How I Spent My Morning

Last week the Census office here in town downsized while they gear up for the next phase. That phase won't happen till possibly October. So they needed to get rid of a lot of people. We had done a fantastic job of doing the address canvasing. That's where they just go through neighborhoods and note down all the addresses so that we don't skip anyone. We did this in such a fantastic way that we are "victims of our own success." So the address canvassers all got laid off and so did a lot of the office clerks, me included. Friday was my last day. That's the bad news. I don't like bad news! So I'm going to try to maintain a positive outlook. This will be easier if I bring up the good points first.

Because I got laid off for "lack of work" I'm upgraded to "experienced" and eligible for recall, so when they open the other offices around town (probably in September) I should be among the first to get called back to work. This may take anywhere from 3 to 4 months, possibly more (God forbid). I'm also eligible for unemployment, or at least I hope so because I didn't work a whole lot last year. I'll have to go to the Texas Workforce Commission to see how that affects things. If I'm eligible for anything based on last years earnings it may be smaller but anything will help. I'm also able to rewrite the resume to include all the skills I gained from my office clerk position. I ended up pretty much in charge of personnel files, their creation and maintenance. That should help me find a job somewhere. Or perhaps do temp work since I'm a quick study.

So that's the good side of things. Other nice things that happened as a result of this is that I learned of several folks generous spirit. When I mentioned it at church one of my fellow verger trainees told me that if I needed food he and his wife had gift and reward cards at the local store that I could have. That was so sweet of Ron. I feel really blessed by the concern and friendship he exhibited in that offer. Sandi told me that my cats would never go hungry. :-) That was a relief and made me laugh. The office manager, my assistant manager, and my supervisor all gave me promises of references. So I can go into the job search with some really great folk that know and like me saying I'd make a great employee.

So now I have some time to spare. My goals are to find work, take care of me, and use the experiences I've had over the past 4 months to renew my own personal view and enrich my life. God gave me 4 months in an awesome office full of caring and wonderfully fun loving folk to help me grow. It would be a shame to waste that. I've got the phone numbers of several work friends. Some of them are in the same boat I'm in so we can be a support to each other. I was even able to hook one of them up with a fellow church member who needed someone with his unique skills for a possible job. That really lifted my spirits.

I've spent the morning doing productive things around the apartment. The cat box is cleaned. The trash has been taken out. I've started clearing off the desk and found several important documents in the various piles of mail I had stacked upon it's surface. I wrote a nice long email to my friend JS and we are talking about goals and routines. It's a good friend who can help you by being a goal buddy.

I'm also trying to start several small self enrichment projects. These are tentative but I'm hoping to make them fun and useful as well as spiritually renewing. Among the ideas I've had for these projects are: increase my vocabulary, spend more time communing with God, get outside at least once a day, and pick up my guitar again. There are others that will no doubt crop up as I talk about things. JS suggested exercise. My good friend Susan would suggest that too. She is a strong proponent of exercise as a way to manage depression. I figure if I get out for a little bit every day (probably early when the morning is still cool) I'll find myself walking and enjoying it. That's exercise although it isn't very strenuous.

So far this morning I been outside twice and read a little bit of the dictionary. Outside was gorgeous. There was a nice cool breeze, the birds were singing, and the trees are green. One of my neighbors drove past and we smiled at each other. What did I learn from the dictionary? Well, besides the fact that the letter "A" is in a lot of abbreviations and is a word in it's own right, it is also the first letter of aardvark, aardwolf, and abaca (I'm skipping names of people). I knew there were aardvarks. I didn't know there was an aardwolf. Apparently he eats termites and insect larvae. The abaca is a plant that is from the Philippines and the dictionary classifies it with hemp. So there you go, a new animal, a new plant, and a possibly useful word for scrabble if you have 3 A's.

Since I have more time I'll try to blog more regularly. I'll keep you posted on the job search and how I'm doing with the tightening of the purse strings. I'll also let you know how I'm going with the self enrichment projects. And if I find a job. Till the next post, "Have a good day!"

It's Raining. It's Pouring. The Old Man is...(er) isn't Snoring

Above is a National Geographic wallpaper photo of when Hurricane Allan hit Texas. I lived in Kingsville then and helped with the safety and recovery measures.

Hurricane Dolly is hitting the south Texas coast today. That's big news for Texas. Even though a good bit of our border sits on the Gulf of Mexico not that many hurricanes come straight into Texas. But when they do...it's a doozy. Since I was born in 1952, there have been 9 hurricanes affecting Texas of which 6 actually made landfall on the Texas coast. There is a nice history list of them here.

San Antonio is getting 80% chance of rain today too. We are the disaster staging area. The last few times a hurricane hit the south Texas coast it bundled into Mexico shortly after landfall. That's what they are predicting this time too. The odd thing about our area is the Rio Grande river is the border between Mexico and Texas and it rides straight down to the coast where Dolly is supposed to hit. A bit of legality here...if the river bed shifts so does the Texas border. Citizenship issues have come out of river shifts before. Between Weslaco and Mercedes (5 miles away) there is a flood plain that I saw filled once when I was a little girl. There are 2 dams in place to help manage the water rise but you never know. South Texas soil has a fair bit of clay in it and the water table is only about 50 feet down.

When I was in high school hurricane Carla came into town and Weslaco got enough wind that it blew a huge branch down from one of the trees in the house we lived in back then. My folks still live in Weslaco, about 8 miles from the Rio Grande River.

