GO. SEE. THIS. MOVIE.

Adorable and touching and hilarious and– there was spontaneous clapping at several points. Seriously.

Gotta see it again.

The short beforehand was hilarious, too.

“Kathy,” I said, “why in the world are you whistling ‘Theme From Flood’?”

She was very impressed. Especially as the 11 notes were from the middle of the song. She gave me a high five, then spread the news of my familiarity with They Might be Giants around the office.

In the meantime, in another room, another coworker was loudly singing “Yellow Submarine.”

Yeah, I like my job.

I’ve got some fic to post later tonight. After I come up with a title.

I finished knitting my Dalek. It’s really funny to have a nice cuddly friend who can kill you in an instant (and wants to!). I took a picture today, but haven’t had a chance to upload it. I’ll try to do that tomorrow.

The day I found out I got the job, I went shopping. In the past week, I have bought 3 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of shoes, and a purse. They were all needed (well, maybe not the purse, but I tend to buy purses every season change whether I need them or not :P)– I’ve gained a few pounds since last spring/summer, and I’d planned to buy new work clothes when I lost my job. Since there was no real reason to buy business clothes when I didn’t have a job (and I didn’t have the money anyway), I put it off. But now that I have the prospect of a paycheck in a couple of weeks, I felt justified in spending a couple of hundred of my hard-hoarded money. I actually put my stimulus check aside for just such a purpose.

I am trying to be more conservative with my money, though. I hope to keep a nice cushion in both checking and savings, just in case I should find myself unemployed again. It’s not very likely– business is booming for the theaters– but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I also want to pay off my credit card balance as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, I haven’t been able to work much on my thesis. My body is still adjusting to getting up at 6:30 again, and I just haven’t had the mind power. But I hope to set aside at least a couple of hours every night to work on it. I really, really, need to get this off my plate.

My grandma is coming home from her rehab facility tomorrow. She’s getting a bit stir-crazy. I hope she does well at home.

<i>Midnight</i> was amazing. Much looking forward to the last few episodes of Series Four. Oh, and David Tennant can sit by me.

And my sister got a phone call from human resources at her work, asking if she’d thought about applying for the Administrative Assistant position. She said no, she hadn’t really thought about it, because she liked her job very well. And then she hung up and told us (we were shopping) what the call was about, and I said “. . . I need a job, Lisa.” She hadn’t even thought of it. So she called them back and said that while she didn’t need the job, her older sister did. And Kathy (the human resources person) asked if I could come in for an interview yesterday.

Of course I could!

So after I opened the Sonic Screwdriver that Pam, Susan, and Rachel sent me for my birthday (yay!), I went in for the interview. And she seemed very impressed.

And then I came home and proceeded to get very nervous. You know, the longer you have to wait, the more you start second-guessing yourself– did the interview really go as well as I thought? Will someone else wow her more than I did? Did I seem overeager? GAH! I was good for absolutely nothing today.

And at 4:30, I got the call. Offering me the job.

YAYNESS!!!

So. I’m now working at Jordan Commons, as an admin assistant for the human resources department. I’m earning $2 more an hour than I was at New Life. I get to go to movies for free (even in the “no passes or discounts” period). I’ll have benefits and paid holidays and sick leave. I start Monday.

I’M EMPLOYED!!!!

My grandmother had fallen when she got out of bed, and had broken her ankle.

Great.

So I spent the afternoon in the emergency room. Grandma’s ankle would definitely require surgery. But she’s 83 years old, has had diabetes for 40 years (that’s why she managed to break the ankle in the first place– she was in low blood sugar), has heart trouble (had a triple bypass 15 years ago), and is just frail in general, and surgery would be dangerous. So they delayed surgery until this morning.

Luckily, she did fine with the surgery. 8 pins and a plate later, and she. . . won’t be able to stand on her foot for 2 months. Lovely. Because my 85-year-old grandfather surely can’t lift her in and out of bed. Plus she’s stubborn as all get-out (although today she insisted that she’s not stubborn, she’s persistent). We’ve found a good rehab facility for her (Aspen Ridge, I’m sure Nicole is wondering– the new one is our first choice, but the Wheeler one is second on the list, so maybe she’ll see your dad) where she’ll hopefully be able to stay for at least 21 days. And they said they won’t let her leave until she can get herself in and out of bed and into a wheelchair. Now we just need to find a solution for their super-skinny bathroom door.

