Temporarily Permanent

Still at the temp job.

It's not bad, really. It's honest work. I stay busy every day, and despite all the smack I said in a previous post about my boss, she's not actually too bad. She respects my work and makes a point of telling me I'm doing a good job.

The biggest strain, really has been financial. I've been working since late May, and I just got my first paycheck a couple of days ago. Originally, I was promised a paycheck by the second week of June. It didn't happen. We had to wait for some other company to pay our invoices before we got our paychecks, and for some reason, they couldn't be bothered to get those checks to us. Every day, I'd ask, and every day, I'd hear that there was no word when the
paycheck would arrive. It got pretty tense for a while. We were literally running out of money. Mrs. B was putting off bills, which we both hate to do. But I finally got a check, and that makes us both breathe easier.

Even though I'm "working," I'm still filing for unemployment. Filing, not collecting, because I work too much each week to collect UI benefits. I thought the job would end last week, but it looks like it's been extended for the foreseeable future. I'm earning more than I did at my last job (though working more hours and getting no fringe benefits). And I'm still sending out resumes every week. So it's odd - working, yet unemployed. Working and yet looking. I can work here as long as I want the job, at least through the end of the year. My life could be a lot worse, I suppose.

Revenge of the Lawn

I just looked at my lawn and said to myself, "I wonder why it doesn't look better."

I live in a rental home. I have never planted grass seed on my lawn. I have never fertilized it. I have clover growing wild in my lawn. Moss. Patches of thistle. Plants that I can't even recognize. It looks like a well-trimmed vacant lot.

I'm also mowing my lawn with dull blades. My lawnmower desperately needs to have the blades resharpened. Right now, it's not mowing so much as blunt force trauma. The grass grows long and crazy and points in four different directions, and there are some stretches where the mower didn't have any effect at all and the grass is just laying down, five inches long and silently mocking me.

I wonder why it doesn't look better, I thought to myself. And then I burst out laughing.