Running cost of my soul: $2.04

I’m not into the 21^st century. Jen told me the other day I was born out of time. I should have been a settler. I forget how this came up; I guess somehow it came out of either a Morocco, ranch or Indonesia-type story. Or maybe it was just somehow related to the RV, which continues to sit in a swamp.

Yeah, I have a really dumb phone and have never owned an iAnything, but it’s not that I don’t embrace the Internet. Granted, the best it’s done for me in recent memory is deliver me season four of “Arrested Development,” but I do use it constantly.

Even if it doesn’t actually reach the swampy RV. This Memorial Day weekend I’ve been re-watching seasons 1-3 in my office, which is a really pretty boring place to spend a holiday weekend.

But that’s not the Internet’s fault. It’s the router’s fault, or the wifi, or something else. I’m not sure. I don’t really get to nuances of digital this or that. That’s why I have a brother.

But I don’t buy into the whole new technology thing. I don’t feel the need to go out and keep up with the Jones; never have. I’m quite content with what I’ve got.

I’m resistant to a Facebook account, although I am responsible for updating the work one. I had someone create a fake profile on her account so that I didn’t have to get one of my own in order to maintain the Hope Village one. (Like us now! www.facebook.com/HopeVillageND.org!)

But for personal reasons, I don’t want that much of me out there. Yes, I have this blog but let’s face it, it’s mostly because I like to write. Maybe four people read it. I don’t put enough specific information out there to identify much of anything, including who I am. I just don’t like the idea of throwing all my personal information on the Internet. I’m not sure why anyone would.

However, Facebook isn’t the only way people can sell out in the 21^st century, and even though I don’t buy into most of it, I finally gave in. And the running total of selling my soul so far is $2.04.

I gave into the Internet marketing mine fields of Target recently, acquiring their Red card. It’s this monster thing that’s connected to my own bank account. But they also know what all you buy.

Of course, Target is the king of marketing mining anyway – Laurie brought that one to my attention (http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/). So I figure they have all my information anyway since I use my regular debit card, so why not go ahead and acknowledge it by going official?

The benefit Target pumps for this little piece of technology is 5 percent of your order. Whatever it is, you get 5 percent off, with the exception of gift cards.

I’m not a really big Target shopper, though. Or any other shopper, come to think of it, but why the heck not? They know everything anyway.

So from here on out, my Junior Mints are costing .95. Woo-hoo.

Splat on a hot tin roof

No, these aren't the same photos I took two weeks ago. I'm having a do-over with the floating dock to the RV. Only last time, it was melting snow and I was merely carrying a box or two out to the RV here and there; now it is constant rain and I am living in in the RV again.

Lakefront property.

The weather has just not been nice for RV living. The rain this weekend has encouraged me to go out and hunt for animals two by two; I’m fairly convinced the thing is going to float away.

Nights continue to facilitate nightmares, in part because of the uncomfy mattress. Also in part, though, by the smacking of the rain into the roof. The aluminum roof just amplifies everything and I wake up from my bizarre dreams.

Earlier this week, we had the horrible wind again. I fell asleep, had some freaky dreams and woke up again. Lay awake for awhile and dozed off, had weird dreams again and woke up. By that time, the rain was just thundering on the RV and the wind was rocking it.

This is why I it is best not to
drink liquids after about 7:30 p.m.

I figured by that time, at least judging by the length of the wild dreams, that it had to be about 5 p.m. Uh, no. After hoisting myself from the gaping dent in the mattress, I found my watch and it was only 12:30. And that had been the second time I'd been woken up that night. Holy smokes.

Last week, I was able to sleep through the night but it hasn’t happened this week. And waking up to the splats on the roof in the middle of the night just brings on the urge to pee.

And man, there’s nothing less fun than having to heave yourself out of bed, fumbling for a light, then pulling on a raincoat, boots and tracking down a flashlight in order to trek down to the plastic outhouse at 3 a.m. Especially right now, when it's so flooded that water is encroaching on the door to the port-a-potty.

This is my view. Some people pay extra
for a lakefront view. I get it for free.

