Still on the dole

Yes, it's true.  Santa did not give me a job for Christmas, nor have I found one on my own.  But I am still looking, applying to jobs that would be a perfect fit as well as applying to jobs that I am not really qualified for.  I am becoming very practiced at the art of creative resume fabrication. It's amazing how many ways one can describe mundane office duties and make them seem like advanced brain surgery. Actually, the resume doesn't change too often but the cover letter certainly does.  As I mentioned previously, I now make the cover letter as personal as I want, disclosing some small job years and years ago that might almost relate to the position that is being offered.  It's sort of like saying ".... yes, I have extensive experience with veterinary medicine..."  because I own a dog.  But hey, anything to get someone to read the letter. 

Often job postings ask you to put the job title in the subject line of your email.  I usually comply with their instructions  but sometimes I change it a bit.  Instead of putting "Office Manager" in the subject line I write "Orifice Manager" just to see if they are paying attention.  Or instead of "Administrative Assistant"  I will write "Administrative Ass."  Gives them a little chuckle, which hopefully will encourage them to read my resume.  So far I don't think it is working too well, but I refuse to give up.

One must keep up one's sense of humor in all this. After 15 months of being out of work (not counting the under-the-table jobs, of course) it is easy to get depressed about the future.  Jobs are plentiful, or so it seems if you read craigslist and monster.com.  But so are unemployed people, so there is a lot of competition for good positions.  Also, many of the jobs are part-time, temporary or contract jobs.  A contract job would be acceptable but part-time and temporary, not so much.  Giving up the unemployment check for a part-time job that doesn't net the same amount of money seems foolish. A temporary gig that will mean being out of work again in the foreseeable future is more than foolish, it is idiotic.  Sure, a nice chunk of money for six months sounds fine, but once they let you go you are totally screwed because you haven't worked long enough to accrue any unemployment benefits.

But still, I am optimistic about it all.  I continue to apply to jobs every day and now and then I get a response.  In my heart I know that someone out there is almost desperate enough to post the perfect job for me and the stars will align, the fates will conspire and I will see that job posting immediately, send my newly polished resume and my snappy cover letter, and that job will be mine.  With benefits, with a decent salary and with free parking.  I am counting on it.  And counting the days until that job posting appears.  And counting the dwindling dollars remaining in my bank account. 

Still here

However, I have nothing to say.  The holidays have taken their toll.  Perhaps more verbage tomorrow.

Are sleigh bells ringing?

Happy Holidays to all.  I have been remiss in blogging this week but will make up for it soon.  I hope you are all enjoying family and friends or if you are alone, you are having a good, quiet weekend.  If you are reading this, you have something to be grateful for (having a computer, if nothing else) and we all need to remember the good stuff this time of year.  We are inundated with the bad often enough.

Just one comment on the job front.  I applied to several jobs postings this past week, casting my net further and further from home.  I stopped writing traditional cover letters, opting instead for a more chatty, personal version.  Oddly, that seems to be working because I got calls from two of the businesses that I applied to.  I honestly think it was due in a large part to the witty banter in my cover letters.  I haven't connected with either company and therefore I was probably just one name on a long list of applicants.  But at least it was some action, a positive sign.

Time to drink some Christmas Eve champagne.  I am hanging out with my son and daughter-in-law and looking forward to a relatively large quantity of good champagne and good food.  I miss Jenn hugely but will be seeing her in a couple of weeks, in Texas, and we will all have another Christmas eve then.

Peace and love to everyone. 

Turmoil?

Maybe chaos is the wrong word.  Maybe turmoil is better, or pandemonium.  Or simply confusion.  Whatever the word, a lot of us are experiencing it right now.  If you believe astrologers, last night's lunar eclipse was the culmination of a planetary shift that has brought incredible disarray to the cosmos but promises huge spiritual and emotional changes in the future.  Well, maybe.  I think it is more the real world we live in instead of the cosmic one, but I could be wrong.

But whatever the cause, one wonders what the fix might be. At one end of the spectrum is the truly chaotic mind, one that cannot stop jumping from subject to subject, one that feels like it is a wire away from shorting out.  What to do, where to go, how to get there, why bother? Why not just bury oneself in books and read for the next six months?

The other end of that spectrum is the person who is focusing very clearly on how to overcome this messy mind syndrome.  Signing up for classes, reading self-help books, making early new year's resolutions to change everything in one's life, dieting, exercising, walking, running, anything that feels like forward movement instead of wallowing in the stagnation.

Then there are those of us in the middle territory.  We know we should be doing something but we are taking baby steps to find out what that something is. Personally, I have sent out more resumes to on-line job postings in the past week than I have in the past month.  It isn't much, but it's at least something proactive.  I was offered a job last week that many people thought I should have taken, but it would have meant continuing to live with my son and daughter-in-law for the foreseeable future because it didn't pay very much and had zero benefits.  I turned it down because I firmly believe that there is a job out there that I actually WANT to do.  I just need to find it. Or it needs to find me.

So that's my current level of activity to try to reduce the effects of my unsettled mind and unsettled life.  That and the decision to take an on-line French language course. Heck, if I can't get a job, at least I can whine about it in another language.

I hope some of you caught the lunar eclipse last night.  I saw bits and pieces of it through major cloud cover, but what I saw was eerie and mystical and very cool.  For a great video, check this out.  http://www.vimeo.com/18046748

Au revoir for now.

Chaos

A short post.

Yes, I will be traveling again, after xmas, and for those of you who prefer me to be blogging from the road instead of from the comfort of a warm home, you will be rewarded for your patience.  For those of you who don't care, and who loyally read the blog no matter where I am, thanks.

Everyone I talk to these days, with the exception of a couple of my brothers who (dare I say it?) actually like their jobs, is experiencing what I am calling Internal Chaos. It's that churning feeling inside, that definite physical sense of unease and everyone seems to be aware of it.  No one likes their job but they keep it because to quit is folly right now.  Everyone I know is acutely aware of the economic and political climate and that contributes to the growing sense of personal unrest.  It's as if nothing is settled, everything is up for grabs, everyone is slightly miserable but can't really figure out what to do about it.

Internal Chaos.  At odds with everything. No one is really looking forward to a "happy holiday" but many people want  to be with people they like because there is safety in numbers, it feels better to be with someone instead of no one.  Or else they want to be alone because they can control that environment  and therefore control any angst that comes barreling towards them.  Again, it's as if everything is up in the air, as if we are all just balanced on the brink, waiting for a shove.

More later.  Remember to breathe.

Credit Card Mania

A couple of weeks ago I was strolling (virtually) through some Parisian travel sites, obsessing about not being in Paris, and I came across an ad for a United Airlines Mileage Plus credit card.  It offered a "no fee for a year" Visa card with some sort of sign-up bonus.  Years ago I had a United Mileage Plus Visa card and it was my main credit card.  Because of a purchase dispute with United, (they were wrong, I was right) I cancelled the card.  But this free offer was intriguing, so in the spirit of the Credit Card Nation, I signed up for a new card.

