if you leave

Happy spring break! One week off for the college kids. The testing center is still open , though, so I'm expected for my two shifts. Fine.

This week, we felt the effects of Star's leaving the testing center. We have just enough staff now, so if someone is out sick (happened Monday) or if someone is off scribing a 3-hour test for a blind student (me, yesterday), the void is quite obvious.

Boss was rather frazzled when I returned from Thor's test yesterday. He and Kitty were the sole holders down of the fort for most of the afternoon. I was a bit frazzled after scribing a 3-hour test for a blind student. Kitty was frazzled because she's still getting back up to speed after her recent return from family leave. In short, the frazzled three stayed late to get everything caught up.

I haven't yet had the "should I stay or should I go?" discussion with Boss because it's been... well, too busy.

On a related note, I learned a new word this week: amenuensis

"a person employed to write or type what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. It may also be a person who signs a document on behalf of another under the latter's authority.

In some academic contexts, an amanuensis can assist an injured or disabled person in taking written examinations.

Hmm, our documentation shows "scribe". Does an amenuensis make better pay? Syllable based pay?

No epic plans for the break at my end. Maybe do some spring cleaning, as that's always a good time. 

Last night, we watched the movie, [Metal Lords]. Typical plot of high school outcasts banding (literally) together and finding meaningful relationships. 

Not bad, often cute. About an hour and a half of not having to think too much. It's humorous, but also touches upon bullying, rebellion, and mental illness.

One of my tutees this week told me she's looking forward to her psychiatrist appointment on Monday. 

"I haven't taken any meds for two months!", she excitedly revealed.

"Oh? And you're feeling good?", I asked.

"No, not at all!", she replied, wide-eyed and smiling.

ADHD, not for me.

shooting star and a limp biscuit

Lately, I've been contemplating how much longer I wish to stay on working at the testing center. I've been slowly increasing my tuting while simultaneously decreasing the testing. They are two distinct positions at the college - two different bosses, two different pay buckets. 

I'm now down to two short shifts per week in testing plus the Saturday rotations. I enjoy tutoring more, which does coincidentally pay a little better. I'm coming up on four years at the testing center. It was the job that got me in the door at the college, and I picked up the math tutoring later, after getting to know some of the "math people". 

I'm actually a bit surprised at how many students sign up for in-person tutoring with all the other resources at their disposal. But there seems to be no shortage of requests, and I can seemingly add more hours at any time.

Test administration is fine, but truth be told, there is little to no creativity in that job. I do enjoy my coworkers. All of us part timers are similar in that we have other things going on, and don't wish to work in testing full time. All of us except for Star.

Star, as I've mentioned before, is young, intelligent, hard-working, without many obligations outside of work. It was a mystery to me as to why she was languishing at this part-time job, and now I get it. I get it, because she's announced she's leaving to accept a full time admin offer from a nearby medical research center. I realize she was building up her administrative experience to enable her to move on to bigger and better things.

So, good for her! Her last day working with us was yesterday, and it was certainly bittersweet. I'll miss her but I'm super happy for her. 

Thursday morning, I arrived for my short shift to find Sarge running around, still getting things set up while testers were starting to show up.

"You opened by yourself?", I asked

"Yeah, Boss texted", he explained, "Biscuit (Boss's cat) lost the use of his back legs. Boss is taking him to the kitty ER"

Well, that didn't sound good. Sure enough, Boss texted us a short time later. Biscuit had a big ol' stroke, so Boss had him put down and sent for aquamation, a process I was unfamiliar with before Biscuit.

Bottom line, it's probably not the best time to tell Boss I'm gonna leave.

In other news, the PEO year came to a close and the new year has begun. I agreed to stay on as Prez for one more year. ONE more. Magnum and I visited the big greenhouse down the road last weekend, and I picked up these little plants of appreciation for the other officers from the past year.

They are drought resistant, we'll see how long we can keep them alive.

New slate of officers heading back to the philanthropy trenches:

polar vortex and stirring the pot at the library

"I'm so dumb, I think I'm smart"

A student made that remark about himself last week. We chuckled a bit, but I was thinking, "well... he's not wrong..." I don't think he realizes how far in over his head he is. 

