tant pis

Even though three lovely employees of the Employment Development Department have assured me that "seasonal position" and "definite work start date" mean I don't have prove that I'm searching for work, I still keep getting the "look for work" requirement. Sorting out that I do not have to look for work because I have a job is time consuming and inevitably delays my checks.

Yes, I am aware that I am complaining about the effort required to receive my free money.

Regardless, I've decided that it's just easier to apply for a job. District botanist in Montana? Sure. Wetland delineation regulator in Lodi? Yeah, OK. Weed monitoring crew at the Presidio? Why not?

Oh right, because I'm qualified.

But the application asks if I'm "Familiar with nature". And I am! I take all sorts of liberties with nature! I don't respect its boundaries! We grew up together! Nature has tamed me! And I just happen to be the embodiment of nature's supernatural powers!

I do appear in the guise of an animal. (human) I do change the shape of nature. I poison nature's enemies! (the aforementioned noxious weeds) When nature tells me what to do, I do it. I've never knowingly been the agent through which nature's curses were enacted, but I can try!

And by the time they offer me this position, I will be back at work. At my real job.

My commitment to social media is such that it is the most reliable way to track my past work schedule.

Boo.

My office is all in a fluffle, because the lady who decorated for each holiday doesn't work there anymore. Halloween is coming, and there are no decorations!

Well, OK, the produce exchange table is overrun with pumpkins from the Michelle Obama fire garden.

And there are orb weaver spiderwebs on all of the balconies.

And one of the biologists has an office full of skulls.

And the entryway has a bookcase with jars of salamanders, frogs, and newts.

The same bookcase has a stack of dried turtles.*

So it's not that we aren't decorating for Halloween, it's that we're always decorated for Halloween. They'll have to wait for Thanksgiving to complain. (Though probably the pumpkins will still be there, possibly some Indian corn, and maybe the turkey specimen will return from the taxidermist.)

* I mentioned this to C.
"Sack of turtles?" he asked.
"No, stack." I replied
"Why does your office have a stack of turtle shells?" He said
"You know, I never asked. But's not just shells- their feet, tails, and heads stick out, and their little mouths are slightly agape."
"You work in a strange place."
"You should talk. Your office has that really old couch. That's pretty creepy."
"Yes. An unsanitary couch is just as unsettling as haphazardly stacked preserved animals. Good call."

We Googled "Neruda" and "crying"

I'm spending a week in the city thing near my hometown, housesitting. I'm also working in the office here, doing what I think of as "The sort of mind-flattening nitpicking that makes C so crabby". And unlike the office back home, I can't show up super early, blitzkrieg work until everyone shows up, work a little longer, go buy some sushi, work, take a long walk, wait until everyone's gone and do a little more blitzing. I work best when there's no one else there- even if they're quiet, I can hear them breathing. Instead, I'm stranded in the middle of mini-mall without an office key. I start working when someone unlocks the door and keep working until the last person leaves. I spend a half hour in the mornings sitting in the car, waiting for other people to arrive in the parking lot.

We share our little chunk of strip mall with a lawyer who works mostly on domestic violence cases/drug charges and a dentist. Since our parking lot is poorly lighted, near the freeway, and full of trucks themselves filled with electronics, we are a hotbed of property crime. Yesterday I asserted that the dentist attracted the wrong crowd and was gently set right.

The last note is that our wedding went really well. I mean, uncannily well. I talked to 120 people- many of them Chilean!- and screamed only once. At C. For breathing. I figure someone out there might see a last minute change in ceremony venue as bad, or be upset about potatoes or something, but I'm honestly just thrilled to bits about being hitched. Also, we met our primary goals: we're married, we're not in debt, and no one hates us. Also, we made the Conquistador Lord or the Undead tear up.

So yeah, things have been freaking blissful here, so much that I felt the Chaos Gods would soon demand their due. They currently seem to be satisfied with carrying off the rooster that I was supposed to be taking care of- I pray they leave the dog.

Propriety sucks

I've discovered one sure way to damage a rapport with your boss- wait for him to make an assertion, and then laugh and laugh and laugh. Helplessly.

The other day we were trying to get up to a cliff, and he asserted that "this was the most difficult site all summer." I started giggling while asserting that no, it was not. And then I thought of more and more sites, and kept laughing and laughing...

He was (and is) piqued.

