Leap Day

Today was February 29, 2012. This year is a leap year because it takes earth 365.25 days to orbit the sun and so every 4 years, an extra day is added. It's added in February because a long time ago, February was the end of the year. There was special Google art today. They are celebrating the 220th birthday of Gioachino Rossini. According to Google, he wrote 'The Barber of Seville.' Bugs Bunny did their own version called 'The Rabbit of Seville' which was hilarious. Here is Google's artwork for today:

Stacy's club at school was having a bake sale today. They were going to dress in cosplay when they sold the cakes and stuff. She dressed up as a character from Farscape named  Aeryn Sun and the character was in a costume with a white flowing dress covered with little gold stars. Stacy glued the stars on the dress. Sometimes stars tend to fall off of it, so there were a lot of little falling stars at the school today. 

Yesterday, Stacy made a big squid cake. It was a strawberry cake in the shape of a squid with strawberry frosting. There was candy from a candy necklace for the suckers on the tentacles. She melted white chocolate candies and put the mixture in two little ladles for the big eyeballs and painted in the irises with food coloring. Somebody did end up buying her squid cake. She was hoping that somebody would buy it. She was having trouble getting it to look the way she wanted to last night and got frustrated, but it turned out great. Here is a picture of the last squid cake she made, which looks just like the one she made yesterday and took to school today.

Stacy's Squid Cake

It was a really good squid cake. Stacy makes great squid cakes. It was a Leap Day Squid Cake.

Davey Jones from The Monkees died of a heart attack today. He was only 66. I remember when I was a kid he was real popular, sort of like Justin Bieber is today. His picture was frequently on the cover of teen magazines like Tiger Beat. When The Monkees sang, girls would scream like crazy. I wasn't really that crazy about him. He was okay, but a little too commercial for my likes. They had a comedy TV show in the 60's. He will be missed.

Last night, our goldfish, Marc Antony died. He wasn't sick. He seemed just fine earlier that day. He had gotten a little fin fungus a week or so ago, but it cleared up. I was careful not to over feed him. He knew when I was going to feed him, he would swim up to the front of the tank. He would get so excited when I was going to feed him. He was a cool-looking goldfish. We will miss Marc Antony. I will miss feeding him every night.

Today was a perfect day to work at the Heard Museum, the weather was beautiful. It got into the 70's. I worked with two very good volunteers. I didn't have to deal with Cora, the Coatimundi, just Ruby, who didn't give me any grief. It was wonderful being with the two deer in their newly expanded field. There is lots of spring grass coming up. Desi, the Capybara really enjoyed it, so did the Cavies and the deer. Mister the Mongoose went into his crate real easily so I could clean his area and put his food out.

Today, when I drove to the grocery store to pick up a few things and I saw the rush hour traffic flowing in from the highway, I knew that my husband was on his way home from work in that traffic. When I used to see the rush hour traffic, I used to think that it's not fair, all of those people had jobs and my husband didn't. He was no longer a part of that world through no fault of his own. Now he has a job and is one of those people coming home from work in the midst of the rush hour traffic. I am so glad he has a job. It's a nice job too, something he likes to do, editing and writing. It's what he's talented in. 

The next leap year will be 2016. The next leap day will be February 29, 2016. Maybe there will be frogs in the Google art on that day too.

Lucy

This is a picture of Lucy.

Lucy was a Capybara. She, along with her mate, Desi, lived at the Heard Museum in her enclosure in the 'Animals of the World' exhibit. Last Saturday night, she died unexpectedly. Up until then, Lucy seemed healthy. She had the best appetite of all of the animals there.  Yesterday morning, the vet performed a necropsy to see what happened to her. (A necropsy is like an autopsy on humans only for animals it's known as a 'necropsy.') The necropsy revealed that she had a tumor in her intestines the size of a bowling ball. The tumor was what ended her life. She gave no outward appearance of being sick or having this tumor. She was a prey animal and prey animals tend not to show that they are sick until it is near the very end because it makes them more vulnerable to predators. 

Lucy and some of her babies

Lucy (front) and Desi (back) and some of their babies (born last year).

Lucy jumping over the little fence so she can check on her babies.

Capybara mate for life. Her mate was Desi. He is very upset over her loss and doesn't know what to think. All he knows is that she is no longer there and he misses her. They have been together since they were youngsters and before they came to live at the Heard. Desi felt it was his duty to watch over Lucy and protect her, but nobody could protect her from the cancer.