What is up with the medical stuff lately? First my aunt has heart trouble, then my sister-in-law has a baby (at least that was good news, but, still, it’s a hospital), then my paternal grandmother gets vertigo, then my mom’s surgery, then my nephew gets pneumonia and my niece gets bronchitis, then my cousin falls out of the sky, and now my maternal grandma breaks her ankle getting out of bed. Fantastic. Now all we need is for my dad’s kidney to go into a sudden decline, or my sister to get into a car accident on the way home from work.

We had a fabulous time in Disneyland. Seriously, it was one of the best trips ever. The only damper on the thing was that I got tendonitis in both legs (it’s the tendon that’s on the outside of my calves) and in one foot (I think it was the pereneal tendon, which is below your ankle and on the bottom of your foot), and it was bad enough on Saturday that even the 3-minute walk from our hotel to the gate was enough for me to be nearly crying in agony. Not a good thing. So, we rented a wheelchair. I felt like an idiot, and felt badly that Sarah and Lisa had to push me around Disney, but it made it possible for us to actually go on rides. So I guess it was worth it. I didn’t go so far as to use the disabled entrances and jump the queue– instead we parked the wheelchair and I walked on to the rides like a normal person. The breaks between the queues was enough to keep the tendons from cramping too awfully much, so it worked out. $10 well spent.

Two days before we left for California, my mom had back surgery. This was planned– we got out of the house while mom was still in the hospital, and then were home and available when she was home. Luckily, instead of the vertebrae fusion that had been recommended, she qualified (and was randomized to) a research study for a new product called a <a href=”http://www.appliedspine.com/”>Stabilimax</a>. She actually got a level 2 Stabilimax, meaning that she’s been stabilized on two vertebrae instead of just one. She also had a herniated disc repaired. This surgery has been nothing short of amazing. If she’d had a fusion, she’d still be flat on her back right now. There would have been no bending for 6 months. Full recovery might have taken as long as a year. Instead, she’s up and walking and even drove herself to physical therapy today. The doctor expects her to be back to normal activity in 4-6 weeks. And mom’s so happy. Instead of being in constant pain in her back and down her leg, the only pain she’s feeling is from the incision. She feels better than she has in more than a year.

But while Mom is improving apace, we’re really worried about my cousin. She was in a paragliding accident on Saturday– fell 80 feet after hitting a windshaft. She has a crushed ankle, a broken pelvis and arm, and an abdominal hematoma that they’re worried about. Truly, she’s lucky to be alive. She went in for surgery this morning, which apparently went much better than expected, but she’s still not going to be able to stand for at least 6 weeks, and they expect at least a 6-month recovery. Rebecca is 9 months older than me– she was my “can I PLEEAAAAASE have a sleepover?” after every family event cousin– and has a 5-year-old little boy who saw the accident, saw the ambulances, saw the LifeFlight helicopter. The day before Mother’s Day. I can only imagine how horrible that must have been for him. It’s been an anxious weekend for us all, and it’s far from over.

In the meantime, I’ve been working out my anxieties by doing DDR for about an hour this afternoon. My sister bought my brother’s Wii from him (with 2 kids, he just doesn’t have time to use it), and I went out and bought the pad today. I haven’t moved that much since I went to the Keane concert.

Still no job. Still little progress on the thesis. But things are looking up.

Today we used a RideMax schedule to go on all our favorite rides. And it worked really really well. It helped, I suppose, that the wait times were usually less than predicted (and occasionally were even significantly so), so we got to go on everything we’d planned for the day, plus a few extras. We went on Pirates 3 times (planned for two, but had enough time and we were literally able to walk on), Space Mountain twice (only planned for once, but the last time there was only a 15 min. standby line), Indiana Jones twice (planned, but the line was so short when we came back to use our second FastPass that they weren’t even accepting them. Total wait time: 10 min.), and the following once each: Buzz Lightyear, Star Tours, Winnie the Pooh, Splash Mountain, the Matterhorn, Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and the Haunted Mansion, plus the Disneyland Railroad and the Monorail. The only item that was on our itinerary but that we didn’t actually go on was the Finding Nemo submarines, but we’d always had that penciled in, because even RideMax warned us that there would be an hour wait time, and the line we saw bore that out. I’m not positive we’ll get around to it, honestly, mainly because we’re all slightly claustrophobic, and we watched the ride while we waited for the monorail. It took forEVER to load those things. I think we’d go nuts. So, we’ll see.