See, I camped last week, doing the sort of work that probably was why early Christianity took off. It was gorgeous, it was really difficult, and the only thing that kept me going was the promise of a better world at the end. One with an abundance of showers and beds and a distinct lack of cliffs. I swear, the landscape looked like something out of a Henson film. Also, 60% of my caloric intake was almonds.

Then I went back to the better world and found it a.) everything that was promised and more (oh sweet refrigeration) and b.) full of people who wanted to talk about difficulties with serger repair and large reservations and other viscitudes of wedding planning. No one cared bupkiss about caves and long ridges that are actually knife-edge (I have cuts knife edge) and fossils and fog obscuring all ground with a slope less than 80% so the whole world is cliff and getting back to camp after dark when you left before dawn and realizing that the flashlights are probably back at a cave.

I spent the weekend being 2009 depressed, lying in bed, crying, and snapping at people. (The fact that I was unable to walk without a knee collapsing might be involved.) I am now trying to raise acceptable amounts of interest in making napkins and finding a place to put a last-minute reception dinner. But.

But.

I wanted something a lot less grand, reader. I wanted something simple and small. And if people can't be bothered to fake interest in awesome things, I don't know why I should fake interest in their stupid petty shit. As such, I am always six seconds away from being a horrible bitch.

I like the leis though! Those are nice!

It was in San Francisco.

Y'all have probably heard my story about the tire blowing out while I was hitching a ride back to college. (Here 'hitching' is used in the sense that one calls a friend and asks if they are also returning to school on a day.) Moderately long story short; he was so phlegmatic about tire blowouts that I assumed they were no big thing. According to everyone else: High Speed Tire Blowouts= Big Thing.

So I'm going on a week long camping trip for work. On the last day, we'll drive out six hours, pass within blocks of my house, drive for another hour, drop off my coworker, and turn and drive back. I mentioned that I would probably tuck and roll.

Yeah, apparently leaping out of a moving vehicle is not inherently funny unless you've seen someone do it for a parking space.

Infraction

I've been working in and around several campgrounds this summer. What with my elan and presence, people naturally assume I'm an authority figure. (I wear the orange vest of authority and carry the shiny clipboard of authority. The orange vest of authority is also the orange vest of not getting shot and the orange vest of being buzzed by hummingbirds. The shiny clipboard is sometimes used as a seat in particularly poisonoaky areas. Thus do I abuse my regalia.) Mostly I get scolded for how poorly things are run.

A couple weeks ago some teenagers were preparing to jump off a high bridge. When they saw me coming, they pretended that they were looking at some fish in the lake below. To my lasting regret I did not pull out my day planner, stare straight at them, and tap my foot until they either jumped or skulked off.

Five minutes later someone yelled at me because a couple of campgrounds were closed. I smiled real big, told her all about the terrible storms that had destroyed lots of campsites, apologized, and sent her to the next campground down the road.

Cats: Pet of choice for the asocial

I'm newly returned from driving over a hundred miles to visit a farmer's market- it's the middle of July, people, and Jane needs her produce. Also, half you bastards have decided to get married in places with farmer's markets DURING THE FARMER'S MARKET. What on earth is wrong with you? I spend a weekend not going swimming and chitchatting with strangers, and you don't have the common decency to schedule the most important day of your lives around my apricot fix? I'm going to find some sort of baseballs thing in October and put my wedding there. (Advantage of a small group of readers: unexpected commonalities.)

Well, I actually did it because my job might be trying to kill me. More on that later.

Since I hate driving now, it no longer counts as introvert time. I came in, evaded my parents, and flopped onto my bed. The cat immediately got out of his basket and laid down next to me. I was irked (irked!) by this display of affection, figuring it was a bid for scratching. However, it appears to be nothing more than a desire to stretch out and place a possessive paw on my ankle. This is why I prefer cats, dog people- because sometimes a pet that sees me as furniture is all the social interaction I can take.

More: normally I don't work Fridays, so driving 150 miles is nothing. However, next Friday I will probably be hyperventilating in a helicopter for twelvish hours and then trying to make it to a wedding Saturday morning. There are two plans: drinking lots of caffeine, de-oaking in a river somewhere, and the bombing down to Christmas island in the dark of night or renting a hotel, taking a shower, and driving down in the small hours of the morning. Neither plan has good odds on my ability to buy produce, shower, and then show up. Someday I will have a job where I can conceivably go out in public after a long day at work.

