Applying Ourselves

FEB. 14: Today's Valentine's Day. I always look forward to seeing NASA's spin on the topic. 

This website lets you electronically send a space-y Valentine greeting to someone you admire: https://mars.nasa.gov/free-holiday-ecard/love-valentine/

I've included a few of my favorites below ...

HELP WANTED: A few days back, we were driving past a McDonald's close to our house and CJ wondered aloud, "Do you think they're hiring?"

"Yes. Always," I responded. That was quickly followed up by asking, "Are you thinking about getting a job?"

CJ answered in the affirmative. At that, I told him most any job is a good job, and that McDonald's can be a good first job ... but I also suggested he consider other options, and opportunities that he might be more enthused about, like working at a pet store, for instance. (A quick Google search for PetCo and employment shows they're hiring now, with immediate start dates.)

Shortly after CJ mentioned getting a job, I noticed a post on the Facebook page of the Burien location of King County Library System. The job is for a part-time, entry-level library page position. I showed the notice to CJ and encouraged him to apply. And so he did.

Naturally, it was no easy task. The application process involved updating his resume, writing a cover letter, answering supplementary questions, taking a typing test, filling out pages and pages of online forms with work history, references, certifications and more. Several hours later, he was finally able to hit "submit." 

I was able to help him through the process. Once upon a time I was, after all, a professional employment specialist who helped people write resumes and cover letters and fill out applications all the live long day.

Now that he has his resume up-to-date and a cover letter template he can use, CJ could apply for any number of jobs. But I think he's going to wait until he's done with spring quarter. The reason he applied for the library page job is because it's a plum position and rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor regarding working in a library.

He asked me if he'd hear if he's not selected. I told him not hearing anything is usually how one finds that out. ;) He also asked a few questions about job interviews. So, those skills are something we'll be practicing in the car as we drive to and fro in the coming weeks.

Speaking of applications, I actually filed one for my own self. I recently saw a post about King County Elections needing (very) temporary help with the upcoming election. Given the fact that I would like to learn more about how that process works and that King County Election headquarters is at the foot of our hill, I went ahead and applied. If hired, it could be as little as a day's worth of work, believe it or not.

I can't help but think, "What a lot of work for the county go to through for such temporary help. I wonder how much that costs taxpayers. ... " Of course the flipside of that is that elections are extremely important and need to be handled and funded properly.

Loose Ends

FINISHED: The birthday girl loves space. And Godzilla. If that doesn't scream, "Bake me a cake!" what does? :)

An astronaut Godzilla cake was Annabelle and CJ's latest Birthday Dreams donation. The work-in-progress lived on our dining room table for about five days.

Annabelle made modeling chocolate, sculpted a Godzilla skeleton, and covered that in a homemade marshmallow fondant spacesuit. We also made dozens of gelatin bubbles for potential helmets, but weren't 100 percent thrilled with any of them, so in the end opted for a plastic orb. Other than that, Godzilla's all edible, as is the UFO he's hitching a ride on.

What's under all the fun? CJ whipped up the four-layer chocolate brownie cake with mini chocolate chip filling. Annabelle airbrushed vanilla buttercream over it all to give it a galactic look, and arranged stars in a "12," the birthday girl's age (her name was on the gumpaste sign, in a Godzilla font).

This was a fun one, and we learned a lot. We hope the birthday girl liked it!

FRAMED: Right after dropping off the cake at Birthday Dreams headquarters yesterday, Annabelle and I stopped at a Dollar Tree store nearby. We were looking for some camouflage or other Army-like costume or material that CJ needs for his upcoming Museum of Flight display.

We perused the oddly hybrid craft/toy aisle, and at one point my eyes landed on this. ...

I was gobsmacked. "That's a photo of you!" I said to Annabelle, pointing at the frame. Oddly enough, the picture is more than 10 years old. CJ is missing a front tooth, and Annabelle still has all of her baby teeth. I remember taking the photo. I shot it through a sliding glass patio door during an anniversary party for my aunt Sally and uncle Mickey in Vancouver, WA. I was surprised the photo turned out at all, given the kids were standing in a light rain and it was shot through the double glass.

Seeing that photo there and then was kind of a surreal experience. So unexpected. Never in a million years did I expect to walk into a dollar store and find a photo of my kids hanging on the rack. I suspect the photo is from Morguefile, a site where I used to park photos for people to use (with conditions). I haven't contributed there in years, and I'm guessing they changed their user policies. 

I told the kids that they can add "stock photo picture frame person" to their resume. 

QUARTERED: Monday night, after we dropped CJ off at his Japanese class, I happened to glance up at the school's reader board as we left the parking lot. "REGISTER NOW FOR SPRING QUARTER" it read.

"What?!" I likely screeched.

I had no idea that registration was underway.

I do recall CJ calling down the hallway to me about a week ago about a Running Start (high school for college credit) pizza party. CJ's been in Running Start since fall and went to a pizza party months ago. During that, he received registration information, but I guess what stuck with him was the pizza was less than stellar, so he didn't want to go to this round's pizza party. What didn't stick with him was that it was also about registration. 

Keep in mind, since he's a college student, all of the communication from the college goes straight and only to him, so we're out of the loop.