However, I was not totally honest when I filled out the on-line application.  I did not list a job other than "self employed" and I put my yearly income at something around $12,000 a year.  Poverty level, yes, but I was curious to see how easy or difficult it was nowadays to obtain a credit card.  We have read about the crack-down on letting people have way too much credit card debt so I erroneously assumed that getting a card might be a bit tricky.

Not so.  Today in the mail I received my brand-new, shiny Visa card from United's Mileage Plus program.  With my $12,000 stated income, I now have a credit limit of $7,300.  In other words, they issued a card to me and the limit is almost three quarters of what I ostensibly make every year!  This is so amazingly irresponsible that I want to go out right now and buy something on credit!  Or perhaps I will finally buy that first class ticket to Paris I have been jonesing for.

Or maybe I will just send the card back to Chase Bank with a little note explaining how insane their card-issuing policies are.  But then, they won't care, will they?  There will always be another sucker coming down the road that they can scam into debt.  Let me be clear here, I truly believe it is up to each individual to monitor their own credit card purchases and it is each person's responsibility to not get into credit card debt.  But when access to such a card is so damn easy, and when so many people right now are struggling with bills and loss of jobs and mounting monetary pressures, getting a card like this might seem to some to be the answer to their prayers. 

Unfortunately, it's more likely that it is the answer to Chase's prayers:  another candidate for late fees and interest charges.  Ah, the good old American way.

Half a Hallelujah

Today, no thanks to any effort on my part, I was fortunate to get a pass to Davies Symphony Hall (thanks, Tom) to see the SF Symphony rehearsal of Handel's Messiah.  It has always been one of my favorite pieces of music, not just for the Hallelujah Chorus but for almost all of it.  There was a large crowd in attendance, all of whom (except for me) had donated money to the Symphony this year.  The rehearsal was a "thank you" gift for those donations. 

Never having attended a symphony rehearsal, I was delighted by the entire process.  First we heard a short talk about the oratoria which was funny and informative.  Then we had coffee and doughnuts, yumm. Finally the musicians and the chorus came in and rehearsal began.  Everyone was dressed in street clothes, quite a change from the standard black outfits you see when the symphony performs.  It was a real rehearsal, the last one they have before their first performance tonight.

In a rehearsal, of course, the conductor is trying to correct all the small flaws he has heard over the course of previous sessions with the musicians and the chorus.  Some parts were repeated several times until the conductor, Ragnar Bohlin, heard the music played the way he wanted.  The chorus was stopped a few times as well, and they repeated bits until it was perfect according to Bohlin.  The strange thing is that nothing is every played completely.  The work has many different sections and we, the audience, heard various parts of those sections but we never heard any section played completely.  This might have been disappointing (it is always lovely to hear the entire Hallelujah Chorus, for example) but how could anyone be disappointed getting to hear even part of the work.

I loved it.  They played for more than three hours and I could have stayed a lot longer.  For the benefit of the audience, they played about 2 minutes of the Hallelujah Chorus, just to placate us all, I presume. 

Being at Davies Symphony hall at 9:30 in the morning is an interesting scene.  Most of the people were considerably older than Tom and me, and we are definitely not young. While we were waiting for things to begin I commented "I wonder how many of these people are unemployed?"  Probably none or just a few who were there as guests, like myself. As we were eating our delicious free doughnuts, I heard the woman in back of us say to her companion "My largest expenses these days are what I spend on donations and travel."   Hmmm.  Donations and travel, larger than rent or mortgage or food or insurance.  Quite a statement in these dire economic times.

But Davies Hall was beautiful, dozens of tall Christmas trees, each decorated in a different manner by various organizations or schools.  The day was sunny and cool, the sky was blue, the music was outstanding and for a couple of hours, all was right with the world.

For a rather entertaining and definitely different version of the Hallelujah Chorus, check out this youtube video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCFCeJTEzNU&feature=related

Be aware:  only nine shopping days til Christmas.  Still plenty of time to give a donation in someone's name or drop a toy off at local fire stations. 

Food, Glorious Food

Spoiler Alert:  this blog may piss some people off but I am not trying to offend.  After all, it is just my opinion, worth a couple of grains of expensive sea salt.

This past weekend I had the need for a couple of specific food items that one cannot get at Trader Joe's so I made a pilgrimage to Whole Foods in the Potrero district in SF.  I do not venture into Whole Foods very often, mainly because I have never lived near one.  But this particular store is less than 15 minutes from where I now live so a Saturday morning jaunt seemed in order.  OMG.  It was early, the store was quiet and almost reverent in that sort of church way, people speaking in soft voices, bowing down before the meat counter, quietly touching some of the produce, rapturous looks on their faces.  Oh wait, that was me.  Yes, I loved the market.  Yes, I could easily live there.  When Gabe and Annie tire of my presence in their home I will look for a small back room and take up residence in the Church of the Holy Food.

However, as I meandered through the aisles and stared in awe at the beautiful displays of every kind of food, I was also a teeny bit uneasy.  Not uneasy enough to leave, mind you, nor uneasy enough to change my mind about wanting to live there but uneasy because I realized that this sort of market is beyond the reach of so many people.  Yes, one often gets great value for one's dollar in WF because the quality of most of their merchandise is above average.  But if I was a run-of-the-mill unemployed woman who questioned every nickel spent, there would be no way I could shop at WF ever.  No matter how great the value.

This leads me to today's observation:  food has definitely become a class object.  The well-off can afford to shop at places like Whole Foods and Molly Stone's and go to farmers markets and buy organic, sustainable, seasonal food.  The poor cannot.  The huge wave of obesity that our nation is now experiencing is not necessarily because so many people are ignorant of the fact that fast food and processed foods are bad for you.  It is because so many people cannot afford anything else.  This week I read an article about the elite nature of good food and the writer commented that big, rich corporate farms grow food for the lower class people while small farmers, who are often financially strapped, grow food for upper class people with money. 

The whole concept of organic, sustainable, locally grown food is a great concept but for many people it is just that:  a concept.  Not a reality.  Simply put, that kind of food is more expensive and less available.  If you are a regular working person with children you often do not have time at the end of your working day to stop at a grocery store and pick up fresh produce.  You might do a big shopping run once a week, on the weekends, at a big store like Costco or Target (which now carries food) and rely on the corner store for things like milk and eggs during the middle of the week.   You stop at a McDonald’s on the way home from work and pick up dinner not because you think it’s nutritious but because it is easy, cheap and your family likes it.  They would also like a free-range roasted chicken but that would cost $15.00 and take more than an hour and it is already 6:30 and everyone is hungry.  Fast food serves a purpose; the problem is that it is served too often.

