No, Because....

I've have a difficult day. Let me tell you about it.

It started well, with a rather pleasant job interview across town. I was surprised and pleased to discover that the downtown stretch of I-10, the ramps to which have been closed for over a year, was finished and the ramps were open. I found the right building with no trouble, was intrigued by the project for which I interviewed, and liked my potential employer. The only bad part was that it is strictly a temporary position, expected to last one to three months. The money is such that I was interested anyway, but it did put me in an awkward position with respect to a permanent fulltime job I was supposed to interview for this week (and still will, it turns out). My interviewer hoped to have an answer by the end of the day. John and I agreed that if offered the temporary job, I would take it, and ask the other employer to keep me in mind for later in the year when the contract is up.

On the way back I detoured to the office of the recruiter who sent me out on this morning's interview. She was impressed when I told her that I'd apparently done well on the other company's computerized assessment and had been scheduled for a phone interview.

So far, so good, right? But on the way home, I noticed that a) smoke was billowing from under the hood of my car and b) temperature gauge was on H for Horrendous. I let it cool off for a few minutes in the parking lot of a grumpy signmaker, and then managed to get it over to my mechanic. I'd literally blown some gaskets, and probably needed a thermostat as well. Again. This will take the 2-week total in car repairs to my 1994 Eagle Vision up over $1000. By the way, I checked, and its fuel economy is exactly 1 mpg too high to qualify for Cash for Clunkers, even if I had a good job and the money to spend on a new car.

I got an email from the recruiter for the company that did the computer assessment last week, rescheduling the phone interview to Friday. It had been postponed from Monday because she was out sick. I explained that I was waiting to hear back on the temporary job, and she said I could cancel the interview later as needed. Fair enough. But it made me nervous that in my efforts to behave ethically toward both potential employers by providing disclosure, I was shooting myself in the foot with both of them.

5 PM came, and my mechanic called to say that the car was still leaking, and they needed to keep it overnight.

6 PM came, and I didn't hear back on the temp job.

6:30 PM came, and John came in with three pieces of mail from the Arizona Department of Economic Security. Having already changed their minds four times about what I do or do not qualify for and what I need to do to get an unemployment claim going again, they have found yet another excuse not to start paying me as promised. To wit:

BENEFITS CANNOT BE PAID AT THIS TIME BECAUSE OF YOUR AVAILABILITY. ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BELOW IN DETAIL AND RETURN THIS FORM WITHIN 5 WORKING DAYS FROM THE DATE OF THIS NOTICE. [....]

What it comes down to is that because I work 2 to 6 hours a week and have been reporting that income, they're not convinced that I'm available every day to accept and work at another job, despite my having told them repeatedly that I was indeed available to work each day. The form asks "WHAT TYPE OF EMPLOYMENT ACTIVITIES ARE YOU INVOLVED IN?" I have already explained in detail to at least one, possibly two of their deputies, that I'm working part time at St. Michael's and that the church is flexible about when I put in my few hours a week, freeing me to work full time elsewhere. But because my file is passed endlessly from deputy to supervisor to who-knows-who, and isn't as straightforward as one full-time job and then nothing, the people at DES can't settle on one determination about my case and go with it. They have to second guess it over and over, changing their minds and leaving me stuck until I can contact them again. And again. And again. This has been going on since June. I've repeatedly been told that I'm qualified for one kind of claim or another, but then the ball is dropped or someone else looks at the file, and it never actually goes through. And I'm sick of it.

Please, oh please, let me get the permanent job with the good company!

Karen

EMPS: The Chocolate Shop

For this week's Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot # 51: Candy, Carly wants us to photograph candy. I seldom indulge, unless you count the candy one finds in certain kinds of ice cream. But when I do buy candy, it's almost always chocolate. And when I think of chocolate, I think of a shop I drive past nearly every day but seldom visit. It's called Choc-Alot.

Choc-Alot in the glare of the late afternoon sun

Choc-Alot is tucked away in a neat older shopping center at Broadway and Wilmot, the Mercado. This is a place that makes its own chocolate, in a dizzying variety of shapes and flavors, and even custom designs. Want some chocolate with a personal message on it, or in the shape of a dog, an angel or a high heel pump? You can get it here.

