Monday

Neither of the two people who always swim on Mondays were there this morning. Weird. Plus, three other regulars who never swim on Mondays where there. It's backwards upside down day!

May 1st has become, in Seattle, a day to gather downtown and cause havoc. Bashed in windows, gun play, mayhem. It's gotten a bit better in the past few years but this year we have this idiot on the city council who has been inciting persons of her ilk to go downtown and riot protest The Man. Also, this year, the Seattle police and transportation departments seem like they have noticed the date and have a plan so maybe it won't be so bad. Also it's drizzly and supposed to be cloudy and low 50's all day, maybe that will help, too.

I did end up going out to dinner yesterday evening and it was delicious. Afterward I wanted ice cream. I thought there was an ice cream shop near there but I couldn't find it so I dipped into Walgreens. They had boxes of four Drumsticks on sale - 2 boxes for $4.49 and I do love Drumsticks. At the cash register, the guy asked me if I wanted to use my bonus. And I said sure. So I ended up paying $1.49 for 8 Drumsticks. Those are calories that god meant me to have. For sure.

The bonus bucks are because my Misfit tracker band is linked to the Walgreens pharmacy website. I rarely shop at Walgreens any more so when I do, I usually have unused bonus bucks collected. Humana (my insurance) also has a 'well' program that my Misfit band and my bathroom scales are connected to. That accumulates faster and pays off better. About every 3 months I get a $25.00 Amazon gift card. Not too shabby.

Nothing special planned for today. Definitely not going anywhere. Probably there will be sewing.

My tweets

• Sun, 14:40: I love @Axios and particularly @inafried's daily newsletter but the weekly Sneak Peak is my fav. https://t.co/w9MgZQ4o1b #newslettertest
• Sun, 14:46: RT @SethAMandel: My two-year-old to me when he saw me check my phone: "you need to call an Uber?" What a time to be alive.
• Sun, 17:52: Fat's Chicken and Waffles (Check-in)

Continued

I started out my first week of married life looking for a job. The heavens opened up and I found a listing from a law firm looking for someone who could operate a world processor. DOH! It was a stuff smallish (10 lawyers) Southern law firm dealing mainly in estate, real estate and a teensy bit of criminal law. They had lovely offices not that far from my house.



They had a word processor called a Lanier No Problem. The attorney interviewing me was the one who insisted they buy it and his ass was on the line because the only person who could operate it had moved out of town when her husband got transferred. He took me to the machine to prove I could operate it. I'd never seen or heard of one before but it took less than a minute to figure out. There were a couple of docs saved on the disk, I opened on and made a change and printed it out and he hired me on the spot. I'll bet he did a little happy dance with his pre-dinner cocktail that night.

I didn't have a car and I can't quite remember why. But rather than buy another one, I just bought a moped and drove it to work and back every day. It was fun.

The law firm was a bit of a nightmare. I had no interest in, training for, aptitude in legal work. I had watched a lot of Perry Mason and read To Kill a Mockingbird but that was it. And, I couldn't spell. Spell Check was still in future-ville. But I was faithful. It snowed and no other secretaries even tried to come in but I managed it - on my moped! The lawyers were impressed and really grateful.

Each lawyer had a secretary. I was the estate guy's secretary. He did not particularly like me. The guy that hired me truly appreciated my skills. The lawyer I worked for did not. At all. Once I figure out all the tricks of the Lanier No Problem, I was bored to tears. I trained all the other secretaries on how to use it and, fortunately, one of them really got it.

The lawyer who hired me went on a two week vacation and the estate lawyer took that opportunity to fire me. It stung like a sonofabitch but it was totally reasonable. I was devastated and so relieved.

One of my husband's friends told me about a communications job at a brand new performance arts center so I marched myself down there and begged the new director to hire me. There was a bit of competition but I managed to beat everyone back and became the first Marketing Manager for Spirt Square Arts Center.

It was a beautiful small theater they had carved out of an old church in downtown Charlotte. The original stained glass windows were backlit and the pews were replaced with theater seats and it was gorgeous. 800 seats. We had everyone from Mary Travers (on her birthday and the same day that Reagan was elected - that was one depressed lady) to Vincent Price (mean as snake and rude) to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and a variety of classical musicians. My job was to create all the marketing materials and get all the publicity we could get.

