Oh, the people you’ll meet!

On the way home from work on Friday, Kathy decided we were going to play hooky and not go home right away. She had a taste for mussels from Bonefish, and that was where we headed. She even drove the big girl way down the interstate to get there. We had a nice dinner all by ourselves and relaxed for an hour and a half or so. She had had a rough week at work and so we deserved it.

I’ve actually been having some fun at work lately, feeling more like a counselor, since I’ve had so many appointments lately. I was a little rusty, but now I’ve been able to really nail it with some people, coming up with the perfect thing to say, or getting them to tell me what they really want.

The other morning at about eight o’clock, an interesting person came to the office without an appointment. Turns out she was an erstwhile art teacher who graduated 12 years ago when there were no jobs in that field. She started doing secretarial work and stayed with it, but now she wants to give it another shot. I got her to talk about what she’s been doing and how it relates to her goal. She’s the one out there with the neighborhood kids playing badminton, organizing crafts—now it’s on her resume.

Some of the other people I met included:

-The serious young social worker who is relocating to the Carolinas—she mentioned an air force base. Maybe that’s where a boyfriend may be stationed. She didn’t volunteer that information and I didn’t ask. I did get her to smile a few times, though she kept focused on the task at hand: getting her resume together and figuring out how to relocate to a new city and find a job..

-The harried linguistics major with a tiny diamond nose piercing who wants to teach English overseas. She wants to go to Greece—Crete, in particular. I mentioned that I wasn’t sure there was a market for that there, but that’s what she wants, and she’s certainly not going to listen to some old guy tell her how it won’t work.

-The earnest, not-so-young any more man who spent the last ten years working in finance instead of teaching math, which is what he really wants to do. After seven years of school, he’s anxious to make his move, but feels like the Colossus of Rhodes, straddling the gulf between the sure thing (boring old job) and the uncertainty of landing his dream job in teaching.

-The secretary with the Tracy Chapman ‘do, who majored in fashion merchandising of all things, and worked for HBO in New York City, had a daughter and is now back living with her mom, looking for “something stable, but in an artistic environment.” How’s that for a tall order?

Even though I complain about having to do three peoples’ jobs—and it has been hard at times—it’s been good to get back to what I liked about this job in the first place. Kathy had to remind me of that lately. Maybe some day we’ll get some more people to help us, and I hope they are good people, but in the meantime, I am fortunate to be in the company of such wonderful students, so motivated, so driven, so hopeful. There is an amazing group of young people coming up—Generation Y, Millenials, whatever you want to call them—we’ll be in good hands.

Woo-hoo!

So this is the day between Good Friday and Easter. A day when I wonder what the world might be like if Jesus had not risen from the dead. I can’t help but think we would all be living in a world ruled by Biff—the bully from Back to the Future who makes a fortune betting on games whose outcome he already knows, due to the sports almanac he filched from the future.

It was an amoral place, full of vice and empty glitz, where pursuit of material things was all that seemed to matter. There was no reason to look out for anyone but yourself, no code of conduct other than that of Mammon. It would be a difficult place to exist, because that’s all we would do—exist—not really live.

But I believe He did rise from the dead, and that makes all the difference.

Now there is hope. Now we know there is a better way to live. We have an alternative to self interest and avarice. It’s called love.

Tonight I’ll be in the Easter Vigil service, celebrating the wonderful gift of the Resurrection.

Happy Easter!

I had too much to dream last night

I had a temp job as a guest lecturer in a math class in France. I had nothing prepared—I just know I was supposed to talk about U.S. math for an hour. The classroom was full, but there were all kinds of people: men, women, young twenty-somethings, older people in their 70’s.

There was music blaring from different corners of the room, so I messed around trying to shut it off. I finally got one section quiet and the class applauded.

The room was very wide and resembled a hunting lodge or pub, with log walls and wooden booths in a the back with traditional school desks scattered around haphazardly.

I said things like, “My sister is a French teacher.” They thought that was very funny. I asked if numbers were different somehow in the U.S.—they thought that was funny, too. I asked if anyone liked to count things, and this one woman answered, but her accent was so strong that I couldn’t understand her. While asking her to repeat her answer, I realized she was naked from waist down. No one else thought anything of it.

All of a sudden a group of older people gathered around a TV right in the middle of class. “What are you doing?” I asked. They mumbled something, but it was apparent that some sort of national sweepstakes horse race was on, and they didn’t want to miss it.

I considered storming out in a huff, but I was afraid I wouldn’t get paid—that’s if I were paying paid at all. I wasn’t too clear about that. Meanwhile, some kids were trying to shut off the music in a corner of the room and I went to help them, but that area of the room was like someone’s kitchen and we couldn’t find any switches. I went back in front of the class to try to continue and I looked at my watch and a whole five minutes had passed the class had started!

