El Dugan

Yesterday I did a whole bunch of stuff that needed doing. Today, I wait. My new laptop is being shipped from China and, per the Fed Ex website, it should arrive today. So I am waiting for Fed Ex.

Yesterday I went to the unemployment office three times. That’s right. Three. Times. Oh joy. It’s in like Garfield Park which isn’t all that far away so it didn’t take long to go back and forth but so annoying! And yet, watching people there struggle to understand how to fill out really basic paperwork and comprehend the Byzantine system they have in place reminded me how lucky I am. I know how to work the system, whatever system. I am not stymied by things like not having a pay stub or knowing where my SSN card is. Or having an SSN card. There was a women in front of me in line who didn’t have a permanent address. She was crashing on someone’s couch so she didn’t have a pay stub from her last job. She didn’t have a SSN card, didn’t know her SSN. She can’t get the benefits she is entitled to. I can, and I need them a whole lot less. I also have the resources to get to the IDES office  three times in one day. I’m not dependent on the CTA. I can drive, pay for a cab, have a friend drive me, since my friends are also similarly endowed with, well, money and resources. So the issue, which was that the sisters didn’t file for me in Illinois, rather Nebraska, should be resolved swiftly. I am lucky.

And to hit another first world kind of problem, I have to wait, kind of by the window for Fed Ex because my buzzer is broken. And my iPhone reception is bad in the house. So to get my shiny new technology, which will hopefully help me work as a freelancer and earn money, I have to hang out at home, watching Roku and crocheting. Poor me.

Here is the new thing I learned how to make:

Farkel, the Amigurumi pig

My godson likes pigs a great deal, so I choose this as my first animal to make. I have a ton of pink yarn now, so I have to find other pink animals to make, or make an army of pigs. I have four nephews now, and they are all getting a pig, obvy, as is my new friend Kenny, who grew up on a farm and don’t dig on swine since he had a pet pig.  Anyone else want a pig? Or another pink animal? I have a bunch of gray as well and Randy wants a rat so that’s next. Today I sit and wait and crochet silly animals. Tomorrow, we take over the world, Pinky!