Working Life Update

I got a message on June 28th that I didn't realize I'd been waiting and hoping for. The "man" who fired me more than two years ago had, himself, been fired. I immediately felt such intense schadenfreude that I actually felt physical pain from it for a short time. A very short time. I felt guilty about it much longer than it hurt.

After getting a second independent report of the news of the firing, I felt even more schadenfreude. I was also feeling deep shock and anger about the shooting at the newsroom at the Annapolis Capital Gazette. In fact, I was being torn in half by the conflicting news.

The next morning I was still on a schadenfreude high, and decided I had to go into the newspaper office to get a paper in celebration. I also had, in the back of my mind, a thought that I might be allowed to write for the paper again. Literally the only good writing I've done since my firing was for File 770, and that wasn't enough to make me truly happy (though praise Mike Glyer for making it happen!).

I went into the office on Friday, June 29th, and saw some of my co-workers who had survived the bad years. I chatted happily with them, and bought a paper, and was allowed into the back office to see how the layout had been changed since I was last there. As it happened, I kept getting delayed, so instead of leaving I kept greeting old friends as they came back from lunch and being introduced to people I'd not yet met. Including the editor. Who was delighted to meet me because Jennie, my reporter colleague the entire time I'd worked for the newspaper, was about to go on two weeks vacation and boy could the editor use some help filling the pages.

I was suddenly "hired" to write some feature articles. Just come up with a list of subjects and come back later in the afternoon and I'd be on my way.

Holy Flaming Cows.

I came up with a short list of potential subjects, people I was certain I would be able to reach out to (including the manager of the local Papa Murphy's, where Eric and I had gone after visiting the newspaper. I'd been so happy while I was there I was practically spilling joy into the air). The editor approved all but one of them (recent article on her) and I was suddenly working again.

My first article back featured the manager of the local Papa Murphy's

In order to meet my first deadline, I had to work Saturday. Oddly enough, I wasn't even slightly upset about it. This is what I ended up writing about it on Facebook:

Short 'work' day today. Went to the office with my first story, which I went over with the editor to learn his style preferences. Then I headed to where I thought I might be able to catch my next interview, and unsurprisingly found him there and chatted for awhile. Next, I spotted a group of ambulances racing by and followed them - I haven't done that in more than two years.

When I got close to the accident I was stopped by an officer at a road block, who allowed me to walk to the scene but wouldn't let me drive the half-mile down. I walked. When I got there I heard, "Laura! Hey, Laura!" It was the regular reporter - she'd got to the scene before the first responders, so I didn't need to go. Instead of walking the half-mile back in 90F sunlight, she gave me a lift back to my car.

I have been on the phone doing interviews since I got home, shaking and sweating (I'm still not completely well, but at least the anxiety hit AFTER I got home). Now my eyes are beginning to cross and my brain is going wonky, so I'm going to stop writing and thinking for an hour or so and relax. My two stories aren't due until Monday morning, so I think I can manage.

Unfortunately, the walk in 90F heat almost did me in, and I suffered a massive pain attack on Sunday. I was still able to make the interview I had scheduled, and wrote on Facebook:

Just finished an incredible interview. I don't know how I'm going to do this man justice! I got to see into a different mindset than my own and learn more about history that I didn't know, angles I'd never heard. It was amazing and awesome.

I have so missed this job!

It was a great article to write, and while I struggled to get everything done, I did what I could. Monday morning I had this to say about the situation:

I... I feel like the last week was a dream. A really good dream. And I'm about to wake up and none of it happened.

Or, alternately, I feel like we're about to get stomped on by a giant Monty Pythonesque foot.

Eric said it's like the ending of Holes, when Stanley carries Zero up the mountain and breaks the curse and suddenly everything goes right for Stanley's family. Only I wonder what curse was on us and why.

All that said, Inkwell is still sick, and I'm still fighting my first deadlines in two years... so everything isn't hunky-dory yet.

After writing that, I headed to work and then was chided for not having a photo of the subject of one of my stories. I managed to locate a photo by, surprise!, locating one of my other former co-workers. She's one who intelligently left the paper as soon as she realized what a jerk the publisher was more than two years ago. She just happened to be working in the office that had the photo I needed, and she emailed it to the editor in time for deadline. Then I had to go take Inkwell to the vet - he wasn't eating - so my energy went from high to gone in no time. As I said on Facebook:

I am so wiped.

Got my two stories in, and managed (I think) to get the photos for them as well.

Shortly after deadline was Inkwell's latest vet appointment, so I drove him to the clinic. He almost refused to react for the first part of the examination, only beginning to growl a bit when he got his temperature taken.

The news is mixed. He was suffering from severe dehydration, because he hasn't been eating and drinking for two days. But the blood tests were inconclusive. The doctor thinks he may just be suffering from a bout of nausea, and gave him an anti-nausea pill. He also got a fluid injection. He's really annoyed at me now.

However, the tests also showed the possibility of pancreatic or liver problems, but again - inconclusive. We're to keep an eye on him and see if he gets over his problems and starts acting normal. I've got a few anti-nausea pills that are supposed to last 24 hours, so hopefully he'll feel better. Fingers crossed.

I spent July 3rd snickering at the Second Civil War posts mocking the rumor that liberals were going to start a literal shooting war against conservatives on Independence Day.

I got the front page, top of the fold, of the 4th of July Edition

With my physical issues, I was having a hard time getting everything I wanted to get done, done. But I managed to get up and out and to a friend's house for a July 4th Breakfast:

Whew.

Went out to a friend's Fourth of July breakfast this morning and chatted with a few people. Naturally, the newspaper came up since my friend works at the paper (and did so throughout the dark days). One of the women said, "Oh, did you write the article on Greg?" (http://www.dailysunnews.com/news/2018/jul/03/taylor-plaza-work-love-greg-schlieve/) and when I said yes, she praised it, saying it was very good. I felt myself kind of exploding with happiness inside.

My article writing has been a bit lax lately, despite my Adam West Day article at File770, and I worried that my work was going to be substandard to start off.

It helped to have such an excellent topic for the article, but I still worried. I only met the editor on Friday, and I'm still not familiar with his work, so I didn't know what, if anything, he would change. And the lack of a copy-editor bothers me... although I didn't see any glaring errors except for my co-worker getting credit for my photo (Yes, my co-worker is named Jess Quick, and yes she knows, and no, she's not a DC fan - she likes Marvel Comics' Thor, so if you have any awesome Thor swag to send to me to give her, let me know).

When I turned in my stories to the editor on Tuesday he told me how excellent they were. I didn't believe him. I felt like he was humoring me, just like I felt people were humoring me when they said the Adam West Day story was good. But I still went home after the editor said that and buried my face in Eric's shoulder and sobbed from relief. The ex-publisher told me I was a crappy writer and shouldn't be a reporter. Since writing is all I've ever wanted to do, my entire life, and he was my boss - well, I'm still stinging from that more than two years later. Even knowing he was fired, it still hurts. And explains why I feel extreme joy that he was fired.

Anyway...

If you've read this far, I'll give you some happy-ish news. Inkwell is not completely healthy, but he's clearly feeling a bit better. His eating is still off, but he'll eat if I hand-feed him (maybe he wants the attention?) and he's been drinking more than he did over the weekend. Hopefully he'll be his usual self soon, eating everything in sight and begging for my lunch as well.

And that's my life.

How is your life going?

I continued to write. Three stories a week is TINY for the old me, but the current me is struggling to get it done. By July 6th the pain had really kicked in:

I feel like a ping-pong ball that bounced out into the street, got run over by a mobility scooter, then picked up by a dog and left in an overgrown yard where a cat batted it around for a few minutes and now a squirrel is trying to break it open.

I needed help with getting a photo to illustrate this story, fortunately the Facebook group came through for me.

By July 9th I'd written four articles for the paper. I had an interview scheduled at City Hall, which was another part of my strategy to re-connect with people I hadn't seen in more than two years. Down at City Hall the next day, I got to sit down with a friend for an interview and see a number of people I'd missed. It was wonderful. Also, City Hall has been renovated, so I got to comment on all the changes. But even after I wrote the story very smoothly for me, I was still nervous:

I'm kind of on the edge of my seat. I did an interview this morning with my friend at city hall, loved it. We talked about all kinds of things - including what I wanted to get from him about his job - and I left feeling elated.

I got home and started writing and got into the groove, that place where everything else in the universe vanishes except the words and the story. It flowed. I made some adjustments then sent it to the editor with the photo I took.

Now I'm waiting for a callback from the editor. I called to see if he got the story (important even in this age of email) and he said he was looking it over. Now I've got this terror that it is horrible and he's going to try to let me down gently.

I need some way to turn off my brain... ooooo, Doctor Who on Twitch...

The editor did not tell me it sucked, but he did edit it down a LOT from what I wrote, which was fine but a little surprising, until he informed me that *he* was having trouble keeping to deadlines because I was turning in work a little too late. At that point, I realized I needed to get my work in the night before the deadline he originally gave me. So for Wednesday's paper, I need to turn in my story by Monday night. For Friday's paper, it must be in on Wednesday night. And the worst of all, for Monday's paper I need to get it in on Thursday night.

Going back to City Hall was a delight!

I'm going to have some work to do to get ahead of the curve.