The store's owner, Sean McMillan, tells me that Choc-Alot is one of the few surviving candy shops in Tucson. McMillan, who lists himself as the store's "Sugar Daddy" on his business card, further points out that some candy purists don't consider chocolate to be candy at all. Their definition of candy is something in which sugar is the main ingredient, which isn't quite true in the case of chocolate. At least one proponent of this view, from what Sean has read, also claims that milk chocolate isn't "really" chocolate.

But I don't care about such esoteric discussions. The very reason I love chocolate is that it's not just flavored sugar. There's something special, almost exotic, about the cocoa-based candy, especially the high-end stuff. I'm not the sort of chocolate snob who goes for the super-high-percentage dark chocolate, but dark-chocolate-with-stuff-in-it tends to be my favorite.

I bought a black forest truffle, two pairs of chocolate covered cherries, almond bark, cranberry bark and an orange cream, all in dark chocolate. I gave one pair of cherries to my friend Cliff at Safeway, and all but a little of the almond bark to John. The rest... well, I managed to make it last a couple of hours, anyway!

The photos were all taken with either the automatic or "easy" setting, some with the macro setting on. I have saturated most of the photos somewhat to fight the glare. No special effects this week. You don't get to see me eat the candy. Sorry.

Be sure to check Carly's blog Ellipsis every week for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot! And don't forget the Weekend Assignment every Friday, right here at the Outpost.

Karen

Weekend Assignment #280: Volunteers

Okay, we had zero responses to last week's Weekend Assignment. Perhaps this will be more to your liking - or not:

Weekend Assignment: #280: Have you ever been actively involved in a campaign or a cause, to the point of doing more than just donating or voting? Tell us about the phone calls, the food drive, the charity walk or other civic-minded work you've done, if any. And if you've never done this sort of thing, why not? (It's okay if you haven't - I'm just interested in the reasons.)
Extra Credit: Do you have a favorite charity? Which one?

Extra credit first. I'm rather fond of the Red Cross. And St. Michael's of course.

Years ago, John Scalzi had a volunteer-related Weekend Assignment, but I don't think it was this particular question. I doubt anyone really cares if I recycle a four-year-old idea, not when the whole meme is on the verge of extinction.

Anyway.

I had a call last week from the local Democratic Party, asking if I'd be willing to do data entry work again over at their HQ. I said I'd be in on Friday afternoon. The day got away from me, though, adding two more chapters to the saga of my unemployment claim. (Short version: you don't qualify for the new claim after all, so a supervisor will reinstate the extension instead. Hey, wait: what's all this income you've been reporting since the beginning of June? Oh, that changes everything; you qualify for the new claim after all. What's the exact name and tax number of your church? It's not in our database. No, that number isn't long enough. Well, we'll get it in there, but it will take longer. Sorry.) So I didn't actually make it to HQ until after 4 PM, when it was nominally closed.

That didn't stop me.

The local coordinator, Gil, put me to work anyway, showing me the software (which I used in a slightly different form last fall) and giving me a stack of paper petitions (sort of) to enter. There was to be a sign-making party at 5 PM, but the data entry was more helpful than waiting around for five o'clock would be. As if turned out, it was more helpful than me making signs, too. There were plenty of other people to do that, people with far more manual dexterity than I have. But I was the only one in place at that moment to catch up with the record-keeping. Besides (and I didn't mention this at the time), I had no brilliant ideas for sign slogans, especially within the parameters given.

What were the signs for? President Obama is the short answer to that question. He's going to address the VFW in Phoenix on Monday morning. The signs are about Tucsonans and other people from Baja Arizona (a joke term for the Democratic/relatively liberal part of the state) welcome Obama and supporting his health care plan.

Thing is, I've been watching all this malarkey unfolding on tv for weeks and weeks now, people getting all upset and nasty, yelling and carrying fearful, hate-filled signs, mostly because they've swallowed a series of lies from a noxious cocktail of racists, lunatic fringe types and people with a political or financial interest in the status quo. No death panels are proposed or contemplated. Health care will not be rationed. (In fact this will help stop the insurance companies from the rationing they do now in their quest for profits.) Nobody is making you pull the plug on grandma. There is nothing in the fill to cause the government to pay for abortions, or sex change operations, to get between you and your doctor, drive the insurance companies out of business, drive small businesses out of business, take away your Medicare, or turn this country into a totalitarian state. The best argument anyone can make, short of a bald-face lie, is a "yeah, but" argument. "Yeah, but, if this passes, they'll add all that stuff later!" Um, no.

