Sorry Lisah-- I didn't mean to mis read it, I was kind of ...feeling grumbly and worried maybe I'm being too picky and I should just find something , anything, to get back to work.

I am definitely looking at jobs that pay more...which is why the field is so limited. Even branching into administrative aide /reception type jobs the pay is often on the low side.

I've been trying to focus on places that have $15 and up as a salary range because with my experience I know I could get at least what I was making previously if not more. Surprisingly to me grocery stores seem to have the better pay range when it comes to associate jobs. I've seen some retail jobs advertising assistant manager positions for less than $14/hr. I saw one that was $10.50/hr.

And then I was just randomly looking around and saw a position for a FedEx driver for $14-$19/hr and have the whole UPS almost strike I was curious about the difference--which is UPS is union.

Hourly wages of that level make it really next to impossible to be independent. Sad state of affairs. This is much of the reason that my son is doing delivery for Walmart, even though wages are higher in NY.

Also sad, Paul Reubens has died. He brought smiles to many.

So glad to hear this news Trudy! We’ll be pulling with you all the way.

Trudy, my aunt’s husband was diagnosed with bile duct cancer last year. He’s doing pretty well considering. What’s made all the difference is being able to be treated at Hopkins. Thank goodness they are only an hour away. So glad your Mom now has access to that kind of facility as well!

Yeah, I know! Wild story. I know sometimes...well, doctors don't know...I would hope they wouldn't want to throw away Trudy's mom, so why didn't *they* send her someplace else?! (although I appreciate the need to be one's own advocate and all that happy self-determination bullshit...I could teach a course, except it would be another thing nobody would pay me for.) But as a patient, I would rather hear "This is complicated...we're confused." than a premature "Don't make any plans." My mom just, like, lucked into the best breast surgeon in town last time..he's retired, now, though. The fricking state just sent me four e-mails about an unsigned meeting document(because, obviously, if I don't know what to do, sending it a billion times helps.) They can sit on their dead butts forever, but for me it's "tick-tock" especially on a day when I have, like, one neuron of positive energy left, not that they know that, but they wouldn't give any more of a damn. I hate those people and their system so, so much that they shouldn't smile when they see me. They should hear "Farmer In The Dell" instead. It's been hard acting like her appointment today is no big deal, but that's how she wants to play it(and it might not be, either, but it could.)

Sometimes her stoicism is tiring to me, as much as it is to her when I fly off the handle and stuff.

Also sad, Paul Reubens has died. He brought smiles to many.

I'm FB friends with Lynne Stewart (Miss Yvonne) and Wayne White (designed the sets with Gary Panter) and Mimi Pond (cowrote an episode of Pee Wee's Playhouse), so it's hard to see it hit them.

Aside from my own sense of loss, as I've loved his work for decades.

The loss of Pee-Wee is more my brother's loss than mine, but I'm sorry to read that, anyway. The state thing was rather like they've contracted with Ominous!Docusign, but they don't send anything out without threats and warnings and incomprehensible BS on it...it's like corresponding with Dr. No. And, okay, I appreciate that my social worker(let's call her Tamika Frond) is not trying to save me or nag me to death, but she's at the point of "What is your part?"--she could have told me. Anyway, we put our squiggles in, like the Commander likes, so I guess I got away with the most boring, low-paying scam ever, if I'm a fake. Argh.

Much cancer treatment~ma to your mom, Trudy. I hope MSK can work out a good way forward for her.

I'm sorry the bureaucracy nonsense is being extra nonsensical of late, erikaj.

I found out that one of my coworkers just tested positive for COVID. Since I'm 95% remote, this is usually a cause for moderate concern and well wishes. This time I was in a 4-hour in-person retreat followed by a 2-hour dinner with him the day before the test results, so it's a little more personal. I feel a bit wiped, but that's quite likely the 3-day conference followed by a division retreat and a jaunt to the botanic gardens in 90+F heat. I tested negative, but I have another 8 days when things could develop. What with vaccines and such, this is more "lordy, this darn thing" and less "OMG!!!" but it's still annoying.

I swear if they could make me stand on my head first, they would.(Which is why one my least favorite bits of Dem messaging is about "the dignity of Social Security" because I was absent that day.) Calli, I'd probably be tripping.(Although, in retrospect, my teenaged anxiety about germs could probably traced to a burgeoning consciousness of how out of my control things were gonna get, but that doesn't totally take the 'ew, ew, ew," away on its face.)