Interviews and teenagers

Work is going very well. I'm taking a table every night; soon maybe they'll let me take more than one and make some actual money. (I'm chomping at the bit a little bit.)

A friend of mine got me an interview for an executive assistant position here. I'm really not interested in going back to the business world, but they seem impressed with my resume (even though my corporate career ended two years ago) and she has good things to say about the company. I have another phone interview with them later today. I don't know what I would do if they offered me a job, but I suppose I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

Speaking of interviews, DH has one on Monday. Thank fucking God.

Also, my teenage stepson is here for the next ten days. This is the first time I've seen him since last summer, so I'm not sure what to expect. So far, so good: he's eaten everything I put in front of him and he seems more grounded, less spazzy. DH took him to the Museum of Flight yesterday and he really enjoyed that. We'll do some sightseeing around town, around my work schedule, for the next couple of days, then Olympic National Park on Sunday.

The job I really wanted

First, the job news. I am delighted to announce that I've been hired full-time at the restaurant where I really wanted to work. Award-winning Northern Italian cuisine, with an amazing wine list. I'm finally officially back in the world of fine dining.

Pros: I can get wine off the list at cost, as well as food (Wagyu steak, anyone?). They're closed Sundays and Mondays, which means no brunch ever. It's a small place, with a small staff, and I think I'm going to fit in very well. Also, the chef is super nice. No yelling there, ever. Cons: They're closed Sundays and Mondays, so that's two fewer shifts per week, which means less money than I was making before. It's a rigorous training program, so it may be a few weeks before I start making actual money. It's in a northern suburb, so interstate travel is required. (Still, only 20-25 minutes, nowhere near the killer commute from before.)

I quit the coffee shop job; I kept having flashbacks to working at Burger King in high school. I also had a good interview with a nearby bar. I'm waiting to hear back from them, maybe that could be a part-time second job when I'm not at the other place.

Speaking of high school, my twentieth high school reunion has been announced. I'll save the psychological impacts of that for another post. Suffice it to say they are profound. Also, what do I wear??

The apartment is officially complete. We've set up a futon in the office so that room can double as a guest room. I've hung all the pictures and packed away all the heavy winter clothes.

No job news for DH yet. He's been more morose than usual lately, even though we got some good news about his mom. (She's doing much better.) I'm worried about his mental state.

But his son is coming to visit in a couple of weeks. I'm hoping the weather is nice enough so that we can get to the nearby national parks.

So, for now, a lot of working and waiting for the chance to earn real money.

Columbia River Gorge, OR

When in doubt, travel.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day in the Pacific Northwest--clear, sunny, 60s. The East Coast just got socked with another snowstorm, but spring has sprung here and I didn't want to let such a beautiful day go to waste. I considered the nearby national parks, but they all involve mountains--mountains with  significant snow still, with closed roads and chain laws in effect.

So I decided to save those for next month, and instead we went to the Columbia River Gorge just outside Portland, OR.

You may remember that when we drove through there in January, it was too fogbound to see anything.   Yesterday was the perfect day for revisiting. We saw two waterfalls (Bridal Veil and Multnomah Falls) nestled among moss-covered forests straight out of a Tolkien illustration; we saw the river itself, winding among cliffs and mountains (very similar geography to Big Sur); and we took a detour to drive around Mt. Hood.

Mt. Hood was completely snow-covered (it's the only place in the lower 48 that offers year-round skiing), so seeing it rise up out of green fields was a little disconcerting. In the span of twenty minutes, we went from blooming fruit orchards in sixty-degree weather at the base of the mountain, to a snow flurry, thirty-degree temps, and icy road warnings about halfway up.

Then we drove back down, stopped in at a couple of Portland liquor stores (to avoid that 35% Washington state tax on booze), and headed home.

I didn't get any good pictures of Mt. Hood, but here are some of the falls and the Gorge:

Bridal Veil Falls

Multnomah Falls

Uncertain and swirly

I know it's been a while since I've updated, but things have been in a big uncertain swirl lately. Looks like life will be uncertain and swirly for a while, too, which is driving me bonkers.

Husband is home, his mom is doing very well under the circumstances, and those are both good things. He's ramping up the job search, leaning on all his former co-workers in the area for connections, and we're starting to see little glimmers of hope. Many of those glimmers are in other areas--southern California, Chicago--which may mean yet another move at some point in the relatively near future. The thought of moving again makes me want to stab myself in the eye, but at this point any job is better than no job. So I'm trying to file that under "Things I will worry about later."

I've been offered a job at the restaurant where I really wanted to work. Hooray! They brought husband and me in for dinner, and the food was amazing. The bad news is that it won't start until the end of the month, and even then there'll be a long training period. So it'll be a while before I start making actual money.

That's the bad news: money. It's getting tight. This coffee-shop-job nonsense is dreadful. It pays almost nothing and I hate it with a white-hot fury. I'm considering temping again, just to get out of it (and make some more money).