So on Wednesday, July 11th, I needed a story. So I hit the pavement. I visited a bunch of places that had been suggested, and a few I remembered. I hit the library and asked to interview the local storyteller, and she suggested I come in on Thursday. She suggested I go to the Museum, so I headed over there and chatted with the hostesses. I thought I might be able to convince one of them to do an interview when a man came in:

Yesterday I had a fantastic interview at the museum with a guy I don't believe I'd ever met before, but was totally willing to share the history of his family with me. I'm not sure how long the interview was, but I came out of it elated, as I do from great interviews (talking with fascinating people is wonderful).

After reporting in to the editor, I headed home to write the story and realized I was completely "out of spoons". I mean, I was beat. I could barely get myself writing. Fortunately, once I was writing, the words came - if not easily, at least they came.

When I was done, I had nothing left. Eric took me downstairs and fed me dinner, and I fell asleep while we watched Iron Chef off the DVR. He somehow got me upstairs and into bed at about 7 pm and I slept until a massive headache woke me at 3 am.

I took some painkiller and got on my computer while I waited for it to kick in, but Inkwell decided to curl up on my lap, so I sipped water and petted the cat while the painkiller finally started to work. Then I went back to bed.

I didn't get up until about 8 this morning. After sitting down at my computer again, Inkwell insisted on more lap time. Now I've had my shower, eaten, and even had a short chat with my editor. I have an appointment at 11 am to take some photos and meet some potential interview subjects. But I'd better take it a little easier today, considering how wiped I was yesterday!

The story turned out well, I thought, and I went to the library the next day at 11 am and got my "Monday" story with the storyteller. This time I had to take a nap before I could even write it. But I got through it, and have interviews scheduled for next Monday and Tuesday for my Wednesday and Friday stories.

Today's paper has my story on the front page, above the fold

Employment Dreams

My job search is going much better in my dreams than in real life. I've had two very vivid dreams about jobs now, one a few days ago and one early this morning after a restless night of almost no sleep.

Not feeling all that great...

First full day of unemployment in quite some time. I didn't enjoy it much. Between my Aquaman blog still being down and a petty city official being an idiot about dandelions, I had what little enjoyment I might have gotten from not-dealing-with-a-boss-I've-come-to-despise taken away from me.

For those of you not in the know, I'm no longer a reporter. My boss broke the camel's back Monday morning after an incredibly difficult morning, during which I was having a massive anxiety attack at work. I stormed out after he insulted me and, because I left work suddenly and without permission, I got fired. It's been coming for several weeks now, so it was not a huge surprise to me. I should have realized I'd be gone eventually because this is the guy that, when I first met him years ago when he was working at a different newspaper, I said, "Boy, I'm glad I don't work for him."

I'm curious to see if he'll succeed at his job. He's supposed to revive the local paper, bring up circulation and make it a thriving business. So far, he's managed to drive off a few advertisers and employees on the one hand, and expand into two cities that were desperate for a good newspaper to cover them on the other hand. I don't really care if he fails or succeeds, but having seen his methods first-hand, I don't doubt he'll rub a lot of people the wrong way before he's done. I'm not going to root for the paper to fail: I loved my job before he came along far too much for that. But I won't be cheering his successes in the slightest. All the awards in the world don't make you a good person.

I cannot predict how he'll do in the long run, but I'm glad I'm not part of it. He and I get along like flame and water. I will say this: I gave it my best shot. But it's hard to work with a person who makes you physically ill when you just think of him. I've been having frequent anxiety attacks, due to him. And they were getting worse.

Anyway.

Eric and I agreed I should take a week off to recover from the hell of the last few months, after which I need to find work. We can't quite make it through the summer without me bringing in some income. The mortgage payments are just a little too much to swing without something from my side.

I'm going to miss being a reporter. I enjoyed a lot of aspects of the job, which made the annoying parts tolerable. I've learned I absolutely hate crime reporting. I don't mind council meetings and anything technical, like port, is kind of fun for me. I handle people much better in small doses, so generally speaking, those sorts of meetings were much more comfortable for me to handle. I still love to do research, and would gladly hunt down facts from anywhere to help write a story. I also have a better idea of how to interview people, which is a skill I simply did not have before. I'm still nervous most of the time, but at least I can do it now. I'm a bit better at editing, though I'll never be a great copy-editor. I can edit for clarity just fine, but typos are my Kryptonite.

I'm told I'm a good writer. The boss told me I wasn't a good reporter, and kept saying it. The last few months have been horribly demoralizing. I didn't realize until I started writing this paragraph just how bad it was. I'm not sure a day went by when I didn't ask myself if I was any good at my job, because if I was any good at it, why would the boss keep insulting me constantly? I think he isn't even aware of how insulting he is. I'm not sure whether I pity or hate him. A little of both, but mostly apathy. He's not worth my time any more. I think I'd already determined his opinion shouldn't matter to me weeks ago, but it's going to take longer to handle the stress of having worked with him.

My confidence has taken a massive hit. Not because I got fired: I was expecting that and ready for it. But because of the thousand little insults flung at me by the boss. I'm still bleeding from the wounds. If only I could convince myself it is him that was the problem, and not me! But the little demons are telling me I should have adjusted to his style faster, and that I was so crappy at my job that I'm better off flipping burgers somewhere. At least I'd make as much money flipping burgers as I did there. Yeah, that's how little I got paid.

I'm not sure how to break into freelance writing properly, or if there's a proper way. All I know is that I'm going to need paying jobs if I want to make a go of it... otherwise I'd better get my apron and spatula ready.

What a day...

So, Monday I went to the high school first thing in the morning for an assembly. As it turned out, the principal had won the state's Principal of the Year award, which is awesome. We got it in Monday's paper, although I was very disappointed in the placement of the story on the front page, since I believe such good news for the town should be above the fold, not below it.

In any case, it was a bit of a frantic morning for me, despite being trusted by the district to write up the information ahead of time.

That afternoon I went to an open house and worked up a little story about the local community college's tiny branch in town. It's a great place, and I wanted to give them some inches in the paper.

That evening I got to go to a Port meeting, which was fun as those meetings tend to be... lots of great folks talking about wonderful technical stuff that supports the town's economy. I enjoy the meetings, even though I wasn't expecting, and didn't get, a full story out of it.

Then I went to a "Math Night" in a neighboring school district. It wasn't at all like the Math Nights we put on at Math 'n' Stuff (I don't remember ever having teachers get pies thrown at them at our math nights) but it was still a lot of fun and nicely mathy.

It was a big day, and the cold that had been brewing in my lungs was grabbing more and more at my energy. By night time I was finding myself struggling.

Then came Tuesday.

So I didn't have a morning event to go to, but I had a lot to write up and a very big afternoon. Plus I expected to have a morning meeting... as it turned out, I ended up not doing the morning meeting. Other things, some terribly chaotic, were happening right in the middle of it all. I was still feeling sick, but I tried hard to keep it under control. In the middle of everything, I was told to go get a story about a medical marijuana collective garden... so I went in an took a photo of giant marijuana plants while I was already feeling woozy.

Afternoon was tough, I started by running out to the bridge with a hole in it and getting yet another photo of it. I've only been there... three times? Yeah, three I think, since the hole formed. It's just on the edge of our new coverage area.

After the hole, I went to a local high school to have an interview with a Miss City candidate. I didn't grow up with the concept of Miss City, but over here there is a Miss Sunnyside, Miss Mabton, Miss Grandview, Miss Prosser, Miss Granger, Miss Toppenish... if there's a city, there's a royal court for it. And somehow, through some sin of mine, I've been doing the interviews for two of the cities we are covering. There's a total of four courts/pageants we will likely be regularly covering. One thing we have done with Miss Sunnyside in the past is do a bio of each candidate in the weeks leading up to the pageant. The bios run on Fridays and are a big deal. The new publisher said if we are going to do bios for Miss Sunnyside, we have to do them for every city... and so, here I am, interviewing teenage pageant candidates. Yikes.

After that, I went to a place I'd driven past many times but never knew what it was. Turns out it's a company that makes fishing lures, Yakima Bait Company. Our congresscritter was coming to do a tour, and the media was invited. Since I was already in the same town for a later city council, I went to the tour as well. It was fascinating and fun, and I got lots of photos, even though we only ran one.

Next up was the council meeting, which was less fun since it was about banning marijuana, a topic I'm heartily sick of. As expected, the council banned it. I got my story and a nice bonus photo of the girls basketball team, which won third place in the State Tournament and was the top-rated public school in their division in state, posing with the mayor.

I was home late, had a late dinner with hubby and crashed into bed exhausted and still fighting that cold.

Wednesday morning I struggled to wake up. The cold was hitting me hard, but I got to work, wrote up my stories and got through the first half of deadline. Then I found myself running to the bathroom every five minutes for dry-heaves and decided to leave. I didn't really ask permission, since I was afraid I was going to pass out or throw up on my boss. That may come back to haunt me, I don't know. I didn't care at the time, and I'm not entirely sure I care now.

Once home, I tried to write up my Miss City story while staying near the toilet, but quickly discovered I couldn't write. I couldn't read, either, so I finally went upstairs to try to sleep. I discovered that pulling the comforter, an extra quilt and all the blankets I could find over me was enough to drown my nausea and pain, and I slept until Eric got home and woke me.