In between all of that, we had lunch at the Hungry Bear, dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, and an unplanned trip during our planned break to the Long Beach Airport to retrieve some items I’d accidentally left on the plane (including my contact case and solution. Oops).

We all wore shirts that say “Lots of planets have a North” and were pleasantly surprised when a gentleman from Australia actually recognized their source while we were standing in line for Indiana Jones. We spent the rest of the queue discussing the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver and which Doctor was our favorite and which Bad Guy was our favorite and wouldn’t it be great if we could all just take the TARDIS to Disneyland whenever we felt like it. It was fabulous.

We saw a sight we don’t often see while walking to Disneyland (our hotel is very close to the Park– it only takes about 5 minutes to walk from the hotel to the main gate). Six nuns in a white Toyota Previa. Hee.

Tomorrow we’re getting up early-ish for a sit-down breakfast at the Carnation Cafe, then we’re spending the day at California Adventure. I’ve never been, so I’m excited. I may even brave a ride on the Tower of Terror. The meclizine my doctor prescribed seems to be helping my motion sickness– I didn’t even throw up on the plane, which is amazing considering my track record of late. So maybe I’ll be able to handle the up-and-down motion better than I’m expecting I will. Then Saturday we’re planning on doing the less popular rides and Disneyland (with a few exceptions– we’re doing Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain and, of course, Pirates, again). Sunday we’ll take the day off from the parks and maybe do a bit of sightseeing before meeting up with Kirk at the Cheesecake Factory. Then it’s one more day in the parks, going on our favorite rides again, before flying home on the 8:00 pm flight.

I’ll be lucky if I get out of bed next Tuesday. But I’ll love it just the same.

I haven’t been able to post before now, because we’ve been taking care of her big sister while mom and dad are still at the hospital.

Anna’s not so sure about this whole little sister thing.

They’re coming home today! Hooray!

Behold, my three most recent Finished Objects (click the thumbnail to see the big pictures at Flickr):

Mitt Envy, fingerless mitts with a cable, knit with Koigu Painter’s Palette Premium Merino, which is meant as a sock yarn. Knitted on size 1 needles, in the round. Those needles were TINY. But I was glad for the practice on the teeny tiny needles when my sister in law asked me to make these for the new baby girl who’s due any day now:

Saartje’s Booties, made with Bristol Yarn Gallery’s Lyndon Hill (a cotton/silk blend). In order to get gauge on these things I had to go down to a size 0 needle. Lucky I bought circulars in all the sock sizes from Knit Picks a few weeks ago. These were knit flat and then seamed. Amanda picked the yarn and the buttons, I picked the pattern. They’re all ready for the new baby girl to come home in.

And now, my proudest moment:

The Spring Break Bag, made with Cascade 220 wool. I designed this. All by my own self. I test-felted my yarn, to see how much it would shrink. I did the math. I just spent the last hour or so typing up the pattern. I made it both as a bag to take with me to Disneyland and as a good beginner’s project for the knitting group I started in my neighborhood a couple of months ago. I’m going to distribute it tonight Hopefully, I’ll be able to post the pattern online after my knitting group beta-knits it for me.

Look at the needle felting detail!

And yes, I admit that the needle felting could be a bit more felted. I’m planning on doing that tonight, so the gals can see exactly what needle felting entails.

I’m excited.

Number of responses recieved: 2

Number of interviews had: 1

*sigh*

One of the responses called for an interview, but then called again the next day and cancelled it. The other one I actually had an interview at a dentist’s office, and I think it went pretty well, but I haven’t been called back for a second interview. I’ll call them tomorrow (which will be a week from the interview) to see if the position’s been filled yet or not, and to let them know I’m still available and interested.

And today I’ve got a bad cold and feel terrible. So I only applied one more place (for a podiatrist’s office, and I would have applied for more except there haven’t been any good jobs posted since Friday) and checked on whether or not I’m going to get paid for my accumulated vacation (looking like the answer is no) and then played around on the internet all day long. And I’ve hardly eaten anything because nothing tastes at all good. Gah.

Oh, I guess I’ve read a few chapters of thesis-related stuff. Hopefully I’ll feel well enough tomorrow to do more. I mean to put all this free time to good use. Yes, precious.

On the other hand, I have successfully made my friend Pam into a Doctor Who fan. Go me.