Foods and got something to fix. But by the time I got everything else done, I didn't feel like fixing, or eating. Oh well, there is always tomorrow and I did have two meals, literally, for lunch. Now to clear my bed of unpacked but not stowed stuff, get ready and go to bed.

No more alarm clocks! At least not until the next time I need to guarantee I'm up in time, hopefully not until the next NLN Conference in Orlando in 2010. I hadn't realized how much not having to get up to an alarm clock had become part of my Life after Layoff. Its not that I'm not industrious, or don't even get up early, I think it's just the symbol, the wrong symbol, that an alarm clock stands for.

Day Fifty-six: Plenty of time to work

My title for this post is something I never wanted to use again, even in this context: getting something done under time pressure. But, given what I am working on, it is the best context possible. I am working on a PowerPoint slide show with more pictures and greater explanation than just the poster, which still needs to be finished, can convey.

After breakfast, after cleaning up (breakfast dishes and myself), which was after my daughter and her husband left for their real work; after cleaning off the mud from my tennis shoes, which I hadn't worn since we planted the low-maintenance front yard (at least three weeks ago); after trying to use their computer to access the Internet and failing; I decided that I really needed sunscreen and while I was out might as well get lunch and hook up to a free wifi service.

So, I navigated to Whole Foods Market and bought my sunscreen along with a travel sized bottle of mouthwash and lunch and snacks. It was 11:00 AM when I checked out so I decided to have an early lunch. After eating I walked over to a Starbucks in the same strip mall, sat down with my decaf soy latte and proceeded to use Whole Foods' free wireless. If only I had known. I really didn't need a latte, particularly one that only has the diuretic effect going for it. Besides, Starbucks was warmer than Whole Foods, probably from all the steaming of soy milk. On top of all of that, the Whole Foods signal was weaker at the Starbucks end of the mall.

Except for some final timing, the PowerPoint slide show is done, well, as done as I'm going to make it. Tears have flowed freely all day. I will have to see if NLN is interested in posting it for the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund.

After dinner, which my daughter prepared, her artist side arranged the pictures, captions, and titles. (My small role was helping her use all of her tools to cut them all out.) She has made some phenomenal backing and framing choices from her collection of special papers, some of which were selected by Marilyn. Tomorrow night is the actual taping down.

Today I discovered that my Life after Layoff is better when I'm with people than when I'm alone. My ability to share with Marilyn will always be special but the contrast couldn't have been greater today. I was with my son-in-law and daughter this morning and evening and alone in a strange city while they were at work.