This morning I felt much better and was able to accomplish some stuff. I had yet another surprise "somebody in the school district got an award" event, and, yes, another Miss City interview in a different town. I got those done, but needed to do some more "Over the Shoulder" archive searches for tomorrow, so I stayed late and got it done. It was nice. I have to run and get a photo tomorrow morning, but I don't need to be in the office until 8 a.m., which is nice. I also don't have much on my plate, supposedly, which *might* mean I can get some of the long-term special section stories written, which would be REALLY nice. Knock on wood.

And so to bed...

From an Old Newspaper...

"Sourpusses Wanted"
The manager of the Liberty theatre is looking for "the five gloomiest people in the city of Sunnyside (professional mourners and house haunters included) to sit thru a special preview on Sunday, Feb. 23rd. of "The Marx Brothers in 'A Night at the Opera'" without laughing, for a prize of six passes. If you can't hold your laughs till you get out of the lobby of the theatre, you will be disqualified. Those wishing to enter this contest, see Mr. Baldwin between the hours of 2 and 4 Saturday afternoon. Remember, only five will be selected for this contest, so put on the best deadpan face you have.

- The Sunnyside Sun, 1936

Dangerous Bridges and Dancing Tumbleweeds

Yesterday afternoon my editor decided we need some good photos of the flooding in the area...

We've been watching the snowpack carefully. After the drought last summer, in which many crops were lost and others weren't even planted, people in this area are worried that it might happen again. Last summer, there was simply no snow in the passes in February. It's much better this year... there's actually snow in the passes, but there's always a danger that early warming will wash away the snowpack and we'll be in the same position as last year.

Of course, if the snowpack melts off, it's a double-whammy. Not only will the summer be dry in the irrigated desert we live in, but the runoff from the water will cause flooding on local rivers.

I'm thinking you can guess, based on my first sentence, what is happening.

Now, it's not totally terrible. It's not all melting off, just the lower elevations. So it's not as bad as last year yet. But the flooding is still impressive and somewhat damaging.

So I headed out to two particular places to get photos. One was a park in Granger that flood at the slightest rise in river levels. It's always good for a photo, but people in the know recognize that a flood photo of Hisey Park isn't really all that telling. The second photo I was asked to take was of a bridge that had washed out. At least, that's the report we'd gotten on the police scanner yesterday morning.

So I headed out toward Granger from Sunnyside on I-82, and the sky was threatening. Not just threatening, there were "rolls" of thunder clouds overhead and as the first one rolled over me, the wind kicked up. The car in front of me suddenly swerved and I saw a whole bunch of tumbleweeds on the freeway. They were dancing. I'm not exaggerating. The wind picked them up, and they were just bouncing along the roadway. Tiny ones, big ones... the car in front of me was swerving around the huge ones and hitting the smaller ones. I have never in my life wished for a dashcam as much as at that moment. It was truly amazing-looking.

If the dancing tumbleweeds wasn't enough, the rain then hit. The road was completely dry and stayed that way. The rain was being driven sideways into my windshield and up. I couldn't even get the wipers to work because the wind was so strong... but I didn't need them because the wind was so strong. The car was bucking in the wind as well. I found myself playing dodge-ems around the huge tumbleweeds and watched a couple of cars behind me doing the same. The smaller ones made a *pok!* sound at they hit my car and shattered.

It's not a long trip to Hisey Park, and I got there fairly quickly after the fun of the dancing tumbleweeds. As I pulled up into the parking area, I noticed two other cars there. One took off as soon as I arrived, and the other pulled forward, as if to get away from me. I really wonder what people at the park are doing, because there is ALWAYS a couple of cars parked there. In any case, I waited in my car as a hail storm passed overhead, then climbed out into the heavy rain and took some photos of Hisey Lake, as it was not a park at all. You couldn't see the walking path at all, and the amphitheater was totally flooded. The photo will appear in Monday's paper and online Monday night.

I noticed as I walked across the grass to take the photo that there was a whole lot of dog poop on the ground. Not just a little, but literally unavoidable mummified (in most cases) poop all over the grass. I keep trying to think of what else it might have been, but it sure looked like poop to me.

Back to my car, soaking wet, I headed over to city hall to introduce myself to the clerks and say hello. I gave them my card and said if there is any news they want to get out to the public to feel free to call us. Then I headed to the washed out bridge.

The bridge was right off Exit 52, literally within sight of the on-ramps. I pulled up and there were a couple of trucks already parked there. I pulled on my "MEDIA" reflective vest and walked over to chat. One was checking the power lines strung across the bridge, the other was checking out the gas line. I said I was going to take photos for the paper, and they shrugged. Both of them took off fairly quickly, but I wandered around the area trying to see the hole and the wash out. I ended up explaining to a number of people who were trying to take the bridge that it was closed - there were cement blocks on each end and barriers up and signs... but some people just need a human to tell them.

Finally, since I couldn't see any sign of the wash out from the Zillah side of the bridge, I walked across it to find the damage. The bridge was solid, wet from the recent storm, but there was nothing wrong with it at all. Until I got to the far side, where the Yakima River was rushing in its channel. One of the people I chatted with on the Zillah side told me the bridge usually goes over quite a bit of dry land before it goes over the river itself, and the area of faster water flow was where the river usually goes.

In any case, I got to the other side and found danger signs and caution tape blocking my path, but I could see the hole. I took some photos, but I wasn't satisfied with them, so I crossed the tape and walked up to the hole... it was impressive. I could see the flood waters tearing at the foundation of the bridge and the hole itself was a few feet into the roadway and went straight down into the water. The damage looked severe... the whole foundation on that side is going to have to be rebuilt/reinforced to make the bridge sturdy again.

After taking a LOT of photos, I headed back to my car, limping a little from my heelspur, which has been acting up again. I talked to a few more people at the other side of the bridge, including a cop and a Yakama Nation officer. Then I headed back to the office to show off the damage photos to my co-workers.

Once again I'm reminded that the infrastructure of this nation is literally falling apart, and nobody seems to have the political will to put the money where it's needed most. Not only would a serious infrastructure drive improve road safety and boost the economy, it would also put thousands of people to work, if not millions. The fact that we are watching as bridge after bridge fails, some of them taking lives as they collapse, and no major effort has gone to fixing the problem shows that our priorities are skewed. All the businesses that rely on shipping... all the people who need to travel for work... all the communications cables that need replacing... it's all going to fall apart. Then where will we be?

State of the Laura

My mind is clear enough to write for the first time in almost a week thanks to me stopping my drug regime in anticipation of going back to work tomorrow.

Here's the skinny. Last Thursday morning I felt a twinge in my back that steadily got worse. All day Thursday I was in pain, but since I live with a certain level of pain and it wasn't that much worse than usual, I tried to ignore it and just get on with life. But Friday morning... I thought I was going to die. It hurt more than I had ever imagined back pain could hurt. I mean, I've had back pain for years, but it's been periods of intense but tolerable pain followed by dull aches followed by mostly nothing. But last Friday, it was intolerable. I was having back spasms, and every time one hit I couldn't prevent myself from crying. And sometimes crying out. It was that bad. I somehow worked through deadline but the instant I believed I was done with everything for that day's paper, I headed to the "urgent care" clinic.

Aside: I have had ovarian cysts burst. They are incredibly painful and the pain lasts for a couple of hours. The back spasms were at least as bad and only lasted a few minutes each... but they kept happening every ten or so minutes. The burst cysts would have weeks in between.

I was prescribed a couple of drugs, a narcotic pain killer and a muscle relaxant. I then proceeded to spend the weekend in drug-addled pain. Because the drugs didn't really work, but fogged my brain severely and put me to sleep. During that time, I learned about the deaths of two people I consider friends, and both of them hit me really hard. So I was still in pain and suffering from grief when Monday morning rolled around.

Hubby-Eric wasn't working Monday, so he took me back to the clinic where I was prescribed a different pain killer and a different muscle relaxant. Then hubby did the hard work of getting the prescriptions so I could just stay at home and try to heal. The new drugs worked, and I spent the rest of Monday and Tuesday out of it. Wednesday morning I felt better and decided I ought to try to go back to work on Thursday. My boss, the new publisher, informed me that if I was going to come back early I had to get it cleared with my doctor. I got an appointment for this morning.

After bawling me out about going to the clinic, my regular doctor told me I needed to finish the medicine and rest period (I thought my regular doctor didn't do same-day appointments. I have been taught otherwise). So I will be headed back to work tomorrow morning, instead of going back today. She also chided me about not getting my mammogram and decided to set up the appointment for me. *sigh* I'm not a good patient.

Today's mail brought a book from Amazon that I hadn't ordered... about how to deal with back pain. Since the primary chapters I've read so far agree with the advice of my doctor (stand up and move around frequently, stop slouching when sitting) I will try to work through it and see if it helps me in the long run. I got a text from my sister asking if I got the book, so that mystery was quickly solved.

I firmly believe that if I lose the weight I've gained back since moving out here, most of my medical issues will dissolve. Which means I've got to get serious about calorie counting again. Eric has promised to help me out.

I'm going to indulge in a little bit of sadness and grief now.

