Are you there, GiaGia?

So, unemployment has taken a weird toll on me.

I'm bored, and its depressing to watch my phone not ring, and my e-mail box fill up with nothing but info on sales from the Gap, so in an effort to keep myself busy, I've started walking.

Today on my walk I was flagged down by an elderly woman who looked entirely too much like my long-deceased grandmother. If she could have stood up straight, she would have tapped out at around 4' 9'', and she had a  thick eastern European accent that I didn't remember my GiaGia having, but I haven't seen her in a while, so went along with it. She needed me to cut a tree branch for her, and it was clear, now that I had stopped, she was not asking me, she was telling me. So, I cut the branch, without a saw, and then she immediately got me started on racking the lawn. At one point, to let me know I was doing a sub-par job, she walked over and picked up a leaf from an area I had already gone over.

After I had dragged the leaves across the street, she told me to wait while she went into the house. I figured she had something in there she needed fixed, but instead, she came back with this:

Two bags of seasoned croutons and a snack sized fiber one brownie, to thank me for my help. She also offered to have me come in for some toasted bread, but I kindly declined, twice.

Its been a pretty good day, and now I know where I can get toasted bread anytime I want.

Side note

With our Optometrist's recent decision to leave her part time position with us in favor of a full time position at the VA, I've found myself with a lot of time on my hands. Normally in these cases an employee like myself, being cut from five days a week to only two, would be put on unemployment, but my boss has decided it would be financially beneficial to everyone to just keep me on for the next month, since I'm moving to California in August anyway. So, for the next month, I've got to come up with some time wasting activities at work.

I thought coming up with activities to waste time at work would be easy. It should come more naturally to me than working, but its harder than I had anticipated. So far I can recommend the following websites as prime time wasters:

www.fmylife.com
www.textsfromlastnight.com
www.akwardfamilyphotos.com
www.icanhascheezburger.com

Awkward Family Photos has also branched off to www.awkwardfamilypetphotos.com which I don't see much of a point for, seeing as the really great ones are repeats. But if you're in a real pinch to waste time, then go for it.

Other useless time wasters include staples such as: youtube-ing my favorite music videos (Ok Go, anyone?), facebook, and e-mailing people I'd otherwise not.

EDIT: My good friend Steph has brought to my attention the website www.cutethingsfallingasleep.org which is like a time sucking machine, and I thank her for that recommendation.

The world's most lucid dream

Being moved down to part-time is miserable, but it allows me to really focus on people watching. And better than just regular people watching: people watching at the unemployment office.

Upon walking through the door, I encountered a man at the front desk who was probably younger than he looked, struggling through a work history form with a bear of a man who had been a truck driver for as long as he could remember. The old-ish man told me to sit down because I was making him nervous. I was slightly offended that I had the capacity to make him nervous, but he was comfortable with the Bearman.

I was eventually brought into the back to speak with some sort of a placement director. Betty was impressed that I had a job. And not a job 'recently' but still currently was employed, and looking for another job to bump me up to 40 hours a week. And I had a resume. As she came to these revolutions through her own, slow-moving fashion, I realized that maybe I'd be better off going this alone.

Food for thought: Is there such a thing as too much Fla-Vor-Ice? Is this going to be like the time when I was at work and I found out too many lifesavers has a laxative effect?