Painting

If you can believe it, I got a second painting job this week! As with all painting jobs, it came about in an avante-garde fashion. You see, I had applied for a job to perform data mining (At one time I had the entire Periodical Table of the Elements memorized and I never remember an element called 'data,' so I'm not sure how its mined, which may have led to my employment declination); and during the interview I was asked what I had been up to thus far into the Summer. I said I had been working as a Man-slave slash Nanny. I explained that I had travelled Europe, and upon returning home I was pulling weeds, performing household cleaning chores for other people- such as painting, feeding the horses, folding laundry and vaccuuming up cobwebs- and baby/plant/dog sitting. The interviewer was impressed with my work ethic and my high school diploma. She was less impressed with my college diploma in 'Data Mining,' but I expected that since I had just made it an hour earlier- with crayons. They were all I could find lying around the house, and I figured a college degree made with crayons was better than no college degree at all! Apparently I was mistaken. Anyway, my disqualifications were not venial enough, and I got turned down from the job. However, three days after my interview (and before I had been informed I did not get the job) the lady called me and asked if I was interested in painting two rooms in her house!? One of my goals this Summer is to never say no to a job, so I accepted- with my Data Mining job in limbo. What was I supposed to tell her, "I can only paint your room if I am not working at the other job you interviewed me for?" Between when she called me and when I painted her house, she shot me.
An email telling me I didn't get the data mining job. Bummer, but hey, at least I got other employment And plus she paid me way more (per hour) for the painting than I would have received with a pick axe and a shovel... The last peculiar thing about the whole job was when I requested a radio while I painted, and she said to me, "Last Christmas XXX corp. gave all the employees these really nice radios. You know it's great working at XXX!" I didn't know if that was made to infuriate me or rub it in my face that my crayon diploma wasn't colored in nicely, but regardless I thought it was a pretty funny comment. I hold no hard feelings, I don't believe she meant any harm in her comment, and her tip at the end of the day made the whole thing worth it. Oh yea, my painting skills improved this time around. My learning curve was great, and therefore I learned great.

Patriotism at Its Very Best

When you don't have a 'real' job, you get some tremendous opportunities to apprentice at eclectic occupations, usually using your hands. This week I performed a melange of activities for various people while learning things and interacting with prominent people. On Tuesday I painted in the morning, pulled weeds vehemently in the afternoon, and babysat in the evening, all before playing in my weekly basketball league.
What I learned through painting was that I am the world's worst painter. I don't mean I'm bad at artwork; I am referring to using a roller to slather liquid color on flat wall, that maybe a three year old elephant could do with reasonable success. I can hardly do it, and after I do it it looks more like a zebra jigsaw puzzle than a colored wall. There were spots of paint on the trim, the door, and on the wood floor caused by droplets on the underside of my drip canvas that smeared when I pulled the cloth, and went unnoticed until the completion of the room. On day two my paintbrush was not dry from the previous afternoon, so with every stroke watery paint dripped down my unsuspecting arm and into my shirt, finally collecting in my navel, like a little paint can. My painting safari was bookended nicely; it began when I opened the wrong paint can and painted a long corner using the trim paint, before I stepped back and thought to myself "Strange color for a room;" and it ended when I fell over against the wet wall, instantly turning my PJs into paint clothes and simultaneously gelling and dying my hair, after going two days without any paint on me (except my bellybutton). If you'd like me to paint your house, I would be happy to do it, but don't expect any more quality work than if an amoeba did it with its flagella stuck to its side.
Weeding went a little less stressful for me. I was hired to weed for none other than Mitt Romney, and he came out to have a little swim while I was enjoying his lushious garden and trying to decide if a particular growth was a weed, or his grandson dressed as a weed. When in doubt, pull it out- right? We chatted about, well, weeds. What else do you discuss with your former governor when you are in his garden with a giant fir tree in your hand that you mistook for a venomous vine? I put in seven hours of deracinating over two days, and made a pretty significant impact on the flowerbox over that lengthy time period. I got to know my mp3 player very well, and performed the calculation $12 * 7 hours in every possible decomposition that can be conceived in an arboretum.
That evening I babysat, although there was no squatting on infants by me. I cooked buttered pasta, cleaned up a buttered pasta and milk mixture off the ground, changed two diapers, and put three kids to bed. I was tempted to paint the kids' room, but all I could find was lead paint and everyone knows that stuff is u-g-l-y. There was no apprentice at this particular job, but I did learn that kids should be mostly potty trained at 6 years, and that two year olds like buttery, milky mixtures. All of my Summer jobs have been remarkable chances at growth, and I have been making the absolute most of them. With life, you just need to enjoy what you got, because you won't got it for long.