There is no quick solution to this problem, just as there is no quick solution to the obesity epidemic.  The solution lies in making food costs (and production, of course) more equitable.  It means making good food, not Tyson Corporation chicken tenders or frozen green beans, more affordable.  It also means making food less of an elite, designer object.  Why can’t we have government subsidies for organic farmers, if that’s what it takes?  Why do the corporate food producers get the tax breaks and the small independent farmers do not?  (No, I am not all that naive, it is a rhetorical question.)  But to pretend that eating locally, seasonally and organically is possible for all Americans is foolish, shortsighted and selfish.  And it’s a joke.  We occasionally are treated to articles in the SF Chronicle about folks who sing their own praises because everything they eat is produced less than 100 miles from where they live.  These people are pathetically out of touch with the rest of the world if they really think that is something that everyone can do.  Forage for food?  Sure, in the Western Addition in San Francisco, or in the Tenderloin.  There foraging for food means digging in the dumpster.  Now that’s really local food.

Living in West Marin at the height of this food craze got to be disturbing for that very reason.  I worked at the Palace Market, the local grocery store in Point Reyes Station, where they carried organic produce, organic Strauss milk and free-range chickens and many organic food items.  Even though I got a discount on my food purchases I still could not afford the organic products.  More than $2.00 for an organic grapefruit?  You must be kidding.  Pay $3.49 for a can of tomatoes or $1.29?  No problems making that decision.  And if I had been feeding a family, as many people in Point Reyes do,  it would have been difficult enough to just buy bread, eggs, milk and bananas, let alone organic anything.   It shouldn’t be this way.  But it is.  We live in an inequitable society and this is just one symptom of that.

I won’t start on my feelings about the term “locavore.”  That’s a topic for another day. 

Friday Night Cocktails

Some of you are well aware that during my sojourn in West Marin, on Friday nights I usually had cocktails with my very good friend Tom.  His place or mine, didn't matter. It started about 15 years ago when my husband (he who cannot be named) of that era was working in Southern California and thus I was home alone a great deal of the time.  Tom was putting finishing touches on the inn and trying to get guests and I was starting the Inns of Marin business and procured lodgers for him (I was sort of like a pimp, now that I think about it) and we gravitated towards each other because of those reasons and many others.  One was that we both had (have) wicked senses of humor and another was that we both liked to drink (still do.)  And thus the inception of Friday Night Cocktail Hour.

The evolution of that hour is a story for another blog.  Suffice it to say that it is Friday night, Tom is out of town, I am in Daly City and one must keep up traditions so I am having a cocktail.  A Manhattan, to be precise.  (I considered devoting a blog to my energetic alcohol consumption these days but decided it would be embarrassing to my children, friends, family and possibly even the dogs so I squelched that idea.  For the time being. It would definitely not be embarrassing to me.)

The above is nothing but filler. There is no segue here, but what I really find amazing and so totally cool is the fact that Bill Clinton took over Barak Obama's news conference today, took it over to the extent that Obama left the briefing room to attend to some holiday event with his wife!  Is this unprecedented or what?  Name me another President who let one of his predecessors take over for him in a news conference.  Granted, it was an impromptu news conference, but still, how amazing is it that the leader of the free world and the leader of most of the unfree world just stepped aside and let a former leader take the reins and drive the chariot?  Come on, who out there, raise your hands, would vote for Bill Clinton in 2012?  I will, of course, vote for any Democrat even if they make me shake my head in dismay and I truly hope Obama is not a one-term lame duck like Carter (whom I love, just so you know) but seriously, Bill Clinton again?  I would go down that dark and stormy path.

The fact that Clinton got to chat up the news mongers while President Obama was out doing something with Michelle gives my weary soul solace.  Out of all the crap we are dealing with right now, and everyone of us is dealing with crap right now (see the list at the bottom) that was a press conference I would have liked to have seen.

Crap We Are Dealing With Right Now: 
In no particular order:
Friends in the hospital
Mother (90 years old) in the hospital, pacemaker being inserted
Friends getting nervous about their jobs
Friends dealing with the death of their mates
Friends and siblings dealing with divorce
Children dealing with loss of jobs
Everyone dealing with the lack of the Christmas Miracle

Good stuff we are dealing with right now:
Daughter from Texas is visiting
Son and Daughter-in-law are letting me live at their house
Dogs making me laugh
Friends and family giving love
Life

Feel free to add your own to the list.  Whether you do it here or just in your mind, it's fine.

Thursday news

My first inclination was to write about babies, since I spent yesterday in the company of a nine month old but I thought that a discussion about babies following a discussion about dogs would be too cute for most of my blog followers so I nixed that idea.  My next thought was to tell you about my daughter who is in town for a visit and whom I have not seen in ten months but that topic would fill several volumes so I changed my mind on that as well.

That leaves public outrage at the Republicans and personal embarrassment at the Democrats and to tell you the truth I just can't find enough energy to discuss either one so I am leaving both of those parties alone.  But why do we have a word - party - that has at least two distinct definitions that are the antithesis of each other.  There is definitely nothing about the Democrats or the Republicans that comes anywhere near  "a social gathering especially for pleasure or amusement."  

Maybe I have writer's block, but since I am not really a writer, more a transcriber of my day-to-day thoughts, it would have to be something like doodler's block and that sounds inane.  So I turn to the source that on a regular basis makes me think:  the New York Times.  On-line, of course.

Now, I know there are many people who do not read the Times, do not trust the Times and do not trust or believe any mainstream media.  In part I agree with them because mainstream is just that, for the middle of the stream.  Often controlled by lobbies and censored by law, most news media is bland and biased.  When it comes to NYT, I don't care.  The writers do not write on a fifth grade level, the front page is not pandering to local issues and the depth of subjects is, well, really deep. 

On the front page right now you can read an excellent and frightening article titled "The Worst Bathroom in New York."  Read it and then try complaining about where you live.  Then we have Nicholas Kristof who opens his editorial this way:  "California may be about to execute an innocent man."  The article is chilling and if our lame-ass (oops, I mean lame-duck) governor does not stay this execution and perhaps review this case and pardon this man, he should be the one serving time.  Scroll on down the page and you can read about movies, war, food, books and even trite nonsense. 

I am convinced that if you spend even 20 minutes a day reading one good newspaper, one that covers the world thoroughly and is thoughtful and intelligent, you will never be bored.  When traveling in Europe, in the past when I had an income, one of the best papers was the International Herald Tribune. It might not be one of the best papers in the world but it is one of the few that an English reader can get all over Europe. With a cappuchino in a small cafe, it makes wasting a couple of hours seem like a very learned thing to do.  Plus it has a great crossword puzzle and it still, the last time I looked, runs Calvin and Hobbes comics!  That alone is stellar.

Read and jot down words or events or names and places you are not familiar with.  Look them up on your computer. I am convinced it increases  your brain size. Plus the small bits of esoteric knowledge  you gather makes you a hit at boring dinner parties.

Tomorrow:  back to serious business.  Really. 

