Remember the scallops? Yeah. After thirteen years living 50 miles away from the Chesapeake Bay, I still don’t know the season. Months with a “Y”? Those are supposed to be good for crabs. And they had a lot of crabs even a lump crabmeat that I was tempted to get, but no scallops. Maybe it’s a warmer, summer thing. Instead, I bulked up on skromps (2 lbs, on sale).

Purchase: $44.96 <–my highest yet!
EBT Card Balance: $68.53
Club Card Savings: $12.00 (21% of purchase)

From fuzzyco. His Twitter feed is here.

As everybody drool$ over how to make money from Twitter, I share with you my first tweet posted two years ago today. It’s banal, of course. This is currently on page 160 of my feed. I have posted exactly 3200 tweets.

Earlier this morning I set out at 8:30 to check out the newly- (and finally-) finished visitor’s center at the Capitol and to see the Lincoln exhibit at the newly-reopened National Museum of American History. I guess it was one of those DC/History kind of days. 

Walking down to Lincoln Park I got in touch with my friend Eddy C, also recently unemployed, to see if he’d like to accompany me and hang out for the day. He said he’d love to so I walked over to his house and we were on our way. But not before a stop at Jacob’s, a local coffee shop for caffeine—I’d already had almost an entire pot of coffee, being up since 3:00am—and a little breakfast to get us on our way.

The $600 million+ Capitol Visitor’s Center is atrocious. And that’s only from the outside. There’s nothing to see from the outside since it’s all buried underground in an effort to not allow citizens any proximity to the actual Capitol itself. Fears of truck bombs, concealed gun anthrax and the like have far removed the actual building itself from the physical grasp of the taxpayer. What you can see at ground level is a huge, unshaded concrete plaza (wouldn’t want to be there in August) and massive ramps and stairs that lead you underground to the entrance. Removed from the Capitol grounds are the 150-year-old oak trees that once provided shading. Here are before & after pictures.

The entry line was way too long, full of turrists, so we opted out. Maybe next time. Maybe not.

Eddy wanted to visit the Botanical Gardens so that was our next stop. I’d been there a couple of times but not within the last few years. As usual, it’s beautiful and fragrant inside and the colors were amazing. A majority of the orchid collection (a BG must-see) had been moved into the Garden Court and of course daffodils were tucked into just about every nook and cranny. The tropical rainforest was a little too humid for our heavy coats but it’s still fun to explore.

Next we visited the Hirschhorn to see what their new exhibits were. While not a big fan of literal sculpture (which the Hirschhorn has a lot of—I prefer mine more abstract) I was more impressed by the two video exhibits they had, one a frenetic light show on 70 monitors and another a 30-minute film which we watched. The film demonstrated a progression of liquids, gases and solids as they interacted with cause & effect, moving the action further down, and sometimes up, the line. Very fun.

Then it was lunchtime. I had two coupons for free salads or sandwiches at Potbelly so all we had to pay for was our drinks and a pickle. It was getting to be almost Ellen & Oprah time so we hopped the D6 back over to CHill to watch. We also decided it was time for an unemployment cocktail so we had a little gin+gin[ger] while we watched our afternoon talk shows. Such a civilized day!

I am launching a consulting business and need someone to design a logo for me to use on my website, business cards, legal documents, etc. Logo should be formal, professional, and nothing fancy. Shouldn’t take you more than an hour tops. 

Budget is $50. 

———

Could this job posting be any more condescending or insulting? I hope their business fails.

And now, a post that does not involve food or food stamps.

Pet Shop Boys new album, Yes, dropped across the pond yesterday. Today the lead-off single, Love etc, was released on our shores today, and I assume the album will drop next Tuesday. So far the European press has been pretty favorable.

PSB continue their naming their albums with one-word titles and also their same minimalist design aesthetic. I’m assuming that it’s long-time collaborator designer Mark Farrow creating the design. The album artwork consists of an approval checkmark consisting of differently colored squares. The geometry is four to the left, eight to the right. Add some small, heavyweight type and that’s it. Clean.

The artwork for Love etc. keeps the same geometry theme going, arranging the love-colored squares into small x’s. Three in a row resemble an ellipse, to suggest a continuation or etcetera. Clever. The chorus also has a lot of “Don’t have to” repetitious lines in it so the x’s make even more sense. Plus it plays nicely as the opposite to the album cover. Here’s the video and the entire album can be streamed here:

I’m making another early morning trip to the Safeway, because I haven’t slept all night and there’s basically nothing else to do. Plus I was getting dangerous close to my 100-Hour rule so it’s time to get out and do something.

Since my monthly food stamps were deposited two weeks late… let me back up and tell this story.

My $186.00 deposit onto my EBT card is scheduled to go in on the fourth of each month, until 12/09 should I need the resources that long <shudder>. At least they told me it should be the fourth. In February it was deposited on the first and after March’s deposit had not been made by the tenth or so, I started making phone calls to Dept of Human Services. Most of the time I would get a recording saying my call would be returned in 24 hours, sometimes it would just ring and ring. I started calling every number I could find on my claim forms and also the ones on the recordings which would refer me to other people. I was starting to get a little desperate, since my calls were not being returned and I was thinking I would have to go down there and sit in the waiting room all morning just to get this resolved.

One of my messages was finally returned one morning, in a call that wakes me up. I recognize the number and lucky there is enough signal strength for the call to actually be connected. (Most times without my bluetooth calls are only one-sided.) It went something like this:

Me: Hello?
DHS: This is Ms ______ you called and left a message?
Me: Yes, my EBT deposit has not gone through this month.
DHS: What’s your social?
Me: xxx-xx-xxxx.
DHS: Just a moment… ok, check it tomorrow.
Me: Ok.

This entire conversation took about 45 seconds, like she just had to click on a button on a webpage or something. Afterwards I realized I should have asked what the problem was, but in my groggy state I didn’t think of it. But sure enough, the full amount was deposited the next day. So now I have a lot of $ to spend. So I think I’m going to splurge, get some things that aren’t on sale but whatever strikes my fancy. Maybe some scallops? Maybe the $8.99 deli ham instead of the $5.99? We’ll see.

———

I’m back from the store now, and just so you’ll know the seafoodguy and deliman do not come in until 9:00. Oh well. I picked up other stuff and I’ll go back for the scallops later in the week. So I picked up some sale items instead. Interesting post, huh?

Purchase: $38.53
EBT Card Balance: $117.68
Club Card Savings: $14.40 (27% of purchase)

WASHINGTON (AP)—The D.C. mayor’s office says the city is planning to eliminate more than 1,600 jobs to balance next year’s budget.

Officials say 776 jobs will be cut through layoffs. Another 398 jobs will be cut through attrition, and 458 vacant jobs will eliminated, about 7.5 percent of the city’s 32,800-person workforce.

It’s the first time in more than a decade that the city’s budget will shrink. That’s because of a shortfall in revenue due to the nation’s slumping economy.

The D.C. Council can make changes to the budget before it is sent to Congress for final approval.

Sometimes we I forget how twice as tall they really were.