Dr. Lori and the Antiquities

So, having lots of retired time and contemplating things to do around the house, we went to the Seattle Home Show this week. Always seem to find good ideas and sources for projects, a fun thing to do. So Monday we enter the hall and are immediately distracted by the beginning of the "Dr. Lori" show. We had seen her here before and I wanted to watch her whole act.

Dr. Lori is a voluble rotund East Coaster with a PhD in Art history and Antiquities who makes her living as an antiques appraiser. She's a regular on the Discovery channel, has written 30 books on the subject, been on Leno, Conan, every local newsmagazine worth mentioning and has been hired by the Home Show for years to give 2 shows for 2 days giving free appraisals to guests of any number of American antiques, sort of a walk-in Antiques Roadshow. She is loud, funny, unapologetically critical of "pickers" who are trying to buy stuff to sell under the guise of appraising. She thinks we ought to know what is or is not valuable of our possessions. She figures we pay her for a skilled evaluation and we can decide if we want to pursue selling for a fair price. She regularly gives horror stories about people selling treasures at garage sales out of ignorance but she does spend a good bit of time deflating stories of family treasures that really aren't anything special except in the mind of the owner. She is knowledgeable about the widest array of stuff I can imagine, political ephemera, furniture, jewelry, art works of all types. We watched her first show on Monday and had a great time. After we walked the aisles until closing we came home and I persuaded Connie that we should take some "stuff" to Dr. Lori the next day.

So, Tuesday morning, I gather the disassembled family sewing stand that has been passed to our keeping from Nana plus a pair of Tlingit sealskin slippers that were gifted to me by a grateful post-op patient from one of the villages several years ago and went back to see Dr. Lori. If you remember the sewing stand, it is 3 feet tall and has an 18 inch round cabinet with lots of little nooks and hidden chambers inside. Its a dark veneer with some warping  of the lid, several small dings and a lot of imbedded mother-of-pearl scroll work. I've always thought it was sort of quaint but shabby, not having any love for cheap veneered modern furniture that isn't "real wood" and aware of the wounds it has collected over the years. The slippers are real baby sealskin and fur, way too big for me, but something I believe Poppa would wear when he visited us in Juneau. Nice beadwork ravens but clearly modern. My patient made them for me, these were not antiquities.

Dr. Lori has the audience bring up their stuff to her platform with brief forms describing the pieces and one by one she assesses and appraises the items. The sewing stand is down in front, too big for her table. She interrogates each owner for a story, with lots of humor and wisecracking at the foibles of ignorance and delusions that can accompany family items.  I'm not sure I understand her system for how she goes about the order of events but I've gotten the sense she saves her bigger reveals for her last items. And she's not looking at the sewing table for a long time. We notice in the course of her meandering spiel, she leans over the table to take an I-phone picture of the slippers without comment. Eventually they do come up. Connie is "presenting" them because there is one appraisal per person. How did we get them? A gift from a grateful Native patient. What does your husband do? Used to be an Eye Surgeon? Now he lays around the house? You like him laying around the house?  This is your husband? So doctor, why are my arms getting so short?? All rapid fire zingers and laughter abounding. These slippers, you like them? Well they're actually very slippery. Of course they are! They're seal skin! Haven't you seen those beasties sliding around the rocks and things?? Eventually she stops with the one-liners and says, "Beautiful Native made footwear, $800 to $1600". Probably as much or more than Medicare paid me for the surgery at the time.

Finally she comes down to the front to look at the table. "Gordon, do you like this table?" Well, its been in the family for many years and is supposed to go to a grandchild someday. "GORDON, do you LIKE this table??? Well, its seen better days, its got some condition problems, its just a veneered wood..."GORDON, you're looking at a nineteenth century piece with 21st Century eyes. Yes we think of veneered furniture as pretty low brow today but in the 19th Century, this was their very best work! Its gorgeous, its beautiful, its worth an easy $5000!!!" Lots of o-o-o'ing and ah-h'ing and chagrin on my face. And as a topper, the next and last lady presents some natïve dolls that she bought from an old Inuit lady who was trying to pay her electric bill. The one she brought, of many she bought, she paid $50 for. Embroidered features on stuffed seal intestine body parts, real human hair. How much would she take for this doll.  The lady takes a deep breath and says "Maybe I would sell it for $1000". Dr. Lori says "Well that's OK but you'd be leaving $9000 on the table. This is a $10,000  Doll!" We bring down the house.