I didn't know Justin Manning for long. I met him online at theadiposetv's Twitch stream and chat, and met him in person at last year's Anglicon. He was an enthusiastic supporter of fandom and loved everything about life and fans. He was delighted to get to Anglicon and meet the Doctor Who: Legacy team and some other fans from the chat and stream. He volunteered at the convention, and put in a helping hand despite being weak from cancer treatments. He was impressive and, having seen photos of him from other friends on his Facebook page, I realize he was a great man who promoted friendship and fandom. I'll miss him.

On the other hand, I've known Jim Trull for as long as I've worked at the newspaper. He was one of the first friendly faces I got to know at certain meetings and such. I'm fairly certain I first met him while covering Noon Rotary, where he was a natural born greeter. He was always genuinely glad to see people and made you feel tall just to be around him. When I had to cover the groundwater meetings, I was delighted to see Jim there, because I felt like I had one ally in the room. I remember after the first groundwater meeting I covered, I went up to Jim and asked him some background questions about some of the discussion topics that I hadn't quite understood. He patiently explained the acronyms to me and, frankly, without him I feel like I would have been lost.

I didn't know Jim was the district manager of the local irrigation district until later, and then I realized just how important he was in the area. That he took the time to help a clueless cub reporter makes me adore him even more.

Jim passed away over the weekend, and when I learned the news I was in far more shock than when I heard about Justin's death. Justin had been fighting cancer. As far as I know, Jim was in good health. I saw him at the irrigation district meeting not so long ago. In fact, I want to share a little bit of his sense of humor.

One of the presenters at the meeting had a couple of photos of his crew laying pipe, and a machine that was binding the pipes together. It was pretty standard stuff. The photos were of the machine at the worksite, and one of the photos showed a worker and a case next to him that apparently contained part of his lunch: a bag of pretzels. The board members asked questions about the machine, and how much time it saved, and all that jazz. Jim looked up and asked in a serious deadpan voice, "And what do the pretzels do?" The engineer presenting had no idea what he was talking about. One of the board members sort of giggled and pointed out the bag on the photo... then they got back to business. A tiny moment of levity in an otherwise highly technical meeting.

Jim's daughter is also in Noon Rotary and I know her fairly well. His wife is the principal at one of the elementary schools, so I've run into her while working, as well. So my heart is breaking for them along with the general loss to the community. I think I've had enough time that I'm not going to break into tears while thinking about it at work, but I make no guarantees. Like I've said elsewhere, this year has truly started out horrible.

Today in Review

Since I seem to be gutting my memory each night and haven't really been taking notes about my life because it's been utterly crazy, I thought maybe I'll try to make up for my lack of posting about my week in review by giving you a glimpse of a day.

Last night it was raining a little as I came home. Nothing strange for me, a Seattle native, right? Well... I'm not used to the rain freezing as soon as it hits the ground. A couple of hours after sunset, that's what was happening here. By morning we had a giant sheet of ice covering every paved surface. The only non-slick spots were areas where the snow hadn't been shoveled, and those were crusted foot-traps.

Hubby-Eric, sweetheart that he is, interrupted my morning shower several times to update me on school delays and closures. Once I was dressed, I checked the newspaper's website and didn't see any updates, so I started to worry a little. The editor lives on the only real hill in town, and I wondered if he'd been able to get to work at all. So I left for work earlier than I'd planned, and got to work about an hour early. The two worst parts of the commute were getting out of my own driveway, which is just steep enough to be frightening when there is ice, and crossing the parking lot at work on foot. Luckily, I have stabilicers, so I was able to clack my way across the ice without slipping.

Aside: I really love my stabilicers, which I call my "spikes." I keep them in my car all winter. They are sturdy, can be slipped onto a shoe with one hand with a little practice, and are perfect for the light snow and heavy ice we tend to get around here. My co-workers all seem envious of them, so every time someone says they wish they had some, I send them the link to the website so they know what they are called.

As it turned out, the editor was on the job when I got there and had updated the website while I was on the way. The publisher was also in the office, so I wasn't really needed all that much. The editor gave me a story on the weather to do, so I called a few places, including a meteorologist, and got the piece put together. We heard over the police scanner that there was an accident, car versus telephone pole, and I was about to go out to it (terrified of driving on the ice again) when my co-worker arrived. Since her car was already warmed up and she was already out there, the publisher cautiously walked out and asked her to do it.

The rest of deadline was relatively calm. We're one reporter down for the next two weeks, which is terrifying since we've already been down one reporter since the old editor left, but we're just barely hanging on. The new publisher wants things done differently, and has strong notions of how to work smarter and what to do, but he's sometimes a little... um... I'm not really sure how to describe it. I truly believe he's trying to make us better, but sometimes I feel like he's determined to do it by pointing out everything we are doing wrong, explaining how we ought to have done it, and hoping we'll be shamed into not doing it again. And while that's not an entirely fair way to describe it, there are days I feel like that's what is happening and feel a great deal of despair that I'll ever get it right.

In any case, today was not one of those days, although I got shamed at one point. The good thing is that I noticed the problem before he pointed it out. The bad thing is that I didn't think to fix it. Still, I think the mere fact that I'm beginning to spot problems is a move in the right direction.

A digression: yesterday I was in my office when the police scanner crackled and I heard the local dispatcher say, loudly and with a hint of panic, "We need EVERYONE back here right now." That caught my attention, and apparently at least one officer wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly and asked for a repeat. The dispatcher said, "We're having a flood and we need everyone back here as quickly as possible!" I jumped out of my chair and was thinking about rushing to the police station to see the flood, but instead went to my co-worker who covers the police beat and told her. Within moments she was out the door toward the police station. She managed to get photos and first-hand reports of the flood. You'll have to check out the website for the full story, but suffice to say it didn't stop our police from doing their job, nor did any prisoners escape from the jail (which is what I thought was happening when I heard the first message).

Back to today: lunch was a calm affair at home. The drive was pretty good, since most of the ice was melted. I usually, but not always, go home for lunch. If nothing else, it's an excuse to feed Inkwell, who gets very annoyed if we don't feed him regularly. I tell him I'd give him the whole day's food at once if he wouldn't gorge on it until he throws up and then eat more, but he has major food insecurity issues, so he gets little meals throughout the day instead. Inkwell and I usually have a little wrestling match when I get home, and he also likes to play tag with me. Both actions tend to cheer me up a bit (except for the biting. I don't like wrestling with biting). I went back to work feeling better.

After lunch I got together with the production lead and had my first lesson in InDesign. Now, to be fair, I've used it sporadically since I started working at the newspaper. But I do not know how to lay out pages yet, and the goal is for me to lay out my own pages. I've been trying to get time for a lesson in, but my schedule has been unforgiving and the adjustments we've been making have meant no time for lessons. So I was glad to get the time today.

For my first lesson, I put together tomorrow's school page. I quickly saw why it's advantageous to have writers doing the layouts, as we can edit some stories a little to make them fit better. In addition, I learned how difficult it really is to fit everything. I know why the former editor relied on filler material to make sure he could make the pages work. The new publisher is absolutely against using briefs as filler, so I suspect everyone is having a much harder time getting pages to work now. However, we have some "new" tools in our toolkits, including using more pull quotes and sub-headlines. In any case, I got the page tweaked, and while it may change before publication, at least I understand the concept behind it now.

Anyway, after the lesson I worked on other stories until I started to feel the drain on my brain. I have one more story to do for tomorrow, but I'd like a little more input on it, and I'm hoping I'll get a response to my Facebook plea. Ha. So I'll head in early for sure tomorrow morning.

I'm still not "there" yet, as far as what the new publisher wants. My stories are getting closer to his expectations, though I still need to work on breaking a few bad habits. My biggest weakness is finding my own stories. For four years, the former editor assigned most of my jobs. I'm now trying to find my own stories, and that's difficult for me to do. I'm not yet thinking "oh, that would be a good news story," when I hear about something. And when I do, I sometimes completely forget about it before I can find a notepad and jot it down, which really frustrates me. There's a story germ that I heard yesterday that I remember thinking "hey, there's a story there," but for the life of me I cannot figure out what it was. It's enough to make me want to bang my head against a wall in shame.

Anyway, today was one of the first good days I've had in a long time. I suspect it won't last, but I felt like I ought to share. I had a good day. Amazing, but true.

This is the bouquet I like

Hubby can send me flowers if they come like this...

Gotta get Back in Time...

If there was ever a day I wanted to actually ride in a DeLorean, that would be October 21, 2015. Anyone who knows Back to the Future would know why.

Guess what I did today?

Two! Two DeLoreans!

I'm in a DeLorean, taking a photo of the DeLorean in front of us.

This is the signature edition of the DeLorean... signed by people involved in the movies.

A Flux Capacitor.

Better quality photos will be in tomorrow's newspaper. Now that we're in the future...

I don't like my name in a headline...

Gjovaag leads DSN’s list of seven award winners.

Hijinks at Work

This was on the layout table this morning. There was nothing in the cup.

Someone brought in a bag of Halloween candy. The Nestle Crunch and other types went fast, until this was all that was left.

My Lunar Eclipse Photo

In case you missed last night/this morning's Super Blood Moon, we've got you covered! Here we have an incredible image from last night captured by one of our reporters, Laura Gjovaag. 🌚 Stay tuned for more Blood Moon photos posted later throughout the day. Be sure to follow us on Facebook for all your local news from the Yakima Valley!

