The Last Notes Before the New Job - I've broken all my recaps up into managable portions -- so there are several installments to roll-out for the next couple of days. This entry takes us up to the night before my job started... there are three more weeks since then to recap in my later journal posts.

First, your entertainment link of the day: The Crop Circles of Google Earth (March 2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C-_Nr4kJcg *hee hee*

Okay, back to the standard narrative, each introduced by my one-liner posts on Twitter.

Thu 29 May: My 2nd to Last Day
* 19:23 - Last time leaving, thinking "I'l finish this tomorrow"
* 19:49 - Helping a friend pick up his motorcycle, then we'll have dinner
* 22:53 - Wow, so tired, had to nap to drive home safely. G'nite.

Patrick (Pierre) and I had been having lunch together frequently, over the past seven months when I worked just upstairs from him. We missed a last chance to have lunch, so we ended up having dinner together. It was surreal to walk out of the office thinking, "I really will finish this project tomorrow, and that's that."

I followed Patrick to his apartment, gave him a lift to the shop where he was picking up his motorcycle, then we went for Italian food "near the marina" at one of his favorite restaurants. The meal was *extremely* tasty, and the restaurant makes me list of "must take friends here." No, of course I cannot remember the name of it (hee hee), but I'll go back and find out.

I was surprised to be so tired on the drive home that I needed a nap, but it's old habit to get off the freeway, sleep, and recover before driving tired. I care too much about staying alive to be stupid about driving tired.

Fri 30 May - Last Day
* 06:45 - Forgot my birth cert yesterday, so I get to "practice" my commute again
* 07:35 - Here in Pasadena again, still a decent drive: It's still not as bad as Pendleton :)
* 00:00 - Lovely shabbat with. Jeff, Adjin, and Benji. G'night

Although I'd signed all the paperwork on Thursday, I'd completely blanked on bringing a folder that was sitting on the floor in my house. So I didn't have a second form of ID on me, and had to promise to bring it on Friday morning. I can still get to work in under an hour, which makes this official "not far away" as jobs go (in my opinion).

I forgot to send a one-liner over lunch or in regards to my last day of work at all, but my boss took the entire department out for lunch at P.F.Chang's. I had a fantastic tofu veggie curry and brown rice, a white tangerine tea, and a fun time chatting and joking with my co-workers for the last time. I'll miss joking around with Daniel.

It took me *WAY* too long to finally sign off, shut down, and hand-off all my work and projects and final paperwork. So sadly, even though I said "I'm headed out the door" to Jeff and Adrienne early in the evening, I didn't get to their house until after 9pm for dinner. I =hate= being chronically late and need to fix it NOW. Grr.

But they waited for me, and we had an amazing Shabbat dinner together. Now that I'm going to have every other Friday off from work, we're talking about how we can have regular family dinners together. Adrienne has only been a member of her new synagogue for a month now, and she's already on a steering committee that's doing a "Shabbat in the Home" program with the membership. Jeff just had to laugh at some of the elements in the initiative, since this is exactly what he's been facilitating in his home for the last several years.

It was wonderful to socialize with Jeff and Adrienne, spend more time with little Benji, and just relax for Friday dinner. Truly refreshing.

Sat 31 May: Socialize and Relax
* 07:06 - Clean house, post-Potrero pick-up, and tea party prep
* 13:06 - Lunch with the girls!
* 18:17 - Darn, no middle eastern ensemble for me tonight
* 18:40 - Perfect! Site ready to go live at midnight, dinner with the Nates

My roomie is now famous for her tea-parties. I love when she throws them, and I love helping out. This time my big task was just to get the house cleaned up. I had postponed cleaning after our camping trip Memorial Day weekend, and sometimes we throw parties just to have an excuse (for ourselves) to clean house. *grin*

Although my roomie's intent was (a) Lunch with the girls, (b) silly things all afternoon, (c) afternoon tea --> it turned into just lunch and crafts. I took photos because nearly everyone used "going to tea" as an excuse to wear dresses and look pretty. And of course, most nearly everyone had a string-based craft with them for the afternoon.

I meant to leave around 4 pm to drive up to Santa Barbara. I'm a huge fan of the UCSB Middle Eastern Ensemble, but since it was the last day before a major website update was supposed to go live at midnight, I decided to do one last check before leaving, to make sure everything was ready. It wasn't. *sigh* But, simply checking on the matter made all the difference in the world. And rather than race up the road, push my car hard, and probably arrive to the show late, I decided not to stress about it at all. And on a whim I phoned Nate and Nathan, since I hadn't seen them in a while. They were home, they were just having dinner, and they were happy to have me come visit.

So I spent a lazy, wonderful evening visiting with the boys and with Ellen. We watched Battlestar Galactica, we had some nice wine, we nibbled fresh raspberries grown in the backyard, and I slept on their couch. Perfect.

Sun 01 Jun: Crafts and Music
* 07:04 - There are people outside on the courts playing tennis, before 7 am? on a Sunday?
* 09:15 - Breakfast, latte, check traffic, head home
* 10:56 - Plying for Kim's weaving
* 11:26 - Happy Flip the Calendar day
* 13:25 - Yes, your check stand will let you easily reverse those accidental doublecharges over $30 *sigh*
* 13:54 - Work party at Tonwen's
* 15:49 - Limiting my shopping at Michael's, unlike Eva :)
* 17:20 - Headed to the studio
* 19:06 - Recording
* 21:22 - Two songs done! Yippee!

During the 6 o'clock hour, I was waking up on the couch thinking, "what *is* that noise? It *can't* be... it is!" and there were actually people on the tennis courts, playing tennis before 7 am. On a Sunday. Dude. That's some serious dedication to tennis. Yoikes.

Kim had brought over some cones of very narrow yarns, hoping to have some assistance plying them into larger, stronger yarns for her weaving. I'd worked on some of the fiber during tea the day before, and with the wheel just sitting in the living room, it's easy to sit down, ply the fiber for a nice 15-20 min session, then get up and do something else.

Before heading to Tonwen's for a work-day on crafts and projects with the whole "apprentice clan," I stopped by Target to buy some new shoes before my first day at my new job. The poor checker not only charged me for twice each for a pair of socks and a pair of shoes (over $30 in bogus charges), she was completely unable to figure out how to reverse the problem. It took a good 15 minutes or more to wait for the knowledgable checker in Returns to come over, show *two* checkers how easy it was, and complete the reversal transaction. =sigh= I felt like I was the one who had to teach them how to have a cheery disposition and assure someone that we can truly fix this problem.

I'm just glad I knew how much I should have been charged, so I easily was able to spot the problem and call someone over to assist us. And we went to an empty register, so that all the people behind me weren't held up by the problem. I was surprised the poor checker in question didn't realize that we should move to an empty register for the fix. *heavy sigh* What =are= they teaching kids these days!? *rolls my ancient eyes in sarcasm*

The work party went well, and one of the projects was completed more easily than we expected. Since we figured out the next step I needed to take and we still had an hour to get things done, Eva and I ran over to the local Michael's (only getting slightly lost), bought supplies, and headed back. I had a nice opportunity to chat with a friend about relationship advice [perfectly timed], and then back at Tonwen's, got just the right things accomplished. Yay me.

Then it was off to the studio! I'm thrilled that you're going to be hearing that more often from me. We finished the vocal lines for two songs on the next CD, and I got home safely. Yippee.

Coming Up Next - In my next installment, I will describe my first week at my new job at JPL, Teffan's visit from MN, and the fun we had at Coronation and Queen's Champion.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Daniel -- I'll miss joking around with you at work