Dogs

Today we are not discussing the failures of our world. We are turning to a happier topic:  dogs.  Specifically the dogs that Gabe and Annie and I are living with.  Our dogs.  My little Cooper and their lovely Hannah.

Every morning, without fail (unless we have been up very, very late the night before) Hannah and Cooper wake up at 7:30, give or take a few  minutes.  Cooper sleeps on my bed so he is sometimes awake a bit earlier but he knows to bide his time until Hannah appears.  Hannah sleeps upstairs with her Gabe and Annie but because of some internal alarm clock, she gets up at the correct time, comes to my room, noses the door open and tiptoes (I swear she does) to my side of the bed. By the time she is near me,  Cooper is sitting up on the bed, or on me to be precise.  Hannah comes very close to my face and breathes on me.  Dog breath is not something you want to spend a lot of time with, especially first thing in the morning.  It has the intended effect:  I groan and get up.

The dogs spend the next few minutes doing their stretching exercises on the rug and sniffing each other, saying "hello" in their doggie fashion.  They wait patiently for me to put on jeans and a sweatshirt but once I pick up my shoes and socks, they make it clear that their patience is almost at an end.  They jump around and make small squeaky noises while I tie my shoes, get their leashes and start our morning jaunt around the neighborhood.

It astounds me that they are always on time.  Sometimes they are early, not often, but if it is before 7:30 I simply say "not now, too early" and they retreat to their respective corners, reappearing at 7:30.  As I mentioned, if we have had dinner guests and a lively evening and we go to bed late, they will wait politely until 8:30 on the dot, no later. 

The really odd thing is this: if I am  not here and they both sleep in Gabe and Annie's room, they are never in a hurry to get up.  And if Cooper and I are sleeping in a hotel somewhere, he never wakes me up, nor does he want to get out of bed until I do.  This ritual of the 7:30 wake-up call only happens when I am in the house. 

I know there are cat people and there are dog people and every now and then there are people who like both dogs and cats.  I do not pretend to understand cat people but I find it difficult understanding how someone could not like dogs.  They are friendly, loyal, happy, goofy and fine companions.  They do not poop in a box in the bathroom and they do not spit up hairballs.  Yes, they lick their butts, but so do cats.  Dogs are much more amusing than cats as well.  Kittens are incredibly fun to watch but once they are over the kitten thing, not so fun anymore.  Dogs stay funny until they die.

However, that's just an opinion from a dog person, one who does not care that much about cats, and I don't want to defend my position against all dog haters and cat lovers out there, so I will close with a couple of photos of the dogs.

Here is one of Cooper looking like a slug on the dogbed in front of the sunny window and one of Hannah looking like a dog on the human bed in my bedroom.

Monday, Monday

Yesterday I was at a party in SF and unlike my usual party persona, I actually talked to people I didn't know.  The fact that I was wearing my black chef's coat helped, of course.  It makes me look sort of official and it helps me feel like I am someone other than my reclusive self.

It seemed as if everyone I spoke to had a story.  You know how it goes, you say hello to someone you don't know,  there are a few awkward seconds until one of you asks something inane like "How are you connected to this family?" and then the conversation moves a small step forward.  Since it is the holiday season, everyone initially seems in good spirits, talking about the rain and wind, how they had to circle the block ten times but then they got the perfect parking space, how lovely the lights look on the house across the street.  Just chatter.  After a few minutes of this, however, the conversation took a different turn.

People at parties often ask where you live, if you live in the city or somewhere else.  That question was the real conversation starter.  For me, it is a tough one to answer.  I don't feel like I really live in Daly City yet, but it is where I reside for now.  Saying I recently moved from Marin County to Daly City prompted the next inquiry:  "Why?"  Responding that I moved in with my son and his wife because I have been out of work for 15 months and could no longer afford to live in Marin caused many people to nod knowingly and begin to tell their stories about the same kinds of situations.

I talked to young families who moved back to the Bay Area from other states and could not afford rent and were therefore living with their parents for the short-term.  I spoke to small business owners who had laid people off because of lack of business and who were obviously still grappling with the emotional and psychological effects of doing so.  Many people were in the same situation as me, unemployed and looking for work but luckily had husbands or wives or mates who still worked and they were just barely making ends meet.  Two different people were living with an elderly parent, acting as the caretaker.  One woman was caring for her mother in the final stages of cancer.  Another was dealing with a son who had, eight weeks ago, been in a terrible motorcycle accident and no one knew yet how much his brain injury would be permanent or how much function he would regain.

Story after story.  There were people who had good stories, too, people who finally sold their houses and were able to get out from under that financial burden or a person who finally, after nine months, got a great job.  There were several kids running around the house and the sound of their uninhibited laughter was a story all on its own, one of innocence and freedom.  That was one of the best unspoken stories, of course.

But I was struck by how almost every person I spoke to was dealing with something tough or had just overcome a huge hurdle.  Almost all of these difficulties were directly related to the economic mess our country is currently in.  Whether it was unemployment or housing or health or business problems, almost no one was unaffected.  

We read in the newpapers and we hear on the evening news all about unemployment, health care, the economy and how nothing will get better in the near future.  But we don't often talk directly to people who are in the midst of dealing with these issues. We know about them and we read their stories but we simply do not hear their voices out loud often enough.  I heard those voices yesterday in a city where houses still sell for millions of dollars.  If I can hear them in San Francisco, where the unemployment rate is around 10%, think of how loud those voices must be in places like Merced and Stockton, with rates near 16%, or Yuma, Arizona, with unemployment rates over 25%.

More to follow.

Saturday night

It dawned on me this morning while taking a shower at my Mom's that it is three weeks until Christmas.  The shower and the dawning are not connected in any way but I must say that it is a really terrible shower.  It is like the showers in cheap European hotels:  instead of water flowing out of the showerhead, it sort of drips quickly and in three or four streams of drips.  It takes about 3 minutes just to get your hair wet and another 7 minutes to rinse the shampoo out of your hair.  By the time you have finished washing your hair (10 minutes) you are lucky if the water has even gotten your feet wet.  Needless to say it is a frustrating experience and every time I get in that shower I wonder why I just didn't go dirty for the day. 

But I digress.  Back to Christmas.  Three weeks until we celebrate the birth of Santa Claus.  I was never a very good shopper but when my kids were little it was easy.  Go to Toys 'R Us and buy things and that was it.  When they were teenagers it was all about gift certificates.  Now I am on the dole and I have made the statement that there will be no gifts from me this year.  Everyone agrees, everyone (aka my kids) acknowledges that we are all over burdened with "stuff" and need nothing else.  So, ostensibly, we all agreed to not get gifts.

But you know it isn't going to go that route.  You know, I know, they know that come present-opening time there must be something to open.  Some box, bottle, or bag to gleefully rip apart and admire the contents.  So it leads me to the dilemma:  should I adhere to the "No Gifts" rule or should I do as I am sure my kids will do:  buy something.  Some little thing, something under $5.00, some item that will make the recipient smile or laugh or groan. 