A photo posted by Daily Sun News | Sunnyside, WA (@dailysunnews) on Sep 28, 2015 at 9:09am PDT

Hubby-Eric and I went on a road trip last night to get some great photos of the Super Harvest Blood Moon. Fortunately for me, my camera was up to the task. As I've told several people, only nerds like hubby and I would have gone on a date night to Hanford to watch a lunar eclipse. It was an exciting night for me, as I've never been up that way before - I'm always thrilled to visit new places. We stayed for about half the total eclipse before heading home. This is one of the best shots I got during the hour or so we were up there.

Watching the Secretary of State

Kim Wyman

The Washington Secretary of State is who I'm watching right now...

The Week in Review

Fair Saturday

Saturday was tough. It was warm, thankfully, and not hot. But even warm is difficult for somebody from the Wetside who is used to cool weather. I headed out in the afternoon to get some photos at the fair along with some photos of the car show. What I didn't realize is that they were giving out the prizes at the car show way earlier than I expected, so when I got there, people were just beginning to pack up to leave. Luckily I got there before that, but whew, it was a close one!

The fair itself was moderately lackluster, being a warm afternoon. Most of the action was at the livestock barns, as the sheep sales were ongoing. I took as many pictures of cute children as I could manage, talking with parents to get names and moving from shady area to shady area to try to keep cool. I finally left, covered in sweat, after a couple of hours taking photos.

I went back later in the evening for the rodeo. Finding parking was a nightmare, but I went up to the back gate and sweet-talked them into letting me take a spot near there. Then I headed over the rodeo and got to work.

It was still very warm and I was still a little overtired from the last couple of weeks. I felt like I couldn't get a thing into focus. I struggled with the camera and the dust and the heat, and generally started to feel crappier and crappier about how I was doing. I enjoyed the bits I stayed for, especially the fellow that rode his bronc for the full eight seconds before the horse reached the edge of the arena and bucked him off into the crowd. The guy won that competition.

After the "halftime show", which involves children "riding" corn stalks in a footrace, I headed home, sweaty and feeling miserable. If I'd had a little more energy, I would have tried to stay for the whole thing to see if I could get my camera to behave. But I was so tired I was no longer certain if it was the camera that wasn't in focus or just my eyes. I was a little worried about the drive home, so I left.

Once home I fell into bed and didn't wake up until late Sunday morning. Luckily, I'd set up my blogging on Saturday and just didn't have to worry about anything. Unfortunately for me, a single day of recovery is never really enough for me, so I was still a bit tired when I got to work on Monday.

Crappy Monday

Monday treated me bad. I was doing fine for quite some time, until it became clear the rodeo results would not get to us in time for deadline. I still worked to get them... I even got the gal who compiles the results on the phone. I learned that her computer had failed, so she read me the key notes and I wrote up a very crappy story without the detail we wanted and turned that in. But the editor was angry, I was frustrated and angry and life sucked pretty bad. I went home for lunch suffering from extreme mental anguish.

As it happened, I had a major depressive episode, possibly triggered by the frustration and anger, but in any case totally uncontrollable and utterly devastating. I was on the edge for awhile there, but Eric stayed by me until I could calm down. I ended up taking a nap, knowing I'd have to go to city council that night, and that helped a bit too. By the time I had to leave the house again for council, I was in control. I wasn't happy, just in control.

Council wasn't too bad, although it went on longer than I'd have liked. The budget season is upon us, and I will be spending all day today in a "retreat" dealing with that. But overall the meeting wasn't too bad. I got home almost in time for a decent night's sleep.

Tuesday was tough mostly because I was trying to make sure I wasn't behind on anything. Because I hadn't returned to work on Monday, two of my assignments were kindly completed by my co-workers (it's not like I don't do that for them frequently). I was down a couple of hours, but I stayed until the last possible minute on Tuesday, then had another council meeting in a different town that night. Between that and Saturday, I more than made up for any hours I didn't work.

Aside: I'm technically an hourly worker. I tend to treat the job as a salaried position in which I take as many hours as required to do the work. This can mean that I'll end up giving time to my company, but I like writing. While I don't get paid nearly enough for what I do, I'm willing to be generous in order to continue writing. I don't know if I will look for another writing gig if I remain underpaid and overworked, but as I have told my husband continually since being hired, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

A co-worker and I started work on a tough story on Tuesday, one that I will write about later in this piece. It was not pleasant.

Long Council Meeting

Tuesday night I went to the Mabton Council meeting. This is an interesting situation. They have a workshop meeting for an hour before the regular meeting. In my experience, the workshop meeting tends to cover issues that will eventually come up in the regular meeting and if you miss the workshop, you will miss a lot of detail that might later come in handy while reporting on the city. However, the person who was on the beat before me (I just took it over) believed that the workshop meetings are a waste of time and didn't go to them.

I went. I'd rather be bored and better informed than miss a major story because I was too lazy to sit another hour. Interestingly, the council and the city clerk seemed very happy to see me there for the workshop.

I can't say the topics were groundbreaking, but I did learn quite a bit during the workshop, and now that I'm on the beat regularly, there might be some of it that will be good to know in the future. I wasn't actually bored at all during the workshop meeting, as it was conducted to get through the agenda quickly enough that the regular meeting started on time. There were three main topics, including two I ended up writing up as briefs since I believe the folks in the city ought to know about them. The third topic still needs some action to be taken to make it newsworthy.

The main meeting was different. It started out well enough, but got increasingly slow. The main slog came when the council tried to swear in the new police chief, and one of the council members objected because he thought there was more of a process to go through. Well, it turned out that the position, which had been advertised for more than a month, only got three applicants. How qualified the other two were is impossible to say, but the council decided at its last meeting to pick the guy who's been in town for the job. However, two of the council members were absent during that particular meeting and one of them was never informed of the decision by the mayor. Oops.

The result was a very long conversation about hiring police chiefs and, for that matter, the fact that a newly hired officer the next town over could earn more than their police chief with just a bit of overtime. Which might possibly be why the position only got three applicants. Regardless of the city's problems, that conversation really bogged down the meeting. And about halfway through it, my eyes started to glaze over. I had to concentrate on writing notes to keep from falling asleep. We'd already been through two public hearings, which had a lot of information but not much action. Finally they stopped talking and swore the chief in... thank goodness, because it meant I got to stand up and take photos.

After that, there were a few snappy items, but then it bogged down again as a resident made a claim against the city that was appalling and more than a little terrifying. She also took a very long time.

I figured the council would be ready to adjourn after she was done, but no, ha. They had still more ground to cover, slowly but surely. Eventually they got to the last item on the agenda and... spent another half hour going over information that could have easily been covered in two or three minutes by any normal group of people.

Since I started covering meetings of all stripes for the newspaper, I have learned to really appreciate the masters of Robert's Rules of Order, those who not only understand the procedures and wield them to keep meetings moving along, but also those who have a notion of when further discussion is plain useless. Such people are rare. Some are far better at it than others, while some simply haven't got any skills at running a meeting at all. I don't flatter myself: I suspect I'd be extremely bad at it, personally. But I admire those who are good at it a great deal. It's a skill like any other, and some even have it as a natural talent. Should I ever get in a position where I have to lead meetings, I hope to heaven I can develop the skill. It makes life so much easier for participants.

My Job Gets Annoying

Wednesday morning was tough again. The editor did not like my choice of main story for the paper, and I didn't disagree with him. There were things done and said at the meeting that I wanted more background on before reporting on, and things that weren't enough to fill a story, which left me with the choice to inform about upcoming street projects. So the end result was a very lame lead story and a lot of briefs.

After deadline we had another meeting about the difficult story, then I headed over to the high school to attend Princess School. It was fun. I had to spend a long time to get a wide enough variety of photos, but I also got to talk about the difficult story with someone who was involved in the situation and was willing to give me information off the record. Her on-record statement was tame, but I got an earful of background.

I parked my camera bag away from the little girls and took photos of them. I ended up eating lunch with them and doing a very small amount of directing, as one of only three adults in the room. There were a lot of teenagers and 11 little girls. After two hours of fun, I left the building only to discover that the girls had somehow magically transported glitter onto my camera bag. I'm still not sure how it happened. Fortunately, it wasn't a lot of glitter, just enough to surprise me.

I meant to go to the pet clinic after the princess thing, but forgot. It just completely left my mind. Possibly because I didn't write it down. In any case, I popped by home, kissed Eric and played with Inky a bit, then got back to work. I stayed for several more hours, then ran up to a health fair to get a photo. It was a heavy afternoon.

Wednesday night I headed out to firefighter training. The local firefighters have weekly training sessions, and I got to attend one to learn more about the volunteers and how the system works for a special section story. I interviewed two firefighters and talked with some of the cadets. It turned out to be a quick evening, and I was home with more than enough time to relax before bedtime.

Weary Days

Thursday morning I realized I'd forgotten to write up a story. Fortunately, I'd done all the interviewing and such, I just needed to slap it together. I got it done in short order, feeling dumb that I'd forgotten. Then I wrote up the captions for the princess photo page, and zipped through the police logs. It was a moderately calm day, except for continued work on the tough story.

For lunch, the girls and I went to Cactus Juice, which will be closing at the end of the month for good. I invited Eric along, and we had meatloaf sandwiches, which were really good. I hope to get in there once or twice more before the end on the 28th.

