It would take a miracle

Behold the power of my crazy optimist husband.

Teeny tiny tomatoes:

Teeny tiny peppers:

Details, details

Kent and I have been to England more than a few times, both together and separately. But this is the first time we haven’t stayed in the London area; instead we stayed in the village of Bosham (about four miles from Chichester).

The very first cab driver we had asked us if we knew how cities were determined in the UK. We did not, so he told us: in order to be designated a city in the UK, the population must be over 500,000 OR there must be a cathedral. Chichester qualifies as a city because of the cathedral there, while Bosham qualifies on neither point even though it’s got a really beautiful church. Both the village and the city are beautiful, and I am glad we stayed there the entire time we were in England.

Bosham is on a tidal flat area and the high tides flood a couple of the streets twice daily. You can see signs all over the place warning motorists to be aware of when high tide occurs so they don’t get stranded. This link describes a pub right on the water where we had lunch on Thursday.

Our friend's wedding took place in Lavant at St. Mary's, which is also ridiculously picturesque. I hoped for warm, sunny weather for Fiona but alas, it was pretty chilly and damp. We didn't get rain until later in the evening during the reception so only the smokers were affected.

Saturday we were lucky enough to be able to watch our niece, Avalon, at her school's end of term activities. We had a picnic lunch there with my sister, Martha, her husband Nigel and both girls (Eilish is the younger of the two). Then we went to my sister's house for an amazing curry dinner, marred only by Martha cutting her finger on a tin can lid. Fortunately she's up to date on her tetanus shots and once the triage nurse said no stitches were necessary, all was well.

It was a great trip all the way around. Now I'm back to job hunting while being swarmed by needy cats. It's good to be needed.

Home again

Here are some pictures from our ridiculously picturesque hotel:

No good day

I was going to write about Pandora but it’s been a miserably annoying day so I changed my mind.

Don’t you think it would have been professional and appropriate for my previous company to let me know I would need to file for unemployment in New Hampshire, not Massachusetts where I live? Me too, but that’s not what happened.

I spent the morning running around Boston in unusual heat for nothing. To be honest, I’m bummed that it’s NH unemployment and not MA. MA has a better package. I’ve finally got the first round of paperwork filed and I have to file a claim every Sunday. Good thing we get back Sunday evening.

Ironically Chichester’s weather is cool and cloudy right now, while Boston is finally enjoying summer weather.

I think I will have a drink on the plane. Maybe two.

Loose ends

For being newly laid off, I’ve been really busy tying up loose ends.

I got the unofficial not-supposed-to-tell-you-yet-but-that’s-BS word on Wednesday that I was in fact part of the 1/3 headcount reduction at DMT. I never did get the official word from HR but that’s pretty typical of that company. So I worked with my manager, Nick, who is a great guy.

What I found very odd and more than a little naïve on DMT’s part is that they didn’t consider the potential liability issues of laying me off effective close of business Thursday while I still had to finish traveling home on their behalf Friday. That could have been a huge mess. When I pointed that out to the HR woman, she said that if I’d gotten sick or injured, they’d have covered COBRA 100%. Um that’s nice but that’s not the point. COBRA coverage isn’t the same as the health insurance coverage offered to employees. Plus I would have also been filing for workman’s comp and things would not have been so pleasant. Yeah I think they dodged a bullet.

While traveling to HI, I’d left my car in Portsmouth for some car repair (see also Ferals and the damage to my front left fender), and needed to pick it up on Saturday. I told Nick that I’d make just one more trip up there to turn in company property and it had to be Saturday because of my car. At first, the HR woman was not willing to meet me then, so Nick was going to do it. I’m not sure why she changed her mind but she did and I got everything signed and turned in Saturday afternoon. Now I’m a free agent.

I’m still relieved to be done there. I wouldn’t have outright quit without another job lined up, but I’m glad I don’t have to mess with that company any more. It could have been a super environment, and it should have been. Alas for what could have been.

We leave for England tomorrow night to attend the wedding of one of our closest friends in Boston. We will also be able to see my sister and her family on Saturday at the older daughter’s end of term activities. We get home Sunday evening and have a week together before Kent travels again.

For the next job, I won’t look at companies that far away from Boston—well, not unless things get really desperate. I don’t mind the travel; I did mind the commute. It reeked.

And that's a wrap

I’m getting laid off on Friday, it looks like. Not sure of all the details, the paperwork is getting emailed to me. Things are complicated by me traveling back tomorrow and getting to Boston on Friday—the others who are getting laid off won’t be at work that day. So I’ll be in a sort of no-man’s land.

I feel mostly relieved. I won’t get into details and I won’t engage in snit-fittery but mostly yeah, I’m relieved.

Kent pointed out that my new sewing cabinet (that replaces the one that was ruined in the Great Water Episode of 2009) gets here Friday. Once we get back from our planned and mostly paid for vacation to England, I will have time to sew again. And that’s convenient because my niece just had her first child, a girl, yesterday. And I’ve hardly sewn anything for Eliot at all.

We already know how to budget, we are champs at that so I’m not freaked out about money. Plus I won’t be spending $100-$130 a week in gas plus $6.50 a day in tolls to get to Portsmouth PLUS holy cow I will not spend three hours of my day sitting on my butt in a car.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll be bummed. Right now I’m just kind of glad.

The School of Music

I stumbled across this link about the Navy School of Music; it covers not only the Navy's music history but also the Marines and Army. The Air Force and Coast Guard aren't included because they don't send their members to any of the joint schools. When I enlisted, the SOM was at Little Creek, VA and so was the amphibious warfare school. Talk about a contrast in military purpose! The course also lasted six months, although I was able to advance out.

The structure then included an incoming audition, an audition halfway through and a final audition, and they were scored on a four point scale. We also took ear training, theory and of course a lot of performance. I did OK on the incoming audition (took me years to get over audition nerves) but I blew the mid-term one out of the water. That qualified me to shave two months off my time there since I achieved higher than the required final score on that mid-term score. But I had to cram three months' worth of theory and ear training into four weeks plus prep and play that final audition.

Unlike a lot of my friends at the SOM, I had learned no theory before joining the Army. Ear training was not hard at all but the theory was all new to me. So it was a very busy last four weeks.

Reading over that article made me appreciate my time in service even more. It's kind of cool to think my military service connects me to Percy Grainger (Lincolnshire Posey, ah how fun you were to play) and Arthur Fiedler.