New word, courtesy of my fella
Luddsite \ˈlə-ˌsīt\ - noun. A website which seems to be designed by and for technologically disinclined individuals.
Usage. "The Luddite Reader continues to track luddite films, books, and music, along with news and luddish content links, at its luddsite"
(the source of this quote has a link to the luddsite which directs, rather appropriately, to a page full o'spam.)
And disquieted. This is how I feel.
It's not a particularly intense feeling, but it is nonetheless compelling, like a sound you can hear but not well enough to identify either its origin or cause.
That was yesterday. It was only one roll of thunder and one flash of lightening at the height of the storm, but for those of you who have not experienced the snow thunderstorm, let me tell you, it's a bit creepy. I think we had a winter with thunder snowstorms a few years ago, after a very stormy Fall (possibly this was the same year as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita). Come to think of it, this might be why it disturbed me so much last night.
My usual seasonal mix of antipathy and apathy has struck, finally. I had been dodging it while I was working but now that I'm home and my days are much less structured (alternating between hours long job searching, speed reading, and futzing around with the occasional photoshop or cooking project), I find I haven't got as many places or tasks in which to hide from the "Hap-happiest season of all".
A___ and I did get a tree (courtesy of cjblue, thanks!). It's an artificial tree, which suits me fine since our place is a bit small this year for a real one (baseboard heating and real trees in a crowded apartment are a combo I'd like to avoid). But very soon after getting it - before we got a chance to get it out of the box - A____ hurt his arm. The injury meant strict no lifting limits for most of the past week. Today, now that his arm has been feeling better for a whole 24 hours, he's off to dig out the cars, after which we maybe will do the furniture shuffling that is necessary to even get started with the tree. Snow shoveling is a less enjoyable but necessary use for the newly and barely recovered limb. The problem is, although A___ seems to think he'll be fine, I am not convinced his arm is recovered enough to do either let alone both.
The situation is a familiar one for me, although I am hardly ever on this side of it. I'm usually the one deciding how to use my own small physical exertion allowances. I am happy the joint upon which the choice to do this or that (or both) hinges is not mine for once, however I am sorry for A_____ because I know how much it sucks to have a limited physical resource with which to (even attempt to) satisfy wants AND needs.
In the more here and now, practical side of things, I am really hoping A____ doesn't reinjure his arm shoveling. There's a shit load of snow out there.
In part because I want my place to be nice and less depressing and in part because I'd be overcome with guilt if I sat on my ass doing nothing while A___ busted his ass (and shouolder) shoveling, my job for today is to clean up a bit inside, move and carry the light shit for setting up the tree. While I find my rational side is quite motivated by wanting to feel like an equal partner here and while I'd like very much for my home to be pretty and calming, I am finding it very difficult to muster up that spark I need to get up and going.
This is why at these times, I've learned not to wait for a spark of insipration. If I did that, I'd be waiting a long god damned time. If those totally shitty years between 16 and 22 taught me anything, it's that I am not going to get a burst of energy which I can ride into a spirited and friendly chore-doing frenzy. Nope. At times like this, to get my apathetic, soggy, weary self up and moving, I find it's better to think of it as something that needs to be done, like a job. That is, there's plenty of disinteresting shit out there that I would do simply because it offered me a paycheck. And so this particular bit of disinteresting shit is something I will do because I believe that later on me, me who will not be in such a crappy mood, will appreciate having a clean apartment with something pretty to look at.
Oh my cat is happy. He has a new canned food. Nature's Variety Instinct Lamb, Rabbit, and Venison formula. He digs all of them, and so far all of them are kind to his gut. Pending lab results from his next vet appointment or a turn on the gut symptoms, I think we have a winner.
I've applied to two jobs since Friday. One is about 12 miles away (through Hartford, blech) and is in insurance (because that is what you have in Hartford) and one is 3.5 miles away and is in academic support (advising).
Can you guess which one I am hoping I get?
Keep your fingers crossed for me!
On with the job search. My temp position has ended, both blessing and curse. Really it's more of a curse but with a bright side. The bright side is of course that the people I worked for/with were the sort who can't get the hell out of their own way. K-cop and her buddy, Queen B (with all that B stands for) were chronic thorns in my side. They were each causes and embodiments of much that was wrong culturally with that office, however I can't say the "big boss lady" didn't hold some responsibility in the mess that was the office climate and overall philosophy of "let's just assume everything will go according to plan". I don't get that mentality. It doesn't fit with my own experiences in any domain and I can't imagine running an office like that. Sure, sometimes you can't cover all the bases. It might be impractical or impossible. Time constraints, personnel allocation, and budget may conspire against preparing for possible outcomes. And some shit is just straight up unpredictable. However, at this past job I witnessed some seriously blatant head in the sand, grossly shortsighted behaviors which left me simply stunned and left everyone scrambling when the shit inevitably hit the fan.
And so I am somewhat happy to be done there. I am very unhappy to be unemployed though. Another day on the internet, surfing the job boards and updating my online resumes and candidate info sites (think PeopleSoft but worse). I just rewrote a cover letter, my entire resume, and revised my work experiences on this god awful hosting site called Taleo. Holy crap that thing was a pain in the ass....speaking of the link between poor business culture poor business practice, it seems Taleo sucks in ways beyond my limited job seeking perspective.
While I am off and in need of projects, I've decided to look for cat food alternatives for my cat Max. Max has IBD, probably some food intolerances. For some time now, he's been on a limited ingredient/novel protein diet. We had him on Hill's prescription diet D/D, rabbit, venison, and duck. He tends to eat only one kind, then after some time, he refuses it and we need to switch to a different flavor. A few years ago now, he stopped eating the D/D altogether so at the advice of our vet, we switched him to Royal Canin's limited ingredient/novel protein diet. He ate that happily for a while and with less good (but still not horrible) digestive results than with the Hill's. Then he started getting bad in terms of digestive symptoms (as a friend calls it, "Pandora's Cat Box") and also constitutional symptoms. We took him to the vet and he had some funny blood chemistry values. So back to Hill's, which he ate as if it were new and which agreed with him better. But now he's refusing the Hill's again to the point where he's losing weight. He's hungry, he wants food, but not that food apparently.
We have been punting with just feeding him meats he can eat "au jus", mostly consisting of shredded pork with water and fish oil since he has a demonstrable intolerance to chicken, turkey, and beef. But this is not going to give him the nutrients he needs, moveover, he's still losing weight. I took some time on Monday and Tuesday to research cat food that meets the following criteria:
Has no chicken, turkey, or beef
Has no glutten/wheat or corn products
The first we tried was California Natural salmon and sweet potato. This was a bit of a risk since I suspect the cat doesn't do well with salmon. However, it wasn't clear if his past salmon problems were a result of salmon alone, salmon in combination, or were simply due to some other product in the salmon based food he'd eaten in the past. Yeah, well, turns out that salmon is apparently a definite part of the problem. So no more of that. This morning we are on to Nature's Variety Instinct for cats. The one I've selected is Lamb. It's in no way a limited ingredient formula, nor does it have a single source of protein, however it has none of the items I know or strongly suspect Max to have an intolerance to.
So far, he's had most of a can and not pooped it all out. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one.