After lunch I worked on the firefighters story for a very long time, struggling with it on every level. Some days the story just doesn't want to come out, so you fight with it until you have something you can edit later. I stayed until about 4 p.m., then it was time to face the unpleasant story head-on.

The local chamber of commerce has run into some tax and financial problems. The problems may have been there for years, but only recently the executive director left and an interim exec discovered the problems. While there's plenty of blame to go around, the tendency is going to be to focus on the previous exec, because it was definitely her job to sort these things out. But there was also a responsibility on the board of directors to be checking her work. And, worse, there is confusion among people who were previously board members about who was responsible for what parts of the organization.

The unpleasantness comes from the fact that I like just about everyone involved. I find it difficult to accept any possibility of malfeasance, but there is a definite likelihood of, at the least, some level of incompetence among all parties involved. And that's a really hard to take. These aren't stupid people. So my heart is breaking just writing about it.

The meeting was a bit over an hour long and there were a lot of questions asked. I took photos while my co-worker took notes for the main story. Between the two of us, we'd also contacted many of the previous board members to get comments, mostly getting "no comment" from them. The attendees were a "Who's Who" of the city, including the city manager, the port executive, the mayor and a few other notable citizens. The group was one shy of being a quorum of council members, as well.

While there were a lot of good questions, there were no spectacular surprises in the meeting. I'm glad I went (a last-minute decision by the editor to send both of us) but it would have been ok if only one had attended, I think.

End of the Week

Thursday night was "get ready for guests" day, including washing Inkwell and lots of laundry. I was pretty slow getting up on Friday, but actually got to work a few minutes early. I did the police logs, checked my co-workers story on the chamber, worked on special section stories and generally got things done. At about 10 a.m. the editor suggested I get out of the office, as I am working all day today (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the council retreat on the budget) and sent me packing. However, I had a couple of more stops, including a trip to the fire station to ask a couple of clarifications, a visit to a local charity that assists women and, after lunch, a trip to follow-up on that story at the Mabton council meeting about a woman whose home was flooded by a back-up of the city's sewage system.

The fire station took five minutes: most of that was parking and walking into and out of the building. The charity took longer, but I spent some time reading children's books in Spanish. Lunch was quick, then I headed down to check out the house.

As I haven't written the story yet, or even determined if there will be a story, I'll keep my summary of it very short. She's lived in the house for 30 years. In 1999, there was a stormwater backup that damaged her basement and the city's insurance made it right. In January there was a major sewage backup in her basement, but the city's insurance denied the claim and she's been living in a nasty, sewer contaminated split-level for seven freaking months. She can't afford the clean-up on her own. Her insurance didn't pay nearly enough to cover the damage. The city said they would clean-up, then stopped when the person helping her left the city. In any case, I went into her house to take pictures and stayed inside for about 25 minutes, taking photos and talking to her. At first I didn't notice anything more than a slight scent, but the longer I stayed, the sicker I felt. The clean-up had been started, it wasn't like there was raw sewage sitting around in the basement, but there was enough remaining that the only thing I was certain of was that I needed to get out of there quickly.

By the time I left I was feeling like I needed to clear my throat. I stepped outside and took a deep breath of Lower Valley air, complete with cow manure smell, and it actually felt better. I had to check the next door building and take some photos of the drains and such, then I headed over to city hall to sort of let them know I was buzzing around and looking at the situation. I still felt nauseous and was coughing a little by the time I finished. Then I headed home.

I felt horrid for several hours after, even as our Oz guests arrived for the weekend. Eventually I got to sleep.

Today I got up slow, spent a bit of time goofing off on the 'net, but have an all-day meeting to attend. So off I go to the budget meeting. See you next week.

The Week in Review

Busy Saturday

So I started out Saturday with some energy. Not nearly enough, but at least when I headed out to the first event, I wasn't simply trying to stay awake and alert. The first event was a bike rodeo at a local church. The first time they've tried it. While I was there only one family showed, but I got a handful of photos and talked with the pastor and the officer helping out. It was pleasant enough.

After that, I headed up to the north side of town to see if I could get any photos at a carnival a local church was putting on. There was a lot of action, but not a lot of opportunities for photos. Since I hadn't actually been assigned to go to that event, I took what I could and headed off to my second actual assignment of the day, a health fair. Lots of booths, plenty of people to talk with, and some freebies (I always grab a ton of pens since I tend to loan them out and never get them back). I got a very cute photo of a toddler "fishing" for rubber ducks and another photo of somebody spinning a prize wheel. Yay.

Since at that point I'd been working for more than two hours, I headed home for lunch. Thank goodness the weather wasn't as bad as it's been, I was only sweating mildly, not drenched in it. I took a leisurely lunch to cool off, then got directions to my next assignment, which is two towns over at a place I've never been to before. Sadly, I didn't pay quite enough attention to the directions. Getting to the town was easy, then I got lost on a bunch of streets that all looked the same to me. Fortunately, I remembered the actual street name, so when I happened across it I turned... luckily in the correct direction. So I got to the alpaca farm with plenty of time to get photos.

That was by far the most pleasant of my jobs on Saturday. I got to sit in the shade with a bunch of nice ladies spinning yarn out of alpaca wool, chatting about my mom's sewing prowess and her long-arm quilting machine. I always enjoy telling people about my wedding dress, and these ladies truly appreciated the effort my mother went to in order to make it. I got oohs and ahs at the description of the smocked front and handmade lace. And appreciative chuckles about how she was keeping it because it was a completed project.

Oh yeah, and I got to take photos of alpacas, who are essentially giant cats without claws. They are sweet animals and they almost purr when they are happy. I got some good close-up photos when the owner of the farm took me into a paddock, then as I was about to leave, a senior citizen group from my town showed up for a lecture. Great! I was able to get photos of people who live a mile from the newspaper office enjoying the alpacas. Perfect.

My next job wasn't for a few more hours, so I went home to have dinner. I must say, it's hard to leave the house three times to go to work, but it's a problem with my job description. My editor usually tries to minimize the number of times we have to go out, clustering assignments whenever possible. But we had a substitute editor who gave out these assignments.

After a quick dinner with hubby I was back on the road to the next town over to take a couple of photos at a fundraiser for a couple of girls with medical issues. It was a nice enough event, and actually inside, unlike all the rest, but it was still tiring and difficult after an already full day. I got my shots, made sure I had some good info to work with, then went home.

Mud and Plums

I took a little time to plant some more catgrass for Inkwell on Saturday. I've worked out that if I plant two mugs of catgrass every weekend, throwing the old dying ones out as they die, I can keep him in catgrass steadily. He loves it, it makes me do planting, and generally just works out. So I took out some old dying grass to dump in the backyard where it'll annoy the neighbor's chihuahuas. While I was doing that, I remembered that Eric told me our irrigation valve was completely filled with mud, making it impossible to water our yard. So I went over to look at the problem. I appeared to me that it might just be a shell of dirt, so I went into the house and got some plastic gloves to see how hard it would be to dig it out.

Ha. I was completely wrong about it being a shell. The entire box that holds the valve was completely filled with dirt. I can't quite figure out where it came from, since the box has solid sides. Maybe it was pushed up from below? I don't know. What I do know is that it took some effort to dig it all out with my hands, but I cleared out enough that we can use the valve. I want to water the plum stick a bit at the end of the season so it stands a chance to survive the winter.

Once the valve was clear, I helped Eric hook up the hose for the sprinkler, then went inside to rest. It became immediately obvious that I'd overdone it. My fibro pain flared up big time and I could barely sit up in my chair, much less do anything. I couldn't read, because I would go over a sentence and I would immediately forget what it said. After reading a paragraph six or seven times and having it make no sense, I stopped trying.

I went to bed as early as I could and slept soundly until about 6 a.m. Then I slept less soundly for another three hours. I wanted to get up earlier to help Eric, but wasn't able to. Sunday was fairly lazy. While the temporary editor wanted me to drop off my photos ahead of time, aka on Sunday, so the production department could get a jump on them, I recognized that I would be in at the same time or slightly sooner than the production person who has just moved into the position of "photo editor" since the other photo guy left the newspaper (again). Instead of trying to get my photos in early, I just used my home computer to check them and picked out my favorites. I listed them in Evernote so I could quickly access them and give the new photo gal the list as soon as she came in on Monday.

Other than that, I really didn't accomplish anything on Sunday except whining about how much I hurt. I went to bed early Sunday night and slept fairly well.

Monday Education

It was difficult to get up on Monday, as it often is. I pushed through the fatigue and aches and got to work on time. I quickly wrote up my photo requests and *almost* had them on her desk before she arrived. She beat me by a couple of minutes. Still, since I only had three of the five events to get photos from, it wasn't too bad. For her. I struggled to get my brain in gear enough to write my stories and cutlines (captions) but somehow pulled it together in time for deadline. It was very nice to have the regular editor back again. You always appreciate someone more when they are gone.