Meanwhile, I asked the Mom/ wife/ student tutee how her day "off" with the kids went. Not well. She took them to the library, thinking she'd get in some study time, but EVERYBODY took their kids to the library that day, since there was no school and it was fffffrrrrrreeeeezing outside. 

"Do you just not sleep?", I asked her.

"Well, no, I guess", she answered, "since I have to get all this done and still have time to fight with my husband!" 

Priorities.

I worked today at the testing center since my turn came up for Saturday rotation. I worked with Kitty. Remember Kitty? Coworker of last summer's shotgun wedding?

Kitty had her baby a few months ago, and came back to work in January. Kitty is a fun, rather laid back coworker. Almost too laid back sometimes, as she's not the hardest worker, but she holds her own okay. 

She's so laid back, I wondered how she'd be at home with a baby, requiring much upkeep. Thankfully, she seems to really be thriving in her new familial role. She mentioned that she and her husband are enjoying parenthood so much, they're sort of  toying with the idea of having another baby. She's in her late 30's, so I was assuming she'd be a one-and-done, but hey, who knows?

Meanwhile, the college library - which also functions as part of the city library system - is renovating its bathrooms. Going all-gender with locking stalls. I'm sure it will ruffle some feathers, already has actually. In  the meantime, they've set up a temporary bathroom outside of the library, so of course, I had to check it out and reflect. 

It sits out back, next to the observatory

Honestly, the experience was not too shabby. I mean, it's not Buc-ee's but I've certainly inhabited worse facilities. The loo was about twice the size of a typical passenger airline bathroom, which isn't saying much. But it was heated and very clean and well stocked  - I'm guessing because hardly anyone uses it since there are other buildings where one can have such needs met

Meanwhile, we finally emerged from the latest polar vortex. I walked home while it was in the upper 40's, and it felt downright hot after the past several days. 

The cat got his sunbeam back and doesn't look to be giving it up anytime soon.

busy people

I just got a text from one of my tutees. 

I wonder when this woman sleeps. She's got a husband who works full-time and two kids in elementary school, plus she's a full-time college student studying engineering. 

Sheesh, when I was an undergrad, the only person I had to look after was myself. Good thing.

I remember one of my classmates, way back then in the ancient times, had a baby (surprise!) during our college years. She made it to graduation, just barely. These two examples reinforce my leaning that such things work better when done in series, not parallel. 

I admire my tutee, however. She works hard and advocates for herself. I have no idea what my college professors would've said if I told them I needed a work around  because my kids had the day off from school. But then, work is a state college and not a university, so probably more lenient.

Then I answered an email regarding more tests for the blind guy. He needs a better blog name since he may show up here again. Let's call him Thor. 

Whew, all this working on the weekend *sarcasm*

I was at a PEO meeting yesterday when a snowstorm rolled in. Going home was sloppy, but doable. We have yet to need to test our fun-mobile we purchased last fall to get around in heavy snow or our version of off-roading, and I'm not complaining. It sat pristine in the garage while I scooted around in our capable Honda. 

Still, I'm ready for spring.

lights, camera...

 Dear neglected blog... you are not alone.

Woo, it's been a hot minute since I visited this space. Well, the start of the spring semester at the college  ramped right up, including the fun meetings, scheduling new tutor students, blah blah. I'm supporting an additional class this semester for tutoring, so getting up to speed and doing plenty of meth math. Also, February is end of year/ start of year for PEO, and I've committed to a second year (but no more!) as chapter prez.

When not doing meetings, math, and other things, I haven't felt like sitting on the computer - hence the blog neglect. BUT things have somewhat settled down to a gentle routine, now, hopefully.

In the midst, I replaced my old cranky phone. It hadn't died yet, but was giving the signs, so I did a pre-emptive strike and upgraded. Nothing fancy, of course. The weather at the time of phone procurement was crap, so I took a couple of mundane photos around the house of other neglected things.

My bicycles, looking at me in harsh judgement, because I have not ridden them since winter decided to get wintry. 

I will say that the city does a nice job of clearing the bike paths in a timely manner. However, there is no clearing of a good portion of streets - just main roads - so getting TO the bike paths is a real challenge.

Then there was pooch Penny, giving this critical evaluation of my dog companion skills during the latest snow storm. I tried telling her that she would hate being out there on a walk, but she wasn't buying it.

The weather's warmer now, so we're in the cycle of melt, refreeze, melt, refreeze, creating much crusty crappy. I'm ready for spring.

