Day One-hundred-and-twenty-seven: New life

Now I can get on with my Life after Layoff.  My election addition has come to an abrupt "cold turkey" end.  I will leave my TV off tomorrow even as I contact Comcast to cancel my cable TV.  This will give me so much more time to do all that I have been procrastinating:

• My resume' or curriculum vitae
• A Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund flier for posting in my cross-country trip
• My Toastmaster speeches
• All of the housework / home improvements
• Trip planning
• Writing, my blogs and more...
• Business research
• Investment management
• Personal development
• Reaching out to current friends and making more friends
• ...

I did do some things today.  For example, I took a trash bag of styrofoam packing in for recycling on my way to pick up a vegan burrito and some groceries.  (While I was out, I also picked up the equivalent of vegan junk food and proceeded to eat it.  I figured it was appropriate couch potato food as I did spend most of the day in front of the TV, even when I was sleeping on the couch.)  And I did sleep on the couch starting at about 3:00 AM this morning.

I am about to take a break and do my meditation, hopefully in the sky chair even though the outdoor temperature is currently 51 degrees.

In my store run, I bought more flour but will need to wait until Thursday night or even Friday to make it.  I don't want to mix it up tonight because I will probably want to eat it tomorrow.

I'm relieved the election is over and glad that the person I voted for has won.  I was glad to see that all the states that I made calls into also went for Obama and feel that the money I donated was used well enough for him to win.  I do feel for his loss of the person who mostly raised him yesterday as I am still feeling the loss of my wife daily.

Still, I am looking to the future, including the immediate future.  I can't wait to get on the road for my longer visit with my and my wife's families.  I am not necessarily looking forward to returning, particularly to the jury duty jeopardy February 2, 2009, but overall I have a lot that I want to do, which requires returning, at least for a while.  After all, I don't have any other base, yet.

Day One-hundred-and-twenty-six: Just before a diet

Today, the second to the last day before I cut off my TV, was mostly spent in front of it sleeping, when I wasn't eating or on the Internet.  Now, I'm tired.  I'm sure I will be watching a good bit tomorrow night as well.  Wednesday I call Comcast and cancel my TV but I will keep my Internet service, even over my six-week absence.

Thursday I have a Senior Support Group, laid off exec's not old, although most of the group are probably older, meeting in the morning in downtown San Francisco.  Then in the evening I have a Toastmasters meeting.  I did receive my Toastmaster material while I was gone.  I don't know whether it came Friday or Saturday.

I've always dreamed of curling up with a good book in the dormer of an attic when it was raining.  Today it rained just like I dreamed but I didn't have a good book, that I hadn't previously read, nor did I want to go out in the rain to get a new one.  Besides, it quit quickly enough that I would have been unlikely to find one and get back in time to read it while it was raining.  Nor come to think of it, do I have a dormer.

I've eaten well today, if a lot could be said to be well.  For dinner I made whole wheat pancakes but that was my most industrious cooking.  For lunch I warmed up a can of vegetarian baked beans and "cooked" some frozen mixed vegetables.  I shook a little of the Indian spices my oldest daughter gave me and they did make the vegetables quite tasty.  For breakfast I had my high-fiber standby, oatmeal and All Bran.

I thought about making bread but couldn't raise my enthusiasm to do it.  I even thought about making a batch of beer bread but needed to go get flour to do even that.  I couldn't even work up the energy to make any bread when I threw some hotdog buns away that had been in the freezer for at least a year.  I didn't even bother to toast them, let alone taste them.

I will have to go food shopping tomorrow and am thinking about making a run to deliver my youngest daughter's belated birthday present.  She flew off to Florida the weekend after her Friday birthday but I didn't even have it then.  She is due back tomorrow.  I don't know exactly when they are to fly in but if I can drop the present off in a way that animals won't get into it, not that it has any odor that would attract them, I don't actually have to see them.  I do want to get back for my last election addiction fix, watching the returns.

I didn't win the trip to Chicago to join Barack Obama's election night festivities, which should be obvious from my alternative plans, above.  I did get a call today where there was nothing on the other end.  I thought it might be one of those robo-calls so I hung up.  If it was from Obama's campaign, I may have missed out on a trip to Chicago.  Oh well, I didn't have anyone to go with any way.  Come to think of it, I haven't seen anyone today, even when I went out to collect my trash can and recycling bins.  Even though I get my energy from being alone and from more contemplative tasks, I do miss people in my Life after Layoff.  I just know too few people locally, and most of those work.  I'd hate to get a job just to be with people.  I have to find another way.

I know, I'll go off on a cross-country road trip to be with family for at least five weeks.

Day One-hundred-and-twenty-five: Selecting from memory or forgetting?

