Pandemic Daze: Getting Back On Mass Transit

 I may have mentioned this on the blog before, but if not, I'm an adult who doesn't drive.  I got my license when I was 16, and I know the basic motions of driving, but in terms of driving safely on a highway, or even crowded surface streets, I'm not sure I'm the best person for the task.  I've had brief periods of picking it up again, but the skill has never really stuck.  I typically use a lot of mass transit, and then use Uber for times when mass transit is too inconvenient or if I get into some sort of a jam.

As a result, it has felt very strange to have not taken any mass transit since mid-March, on the last day I went to my internship during my last semester of grad school.  We lived near a Metro station at our old place, and we are even closer to one now.  But I haven't been going to all that many places since the pandemic started.  Also, at least initially, Metro was practically begging people to stay home and not take their trains or buses unless it was absolutely necessary.  I knew I would be back one day, though.  I'm definitely not one of those people who is glibly predicting the demise of mass transit; after all, before the pandemic consumed all of our attention, we were discussing the disastrous impact of climate change.

Today turned out to be my day.  I took a basic life support class this morning.  Scott drove me to my class, and I thought I would take an Uber back home.  But then I saw how walkable the area was between the building where my class was being held and the nearest Metro station, and decided to go for it.

I ended up getting somewhat of a Metro double whammy.  When I arrived at the station, I discovered that it was closed, but that they were offering free shuttle bus service to the next station.  So I got to rejoin the world of mass transit by taking both a bus and a train.  It felt strange because in the pre-pandemic days, I would have been on top of things like weekend station closures.  When you take Metro all the time, you usually see signs telling you about upcoming station closures or delays.  But not having ridden Metro since March, I was thoroughly out of the loop.  I had plenty of money on my SmarTrip card because I had lots of places to go in early March, before life shut down on us so suddenly.

The train itself was fine.  At least late morning on a Sunday, there were few enough passengers that it was very easy to socially distance.  Everyone I saw was wearing a mask.  I don't know how many opportunities I'll have in the near future to take Metro again, just because I don't have that many places to go right now.  But it was nice to experience a tiny piece of my pre-pandemic life again.

A Gift Finally Enjoyed

 Over 40 years ago, on the day I was born, one of my aunts and her then-husband bought me a bottle of wine.  They used the label on the bottle as a sort of gift tag, so it was easy to distinguish from any other bottles of wine my parents may have had around.  I think this is a clever gift for a baby, provided the parents have space to store it.  It spent decades tucked away in my parents' linen closet.

The one funny thing that nobody could have predicted is that I'm not much of a drinker.  I'm not a complete teetotaler, since I will drink, but I have a hard limit of one drink per occasion.  Often, on occasions when I drink, I'll do something like have half a beer and let Scott have the other half.  I like the taste of some alcoholic drinks, but they're not as much of a treat for me as some other things (like chocolate!).  I also don't seem to get the buzz that most people get from drinking.  And, even at my advanced age, I've never truly been drunk.  My recollection is that nobody remembered the bottle of wine by the time I turned 21 (which happened when I was studying in Mexico anyway), and even if anyone had, I wouldn't have necessarily made a beeline for it because being able to drink legally just wasn't that big of a deal for me.

It did resurface at some point, though, and my parents brought it up a couple of times when I visited.  Finally, maybe a year or two ago, they asked me to take it with me when I left.  I took it, and it sat on my kitchen counter.

Then we decided to move.  There is nothing quite like moving to make me thin out my belongings, and I decided that this bottle of wine shouldn't move with us.  So, I decided to give it a try...and it tasted really good!  I was surprised by how good it tasted to me, since as I said, alcohol is typically not a big treat for me.

We've been drinking small amounts of it with the chocolate we eat for dessert most nights.  The flavors go well together, and it's fun to think of people picking out a bottle of wine for a new baby.  I'm glad I'm getting to enjoy this gift at long last, after all these decades.

Pandemic Daze: The Triumphant Arrival Of The Chinese Toilet Paper!

