Tales from the Shark Tank

Today was busy, sleepy (as in couldn’t keep my eyes open this afternoon!) and generally strange.

I met my new headhunter (excuse me; employment agent) today, and she’s as cool in person as she has been by telephone and e-mail. She was just bubbling over with ideas, and of ways to get me in the back door where the front might not work. Evidently one of her more common tricks is to get someone in as a JD paralegal in a new field, then get them in as an attorney – sometimes with the same employer – six months later. Even her paralegal positions pay more than my last job, though, so I can live with that with the greatest of ease! It’s scary – granted that she places specialized, high-end paralegals, but the salary range she quoted as “average” is 25% more than the state was paying me. She was very realistic as well, telling me that this wouldn’t be quick – “not next week” is the exact quote, but that she was very certain it would work out within a couple of months at most. I’m very glad I decided to switch headhunters. I need one that thinks, as the cliche goes, “outside the box” for the simple reason that I broke the box years ago.

I did find it interesting that she was able to tell me the way I got dismissed from State before I told her, including what I was accused of and that they would have backed down on receiving a demand. I had begun to realize that was the usual excuse to get rid of a loudmouth, but hadn’t realized it was quite that blatant a pattern. The more I see, the more I think I’m well out of it all.

And I voted. Not much of interest in the state or national ballots on Primary Day, but school board members were being elected today as well, and I did have an opinion on that. But school board aside, I will always vote. Even if it’s a small voice under the current system, I will not give it up. There have to be a few of us who use the ballot box to say, if nothing else is heard, that we are paying attention and still care.

Every time I ask him to do something he knows he has to do but isn’t quite ready for, my small son says “Wait. I have to catch my breath.” And he does. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly three times. Then he goes ahead and does whatever he needs to.

That’s how I’m feeling. Last night was a chance to slow down and just catch my breath. The empty house wasn’t a miscommunication; it was my friend’s way of giving me some time entirely by myself. It’s something my life never, ever would allow me otherwise, and something I need if I am not to become intolerably cranky. Maybe it’s growing up as an only child. I don’t know. But the need is there, and I ignore it at the peril of everyone who has to live with me.

Today I have minimally more patience, but I can laugh through a pillow fight with my son rather than snapping at him to stop it because Mommy’s busy. I can think through what I need to do without squirrel tracking myself until I’m giddy. I can even face the prospect of reporting on my job hunt to my father-in-law, which feels remarkably like being caught in the beam of an electron microscope. The man was and is a formidable – and formidably corporate – attorney. If that’s what’s required to succeed, I doubt I ever shall. I cannot muster that sort of singlemindedness about anything except maybe my son. I’m not saying that’s either good or bad; I’m just acknowledging reality.

Meanwhile, I am enjoying one thing very much indeed, and that is the new dragon. See, I have this hip I messed up (along with many of my other joints) as a gymnast in my teens. It does not like either driving or riding in a car. It starts filing complaints within about 10 minutes, and my foot is entirely asleep after about an hour and a half. I’ve learned to ignore it to a point, but it has been both an annoyance and a limitation on how far I was willing to travel for years. No more. Granted, the longest I’ve driven the minivan so far is about 30 minutes, but that was accomplished without a single twinge out of the hip. It augers well for the future.

And if any of you gentle readers are acquainted with the Chinese Sage I inadvertently annoyed, would you please ask him or her to check messages? I’m trying to apologize. I don’t need any more interesting times – really!

Car got picked up yesterday as planned. It is a silver Chrysler minivan, as planned. I referred to it as my “silver dragon” in my small son’s hearing, and he promptly dubbed it “Dragon Frankie.” Evidently Dragon is an title, like Miss appended to his teacher’s name. Mom took me to pick it up, and I took her for a ride in it before J. got home from school, also as planned. That was about all that has gone has planned since yesterday morning. Everything else has been a string of mishaps and miscomunications.

I had arranged for Li to pick me up to get the car late in the afternoon, before Mom said she really wanted to spend time with me. I promptly e-mailed Li to let her know of the change in plans. Usually that’s the most reliable way to communicate with her. Today I got the notification in my e-mail box that my message was “undeliverable”. Fortunately Li called me just before she left work, so that glitch got covered.

I’d have called her at work but for the mishap immediately following the return to my house with Mom, there to await the return of her beloved grandson on the school bus. We walked into the house, and she decided to go back out to the car in search of a course catalogue she wished to peruse. I had the phone in my hand to call Li when something made me drop it – and my keys and purse, both of which I was still holding. I don’t know what; I figure I must have heard a thump. Whatever the cue, I ran for the front door.

There was Mom, on her hands and knees, having fallen over sideways off my front step quite spectacularly. Now, I fall without much ill effect, but I’m both younger and trained in things that lead to learning how to fall. Mom is past 70 and getting perceptibly frail. Falling for her is no slight matter. She was shaking, her voice was shaking, and she had no coordination to speak of. She was trying to right herself, and couldn’t even get her hands out of the foundation bed they’d landed in and back onto the porch, let alone get herself right side up.

We did it. I got in front of her, braced myself on hands and knees, and told her use me to push up and back against. She didn’t think it would work, but it did. (I grow really good roots when I need them.) Then I braced and pushed and pulled and played derrick until I had her up in the lawn chair I put behind her. She’s asked me every now and then, whenever she remembers the event, how I got my grandfather off the floor when I found him there. Now she knows first hand. I’m stronger than I look, and more stubborn than that. When we talked about it this morning, she said she found the fact that I could do that both comforting and alarming.

She’s badly bruised, but nothing’s broken. The likliest explanation is that her hip simply gave way, as her doctor warned her years ago might happen. It took her a couple of hours to lose the look of being pole-axed, and I didn’t let her drive home (Dad came back with me for the car), but today she’s fine.

Other stuff? My husband came home from his conference to find his wife and son elsewhere. The special dinner I had planned for last night didn’t happen until tonight. I never did remember to call Li. I’m very glad she called me. And now I’m at my friend’s house, where I sometimes stay to decompress. I thought we had arranged for tonight, but no one’s here. That’s not a problem in and of itself; I have a key so I can claim sanctuary when they’re not home. But I’m thinking that we have one more in the string of mishaps and miscommunications, and I’m just a wee bit nervous about what I may have misunderstood now.

I told the headhunter with whom I’m working on trying to get a job (she’s a hoot, but that’s a story for another time) that my greatest overarching skill is communication. Judging by the last couple of days, I’m wondering if I didn’t oversell myself there.