Clipboard

 Really rained last night. The last two days, the storms split around us, hitting the Oquirrs and Wasatch ranges, but snubbing the valley. Hoping for more this coming week. 

Reading a book about memory, because I have to be better at names in the new job. No excuses, it will be a core skill I need, so I have to get good at it. The general wisdom is that it is a learnable skill. This book is readable, and not evangelical at all. 

I don't have to be perfect, I do have to be better. I will photograph anyone who is ok with that. I will write down names to make sure to get the spelling correct, and I will use all the other memory techniques to master this long neglected skill. I have pens. I have an array of highlighters to color code. I have notebooks. I have a CLIPBOARD*. 

*Had a clipboard throughout nursing school, and it was such a good tool. Stickers all over it, so it got back to me, too. Got rid of it in a move, but still had it at least 20 years. Smoked grey plastic, strong clip, an old friend indeed. 

Crowtalk

 Heard this neighbor before we saw them. 

Getting my head in the right space, gathering notepads and pens, clearing the ground, calming myself. 

Treasured

 Tokens of appreciation for all the people who advised and supported me, let me use them as references, through this difficult time. It may not look like a lot, but it's all well made and carefully chosen. The soaps - specifically for my aroma oriented friends,  smell lovely.

It's all about gratitude now. 

Strewn

The call came.  I start on Monday. And will be paid rather better than before. It all feels a bit surreal and flat. Bubbling up immediately was all the gratitude for all the people who kept me from despair, who let me use them as references, all the friends I had to inconvenience. Immediately sent out my thanks, before letting any of it soak in. All along I've been thinking, I have to send cards and little unique gifts in thanks, but not until I know, not until I have income, just in case, just in case. 

For I do not believe until I know.  I don't believe. I know, or I don't know, or it is unknowable and I have to step forward anyway. The lesson of Pooh.   If the gods are willing, this will be my last job, and my path to a decent retirement. And... I think I'm going to really enjoy this. 

I cleaned the laundry floor starting yesterday.  It probably needs this more often than every three years or so. 

Wordlessness

 

Microburst

 Yesterday, right after I did a better garden watering, we got hit with two microburst storms. The first one  about 7PM, dropping the temperature 96˚F down 25˚, but with a constant, growling thunder for a good hour ahead of it.   Some places got a half inch of rain in 15 minutes. And the rain kept falling, whipping, booming out of the skies. All my rain barrels are full. A street that often floods, a few blocks away, had 3' of standing water.  A town just south of us, near a burn scar, had to evacuate* for flooding/flash flood risk. A few hours later, another storm rolled through, but I was asleep by then. 

Video of different microburst storm. 

The porch is wet, the soil is saturated and happy, it's humid but much cooler.  I don't know how much we got here, but at least a 1/2", maybe up to 1" water. The official total at the airport weather station cannot be the same as what we got here, typical in this geography.  The sort-of closest station got 1" while another not that far away got 0.3".  

It was true wrath of gods stuff. I went out to make sure both rain barrels filled, and I was soaked to the skin. The people camping out overnight for the local kitsch parade no doubt had a bad time, but since that whole tradition seems insane to start with I don't have a whole lot of sympathy. 

Said parade is nearly over, and one of the covered wagons (they usually lead the parade) with cos-play settlers, but real mules and horses, just rolled past our house. Sorry, I was too slow with the camera, but I did wave. 

Plucking ripe blackberries at the rate of one or two a day. It's just one plant, it's doing its best.  And they are amazing. I keep going back to myself as a small child, sitting in a blackberry thicket on a slope beside the Rouge River, stuffing myself with blackberries to my utter contentment. The bushes were above my head when I nestled down, and I felt invisible and in my own private world, and full of fruit. 

Enjoying the mild day, my mood settling a bit higher today. 

*"Within 45 minutes, the burn scar received 3/4 inches of rain, and a debris flow was reported. According to Mapleton Fire, six to eight inches of mud, branches, and softball to basketball-sized rocks came down. Rows of sandbags were able to deflect most of the debris flow onto the road and away from homes."

Deciduous

 

It looks a bit wonky because I took this as a panorama, but it was the only way to get the whole tree in. 

Getting to the end of the process, I think. Had to re-write my self-evaluation for pay rate. It is an extensive application, and I started it as a 2.7K word essay, stuffed it into the form. The nurse manager evaluated it, and explained how to set it up and who my audience was, and how to improve it. So I took all the ideas and stories the creative writing brought to the surface, and formalized it, got really repetitive and explicit on outcomes (patient care and cost savings), and sent it back. She approved this version, and it is on its way to the board. 

I need to add that Dylan formatted and helped me piece it all together into a coherent whole, and made sure they would be able to open the document. 

It's always important to know one's audience. 

Splinters

 The last threads are holding as I await what will come. The cats seem happy with us, generally. And with each other, as are we. 

Enduring the heat and drought. 

