School Daze

So I really like this University Gig I'm up for. I have to go back before a hiring committee in a few weeks. So there ya go. It's got a lot of cool perks, to say the least. :)

Out of the blue, I also got a call from a local airline this morning. I'm going to visit there next week, now. So that's nice too. I have respectfully removed my name from consideration at Big Box Retail HQ's. Just too much testosterone for me.

So, what's worse....

Today was day one of the interviews. It took me about half an hour, in the middle of the day, to jaunt from the hospital where my sister was laboring (about 10 minutes from my house) to plastic-land, home of Big Box Retailer. Yep, folks - that's a 40 minute commute under the best of circumstances. Each way.

I pulled into the HQ's and felt an eerie sense of deja-vu - I was returning to a mothership, like I had at AOL! EEK!

What I didn't realize was that the pod people weren't far behind. EVERY man, save two, with whom I interviewed had a military background. I spoke with two Bush Rangers and a Pioneer. Yeah, I'm fitting riiight in here. The one who didn't told me on three separate occasions the dollar value of the annual spend he has in his category - One Billion, Four Hundred Million, United States Dollars.

I wanted to ask - gee, do ya drive a porche too? Is it really *that* small?

Holy cow. I'm qualified for the job. I can do it. I would be good at it. But I really, REALLY don't think I liked those people one bit. They kept talking about their 'troops' and 'marchign into the business war' and stuff. SCARY. Though, I met with a guy who was pretty decent at the very end.

So, what could have made all this worse? I spent my morning at the hospital where my sister was induced. As I had to leave, they sent for the doctor. My nephew came about 15 minutes after I left.

Oh yeah, and let's talk about the sore throat from the post-nasal drip. Like I swallowed a handful of glass shards. And by about 3:30 (2 hrs into the interview process), I began to feel the tell-tale ache in my lower back of the beginnings of a fever. By 4, I couldn't really turn my head left or right. So now I'm also sick on top of it all.

They released me and returned my ID (they KEPT IT while I was interviewing) at 5. Yes, the HEART of rush hour. It took me almost an hour to get to Miss Baby's school, and then I tried to go back uptown to have dinner with my folks. I sat at the table while Miss Baby pitched a royal one.

And then I just cried. Right there. In front of my parents, my brother in law, my niece and daughter, and my sister's in-laws. I just can't do it. Now I'm home - Mr. Mac is out at some law firmy reception thingie until sometime.... Miss Baby is 'no sleepy, mama.' Thank gooodness for Sprout.

Oh well - onward and upward, right? Come on University gig! I know I can rock it, so give me the shot I need.

Big Girl

Right now, my Miss Baby is coming up to me with the plastic cup I'm letting her use to let me pour tablespoons of milk into from her sippy cup so she can use the "Big Girr Cup." I'm sure this somewhat coincides with us having folks over last night, and their youngest is three - he used the "Big Girr Cups", along with his 6 and 9 year old siblings.

Okay - off to clean up spilt milk - at least she's not crying.

This one goes to 11

Not a bad spot to start the season in hoops. Stupid tarholes are 2, behind the stupid gators. But #11 for Duke is allright. Since my football season ended at about 10 pm or so on October 8, I'm all ready for hoops now. Go Devils!

Hope

I've always considered myself optimistic. I see the glass not only as half-full, but also as one waiting to be mixed with something to make a full glass of something even more wonderful. This outlook has helped me through some horrific situations in my past, where there really and truly was no hope. That, combined with my complete lack of pride, landed me my first job at AOL. I took that job and parlayed it into a 7-year career, moving through divisions of the big parent company, and landing in my most recent position. I always assumed that when I went 'home', I could find a job with Turner, no questions asked - my reputation spoke for itself.

Well, that didn't turn out so well did it? So now I step back and begin the whole 'job search' process over again. Anytime you go through this process, it's one where the overwhelming majority of responses are, at best, negative. Frankly, hearing nothing at all is quite common. I must say that it's certainly defeating if you think about it - I'd say that you get, at best, a 5% return on serious applications, where you get the interview. Not that I know, 'cuz right now I'm lookign at a 0% return. But I read that 5% number somewhere.

That's daunting. And depressing. And, well, humbling.

I broke down completely yesterday. On Tuesday, I received a rejection letter for a job that I really, really wanted, and for which I was pretty well qualified. Seems they found someone moreso qualified than me (and who probably didn't go to Duke*). I cried for my mommy and my daddy, and I came home and fixed myself a bowl of chili and some cornbread. Total comfort food. And I cried some more, then I ate a little of it. I IM-ed with Mr. Mac about the ongoing deliberation - should I take the Ga. Bar next JulyDo I really want to go down the road of being an attorney? I'm waffling on the issue right now - in a lot of ways, it's probably a good decision for me. But the thought of actually doing it makes my teeth hurt.