I'm not an argumentative or confrontational person. Calling a stranger on the phone practically gives me an anxiety attack. A Republican and a Democrat loudly interrupting each other on tv will make me turn the tv off. When John wants me to explain a religious belief - my own or someone else's - I want to run screaming from the room. I hate strife and standoffs and ill-will. And this aversion to conflict tends to make me a bit of a moral coward. Just the other night, I took a Facebook poll about whether people stand by the votes they cast last November in the Presidential election or would chance them today. (From what I saw, almost everyone stood by their choices.) The poll had a comment wall, and I made the mistake of looking at if. It had more than a few rather nasty anti-Obama remarks, some so incoherent I couldn't even tell what the poster was trying to say beyond "Obama = bad." I hesitated before adding my own, mild comment about right-wingers believing lies rather than discussing the real issues involved in health care reform. But I wrote it, and nothing bad happened. On the other hand, I didn't revisit that comment wall. Who needs that stress?

But that's not much of a contribution to the cause - me and my paragraph vs. any number of ill-informed shouters on tv. So I was glad to come in and volunteer, even if it was just a little data entry, even if it was late in the day.

And then.

"Do you have a camera?"

The question wasn't directed at me. It was Gil asking someone else who worked in the office.

"Want to borrow mine?" I said. I reached into my bag and brought out my trusty Canon.

Gil was amazed and pleased.

"I never go anywhere without it," I explained.

So Gil took a couple of pictures, and when I finished entering my stack of pages I took a bunch more. Here are the best of them. Maybe they'll contribute to the cause, somehow. And I didn't have to make a single phone call.

How about you? Have you worked for a candidate, or run for the cure? Helped out at your church? Organized a blood drive? Worked in a shelter or soup kitchen? Done dentistry in a remote Guatemala village? Sold Girl Scout cookies? Tell us about it in your blog, and please, please include a link back to this entry. I'll be back next Friday with a roundup of your responses.

And if, like this past week, nobody participates, you will instead see an announcement of the demise of the Weekend Assignment. Sorry, John Scalzi, I tried to keep it going. Really I did. But after writing 80-something entries continuing the meme you started, I may have to admit that it's a lost cause. I seem to be running dry on crowd-pleasing questions, and haven't had any good topic suggestions in a while now.

Sigh.

Karen

A Day Without the Car

What can I tell you about my day, given that I try not to "overshare" in certain areas of my life? I'll say this much: it was not the Worst Day Ever, nor yet the Best Day. But it certainly qualified as an Interesting Day.

Today was the day when I dropped off my 1994 Eagle Vision at the garage, ostensibly to have the air conditioning clutch and compressor replaced. This was originally supposed to happen yesterday, but somehow the part hadn't been ordered. That made things tricky, because I had an appointment with a potential employer already scheduled for this afternoon. The mechanic/co-owner originally hoped to have it ready for me in time to make my appointment, but that was before he found out why the car has been overheating or threatening to overheat. He said something about a radiator fan and a blown fuse and I'm not sure what else: two motors, I think. The estimate of $450 jumped to $750, and the prospect of driving to my employment assessment was out the window.

So here's what I actually did today. First thing this morning, I drove the dogs to the garage, because the walk home is a little over a mile, a walk with the dogs is less tedious than one without them, and it was a chance to get them out and about. It was only 84 degrees, but the humidity was quite high by Tucson standards, 40%. Not a dry heat. I soon wished I had a cloth for wiping the dripping sweat off my face.

Okay, yes, I know. Oversharing.

Anyway, we got home, I watched the President on tv, and then I walked down to the Safeway shopping center, a little less than a mile away in a different direction. The plan was to have the hair salon fix my hair color, but it turned out that they don't do coloring at all there. So I went to Cato and bought a white blouse for my interview. There was a slight delay as they had to reboot the credit card merchant computer. By the time I made my purchase and ate a 6-inch sub at the nearby Subway, I doubted I had time to take two or more buses to my appointment, even if I could figure out the routing quickly.

Plan B: a cab.

After my third mile of walking in the Syracuse-like humidity, I took my second shower of the day and washed my hair, in the hope that a little hair color would wash out, which it did. I had called a cab already. The driver arrived well ahead of schedule, while my hair was dripping wet and I was utterly failing to find either pair of halfway decent shoes. I made do with the black athletic shoes I wear every day, and off we went. The minimum fare was $10, and it was worth every penny. Even after pausing outside to brush my hair, I was still almost 20 minutes early.