After deadline I headed down to a class for ag teachers two towns away that was going to get a visit from our U.S. Representative. I found the school easily enough, but had to get a little help finding the classroom. Then, as I walked up, the executive director of the Washington State FFA Foundation arrived and he started answering my questions before the rep arrived. It was great. See, I'd done a story about how a local school district had to shuffle teachers due to their ag teacher leaving, and while writing that story I learned there was a shortage. The FFA guy confirmed there is an ag teacher shortage, which I found fascinating. That led me to find out that vocational training (aka CTE - Career Technical Education) is kind of suffering since STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) became a push in the standards. Although CTE is STEM in action, for some reason most districts don't consider it as part of the STEM standards and kids aren't being encouraged to try CTE. It's pretty sad. Anyway, I could probably write a lot on the subject, but since I still need to figure out if I've got all my facts straight, I ought not to expound on it too much.

In any case, I loved the topic the teachers were covering when I got into the room. They were talking about animal products and by-products and what they are used in, and talked about how to bring up the topic in the classroom. One of the teachers laughed and said he had a girl who stopped wearing make-up when she learned that animal products are involved in making them. It was intriguing to hear ag teachers talking about the subject. It was also slightly frightening to hear how many everyday things require animal products.

The rep arrived slightly late, which is absolutely normal. It's hard to be punctual when everyone wants your attention. He gave a short speech, then started a discussion with the teachers that was just great. I got a few pictures, some good, some not-so good. As he is a staunch Republican, I resisted the urge to get a photo of him in front of the FFA poster of a donkey. Despite his politics not aligning closely with mine, I like the guy and appreciate his honesty. The teachers let him have it with all barrels, educating him on where the CTE/ag money comes from and how it ends up being played with on the national stage. They talked about the teacher shortage, which he had been unaware of, and recommended some ways to help. They also asked him what they could do to make his job easier... he told them to be engaged in politics and write letters informing their elected officials of things like the funding that he hadn't known about and the teacher shortage and such. It was productive. I don't know how much one man can do, he's a cog in a very large and obnoxious machine, but I trust him to do what he can. Short of complete political reform in the U.S., that's all I can hope for.

Once that was done I headed home to lunch before going back to the office. I rested ok, but it was very hard to get back up again and go to work. I had too much to do to not go back, though. Back at the office, people were odd. Perhaps I was just odd. Either way, it took me far longer than it should have to get into writing my pieces. But once I was writing, wow, it pulled together nicely. I finished everything I thought I had to do for Tuesday with about a half-hour left in the day. Just enough time to head over to city hall to talk with the city manager and set up an appointment for my big happy feature story on him.

To my relief, he was in the office when I got to city hall. We chatted for a bit, set up an appointment for Wednesday morning, then discussed the city hall renovation story I was writing for Wednesday's paper. It was pleasant, because city hall is a pretty cool place right now. The right leadership seems to make a big difference. I got my information, and then headed home to really rest for the evening.

I got some reading done, and a little on-line stuff. I played around with the Aquaman wiki for awhile, which was nice and relaxing. It's been needing some TLC. Then I went to bed early. I woke up when Eric came to bed and decided to read, turning on a light that was aimed directly at my face. I wish there was a way to block his light from my side of the bed at night. Despite that, I feel asleep again quickly enough and woke up before my alarm feeling fairly refreshed. In fact, almost hyper.

Hyper Tuesday

I had three corrected stories on my desk for Tuesday in the morning, but my little tally sheet said I should have four. I realized that I'd forgotten a cut n paste of a press release, but that was easy to pull together. The rest was minor corrections, then I was mostly done with deadline. I only had to wait a bit for the county sheriff's report.

I was definitely feeling good Tuesday morning, bouncing around the office getting stuff done quickly and efficiently. I wish I felt like that more often. I could get so much more done if I did. I felt like I was almost caught up with everything I needed to do by the end of deadline, which was nice. After being sick for so long, it was good to feel good.

The day went by pretty fast, and the hyperactivity lost its edge toward the afternoon, but I still felt good. I had an evening assignment at the pool, covering the local meet. I got a lot of photos and spent about an hour there. The teams competing are two of the largest in the area, so the events took awhile, even though they were well-run. I learned later that the meet lasted well into the night and wasn't finished until about 11 p.m. Yikes.

I was greeted by a lot of different people at the meet. Apparently I know a lot of folks in town now. I don't know what they think of me, but I think we have a pretty good bunch overall. I was just surprised at how many people I actually know by name.

The kids from the other team were writing stuff on their arms, legs and backs. One girl with an open-backed swimsuit had "eat my bubbles" written on her back. I was mildly amused. The temperature was very nice for people not in the pool, warm but not hot and sticky. The kids, on the other hand, looked all shivery between their swims.

After getting home, I did more personal stuff... I even read comic books for enjoyment and not because I "had" to read them to get reviews written. And I played with the wiki and websites more. It was really nice.

Busy Morning

Wednesday morning I faced a tough schedule, with a Rotary meeting at 7, during deadline, and the story to be written by 9 a.m. Then I had my appointment with the city manager at 10 a.m.

Well, I took off for the Rotary meeting just a few minutes before 7 because I was trying to get as much other stuff done as possible before I left. I walked in and almost immediately they started the meeting. There was the usual fun, including a story from one of the guys that his truck had been squeaking, and he took it to a local shop (run by the former mayor) who sprayed Lemon Pledge on the squeaking plastic bits. It worked. The truck stopped squeaking. I want to try it on Eric's car.

The talk was from a local insurance agent who is also an old hand at rodeo and has been raising cutting horses. Those are horses trained to cut a cow from a herd and keep it away for a bit. The technique was useful in the cowboy days for taking care of individual animals... probably still is used in many places. In any case, he talked about competitive cow cutting. When I got back, I had less than an hour to write the story, and I couldn't fit in some of the funnier stories he told because they really didn't fit the topic. So I'll mention them here.

Sweet Revenge

The first was a tale about a friend he had growing up, call him Sam. The guy used to keep two pocket knives in his jeans, one in each pocket. The speaker said Sam would ask to trade knives with you. But you'd always end up with a broken knife in return for your nice pocket knife. So Sam's friends learned to keep two knives of their own so they could trade crappy knives with crappy. Sam also would lead people down trails while they were trail riding and yell back, "watch out for that branch!" when there was no branch, making all the guys behind him duck and check. In short, he was a prankster and all the fellows burned to get back at him.

The speaker got his chance many years later while working on the chuckwagon at a rodeo. He spotted Sam drive up and get out of his car, leaving the keys in the seat. The speaker sauntered over and removed the keys, then blended back into the crowd with the remote lock and starter in his hands. When Sam got back to his car a few minutes later and reached for the door, the speaker clicked the lock, so Sam couldn't get in. As Sam started to walk away to get help, he unlocked the door and Sam turned around to try to get back in... but the door locked again. Sam looked around but couldn't see anyone he knew, so he tried to break in. The speaker set off the car alarm. Then turned it off. Then walked out to Sam and said, "looks like you're having some car trouble." At which point the two had a reunion, as they hadn't seen each other in 25 years. Ha.

Buffalo Guys

The other story came after a question about someone seeing buffalo on the property the speaker owns. He laughed and said, yes, they sometimes have buffalo to practice cutting with. After the cows have been in the practice ring for awhile, they get "sour" and either refuse to move when separated or run back and forth so fast they are impossible to work with. Buffalo, on the other hand, think of cutting as a game and like to tease the horses. He described the buffalo as "prancing away" if they manage to fool the horse.

He also said buffalo are pretty smart and can be very difficult to wrangle if they escape. Then he told about a friend whose buffalo escaped into a yard next door and asked him for help. As it was late in the afternoon, the speaker told his friend they had to wait until the next day because there wasn't enough time left to wrangle them. Sure enough, they were able to get one of the two escapees captured easily enough, but the other one watched the first capture and "she decided she wanted no part in it!" It took several hours to get the second one safely captured and returned home.

In any case, the speaker said he didn't use buffalo anymore because a local feedlot lends them cows to chase, so they when they sour they just go home. And he said buffalo will charge a horse and attack, and getting rid of the large buffalo can be a challenge, since they will take down a horse.

The speech was great, even if I couldn't use it all, but my story was not nearly as good. I was not satisfied with it, but turned it in to the editor anyway because it was deadline. He ok'ed it, which disturbed me. After deadline I got to work on Thursday stuff and actually got quite a bit done before heading off to my appointment at city hall.

Storming City Hall

Driving to city hall I noticed a military vehicle, looked like a Hummer, driving up the street. It looked like they didn't know where they were going. I parked at city hall and they drove up practically behind me and parked as well. I headed in, trying not to glance at the four guys getting out of the truck. Once inside, I told the clerks I was there to see the city manager and waited for him to come out. Then the four guys from the Hummer came in and announced they were there to see the city manager. Um, oops?

The HR person took them back to the conference room and the city manager came out to see me. He said their appointment had been at nine, could I wait? Sure, I have no problem waiting. I have books on my smart phone for instances like this. It wasn't really worth the effort to go back to work, so I talked with the clerks for a little bit, warning the new girl that she would be in the paper soon (new city employees always seem to get an introductory article in the paper). While I was sitting there waiting, she got the call from my co-worker. Ha!

