Labor Day. Hmph. Building Dedication. Yay.

It is Labor Day in the US. This holiday honors workers. Well, some of them. It honors workers with traditional jobs that have paid holidays, benefits, and such. These lucky folks get a paid day off work every September to rest, shop and hang out with their families.

However, in the US, more and more companies are outsourcing the kind of work I do. That is how Lee lost the job he had when we met. Those of us doing instructional design, tech writing or editing who were laid off from that particular company (and there were more just a week or two ago) are now wandering around Austin looking for work. Most of us need to settle for contract work. ALE only lets you work 9 months at a time, then you must take three months off. Other places have shorter or longer terms. But you never get to relax a bit and concentrate on a job--you are either just learning one or winding down and frantically looking for another one.

And what do contractors do on Labor Day? We sit at home and lose money. No pay for us. I am not sure how Labor Day is honoring us. And gosh, I hope none of us get sick or hurt on Labor Day, since we have no insurance. And it feels so good knowing most of our country's citizens do not give a hoot if we have any or not. If we wanted insurance, we should just go out and get a REAL job. Um, do you have one for me?

I sound bitter. I am trying not to be bitter. It's hard seeing how people in the US are dividing themselves into factions and picking on each other. Respect has been replaced by fear. Fear of each other and our elected officials. Wow, I did not approve of practically anything our previous administration did, but I did not attack his fans, make up reasons to hate anything he did, or prevent my children from listening to him.

Let's talk about something else.

Look, here are some nice photos. This is Rebecca, our choir director at church, hoping she can avoid talking (she didn't) at a really nice ceremony we had that dedicated the music building (an old school portable building) at our church to our beloved founding member, Bill Sauber. He left us a good amount of money for our music programs when he passed away, so we decided to honor him by dedicating the building to him.


Joe, our music committee chair, read Bill's obituary (from 2005), and then 4 or 5 of us shared some memories.
Here I am with the sign we had made and a couple of pictures of Bill. He was a great musician and very intelligent man. I learned a lot from singing with him. He also was an original member of our church, back when it was a lot of fun and very family oriented. Sorry the photo is blurry--no one believes me when I tell them they have to hold the phone still when taking photos with it!

Ricky, the choir director's husband and official church carpenter, hung the sign. What you don't see are all the "helpers" telling him exactly where to hang it. That was pretty funny. Thanks to Sam for taking the picture when my camera filled up.


Lots of good stuff has happened this weekend, tempering my bitterness. Tuba Boy came home for dinner both Saturday and Sunday nights, and I really enjoyed getting to hear how he is doing, what fun he's having, and what he's learning. I really cracked up when he told me in great detail about how he and his dorm companions built a fort in the common area. What a hoot. They are all crawling in there and watching movies on their laptops. Lots of kid left in those young adults!

And as I mentioned on my knitting blog, I taught a bunch of people at a MENSA conference yesterday. Everyone was darned nice and they had some interesting sessions, like clock making. They also had a margarita machine, so they seemed like a fun bunch. I am glad a nice family from church invited me to do this!

Oh, and it rained twice this weekend. Unfortunately one of those welcome rain events (we are in the worst drought in like a hundred years) came during this Friday's football game. Lots of lightning kept the players and band in shelter (buses for us) for about 1.5 hours, but eventually they let us out and had the game. As you can see, it did rain. Don't we look festive in our yellow?

Not only were we wet, but the game was awful. Whew, our team was bad. That always makes sitting on hard aluminum even less fun! On the other hand, it has also been the hottest summer ever here, and the rain kept the temperatures down. So, it could be worse!

More updates next week!