I've Lost Count

Don't know how many times I have tried to blog... I don't want a post to sound like a Dear Diary entry. I want to entertain, share, marvel, and commune with my fellow bloggers.

Instead there are frozen fingers on a keyboard.

So, maybe to get the ball rolling again, I'll make a list. Maybe it could be meme? I love lists. Make them all the time. A list helps me to stay on track, to know where I am in the scheme of things.

1. On the job front, I am still working a contract for BofA. Can't say I'm all that impressed with the company. The building where I park my butt must be over 50% vacant. They had some lay-offs last week in the mortgage department. Bad times for banks.


2. Let's see, what next?


3. Finally had a few good interviews for a permanent position. One at ESnet, and it went swimmingly. I had the interview on Monday, and they called me with an offer on Friday. Still mulling it.


4. Meanwhile, after the interview with ESnet, a "well-known high-tech compnay in Silicon Valley" contacted me four times for four different open positions. Jeeeze, when it rains, it pours. I hear nothing of substance for four weeks, then they're calling me all over the place. Boggling.


5. I think the reason I had no contacts during the previous four weeks is because the new quarter begins in August. Everything freezes until a company is assured of direction and funds.


6. So, with a generous and substantial offer in my hip pocket I will go into the Valley tomorrow to interview for another very interesting position.


7. Logistically, I think I'd prefer a job in the Valley, but interviewing is a very odd thing. You might think you'd fit into a job quite well, but then they ask you questions that, if I was sitting at a keyboard I could answer lickety-split - I don't commit obscure commands or clauses in config files to memory, for god's sake.


8. Oops. I'm ranting.


9. Daughter #1 just came in and says her computer "is not working." "What do you mean?" asks I. "I can do anything in iTunes." Oh, then the computer is working, but not the app.


10. Gotta go before the whining starts.


11. I can't stand whining.


12. Can you?

Is It Friday Yet? and Moms Day and Pics

Today was a tough day - almost as bad as yesterday. I'll just briefly say that my Linux cluster lost it's mind, and I'm still mining its depths trying to locate it again. If RAID5 means anything to you, and a bad controller, then you understand the work that has been occupying all my waking hours since yesterday at 08:52AM.

::sigh::

Other work things, people are really nervous, if not downright depressed at work. The lay-offs are going to start on the 22nd. What is that? Next Thursday? This is just so unreal. Working for the government, in a very high security field, has a whole set of unique issues involved when there are lay-offs. Talk about feeling screwed over - a universal feeling among my cohorts.

Okay, I can't think about this anymore. How 'bout something good?

Lori asks if we got "two - count 'em, two "AS SEEN ON TV" gifts?" Well, Kandy and I split up Mother's Day - we don't do it together. You see, it's actually easier that way. The girls and I celebrate Kandy's Momness in May, and then in June (on that other day), Kandy and the girls celebrate my Momness. It was really my idea, because that way we can help the girls while celebrating our partners. It works for us. That way the girls can pull off surprising one Mom or the other more easily. Of course, as they get older, this won't be as hard to do. By then, we'll have carved out a family tradition.

The girls and I prepared breakfast in bed to order. Kandy wanted poached egg on toast, French Roast coffee and orange juice. The girls went out in our rose garden and each picked two roses for a small vase to complete the tray. Unfortunately, we didn't get a photo of the pretty tray. Bad Deb.

Later, since it was a lovely day, we trekked up to Morgan Territory and spent the day hiking in the hills. (As always, click on the picture to see it better... okay?)


My favorite part was a little watering hole where there were thousands of tadpoles. It almost seemed like they swim in schools. Who woulda thought that?

How could an outing be complete without some Mom and Kidlets photos?

Happy Mother's Day!

(Click on the picture to see a larger version)

Thank Goodness for Wordless Wednesdays

Megan in 2002

The Steps of Aging

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about aging.

Over on Maria's blog, Just Eat Your Cupcake, in one of her posts last month she talked about how she felt a bit out of sync with her Easter guests (my paraphrasing). I'm right there with you, Maria. We spent Easter day and evening with a family we share a lot in common, but timing isn't one of those things. Our friends, Diana and Jerry, are parents to Michael and Ryan. Diana and Jerry were both born the year I graduated high school. But Ryan is the same ages as Katie, and Michael is a few years younger than Megan.

Nearly ALL the parents we schmooze with are much, much younger than we are. I mean, our own children are the ages of what our grandchildren could have been, had we had any kids in our early twenties. Especially the lesbian parents. They are sooo young, it feels like we have so little in common.

Um. Now I really do feel old.

Once I left college (which I started when I was 25, after six years in the US Navy - another blog topic for another day...), I always felt just a little out of step with my friends and co-workers. Maybe even a little wiser, I'd think to myself very smugly. That was then.

Now, I feel as if I am always trying to keep up with these young whipper-snappers. And I’m not talking about the kids!

Tangentially, my oldest sibling is my half-brother and he is eleven years older than me. I am the youngest. The "baby." I have a brother ten years older than me - he nearly died last year. His wake-up call finally came, at 62. Now he is belatedly taking care of himself, I think he finally grew up.

Takes some of us longer than others, I guess. We have a full-sister that is younger than both my brothers, but older than me - and she was given up for adoption. (Yup. Another blog topic to explore. Anyone making a list?) She found us a few years ago. It's odd to go 50 years of life thinking I'm the only girl-child, and then learn I have a sister. Hard to wrap my sense of self so differently.

Now, parents are aging and dying. My Mom is 82 and she just keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny. She has a hard time getting up and down stairs, but is doing okay. I do worry about her, alone in the house I grew up in, now that Dad is gone. But, she says she will stay in that house as long as she can take care of herself. She has friends look in on her, my niece and her husband keep an eye on her, my bother and I drive or fly up there whenever we can, or when we’re needed.

It makes me wonder what life for Kandy and I will be like as we age. We have no family locally. I worry a bit about that, when I’m not worrying about day to day things. I wonder if even then I’ll feel out of sync…