And that's OK.  While we all have way too much stuff and we definitely do not need more, we also need the tradition of giving gifts.  We need to recognize the holiday in the accepted holiday manner, and giving gifts (along with drinking champagne) is in that holiday manner.  What those gifts will be remains the mystery and it might remain that way for another two and a half weeks.  But as much as we talk the talk, we will probably not be walking the "gift-free" walk come gift time.  Something small (diamonds are small, right?) and something cheap (OK, no diamonds) wrapped tastefully.  I think that's the ticket this year.  And any money left over goes to one's favorite charity.  Let people with too little stuff benefit from our overload.

But I still remember those pilgrimages to Toys 'R Us fondly, getting a babysitter, wandering the toy aisles, laughing at some of the options, excited at others.  We probably spent too much money but the payback was Christmas morning, watching the kids open the packages.  Too bad a new box of Legos no longer does the trick.  sigh.  

Get to work!

I was planning on leaving the unemployment woes behind today but an article on the front page of the on-line NY Times makes that impossible.  The article, entitled "Unemployed, and Likely to Stay That Way" discusses those of us who have been out of work for more than six months.  The bottom line is that the longer you are out of work, the longer you will stay out of work.  Employers do not like to see gaps on resumes (well, who does?) and are much less likely to hire, or even interview, someone who has been unemployed for more than six months.

Well, now, this is a fine kettle of fish!  Not surprising since this has been a hot topic lately, but it does smack of discrimination.  Perhaps there is a lawsuit here, just waiting to be filed.  Discrimination because of economic lethargy is something that none of us out-of-work slackers can change and it is most definitely not our fault.  You would think that employers might want to hire us first because we would be so, so grateful and we would do a really, really good job and we would hardly ever complain.  (Well, at least not for a few months.)  The HR people would earn a lot of good karma, we would earn some money, the economy might become less indolent and everyone would benefit!  The people recently laid off would get a chance to collect their share of unemployment and all the benefit extensions would cease because all of us who are needing the extensions would already be back at work!

It could work.  Sort of a revolving door of unemployed folks. Instead of so many out of work for so long, everyone could have a shot at a short period of lassitude.  Share the joy, as it were. 

Tomorrow, I promise, I will move on to another topic.  It is now time for another dog walking experience.  Thank god someone is benefiting from my unfortunate state.

Unemployment blues continued

Don't be surprised if the title of this blog changes from "Julie Travels" to something totally different, like "Julie Would Like to Travel But Can't Because of Lack of Funds"  or "Julie Stays Home"  or some such thing. I am probably one of the few people who wouldn't mind getting the over-zealous pat-down from the TSA people because at least it would mean I was getting on a plane, going somewhere.  Touch me wherever you want, do the full scan of my fat body, I care not.  Just give me an airline ticket and let me actually travel somewhere.  It is obvious that the original title of  "Julie Travels" was wishful thinking.  Hopefully another road trip is in my future, but after yesterday's posting about being unemployed I now find myself pondering that great gorge of darkness.  How utterly useless and unproductive I have become!  Well, other than walking the dog a lot.

I have been reading other blogs about being unemployed.  Seems all of us go through the same steps, the elation of having some time off, the hard work looking for another job, the depression that comes when the new job does not materialize.  Denial, anxiety, depression, elation, the list goes on and on.  It sounds self-pitying and whining and it probably is.  But still, it is tough to be out of work for so long and since no one else really feels sorry for you ("be positive, something will happen!") one must feel sorry for oneself.  Hey, I have been working fairly steadily for 45 years and I have always been able to find another job when necessary.  The fact that now I can't is not just surprising but deflating and frightening too.

Ah, yes, but still.  One must keep the the positive attitude going, no matter what.  That's what everyone tells me.  But in the middle of the night, wide awake, the question floats above me like the sword of Damocles:  What happens if I never get another job?   Really, answer me that, Mr. Wizard.  What if I never get hired again?  I can't live at my son's house forever, that is unacceptable to me and probably to him as well.  But what's next?  Think about it.  If you were unable to live where you now live because you could no longer afford it, if there were no income for you at all, if your meager savings carried you only so far, what would you do?  Scary stuff.
 

Latent effects of being unemployed

I haven't addressed the whole "being on the dole" thing yet.  It's just recently that I have  actually addressed it in my own mind and it's been over a year since I was unceremoniously dumped from my last place of work.  Being unemployed puts you in a category with millions of other people and thus you know you are not alone.  At first you are happy to have some free time to read, to catch up on movies in your Netflix queue, to clean out closets and take the dog for long walks. You dutifully fill out the unemployment compensation forms and naturally there is a problem with those forms (there always is) and you spend a few hours on the phone trying to get the problems resolved.  You do and ... look!  A check comes in the mail!  You get money from the government!  You are amazed that the system works.  You are also amazed at the paltry sum of the check and realize that it barely pays the rent and you contemplate cancelling your health insurance.  You get busy finding another job, answering job ads, honing your resume, perfecting your cover letter. You email 20 - 25 resumes and cover letters each week.  You receive no responses.

A couple of months go by and you are granted an interview for a job that you know you would be perfect for. The interview goes very well, you are confident they will call you back.  They do not.  Now you begin to worry.  You know you have great skills and great work experience but so do thousands of other unemployed people and most of them are younger than you are and that pisses you off.  In fact, almost everything pisses you off these days.  You have way too much free time, dwindling savings and no purpose other than walking the dog. 

You slip into a sort of general ennui and you want to stay in bed and sleep all day.  You aren't a fool, you know this is depression creeping over you like a wandering kudzu vine but you don't care.  You can't sleep at night but napping during the day becomes a ritual, curling up on the couch in the mid-afternoon.  You feel like you have Multiple Personality Disorder:  Person A worries, Person B enjoys napping, Person C feels fine about getting that unemployment check because, darn it all, she paid into that system for more than 40 years and is entitled to some remuneration, Person D knows that if she were more energetic and "out there" she would have found a new job by now.  Depression, anxiety, laziness, sloth?  What is it?  You decide you don't care and you watch another rerun of "Criminal Minds."

You begin to acknowledge the futility of sending out resumes, over and over, but you do it anyway.   The job ads are so depressing.  At the beginning of your time as a job-loser you found the ads a challenge, something to conquer.  Now they just make you sad.  Because there are so many people unemployed, those doing the hiring can have the pick of the litter.  You are competing against a younger, more talented pool of candidates who might be willing to be the Office Jesus (aka Savior) for $12.00 an hour.  You are not willing to take that job because it would net less than what the State of California puts in your mailbox every two weeks.

Now it is more than a year since you were laid off and your unemployment benefits have just run out.  You no longer bother to send out resumes because no one wants to hire you anyway.  You spend way too much time reading trashy novels.  You think of applying to Wal-Mart or a gas station convenience store.

I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of this subject.  What about the dawning realization that you must move because without the unemployment check you can't afford rent?  And how does it feel to know that you have no place of your own to move to?  More to follow.  Time to walk the dog.  Again.