A couple of evenings ago, I was home minding my own business, when I suddenly heard what sounded like someone driving by with their car stereo blasting. Except, it seemed to be an unmoving source. Also, the music wasn't the typical thug music coming from a bass blasting car stereo. It almost sounded like... an ice cream truck? With a tricked out sound system??

Laziness Curiosity got to me, and I hit the live feed on the ring camera. Recall our friendly across-the-street neighbors? Now with his 'n' hers Teslas? They were having a Tesla Light Show, which we've since learned is a thing.  Other Tesla friends in attendance. I only managed to capture the tail end.

I'll see if our little skillets can hold a candle.

mystery booms, cooking, keeping up

Like many others, we're in the deep freeze. I'm looking forward to Tuesday, where we're forecast to be in the balmy 30's again.

This past week was rather busy as the college is getting ready for students to return for spring semester. I was supposed to work on Saturday, but the snow shut that down. I wasn't disappointed. Campus is also closed tomorrow for the same reason. Classes were off for the holiday anyway, so, again, not disappointed.

• One night last week, there were these mystery booms that woke us up around 2:30am. They weren't particularly loud. To me, they sounded eerily like someone was gently tapping on our sliding glass door *tap-tap-tap (pause) tap-tap-tap...* 

Magnum jumped up after hearing them. He thought it was our water pipes about to burst, so went to put all the faucets on drip. Funny how two people can interpret the same weird noise.

Anyway, it was neither of those things. Later, our Ring® notifications were full of people talking about the strange noise - gunshots? fireworks? - heard for miles around. They remain a mystery.

• Recently, I bought a cute 6-inch cast iron skillet for whipping up quick, healthy snacks and meals after coming home from work (2nd lunch?)

I like cooking with cast iron anyway, and it works nicely with our induction stove we purchased last year. Plus, maybe I'm rather partial to cartoon weaponry? 

Anyway, Magnum noticed the merits of the mini skillet. But alas, one of its virtues is that it serves as both cooking vessel AND serving dish. As such, I was monopolizing the cookware whenever I used it, which is often.

So we went wild and bought a second one.

I mention this only because of our neighbors across the street. They're a friendly couple - late 30's, I'd guess. Both professionals. No kids. 

A couple of years ago, Wife bought a Tesla Model Y. This week, she bought another one, and Husband got the hand-me-down. Now they've got his 'n' hers Teslas.

The skillets are our way of keeping up with the Jones's.

Totally the same thing.

granny and square

I was stressed out in kindergarten. 

I still feel the anxiety from it, 55 years after the fact. The cause? I didn't know how to tie my shoes. 

I knew that learning to tie shoes was on the kindergarten syllabus. However, I didn't realize that a lot of my classmates would already know how to accomplish this feat. This was in the ancient times - before velcro shoes. 

So there I was. Behind the curve. 

We were each provided a flat cardboard "shoe" - adorned with our name - with actual laces so as to learn by doing. Once we accomplished the task successfully, our shoes were pinned to the bulletin board of fame.

I watched in apprehension as a good number of classmates made their neat little bows, and their honorific shoes were pinned. Meanwhile, I struggled. Eventually, I tied an ugly but functional bow, and my shoe made the bulletin board at last.

Just recently, only about a month ago, I learned I've been doing it wrong this whole time. Who knew?!

"Square knot" is the correct way, and I've been doing "Granny knot" this whole time. 

In short, if your first knot is right over left, your "bunny ears" knot should be left over right or vice versa. The knots should be opposite direction, never right - right or left - left. 

This link provides a quick demo:

https://youtube.com/shorts/sCEaXpOLFlo?si=Dsf8i1dg0JuItOJV

All these years, I'd been a right-righter. But no more! And no more having to double tie! So freeing.

*******************************************************

This week was grey and cold here, but we can't complain while watching what's going on in LA.  My Father-in-law and his wife evacuated from their home in Pasadena to stay with Step-mother-in-law's daughter, not that far away. Apparently, they've been cleared to return home.

And today is sunny and clear here. I went out for a pleasant escapist run this morning - shoes expertly tied. 

We get an average of 300 days of sunshine per year here, so we're spoiled and get whiney on overcast days. I was so enjoying the sun, I stopped to get a pic of this horse's ass.