The Capybara is the world's largest rodent and can weigh up to 150 pounds full grown. They are related to mice, rats and Guinea Pigs. Like all rodents, they need to gnaw on things constantly to keep their teeth from growing into their mouths. The Capybara comes from South America and being the world's largest rodent, is prey to the world's largest snake, the anaconda. They are herbivores and chew their cud similar to a cow. When they aren't happy about something, they bark, not quite like a dog, but it's a definite bark. They also make a variety of chirps and squeaks to communicate with one another. Capybara are designed for the water. They love the water and are excellent swimmers. They have webbed feet and can stay under water for up to 5 minutes. They can even sleep in water with their noses sticking out of the water. Their noses, eyes and ears are set high on their heads to allow them to move about in the water with most of their body hidden under the water.

Some people keep them as pets. They can't be litter box trained.  I've seen internet photos of Capybara swimming in someone's pool. Capys prefer to poop in the water.  I'm sure their pool man had a nasty surprise waiting for him when he came to clean the pool. I don't think the chlorine would be real good for the Capys either. Capys are wild animals and haven't been domesticated like cats and dogs. They need a decent sized body of water which needs to be cleaned on a regular basis. 

 Lucy and Desi had two litters of babies. The babies were incredibly cute. Here are some more pictures of them:

Lucy was a good mom and fed her babies constantly. It was fun to feed Lucy and Desi, they were always so enthusiastic about getting their food, especially Lucy. When I put the food bowls down, Lucy would always make a beeline for the bowls. She wasn't picky either, she loved whatever we fed her. We separated the bowls so Desi would get some too. Right now, the field near the cage is full of fresh green spring grass, we always bring them some of the grass in the spring. I wish Lucy were there to enjoy it, she loved fresh grass.

Now, when I think of the names Lucy and Desi, I think of two big, gentle Capybara, not some 1950's TV comedy. I will give Desi some fresh, green grass from the field tomorrow. We loved Lucy and we miss her. So does Desi.

Hot Diggety Dog!

Yesterday, the Oscar Mayer Wiener mobile came to visit our Kroger store. They were giving out stickers and wiener whistles. Kroger was also having an employee appreciation special where employees got free hot dogs. It was just a hot dog kind of day. The Oscar Mayer people said they have about 6 of theses hot dog cars. I used to see one of them in Arlington quite often. It's weird following one in traffic. The first time I was behind one, I wasn't quite sure what the heck it was. I thought it was some sort of weird gas tanker, but then when the light changed, I saw that it was the wiener mobile. I mean like could you imagine driving around in a giant hot dog!? Could you imagine parallel parking that vehicle?

The Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile

Food mobiles would be an interesting form of transportation.

An Idea to encourage people to eat healthier, a carrot mobile.

How about a broccoli car?

The Wiener Mobile is not alone. There are other food-shaped cars out there.

The car from the movie, Good Burger

This would made for an interesting traffic jam in rush hour on 75 or the tollway.On this one website called 'The Throttle', there's a whole page dedicated to food cars.

Here's one Stacy likes, a lobster car.

Salad Truck

Goldfish car

Pringles Truck. I wonder if they have it in Sour Cream and Onion?

Cheese SUV

There are these buses we see at the airport that are yellow with black spots on them. Stacy calls them "Cheese Buses."

Hershey's Kissmobile

Here's a great little car that's great for fuel economy, a pea car.

You've seen cars shaped like food, now here's food shaped like a car.

Cars don't have to be the same ol' white, silver, black, brown, dark red, etc., they can be exciting. All you have to do is use a little imagination. Think of how interesting they would look on television traffic reports. I wonder what they'll come up with next? Burrito cars? Chicken leg cars? Pie cars? A car that looks like a giant bowl of salsa passing a sign that says "Dip in Road?" Who knows. The possibilities are endless.

My Husband Got A Job!