More

It was recommended that I write every day.  I am not sure I have enough to say that often but let's just see if the every day thing works.  I definitely do not want this blog to turn into a diary thing, where I chat about what I did today, like "how I spent my summer vacation."  Please, please all of you out there, when/if it gets to that point, tell me.  Save me the embarrassing revelation that somehow I turned into a boring shrew.

Movie review:  the current Harry Potter film, "Deathly Hallows".  I didn't read many of the HP books and did not read the last book, on which this movie is based. Therefore I cannot tell you if it follows the book or if it even remotely resembles the story in the book. I can tell you that it is a very good movie.  Amazing visual effects, good story even if you have no idea of what is going on, story-wise. (That would be me.) It's a good way to spend two plus hours, pure fantasy and escapism.   Two thumbs up. 

Rick Steves:  he is on the PBS channel right now.  I really, really do not like this man.  How can anyone stand to listen to him?  His voice sounds like an elementary school teacher swaddled in cotton and sugar with a side of pedophile thrown in. (Harsh, yes, but he creeps me out.)   He tries to make foreign travel easy and fun and something that everyone can do.  But anyone who has ever visited a foreign country knows that it is not always as easy as Steves makes it seem.  In fact, real travel, not group tourist travel on a bus, can be hard work. Those colorful local folks that Steves always finds sitting outside a cafe, willing to chat, are hardly ever accessible to the rest of us. Those rolling suitcases he always finds easy to maneuver do not work so well on the cobblestone streets of many old cities.  Not everyone speaks English, unlike the people he connects with. Hotel rooms are small, bathrooms are often shared, food choices are limited, especially in off-season.  This is not to say that traveling is terribly difficult, it is simply that Steves makes it seem so easy all the time.  I had all my money and my passport stolen on a train in Italy and yet that experience, with the carabinieri and the American Embassy, was one of the most educational experiences of my travel life. Rick Steves doesn't discuss those kinds of things, he just tries to make it all seem pretty and nice.  

Well, enough about Rick Steves.  Thanks for listening.

Holidays? Are you kidding?

Yes, we are all stuffed and we are all planning on eating nothing but salad and raw carrots for the next two weeks.  The inauguration of the 2010 holiday season has arrived and I hope you were all thankful for something or someone.

The holidays are, to paraphrase Dickens, the best of times and the worst of times.  We love them for what they should be and what we historically (or hysterically) have envisioned them to be.  On the other hand we occasionally hate them for the disappointment they cause and for the reality that they often force us to face.  We get through them, sometimes alone, sometimes sullenly or, if we are lucky, with fleeting feelings of happiness and contentment.  Much like life in general, actually.

I know no one who doesn't have a sad holiday tale to tell.  But I also don't know anyone who doesn't have at least one great Hallmark-card memory, some moment on which all holiday hopes are hung.  Thankfully we have learned to embellish such moments and downplay the sad ones; the human condition is to forget bad and remember good. ("One for bad, two for good" as Rain Man would say.)   But it still doesn't make the holiday season any less daunting and frightening for thousands of folks who are simply struggling to survive.

Yikes!  Here it is not even December 1st and I am rambling on about the approaching Christmas season.  Clearly it is looming large in my small mind, but I will save the rest of that ramble for the days closer to the actual holidays.

When I started this blog I was hitting the road with Cooper.  Some of you might be looking forward to the next leg of that journey because reading about my at-home adventures isn't  terribly interesting.  No worries: more road trips are in the offing.  Don't know where or when but soon.  In the meantime you will have to be satisfied with local jaunts.  Besides, who really is reading this blog anyway?  Perhaps no one (and please do not feel compelled to respond to that question) and if that's the case, that's fine.  It is as much for myself as for anyone else.   

Confessions in West Marin

Tuesday morning and I am sitting in a small cottage on Tomales Bay, looking out tall glass French doors onto the bay, watching the rain and the ducks.  If this was some other location I would be saying to myself "this is so beautiful, I could live here!"  But having already done that, I now know better.  Today I am a visitor to Inverness, here to run a few errands and see to a couple of appointments. 

In my current introspective frame of mind, I can see that I did not make use of the West Marin community as well as others have.  I came here married and on a part-time basis.  Once that was over I reverted to my somewhat hermit ways and chose not to extend myself into that community.  I have always been a bit of a recluse, I admit it.   I am not a joiner and prefer small gatherings to large events. In other words, in a small town I was perhaps my own worst enemy.

There are no regrets, of course, because even if I had built up a huge family of friends and acquaintances, I still wouldn't have a job here and thus no income.  Living out here would have still been a poor option.  But I can still visit and enjoy the scenery.  Today is a beautiful day. More to follow.

Portland - Daly City

Beautiful drive from Portland, took a right turn in Grants Pass out to the coast, to Crescent City.  More forests, more gorgeous trees in all colors.  Spent the night in CC and drove Hwy. 101 back to the bay area. I love the drive from the northwest edge of California going south, the road is wide, fast and scenic and never very trafficky.

I know I have said it before but I think this year's tree colors are the best I have ever seen.  Maybe it's my imagination or maybe I just don't get out much but everywhere I went the trees defined the term "awesome."  Every shade from pale yellow through dark gold, from pink to scarlet red, from apricot to burnt orange.  The colors of the leaves put a huge box of crayons to shame.  As a person who has lived in California her entire life and in very moderate climates, I have never lived where trees changed colors and then dropped their leaves so abundantly.  It was wonderful.

Now back in Daly City, staying at Gabe and Annie's for a while, in the bedroom I had when I lived in this house more than 25 years ago.  To say it feels odd is to belittle the emotions I am feeling.  Not only am I out of work, I am out of a home base and feeling quite unconnected.  The jury is still out on this episode of my life; let's see how it shakes out in the next month or so.  I will keep you posted.

But Thanksgiving is just around the corner and there is much to be thankful for, of course.  The basics:  health, family, friends.  The extras: a dog, a car and plenty to eat.  It's been a rough year for a lot of people but a lot tougher for others.  Let's just be thankful for a couple of days for what we have.  At this moment, a lot of thunder, lightning and rain!

Two Photos

These might get lost in the background but here is a photo of a park in downtown Portland and one of Cooper and his pal Gumby.

Portland

This is a city that I could live in.  There is an actual downtown area, with all the financial and business buildings you would expect in a metropolitan city, city parks, public transportation and coffee everywhere.  There is a decent art museum, hundreds of restaurants, all the services of a big city.  Some of the little neighborhoods remind me a great deal of the small 'hoods in SF, (think Noe Valley) but more accessible and even more diverse in housing opportunities and in local commerce.   While the racial population of Portland might not be as mixed as SF or LA or NY, it definitely is not as white as West Marin. (well, nowhere is.)  

