Post Title Potpourri

Title 1: Another Week Bites the Dust.

And it is Friday afternoon, and we mercifully draw the curtain on ANOTHER week of unemployment. I hate to throw a bucket of cold water on the enthusiastic response to my last post re the first tiny twitch of life in the job market, but don't get too excited. I shared it only because it is the first and only contact I have had from a prospective employer for something in my actual line of work, and where the salary range isn't somewhere around 50% of my last salary. It is not a job offer, I don't know whether I'll even get an interview out of the initial inquiry, and honestly, I have some reservations about the industry in these trying economic times (that are so not a recession, oh NO!) So withhold your glee until I get a job offer. Then there will be confetti, balloons and champagne.


Title 2: Things I Learn When I Pay Attention to My Dog.

I took Murphy for his stroll this morning, and it was a lot like walking a very small mule. He'd slam on the brakes, sit, turn aside and stand and sniff a single blade of grass until I wanted to kick him, it was making me crazy. You would not believe that an 8 or 9 lb. dog can be a 500 pound block of concrete when he puts his mind to it, but he can do it. He'd just stop suddenly, dig in, refuse to take another step, and he was really pissing me off and I was fantasizing about punting him into the lake when we got to a fork in the walking path, and I was suddenly inspired to ask: "Do you want to go THAT way?" Suddenly the foot-dragging was history, and he walked next to me like the most perfectly trained dog ever. And it struck me: I had been taking him down the same old paths every day, out of habit, and he was sick of it. He was bored with our usual route, and he wanted to take a new path. Yep, even my dog sees that I am stuck deep in a rut, and he's trying to snap me out of it. From now on, we will take new paths and see new things and sniff new smells (his are ground level, mine are orange blossoms - the few surviving trees in the neighborhood are blooming).

Title 3: Oh, My Aching Back.

I put down 8 bags of mulch today. That makes me about halfway done with the FRONT yard. At one point, I lifted the bag and tried to dump it strategically, and felt something in my lower back quietly r-i-i-p. Yeah, that's gonna feel great tomorrow.
Hot shower, wine, gentle yoga. Aspirin. Self Pity. That's the plan for tonight.