Today started out in a usual way. My husband went to a job interview this morning. He's had 3 in-person interviews and one phone interview in the past week. In the past three weeks, he's applied for around 60 jobs. He has spent hours on various job websites,applying for jobs, filling out forms for unemployment, updating his linked-in site, networking, doing everything humanly possible to find a job. He's been doing this since 11/11/11. This has been troubling us since last August. We were on vacation at Mammoth Cave National Park, staying at the Sunset Terrace which is a block of hotel rooms in the park. We called my brother, Dan, who was at home in Texas and asked him to look at the mail to see if there was anything from Steve's employer. There was, we asked my brother to read the letter to Steve. He did. It was a letter telling my husband that he was going to be asked to take an Early Volunteer Retirement Plan or VERP at work. In other words, they were going to ask him to leave his job and get a little money monthly as a bridge to retirement. It wasn't really "volunteer." If he didn't take it, they would make him leave anyway with nothing. It was then that we got the most horrible sinking feeling. I remember sitting out on the front porch area next to our room at night at the Sunset Terrace and praying about it. I prayed about it in the car and when we got home. I prayed over and over again.

On September 1st, his birthday of all days, he got the plan through the company website. The money offered in this plan was literally below poverty level. If this was a 'bridge', it was one of those rope bridges like in that movie, Romancing The Stone,  that fall apart with every step and slats fall into the crocodile-filled river below. At first, I didn't believe it, it had to be a mistake. It wasn't a mistake. We continued praying. We were trying to figure out how we'll make it financially.Some weeks later, I drove in the garage, coming home from my job at the Heard. My daughter came out into the garage and said that dad was coming home, they eliminated his job.The sinking feeling got bigger. He came home and said it's okay, that now he'd get severance and would be able to apply for unemployment. His last day was to be 11/11/11. So he prepared for that last final day. He also started looking for a job. He has this friend who used to work at the same company he did, that got let go 3 years ago. He has been looking for a job ever since. He said that nobody would hire anyone over 40, that nobody would hire him because he was too old. My husband didn't need to hear this.

That last day came and went. My husband brought his belongings from work home. He set up a linked-in account. Soon after, he joined a job seeker's group at our church. The lady that runs this was group wonderful. The people in the group were wonderful. This lady and the group gave him the support and encouragement that he needed. Every Monday morning at 10 AM, he would attend the job seeker's group meeting and it helped him, I could see it in him.

For the past 3 months, 1 week and 6 days, he has been unemployed. For the past 3 months, 1 week and 6 days, he's had this emptiness inside of him. When he lost his job, a part of him was lost and that left a chasm inside of him. Since before the past 3 months, 1 week and 6 days, he's been wanting to 'fix' this. Since before the past 3 months, 1 week and 6 days, we and our friends have been praying. For the past 3 months, 1 week and 6 days, our routine has been off, things have felt weird. We learned not to get our hopes up with every job interview. We learned to take it 1day at a time.

He also started a blog, called "So What Am I Going To Do Now?" I had suggested that he start a blog. He's a good writer. This would give him a chance to use his talent with words. He has written some really awesome blogs. He said that writing the blog has helped him. He put a link to his blog on his linked-in site.

This morning, he left, looking professional in his suit, geared up with a folder of resumes and business cards. I took Jeff to work, picked him up, took Stacy to her school to meet up with friends, took her coat to the cleaners and came home. A little while later, I heard Steve come home when the garage door went up. I ran out and asked him how the interview went. He shrugged and told me what they said they would pay and it was less than a store co-manager would make. Then he got this big smile on his face and said, "I GOT A JOB!"

He explained that after the interview, this other company that he had interviewed with last week had left him a message just before the interview. He returned the call and they asked him to come in to see them and when he did, they offered him a job! The pay is good! It's not quite what he made at his last job, but it's better than we thought and better than co-manager pay. The benefits are good and the health insurance costs less than at his last job. He starts Monday!

One of the things his new employer had noticed was his blog. It humanized him. It made him stand out above all of the other resumes that came in. They also liked his linked-in site. They liked him.

The wondering, the uncertainty, the constantly sending out resumes, going to job interviews, the waiting between the interviews to hear from the company, the filling out of unemployment forms, the empty feeling, it's all over with. Starting Monday, our routine is normal again. Our prayers have been answered.

My husband got a job!

