Boise's Inversion Layer

Here is Cruiser and Spit sharing the chair to stay warm,


This is the neighbor's grey cat,


She hung around in the neighbor's kitchen windows all afternoon last Sunday and terrorized Spit. Here they are pretending to ignore each other,


Later Spit moved behind the wall at the edge of the window and kept peaking around the corner to see if the cat was still there. Spit likes to play hide-and-go-seek, except that she only likes to hide.

Boise gets an inversion layer that hangs over the valley and traps cold and pollution. I guess the inversion layer has been bad and that is why everyone is complaining about the cold this Winter. I don't know any better, since I don't know what Winter is usually like, but for the last few days I can smell dust. I cleaned the furnace filter and was tempted to do early Spring cleaning, but it is not my house, it is dust outside hanging in the air, trapped by the inversion layer. It reminds me how dusty Simi gets during the Santa Anna winds, and boy, do I not miss the Santa Anna winds. It is not windy here, which I really appreciate.

Darcy picked up a Heloise Hint for me. You know those little plastic bags covering your newspaper during wet weather? Well put them over your socks before putting your feet into your snow boots and you will stay warmer and dry. I don't get the newspaper, so Darci sent newspaper bags, thanks Darci! It does not look like it is going to snow again, although I am sure that it will. It is colder here this week, but no forecasts of snow. I'm glad I do not live in the Northeast.

Mom sent part of an article from Sunset magazine that includes the best city not to have a car, Portland, and the best city to start a business, Salt Lake City, with first runner up, Boise. The article talks about Salt Lake, a place where you can have a real job and 20 minutes out you can be skiing or mountain biking or fly-fishing or at the airport catching a direct flight to Paris. Boise is the same way, except for the direct flight to Paris, and who really needs that?

The CA EDD keeps sending me stuff and my unemployment application is looking good. I checked the CA Codes, hey that Master's degree is good for something, and I think I really do qualify. This is a great relief and I do not feel the financial panic that I did a few days ago.

I applied for a job with the Idaho Department of Labor last Sunday and that should be one that gets me another 100 score. It is limited service, but that is fine with me for now. With unemployment I will probably have to register with the Idaho Department of Labor anyway, so I can check out how it works before they give me a job.

Otherwise, I am working on approaching the job applying differently. I'm working on finding good companies to work for in Boise and then finding people that work there that will help me get a job there and if I can't find someone that works there I am going to just drop in and hang around until someone will talk to me and take my resume. I need to practice networking and I just suck at networking.

Today I'm taking the Ponies and Glenn's Ferry to the gallery for First Friday, which is this week. When I get my first unemployment check I am buying more framing. I finished the yellow leaves painting, which came out a bit busy. I will post that tomorrow. Now I am moving on to a painting of a barn in Fall from a picture I took in Crouch, Idaho. Now that they are framed, I notice that some of my paintings look much like my very favorite painting, one of Frank at the Grand Canyon with puffy clouds and the edge of the canyon behind him. I have not been able to get back to painting the same feeling in that painting until now and I painted that painting in 1995. I am very pleased.

It's February already. One more month and it might start acting like Spring.