So this really makes living in the RV is somehow more depressing this time around. Even though I only have six months left I'm in here "until we're done." I don't have the house to look forward to; I’ve no idea what will happen once I hit the road back to Florida or wherever.

For whatever reason, that makes that little trek down the dock a little harder. And one I really, really don't want to have to deal with that in the dark.

Eyeing the last six months

Back in the RV. It’s as glorious as it was before, which is to say not so much.

The mattress is the worst. It’s an RV mattress, which means it’s bendy so that I can access the storage panel below it. Because it’s so old, there is a permanent crease in it. And it’s about at butt-level.

So, once I get settled in, I’m fairly all right. But it takes some maneuvering. Picture a dog making a nest by doing circles, but doing it drunk, and when it came time to flop down, missing half the hole.

That’s a nightly ritual, only no booze. I flop down and part of me lands in the right spot, because there isn’t enough “right spot” for the rest of me.

During the night, it’s kind of rough because my feet stick off the end. The new electric blanket works all right, but I got a full one and I really should have gotten a queen, even though it fits the bed. You just can’t tuck it in and since I’m too tall, I tend to get cold.

And get cold I did, because on Friday, when I moved back, Steve forgot to give me propane, so I was darn cold. Not when I was sleeping but before I crashed and when I woke up.

Because of the pit in the mattress (I’ve tried to fix this by layering yoga pads underneath it and quilts on top of it, but there’s still a canyon there), the art of waking up is incredibly rough. I swear I have to get up momentum to pull myself out of the pit.

Once I did Saturday morning, I was just so cold. I went through two cups of hot chocolate before I just opted to sit in my office and watch Frasier on Netflix.

After Steve came by and hooked up my propane (turns out, he’d been distracted by not only the painkillers he was on but the fact he decided to propose that evening), I got much warmer but still had to resort to the office laptop for Netflix.

I bought a new TV and haven’t yet gotten it hooked up to either the dish network or my DVD player. This has not been the most exciting of weekends.

And it’s going to be like this for my remaining six months, I guess. I have mixed feelings about that. I mean, the little trailer wasn’t super nice or anything, but it was heaven to me. Now I’m back to being at the beck and call of the meals here (the stroganoff tonight was great) and essentially having no reason to do anything else.

Day to day, that’s fine, but week by week, it makes me wonder if I will ever have a life. Honestly, I feel at this point here, it’s too late to start. I don’t mind being bored usually but at some point, I would like to do something.

The two road trips I can pencil in are Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I’m not sure when I can go, because things are picking up at work. We have four teams in this week and then it starts filling up. We’re pretty much at capacity in June; I am pretty sure I’ll be super busy then.

So that’s cool. I guess I am just at a point where I just need to hang on and enjoy the ride.

What’s for lunch?

So, I killed my laptop. Barry’s been telling me to get a new one, but I didn't expect it to happen this way.

We have volunteers in now, and since I'm still living in the triple wide I am not coming over for breakfast, but as soon as I get in, I start to break down the area, etc.

So Monday or Tuesday, I did that. I just walk in and I carry my laptop and everything else in a little bag. I think it’s from one of Zippy’s tournaments.

Got in, tossed it on my desk and started cleaning up from the breakfast. An hour later, I came back and smelled something. My rice! It had spilled. And not only had it spilled, it had soaked!

It sure smelled good, though.

Really, the screen is the only thing that's toast. I hooked it up to another monitor and pulled everything off it, but considering the thing is so old I figured to just move on. The only stuff I couldn't figure out how to pull off it that I can’t replace was the old Outlook messages. I’ll figure it out

When Uncle Gray died, I put $1k aside for a laptop. I was going to get one then but I have to have Access for work. I hate Access and won't use it after my service here, so I didn't want to buy it. It's expensive. So the money got socked aside.

And now it's tied up until October, since I put it in a CD. However, since I did that I got my old sitemate's laptop, which had been donated to Hope Village and was on loan to her. And, as it turns out, it has Access.

So I am just going to use this one until I am done here, and then figure out what will happen. It is highly likely that I can just take this one with me. It's nothing special, and in fact might be just as old as my other one, but it's at least faster.

