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)

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.

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.

Insomnia is the new 401(k). Middle of the night Twittering will be our downfall. Kara Thrace is the harbinger of doom.

Another sleepless night and a early morning mental debate of “whether to put the coffee on” or lie here for another three or four hours. On my Twitter feed, @Mr_Darling (another recent insomniac) tells the world he’s headed to his local Safeway. It is 6:08am. Since I was going to go to the store sometime today anyway, I decide to do the same. I get dressed and head out, whether the morning rush is already in swing but the sun hasn’t crested the cloud-laden horizon yet. I take my sunglasses just in case I will want them on the walk back.

Of course, the Safeway is devoid of customers. I think there were only a handful of us in there; most of the cars in the parking lot were undoubtedly employee-owned. Restocking of shelves and buffing of floors, however, is in full swing.

I grab my usual basketful of groceries and head home, passing people who are headed the opposite direction towards the Metro on their way to work. I get home around the same time that, three months ago, I would have been catching the bus outside and undoubtedly already complaining about my commute.

But now I have milk for my morning coffee, and after breffus I’m going to start making sauce. Crushing garlic and chopping onions before 8:00am, why not?

Purchase: $33.54
EBT Card Balance: $156.21
Club Card Savings: $11.00 (25% of purchase)

It’s now been three months since I was laid off from my job. In these last 90 days I’ve dealt with city and state bureaucracy, shame at the grocery store and extensive amounts of utter boredom. I’ve taken walks halfway across town, sometimes to accomplish errands but sometimes because there was nothing better to do. I’ve seen the sun come up on Wednesday mornings, and not because I’m getting up while it’s still dark, as I did when I was employed. I’ve often stared out of my front door during wet, cold weather, watching traffic and the occasional D6 fly by. I’ve walked to the Metro and back during evening rush hours just to get a sense of what everybody else’s world is still like. I’ve gone to the corner store, without showering for a day or two, at 11:00 in the morning, wondering if they’re wondering why I’m there at that hour.

I know what this experience is like now, becoming accustomed to an unwanted routine. I wonder what the next 90 days are going to hold for me, as I see unemployment benefits terminating, and what happens next? At what point do I start putting furniture and other material goods up for sale on craigslist? At what point do I stand out front during the morning car commute avenue and hold a cardboard sign saying “will blog for food” or “websites while you wait for the red light, $14.95″? At what point do I give everything up and stay with each friend for a night or two and how long can that be sustained? At what point do I (shudder the thought) move in with my Dad? At what point do I abandon everything, seeing how far I can work my way across the country, doing menial jobs without being tracked by a credit card?

Currently, I still have not received this month’s food stamp ration, and while I’m not starving, I’m still hesitant to spend any cash on groceries, hoping everything will be rectified and my deposit that was supposed to he made eleven days ago will go through. I think if it does, I’m going to have a meal that forgoes my usual “buy only what’s on sale and make a meal out of it” mantra and buy some scallops or a porterhouse steak.

Because of some vacation days I had previously scheduled, the last day I was actually employed and in the studio was my birthday. That day we had planned to visit a homeless shelter and cook food for the residents there. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was in charge of frying up the grilled cheese sandwiches; we had decided a hot meal was in order, so we supplied tomato soup and a vegetable soup too. It was a total group effort from the six or seven of us that participated that day. It felt so great serving the residents and they seemed genuinely appreciative.

Now, I wonder if I’m closer to the receiving end of this process than I am to the giving end. Working in a creative field in a non-creative town, it’s hard to see any kind of upswing anytime soon. People I know who work in other fields are still going like gangbusters—DC is weird that way, often recessions/housing markets don’t hit us quite so hard because the government is still going to employ people, and those people need places to live. So those markets never dry up. Providing smart, unique messaging systems for them and the businesses that rely on them, however, is something that is frequently (and often, stupidly) cut from budgets.