Speaking of poison oak: another advantage of kitties (and probably doggies too. And other tame mammals, seeing as C is also a fan.) is that you can scratch them instead of your poison oak, and instead of bleeding welts you get a more loving cat.

Plays by sense of smell

I've long had an Abbeyesque aversion to motor boats. Giant noisy things, deeply inferior to canoes, and of course polluting our precious waterways. Yes.

But I work on a giant reservoir now. Engines are so... convenient. ("What do you think this land was like before they put the dam in?" "Remote.") If there were no motorized craft on this lake, surveys would turn into week long canoeing trips. This would be pretty pleasant in June, sure, but in August and February? Hell.

And I would have probably died in that storm. Ahahaha.

Also, in spring all the other people on the lake were retirees on personal houseboats and grandfathers fishing with their adorable grandchildren. Frikkin' adorable. If this is what motorized watercraft means, I'm a fan.

Right. Now it's July, and other people have started using the lake. These people are not old. They own $80,000 dollar watercraft or rent them for $4000 a week. Then they drive erratically and rapidly up and down the various arms of the lake, towing people behind them without flags and blasting terrible music. Lotta Beyonce, because owning a boat is all about the ladies. Lotta Michael, lotta Madonna, because people who spend that much money on boats are a certain age. (old.) I recognized the unmistakable "MIDI Tribute to the Blues" once, meaning that the unseen boat operator and I share a special bond- they are apparently one of the thousand people who heard that terrible terrible arrangement. Sadly, we are separated by a vast gulf- they own a copy of the music, and are willing to play it. In public.

(Yes, the arranger called it an arrangement instead of a song. It was a thing.)

Today there was a boat playing "Pinball Wizard" and driving like me, age seven, truck full of firewood, in a thousand acre vernal pool. That is to say badly, and believing that turning the steering wheel a lot is the point.

I don't want your pity, I want to be mocked.

It got all warm outside. I've been drinking a lot of water: six liters every day. I was going to write a humorous post about how to drink so much water- the key is to work outside in Redding in recently burned areas and to have lots of water with you- but that's not the best way to achieve this goal.

Right, do you know those little fizzy packets of electrolytes- Emergen-C? My boss is encinte, and thus is not using chemicals. (No TechNu. No Gum. No Sunscreen.) The approved Gatorade substitute is that good old hippie hangover cure.

So the best way to drink six liters of water every day (1.5 gallons) is to also consume 3-4 grams of effervescent ascorbic acid. That's Vitamin C, folks- 50 times the RDA every work day. And while it's very difficult to harm yourself with Vitamin C, it does have side effects. I have them all, I just thought I was allergic to hot chocolate. And had food poisoning. And was weak.

I'm so dumb.

Special thanks to C, who thought to look up the symptoms of too much Vitamin C, even though I told him that I was sure you couldn't take too much. Positive.

So talented!

I found another barrel of industrial waste in the forest today.

It's clearly been there for a while, and it doesn't have the MSDS conveniently displayed like the last one.

I told my boss, and he laughed and said, "Stop finding those. We've surveyed the area four times thus far- you're making everyone else look bad." I told him everyone else should walk as close to the road as possible without actually being on the road.

I think the sock zombie lady is right: "When certain things happen often, people privately wonder what it is you're doing so horribly wrong."

Oh, and my former "unpleasant grinding irritation" coworker got hired in my old position. (No bitterness, I was offered and graciously declined. Someone has to find these barrels.) While he was irksomely blithe and competent as a second in command, I'm now noting an increasingly restive and neurotic tone in his ever more frequent e-mails. Possibly because he has to resample sites marked with nothing but biodegradable flagging. (Oops.) Or because no one sent follow-up information to the federal and state agencies that allowed sampling, and future permits are being denied. Or because neither of us could key grasses worth a damn.

I'm torn between pleasant validation that my old job was hard, and fear that I've made someone else's job difficult. Oh, and pleasure that when I'm confused or find something cool, I'm encouraged to call my current boss and chatter. Prevent at least some of the preventable mistakes listed above. Hurrah!

Today I found an empty Plan B pill package in an abandoned homestead site. An abandoned Chinese homestead site.

Short Faced Bears.