Afterward, Dr. Lori has me pose with the her and the sewing table for pictures. Maybe they'll go on her FaceBook page or her many websites. I just know I'm in her library of finds off the street. And now I have to think about promoting the sewing table to a more prominent place in the household. And upping my insurance coverage as well....

New Job!

One of my big worries about my recovery process from surgery is that I was losing my job at the same time. I worried that I'd languish is a sort of post-recovery doldrum for too long, and my job hunt would be derailed. I was doing a lot of work up until about mid-December, and then... holidays, pre-op,... I just didn't have a lot of time. Mercifully, my old job asked me to let them know if/when I might be able to help out with some contract work, and that spurred me along after the recovery. This was good, because it basically masked the effects on my resume of taking a month off for surgery, and gave me some practice at working, which helped me gauge my recovery better than watching TV and playing solitaire.

I had applied for a job at Tableau in December, and was called in before the holiday. I was really excited about the role- my old manager recommended me for the job, because he works on the team. With another former editor of mine. And they are both very happy with the work, the vibe, the boss, etc... And Tableau just does very cool stuff (data visualization- or making pretty graphs). I was tickled when the hiring manager told me during my interview that while he wasn't sure how the team would decide to hire for this role, he thoughts I was a good fit, and that the team was growing. So if not this opening, than soon. He'd be in touch. I thought I must be as shoe in, but I was only slightly disappointed when I learned, on the way home from the hospital, that I didn't get the job.

Imagine my happy surprise when I received a call from that very recruiter at the end of January asking if I would be willing to talk about a different role on the same team. Oh sure! I was concerned because of the three roles on the team (Instructional Designer, Technical Writer, and eLearning Specialist), the third I felt least qualified for, and of course, that is what they wanted to talk about. Would I ruin my chances of getting a job on this team if I blew this interview? I let my old coworker/officemate convince me I have a lot of eLearning experience, and I went in with an open mind.

In this interview, I reinterviewed with two people I had already met, and clearly, the tables had turned. They asked as couple probing questions, but were much more concerned with my interest, and selling me on the fit. The hiring manager made it sound like this was a sure thing, and the he very much hoped I didn't take something else in the meantime. After the interview, I went to lunch with my old manager, who is a tech writer on this team. He reiterated that they were really hoping to find a place for me, and I asked him why they would bring me into the role I am least qualified for. He gave me confidence that the team would be patient while I learned what there is to know, and that everyone really was a kind, and enthusiastic as they appeared in the interview.

Great, now I WANT this job, I'm excited about this job, and I still don't have a lot of confidence that I can get this job. I was on pins and needles all weekend, wondering when I might hear... something? Anything?

Monday afternoon, I got an email to set up a call with the recruiter. Matt confirmed that she would only want to talk to me if there were good news to discuss- not bad news to deliver. Indeed there was an offer. I took some time to think about it because there were terms I couldn't quickly parse over the phone, and factors that the recruiter couldn't weigh in on. I contacted my future boss to ask him about flex-scheduling- oh sure, he really wants to make that work. I signed the offer, and agreed to start on March 2.

That leaves me plenty of time to continue healing and get in shape, finish my current contract, visit Gramma W and Noel's family, and maybe even get my own house in order a bit. I guess my worry about falling off into a jobless abyss was unfounded- or if not unfounded, at least surmountable. I'll share more about what I actually do, once I figure that out.

In other news, I've been jogging a bit, hiking some, and am officially cleared to slowly bring back any other form of activity I like. Recovery is going well. We've started some major effort to rearrange furniture at our house, which may take some time to settle. Matt's stepmom sent me her old hockey skates, so we are looking forward to giving that a (slow, stuttering, awkward) attempt this weekend.