A Taste of Spring

Right now, it is 80 degrees, in February. That is weird to me. February is still winter up in Ohio, in fact, most of the country is still experiencing winter. In Ohio, I remember more white Easters than white Christmases.  Normally, I don't look forward to spring because it means that summer is coming and I really hate summer in Texas. Also, spring around here means the season for severe weather is upon us. I remember when Jeff was in the sixth grade. The teacher had told the class to draw pictures that represent spring. She had put them all up on the wall. The pictures were all that of flowers, green grass, sunshine and birds, except for Jeffrey's picture. His drawing was of a tornado ripping through the countryside with debris flying everywhere. Actually, I thought his drawing was cool. Jeffrey's picture was accurate.

Spring around here means severe thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes are a definite possibility. We keep a watch for wall clouds and check the weather websites if the sky darkens. We know if we see the Twistex truck, Dominator or TIV from that storm chasing show racing down the road, that there might a problem with the weather. If they are parked on the side of the road with their cameras out, there definitely is an issue with the weather, especially if we hear the tornado sirens. If we see a funnel cloud, we know for sure that there was a problem with the weather. We also might want to take cover.

One of the vehicles from the Storm Chaser's show

A Tornado 

A wall cloud in our neighborhood back in 2009 - it didn't make a funnel, just rain.

When we lived in Arlington, there were a number of tornadoes in the area. One tore up a neighborhood and an office building real close to where we lived. One went down a street that was near us and you could see where it touched down and where it skipped. There was a trampoline left crumpled up like a wad of paper in  a store's parking lot close to where we lived. We had baseball-sized hail once and it felt like we were being bombed. A large hailstone busted out our skylight and my husband had to cover the hole before the next wave of hail came through. I remember holding the ladder for him and the kids, who were little at the time, were holding on to me. We had to get our roof replaced after that. We haven't had much in the way of tornadoes in McKinney so far, knock-on-wood. We did have a hailstorm where we had to get the roof replaced, but the hailstones weren't quite as large as the ones we had in Arlington. There's never a dull moment in the spring in Texas.

 Today, however, it's really pretty outside. When I went outside, I saw that my purple Hyacinths had bloomed. That really made my day. I love Hyacinths and I love purple flowers and these are really beautiful. I didn't do anything to them, other than put the bulbs in the ground, but they are putting on a beautiful show.

It is warmer than I'd like and it makes me wonder just how hot it will get this summer. I like it better when it's in the sixties. Our chances of snow are waning fast. We didn't get any snow this year, other than a few flurries which was disappointing to me. I wanted to see Stacy build something fun in the snow. One year, she and her friend built a Dalek (from Dr. Who). 

Stacy's Snow Dalek

I'm glad we at least still got a few flurries. We did get a large snowfall in March here one year. One can always hope for a nice snowy blizzard (hopefully on my day off).  Still, I like my purple Hyacinths.

My Second Job, Intro To An Ad Agency

 After I got my Bachelor of Science in Marketing at Ohio State and completed some art courses at Columbus College of Art and Design, I set out to find a job.I was hoping to find one in my chosen field of advertising.  It was during a recession, there seems to be a lot of those. Recessions hit usually hit states like Ohio really hard. It also didn’t help that I was fresh out of school with no real experience except for a few freelance illustrations and that job at the letter service. Employers want some experience, but they don’t want too much experience. It’s a tough market. It always has been and probably always will be. It wasn’t easy, I had accumulated a large pile of rejection letters and those were the ones who actually bothered to write and let me know they weren’t interested. My parents were nervous because I think they were afraid I’d bum around the house without a job. I had no intention of doing that. I had to type my resume on a typewriter. I hated typewriters. Computers are so much nicer; you don’t have to use that correction paper or correction fluid.

 Fortunately, I landed a job at a local ad agency known as Byer and Bowman. It was a kind of secretarial job where I passed out mail to the various account executives and made airplane reservations for their business trips. This was in the days before Travelocity and the internet and the reservations were made from a thick book that resembled a telephone book for some large city. I had to look up the available flight and time and call it in to the airline. I also had to mail out their stuff. People would frequently come to me to buy stamps, most of the time, for personal use. I had to type stuff, order office supplies and sort through a bunch of newspaper ads they ran. It wasn’t rocket science. I hoped that maybe I could start in on the ground floor(literally, my office was in the basement) and perhaps get promoted into a job as a layout artist or something like that. At least that’s what I had hoped for.