Okay, this is just too awesome for words. It's an article about the Bay Area during the Pleistocene. There was a river to rival the Amazon! The continental shelf was exposed, resulting in a thirty mile band of coastal prairie west of Golden Gate Bridge! There were mammoths, cave lions, cheetahs, dire wolves, and giant ground sloths! There was a twelve foot tall bear than could sprint 40 mph!

If there were three huge rivers trisecting the Bay Area, the island effect would lead to speciation- populations would be divided, and you'd expect to see an unreasonably high number of endemics. And this is so! I've been fretting about the diversity of crazy rare plants in the Bay for a while.

The best part of the article is that it cribs heavily from a book on Paleobotany that is currently on my nightstand. I now have more reason to feel guilty about not reading it.

No, the best part is that the type specimen for short-faced bears is from Shasta Caverns- an entire skeleton! Oh my goodness, that is an awe-inspiring thing to contemplate.

I bumped into a friend of my parents in a field of poison oak behind a locked gate yesterday. He gave me a list of everything he'd found in the area, starting with a field stripped rifle (a 308, so nothing super scary) wrapped in several garbage bags, a couple of caves, a rare aster, a rare salamander, a feral pig skull, and a terrible allergy to Toxicodendron. Thus, I am inspired to find bear teeth. (I have previously stated that I maintain certain friendships primarily for entertainment value and exposure to truly insane schemes- remind me to do a post on R's first roommate- and I believe this man serves a similar purpose for my father. Except he's pleasant. And most of his schemes involve trail building and waterway restoration.)

Also, I keep bitching about poison oak in the abstract, fact-of-life fashion that occurs in the workplace, and people keep offering sympathy. At work, I'll say "I want to bite this skin and worry at the rash like a dog." and my coworkers respond "I'm so coated in tar I no longer do a spot check before peeing." On Facebook, I make a pleasant reference to Technu showers, and dudes start talking about how they once had oak balls whilst ladies try to sell me on pharmaceuticals.

I want to do a series on "Why I hate your Myers/Briggs personality type", but I think it may be unwise. Thoughts?

More Rewards for Behaving Unwisely.

Today I had a meeting with my work leader, the botany specialist, and the head of the alive things that are not underwater department. We were hammering out plans for the summer. We discussed a scheduling conflict where my work leader needs to go work on another project for a while, and she expressed confidence that I could work alone for a couple of weeks.

Somehow that led to me complaining about my previous job to everyone at the meeting. It was in a light joking matter- I swear it was- but still a faux pas, no?

Right. It informed the botany specialist of my experience with certain geologic formations. This led to me looking up a couple of free internet tools for him. These allowed him to cut several hours off of a proposed project, which enabled the company to submit a lower bid.

So... gossip and malingering led bonding with my superiors and possibly getting my company a job. I...

I think I might start doing the reverse of whatever job advice I get.

Speaking of Vaudeville...

We just mapped Moore Creek. The following conversation occurred.

"Put Moore Creek on the map."- H

"But I think I've gotten everything in the polygon. Where do I need to put more?"- J

"That looks fine. Just put Moore creek on the map." -H

"Like... into the lake?" -J

"Moore Creek. The creek is named Moore Creek." -in unison, after a pause.

Also I bumped into my old next door neighbor. We were both working, and the jobs we were working on were quite different from the jobs we last had. There was a certain amount of economy commiseration. Also, his coworker's huge black dog butted my hand until I petted him.

Later I found that this dog was normally extremely aggressive towards strange people crawling around the repair yard. I was hoping for a meeting around coworkers so I could show my (fake) psychic dog taming skills, but no dice.

It's a wonder they hire me.

Often my job entails walking through a sunny field, staring at the ground. In the summer, the ground in a sunny field is full of grasshoppers. Every time, and I do mean every time, I curl my hands into claws and start stomping theatrically. I yell "TOKYO IN RUINS, FOR GODZILLA LIVES AGAIN! FLEE PEOPLE OF JAPAN, FLEE INTO THE HILLS!"

I do this whether or not other people are around. For those of you wondering if I am capable of shame or theatrics.

My most cogent current wedding plan involves setting the gifts up like a makeshift city, and yelling "BRIDEZILLA APPROACHES! FLEE HER WRATH!"

I have seen this scene in three pieces of media

Amistad isn't the only one who's got a fancy NDA at work. I think it's safe to tell y'all an anecdote though.