It turned out I was the second person to arrive. This particular company, evidently a high-tech one in more than just its product line, screens all job applicants in groups, having them sit at computers for a wide-ranging series of tests. These resembled what I imagine the SATs would be like now, or maybe a MENSA application, because much of it was a real challenge. Seriously. Everything but the personality assessment section was timed, and I think I only finished one or two sections before the clock ran out.

The test is proprietary software for this company, so I won't tell you any actual questions, but there were mathematical word problems, questions of vocabulary and fact, several kinds of pattern recognition, and a self-assessment of mechanical aptitude (I have none). Their process was to the similarly time-consuming application I did for a local car dealership what an iPhone is to a rotary phone: far more advanced in every way.

I was told I would hear back in a week or so, a promise I appreciate very much. Too many companies just don't bother to tell you whether you're still under consideration or they've hired someone else.

The garage called just before the assessment, and the co-owner kindly picked me up afterward in my own car. The final bill was a little under the estimate, and the co-owner had good things to say about the overall condition of the car. He wants to fix my window and my door handle, though. Maybe someday.

So I've done well, I assume, on this assessment for a company that is close to home and presumably in a growing industry instead of a distressed one; and I have my car back. Hooray! Now if I can just get a) my long-delayed unemployment claim paid, and b) an actual job, things will definitely be looking up!

Karen

EMPS: Layers of Color, Part One

When I first saw that Carly's topic for this week's Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot was "Layers," the only things I could think of offhand were Cayenne's bandannas and the top I wore to my interview at St. Michael's a couple of months ago. The top is an artificial "layered look" garment, the front half of a black shell sewn into a pink shirt with black pinstripes. I've been to more than a few interviews wearing a black career wear suit jacket, even in summer, but it always strikes me as a bit silly as well as uncomfortable and impractical in the Arizona heat. Whoever is interviewing me is invariably dressed more casually than I am. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. I got the pink and black thing to achieve a similar layering effect as the black jacket without it being quite so hot. Tucson tends toward business casual anyway, if not casual-casual. Former Tucson mayor George Miller caught flack once in the 1990s for wearing a pair of jeans while meeting then-President Bill Clinton. Miller had just come from Tucson's annual Rodeo Parade, which seems like a pretty good excuse!

But, as I say, most of the time the only Blocher who wears layered clothing is Cayenne. She wore a red bandanna with a doggie design on it when we first met her, and frankly just doesn't look right without a bandanna around her neck. The first time I washed the red one, I dug the turquoise one out of John's top drawer for her to wear instead. That looked even better on her, and she's worn them both ever since.

These two examples would likely have been the extent of my contribution to this topic, had I not a) walked my dogs tonight and b) fretted about my hair color (see the entry below this one). It was sunset and cloudy as Cayenne and Pepper and I made our circuit to the end of the block, down the alleyway and back up the other end of our block. I soon realized I was seeing layers of cloud and layers of color, with a wonderful variety of each.

I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves for a bit. Some have been lightened or darkened or saturated to bring out the colors that my eyes saw better than the camera did. Others are unaltered expect for resizing and sharpening. If you mouseover for the photo filenames, you'll see some are labeled with a "u" at the end for "unedited" or "unsaturated."

You can find more of this photo series here.

Be sure to check Carly's blog Ellipsis every Monday for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot!

Karen

EMPS: Layers of Color, Part Two

You can't really tell the extent of the what I did from the photo above; but I colored my hair today, and made kind of a mess of it. I seriously considered adding another layer of color over it - which is why this part two of my Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot for the topic "Layers." Yes, I'm posting these out of order for a reason.

Ever since discovering a henna-based product in college, I've occasionally colored my hair with some kind of reddish tint. It's probably been a year since I last did it. But I'm meeting with a potential employer tomorrow afternoon, so I figured it was time. The other day I bought a new kind of L'Oreal, which is supposed to take just ten minutes. It's more or less the same color as the darker of two shades I've used many times before. But although I timed it to the minute, it came out a bit too dark, and a bit too burgundy, which is to say, slightly purple. It also lacks any highlights to break up the darkness of the shade. I happened to be in the driveway when John got home, and the first words out of his mouth when he stepped out of the car were, "too red."