I had an offer from my old job, to come back and make some money with them for a bit. I really, really wanted to go back, too. I miss everyone there, and I miss feeling like I'm good at something. Like I'm useful and productive. Also, we need the money. Husband wanted me here, though. And with his mom's situation being so, you know, uncertain, I understand that. We may have to fly out of here in the middle of the night at any time.

But I'm tired of feeling buffeted by circumstance. I miss being the breadwinner, I miss my friends, I miss being able to make decisions without having to factor in a bunch of unknowns.

Not what I signed up for

I'm starting to feel like my husband: a lot of good interviews, no actual full-time employment.

Except that I am, technically, employed full-time: but not at the job I want. This wine bar gig is not what I thought it was. I thought I'd be working at a wine bar/bistro, with coffee and tea and such. Instead, it turns out I'm working at a Starbucks, with wine. There's very little waiting on tables, and almost no discussion of wine or food. Mostly, I spend my days at a cash register, calling out for people to come pick up their latte. NOT what I want to be doing, and very definitely nowhere near the amount of money I was making before.

So, back to the drawing board, I guess. I'll stick with it until I can find something better, of course, but it's sucking my will to live. I had a great interview/try-out night of working on Friday at a place I'd LOVE to work, but story of my life: they don't have anything full-time available at the moment. They might be able to wrangle two nights a week to start, which is better than nothing, I suppose. But still. Why is it so difficult to find a full-time job at a decent place out here? Is there really that little turnover?

One of the baristas I work with at the wine bar knows people around town, and says he might be able to hook me up with something. He named two restaurants near the top of my list of places I want to work, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm also sending my resume back out. If this keeps up, I may have to move back to Boston just to work.

The good news is that mom-in-law is doing much better, now that she's at home. She may in fact have several weeks (or possibly even months) left, instead of the 2-4 weeks the doctors originally gave her. Hubs is coming back later this week.

Furniture accumulation

Now that we're mostly unpacked and situated, we've begun the process of accumulating the bits of furniture we got rid of in New England. And because we're living in a one-bedroom apartment, we're almost done. Between craigslist and Goodwill, we've gotten:

2 black Ikea leather sofas, $260
1 black Ikea coffee table, $45
1 black Ikea TV stand, free
2 black DVD shelves, $35
1 metal wine rack, $150
1 black wood dresser, $350
1 Ikea Expedit bookcase, $80
2 barstools to use as nightstands, $30
1 black side table, $10
1 small stool to use as side table, $6
2 desks, $15 (total! from Goodwill)
Office chair and lamp, $129 (Staples)

For a grand total of a little over $1100. Not bad, huh? Not including the cost of renting a U-Haul cargo van, twice, for the sofas and the desks. (Another $130 there.) There is an amazing Goodwill just a few blocks from the apartment; I'm very excited about that.

The only things left to get are dining chairs, maybe another bookcase, and possibly a futon or day bed for the office, since the leather sofas aren't really long enough to sleep on. I'm considering going back to Goodwill and getting a chair at a time, for a collection of 7 or 8 all different ones, rather than holding out for a set that might sort of go with the one original chair I have left.

Also, we've gotten most of the pictures hung. So we're pretty close to being done.

One final thought: this process of buying used furniture, then getting rid of it all, then moving, then getting new furniture is, of course, a logistical hassle. But I realized it's also an opportunity to continually redecorate. The furniture we have now is very sleek and modern and dark, a far cry from the overstuffed mish-mash of things we had in New England, and the two-households-merged-into-one chaos of San Diego. We never have to worry about rearranging the furniture, or reupholstering, or redecorating; we can reinvent ourselves every time we move.

Terrible news, and a job offer

The view of Mt. Rainier from my apartment building

Across the bay; downtown is immediately to the right

Sorry for the radio silence the last couple of days, a lot of things have happened.

First, my mother-in-law is critically ill. My husband flew out there Saturday morning to spend what time she has left with her. I stayed behind to work (and because I can't leave the cats alone for an indefinite period of time), but I'll be joining him as soon as he feels the end is nigh. My stepson is flying out this weekend.

So, there's that. She's an awesome lady, truly like a second mother to me. I'm sad, I'm worried, I'm stressed about all these expensive last-minute plane fares, and I'm in a strange city alone.

Fortunately, I have two jobs now. One is as a back-up server at one of the Northwest's top restaurants--but that's strictly on-call work, maybe two or three nights a month right now. The other is full-time, at a cute little wine bar in Fremont. I started there yesterday, and it seems like it will be a lot of fun. But I haven't worked in basically seven weeks, so now my feet and my back have to re-learn how to function. I feel worn out already. (It doesn't help that we found out about my mom-in-law, and I got the job offer, on the same day. Talk about a mixed bag.)

With DH gone, there probably won't be too much cooking going on here. I'm going to eat all the perishable stuff first, in case I have to fly out in the middle of the night on short notice, and work on finding a reliable catsitter.

On an unrelated note, we had a superb day on Friday. Sixty degrees, and not a cloud in the sky. You could see all the mountains around the city that are normally obscured by cloud cover. See pictures, above. I could get used to this sixty degrees in February thing.