New Job 1st Week, Teffan Arrives - Back to the narrative of our intrepid heroine. When we last left off, I'd finished up my contract at the television software company in a tower near LAX, and was about to start a tech writer contract job at JPL in Pasadena.

Mon 02 Jun: My First Day!
* 04:33 - Awake with new job jitters
* 08:05 - Still sitting in Visitor's, waiting on security
* 08:57 - Picking out a few personal office supplies from my car :)
* 22:51 - Excellent dinner and cake for Ellen's bday, now home to sleep

Yes, that time-stamp on my twitter post is accurate: I was lying awake in bed at 4:30 in the morning, worried about getting to work on time. No alarms had gone off yet, and I was wide awake. I took my time, but I did leave nice and early, beating all the traffic. (The habit has not been completely cemented since that first day, but I digress.)

I was scheduled to meet my contracting recruiter on site at JPL at 7:30 am. He phoned me at 7:32 am to say "I'm still stuck in traffic" but it didn't really matter much. The paperwork at Visitors' was not completed instantaneously. But by 9:00 am I'd arrived at my work place, seen the small place where I was to work, and was out at my car picking some office supplies out for my desk.

I have to describe the crazy place I worked for the first two weeks. Imagine an office with cubicles. Take four cubicles arranged in a square (2x2). Gut the center walls, close all the outer walls, leave one door, and put "counters" all around the perimeter inside, for the desk space. Everyone sits inside the large "pit" or "bullpen" and they're all facing the outer walls of the cube, backs to one another. Add some overhead cabinets, lighting, and make it look like there should be 8 people in the "office," 2 on each side of the square. Now put 10 people in there. Add a round "breakfast nook" kind of table in the middle, and put two employees there on laptops.

I was person #12 added to the bullpen, the second laptop user on the breakfast nook table. *grin*

Since I was one of the two laptops on the round table, there *REALLY* wasn't much space for me to bring in any office supplies. No walls for calendars, no place to spread out, no place really even to put my purse(s) or bag(s) at my feet.

So of course, I got creative. I'd just bought a new "rolly-cart" to haul around my computer, purse, and various small bags I always seem to have with me (crafts, extra folders for projects, hand-sewing, whatever). The cart is a plastic crate that folds flat when put away, and locks open with a telescoping suitcase handle when in use. It's the perfect size to keep my large purse, small purse, and computer backpack all in one neat place. And my smaller lunchbox cooler fits neatly on top, with the handle of the cooler hooked over the crate handle. Then I brought in a stack of 3 interlocking in-boxes for my desk, using the top one as a shelf for my stapler, tape dispenser, pencil cup, and post-it notes. People were quite impressed, as they always seem to be when I describe myself as an "office supplies junkie."

Organization accomplished, it was then time to figure out my job. Which I did. More on that later.

Then, after my first day at my new work, I headed back to "the Nates" for Ellen's birthday. Before going to work, Nathan had prepped most of the groceries, and then all day was able to guide Nate on how to assemble the food for the dinner. Chicken in the crockpot, rice in the rice cooker, veggies chopped, and salad assembled. Nate and I picked up the last of the fresh veggies at a local Persian/Indian/Armenian grocery store, and we took the time for him to show off the store to me. It's the coolest store!! I picked up some dried fruits and nuts from the bulk bins, to have snacks at my desk. And mostly wandered aisle to aisle, really excited to see what's available in a speciality store near my work. Yippee.

Back at the house, Ellen and I created the cucumber and tomato salad, with a special blend of vinegars for just the right dressing. Nathan made it home just as everything was complete, and we had a wonderful dinner, just the four of us. Nate surprised Ellen by having a ridiculously large chocolate cake, and we all went into happy-food-coma by the end of the night. Happy birthday, dearheart.