The Blizzard of '08

We have been hunkered down since Friday night with this huge snowstorm howling outside. This morning the weather guy on one channel was giving the official definition of a blizzard—a certain wind speed, snow fall and visibility—and declared that we hadn’t yet met those criteria but then he looked at the camera and said, “But, that’s pretty much what we have out there—it’s a blizzard.” Kathy tried to clear a little path by the backdoor, since we could hardly open it against the snow, but much of her efforts were obliterated by the blowing and drifting snow. I stuck a tape measure into the snow by the backdoor Saturday morning and it was nine inches deep. Now there are drifts three and four feet deep in the driveway, and it’s impossible to tell what our local total might be. It should subside over night and be sunny on Sunday. The lector for 7:30am Mass called me to say she wouldn’t make it to church. I told her I wasn’t going at all myself—we’ll watch the shut-in Mass on TV Sunday morning. The paperboy called fishing for a snow shoveling gig, and we asked him to come on Sunday when the weather clears. He asked, "How much will you give me?" We said twenty dollars (we knew he had been asking $10-15 the day before, but now he knew how much work it was!). He seemed pleased and said he'd be over around 11am. You know we'll give him another five dollars just because he's a great kid. The roads were closed to all but essential traffic, with the police telling everyone to just stay home. Two major malls closed, so you know it must be bad for retail commerce to grind to a halt. Of course the airport was closed—I am very glad I didn’t have to go anywhere this weekend.

We have heat, lights and the Internet. What could be better than that? We have plenty of food and no reason to go out until Monday morning for work. We watched some episodes of “Northern Exposure” on dvd—just the thing for a snowbound afternoon.

How I Spent My Birthday

I got up early as is my wont, and started several loads of wash. Then I took Kathy to work so I could have the car. I came home and checked email and cycled the washes into the dryer until it was time to leave the house.

I drove to FedEx and shipped the draft of the third edition of my textbook. Do you know the sort of redneck comic named Bill Engvall? He’s famous for the “Here’s your sign” routine. That is, some people should wear a sign saying “Stupid”, so that we’ll know not to rely on them for anything. So I’m in the FedEx store and I put the box on the counter and the woman says, “You want to ship that?” “No, I just thought you might want to admire my neat printing on the address label….here’s your sign.” I didn’t actually say that, of course. Her name tag said “Christine—Team member since 1998.” What I did say was, “So Christine, you’re coming up on a ten year anniversary” and she got this stricken look on her face as if to say, “Ohmigod, have I been here that long?” as she multi-tasked shipping my package and printing color copies for a little old lady standing further down the counter.

Then it was over to Sams Club for paper products, chips and Advil—just the essentials. Then to a big mall where I was determined to do some damage with the Macy’s gift card Kathy had generously given me. There was $47 left on it and I didn’t see why it shouldn’t be wiped clean in one fell swoop. I wound up buying the most expensive pair of black dress pants I could find.

It was nearly lunch time and I was feeling rather peckish. (Always wanted to use ‘peckish’ in a sentence, but first I accidentally typed “puckish”, which I believe is a whole ‘nother thing.) I stopped at a Dippin’ Dots place, I think it’s called. Ever see that stuff? It looks like crumbled cookie toppings but magically turns into ice cream when you put it in your mouth. The was my first experience with the concoction. I also picked up an Auntie Anne’s pretzel, since I was celebrating anyway. Dippin’ Dots is a little tricky, requiring most of one’s attention, so I sat on a couch in the middle of mall eating my Dippin’ Dots, by myself, on my birthday. Then I realized how pathetic that was, and I left to go to the car and eat my pretzel, washing it down with the dregs of a can of Coke I had left in the car. Aware of how sad that was, I headed home.

Desiring to surprise Kathy with an ice-free driveway, I went out and chopped ice and snow for a while. Probably just long enough to screw up my knee again.

For some months I’ve been promising myself a new watchband for my Mickey Mouse watch, since the old one has these sharp edges that ruin my shirt cuffs, I drove to another mall to get one. The young lady at the mall kiosk has been there for years and really knows her stuff, so together we picked out the right one for me. She even gave me 10% off when I told her I had bought the original band from her ten years ago. I didn’t even have to play the birthday card, so to speak.

After picking Kathy up at work, I came home and fielded calls from family members who felt obligated to call admirers with birthday wishes. Still, it was fun catching up with everyone.

So. What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain? Try to catch up with New Yorker magazines that have piled up.

