(no subject)

[the_rck]

I wrote three or four hundred words yesterday, and I'm not entirely sure what happens next. It really depends on how much I want to emphasize that a couple of characters are not at all nice people. I have an idea for that, but I'm not sure I want to use it. It might be a distraction. Parts of this story are already darker than I expected.

I would like to write more today, but I need to link find for metanews, and I'm not sure how long that will take. We're having severe issues with being under-staffed and not being able to cover everything. I would really rather not take on more link finding responsibility because what I do now, half the Feedly blog list and all of Pinboard, already takes two to four hours a week. This is my week to post the entry, but I won't do that until later in the week (we aim for Wednesdays, but more often than not, we've ended up posting on Fridays), and it doesn't take more than about forty five minutes.

Scott had a rough day at work yesterday. He was completely exhausted, and he never got his second break (I don't know about first break or lunch). Tuesdays are usually unpleasant, too, because he pulls carts all day, so I expect him to be worn out tonight, too.

I need to bake sweet potatoes tonight. We've had them for about three weeks, and I keep forgetting them until it's too late in the evening. They need about an hour in the oven, so remembering them at 6:30 means not cooking them that day. We've got regular potatoes that I could roast, too, but I think I should do the sweet potatoes first as we've had them longer.

Cordelia wants us to buy her some 'spirit wear' for her school. I don't object, in principle, but it's going to be annoying to deal with because the PTO hasn't given clear instructions for how to do it. I've got until the 13th to figure it out. I'll probably order her a t-shirt. She's more likely to wear that than she is to wear a sweatshirt.

They did have buses to take the kids home from school yesterday. According to what I've heard, the problem in the morning was that too many bus drivers called in sick. They apparently have different drivers in the afternoon and so were able to get the kids home. We were going to have Cordelia's friend and her brother over if the buses hadn't been running. The school district has not renewed the contract with the agency that has been doing the buses.

Comments

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

I really only half understand what link-finding is, so I could be way off base here. But generally I've found that crappy volunteer jobs like that can eat up your life and not give anything back, and if few people are willing to do it it may be a sign that it's a service that has outlived its usefulness and you can safely walk away from it and get several hours a week of your life back. But, like I said, I am speaking with only half-baked information here, so maybe I am way off base.

You can chop sweet potatoes into chunks, boil for about 13 minutes, and drain. Or cut them into french fry shapes and bake for a shorter time than the full hour. I'm not sure if either of these things would work for your family, but if they do, maybe it would create some more options. Also, in my fridge sweet potatoes for some reason go bad really quickly -- they would never last the three weeks that yours have.

My oldest says that the bus drivers called in sick in order to protest their low wages. I'm not sure what his source is, but I talked to a bus driver who seemed to corroborate that. The bus driver seemed to think that the ones who didn't come in to work were not likely to be hired by next year's school bus company, which can check attendance records and choose not to hire the drivers who didn't come to work yesterday morning. This is twelfth-hand information, so it is probably all garbled and incorrect, but still I thought it was interesting.

[the_rck]

We keep our sweet potatoes out on the counter. I wonder if that has something to do with it?

I'm reluctant to chop up the sweet potatoes because I'm not sure I'm strong enough to do it safely. I might be, but I've never tried it. (I'm definitely not strong enough to chop up most squash, so we keep buying those and having them sit and sit until I remember to have Scott cut them for cooking.)

I think Metanews is still useful. There are a lot of people reading it every week, at least, and nobody else is doing this sort of thing.