December 20, 2016

I decided this morning that I don’t want to do aqua fitness at eight. I figured I could tread water for 30-40 minutes on my own and call it even. When I took the dogs for their morning walk, I discovered that the park’s water was still off: the "fix job" blew, too. The crew was hand-cutting another three-to-four feet square or rectangle to replace more pipes. A "sidewalk supervisor" in an orange shirt filled me in on the details. When I asked him why he was watching, he said that he found it entertaining. Only a woman would ask a man such a question.

​Yesterday, I worked on three more job postcard ideas. The first, Kim helped me re-position to a happier note; the second, Kate graded "excellent" and no amendments were suggested; the third, however, remains a work in progress. This morning, I uploaded the first two to Vista Print and called their customer service to make sure that they were clear and bright enough. I placed the orders and suspect I'll have them before them the promised date.

I accumulated another 40 contacts for the first postcard, and I hand-addressed all of them. That increases my list to 165 names. I'll wait to mail them until the 2nd of January because I don't want them to get lost among the unopened holiday mail. I'll continue to research contacts for the first mailing while I wait for the second and third cards. It is a time-consuming and exhausting process, especially to find people at private companies which make things I like. I've also included famous people who run huge public companies – people who can make the decision to hire me per se, a suitable opening notwithstanding.

I went to get my mail this morning. The park's "post office" is really only a mailroom (it doesn't sell stamps), and it's only open from nine to ten in the morning Tuesday through Saturday. Mail is distributed the day after it's received. The "postmaster" told me that in order to get my mail I had to "open my box," i.e. write my name, forwarding address, and phone number on a slip of paper, and give her one dollar. I didn't have a dollar on me, but she still gave me my mail. I took my mail home and returned immediately with my dollar. It turns out that the dollar is to cover a sheet of labels with my forwarding address.

I ran out of Clorox Wipes this afternoon which constituted a crisis. I grabbed my backpack and my credit card and set out for Publix. I realized that my rear tire needed air, so I detoured north to the gas station. The air machine didn't take American Express, so I road back to BOB and grabbed a VISA card. That didn't work, either. I suspect that Hurricane Matthew killed the air machine since there were dead fish near it. A couple getting gas offered to give me a quarter for air. When I told them it costs $1.50, they said there is another station a little farther north. That machine didn't take credit cards, and the gas station employee would not sell me quarters with a credit card. OK, I understand: that's a great way to create fake transactions to steal cash, so he probably isn't allowed to do. He didn’t need to treat me with contempt, however. Asshole.

I resorted to using my small hand pump to inflate my rear tire. At Publix, I also bought a gallon of spring water because the fucking water was still off at two this afternoon.