On my long drive back home today, in between phone calls and listening to Queen's Greatest Hits, or maybe while listening to Queen, I was thinking about how I don't really include everything in my blog. Now mostly you should be glad for that, but sometimes it isn't because I have selected the best that has occurred for inclusion, it is my memory.

For example, while I was traveling down to Pasadena on Friday, I was enjoying the garlic smell as I drove through Gilroy. It wasn't until the one lane section of 152 where I found myself behind a semi and smelling diesel instead of garlic that I realized that my recirculate air was turned off. I hadn't noticed it earlier because the intermittent rain was keeping the air rather clean. (My windshield fogging up was also the cause of the air recirculation getting turned off. Whenever I turn on heat, the Prius automatically turns off recirculation.)

Driving back today was uneventful. Early on I needed to get gas and was passing exit after exit on I-210 West without seeing a gas station totem on the expressway or a tall gas station sign. Finally, just before I-5, I saw an Arco sign. Now I rarely buy gas from Arco because the debit card fee $0.45 makes the gas cost as much or more for me as the stations that take credit cards. But, I was down to one bar and there was a place to get gas. So, I stopped. After trying to pay with my debit card at the cash only terminal, which tells you how long it was since I bought gas at an Arco, I finally went back to the pump and did it correctly. At least I never let my debit card go when trying to put it in the cash slot. (The last time I bought gas at an Arco in Fremont, all the payments were made at a terminal.)

With a full tank of gas, I followed the Prius' navigation instructions to go 0.7 of a mile back along the surface street next to I-210, cross under the expressway and proceed 0.7 of a mile back along the surface street on the other side to enter I-210 at the exit I had used to stop and get gas. If I had only turned left exiting from the gas station, I could have saved almost a mile and a half. I'd say this is living and learning in my Life after Layoff, but I hope never to need this knowledge. I never intend to buy gas there again. But this may be a learning that I already put to use. On my way home, I chose a more direct route and saw the Prius guidance mileage drop. I guess I still don't understand its route selection algorithms.

I did make it to the Bay Area in time to stop in at an REI to pick up something I had ordered online and had delivered there. While there I bought a tent and an 85 liter internal frame backpack. I bought them for my dream motorcycle riding around North America, and may have to buy more, but these two items were bought with the intent for multiple uses. Still my rational is that I should buy stuff like this while I still have money so when it comes time to actually do a ride, I won't procrastinate because I don't have the right equipment or consider that the cost is frivolous. Among the items I may still want to buy are a mummy bag and thermorest.

While I am not a fan of changing off of Daylight Savings and even less of a fan for changing to it, the dark occurring an hour earlier may get me to bed earlier. But then it is still later in my body time and that may get me to bed earlier as well. I still want to go sit in the sky chair and meditate. The last couple of nights I did it laying down in bed, very late. It may have helped me sleep but I'm not sure it was successful meditation, not even trans-incidental.

One final memory. While drinking wine at The Nose last night, there was a moment of a strong memory of a Thanksgiving visit in 2004 with my son and Marilyn. While Marilyn and my daughter went shopping, my son and I saw "National Treasure." Then we had a brainstorm of meeting at the Yard House with its over 100 beers on tap. Eventually we collected everyone, Marilyn, my daughter, her husband, my son, and me. My son and I had a head start with him trying several different beers. I stuck with Pilsner, which Marilyn also drank when she arrived, her own, not mine. My daughter was the designated driver and everyone else, regardless of when they started had plenty of beer.


(I just looked down at my clothes and realized that I'm wearing the exact shirt that I'm wearing in this picture. It does look a little older today. At least I didn't wear it to The Nose yesterday.)

Day One-hundred-and-twenty-four: Visiting while visiting

If a little wine is good for the stomach's sake, what is a lot of wine good for? Hopefully not a headache. Yes, we went to The Nose again tonight. This time for a blind wine tasting lesson. (The bottles were in bags not my eyes covered.) I got an appreciation for the dimensions of both appreciating and tasting wine and may have improved my ability to discriminate between good wine and bad wine, young wine and ready to drink wine, Old World vs. New World, ... I even bought another bottle of wine that will be ready to drink in five to seven years. The delay is good, because I don't have anyone to drink it with and will not be drinking it alone. I don't drink that much. It will be good to have some wine in my wine fridge that belongs to me. Who would have thought that this late in my life I could even begin to turn into a wine snob? This is possible only in my Life after Layoff.

Earlier in the day we went for lunch at a former co-worker of my daughter's. She and her husband have a 13 pound young one, like a month old. He was born at ten pounds. We ate and visited around the dining table, with the food still on it. This led to a lot of overeating, at least by me. I certainly wasn't hungry at the wine tasting. My daughter held the baby like a pro, which led me to ask if doing so turned on her maternal instinct. She didn't say yes but did remind me of her group babysitting experience at a local church in Fremont, a graphic verbal reminder, which she admitted to being the best birth control.