Tue 03 Jun: More New Job, Driving Issues, Musical Notation
* 06:06 - Double-alarm systems save my tired behind
* 07:59 - Climbing mountains "on lab"
* 08:29 - Badge photo success
* 17:53 - attempting my first "drive home in rush hour traffic" (although to a friend's, not actually home)
* 20:02 - Google maps is my favorite magic! I avoided ALL traffic, yay me!
* 21:07 - Dinner yummy, bardic transcription help rendered, mischief managed

Any new job is going to have new jargon. Government jobs are notorious for having more acronyms than most business environments, and I have to laugh a little that each one thinks "we have the most acronyms." [I'd say they're all comparable.]

But I encountered my first jargon that no one seemed to even blink at: "On Lab." You see, the main JPL campus is up in the mountains (well, hills really) above Pasadena. I happen to work in a building off-site, not on the main campus. But rather than call it a campus, a phrase which many business cultures use to describe a collection of buildings all part of their corporate structure, the main campus for JPL is called "On Lab." You know, Jet Propulsion Laboratories? A Lab? Okay, makes sense. But wouldn't you think native English speakers would recognize this is not a standard phrase? I had to laugh when I had to ask a co-worker, "what exactly do you mean by 'going on lab?'"

Getting around "on lab" is done primarily on foot. Really. Everyone walks up and down the hills, the roads, etc. and walks between buildings on this sprawling campus. Visitors park at the bottom of the hill, go through the Visitor Center, and to get your badge from Security, you have to climb sets and sets of stairs, carved into the mountainside. I'm glad my new shoes are all flats!

Fortunately all the paperwork we did at my contractor office had gone through the system, so I really did get my photo badge on my 2nd day on the job, rather than the 1-3 weeks lag some employees go through. Yay!

Since I'd been over to the Nates for Ellen's birthday on Monday, Tuesday was my first real "drive home in rush-hour traffic" experience. I was headed to Meala's, so it was an experiment in new freeway routes. For those of you who know the area or who'd like to find the route I took on a map: North on the 210 (which is labelled West 210, even though it's actually north in that section), South 2, South 5, East 10, South 710, West 91, North 405. Pretty crazy, hmm?! But perfect! There was *no* traffic on my route at all, and I got to Meala's house easily. Go me! (And all thanks and praise to Google Maps and Live Traffic.)

Meala is one of the baronial bardic champions right now, and she was going out-of-state for the weekend. Since she couldn't be at the event, she wanted to compose something special for Don Kelan, who was being elevated in rank to a Pelican on Saturday. A Pelican is a Peer, and is addressed as "Master" or "Mistress" and ranks equally in precedence to a Knight or a Laurel in the SCA. The Knights are (as you would guess) the sword fighters, the Laurels are the artisans, and the Pelicans excel in service. [There's more to it than that, but that's enough of a thumbnail for my non-SCA reading audience.] Kelan is a prominent member of the group for which Meala is their bardic champion, so for this (and other) reason(s), she really wanted to compose something for this special occasion.

So I came over Tuesday night that week to help her transcribe the musical notation to her song. It went much more quickly and easily than she expected, and she now has a nice software program for future music notation endeavors. (Finale Notepad is free, for those of you interested in checking it out. I highly recommend it. As a free program, it does much more than I would have expected, including audio playback when you place the notes on the staff, as well as to review your composition while editing.)

Wed 04 Jun: Later commute, late evening
* 08:23 - It's no surprise, traffic is heavier an hour later
* 17:52 - doing a real commute home. looks like I'll have to sit through one snarl, minimum
* 20:14 - Spent a quiet hour alone, reading, listening to music, how nice
* 21:17 - Dinner complete, time to clean :)
* 22:15 - There was a ladybug in my dishes from Potrero!

I have no idea why I was delayed heading out of the house in the morning of my third day on the job. But it's accurate to say that I learned the longer I wait to leave, the longer I will wait in traffic.