Anyway, once we found out it was registration time, I wrote to our local school district, whom we have to have sign for his tuition $$ to be released to the college. Mercifully, I was able to get an appointment the next morning to get that paperwork, then we were off to South Seattle for CJ to sign up for spring quarter classes. We met with a counselor, filled our forms out, and got them approved and headed down to the registrar and cashier.

In the end, we went from not knowing he was supposed to register to getting him registered in about 18 hours. Not bad - but also not a situation I expect to happen again, as I told CJ.

Gelatinous

GO GO GODZILLA: Regular readers know that we closed out last week's blog by talking about making balloons out of gelatin. 

Guess what? We're still at it. 

What we were ultimately trying to accomplish, here, was making a clear globular helmet for an astronaut Godzilla. Our first batch was an abysmal failure - the orbs were too cloudy. So we made a second batch ... which we also weren't thrilled with. They were still too cloudy in our opinions.

So, it was on to version 3.0. We bloomed more platinum gelatin sheets ...

 We squeezed out the excess water and then slowly liquefied them over low heat. 

We carefully dipped balloons - just two coats this time, hoping thinner would be clearer. We also were super stingy with the oil applied to the balloon, wondering if perhaps that was part of the clouding issue. 

After the dipping and dripping, the wait was on again. ... 

Once they dried, we popped the balloons. They were definitely clearer than versions 1 and 2, but they were not crystal clear. 

There was one that was mostly OK, and we were going to go with that if need be, but I couldn't help but think about other ways to dome Godzilla's head.

I was returning some cake making supplies to a storage room when I spied an over-sized clear ornament that Annabelle received a present in this past Christmas. We'd saved it thinking it might be handy in a future craft project. I held it and thought, "Wow, if this were smaller, it would have made a perfect helmet!"

And then, I remembered that, in another storage closet, we had a container of smaller, clear plastic ornaments. Ding! Ding! Ding! 

Annabelle cut the stem and part of the top off with an Exacto knife. The hole was still too small, so Christian took it down to the garage and used his welding torch to warm up a knife, which he then used to shave the opening into a larger hole. 

Annabelle and I talked about which helmet to use. We decided that if it were for a cake competition, where everything had to be edible, our best clear gelatin one would have sufficed. However, this cake is about pleasing the birthday girl, and we thought she'd definitely be most pleased by being able to see Godzilla's head clearly. So plastic it is. 

Does it feel like we wasted a bunch of time and effort making gelatin balloons? Not really. They keep well (or so they say online), so we can store them for potential future use. Also, one of the things we like about these projects is that we learn new things every single time. And that's worthwhile!

A few more random Godzilla-in-the-making action shots.

BLISSFUL: Friday night, the kids attended opening night of the musical "Bliss" at The 5th Avenue Theatre. It was part of the Fridays at the 5th series for teens, which CJ and Annabelle both enjoy immensely. 

I'll have Annabelle tell you a bit about the show. ...

"Bliss" is a new musical production at the 5th Avenue Theatre in downtown Seattle. It’s a high-fantasy fairy tale styled musical that features 4 princesses, each with a different set of interests (astronomy, the outdoors, singing, and dragon slaying). They have been locked in a tower ever since their mom died years ago, and desperately want to escape so they can follow their dreams. The main themes in the play center around individuality and being yourself, and how sometimes perfect fairy tale princesses aren’t the ideal.

Without spoiling the plot, I’d say that while the show could use a bit of streamlining, it was easy for me to understand, and I found most of it quite entertaining and funny. The jokes in the show are well-timed and there aren’t so many that it over saturates the serious moments.

The show is running until February 23rd, so space is limited if you want to go and see it before time is up. If you are a fan of musicals, fantasy, and plenty of humorous inclusions, it might be worth going to see. However, it is still in development, and this shows at some times; certain scenes last just a bit too long or jokes fall flat. If you don’t mind a performance that’s still being worked on, I’d recommend it!

Interestingly, the kids weren't supposed to be at opening night, The play was supposed to premiere days before, however technical difficulties kept pushing the opening night back. 

Here's a video from The 5th about the show.


PUN FUN: We hit a couple of thrift stores on Saturday. While thrifting, we're always looking for new-to-us games. One of the ones we picked up this weekend was "Punderdome."

It's apparently based on a game a father and daughter used to host in a bar. For the home version, you draw two cards, and try to come up with a sentence or phrased based on the two that includes a pun. You have 90 seconds to do so. 

So, for instance, in one round the two cards read "Being a Hero" and "Celebrities." For that, I came up with "Bieber was Justin time to save the drowning Kardashian." (I thought it funny that CJ and I both used Kardashian in our answer.) 

I think I enjoyed the game more than the other three I played with. For me, it felt like I either came up with something immediately or not at all. I think we'll probably play this game again a time or two and then regift it.

FOOD JUSTICE FOR ALL: I recently saw a Seattle Parks & Recreation post on social media about a class for teens called "Ready Set Cook." It's a cooking class, but it's also about food justice (issues like access to affordable, nutritious food, for example).

I thought it would be cool for CJ and Annabelle to be involved, so I signed them up. They'll be attending on four Saturday nights in March. Today, I spied an article in The Seattle Times about the class. Check out this link if you'd like to learn more about it. ...
https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/seattle-teenagers-get-a-crash-course-in-new-chopping-skills-food-justice-issues-at-community-cooking-classes/