Byer and Bowman was in an older 3-story building in downtown Columbus, just off of Broad Street, close to the bus line. It was the only business in that old building and the offices were pretty nice. I had a big office in the basement, next to the maintenance area that I think housed some unintentional wildlife that must have found a few of the basic needs of life, food, water, shelter and space. At the bottom of the stairs, there was a cigarette machine, you don’t see those any more, thank goodness. The art department and the accounting department were also in the basement as well as the audio-video department.  I made friends with one of the artists, a lady named Sharon. She liked cats like I do and was a very interesting person to talk to. 

My supervisor was a really nice lady named Karen. She was always pleasant, no matter what. She told me once about a lady who came to an interview in hippie clothing and sat Indian-style on the chair (legs crossed, feet up) during the interview. One year, Karen gave all of us that worked with her, each a beautiful Christmas ornament made out of beads. Mine was a little Christmas tree. It is one of the prettiest Christmas ornaments I have ever seen and I still put it up on the Christmas tree every year.

When I first came there, people occupied offices on all three floors of that building. I got my exercise delivering mail to all of them. Also, when I first came to work there, over the lunch hour, I would have to man the main switchboard in the front lobby. I had to learn this switchboard that by today’s standards would belong in the Smithsonian. It was pretty easy to learn. That didn’t last long, however, I guess nobody had any problems with me; they just worked something else out.

When I was in middle school, I had a best friend named Debbie. She was a creative gal who was easy to talk to and I liked hanging out with her. I’d been to her house a number of times and made a small ceramic statue of their beagle dog for her and her family. In high school, we lost touch. We hung out with different crowds. Then, shortly after high school, I found out that she died of Leukemia. It was a total shock. While working at Byer and Bowman, I found out that her younger brother was working there. When I hung out with Debbie, I remember him as a typical annoying little brother. I was surprised to see how tall and grown-up he had become.  While I was watching the switchboard one day, his mom came in to see him and I got to talk to her and we got to talk about Debbie and what had happened. Their mom said she still had the little dog statue that I had made for them.

The economy had started to get even worse. The agency lost a few accounts and had to lay-off a number of people. The third-floor offices became vacant and some of the people that were still there had to move downstairs. I had to collect the office supplies from the vacated offices.  This was a prelude of things to come.

One of the two main accounts the agency had that I remember was an agricultural company called ‘Landmark.’ I don’t think it exists anymore because I tried to Google it and didn’t come up with anything. Anyway, this was a huge account and the account executive even had a secretary, a very prim, proper young lady named Linda.  The other great big account that they had was a beer company, Schoenling’s  Little Kings Cream Ale. That still exists, I was able to Google it. I remember the account executive and that department got free samples of beer from them and from what I heard, had a few real fun and interesting meetings after hours.

I remember there was some major soap opera named ‘General Hospital’ that every one there was following. I was never real big on soap operas, I got bored too easily with them. Anyway, there was this couple on the series known as Luke and Laura. Luke and Laura had a wedding on this show that was a major event. I remember most of the people at the agency took time off to gather in the audio-video room to watch this wedding. Everything came to a complete standstill for this wedding in a television drama.

The agency also had an account with a company that promoted movies for local theaters. We got to see local premiers of these movies for free. I also got press kits for several of the movies when they had extras. One of the movies that they promoted was the first Indiana Jones movie. I didn’t get to go to that premiere but I remember the people talking about it the next day, saying how amazing it was. I remember seeing all of the promotion materials and realize how much it would be worth today.

The Charles Chip truck made regular stops at Byer and Bowman. We could by potato chips, licorice sticks and all kinds of goodies from them. Those were the best potato chips. They came in canisters and I couldn’t get enough of Charles Chips.

I was dating the guy who was to become my future husband. He would drive me to and from work almost every day. We got matching Schoenling’s Little Kings Cream Ale Tee-shirts that the agency had given us. He was going to Ohio State at the time and working at a Radio Shack store in Westland Mall. We didn’t have a whole lot of money at the time. When we went to a dollar movie at this place in Westerville, I would bring a bag of Twizzlers in my purse that I had gotten from Charles Chips, to munch on during the movie. It was a lot fresher than the expensive stuff they sold in the theater.