Happily for us, the government required that all radio and TV stations use a fairly substantial percentage of their air time for programming highlight non-profit organizations. So local shows were always looking for someone to put on the air. Their choices were mostly diseases or the arts. And there was me - ready, willing and able, on a moment's notice, to help them fill their air time. We got a lot of excellent publicity.

I was on local TV so much that my mother (who then lived 2 hours away but got all the Charlotte stations thanks to this new thing called cable TV) started to complain that I was in her face every time she turned on the news.

It was a fun job but the director turned out to be a whacko and non-profit was non-profit and always begging. There was a really fun guy I kept running into every time I'd go present to one group or another begging for money. He was the communications director at the IBM plant on the edge of town. One day he offered me a job...

And back to work at IBM I went.

To Be Continued

Fail o rama

I decided this morning to go out and see about kitchen counter tops. There are 5 kitchen and bath places within a mile of here. At the first one, there was a guy at the front desk who was busy pulling voice mail messages. I wandered around for a full 5 minutes and no one - not a single soul said boo. When I left, the guy was still pulling voice mail messages but he was listening to each a couple of times.

Store #2, one guy in the store and he was on the phone. Wandered. Alone. Saw the whole store. He's still on the phone. Left.

Store #3, bustling! Everyone way too busy to even acknowledge me. Then I saw a sign that said to sign in and someone would be with me in 5-15 minutes. Er, nope.

Store #4, a repeat of store #2.

Store #5, A really lovely large store and I was immediately given a really cheery "Good Morning!! How can I help you?!" only then to be told they only did fixtures and lighting - no floors/walls or countertops.

Fun times. So then I come home and decide that maybe my email to Amy last week got lost in her spam and I do have another email address for her I should try. Except, I could not find the note I sent to her anywhere. Seriously. I searched 8 ways to Sunday and looked all over my Gmail. Nada. I know I wrote it. I remember what I said exactly. And when. But, apparently, I did not send it. Very strange. This is the kind of thing other people do. Not me. I re-wrote and re-sent and then, 5 hours later, sent to the second email address.

I also located a counter top guy who does not have a store but does have a good ratings. He's my next move.

When Facebook first came out, I checked it out and realized the pitfalls and that my life did not need a constant barrage of memes and idiotic opinions. Also you either had to read that crap or 'unfriend' or 'unfollow' people and Facebook makes that such an in your face experience that you have to then explain to them why you don't want to read their shit. No thank you. To any of it. So I backed out never to return.

For the longest time, I ignored Instagram because it's really Facebook. Except several people I really want to keep up with are active Instagramians (Instagramarians?) and it's not nearly as in your face. And it's pretty simple. But you can't do all of it on their web interface. Like you can't see the 'stories'. So I downloaded the app. So as long as I have the app, why not use it now and again. What would it hurt?

And that's why, I killed a solid hour today trying to get a fucking video to load into Instagram. Video Can't Be Posted. I Googled and got the usual - reinstall, reboot, get faster wifi, shorter video... Nothing worked. Then I went to Reddit. Ah ha! There's a problem at Instagram. That sent me to Twitter.



It appears that 1. they know it and 2. a few others have stumbled on the problem and the tweet.

Last week, the management of the apartment building across the street posted a photo of one of their apartments. I could tell from the photo exactly which apartment it was - it's right outside my terrace! The photo was originally posted on Instagram by the woman who lives there. I took a picture of her apartment from my terrace and posted it on Instagram tagging her. She 'waved' from Instagram. Turns out they are out of town so I have been following their trip. Kinda fun.

And what I hope is my last fail of the day is not really a fail but not a success either. I'm still trying to get a decent cat pattern. I'm getting there, I think but neither of these two are it.

Success on Instagram...

Ok so I finally got a video posted. Whew. The sound sucks. Not sure why. Also I'm not hip with all the tricks (or the lingo) but you can find me there - seattle.susandennis

Watch on YouTube