"Right."

In an effort to blog more often, I am now blogging when I don't have a ton to say. I hope you are happy, Kate. And Katie. And the et cetera.

Today my stepsister dropped her two daughters off so that she and her husband could take a mini vacation. The girls are 2 and a half and very nearly one. And therefore adorable. The older of the two was playing with one of those foam puzzles where there are cutouts of all kinds of different shapes in all different colors. And she would point to one and say "LLLELLLLO HEART!" (yellow is, by far, her favorite color.) Or another, and say "red circle!" And I'd say, what's this, Brooklyn?" "....purple?" "It's a hexagon! One, two, three, four, five, SIX! Six sides! Hexagon!" And she would say, "hexagon. right." Or, "What's this, Brooklyn?" "A OH!" "It's an oval! Very good!" "Oval. Right." "Do you know what this one is?" "A dime." "Diamond!" "Diamond. Right." Any time you correct her on anything, its "[whatever you said that she now realizes is correct]. Right."

...So that's been my day today. I was supposed to work this morning, but called in sick. I went in last night and was there for all of 15 minutes before I realized there was NO WAY I was going to make it through the shift. I went home and mom said I had been running a fever. I probably lost $100 by not going in, which sucks. Couldn't I have been sick for a lunch shift? Losing a night shift when I'm supposed to close is costly.

But Census is really doing me a lot of favors, which is sort of incredible. I'm not sure how much longer that gig is going to last, but while it does, I'm getting an absurd amount of money to do absurdly little. Since I'm not paying rent, I've been able to pay off my credit card more quickly than expected--so close to having it zeroed out!--and contribute to a fund I've been calling my down payment fund.

I have a pretty promising job prospect that will force me out of my mother's home, which is (kind of) a good thing, but will seriously slow down my current financial progress. It cannot be worse than what I did to my savings plan in D.C. though. Can. Not.

For those wondering, my savings plan for quite some time has been: home in 2013. That is to say: owning a home in 2013. So I was being pretty good about saving in college, then D.C. happened and an internship that was barely paid and a house that was barely livable and cost more than half of what I was making and on and on. So I'm back on track now, and once again: "Home in 2013. Right."

Census 2010

None of these questions are on the actual Census. In fact, this year's Census form is one of the shortest ever. Only about 10 questions.

I do think it's interesting how much the Census changes with the times. The questions sort of show what the country is feeling, and is a sort of measure for how we reacted to the previous one. You probably noticed that they ask if you're Hispanic, and then in the next question ask about your race. Hispanic is not a race. In 2000, people were none too pleased that it was included as such on the form.

Another welcome change to the form this year is the relationship "unmarried partner" was added. Gay couples are particularly pleased, as in the last Census they had to list themselves as "friends."

But Census Takers can be really tough to deal with. THEY ASK SO MANY QUESTIONS.

C10 interaction of the day:

Enumerator hands me a completed binder, which contains all houses he was supposed to visit and the forms he filled out for each one, as well as maps to get to the streets in his assigned area.

Me: So you need a new binder?

Enumerator: ...Binder?

Me: Yeah, you know, with more cases in it?

Enumerator: ....Binder?

Me: Yeah, like this one?

Enumerator: Ohhhhh! You mean...do I need a new ROUTE?

Me: ...Binder?