The Interview From Hell

I retired 21 years earlier than planned, and I didn’t take the news well. 

“Adele?”  The man in the ugly brown suit came out of his office and studied me through thick lenses.

“No.  I’m Arlene.”

“Oh.”  He nodded and disappeared into his cave, which happened to be one of the many identical doors in an adjoining hallway.

I was in the wrong building for my interview.  The two buildings on P Street were built when I left Sacramento 20 years ago, and to me, they were mere strangers.  I walked to the receptionist, a young woman dressed in a dark blue suit with a matching tie.  In my day, as a receptionist, when I show up for work, I always wore a dress, high heels and makeup.  That manly outfit and the tie did nothing for her.

“You’re in the wrong building.”  She pointed to the building on the other side of the street.

I had this sinking feeling take over me.  But that was the story of my life.  Right church, wrong pew.  In this case, I had it all wrong.

By waiting in the wrong building, I was already a half hour late, but I figured I’d finish the interview and go home.  I had never been late for an interview in my life, but somehow, it made sense to me to finish what I started.

As I waited in the right reception room, two men came through the tall doors separating the workers from the applicants.  It was their break time, but they didn’t go downstairs.

“What’s your job like?” I asked one of them.

He was clearly suffering from job stress, and looked like he badly needed a cigarette.  The other man stepped up to the nearest window and looked to the distance.  Then he stuck his hands in the front pockets of his polyester pants and started to jingle coins.

“They keep track of your breaks, your personal phone calls, and the time it takes you to come back from lunch.”

Wonderful.   After being on my own for years and left alone to make decisions, I knew I wouldn’t last long in this type of a work environment.  I could imagine my husband traveling downtown to post my bail.

Just as he finished speaking, the blinds in the building automatically came down.

“It happens about the same time each day,” he explained as he watched my eyes widen.  “They’re meant to come down as the sun hits the glass.  It’s an energy saving feature.”

I was already getting the creeps from this sterile building and its equally sterile workers.

Once inside for my interview, I sat in this long room with a conference table, and there was barely enough room to navigate.   The interviewer and her Yes-woman sat next to her.  Having worked for the State of California since my teens, I knew this interview scenario well. 

“Oh, I see you walked the talk and talked the talk,” the interviewer said as she looked at my application form.

The interviewer was a plus size woman who stood about 5’9” and weighed at least 290.  I could easily pick her out in any line up. 

It took all I had not to say, “Oh, Honey, it looks like you walked the walk and talked the talk to too many office potlucks, didn’t you?”  Grazing was the term used for these events.

“We just don’t know about you law enforcement types,” she added.  “You can swing either way.”

What was she talking about?  What is a “law enforcement type”?  Oh, pullleeeeease.  It’s not that I couldn’t make up my mind when it came to deciding what was right and what was wrong.  That I could “turn” to the "dark side" at any time I pleased.

I was waiting for her to say, “Since you worked for the Department of Corrections, have you been corrected?”

I looked at the Yes-woman, who was nodding like one of those bobbing Chihuahua dogs people used to put on the dashboards of their cars in the 60s.  Each time the interviewer opened her mouth, Yes-woman nodded.  It must be nice to be paid for keeping a chair seat warm and nodding your head during interviews.

Already, I was thinking about wanting to be somewhere else.  I could picture myself at home, knitting my charity blanket while watching taped episodes of “The Young and the Restless”.  And not having to think about anything, other than what to make for dinner. 

After that disastrous interview, a friend of mine advised me to quit looking for work and to just enjoy retirement.         

To seal the deal, I finalized my decision of not looking for work by going down Memory Lane.  I parked my truck at a light rail station during rush hour and rode into the downtown area.  I remember standing in that crowded car with the same bored, tired faces who looked like the public transit riders from my state worker past.  Regional Transit had changed the route into downtown when I left Sacramento.  I got off at the wrong station, and had to ask an elderly rider to help me find the next train.

During my 23 years as a state worker, I went through two periods of pay warrants, but I wasn’t forced to take an unpaid day off.  I didn’t worry about getting laid off, demoted, fired or constantly wondering I'd get a cut in pay.

You can’t go home again, Thomas Wolfe once wrote.