Then the phone rang. It was the Exec. Director of External Affairs at the Business School at my husband's university. They're hiring someone to do their corporate relations. We chatted about the job and discussed the salary (or lack thereof) question. Can I come in Tuesday to talk more? Um yeah, I'll see if I can fit you in. I swear, the job description for this position sounds like "Director of Happiness and Good Will". My main job function will ultimately boil down to making people happy. Wow. And planing parties. Double wow! So I got that one lined up.

And then, not more than 10 minutes after I got off the home, I received a call from the HQ's of a big-box retailer in the area. They want me to come in too, to talk about a position that sounds really neat - it's up my alley and pays pretty well.

Could it be that I have a decision to make? Is that, at all, possible? Wow. Even if not, it's bringing my 'interview count' up to 11 - so I'm looking at getting closer to the 20 I need for my 5% return!

So I'm hopeful again. Very much so. I just know all this will come together soon. I moved here for the right reasons. I see myself as a good person overall. I genuinely believe that good comes back to to those who put it out into the world. So I'm hopeful.

--

* The job I wanted as a great position in my field. Only problem - the interview started with a very sneering "Oh, I see you went to Duke. I'll try not to hold that against you." I looked behind the guy, and there was his Kentucky diploma on the wall. Those of you who are not college hoops fans don't understand the irrational hatered Kentucky Nation has for Duke - it dates back to 1992 in earnest, and The Shot, etc. Anyway, at that moment, I knew that I would have a hard time getting the position - for someone to bring it up as he did.... It's a thing with him, I guess. But, dude, it was almost 15 years ago. UK beat Duke in 1998, and I'd say that evened it out. Sighs.

One crappy evening!

Last night, my sister needed someone to watch my niece. She had a thing, and her husband had a thing, and they kinda forgot that they both had a thing, and therefore didn't have a sitter. No biggie - Auntie DMD is in town now, so she can sit. I really didn't mind - Miss Baby has such a blast with M&M.

So off I treked, through the rush hour fun that is Atlanta traffic. Actually, the HOV lanes here allow Mommy and Child to count as 'two persons', so it wasn't actually all that bad. I arrived, Chick-fil-A in hand, and ready for a fun night.

Miss Baby shrieked, and M&M shrieked, and much chaos ensued. Toys yanked out and tossed. Books pulled out - "Weed me book! Weed, mommy!" How could I refuse?

We had our dinner, and the girls settled down to play with the toys in M&M's bedroom. By this point, I had to go visit the facilities, so I went ahead. When I came back out the door, M&M was standing in front of it. Naked.

"Yucky Yuck Yuck! DMD. It YUCKY!!"

I panicked. M&M telling me somethign is yucky is usually not a good sign. Then I examined the naked toddler standing before me and noted that there was a hint of brown smear on her rear and legs.

Oh shit. Literally.

I grabbed her, and ran back to her bedroom. As soon as I cleared the threshhold, I smelled it. Miss Baby had, fortunately, taken her leave as soon as the shit started flying, going to sit in the play room with the other toys. M&M, however, did not restrain herself from playing with the ooey-gooey brown fun in her pants. She smeared it EVERYWHERE!

As my post from earlier in the week indicated, my sister is about to go into labor at any point. I did NOT want her dealing with all this, so I began the cleanup process. I prioritized 1) baby; 2) toys; 3) furniture; 4) floor; 5) bathe babies.

So I cleaned up M&M, and put her and Miss Baby in the bathroom with a few toys. I then began the process of cleaning up the toys. Washed them with hot water, soap and bleach, then stuck them in the dishwasher to run. I wiped down all the furniture with bleach. I cleaned the rug with spot-shot and lysol disinfectant spray. I washed the hardwoods with more bleach.

Then we had bathtime.

After that, we read a story. By this point, the sanitize cycle on the dishwasher had run. Unfortunately, some of the plastic toy food did not make it in its original shape - seems the heat melted it a little.

My sister arrived home to a house that did smell somewhat bleachy. She asked me what happened, and I told her. And she could barely supress her combination of horror and laughing. At the end of the night, nobody was any worse for the wear, except possibly me.

As I left, M&M (who just calls me by my name) told me "Had fun, DMD. Come back soon! We play again!"

Right.