So I am kind of hoping to be able to keep it, but we'll see. It's got a bigger screen than I like; I tend to go for the smaller ones. But this one is better for Netflix, I must say.

I just have to remember not to use that particular container to carry lunch if the lunch is fairly liquidy.

I don’t have much longer to stay in the house, though. I’m down to my last five days. Soaked in the bathtub last night and am planning on doing that this week, too. I haven’t splurged on it near as much as I should have.

But this weekend, despite having a crappy cold, I have done the deep cleaning on the trailer. It’s really not too bad, since I really only sit at the bar and read, watch TV or use the computer or sleep in the bedroom. I don’t even usually lie on the sofa. The big TV is in there, but I couldn't figure out how to hook up the DVD player to that one.

On that topic, I bought a little TV from Best Buy. By that I mean 24 inches; I think that’s small compared to today’s screens. I am replacing the one that was stolen from the RV, and I wanted to get one that I could take to the foreign service if I decided to.

I’m slowly moving back to the RV. I mean, it’s not like it would have taken a whole car load to begin with or anything, but I’m just piecemeal moving stuff. Tomorrow, I have long-sleeved shirts and the rice cooker. There’s no real method to the madness.

The lake around the RV’s dock has dried up, but the whole pond is still there. We have had some nice weather, though, and almost all of the snow is gone.

Maybe spring will stick around.

What a difference six days makes

Last week, I went to DC to re-take the foreign service oral assessment. My reasoning was because I want to extend here in Minot but, with my low OA score the first time around, I’d risk not getting another offer should I turn one down. You only get 18 months on the register, so by the time I would be free to accept an offer – November – I would only have six months left in which to get one. With there only being four offer groups this year (Jan, March, July and Sept), it’s not really likely there’d be a lot more than that in 2014.

  

It’s really important to me to finish the Hope Village project, and we’re thinking it can get done in October. I’ve put in for a six-month extension with AmeriCorps, so that would leave some leeway for disassembly time, too. (That could get ugly.)

So I decided to couch my bets and re-take the OA, and man, I kicked butt. I have no idea, really, what the difference was, but I not only got another 18 months on the register (after I cleared the review panel again, anyway) but scored much higher this time, pretty much assuring me an offer for the next class after getting on the register.

Of course, in light of the fact that I wanted to go on the do-not-call list until Nov. 1 or so, I was hoping that the final review would take awhile. There was no reason to think it’d go fast. I mean, the original clearances took forever and, at that time, they didn’t talk to anyone in Minot yet. I had to update those changes and re-submit some paperwork.

I figured I’d have a month, at least, before getting re-put on the register and asking to go on the do-not-call list again.

And I enjoyed DC. Didn’t do anything in particular, but just wandered a bit. Stayed in Crystal City this time – I think I’ve been totally around that city – and went to the mall-with-stores in Virginia somewhere, the place with the LL Bean store.

Didn’t buy anything but tried on some clothes, knowing I really will need to upgrade my wardrobe. Joy.  At least I know my LL Bean sizes.

DC was gorgeous, with flowers everywhere. It snowed the day I left Minot and, even though it was chilly, it was so much better than where I left it wasn’t funny. And it gradually warmed, with it being maybe 80 by the time I left.

When I got back, it was 30 again in Minot, but two days later, we hit 60. This caused massive rapid snow melts and turned my RV (I move back May 10) into lakefront property. I moved some stuff out there and the boardwalk that cuts through the mud (not complaining!) actually *floats* right now. My little trailer is pretty much at the end of a dock.

It’s stunning that a six-day turnaround can do that much as far as weather goes. And it continues, because tomorrow the high is supposed to be 39. But the sun has been nice while I’ve had it.

But speaking of six days, that’s how long ago it was that I took the oral assessment. My goal here, remember, is to assure me that in January I will not have a problem getting a State job. If not January, then whenever the first offer group of 2014 happens to be.