So where does this halfway point leave me? Maybe thinking it’s time to stop looking for a comparable job to my experience and take a position that earns half the salary I’m used to making? Doing someone’s crappy temp work on Powerpoint? Waiting tables? Being one of those rubber-gloved guys cleaning out Metro trash cans during rush hour? Coffeeshop barista? Or maybe it’s *really* time to become the joke job of my 2nd year architecture professor: court reporter. Certainly I’ve seen enough late-night commercials where I can earn that degree in 6-8 weeks.

Spotted on JMG.

I guess the honeymoon is over with all my unemployment crap being processed efficiently. My monthly food stamp ration was supposed to be deposited on the fourth but hasn’t gone in yet. This means I’m using the remaining balance from last month, down to $36.30.

I’ve been calling DHS (Dept of Human Services, not HomeSec) and if your call is answered, its directed to a machine where you are forced to leave a desperate message that will be returned “within 24 hours”. I’ve been leaving these daily messages since last Friday. I hope I don’t have to go down there just to get this resolved.

At the store today I really needed to keep track of my budget instead of simply filling up my basket and then checking out. I didn’t need much, I still have lots of goods in the pantry & freezer, but wanted to get some items to supplement what I have already. Prepping/cooking for these weekend: garden salad, broccoli salad, hamburgers and a pot of sauce. These are for separate meals, of course.

Purchase: $22.55
EBT Card Balance: $13.75
Club Card Savings: $8.46 (27% of purchase)

WASHINGTON (AP)—The nation’s unemployment rate bolted to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs amid a deepening recession.

Both figures were worse than analysts expected and the Labor Department’s report shows America’s workers being clobbered by a wave of layoffs unlikely to ease in the coming months.

“There is no light at the end of the tunnel with these numbers,” said Nigel Gault, economist at IHS Global Insight. “Job losses were everywhere and there’s no hope for a turnaround any time soon.”

February’s net job loss came after even deeper payroll reductions in the prior two months, according to revised figures released Friday. The economy lost 681,000 jobs in December and another 655,000 in January.

Employers are shrinking their work forces and turning to other ways to slash costs—including trimming workers’ hours, freezing wages or cutting pay—because the recession has eaten into their sales and profits. Customers at home and abroad are cutting back as other countries cope with their own economic problems.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 4.4 million jobs, more than half of which occurred in the past four months.

With employers showing no appetite to hire, the unemployment jumped half a percentage point from 7.6 percent in January. That was the highest since December 1983, when the jobless rate was 8.3 percent.

All told, the number of unemployed people climbed to 12.5 million. In addition, the number of people forced to work part time for “economic reasons” rose by a sharp 787,000 to 8.6 million. That’s people who would like to work full time but whose hours were cut back or were unable to find full-time work.

If part-time, discouraged workers and others are factored in, the unemployment rate would have been 14.8 percent in February, the highest on record.

The pain hit blue- and white-collar workers, those without a high-school diploma and those highly educated. The jobless rate for people with a bachelor’s degree or higher jumped to 4.1 percent last month from 3.8 percent in January. That’s the highest on records dating to 1992.

Job losses were widespread last month. Disappearing jobs and evaporating wealth from tanking home values, 401(k)s and other investments have forced consumers to retrench, driving companies to lay off workers. It’s a vicious cycle in which all the economy’s negative problems feed on each other, worsening the downward spiral.

A new wave of layoffs hit this week. The country is getting bloodied by fallout from the housing, credit and financial crises- the worst since the 1930s. And there’s no easy fix for a quick turnaround, economists said.

President Barack Obama is counting on a multipronged assault to lift the country out of recession: a $787 billion stimulus package of increased federal spending and tax cuts; a revamped, multibillion-dollar bailout program for the nation’s troubled banks; and a $75 billion effort to stem home foreclosures.

Even in the best-case scenario that the relief efforts work and the recession ends later in 2009, the unemployment rate is expected to keep climbing, hitting 9 percent or higher this year. In fact, the Federal Reserve thinks the unemployment rate will stay elevated into 2011. Economists say the job market may not get back to normal—meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate—until 2013.

Businesses won’t be inclined to ramp up hiring until they are sure any economic recovery has staying power. The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent in the final three months of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, and it will probably continue to shrink during the first six months of this year.