I came back home with a very sleepy Miss Baby. I put her in the crib, and I sat down to talk to Miss M, who had just arrived from Florida for the long weekend. And I looked to my dear husband, and I asked for wine. Lots of it.

Nephew Imminent

My sister went to the doctor today, and she was informed that she's 80% effaced, and 2 cm dialated. This is her second pregnancy. The first time around, she went to the doctor on a Thursday and was told she was 50% effaced and 2 cm dialated. M&M was born early Sunday. So, I figure we're in for a Thursday/Friday delivery.

This is so cool, especially since Miss M will be in town over the weekend. Of course, it cramps our plans to go see the mountains (Miss M having never, well, even seen a mountain before), but so what! :-)

Carl Showalter better stay out of my yard

There's a big wood chipper in my driveway. The tree service came today to remove the dead/dying trees out of my back yard and generally clean up the joint. Soon, I will have it all ready to install backyard playground heaven for the girlies.

Miss Baby was absolutely fascinated by the wood chipper and all the strange men in our yard at 8 am this morning. She refused to speak to anyone, but she wanted to check out all their tools - the big chain saw, the ropes, the giant shovels. But the wood chipper was her absolute favorite of the things they brought with them.

I left them here doing their work, took everyone to school, and went to the farmer's market. I returned to see a significantly cleaner picture out back. I'm so glad we've had this work done. I hated the thought of going into winter with half-dead pine trees in my back yard.

Police Brutality

We have a lovely park near our house, for little kids. It's a genuine community ministry put on by the church that owns the land. They have a great play set and jungle gym, and also some of those Little Tykes playsets. It's very popular with the under-5s and, of course, their parents. It is also, apparently, a popular site for weekend birthday parties.

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous here - high around 80, and very nice and clear. Mr. Mac and I decided to take Miss Baby to the park so she could run and play outside, he could read, and I could soak in some fresh air and sunlight. There was a birthday party just ending when we got there, and so there was a nice group of kids running around and playing. The only drawback was that we had to stalk someone leaving for a parking place.

We had been playing for a good half hour, when we saw a cop car drive by. Several other people also observed this, and a few went to move their cars before they got a ticket. One older woman (I think she was a grandmother of the child whose birthday party had been happening) got into her car, and was in the process of getting ready to move, when the cop starts banging on her window - "Ma'am! Open your window NOW. You open it RIGHT NOW!" he yelled. Loudly, I might add - everyone in the park stopped to stare.

He proceeded to berate her (call her stupid, among other things), and yell at her for her blatent disregard for the laws of this town. Then he threatened to arrest her. All this for being illegally parked (a $15 fine, I'll add). After all of this, two additional cars drove up. Yeah - he called for backup for a parking violation!

I was absolutely stunned - We could hear that he had added some sort of aggravating circumstance to her ticket, which undoubtedly increased the fine.

Downtown Decatur is just a sleepy little place in the middle of the big city. The community on the west side of downtown is very international, very educated, and very liberal. But we are very well behaved. Down south of downtown, well to the south, is some of the worst neighborhoods in metro Atlanta, but our part is very nice, very wealthy, and for lack of anything better - very dull in the eyes of law enforcement. Occasionally, we have mail-box bashings or some other mischievous teenage antics. For this cop to sit and threaten a child's birthday party guest with arrest over a parking violation - it's uncalled for.

So I did my civic duty - I wrote down the vehicle number for the cop's car, and I just called the precinct today to report this aggregious behavior. The woman who took my call just started laughing as soon as I started the story. She said I was at least the fifth person to call and complain about this specific incident today, and that they were putting the cop on suspension for his gross overreaction. He had apparently been on the job for about 6 months, and this was one of his first times out on patrol on his own. He felt threatened and was overwhelmed by the situation in the park.

I then laughed for this woman - "Ma'am, he may claim she was belligerant, but all she was doing was moving her car out of an illegal spot before the metermaid got there. Tell me you've not done the same thing. All the cop needed to do was write down her license plate, and I know y'all can mail her a ticket with the address information from the DMV. Why did he feel, in any way, overwhelmed or threatned?"

She said he was apparently afraid that with all the people in the park watching, someone would try to do something to prevent him from giving her a ticket.

I guess he felt he needed to prove something and show his authority. He was rather Cartman-esque now that I think of it....

I had to hang up at this point - it was just so ridiculous. To say that you were worried about a bunch of parents with toddlers is insane. To claim that you feared interference from people who are busily holding on to wee kids trying to go down the BIG! SLIDE! is just nuts.

This guy really should be fired.

So there's the excitement in our sleepy little part of the world for a Sunday. Next week - end jaywalking: cross at the lines or do the time!