My crew was having lunch. One member turned to another, offering a bag of dried fruit.

"Wanna date?" she asked. He stared at her in horror and incomprehension for about four seconds before figuring things out. Vaudeville isn't dead, it's just sleeping.

Speaking of media from the first part of the last century, here's a discussion of the Jazz Age by Fitzgerald. It's eirily appropriate for the previous era, except with the gender politics. He wrote it during the rally after the first plunge of the Depression, just before everything went to hell again. Like now!

Underwater Panther*

So... there's moderate interest in how wetland type is determine by soil type. That's what y'all are here for, right? Ecological ephemera?

There's a fee for destroying wetlands and tributaries to navigable waters in this great country. A large fee. It's enforced by the Army Corps of Engineers- who might be shaky on maintaining levees, but is really... dedicated to managing our water and wetland resources. (Seriously seriously dedicated. Ever since the Clean Water Act was passed, they've been slowly expanding their purview. The Supreme Court has given them jurisdiction over pretty much anything wet expect vernal pools- and they responded by quietly explaining to developers that destruction of vernal pools will lead to court case that will be appealed all the way to the highest court.)

Sometimes, one can't avoid destroying wetlands. Sometimes one is increasing the volume of the state's largest reservoir by 40%, and one can afford to pay for a little mitigation. Then one maps all the sweet ephemeral streams and seep springs in the flood zone- and pays for their destruction. Dearly.

One of the things noted in wetland mapping is soil type- so one has a great bloody soils map that corresponds with the eternal shoreline. When the soil is cracked shale bedrock, the water seeps out of the cracks, forming springs and seeps, not drying out, supporting actual wetland vegetation. When it's granite, the water forms much cheaper intermittent and ephemeral streams. When it's limestone, there are meanders and oxbows and soggy places where someone once wandered through with their bulldozer, etching effigy mounds.*

So yes- same rainfall, similar topography, widely different wetland types. Which means we have to sample all of them.

*This is my actual experience with limestone- I think it was heavily mined and also easy to cut roads through. In addition, effigy mounds are awesome- the title is the new name for the Alligator Mound.

BORING

I've been having trouble thinking of something to post- something besides "I looked for some snails" or "wetland type is highly dependent on soil type". I thought I'd do one of those "what I was doing on the hour" posts as filler. Because I'm that interesting.

6AM Wake up, reassure myself that I did not sleep through my alarm. Return to sleep.

7AM Waiting for kettle to boil. Fixing rain pants with duck tape.

8AM Rocking out to Somali hip hop in the truck.

9AM Still listening to K'naan- Somali hip hop is surprisingly straight edge. Good Muslims don't drink or sleep around, and people in gangs get murdered by pirates.

10AM On a boat, moving my stuff so it doesn't get wet.

11AM Lost somewhere near the lake. Probably.

12PM Still lost.

1PM Eating lunch. Gromph nomph nomph.

2PM Actual productive work.

3PM Actual productive work. Trying to keep up with my significantly fitter co-worker. Failing.

4PM Aha, the lake has become somewhat rougher than it was this morning. Also our boat is basically a wind sock. Fun times! All the things I own are soaked.

5PM Singing along to K'naan.

6PM Watching Doraleous and Associates. Not for Amys.

7PM Dinner.

8PM Prolonged argument with E about the iPad. Useless piece of consumer garbage, or brilliant innovation that will save the print industry? Also, which of us is debating like a little bitch?

9PM Captain Tightpants. Fire. Kitties. Cs.

10PM Bed. Probably.

New Jorb

So I got a job. This company and I have been circling each other for four years- this marks the first time that I'm qualified and they call me about my application before I've committed to sleeping in a car in Fresno.* I'm a little freaked out because they've been so cheerful, accommodating, and upfront about their expectations and issues. Also, they keep talking about training me in valuable skills. For free.

CLEARLY EVERYTHING IS ABOUT TO GO UP IN FLAMES.

During my interview, I was asked how I felt about starting immediately- doing mollusk surveys. I looked out the window- it was sleeting hard. I thought about wedding planning and car repair and blogging and advanced Pilates and visiting the Cuervitos and seeing the boy for more than a couple of days. Then I said yes.

So now I'm looking for snails full time.

*By which I mean another job.