My understanding has been that I have to go through any security updates and then have my file re-submitted to the review panel for final clearance and then being given a new spot on the register. Based on the scores that I’ve seen, my new score would put me in the top third of the list, if not higher. Essentially, I’m confident that, even if I was on the do-not-call list for both the July and September offers, I will get a spot after Hope Village’s mission is complete.

And, this being the federal government and me having updates to investigate, I fully expected weeks to go by before they had enough time to contact my supervisor and my other contacts here to verify my employment, etc.

Today, on the Yahoo group for this job, someone mentioned he’d gotten an offer for the July class. Good for him, right? They’re sending out offers early, so that’s nice and positive. I didn’t think anything of it.

I have multiple email addresses and the junk ones I don’t check that frequently, maybe twice a day. Around 4 p.m. today, I checked one of them. And found a note that I’d not only been placed on the hiring register, but I’d also gotten a job offer.

Holy cow. I’m completely and utterly shocked. And yet I cannot accept it. I am committed here through Dec. 15, and I’m fine with that. I’m just stunned I got cleared with no updates and in SIX DAYS.

As I understand it, it’s fine if I turn down one offer and will do so. I would requested to have gone on the do-not-call list if I had thought there was any chance of being cleared so quickly.

But six days? This is absolutely insane. I’m not even back into the groove after being in DC for four days!

So tomorrow I am going to try to call the registrar and get this fixed. I am not taking the offer, but seeing it in my inbox is just bizarre.  

This maid my day.

It's the editor in me.

The days get longer in what, nine weeks?

I’ve informed people that if I complain about mud, they are to bitch-slap me upside the head. Mud will be such a welcome sight after this snow that I (not anyone else) have no place to whine about it.

This is just insane.

Yesterday, I was at an annual conference for communicators and the guy who introduced it said, “Welcome to the winter conference.” I didn’t even get that it was a joke.

Winter has been eternal. I’m just tired of it, but I think we might be turning a corner.

Last week, we got 11 inches of snow. It held off Saturday for the fund-raiser but snowed all day Sunday and Monday. Monday morning, even though we’d only gotten seven inches officially by that time, it was above my knees in my driveway.

There was no way I could have gotten out. I shoveled for a half an hour and managed to get out of my front door (waist-high drifts) but walked to work, taking a chance that the Monday meeting would be canceled, which it was.

Later in the day, Steve came by with the Bobcat and liberated my garage. I moved the dregs when I got home and holy cow, spring snow is heavy.

All the clearing of snow at Hope Village has gone to naught. It’s everywhere again. We have yet to be able to put up the dining tent (not that the kitchen trailer is here anyway) and the teams arriving tomorrow will be sleeping elsewhere.

We have no running water just yet and there’s still a ton of snow (and mud, not that I’m complaining about that one) everywhere.

It is getting so very old.

And, just think, it’s April 20. In two months and one day, summer arrives and the days start getting shorter.

Up until now, my winter in Morocco was the coldest I’ve spent but this one obliterates that. At least as of April 1, I no longer think, “Sheesh, last year at this time, I was in Indonesia!”

Tomorrow, I’m headed to DC, which should be a nice change of pace weather-wise. It’s find of funny because Laurie texted me about the weather and how it’s so much colder than Orlando. But even in the 50s, it’s still a good 20 degrees warmer than I am.

Hopefully, though, once I get back the warming trend will take off.

In the meantime, though, the snow is coming down again and I’ve hunkered down for the evening. I really had planned on going out tonight but I hadn’t planned on lugging tools for two hours so I’m kind of whipped, not to mention doing laundry.

Last night, I ran out and tried to get Jason Bourne movie I was missing at the used DVD store. I thought I picked up the right one for my collection at the pawn shop the other day but got home and realized it was one I’d already had.

So, faced with nothing to watch (Netflix service takes a week here, so I’m between movies), I caved and bought season one of “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

Five bucks well spent. God bless Waylon Jennings. Every show needs a balladeer as good as him.

I still remember that Enos, or Sonny Shroyer anyway, is an FSU alum.

What a fun drive down memory lane. In the words of Rosco P. Coletrane, “I love it, I love it!”