A day off...
May 4th, 2012 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shiredancerIt's peaceful just now, and a good time to post. Acck, so MUCH to post about -- I don't even know where to start.
Kidlet moved out of the house just about a month ago. So, yeah, life sure does continue to change. She's working at Ralph's grocery story in the deli, which gave her the wherewithal to join one of her oldest friends from junior high and a couple of guy friends, and rent an apartment in the nearby student ghetto of the university where I work. Part-time work only since she's in school and we consider that her primary "job," so we've agreed to pay the rent (for now) while she covers utilities, food, and whatever else comes up. After the Long Beach disaster in 2010, I'm holding my breath to see if this will work out. There's been one meltdown (an only child learning to live with roommates=lots to learn) and she really misses us, but it's as safe a step into the wide world as she can get, I think. She was cautious and reserved as a child, had a terrible camp experience, and suffered from separation anxiety ever since... I guess young adults can still suffer from that, huh? Well, it's an adjustment period for all of us, and we'll take it one day at a time.
Sadly the job isn't what she expected -- it's apparently much more about the cleanliness and health standards (industrial-strength scrubbing of walls; scraping the floors all day with a putty knife) than the actual food prep and customer service. Honest work, but not what she was aiming for. She's putting out a bunch of applications and hopefully it's good timing, with the University students getting ready to leave and maybe some openings coming up. She'd love to get into the toy store that has hired her for the past two holiday seasons, but alas, they haven't had any permanent openings.
My supervisor has taken another job on campus, and I -- who thought I would retire in the beloved position that I've held for 14 years -- have applied for her job. Ack! Me, a manager? It's hard to comprehend. But damn, I know the area that I'd be supervising through and through, and I'd know enough to let the fine group of employees who work there just get on with their jobs, and maybe... I could do some good, helping to sort out student issues and problems in the four clustered departments. Crisis of self-confidence, here we come. I have an interview on Monday, so we shall see. Knowledge of the internal workings of the department gives me an edge, but a complete lack of supervisorial or managerial experience goes against me.
Then there's the aging cats and bunny -- we have become a geriatric pet retirement home. The bunny is 11!!!! And she is truly the Energizer Bunny -- she just keeps going and going. She is as sweet and cute and perfect as when we first got her as a kit. It's kind of weird -- like she hasn't aged a day. Their life expectancy is about 4-8 years, I've read. The two cats are both fourteen -- one has the thyroid issue (pills twice a day in the food) and the other just suffered some kind of sudden kidney failure (fluids injected under the skin once a day). *Sigh* Poor Sasha, the one with the kidney problem, is all skin and bones, but he still has "catitude" and seems to be happy, cuddling up with us a lot. We'll give him the best comfort we can with the time he has left. As long as there's quality of life, we'll persevere.
I'm still going down south once a week to make dinner for my 91-year-old dad. He's just the sweetest old guy anybody could ever ask for, and I'd do anything for him. He's my daddy. *sniffle*
Whew, that's the sitch in a nutshell. A BIG nutshell.
(This was posted at my Livejournal too, but I'm not sure how to put the official wording in, so I hope this is okay.)
Kidlet moved out of the house just about a month ago. So, yeah, life sure does continue to change. She's working at Ralph's grocery story in the deli, which gave her the wherewithal to join one of her oldest friends from junior high and a couple of guy friends, and rent an apartment in the nearby student ghetto of the university where I work. Part-time work only since she's in school and we consider that her primary "job," so we've agreed to pay the rent (for now) while she covers utilities, food, and whatever else comes up. After the Long Beach disaster in 2010, I'm holding my breath to see if this will work out. There's been one meltdown (an only child learning to live with roommates=lots to learn) and she really misses us, but it's as safe a step into the wide world as she can get, I think. She was cautious and reserved as a child, had a terrible camp experience, and suffered from separation anxiety ever since... I guess young adults can still suffer from that, huh? Well, it's an adjustment period for all of us, and we'll take it one day at a time.
Sadly the job isn't what she expected -- it's apparently much more about the cleanliness and health standards (industrial-strength scrubbing of walls; scraping the floors all day with a putty knife) than the actual food prep and customer service. Honest work, but not what she was aiming for. She's putting out a bunch of applications and hopefully it's good timing, with the University students getting ready to leave and maybe some openings coming up. She'd love to get into the toy store that has hired her for the past two holiday seasons, but alas, they haven't had any permanent openings.
My supervisor has taken another job on campus, and I -- who thought I would retire in the beloved position that I've held for 14 years -- have applied for her job. Ack! Me, a manager? It's hard to comprehend. But damn, I know the area that I'd be supervising through and through, and I'd know enough to let the fine group of employees who work there just get on with their jobs, and maybe... I could do some good, helping to sort out student issues and problems in the four clustered departments. Crisis of self-confidence, here we come. I have an interview on Monday, so we shall see. Knowledge of the internal workings of the department gives me an edge, but a complete lack of supervisorial or managerial experience goes against me.
Then there's the aging cats and bunny -- we have become a geriatric pet retirement home. The bunny is 11!!!! And she is truly the Energizer Bunny -- she just keeps going and going. She is as sweet and cute and perfect as when we first got her as a kit. It's kind of weird -- like she hasn't aged a day. Their life expectancy is about 4-8 years, I've read. The two cats are both fourteen -- one has the thyroid issue (pills twice a day in the food) and the other just suffered some kind of sudden kidney failure (fluids injected under the skin once a day). *Sigh* Poor Sasha, the one with the kidney problem, is all skin and bones, but he still has "catitude" and seems to be happy, cuddling up with us a lot. We'll give him the best comfort we can with the time he has left. As long as there's quality of life, we'll persevere.
I'm still going down south once a week to make dinner for my 91-year-old dad. He's just the sweetest old guy anybody could ever ask for, and I'd do anything for him. He's my daddy. *sniffle*
Whew, that's the sitch in a nutshell. A BIG nutshell.
(This was posted at my Livejournal too, but I'm not sure how to put the official wording in, so I hope this is okay.)