So, I haven't really described *what* I do at my new job. I believe my title is "Technical Writer" but it's less specialized than my last Tech Writer job. During my first two weeks at JPL, I was truly documenting a module of software and creating a User Guide, complete with screen shots and process flow charts. But as I go into my third week now (yes, I'm jumping ahead in the narration), it looks like they really just want a specialist on call for everyone's documentation needs. When someone has trouble with Microsoft Word, I get to help fix the file and make everything behave again. If they're combining data from many different sources, they can hand it off to me for copy, paste, edit, sort, fix, and polish, while they continue frantically gathering content before the big deadline for deliverables.

There are several different projects and initiatives that all plan to make use of my editing and polishing skills, my expertise in Word (and other programs), and general multi-tasking strengths. How exciting. I'm loving it!

So, after work (which went later since I arrived later, and remember I put in a 9-hour work day now, minimum), I headed home. I went over to my postal box, picked up my mail, and just sat in my car in the cool of the day, windows down, music on, and nowhere to be. Suddenly an hour had gone by, and I was so relaxed and refreshed. It was truly lovely.

Back at the house, I was newly motivated to get back to washing and cleaning and organizing... just jumped out of my skin when a bug moved in my feast gear bag. Of course, it was only a ladybug (which I adore) so I merely laughed at myself for the reaction.

Thu 05 Jun: Ready for guests, Studio goodness, Guest Here
* 08:16 - House clean enough for guests, yippee
* 18:44 - Have all the interwebs gone wonky?! Grr!
* 20:21 - In the studio recording lyrics not fit for my grandmother
* 21:05 - Single take!
* 22:15 - 2nd song done!

So I cleaned up from Potrero as much as I could stand, Wednesday night of that week, and got up early the next morning to finish the cleaning. Once I declared the house ready, I left for work the latest I'd ever left. But since I knew I was (a) going into the studio at 8 pm and (b) picking up Teffan from LAX near midnight, there was no rush to the office.

The studio was amazing. This was the FIRST TIME EVER I managed to record a song for one of our CDs IN ONE TAKE. That's astonishing. It's doubly astonishing, because it's one of those songs that has lots of oomph behind it. We use several different methods for composing music in our band. One of them, the strangest I think, is when one or more of the guys composes a song in its entirety, records it, titles it, and hands it to me with "Okay, please add lyrics." Huh? The song is finished and now you want me to write the lyrics and the vocal melody?

Well, I've gotten used to this unorthodox composition method (and our guitarist does this to me often), and I've even written some lyrics that surprised and pleased me, based on the silliest of titles. One of the new songs he titled "Battery" simply because he looked at his desk, saw a battery on the desk, and wrote the word down. I ended up turning that into a backstory of a battered child, a battered psyche of a war veteran, and the battered relationships of individuals who pass in the night. I was actually quite pleased with the final product, and now if/when you listen to the music on our (forthcoming) 3rd CD, you'll recognize the title and know my thinking when I put together the lyrics. It still amuses my guitarist to no end that he looked at an actual battery on his desk, frivolously named the (then still instrumental) song, and then I created a new meaning to the title.

Well. On to the song I recorded in one take. This one, my guitarist wrote too, but he also wrote some lyrics and a melody, and then handed it off to me. The song was (okay, still is) named "Sex Dreams." *heavy sigh* Really? REALLY? You want me to sing something called "Sex Dreams?" *sigh*

Okay. I'll take this challenge.

So I reworked some of the lyrics (which were clearly boy-authorship, not girl-authorship), rethought the premise of "why would I be singing this?" and added a little more growly, burlesque, bawdiness to the feel of the song, rather than just cheap and tawdry. When done with it, I was really quite proud of my work. But.... *big pause here* ... it's still a little embarrassing. It's not lyrics I would sing to my grandmother, is how I normally sum it up. So yes, it's a bit more R-rated than PG, although I don't think it crosses the line past R-rated. But yeah, I would NOT be singing this to children.

Guess which song I managed to sing in one take? *blush* Well, yay me. :)

After successfully recording a 2nd song (much more take, stop, re-record, re-sing...), I went back to the neighborhood of my old job, near LAX. I had about an hour to take a nap in my car, before Teffan landed from MN. She got her luggage, wandered outside to the traffic loop, I drove in easily, swooped her and all her swords up into my car, and we headed down the coast to my place.