Reading so much about the irrational followers of the angry and hateful. None of this is new, though. Following leaders into hell and destruction, betraying the king to install a different king who acts exactly the same. Switching one god for another god just as uncaring. The idea of a thoughtful, rational leadership is an anomaly, at least as a dominant force in human history. More often it's all about clan loyalty that shifts and splinters. It's biology, (and biological systems) and those are notoriously impervious to simple logical explanations. We can see the patterns, but with so many interfering patterns, it's nearly impossible to predict or control outcomes. In part because we are inside the patterns. It's like the story of scurvy, and how long it took to figure out the cause and cure. Lack of key information, complicating influences, careless studies, inertia of old ideas, preference for superstitions that do not need understanding. 

Read three books this week, my mind is churning.  I'd recommend all three, for very different reasons. If any of them appeal to you, they are well written and engaging. All very different. 

I'd forgotten the bible story this is written around, had to look it up. Such rough lives.  The god of the fathers barely touched the gods of the women. 

Lister really did take what was medieval surgery and transform it into a modern science.  And a genuinely good person, a real rarity at any time, but particularly in the context of a brutal profession. He certainly wasn't always right, but he always kept asking, with his focus always on his patients. 

Not as silly or magical as it seems, although yes, a bit of both. About friendship and freedom and taking care of each other. 

Cash

Mmmmmmwwwaaah!

C D B?

Serviceberry tree showed up and is making a run for it this year. I'd forgotten about it last year. Since it did, it got a stick to hold and extra water, and seems pretty happy. Maybe look more tree-like next year. 

Sat out with Eleanor this morning, buzzed by a pair of hummingbirds several times. Their flowers are only starting to bloom, so next week might be better for them. 

 There is no more I can do at the moment. The HR person who will look at what they will pay me is out of the office until Monday, even though my documentation had to be in by Friday. This always happens.  This is the last step before it is all completely official with a starting date set. 

I'm drifting into a sort of depression, not hungry, can't make myself do anything, oversleeping. Not badly, and I'm sure it's temporary, but along with the heat and smoky air, it's gotten on top of me. An existential cold, as it were. With a dollop of worrying over the world and all its troubles. 

Ironic, since this is the first time in my life I have not been down with a virus over a year and a half. 

It is a horrible situation so many renters are in these days, that a full time minimum wage will not pay rent, anywhere.  Not a surprize, but shameful. And here we are with a lower monthly mortgage, simply because we jumped ten years ago and got unbelievably lucky. If we were renting right now, we would be so screwed. As it is, we will be fine until I can get my first paycheck.  I do not really care what they determine my pay grade will be, it will be a living wage, I'll be able to retire, money has never been much of a motivation for me, after basic needs and security. I grew up poor enough, and lived long enough on several part time jobs, to know how much just having a decent job means. 

Really happy that people with kids will be getting extra cash starting this week. 

Soul

 Whatever your musical taste, whatever you do, find Summer of Soul and watch it. It beats the hell out of the Woodstock documentary.  We got Hulu for a month just to see it. It's in some theaters.  It's fucking amazing, and heartbreaking and important. That all this footage has been deliberately hidden for 50 years is a great sin. 

Mature

 

Heat exhaustion. 

Forming seeds.

Young 'un piggy-back on granny. 

Zeppo relaxed under Dylan's hand. We can reach down and pet him, even kiss his head. This is big. Only took two years...

Sweatbees

 Sweat bees on fennel.

Wrote a 2.5K essay on leadership to justify my pay to the VA.  My brain is currently empty of words, except for a few rattling around where I can't get to them. 

Whatcha

 

"Whatcha got there?"

"I got a bee!"

Balm

Bergamot/bee balm. 

 Long ago, before I'd even started nursing school, before Dylan and I knew each other beyond a passing nod, before I'd escaped from the ex, I got to go on an Army nursing recruitment trip to Seattle. I'm not clear on how this all came about, but we were nurses and nursing students the regular army wanted to commission, and I got a weekend away in a decent hotel with a pool, a room to myself, good company, a trip on a ferry, walked around Downtown Seattle,  and we toured around the original Madigan Army Hospital before the new one was opened.  

I was seriously considering going regular full time army, it was a way forward, a way to have an income and make the divorce happen with some safety. I had to complete pre-reqs first, which was in progress. 

Then I managed to get out by myself, and shortly after activated to GWI. Time for conversations with Captains who were army nurses, and came back knowing I did not want my life to be so unsettled and at the whim of the US Gov.  Nor was I interested in a life without Dylan. Anyway, got into nursing school, graduated, got a job with a living wage, and never really looked back. 

And now, well, kinda doing it anyway, but on my terms.  I expect I'll be called ma'am a lot. I wonder how many people I know I'll get to see. It can be a very small world sometimes. 

Nothing much is going to happen until Tuesday, due to the holiday.  Exercising patience.