So glad it's finally March!

This year’s Spring Career Fair was the most emotionally draining one ever. Fortunately, we had rented an electric scooter for me to buzz around the gym with, so I didn’t have to stand all day. That helped my knee considerably. Irene, the secretary who helps me with the Fair, found a place that rented them for $50 a day. When they heard we wanted it delivered downtown, they said Oh, we’re going to charge you a month’s rental for that. So I said good, give me the scooter for the whole month then. Bernie, the secretary whose electric scooter is broken, can use it until hers is fixed.

Anyway, I think I have to find another way to do these fairs, and spread the work around a little. I kept forgetting things during the weeks leading up to the fair. For instance, there were some banners that should have gone up a week ahead of time, and I finally asked someone to put them up two days before the fair. She started to give me attitude instead of help, and I lost it! I was holding part of the stand that the banners hang from and I threw it to the floor and said, “Jeez!” and went off to find someone else. I haven’t been that frustrated in several years.

Weird things happened during this fair that I’d never seen before.

There was a woman who came up to me with a problem. She had lost all her resumes in a snow bank because of the wind and snow outside. She said she had given one to a hospital, since she was going into the OT program, but they said they weren’t hiring people at her level. She left and came back saying that she wanted them to return the resume to her, but they insisted they didn’t have it. So I went over and they let me look through the resumes and it wasn’t there. I felt kind of funny doing it, but I thought it was worth a try.

The woman was waiting for me around the corner. I told her it wasn’t there and then gave her a way to spin this to her advantage: she could tell employers that she was updating her resume and it wasn’t ready yet, and could she send it later? That way she could collect business cards and then tailor her resume specifically for the different companies. Her resume would arrive by itself instead of in a big pile from the fair, and thus would get more attention.

She seemed pleased with this and went off again. Later, I saw her loitering around the lobby, not so obviously, but still obviously waiting for me. She thanked me for the idea and said it worked pretty well. Then she went on to explain why she was so upset about losing the resume. It seems she had been a victim of identity theft a couple of years ago. Someone she knew slightly had charged thousands of dollars to credit cards in her name. It was a nightmare trying to get it all straightened out. So, understandably, she was concerned about her employment history floating around out there.

In the afternoon, a woman fainted and collapsed to the floor. Someone called 911 and no fewer than twelve people from various safety forces showed up: they came from the Cleveland State police, the Cleveland Police Department and the Cleveland Fire Department. The woman did say that she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything all day, and that probably contributed to her fainting. They wheeled out in a wheelchair and that was that.

All during the fair, people kept asking me where Pfizer and Eli Lilly were, and I knew they hadn’t registered. Saturday morning I went back and started looking at some of the problems and realized that the computer system we use had generated some highly inaccurate lists that we then printed up and distributed, thinking that they were just fine. It turns out that they were wildly random.

I haven’t looked at the evaluations yet, though one employer felt he just had to scan and email his evaluation to me right away. He complained that there was no one to help him unload his stuff. I know I had four or five students out there, so I wonder when he arrived. He may have come later and missed them. I wonder what other nuggets I’ll find in the rest of the papers.

If you want to know what’s going on in school, we have learned that you cannot ask Max directly. “How was school?” is not likely to elicit a news-filled answer. So, I asked him what happens if you get tired at school. He answered by saying, “Can’t put your head down! It’s bad to put your head down.” Even more emphatically, he said, “Just keep on goin’” .Friday night he decided that wrestling was on the agenda. We rolled around the living room floor, first he would pin me and then I would pin him. Finally he said, “Best five out of twelve!” We had to continue after dinner, though. He invited me upstairs to play with Lincoln Logs, so we made some ingenious houses which he gleefully destroyed. Then we turned to Legos and he instructed me to build a “mega suit”, whatever that is. We grabbed random pieces and built contraptions and then competed to see whose invention could do more things. Mine could fly, roll and fall down. On the other hand, his could fly left, right, backwards and forwards, “save lives” and had “crystal power”. He won because his turned out to be more versatile. On Saturday night there was a potato chip can on the steps. Max was going up to bed and he looked longingly at the can. Shane it would be OK if he had a chip, and when Max opened the can, those springy snakes shot out! They got me good. He delighted in pulling that trick over and over.

On Saturday night Kathy and I met her sisters and their husbands for a birthday dinner for one sister at a restaurant that had gone out of business years ago and recently reopened. The food was great and the portions were huge. Too many times places charge a bunch for too little, but not this place.

I’m taking a few days off this week to recover: Monday and then Thursday and Friday. That way I don’t have to work on my birthday. I am so glad February is over. It sure seemed like a long month.