Remember the early days of the pandemic, when a few people were hoarding massive quantities of toilet paper for the sheer joy of ensuring that nobody else had any?  As I wrote at the time, I wasn't initially concerned because timing had worked out so that I had just purchased a 24 roll pack of TP right before people started panic buying.  But as time went on, and we didn't see any appear on store shelves, we became more concerned.  At that point in time, we started looking online more regularly.  Scott lucked into buying some TP made by American brands and shipped from somewhere in the US that arrived reasonably quickly.  But before that happened, I ordered an unfamiliar brand of TP from China.

This TP was slated to arrive anywhere from April 24 to May 15.  That window passed.  Several weeks thereafter, I contacted the seller, asking for my money back.  The seller got back to me, and essentially pleaded for me to not demand a refund, saying that they had given my package to the international courier a long time ago, and citing imminent financial ruin if they had to refund my money.  They promised to send me a second package of TP in return.  I grudgingly agreed.  I didn't know if their tale of financial woes was legitimate or not, but given the state of things, it seemed plausible.

Many more weeks passed, but this long-awaited TP finally arrived on Monday!  I was surprised when I saw the package.  Given that it came from China, I couldn't think what else it could be, but it seemed awfully small for 24 rolls of TP.  Then I opened it, and found 24 weird, adorably tiny rolls.

Here is a picture of one of the rolls next to one of our regular rolls for scale:

And check out how large its cardboard tube is:

If nothing else, this Chinese toilet paper is providing me with good entertainment, and I think the individually wrapped rolls will make halfway decent packing material for our probable impending move.  After that, I suppose we could try using it for its intended purpose, or maybe distribute the rolls as pandemic gag gifts.  Either way, I got a kick out of receiving a package I had long ago given up on.

The Things We Keep

In preparation for a probable impending move, I've been going through my stuff.  I ordinarily lean more in the pack rat direction, but there is something about having to pack stuff into boxes and move it that inspires me to do a major sweep and get rid of things I normally wouldn't think of parting with.  I like to think of this as one of the few benefits of moving.

Anyway, I came across something I had forgotten about, although it had been with me for some time:  a half-finished knitting project.  During grad school 1.0 (as in the degree I completed when I was in my twenties), I decided to learn how to knit.  With my mom's direction and help, I knit a scarf for Scott, whom I was dating at the time.  After finishing his scarf, I decided to make one myself.  I was living in Columbus, OH at the time, and I remember taking a bus out to a strip mall that had a Penzeys, an Indian restaurant, and a yarn store.  I stocked up on spices, had a delicious lunch, and selected some blue and purple yarn to make a scarf.  And then at some point, I stopped.  I'm thinking it was probably because I was going to Syria for a year, and didn't feel like taking a knitting project with me.

Anyway, this half-finished knitting project has been living inside a Gap bag since then.  It has either accompanied me or been relegated to storage for numerous moves.  And yet, in all this time, I've neither finished it nor committed to throwing it out.

At this point, if I wanted to finish it, I would need to relearn how to knit because it's been so long.  And truthfully, I don't know if or when that would happen.  I've spent years dreaming of all the things I would do if I ever had the time.  But this summer, I've actually had quite a lot of free time, courtesy of both a pandemic and a long, frustrating job search.  And I've come to the frightening realization that if I didn't need to work for the sake of having money, I could keep myself busy for the rest of my life with all the various projects I have in my mind.  I'm not sure at this point where in the queue relearning how to knit and finishing a scarf I started in my twenties falls.

I'm sure there are some lessons here for me, including the dangers of both unfinished projects and being too ambitious in my purchasing of craft materials.  But right now, I'm just trying to decide if a half-finished project makes the cut to move with me once again.

How To Be A Kind Employer

After having graduated with my MS in speech-language pathology in May, I'm still looking for work, and it's making me grumpy.  For the uninitiated, the way it works in this field is that new graduates have to do a clinical fellowship year (often abbreviated as CFY or just CF) in order to get their certificate of clinical competence (CCC).  The CCC is what makes you fully licensed.  The clinical fellowship year is essentially a year (well, a minimum of 36 weeks and I think 1260 hours) of supervised practice.  You get paid for this, although the pay is often substantially less than what fully licensed speech-language pathologists receive.

The need to do a clinical fellowship year seems to create a bottleneck, at least in some parts of the country.  The impressions I've gotten from this job search are that (a) some employers will not consider you at all without your CCC, and (b) the ones who will may be in parts of the country where the shortage of speech-language pathologists is more acute (which may or may not be the areas of the country where you want to live).

