Frenzied Daddy

Came home from an interview today (not blabbing about it cuz I don’t want to jinx any of my possibilities) in a great mood and not ready to retire to the basement yet. So I made the TT go for a walk with me. She wanted to take the arthritic Perrin and the elderly Honor for a stroll. I was unable to find both leashes and decided to put them both on the same one with a splitter.

As we got to the other side of the block, a little grey cat went totally bunions-to-the-wall ape-poop. It rose up, hissing at my poor dogs, who couldn’t get away because they old and feeble. Then it walked toward them, hissing, and finally charged them, darting under Perrin, around over his shoulders, on his rump, hissing and spitting. He was so surprised he fell down.

Which is a problem. Now I have a bag of poop in one hand, the other is holding a leash with two dogs on it, the cat is angry, and the dog fell over and can’t get back up. I had to (gently, ‘cuz I’m being totally respectful at this angry yowling spitting demon) swing the dog poop bag at the cat to get it to slowly move away, lift Perrin’s hips up so we can slowly walk down the street from the cat. And while we’re going, the dastardly thing decides we’re not moving fast enough, so it chases us, spitting and snarling.

My poor dogs were so put out. Well, ok they weren’t. They forgot all about it by the time we got a house away and the cat left us alone.

I had a conversation about a year ago with my boss; he wanted to know why I had “blown off” an entire day of work, with plenty of high priority projects in the queue. It was one of those days where I was supposed to get a million things done for work, for home, for other projects, and I hadn’t been taking my brain drugs and had, in fact, spent the entire day reading a book.

I don’t do it often, especially when I’m taking my drugs, but I’d be lying if I said I was perfect.

I had retreated from the high stress world of everything I was supposed to do into some easier world. Like spending my day watching Oprah and One Life to Live. It’s hard not to do that yesterday, today and tomorrow — I have work to get done and a full time job to find, but books are seductive and easy. I’ve reread a couple of Linnea Sinclair Romance-Science Fiction novels, but really, I’m trying hard to stay productive.

The TT and I put in a small raised bed with tomatoes, peas and radishes.

The DQ has the same problem. She’s been hiding in books rather than doing her “boring” homework (some Outdoor School vocabulary books, her normal geography, that sort of stuff). On the one hand, it’s great that she’s reading (it’s fan-tastic that she likes reading), and she is even supposed to read 1000 pages every quarter of school (part of her grade depends on it). On the other, it’s frustrating to have to punish her for not doing her homework.

Both of us have a similar problem; hiding in the books to avoid work/homework. How would you suggest I teach her to focus on her homework?

It’s Earth Day! Congratulations, and happy 4,550,000,001′s birthday to Earth. No, really, you don’t look a day over 4,549,999,000.

It’s also my brother’s birthday tomorrow (he’ll be 38, my waist measurement. Weird coincidence, eh?) and my friend Rachel’s birthday tomorrow (she’ll be 40! Happy Birthday, you young chicken, you!).

The job hunt is going. I had an interview yesterday with an interesting company; they do direct marketing of meditation and self-improvement “stuff.” (Yeah, I’m being kind of vague, but it’s ok). Every time I’ve become unemployed, I’ve been impressed at how much energy the job hunt takes. Not only do I have to keep up on my “normal” stuff, but also have to scour the paper, scour the websites, follow LinkedIn pages, follow twitter feeds, check CraigsList and even check up on RentACoder and Odesk jobs.

If I could finagle a grand a week from RentACoder and Odesk (and craigslist gigs), I wouldn’t need to find a job, but I’d need to make damn sure that money was rolling in. But I can’t make sure of it, so I have to find something substantially reliable. It’s frustrating. It’s also frustrating that I haven’t been to a real face-to-face interview since I met Don at Pacific Coast Fruit ten years ago, in a dress shirt that still had ketchup on it from eating lunch at the preschool with my daughter. I feel a little anachronistic in a dress shirt, slacks and a tie; how many programmers wear those to an interview? I don’t know, but I suspect not many. And I fear my ties are a little outdated too. Goodwill isn’t the place to shop for trendy ties.

Anyway; we’re getting along here, and I’ll keep ya posted with any new news.

Speaking of new news, congratulations to my Mother, who passed her Doctorate presentation and will be doing her studies and other doctorate stuff soon. She’ll be known around the house as “Dr Mom.”

Looks like FileFront’s Original Owners have purchased filefront.com from Ziff Davis Media and, like you-know-who, it’s risen from the grave. That makes it a little more clear to me why it was up on 4/1, and who I cite on my unemployment paperwork. Mood? Cautiously optimistic, yet continuing to prepare for the coming zombie apocalypse.