Then the agency had a major blow. They lost the Landmark account. That was a great big account, so it was a great big blow to the agency. The account executive and the prim and proper lady who was his secretary left. It wasn’t long after that, they lost the Schoenling’s Little Kings Cream Ale account. Things started to really slow down. I didn’t have all of the airplane reservations to make and there were fewer people to deliver mail to. The building was getting more deserted. Then, one day, Karen called me into her office and told me that they were going to have to lay me off. She had no problem with the job I was doing, they just didn’t need me any longer. She was totally nice about it but it was sad. I had to clean out my office and say goodbye to everybody. I never did get to work in the art department, but at least I got a taste of what goes on in an ad agency.

I don’t really miss it, there were some things in that job that were really annoying, like when I was busy and would get paged to go to my office only to find out that it was an account executive who wanted to buy stamps so he or she could pay their personal bills.  Sometimes, it felt like some of the account executives looked down on me, which may or may not have been my imagination. That’s what I love about mongooses, you know where you stand with them.

That ad agency went out of business some time after that. Now, the building itself is no longer there. Every time we visit Columbus and if we should be making our way down Broad Street, I’ll look down that street to where the building used to stand. I don’t really think much about it, I just say, “There’s where Byer and Bowman used to be.”

My First Job

After I had been in college for about a year, I needed a break from school and studying. I decided to take a year off and get a full-time job. When I was in school, I would see the rest of my family relaxing in the evening or on weekends when I still had to study.  School didn’t come easy to me; I had to work really hard just to get average grades. Even though my mom was against me quitting school, she had worked for an employment agency and helped me get a resume and cover letter set up. I got my first job.

The job was at a direct mail and printing business called ‘Buckeye Letter Service.’ It was owned by a father and two brothers.  I just Googled it and found it, only it’s under a slightly different name and in a different location. I think that is amazing that through all of the crappy economies that it survived.  It was an interesting first job, not your usual “You want fries with that?” sort of job. Interestingly enough, my mother had her first job in Ohio in the same building, but with the State of Ohio, on the second floor.

 I put stacks of envelopes and folded letters into a machine that inserted the letters into the envelopes and stacked them in a neat little stack which someone would put in a mailing tray. I ran the machine sometimes too. It was fun to run the inserter machines. These were machines that would stick the folded letters and inserts into the envelope, seal the envelope and if you want it to, it could put a stamp on the letters. The older inserter machine one ran better than the newer one for some reason.  If the envelopes weren’t right, like if the flaps stuck together, it would cause a jam in the machine and time would be lost taking the jammed paper out.  If you ever see those ‘How It’s Made’ shows, they always show when the machines are working perfectly. They never show the big mess that happens when the machines jam or malfunction. They make it look so easy and smooth, but there are always little glitches that come up that can cause chaos.

Similar to inserter machine I worked on

Similar to older inserter machine that I worked on

At this job, I would also sort mail by zip code, or run a big electric stapler, or would get folded letters off of a folding machine and stack them neatly into a box. We also had a Pitney Bowes machine that would stamp envelopes as well as a collating machine that would put booklets of paper together. It was not rocket science or brain surgery.  It could get monotonous. This was not one of those jobs you would list as one of your lifelong outstanding achievements .This was before internet, so the only way to mass advertise that wasn’t on radio or TV or newspaper was good old fashioned snail mail. There is still a lot of good old fashioned advertising snail mail today, so I’m sure they still have plenty of business.

It was a small business and the guys that ran it didn’t always get along. They would get into colorful arguments, sometimes taking the argument to different parts of the office. The fracas would start out in the main office, drift out to the front office where they would get the office manager into the argument and then the whole thing would migrate to the print shop where they would include the guy that ran the print shop. That would not have been an appropriate moment to ask for time off. When I say the arguments were colorful, I mean colorful, their faces turned bright red and their eyes would bug out.  I’ve seen the mongooses where I work now, be calmer when I’m trying to clean their cage. Actually, Mister the mongoose is easier to work with, he is usually made happy with a defrosted dead mouse. I don’t think that a defrosted dead mouse would have made the bosses there very happy.

Cusimanse Mongoose similar to 'Mister'

 Sometimes they yelled at us.  Sometimes if the machine kept jamming up, they would get frustrated and yell at us, even though it wasn’t anything that we did. They both had very short fuses.  In offices today, their displays of temper probably would not have been tolerated.  I can understand why a mongoose gets upset now and then, they are wild animals that react on instinct. It’s how they survive in the wilds of Africa. I don’t understand is why these bosses couldn’t have behaved in a more civilized manner in an office that’s not the wilds of Africa.