I tend to forget between job searches how aggravating the process can be and how obnoxious some employers can be.  So, for employers who want to be kind to job-seekers, I've compiled the following tips:

1.  If you interview an applicant and decide not to hire them, you should reject them in a timely fashion.  (Looking at you, skilled nursing facility that interviewed me in late May, and you, school district that interviewed me in early July).  This really should be a matter of common courtesy.  Sometimes people really get their hopes up for jobs they interviewed for, and if they get that far in the process, they deserve an answer one way or another.

Bonus points for kindness if you can also officially reject the applicants who don't make it to the interview process.  This doesn't have to be a personalized rejection letter; even a form letter to let people know they are not under consideration suffices here.  I recently applied for a long-shot dream job, and they rejected me within days.  Sure, it's a bummer to receive a rejection letter, but it's better than going for weeks feeling like you have a chance if you don't.  Honestly, I don't know if this is the effect this particular employer was going for, but the fact that they bothered to let me know they weren't interested makes me hope even more that I might get to work for them someday in the future.

2.  If the applicant's resume makes it clear that they are lacking something you require, don't waste their time by interviewing them.  (Looking at you again, school district that interviewed me in early July).  A recruiting company arranged this interview with a school district for me; had I been hired, I would have worked as a contractor for the district.  I wasn't upset that the school district didn't give me an immediate answer because my interviewer told me it might take 1-2 weeks, and I wanted to investigate other opportunities anyway.  Well, more than 3 weeks passed and I received an offer (which I'll get to shortly) from someone else, so I wanted to see if this school district had made a decision one way or another.  I got in touch with my recruiter.  He hadn't gotten an actual yes or no, so he did some digging for me.  It turned out the district was making offers to some applicants, but they were all people who already had their CCC.  It was obvious from my resume that I'm a new grad looking for a clinical fellowship position.  Frankly, the hour I spent interviewing with this district is an hour I wish I could get back.

3.  If you are interested in hiring someone, don't lowball them.  (Looking at you, private practice that made me a really crummy offer after two rounds of interviews!).  I get it--not everyone is going to get the salary of a professional athlete.  However, it's not that difficult in this day and age to do some research and get an idea of what is standard in your industry.  There are certain circumstances that might make someone accept a lower salary, like if the employer has a lot of cache, or if it is located in an area with a low cost of living.  However...

If it is a salaried position, there should be a compelling reason for it being substantially lower than industry standards.

If it is an hourly position, but the number of hours per week are not guaranteed, the hourly wage should be higher to account for that.

If the position requires travel and the company is not paying travel expenses, the hourly wage should be higher to account for that.

If the position is in an area with a high cost of living, the hourly wage should be higher to account for it.

If the benefits are terrible, then--you guessed it--the hourly wage should be higher to make up for that.

AND...if an applicant does accept your lowball offer out of desperation, don't be surprised or offended when they move on.    Know how you like having a roof over your head and food on the table?  Yeah.  That's what we all want.  A possible red flag for this happened during my first round of interviews with this company when one of the interviewers asked me if I planned to stay in the area for the long term or if I was just looking for a stepping stone.  At the time, I took it to mean that some new grads left after a year because they wanted to live somewhere else, but now I think the lousy compensation is really what drove their decisions to move on.

I'll cap my rant at this for now.  And if anyone wants to hire a middle aged grumpy clinical fellow, you know where to find me.

Pandemic Daze: Making Decisions

An interesting feature of life in general is that we often have to make decisions--sometimes life-altering ones--without anywhere near enough information.  Unsurprisingly, this has also been true during the pandemic.

The US has been a real patchwork of regulations since the pandemic started, but depending on where you lived, many decisions were made simple in the beginning.  When non-essential stores, restaurants, gyms, movie theaters, museums, and hair salons are closed, the decision is made for you because you can't actually go to any of them.  For a while, we really went very few places.  We had a weekly grocery store trip and an almost daily outdoor walk.  We ordered food a couple times a week to break up the monotony.  As time went on, and public health experts became less concerned about outdoor transmission, encountering other people on our walks made us less nervous.  We started making occasional trips to restaurants to get take-out instead of ordering in (both because food delivery has been a very imperfect process and so that our money would go to the restaurants themselves instead of the delivery services).  But that was pretty much it for our venturing out.