We spent a great deal of Monday simply walking through the city, from our hotel area to the college and looping around to different sections.  We then spent another hour or so driving a bit farther out,  into older neighborhoods with stately homes or small cottage-like homes.  Finally we met up with Tom's niece Camille who lives in an area called Alphabet District and it would be the perfect place for me to live.  Everything is within walking distance and while some of it is a bit upscale, most of it is more down-home: a Trader Joe's but also a very cool independent market, small neighborhood cafes, coffee places and bars, good restaurants, old buildings, laundromats, car repair shops, banks, dentists, everything you need within a 4 or 5 block radius.  Plus it is just a couple of miles (walking distance) of the downtown center.

This is not to say that I am rushing home to pack up and move here.  (First problem:  who would rent to a person without a job?  No one.)  But I might start thinking about jobs here and I would definitely come back if the employment possibilities looked promising.  So much remains to be seen and discovered, but it is encouraging to realize that a city holds great appeal to me.  I told a friend recently that after living the past 20 years in the country I would really like to live in a place that has a skyline.

Today we took a beautiful ride through the Columbia River Gorge area, saw some brilliant waterfalls and a little snow, some blinding sunshine off Mt. Hood and gorgeous country vistas with trees still changing colors.  Tonight we are meeting Camille back in her neighborhood for dinner (via the free streetcar).  Tomorrow means saying goodbye to the Hotel Monaco for now and venturing on.  

Since this entire experiment (not having a home, doing some car traveling, figuring out the next phase of my life) will probably go on for a while, this blog will continue even when I am back in the bay area.  Keep reading.  Who knows where I will end up?  I sure don't. 

Hotel Love

While I like the background of the travel blog, I am not sure I like how it looks published, so I am experimenting with new stuff.  We'll see how it works. 

From Eugene to Portland, easy drive.  Now we are at the Hotel Monaco, a Kimpton Hotel, downtown Portland. They like dogs and it is not a motel.  Cooper and I asked for an upgrade and got a suite, not huge but actually rather nice, small living room with couch, chairs, table, coffee table, TV.  Separate bedroom with lovely tall doors that could close off the living room if one had someone to sleep in that area (we do not).  King bed, another TV, more chairs.  We are Happy.  We like hotels.  We tolerate and accept motels because motels are very useful and expedient but Cooper and I have realized that we are more Hotel Peeps.  Or at least we would like to become such, like the Madeleine books about the little girl who lived in a hotel in France.  Cooper and I want to be her.  No chance of that happening, we know, but still......  Being homeless, we can dream of many things, and living in this hotel is one of those dreams.  Sigh.  (Yes, I know. The homeless card is shamelessly played.)

Tom is here, too, in a smaller room, with his dog.  Cooper and Mario (the dog) got to play "Running Laps" in the hotel corridor, chasing each other down the corridors which run in a loop, snipping and biting each other's tails, running as fast as they can.  Great exercise, esp since I am on the 7th floor and the hotel is not really that crowded right now.  Good fun.

More to follow but time for bed and zut alors!  It is not even 10:00 yet!  This hotel life is so exhausting!

Wandering Minds

This morning I read a little blurb about a Harvard study that said people who had wandering minds were less happy than those who didn't.  Instead of thinking about the past or the future, it seems that those who "live in the moment" feel happier. Now, some of this makes sense.  Constantly second-guessing one's actions, regretting the past, worrying about the future, dwelling on what happened instead of enjoying what is going on now, it is easy to see how that would get in the way of being happy.  But then I wonder what sort of an analogy this creates in my own life. (Yes, it is always about me.)   Here I am, wandering the roads, having few plans about what I will do two days from now, untethered, somewhat rootless (not to mentioned route-less) and if that isn't a product of a wandering mind, I am not sure what is.  What I am doing right now is wandering.  And not just physically, not just wandering the West Coast in my small car with my dog.  At the same time, my mind is always skipping from one thought to the next:  what should I do next week?  Do I think I can actually get a job in this economy?  When the reality of being slightly homeless hits me, how will I really respond?  What will I do when the money runs out?  Why are all the radio stations here playing only Christian rock and who actually listens to this stuff?

But wait! With all this wandering, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, I still feel happy!   In fact, I feel more grounded and "in the moment" than I have felt in a very long time. So you can see the conundrum here.  My mind is jumping around like a chihuahua on a hot skillet but somehow I have also figured out how to do this "live in the moment" thing.

I am not dismissing the Harvard study, of course. Paying attention to what is in front of us, to what is happening right now is very important.  To negate the present because of worry about the future or regret about the past is to really screw up one's sense of contentment and happiness.  But to only dwell on the present might mean ignoring the experiences that led one to this present moment and it might mean poor planning for the future.  I think our past and our future color our present moments and they should.  We are the sum of our experiences.  Yes, we can sweep some of those unpleasant experiences under the rug (and we should) but some of them create the fabric of who we are right now.  And without that fabric, without the flaws in that cloth, we would be, to continue the comparison, a plain white cotton sheet.  Without considering what colors are in our future, that plain white cotton sheet would stay that way: serviceable but boring. 

Perhaps it is just that I have had too much really good coffee this morning and that has led to this ramble.  But I really believe that sometimes we have to let our minds wander and get out there and get some fresh air and look over the edge of the cliff.  The moment is good, true, but without the bruises of the past and the shadows of the future, the moment is just that:  one dimension of a life.

Be happy.  Let your mind wander, then reel it back in.

Bend - Eugene

The last post sounded a bit whiny, didn't it?  It sounded like "poor me, I have to drive in the snow!"  As if someone was making me take this journey and I was pissed that winter weather was hindering my enjoyment of getting to take several weeks of meandering through the countryside, not working, not doing much of anything other than whatever I wanted to do.  What a big baby.  No more complaining, not for a couple of days at least.

The drive today could have been daunting, at least if I had payed attention to the DOT reports (that's Dept. of Transportation, in case you were wondering) about all the snow on the mountain pass and the flashing lights on the road that said you could not go over the pass unless you carried chains or had snow tires.  I decided to take my chances and ignore all the warnings and ignore the scary photos on the DOT website about road conditions and just get on with the drive.  Hell, if it was too bad, I could always turn around, right?  And it was an incredibly easy and beautiful drive, a little icy but nothing remotely dangerous.   Once I passed the high summit (not very high, actually, less than 5,000 feet) and was down to about 2,000 feet, the snow was gone and the road was narrow and the trees were very, very tall, probably about the height of a 4 or 5 story building.  The tree line was only about 8 feet from the edge of the road so it was as if one was driving through a very tall tunnel of dark green trees.  The road was straight and the effect was so eerie because no one else was on the road but me, just me and these incredibly tall trees.  I could see a small swatch of sky, just a swipe of blue at the top of the trees.  Stunning.

In Eugene now, staying with John and Diane, nice to be in a cozy home, sound of soft rain on the roof.  I am looking forward to good, strong coffee in the morning and that's about as far into the future as I want to look  at this moment.