Yeah, no kidding.  He could have been writing about a person like me, struggling to find work after retirement.  Since that awful interview three years ago, I’ve been content to find my own adventures without feeling guilty about not bringing home a paycheck.  Surprisingly enough, that interview forced me to finally accept retirement graciously.  These days, I'm grateful to wake up to a day that is mine.

A Cemetery Kind of Girl

Maybe I like visiting historic cemeteries because I also like reading obituaries.  As long as I’m able to read about dead people, it means I’m still breathing and able to sit upright to read the newspaper, right?

I’ve been visiting old cemeteries for a long time, but it’s only the historic ones which interest me.  When I was a child, I used to ride my bike to an old cemetery on the frontage road overlooking Highway 99.  As soon as I got my license to drive, I visited the old cemetery in Franklin, which features the grave from a former member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

I like the architecture and the symbolism found in these places.  I appreciate the meticulous work gone into the design of the headstones because no two are alike.  And I like the sight and feeling of permanence found in ornate, wrought iron.  I look for the lambs, weeping willows, hands, flowers, and birds.  They are symbols of death seldom found in modern cemeteries.  The sight of lambs as part of the headstones is what gets my attention because many children in those days tragically died from illnesses and diseases long before they could reach the age of 5.  Adults would be lucky to see the age of 40.

   

When we first met, my husband gave me a tour of the old cemeteries in Foresthill.  The highlights of our trip included the grave of a woman who was buried in her beloved bathtub and a young man’s grave in an old family plot, the freshly dug soil scattered with local crystals. 

 

On a road trip to Nashville last fall, we toured the one-acre English garden of Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, where Andrew and Rachel Jackson are buried.  About a mile away, an old Civil War church and its cemetery was on the grounds of the Hermitage, and we had to stop and walk around the cemetery and look through the windows of the locked church. 

 

In nearby historic Franklin, we visited the Carnton Plantation and the two-acre McGavock Confederate Cemetery with headstones of nearly 1,500 Civil War soldiers.  With the wind blowing slightly through the cemetery’s towering trees, I almost expected to see Carrie McGavock, The Widow of the South, to be there.  Always dressed in black, she lovingly tended to the graves for most of her life.

Since volunteering for the award winning, Historic Rose Garden in Sacramento, I’ve come to appreciate its beauty.  In my travels, I’ve seen nothing like it. 

Last weekend in Sutter Creek, the sudden hailstorm brought a moody feel to the skies.  Down the street from the Grey Gables Inn, I discovered the Church of the Immaculate Conception while my husband and I walked to town for some highly recommended pizza.  Built in 1860, this Gold Country church and cemetery in Sutter Creek was charming enough, but it lacked the abundance of roses and perennials you’ll find at the Historic Rose Garden.  

Rain or shine, I had to take a walk through the Church of the Immaculate Conception and explore its cemetery before leaving town.  The church is still being used by the community, so I grabbed my camera and waited for the Sunday worshippers, the altar boy, and the priest to leave.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception sits on a hill, and I did find paths cut into piles of rocks for the purpose of drainage.  A local told us that Sutter Creek was built from the mine tailings, remnants of a time when miners searched for gold.  It was quite a contrast to see jagged rocks among smooth slabs of cement.

I like the idea of planting roses on gravesites, just as the Cornish and Welsh miners did during the California Gold Rush.  To me, they had the right idea.   A cemetery with a permanent landscaping of flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees reflects life as well as death.

      

I refuse to leave cut flowers in the flimsy holders provided by cemeteries.  That’s a temporary fix.  If I’m going to give flowers to anyone, it will be to someone who can look, touch and smell them. 

I don’t see myself changing.  Whenever I’m traveling, I’ll stop at a historic cemetery to admire the real estate.  As far as flowers go, I make it a rule to only give flowers to the living.  

The Grey Gables Bed and Breakfast Inn

“Spin Me a Story, Weave Me a Tale,” was the theme of this year’s 2011 CNCH (Conference of Northern California Handweavers) conference in historic Sutter Creek.  This was my first CNCH conference, and I’m looking forward to attending others from now on.  As a conference participant, I was lucky to attend Linda Ligon’s writing and publishing seminar on a scholarship. 

 Linda is the creator of Interweave, her own publishing empire.  Her magazines and books are considered the “Bibles” for knitting, spinning, weaving, basket weaving, jewelry, etc.  As a beginning spinner and weaver, I’ve already got quite a collection of Spin-Off and Handwoven.   As a so-so knitter, I’m sure I have many of her knitting magazines and books as part of my stash, too.