When San Antonio had their 100 year flood way back in 2002 all the water ran down to the coast and inundated that area for a lot longer than it did San Antonio. I have friends who live in Corpus Christi and when I drove down to see them Lake Mathis, that had been small with campgrounds all around it, was a huge field of water and no one was living there anymore. It stayed that way for over a year. A lot of Corpus Christi has bay water inlets and such. You can drive back a fair bit from the city and find water ways and such. So even if the hurricane doesn't stay long in Texas the rains up and down the coast are going to make things a mess for a while. Sandi was the one who reminded me that, because of the drought Texas has been experiencing recently, the water will likely stay on the surface and cause more damage.

As I mentioned, we pretty much expect the hurricane to turn aside and affect another country even more and those people will be really hurting too. So I'm praying for the residents of Mexico too. In some cases what affects Texas will affect Mexico too. Where will the people of Mexico go?

If the dams on the river break my parents will evacuate. They'll leave in their own car. If that happens I hope the highways are still drivable. My parents can also move onto higher ground by moving from their cottage to the main building of their retirement community and going up a few floors. That would at least avoid the water which probably won't get as high as Katrina's waters did. There are of course other concerns like power outages and clean water shortages but I think my folks are savvy enough to have planned ahead. Dad is a strong one for safety measures.

If this sounds like I'm fretting a bit, I guess I am. And I can't do anything other than keep my hands together in prayer and monitor the news. So you know what I'm gonna do? Pray, keep the TV on, and try to enjoy the rain that is going to hit San Antonio. I just hope my nerves over my folks being down there so close to the gulf doesn't spoil the fact that rain, normal rain that is, is my favorite kind of weather. All prayers for those along the Texas coast and in Mexico appreciated. Peace! & Hope!

Growing into Loss

When I was in high school my grandfather on my father's side passed away. When Mom called to tell me about it I wanted to attend the funeral, but it wasn't convenient because I was attending boarding school in San Marcos at the time and the funeral was in Kingsville. So the idea of my grandfather being gone was somewhat unreal to me. I never got to consider the expected need for closure with that situation or make any. It was so distant that I didn't even mourn. I tell myself that my grandparents are in my heart and live on there and that I will see them when it is my time to go. It feels like they are on an extended visit and they'll be back soon...that time being unfathomable because it would be when I get to where they are.

If you've got a long, close history with someone this can be a reasonable reaction. It isn't the expected one, but it falls in line with what we are taught in church or myth surrounding death. So the first time I ever grieved was when I had a friend dying of cancer. I still miss her but the pain has settled down to a conversational thought tossed heavenward knowing that she is looking in on me from time to time. I knew her for 3 years and it took me 2 to delete the folder with all her emails in it. Why didn't I feel that way about my grandparents? I guess because I'd always had them close enough to go visit that expectation held on in my reaction to them being gone.

Ever since my first experience mourning the loss of someone I've found it hard to hear of someone else getting ill with cancer or something else that could take this familiar, loved face from my world. It's like the idea of loss suddenly became real. So I had a hard time yesterday when a friend at church said she read the obituaries daily looking to see if anyone she knew had gone on. When someone I know gets sick I get so sad and hurt so inside that I have a hard time dealing with it. I wondered how others dealt with that pain. I know several people I care about at church that are getting on in years and becoming frailer every time I turn around. The idea of them not being there is scary. I wonder what I can do because the idea of cringing and hiding away from the pain that the thought of them passing on brings is instinctive, but the desire to be close to them while they are here is critical to my loving them.

And that's what my friends and I discussed last night in my Cursillo reunion. There are apparently stages of mourning and one of them has some pamphlets that she will give me shortly to read on the subject. It felt really good to have someone to talk to about my concerns over my emotional reactions to pain and fear of loss. I felt like I'd been taken into a group of wise women and was being supported and brought up in a very loving way. We all cried for those we loved and were concerned about losing. We talked about ways we could be close to them while they are still here. I may be making one or two changes in the ways I interact with my church to support my being close to those I love because of that conversation. And I feel really wonderful about the whole thing. Even though I cried I know I am loved and understood by those women, and I'll be better at loving people I know who may not be with me that much longer.

Peace! Hope! & Joy!

Water, Water Everywhere but None that You Can Use!

Getting ready for bed last night I discovered there was no water. Yike! No shower. No toilet. Figuring someone in maintenance had left the water off (it's happened before), I went to bed. In the morning, if it was still off, I'd call the Complex Office.

Morning and there's still no water. I called the switch board and learned my entire building, along with several others, was in the same straights. Maintenance was working on it. Satisfied with this answer, off I went to my church sponsored training seminar confident that the problem would be fixed by the time I got back.

Three hours later, I returned to find that there was STILL NO WATER. Called the office again. This time I was told the problem is a burst pipe. It broke about 9:00 PM last night. Maintenance had rented a jack hammer to reach the pipe in the middle of the complex drive. They were still working on it. I spotted them being very industrious as I left to mail a package.

Back from the Post Office, I go get my mail and saunter over to chat with the maintenance guys. They are still busily at work, but they are putting dirt back into the hole they dug. These are nice guys and I like them all. Through some good natured humor I heard the sad tale. Even though they've been working on this all morning and we now needed someone to come fix the hole in our drive, the problem still isn't fixed!

So, the plumbers...commercial or city...will be called. This doesn't sound like it will be fixed quickly. Apparently the pipe, a main, is broken in several places and has been for some time. It just bit the dust last night. So, ALL of my section of the complex is without water. If any resident in eight two-story buildings, each with 24 units, needs to shower (or use the restroom) we can call the office and they will give us a key to an empty apartment. Well, that's great for me but...What about my cats!? They need fresh water daily and I use flushable litter. This may get ugly!


Later:
The water finally is back on. I wandered over to make a cup of hot chocolate, without even thinking turned on the faucet. Low and behold, water flowed in a beautiful rush! Yay! Clean water for cats and baths! :-)

Joy!