I read a little more of "Go Set A Watchman" and listened to the business of city hall. Sometimes just listening you can pick up something that may turn into a story later. Thus I was listening when one of the clerks moaned that a particular citizen was approaching. The citizen had some complaints and apparently is one of those people that is difficult to deal with at the best of times. So the clerks made the new girl handle her. Ouch. While she was still at the counter, the four military guys came out and left the building. I debated whether to go hunt for the city manager or wait for him... I decided to wait. A minute or two later he poked his head around the doorway and waved me to the back offices. The difficult woman was still making angry noises when I went back to the city manager's office.

My interview went well. I learned that the military guys were there on some sort of research thing where they are talking with local small governments about how they handle governing cities and dealing with emergencies. The goal, and I'm hearing this second-hand through the city manager, is to help soldiers provide practical advice to local leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems to me that it's more than a decade too late to start that sort of training, but I applaud the military for thinking of it, if that's really what was going on. Maybe they've been doing it for years and this is just a crew getting field experience in talking to local leaders.

Wednesday afternoon didn't go nearly as well, although I got my work done and got started on other work. It was just a slog all the way through. I started more stories, but had more problems as I went. It was an afternoon of heavy rewriting. Eventually I went home and ended up rewriting some of the work I'd put into Evernote because it just needed another round of editing. I was able to relax most of Wednesday evening again. Relaxing without being sick! It's amazing how much more restful it is.

Slowing Down at the End of the Week

Thursday morning was one of those "there is nothing to do until I get the police logs" days, so I wrote my stories for the special sections. I got a ton done, nearly finishing one story before the first police log arrived. I finished that one after deadline, then pulled together several other pieces and stories over the course of the morning. Lunch was quick, then to the doctor for an appointment that I scheduled ages ago and didn't remember why. Then back to work. I finished another special section story and made progress on other stuff. Then it was time to head home.

Once at home I crashed. I thought, "I'll just lay down on the bed for a moment" and the next thing I knew Eric was waking me up for dinner several hours later. I tried to enjoy myself and relax, but in the end I was back in bed at my usual time and slept soundly. Apparently being well requires more sleep for me. *sigh*

I was slow getting up on Friday, so missed out on some of my online time. I actually got to work a minute or two before my coworkers, which surprised me. I thought I was moving slower than I was, but cutting my online time caught me up, I guess. My concern that my writing has been a little weak was confirmed by one of the corrected assignments on my desk... I had to do significant rewrites to make it work. I need to read some really good prose soon to get my writing back in gear (writers tend to subconsciously ape the style of their most recent readings, so it's important to read intelligently written stuff whenever possible. It's one reason I usually start out the morning re-reading the previous day's work, so I'm in "newswriter" mode when I start tapping on the keyboard.).

Deadline was normal, then I started working ahead so I had less to worry about next week when my vacation starts. Again, the afternoon was a slog when I was writing. I went out to get some interviews, which I apparently do better in the afternoons than the mornings. I should really arrange my schedule so I write in the morning and do interviews and photos in the afternoon. Again, once I got home I decided to take a quick nap and... yeah, several hours later Eric woke me up for dinner. I still feel that I'm much healthier than I've been, but clearly I still need more sleep than I've been getting.

So, today I have a couple of assignments that should be easy enough to do. I'm headed to a cribbage tournament in about an hour, then a Farmers Market after I'm done with that. Next week I may not post. It depends on what I'm doing at the convention.

The Week in Review

After leaving Anglicon during the closing ceremonies, and the fun that accompanied that, we got to my parents' house quickly. My mom had made a nice dinner for me, and then it was time to pack the car. The cat was unwilling to go in the carrier, but we wrangled him into it and I said my good-byes and started home.

Now, I don't know *exactly* how many miles it is from my folks' house to my house (a quick check of Google maps says 172), but I generally tell people it's a three-hour drive. That usually includes a stop at one of the rest areas and sometimes even a break for dinner. Well, I'd just eaten and Inkwell hates being in the car, so I didn't stop except to get gasoline until I was home. It took me almost exactly two and a half hours.

Once home, I was too exhausted to deal with unpacking. I fed the cat, popped online to let folks know I was alive, then attempted to go to sleep.

Ha.

I was wired from the convention. I was still flying high from the afternoon's events. I couldn't sleep. I lay down repeatedly in the bed, but it was too warm and my mind kept going over everything that had happened, unable to process it all. I ended up repeatedly getting up and getting on the Twitch chat to squee, until finally I started to really run out of steam and got to sleep after midnight, with Inkwell disapprovingly herding me upstairs to bed.

Waking up Monday morning was not hard. It was nearly impossible. If I didn't keep my phone, and thus my alarm clock, across the room at night I would not have gotten out of bed. As it was, I had to fight every instinct in my body not to head right back and fall asleep again. After zombie-ing around for a half hour, I realized I was going to be late to work. So I called up my boss and asked for an hour, just an hour. He agreed, since I had very little to do (just two police logs) and plenty of time. So I slowly built up my speed until I finally managed to get out the door an hour later than usual, pumped up on painkiller and happy memories.

I got hyper again. Really hyper. In retrospect, it might have been the only way to get through the morning, but it was embarrassing. I felt an overall sense of wonder and euphoria that is exceedingly rare. I just felt good.

I didn't start to come down until lunchtime, and by then I was thoroughly embarrassed by how hyper I'd been. Fortunately, I had little to do Monday morning and managed to come down from my euphoria slowly and gently instead of crashing. I was worried Monday morning when I realized just how pumped up I still was. But I didn't crash.

My boss decided to give me two baseball games to take pictures at Monday afternoon. That was a little difficult, but I managed it. The biggest problem was going from cool Seattle weather (and an indoor environment) to the heat on this side of the mountains. Inkwell was irritated that I was late, especially after all the confusion he went through over the weekend.

Monday night was much more restful, but I still felt a little odd. Particularly since my hubby wasn't home yet. He'd spent the day with Sophie Aldred and Jon Davey touring Seattle.

Tuesday was a little better, but I still was tired. It can sometimes take a long time to recover from a con. My assignment for the day was a mobile science demonstration setting up at a park downtown. I enjoyed the event, although it was still hot.

I also wrote up my column for the week and a quick piece about the status of net neutrality.

Eric came home Tuesday afternoon, and it was delightful to be able to hug him again. It had been a long week and a half in which we barely saw each other.

Wednesday was another slow wake up day, but I got to work on time. I had a morning Rotary meeting to attend with a story for the same day, so that was a little bit stressful. As it happened, we didn't run the story that day, but I had it done by deadline anyway.

Another goal for Wednesday was to get my photo page done. I had the idea, but I hadn't taken the pictures. So after deadline I walked around town and snapped photos of various murals. Then I drove out to ones that were further away. Once back, I had to narrow down which ones we put on the page. Eventually I got it down to nine photos, which was three more than the normal max. But I figured with the larger page size, maybe we could cram a couple more in.

Fortunately, Wednesday afternoon was pretty calm and I got more stuff done for future days. I had a couple more assignments that required extra effort, including a story on some large trees that were being taken down, much to the consternation of many people.

Thursday was again a big day, with a golf photo right after deadline. I couldn't leave well enough alone after getting a few shots close to the clubhouse... no, I walked out to the far side of the course with the group I was following. It was quite a hike back.

After lunch I was informed that I was going to a company workshop on Friday. I had not wanted to go, since the last one had been... less than effective. And I was annoyed it was a last-minute thing. But the timing mostly worked out. I still had to go to the groundwater meeting Thursday night and write it up Friday morning before I left, but that was doable, if unpleasant. I tried to get the publisher to go to the groundwater meeting instead, but he declined.

Several interesting things happened at the meeting, from my point of view. If you read the story, I hopefully gave enough background to understand that this group is utterly disfunctional as a large group. The workgroups seem to be making progress despite the committee as a whole. What amazed me about this meeting was that the facilitator... the supposedly neutral moderator, was the one who lost his temper and started to rant before he was cut short. Tempers were hot, but then... that lawsuit is not just a sore topic, it's a raw bleeding wound in the side of the committee.

The other thing that impressed me was the warning by Vern about his email. It's clear that some members of the committee have been writing down stuff Vern does not feel comfortable with. By reminding them that he's a public official and thus ALL of his documents are subject to public information requests, he basically said, "You guys are going too far, be careful or we'll have another lawsuit."

In any case, the meeting went a few minutes longer than it was scheduled due to the fighting. I was happy to get home and a little shellshocked by the nonsense. I wasn't sure how I was going to write it up. I still think my story has a serious structural flaw, but I didn't have time to make it right.

So on Friday I wrote the story, then as soon as we were both done, Julia and I headed to Pasco for the company workshop. We both were a little less than enthusiastic about it, knowing that the previous meeting had essentially been a waste of time. Fortunately, this one wasn't. The first speaker was great... and I somehow earned five bucks because I know baseball cliches.

We left several hours later feeling better about the meetings. We enjoyed talking with some of our colleagues, who are awesome but we only get to see them once a year or so at these events. Once back in town, I headed home and almost immediately went to take a much-needed and long overdue nap.

Eric woke me a couple of hours later for dinner, then I stayed up for awhile trying to finish writing my convention report, which has been unexpectedly difficult to write. I went to bed at about 11 p.m. and got up at about 11 a.m. Since then I've been writing convention report, writing this, and watching Adi on his Twitch stream. In about two minutes I'll be back out the door for my Saturday assignment, so I'll wrap this up and go.

I hope to have the convention report for Monday. We'll just have to see if I make it.