Now, more options are available in our area.  Restaurants, salons, gyms, and non-essential stores are allowed to reopen under certain conditions (greatly reduced capacity, mask-wearing, etc.).  And so in a sense, some decisions are still easy.  We don't have to decide whether to risk eating in a crowded indoor restaurant, for example, because indoor seating capacity has been capped at 50% for the time being.  But we do have to decide whether we want to risk going to that restaurant (or gym, store, salon, etc.) in the first place.  

This weekend, we decided to make a couple of these decisions.  First, we went to our local farmers market.  This had stayed open with modifications throughout the pandemic, but we hadn't been since before the pandemic started because we had been trying to minimize non-essential outings.  We decided this was probably a safe outing to make since it's outdoors, and besides, I wanted some plants for the balcony.  We could see decisions being made at the farmers market itself.  Some vendors had elaborate systems for socially-distanced lines and the employees handling your produce.  Others were more relaxed and let you wander around and pick your own stuff.  On the whole, I found the farmers market much more enjoyable in the pre-pandemic days, but that's probably not much of a surprise.

We also decided to go to a restaurant and (gasp!) actually eat there.  Our 14th anniversary was on Thursday, and we were talking about how to celebrate it.  Since the pandemic started, we celebrated both Scott's birthday and my graduation at home.  And now we actually had the option to go out.  Ordinarily, we would have gone somewhere in DC (I keep a mental list of restaurants I want to try there), but we decided to choose someplace within walking distance this time in order to skip taking Metro to get there.  And while the whole experience felt very different from pre-pandemic times, it was still pretty great!  Time will tell whether this was a wise decision, but I'm hoping that some of the regulations in place will help us all to get a little taste of our previous life without putting undue risk on anyone.

More decisions are coming.  My gym is reopening in early July (with only two people allowed to work out at a time).  I also haven't had a haircut since February, and am sorely tempted to get one now.  I'm thinking I might spread these "pandemic firsts" out a bit to see how my area's reopening goes and to not force myself into too many decisions at once.

Some New Jewelry!

Finally, a post that has nothing to do with the pandemic!  Well, except for the fact that all this time at home is giving me plenty of time to think of hobbies, of course.  I was working on photographing some jewelry for a side hustle I'm working on, and thought I'd take a few pictures of some recent makes just for fun.

I was inspired to make this first piece by a pictures I saw online of vintage silver earrings.  The earrings looked like grape leaves with clusters of silver grapes dangling freely.  (Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the exact image to share).  I realized that remaking those earrings would be pretty challenging with the materials and equipment I had on hand, but I thought I could at least take the leaf and cluster idea and translate them to something else.

While I was mulling this over, I realized that a few years ago, I bought several toggle clasps that look like leaves. 

Open toggle clasp...

And closed toggle clasp

Unfortunately, as cool as these look, they worked terribly as actual toggle clasps.  I tried making two different designs with them, and they kept coming open while I was wearing the necklaces.  NOT a good thing, unless you enjoy losing your jewelry.  One of the companies I buy supplies from has a precious metal scrap recycling program, and I thought these clasps were destined for that.

But then it occurred to me that they did look like leaves, and I was thinking of making silver leave earrings.  I connected the two parts of the toggle clasp with a short length of chain, added some stone beads to create a cluster of something (grapes?  berries), and added earring wires.  Voila!

Surprisingly lightweight and comfy

Continuing the plant theme, I've had a silver flower pin in my stash for several years.  I bought it at a thrift shop with the idea of turning it into a pendant, and I finally did!

This last piece incorporates an interesting shell fragment I picked up on the beach in North Carolina.  I often find thick shell fragments with multiple holes there, and I had been thinking it would be interesting to try to incorporate them in jewelry.  I picked up one with some purple on it.  But then after I brought it home, it sat around for a while because I wasn't convinced I could make a necklace I liked out of it.  Once I finally did, though, I was pretty pleased.

I think the polished fluorite beads and silver help to elevate the somewhat rough looking shell.  I don't know how durable this shell pendant will turn out to be--it's possible that the beading wire I strung  it on will wear away at it over time--but there is no way to know without trying, and I'll enjoy this necklace for as long as it lasts.