 I learned a lot from Linda, and I am in complete awe of my classmates.  I’ve come across so many creative and talented people since I’ve rejoined the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild.  I only hope that someday, I could pick up Linda’s magazines or books and do any of the projects pictured.

 My husband and I stayed at the Grey Gables Bed and Breakfast during the 2011 CNCH.  This is the first time we’ve stayed at a bed and breakfast, and we plan to return.  I didn’t think about taking pictures of our Bronte room.  The room was quiet and peaceful, so that’s probably why I didn’t want to use my camera and its flash.  Maybe next time.

 But I did fall in love with the landscaping.  Standing in the garden, I felt I had found a piece of paradise.   

He's Baaaaack!!!

Nine years ago, I bought one of the smallest homes in the neighborhood (960 square feet), but it wasn’t the charming 1970s ranch house that sold me.  It was the huge tree in the front yard.

Each fall, as I rake leaves, I tell myself I was crazy to buy a house with such a big tree.  I fill at least 15 large leaf bags during the fall, and need to wait weeks before the county takes all of them away.  In the spring, I have seedlings everywhere.

I wanted a rambling rose to grow into my tree.  From a fragile, 4-inch cutting, it didn’t take long for the Paul’s Himalayan musk rose to grow.  And what a beauty he turned out to be!

But I only see the roses for about four weeks a year, starting in mid-May.  This year, with the unexpected wind and rain, I don’t think the roses will last too long.  The rose is a once-bloomer, so I look forward to the annual performance. 

I will miss him when he’s gone, but I always look forward to his return.

In Praise of Meat Loaf

“The most pathetic thing in the world is watching a rock star age,” commented my college professor.  This was in the early 1980s, and he was talking about Mick Jagger and Keith Richard reinventing themselves for another worldwide tour.

But you have to admit that Jagger and Richard happen to be timeless.  In the 1970s, when I was attending junior high, I remember Mick Jagger’s “Sticky Fingers” as the most popular record album to be shoplifted from the local White Front.

These days, I watch recorded episodes of “Celebrity Apprentice” because of the old rocker named Meat Loaf.  So far, Meat Loaf has had a couple of meltdowns.  He’s shown us that he desperately needs anger management classes.  Which, he admitted taking.  And, he needs an attitude adjustment when it comes to making money for charity.  He doesn't believe in sharing.

Recently, my husband went on eBay and bought me a remastered CD of Meat  Loaf’s 1977, “Bat Out of Hell” album.  I hate to admit it, but one of the tracks, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” is a favorite of mine.  When I had the record, I played that song over and over until track turned white from use.

“I want you, I need you, but there ain’t no way, I’m ever gonna love you,” croons the chubby Meat Loaf, who was photographed in a tux and a mullet hairstyle.  “But don’t be sad.  Two out of three ain’t bad.”

There is nothing like getting your heart broken and finally getting back on track by listening to Meat Loaf sing that song some ten million times.  For me, maybe more.

Now, I watch the “Celebrity Apprentice” because I don’t want to watch the attractive Kardashians, who happen to be successful businesswomen under the hair, make-up, clothes, and catfights.  In reality, I don’t understand all these celebrities kissing up to Donald Trump for a mere $20,000 per “Celebrity Apprentice” competition. 

Shouldn’t they ask for more?  I would.  Think about the old saying by supermodel Linda Evangelista.   She admits not getting out of bed for less than 10 grand, so why should these celebrities only settle for $20—possibly $40 thousand when competing for their charities?  If each of them pawned their jewelry during each episode, I’m sure they’d be making much more than what Trump and visiting CEOs give them.

So much for the "reality" in reality shows.

Sure, Meat Loaf looks older.  He has a wife and kids.  He is still chubby, but now, he has gray hair and a conservative haircut.  He wears glasses, but ditches them when he isn’t reading.

I’m warning you.  No matter how much hair dye, plastic surgery, and Botox you use, nature will take over, and you will show your age.  Or, you will always be spending a wad of cash trying to look like that cute 20-30-40-something you used to be.

I give up.  As far as I’m concerned, I earned my gray hair, batwings, cellulite, and stretch marks.  And as long as I can get my senior citizen’s discount on my good looks, I’m happy.