Wow

Yesterday afternoon I was at my local junk shop looking for a kitchen table. I asked the proprietor to come look at a piece that had no price visible. As she walked past, she patted me on the ass.
I wasn't quite sure how to react. I'm still not.

Slowing up

My first week in my new job is done and I have a second meeting with the guy I am "consulting" with to help him get his fashion ideas constructed, so I have a little time to reflect. My dad always says "slowing up" rather than "slowing down" and it has struck me as odd since I was little. Still, it seems to make sense, as slowing up makes me think of a temporary rest while slowing down sounds like the end. And this is just the first week.

Working will be fine. My initial concern that I wasn't nearly qualified and that my employers would soon figure this out has been allayed by a little training and their request to put my degree to work and make some suggestions to take the space into its next permutation. So far, so good.

In the mean time, I have been back in home repair mode, weeding out the vegetable bed and the patio and getting the clothesline put back up (although I must admit that the extent of my effort on that was complaining until Rtg relented and sunk some bolts for me). She comes home from her most recent trip tomorrow and we have big plans to watch movies (in French!) and bake cookies. Until then, I have more unpacking and a bathing suit to finish.

Addendum

I got the job!

Waiting

I have to catch a bus to a job interview in 30 minutes, so I am writing to kill time and to take my mind off my very stylish and very uncomfortable shoes. Luckily, the suit and the shoes will be reserved for company functions only and I can wear regular clothes the rest of the time.

In the mean time, we are all finally back in our place, although she will leave on another jaunt soon, but with her grandmother and great-grandmother this time. Would that I had her social life! The rest of us are just working, or looking for work. Today I have resolved to overcome the ennui that has stifled my great plans for the last three days and get back to the task that always waits for me. That's right...laundry. And I'll work on my French homework while things are in the dryer. If I don't end up napping.

Wish me luck

Moving on

A little more than a week later and I am back home again after a thousand mile goodwill tour to see my folks, my dear friends in Oregon, and her biological father and his family. Folks and friends were great, even if the circumstances were grim. Dropping her of with her b-f was fine, too; I long ago came to terms with how it is uncomfortable and puts me a little on edge. An opportunity to practice grace, but boy is it exhausting fighting back the petty, pissy part that wants to feel smug and superior.

Last night, after an invigorating dinner at Thai Tom (the Ave's finest), we set to bringing up the rest of the furniture from the basement. Conveniently, all that was left was too heavy for me to lift and belongs in my office on the second floor. I helped with the old Chinese trunk, but my worktable was way too big and a bit of challenge on the stairs. Rtg had to get my brother to come help as I was termed "too little" to be useful.

So now all the raw material is up in my office, which is a space I love (although it is currently painted pink, which, while not dreadful, I'll be happy to change). It faces the front of the house and is up higher than anything else in the neighborhood, so I can look out over the rooftops to other parts of town, the freeway, the university, and sometimes the mountains. On days like today with the clouds and wind running past, it feels a little like an eyrie.

Which distracts from the piles of boxes all over the rest of the room.