Ernesto. What-everrrr.

My office is open tomorrow. This is the thing about working for a regional company where almost all of the corporate staff is a native or semi-native or long-term carpetbagger (I have been here 25 years). 60 mph winds and six inches of rain predicted here? Hell, we're not closing for THAT shit! I am wearing jeans and I am not risking my halfway decent fairly new shoes. If the power goes out I am going home. We've lost power in that building in a normal afternoon rainstorm, what are the odds they'll keep it on during a real storm? I'll drive in a tropical storm but I won't sit in a dark office without air conditioning, computers or phones. We do have candles in our offices. They are anti-stress candles, mood-elevating candles, etc., but we do have candles. But I do have my rules, and if the lights go out and do not come back on in 20 minutes, I'm leaving. I have spoken. Thank you.

Jonniker describes our climate so aptly it brings tears to my eyes. It's like poetry. And she's totally not kidding about the sharks.

We hide in the A/C for at least six months of the year, and swimming pools of hot pee and oceans of hot fish pee do not in any way refresh in the summer. I read other blogs and they are hinting at fall. My son says they're supposed to get down into the sixties in Asheville. It's easy to forget, living here, that there is such a thing as a change of seasons. We have very warm, uncomfortably hot, reallyfuckinghot, uncomfortably hot, very warm, and then winter, which in the past few years has been in the 70s with a few random chilly days and cold nights. Repeat. After 25 years of this monotony, broken only by annoying crap like Ernesto, and the occasional joys of roof replacement negotiations, I'm truly over it.

But I am suddenly the well compensated (by Southern Standards) corporate staff of a Florida company, so I am here until this runs its course. Did I mention that someone I barely know was giving someone from one of our division offices a walking tour of corporate, and was very embarrassed that she almost forgot to introduce me? She said, and I quote, "OhmyGAWD, I can't believe I almost forgot Catherine, and she's key staff!" Moi? I thought I was everybody's shitty task dumping ground - but then, that may be the true definition of key staff. (The guys on the garbage truck are key staff, when they don't show up everybody notices and bitches and they are lured back with flowers and candy, but nobody wants their job.) So whoo, I am key staff, like the guys on the garbage truck! I will sock away money and go to work in tropical storms until this gravy train runs out, or I get too burned out, whichever comes first. Then my ass will be on 95, unless someone else here makes me an offer I can't refuse, and then I'll stay and bitch about that too. Naaah. I'd stay for love, but not for money.

Knitting: I finished a linen washcloth! Honest!

I'm still working on the fan-stitch half circle shawl, but it's a weekends with coffee project. I can screw it up so easily, because the gerbils on meth are in control of my brain on work days. I don't dare touch it during the week. It's an addictive pattern but I've already realized that I have to add a couple of extra pattern repeats, because yes, I know it's lace and yes I know it'll block larger, but even heroic blocking will not make this thing as big as I want. The finished shawl in the pattern is 58 inches across, and that strikes me as skimpy for a half-round shawl. So I have a long road ahead there. I'm still working away at the feather and fan baby blanket, because f'n'f is second nature to me at this point and I can do it while brain-fried. I was disappointed to discover that I don't have enough red Cotton-ease to make a feather and fan throw for myself. I may use the blue-violet Softball Cotton for a throw, if the yardage works. I think it will work, but I haven't looked.

I am happy to report that my friend who took my former job, and promptly got screwed over to a fare-thee-well by those assholes far worse and more creatively than I ever was, got the job at my outside counsel's firm. I'd sent one "got any openings" email for her, they loved her, they had an opening and it was a good fit - more money, better benefits, flexible hours if the commute is a problem, and working for a high powered partner with nationally known clients. I'm so glad it worked out. She's out of the legal ghetto. The lawyer formerly known as Boss is still there, but you know, he's a big boy. As I lectured my friend J the other night (after 4 beers) "You are not his mother, his wife, his sister or his therapist. He wants you to play all of those roles, but you know, you are a single woman who needs to make the best future for yourself." I love the guy, I truly do, he's a sweetie in so many ways, but I'm so glad I left. He's still there, still saying the same things he said a year and a half ago when I started looking. Thank you to all of you who smacked me in the head when I waffled about taking this job. I got to pay it forward last week, and my friend J is moving on up too.