Interesting situations came up in that job. One time, the power went out and with paper piled everywhere they had us sort mail by candlelight.  The power was only out for maybe an hour. My mom was afraid that when I quit school to take on a job, that I would not return to college. She had nothing to worry about. That job made me want to continue with college. The only good thing is that in that office they didn’t let someone go just for turning older. There were a number of older ladies that worked there. I wish more companies let older people work for them.

This'N'That

Today, I worked at my other job, feeding animals in the outdoor exhibit at the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary. Many of our animals are indoors right now because it's too cold for them to be outside.  The animals are all doing well. Roscoe, the raccoon gets all excited when he sees us walking up the trail with the wagon that's full of bowls of food.  He really likes strawberries and grapes. Albus, the albino raccoon prefers to stay inside his little house. I don't blame him, it was a little chilly this morning and he has a nice heating mat to keep it warm in there. The deer were sweet as ever. I love feeding them.

Today is President's Day and I guess those who work for the government and banks got today off. My mom worked for the State of Ohio, so she got all of those holidays like President's Day off. For a while it was George Washington's Birthday and Abraham Lincoln Day, but somewhere along the line, they all got put together into one day. I don't think I've ever worked anywhere in which I'd get President's Day off. Usually, I wouldn't even realize it was a holiday until I got to the mailbox and realize we didn't have any mail, or I'd go to the bank and it would be closed. I did neither today. The kids in public schools got a break today. College kids still had to go to school today, at least at Collin College where Stacy goes to school. There's never a day off in the world of animal care, even on Christmas, someone needs to go in and feed the animals. For animals like Roscoe, feeding time is a real important time of day and they look forward to it.

My husband had a job interview today. He had one on Friday too. Both interviews went real well.  In the past two weeks, he's applied for 42 jobs. I hope he gets a job soon, he's working so hard at it. He just sent out a letter and resume to another company. My husband is really a wonderful writer and editor, somebody should hire him. They would be happy they did.

My husband and kids went to a comic book convention a couple of weeks ago. People from the series Firefly were there. Stacy got an autograph from Adam Baldwin, the guy who plays 'Jayne.' Jeff bought a big Babylon 5 picture and it arrived in the mail last week. They just went to Michael's to get it framed.

I can't believe that it will be March in less than 2 weeks. March 6th is when the facebook game, Super Poke Pets is going away. I don't know why it's going away, Google just said it is. That's a shame because Super Poke Pets is one of the nicer games on facebook. Another game that I liked called 'My Safari' also went away. At least with Super Poke Pets, they're letting you know. With 'My Safari,' it just disappeared one day with no explanation. I liked that game. I wish Farmville would go away instead. I don't really like Farmville. It's hard to play, has annoying music, you have to buy stuff with  facebook credits, which I refuse to do and you can't just play the game by yourself, you have to be social. Sometimes I don't feel like being social. The only way you can get  facebook credits is buy using real money, or by watching stupid commercials. I am not going to waste my money on a bunch of virtual crap and if forced to watch a commercial on line, I turn off the sound and go to another tab on my browser. There are still some cute little games like Happy Aquarium, Happy Pets and Zoo Paradise.

I just got a call from Steve, Jeff got a beautiful frame for his picture at Michael's and they were at Petsmart getting cat food and wondered if I wanted anything else. I'm glad they called because we need a box of  large adult frozen dead mice for the snake. There's never a dull moment. Now I have to figure out what to fix for dinner.

Groceries, Rain, Bagging and All Of That Fun Stuff

It's Sunday. I only had to work four hours at the grocery store this morning. Yesterday was a long day. It rained most of the day and I was glad. We really needed the rain. I worked a full 8 hour day. I had to go and get carts in the rain. Normally, I don't mind, it's part of my job. Yesterday, I ended up wearing my work shoes with the holes in the bottom because the cat messed-up my good work shoes. When I left for work, it wasn't raining.  When I was told to get carts, it was raining. This one manager, who's just about the nicest guy you could ever meet, let me borrow his jacket, which is water-proof and the jacket I had brought wasn't. Then I wore a rain poncho provided by the store, so my hair wouldn't get wet. Most of the other courtesy clerks hate those ponchos and say they make them look like a big banana, but I didn't want to spend the day at work with wet, frizzy hair that looked like I was doing interesting things with electricity. I was well-protected from the rain, except for my shoes.  I tried to jump over puddles to keep my feet from getting wet. They still got wet. I got quite a few carts from the parking lot. I'm glad it wasn't pouring rain, it was just coming down at a steady rate. When I came in, my shoes were squishing with every step so that put me in a rather foul mood. Fortunately, I was able to go on break after a short while. While on break, I was able to dry my shoes and socks out a little with paper towels, which made walking around the store the rest of the day a little more pleasant.