Earlier in the day we went to the Farmer's market. There were lots of good food to buy and also, as my daughter pointed out, a McCain booth. I couldn't tell it from any of the signs, or the traffic. All the people I saw were at the Obama booth, where there were a lot of Obama signs. There were signs at the McCain booth, just not McCain signs. Instead, most, if not all of the signs, were "Yes on Eight" signs. After we got back to their house, my daughter went to work fixing lunch that was picnic basket shlepped over to her friends. I did whatever I was asked to do, including grating some fresh ginger for the ginger snaps she made even though I didn't eat any. Mostly I stayed out of the way.

Earlier in the day I got up and had steel cut oats cooked overnight in the crockpot.

All in all, it was a very filling and fulfilling day.

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 One-hundred-and-twenty-two: The "word"

You'd think that picking a word for my Toastmasters meeting today would be easy for someone who used to read a dictionary for fun. In fact, I have received more than one dictionary as gifts. When I was much younger and reading a good bit of Shakespeare, I was always impressed by what I was told about him more than his actual writing, although I still enjoy his comedies. He is supposedly holds the record for an individual adding the most words to the English language. Since that time, I've always wanted to add words to the English language. Unfortunately, whenever I try to be like Shakespeare, I sound more like Bush.

Besides, individual additions to English aren't generally successful. Instead we are more likely to see cross cultural slang make it as new words. It's not my intention to "dis" any culture with this example. Besides, the oral start of these language extensions make it impossible to trace back to their individual origins.

I finally decided on vacillate. It seemed to be the most appropriate word to depict my lack of decision process to actually pick a word.

By the time I got up this morning, finished my exercises, went into the kitchen to fix breakfast, and cleaned up the kitchen so I could fix a hot breakfast, it was 10:30. So I had a grapefruit and some soy yogurt for breakfast. Then I got cleaned up and went out to get some Beano so I could eat lunch.

After my shower this morning, I noticed that I am still "squeegeeing" the shower walls. This was another of Marilyn's bathroom rules and is already one of my yet to be written topics for my Memories of Marilyn blog. I remember that one of my traveling pleasures was staying in hotels, and not having to scrape the water off the walls. Now that I could literally indulge in that pleasure every day, I am still doing so. It allows me to drip dry a little bit while I'm taking care of the walls and may really reduce hard water spotting. I certainly don't know what cleaner to use on the cultured marble in the shower I use most often. Well, there are still some days where I am too rushed to "squeegee," but they are very few in my Life after Layoff.

The wind has been blowing rather strongly all day. Under the willow tree it positively looks fall with all the leaves on the ground. Maybe my meditation is working. I look at those leaves now and see beauty where before I probably would have seen work. It's supposed to rain tonight and even more strongly Saturday night. I'll still need to water some plants tomorrow. I also needed to clean out the rain gutters but will not be doing so before this rain.

After the election, I've decided that I'm going to cancel my cable. This means that I will not have TV service, except for rented DVDs. Not only have they increased the cable cost, I'm watching far too much of it. Besides, I'll be gone for at least six weeks. I've gone without TV before, although it was years ago. Then I had a lot of company and didn't miss it at all. Now I may miss it but have too many other things I want to do to let it continue to control my Life after Layoff.

Day One-hundred-and-twenty-one: Third times the charge

Banks don't really know money, well, how to give it up. It took me three times and three days to finally get money transferred out of my account. If it weren't for the lousy interest they give me, I could think that their slowness outbound is beneficial to me. Instead, I know it is all for them, because of the lousy interest they give me.

I did the outside, sky chair meditation again today. Instead of the squirrel, today I just saw a partially eaten apple. It was a little brighter, not only because of the fogless, crisp, clear day, but also because the willow tree has lost even more leaves. Now, sitting in a sky chair, which hangs on one hook, means that typically I bob, swing and twist. When the sun is bright, like it was today, the movement of sky chair makes the sun a really bright blinking light. As I sit still, the chair slows down its motion and the blinks slow as well. Thank goodness the rest point doesn't face me into the sun.

While I enjoy it in the afternoon, I still think I like the night time better. The birds and squirrels may not be out but the contractors working on a neighboring house aren't either.

While I must admit to some bias, I was impressed with Barack Obama's half hour. Now for the long night of analysis. I really don't think that I will be able to stay awake that long. Besides, I still have to find my dictionaries to choose my Toastmaster word. I also have to stink up my front yard again to keep the deer from eating their favorite plant. (Liquid Fence's primary odiferous ingredient is rotten eggs.)

Well, another short entry, a blessing for the regular readers and the irregular writer. I can use every blessing I get in this Life after Layoff.