I'd changed the sheets on my bed so she could have a fresh bed to sleep in, and I crashed on the couch. I'd been tossing and turning a lot lately, and having the fan on me in the living room was very inviting. So, guest arrival success!

Fri 06 Jun: My first RDO (regular day off)
* 01:40 - Teffan's here, going to sleep now
* 07:37 - Ugh, awake, but day off - cool
* 10:59 - Breakfast, check. Computer set up, check. Off for laundry, meet up for hair cut and Benito time!
* 13:37 - Engine steam-cleaned, laundry done :)

Yes, we didn't get to sleep until just before 2 am. It was a long night.

I was hoping my "Regular Day Off" (called RDO around the office) would fall on the Fiber Retreat weekend, and Teffan was hoping for her visit. She won. And I have to admit, that was a great thing. We slept in. We pitter pattered around the house, finally wandering out for breakfast. I got my laptop set up so she could also work on the computer sometime later, and then we wandered out to get my laundry done in the morning.

I ended up getting a long phone call from a gal in a class, where she and I had a small falling out over a tough conversation in class with her husband. She's converting to Judaism. He's not, and he's a very fundamentalist Christian, and tends to be a "conversation leader" (read between the lines, I'll say nothing further). In a discussion about the Holocaust, he had spoken up, and without saying it quite as directly as I'm about to describe this, he said it was the fault of the Jews that they weren't Christians, that the Holocaust happened to them (for being out from under God's protection now). Let's say he wasn't received well by anyone there. There was further fall-out with many other people, but sufficient to say, she and I had some email exchanges, because she felt like people were attacking her husband. But after some time, she wanted to call me and repair the friendship between us.

Teffan, bless her heart, had a knitting project with her. My car was at the car wash, getting the engine steam-cleaned, my laundry was in the wash, and this gal was on my phone. So I wandered outside, had a 45-minute discussion with her (while moving the wash to the dryer, and then folding the clean laundry), and the conversation was all wrapped up by the end of the laundry. Strangely timed, this phone call, but I suppose it was the only free 45 minute slot I had in my week. *shrug* Alrighty then! *grin*

We picked up my (now shining sparkly) car, loaded up the clean laundry, then headed across town to my hairdresser, who happens to be Adrienne's hairdresser too. Then Teffan and I enjoyed some time holding Ben while Adrienne got her haircut. Yippee. I love my RDO, and the freedom to do these things! Brittany (my hairdresser) trimmed my bangs for me (for free, bless her heart), then we all headed out.

And yes, Teffan correctly remembers how much crazy fun we had, trying to decifer the instructions for the baby wrap, until we finally successfully tied me into the wrap (without baby! oh, of course that makes more sense!).

Teffan and I stopped at the apartment to drop off the clean laundry, headed to Trader Joe's to buy food for dinner's potluck and food for the weekend of SCA events, took all the groceries home, and then finally went over to Adrienne's had Adrienne, Jeff, and Benjamin over to my place for Sabbath dinner. (Editor's Note: I'm a goober, because I completely couldn't recall what we did for dinner, but assumed it must have been at Adrienne's place and that I had just forgotten. Thank you, Teffan, for correcting me.)

Teffan correctly recalls that Adjin, Jeff, and Benji came over to my place, my roomie came home, and all six of us had dinner together. Yes, I have a crazy salad spinner, with "pull-string action" in the lid, and as I cooked chicken, sauteed mushrooms, steamed broccoli and asparagus, and boiled potatoes, Teffan helped wash and prep all the veggies for me. I put out my newest coffee bar table in the living room, filled it with food, and all of us lounged around the living room, happily feeding on all the healthy goodness. We lit candles, sang the songs and prayers, and I got to listen to Adrienne and Jeff add the new prayer to bless the children. Ah. Lovely.

And since this entry seems WAY long, I'll give you my version of Coronation and Queen's Champion in the next journal entry.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Teffan