Despite the rain, people still did lots and lots of grocery shopping. There was one couple who had two cart-loads of groceries. They were really nice, they even tipped both of us baggers who took care of their groceries. They had to load all of that stuff into their car outside in the rain. We offered to help them but they insisted on doing it themselves. There was another family at another register who requested that their stuff be bagged with paper.  The bagger I was working with and I wondered about that because paper can get gross and squishy in the rain.

We get a few customers who request that their food be put in paper bags. The majority of them don't care whether it's paper or plastic that their purchases be placed in. Some people prefer paper because they are trying to be more eco-friendly, some people like paper because that was what food was bagged with in the past and perhaps want to keep in touch with the good ol' days. Some people are weird about plastic, they don't like the feel of it or something like that. Our store provides paper or plastic for whatever makes the customer happy. Most of the other baggers and I don't like bagging with paper because it is more difficult. The bags are bigger and more awkward. They take up more room in the cart and a large order requires at least two carts. If someone buys a lot of big pizzas, it is actually easier to put those in a paper bag, but that is the exception. It takes longer to bag with paper. Actually, I like it better when customers bring their own bags. Those are easier to fill than the paper bags. My favorite bagging medium is still plastic bags. I know they aren't very eco-friendly, but putting groceries in them is quick and easy.

When people are shown getting groceries on TV shows or in the movies, they are for the most part, shown getting their groceries bagged with paper bags. I never noticed that before I started working at a grocery store. Most stores use plastic bags these days, but have paper available for those who want paper bags. The people producing the show probably didn't want to bother with getting bag racks and plastic bags for the show and figured that nobody would notice. Either that or they feel that paper bags are more artsy, I don't know and don't care.

When bagging food, we have to keep raw meat separate from the other groceries. We have to keep raw chicken separate from the other groceries and the other raw meats because if it leaks, someone could get salmonella. Most customers agree with us on that one, although there are a few that get annoyed if we don't pile the packages of raw meat in with their bread and produce. Most bagging is common sense, as I have said before, it's not rocket science. You don't throw a pineapple on top of light bulbs or a six-pack of beer on top of a loaf of bread. You put all of the cold items together and all of the produce together, making sure that stuff like grapes and tomatoes are on top. It's not brain surgery.

There's even a bagging for Android. It's called 'Bag It.' Various grocery items come down the belt like a carton of eggs, a carton of milk, a bottle of orange juice, a bag of potato chips and stuff like that. They use paper bags. Rather than sorting stuff out and putting all of the eggs, milk and stuff like that together, you take it off the line as it comes along. It's kind of cute. The groceries all have cute little faces on them and their faces get scrunched if they get squished. It's a fun little game.

That's how I spend my weekends right now, putting groceries into bags and getting carts off of the lot. I am happy to have the job. The people I work with are very nice and I get good hours. I was also happy to have a little time off this afternoon.

Bats

This is how a lot of people see bats.

They think they're all blood-sucking vampires.

This is how some people see bats (they think they're flying mice).

Pictured below are real Vampire Bats.

They're little baby Vampire bats. Aren't they positively adorable?

Oh yeah, they don't suck blood, they lick it and mostly from birds and cows.

Pictured below are photos of bats who aren't Vampire Bats.

 This just a tiny sampling, there are a lot of bats who aren't Vampire bats.

What many bats really do:

They eat insects, lots and lots and lots of insects.

They spread pollen. Like Margaritas? You can thank bats. They pollinate the Agave plant, used in making Margaritas. So, the next time you're "wasting away in Margaritaville," thank the bats that made it possible.

They re-plant rain forests. A lot of fruit people like to eat, bats make possible. 

They save farmers loads of money on insecticide and thus bring down the price of your groceries.

There are over 400 products that bats have made possible.

So, there's absolutely no reason for anyone to dislike bats, now is there?