Am I on crack, driving these roads?

The reason why most people take car trips in the late spring or summer is becoming quite clear to me.  It is because there is no friggin snow on the road!  There is no snow falling from the sky!  There are no semi- trucks dumping chunks of snow in front of your car at 65 miles per hour!  Clarity comes too late, reasoning takes a back seat to opportunity:  here's a road, let's take it!  Not only did I drive to Bend today (which is a really unattractive city, at least the part I have seen) but tomorrow I need to drive to Eugene, which is back across the mountains, and unless I want to retrace my tire tracks I will need to go on even snowier roads to get there.  The roads are plowed and relatively clear but messy and rocky and dirty as hell.  The car looks pathetic, covered with road spray from aforementioned semi-trucks.  The big trucks can only get to Bend on one road (the others are too narrow or icy) and that was the same road I chose to take.  Fun.  Loads of fun.  There were road signs indicating migrating bears and I held out hope that I would see some but alas, nothing furry appeared except the occasional small road kill.

As I was traversing Oregon (some of which was very scenic, some not so much) I was wondering if there was a metaphor in taking the back roads.  Maybe something about moving out of the safe life and trying to expand my horizons, leaving the ease of the known and venturing into the scary unknown.  This search for the metaphor that could apply to my new untethered life occupied my thoughts for a little while until I decided "no, there is no metaphor here, just a stupid idea to take the back roads."   Perhaps as my travels continue something metaphorical or allegorical will unfold.  Right now it is just a lot of sloggy driving.

You are all no doubt curious about Cooper.  Yesterday I gave him a dose of Benadryl since I knew we would be in the car for a while.  It didn't seem to phase him until about 4 hours after the dose when he finally calmed down in the car.  Then the effects of the drug seemed to last for another 6 hours after that, as he lay almost motionless on the bed in our motel, obviously in a drug-induced stupor.  Today I gave him nothing and he did the heavy panting the entire time we were in the car but at least right now he responds to me as I walk around the room. But true to form, he loves hotels and motels.  The long corridors are perfect for running and playing with his toy and we have had rooms with king beds, so much bigger than the double bed he is use to at home.  (Well, when we had a home, that is.)  Other than his hatred of the car, he is a good traveler.  (Motel review:  this Comfort Inn just outside Bend, going a bit north, is very nice, good pillows, quiet, off the road and cheap.  And they take dogs!)

There is much to be said about the above mention of not having a home right now, but that will wait until the metaphor moment, or at least until a little later in the journey.  Part of me wonders why I am driving around, why I just don't go somewhere, get a hotel room for a week and stop driving.  What is the driving accomplishing?  Do I think I will find a city that I love and a job will magically fall from the heavens?  Am I running away, or driving away, from something other than myself and my lack of a job?  Am I simply in denial and trying to run from that?  I have no idea right now.  Like Scarlett, I will think about it tomorrow.

Maybe not so Bend-able

Just looked at the travel conditions on the road I wanted to cover but it seems the road hits high elevations and the traffic cameras are showing lots of snow on the roads. And perhaps more to come.  Sigh.  But hey!  It is part of the adventure, right?  Getting stuck in snow on the side of the road, me and little Cooper, having to burn books for heat and eat Cooper's dry kibble for sustenance?  I am thinking NOT on that kind of adventure.  Driving in the snow might be fine for a Jeep (hint) but little Freddy the Fit is not a fan of freezing nor a fan of fishtailing on icy roads.  Neither am I.  Alternative plan must be created.  Stay tuned. 

Garberville-Weaverville-Yreka

Tuesday wasn't a day of big adventures but it certainly was a day of beauty.  Highway 299 going east from Arcata is, at this time of year, simply stunning.  While the Trinity Alps are not as high (in elevation, anyway) as other Alps in the world, they are still very beautiful.  Oaks, maples, alders, amber trees and others that I couldn't identify were all in various stages of different red, gold and orange colors and with the dark green background of the redwood and fir trees, the drive was very scenic.  Spits of fog draped across some of the ridges like long white ghost hair.  This is the road you would take if you were in Arcata and wanted to go across the state to Hwy. 5 and if you take it in the fall you will be well rewarded.

Along the way it is obvious that some of the locals are definitely conflicted about who to believe in.  Big signs for God ("Have questions?  God has the Answers.")  and big signs for BigFoot competed for road space in one of the little villages.  There is even a museum for BigFoot!  And here I thought he was a fictional character, little did I realize that he (or she) is a real, live Big Foot!  But I wondered if some of those questions couldn't be answered in a different way:  "Have questions?  BigFoot has answers!"   or even "Have God?  BigFoot has questions!".

Spent the night in lovely Yreka.  Quiet, cold, snow flurries last night but a lovely morning, sunny and clear.  We are taking the long way to Bend, Oregon today, along a scenic highway.  Now it is time for a shower, some real coffee and the road.  Why is it that motel coffee has so little caffeine and so little taste? 

Garberville

Tuesday morning, in Garberville, lovely cold and misty morning, surrounded by old redwood trees and the wintery smell of .....  hmmm, what is that smell?  At this time of year one would expect to smell burning wood from fireplaces and woodstoves, but this smell isn't exactly wood smoke.  It smells a little woody, a little skunky and a little like, perhaps weed?  Could it be that the folks here in town burn marijuana in their ecologically correct wood stoves and the entire town stays high?  That is precisely what it smells like.  Garberville, where everyone looks either homeless or drug-addled and yet most of them drive huge brand-new American made trucks!  How could this be?

My goal yesterday was to get into the Trinity Alps using small back roads instead of Hwy. 5 to Redding or Hwy 101 to Arcata.  However, the small roads indicated on the map were actually unpaved roads and 40 miles of unpaved roads in my little Honda just didn't seem like a good idea.  Stopping at a ranger station in the booming hamlet of Covelo confirmed that there was no way into the Alps that was paved unless I went back to one of the above safe roads.  So three hours of beautiful driving through some gorgeous Mendocino forests later, we were back on Hwy. 101 and thus spent the night in Garberville.

Today, up to Arcata, taking a right on Hwy. 299 and into the mountains, ending somewhere near Redding a few hours later and on into Oregon.  At least that's the plan for now.  However, unlike the postal workers, Cooper and I are often thwarted by rain, sleet and snow.  Off we go......

Heading North

For those of you who are in the dark about my latest development, a quick update:  I moved away from Inverness, put my belongings in various places and am just starting a driving trip to parts unknown.  For how long, I don't know.  Final destination, don't know. Purpose, to see what's out there that I haven't seen yet and perhaps secure employment somewhere along the way.   Or not.  It sounds rather vague but it is the right time for me to stretch out and leave the safe, secure world of West Marin.  And who knows, perhaps I will return, just not for a little while.

Along the way I will be documenting my journey with this blog which I invite you to read and respond to and suggest other destinations that you think I might like or just follow along, sitting in the back seat with Cooper, as it were, along for the ride.