A Man in a Woman's Club

My class went on a fieldtrip today, to the Belmont Women's Club. I was just grateful they let me in, frankly. Virtually the only think I have in common with the organization is the Belmont part... We walked through the pouring rain with not-a-few umbrellas and chaperoning parents. We were a good sight, causing heads to turn like those disjointed owls that you see on the discovery channel; you know the ones. Once we got to the Homer House, as it is called (Winslow Homer's uncle owned the house and Homer was known to paint there in the summers), we were greeted by a Victorian-clad octogenarian who gave us a speech about the living room. The staccatoed apex of the presentation came when the lady in charge asked me, in front of forty two students, two teachers and ten parents, "Which one is your child?" I would have been absolutely delighted to answer with a bit of humor ("I have the twins there in the front row"), but my teacher came to the rescue commenting that I was her teaching assistant. I was just thrilled that she thought I was senior enough to have an eight year old child! We got a tour of the whole house which was historic and fairly typical for homes of that era, and then got some ice cream and strawberries to commemorate the annual Strawberry Festival. The "Festival" has become more filiopietistic than practical since all the strawberry plants in the area have mostly been destroyed. The rain didn't drench out spirits, and the fieldtrip was a smashing success; I would rate the day with an A.

Comfy, Cozy Day and My Comfy, Cozy Job

Today was comfy, cozy day at work and indeed it was comfy and quite cozy. While I didn't wear my jammies, I did wear jeans and a Red Sox shirt. I just didn't think it would be appropriate to come to work on my sixth day wearing my birthday suit. No, I'm just kidding, I have very respectable pajamas. On comfy, cozy day the students are allowed to wear their PJs all day, bring in stuffed animals, and we only do a limited amount of work. Instead of science, for example, we did crafts and had some free time. Some of the kids made stethoscopes to treat their patients with broken legs... I love my job. I don't think the kids are used to having an adult male in the class and some things about me just baffle them, soliciting some curious questions (but wait, aren't all questions curious, you might ask?), such as "Mr. Bennett, how tall are you?" and "Mr. Bennett, are you growing a beard?" I have oodles of fun with them.

David Has a Job (Nope, Not as a Professional Blogger... Yet)!

Yes family and friends, save that breath; I know what you want to ask and I have the answer: I have a full time job! I applied to be a substitute teacher in the Belmont School District and what I got was a full time position for the rest of the year as an aide in a second grade classroom. They were looking for a replacement, I was looking for a job, karma stepped in (Mom showed her the way) and the next thing I knew I was meeting with the principal to be offered the job! I am pretty stoked about it. The hours are good, the pay is good, the kids are lovable and the timing was supreme. I get done by 2:35 each day so I still have time to take a nap, do yardwork, eat ice cream, work out or all of the above, all before supper (I'm in Boston now, so dinner become supp-ah). I will be at my job for the rest of the school year, at least until I leave for Costa Rica. Let me just say that second grade is more fun than a barrel of monkeys! We are learning about worms (Some worms can grow up to the length of a car! Wow!) in science, fractions in math, and short vowels in English. Do you know what a short vowel is? Plus there's recess, lunch, gym, music and a comfy, cozy day next Wednesday! And I haven't even been to school on a Monday or Tuesday yet! We've had a cat and a turtle during News Time, but no gimcracks. This summer is really shaping up nicely. Stay tuned to learn more about my duties.