I thought about adding highlights myself tonight to moderate the color, although I realized that for someone who has never done highlights before, this could be a dangerous experiment! But when I went to Safeway, someone there (a customer with red hair) told me to look for a neutral blond and put that over this color to moderate it. So I ended up with two boxes of stuff to try, if I could only figure out which way to go in fixing this. I also saw a hair color stripping product called Color Oops or Oopsie or somesuch, but I didn't buy that one.

When I got home, John recommended that I return the hair products and go to a hairdresser to fix things properly. Carly, too warned of the dangers of my messing with things further. So if I do anything at all, I'll go to the hair salon tomorrow. No more layers of color tonight for me!

Part One will follow in a little while.

Karen

RRPC: We Bottle Our Own

For this week's Round Robin Photo Challenge, "Bottled Up!", I rashly combined three similar topic suggestions. I wanted to see bottles, Kim of Nekked Lizard Adventures wanted to see labels on bottles, and Carly wanted to see the drinks themselves.

From Round Robin Photo Challenges

I'm afraid my own response to this Challenge is not my best work. Unusually for me, I took the photos a couple of weeks ago instead of a few hours before the Challenge date; but I didn't look at or edit them until Friday night. They're mostly pretty grainy, too yellow or orange because of the light source, and lightstruck on the ones that used flash or an adjacent lamp. But here are the best of them.

Checking out at Safeway - a nearly all-beverage purchase.
The fast hand belongs to Cliff, world's greatest grocery clerk (no, really!).

As I keep mentioning, it's been a hot, unusually dry summer in Tucson. This is the time of year when I sometimes go to Safeway and buy $30 worth of flavored water: diet soda, beer for John, sugar free Popsicles and maybe even bottled water. Any food purchase, such as the Italian sausage above, is almost incidental.

Recently, however, our summer drinking habits have changed. It used to be that I was hauling in four or five 12-can cartons of diet soda from the car, or getting John to do it. But recently we've switched to 2-liter bottles, sugar free Kool Aid if available, which it mostly isn't anymore, and Crystal Light.

Only one of these bottles has its original contents.

What's slightly unusual about our use of drink mixes is that it doesn't go into pitchers, or alternatively, into bottled water. The night I took these shots, I did purchase a gallon of refrigerated drinking water, but only because I was in a hurry to have nice cold water to add to the powder. We mix it up in bottles that originally contained an apple-pomegranate-blueberry juice blend. In the photo above, the bottle on the left has this blend still in it; the other bottles, not so much. The bottles are handy because we can just pour the mix in the bottom, add a bit of water, shake it, fill it up the rest of the way, cap it, shake it a little more, and stick it in the fridge. No stirring, no measuring, no open container to spill or attract bugs. A splash of the juice blend can be added to the Crystal Light for flavor and extra antioxidants.

Tonight's reshoot

The other advantage to these bottles is that we can have several of them in the fridge at once, in different flavors. In this weather, we get through two or three bottles a day, sometimes more. I try to have different colors in the three bottles so it doesn't all look the same; there's always a choice in what to drink.

Unfortunately, nearly all the flavors are some variation of red. I recently drank a couple of quarts before a Wednesday effort to give blood, and again before I successfully gave blood two days later. I would not be at all surprised if my blood was extra red by Friday from all that food coloring!

Now let's see what everyone else came up with for this Challenge:

Linking List

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

ellen b. - Posted!
The Happy Wonderer
http://happywonderer.wordpress.com/

Martha - Posted!
Menagerie
http://meandering-martha.blogspot.com/

Vicki
Beach Bum
http://2babb.blogspot.com

Sandra - Posted!
A cappuccino a day
http://Acappuccinoaday.blogspot.com

betty - Posted!
a corgi in southern california
http://acorgiinsoutherncalifornia.blogspot.com/

Sherrie - Posted!
Sherrie's Stuff
http://sherrie-plummer.blogspot.com/

Suzanne R - Posted!
SuzyQ421's Photo Blog
http://suzyq421sphotoblog.blogspot.com

Linda - Posted!
Mommy's Treasures
http://mommystreasures.blogspot.com

Molly Mavis - Posted!
Visual Dialogues
http://visualdialogues.wordpress.com

Linda - Posted!
Linda's Window
http://www.lindaswindow.blogspot.com/

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com/

Teena - Posted!
It's all about me!
http://www.purple4mee.com

Peggy - Posted!
Holmespun Fun
http://holmespunfunmemesandthemes.blogspot.com

And don't forget the Weekend Assignment writing prompt, in the entry below this one!

Karen