Updates on Various in These Foolish Things

Mom Update: She’s out of the hospital, but needs to work on being mobile before she comes home, so she’s in a rehab facility working on her walking. My poor dad was getting so, so tired and he was stressed and worn out so we all begged him not to take the 1.5 hour drive out there and back with my brother (thank god my bro is still going out there every day) yesterday, but he’s doing it today. It breaks my heart that we are now at this stage where everything seems to be falling apart. I do hope both my mom and dad can get stable for a bit, but I’m just not sure right now. I will likely need to go visit again soon (maybe this weekend?) so that we can have a talk about how much help they need now and will need in the future.

Friends: Were your ears ringing? I bet they were because last Thursday evening, I got to have drinks and a little dinner with your favorite diarists, [Athena] and [designer]!! Aren’t I lucky?! I sure am! See, [Athena] was already planning on coming to visit. In fact, we had planned for her to come to my place on Wednesday, but I was still at the hospital with mom. So we ended up having her come on Thursday and [designer] happened to be in [my new city] for a long-term project. He was kind enough to meet us at my local dive bar. I know it wasn’t anything fancy at all, but it was so very nice to sit and catch up with those two and we talked about all of the diarists we knew from way back in the original OD days (1999) until present day. Always pretty hilarious to discover our mutual friends we’ve know on the diary and how many we’ve met in real life. It was my first time meeting [designer]. And I’m always blown away by how much the diaries have been such important parts of our lives! I know many of us might not write as much as we used to - I feel like I don’t - but I think getting our thoughts out and recording our days have been so therapeutic. Plus, I love reading about all of you as well.

More [Athena]: She stayed with me from Thursday until yesterday. I’m so grateful. In addition to our evening with [designer], our big highlights were seeing the Barbie movie (LOVED IT) and doing a river float down a super-duper insanely crowded and slow-moving river. On the one hand, it was miserable. On the other hand, it was comical. I think I’ve gotten all of the river tubing I will ever want to do out of my system now. But seriously, I’m beyond grateful that [Athena] was here for those days.

Alone: And now I’m here alone and quite lonely and still without a job.

Job: A couple of possibilities on the job front - I have a phone interview tomorrow with HR at a company I really, really, really like and it’s HERE. I’d like to knock this one out of the PARK and be able to speak with the hiring manager this week. I’m also being flown back to [my old city] for an in-person panel interview on Thursday. While it would be just fine to move back to [my old city] to be closer to Mom and Dad and lots of my friends, I’m really angling for the other job. We’ll see how this goes this week. Neither one is a shoo-in, but I’m so much further down the road with the in-person folks. Please send good ju-ju so I can get a job SOOOOOON!!

The Sailor: (my date from last week) says he wants to woo me. Remember the last time someone said they wanted to woo me? Yeah, they totally dropped the ball. This guy wants to woo, but our timing appears to be a challenge. I had to run to see mom in the hospital for a couple of days after our first date and then he ran off to D.C. and then Helsinki this week, so… let’s see if we can get on track in the coming weeks. Why do things take so much TIME?! Especially when I feel like the clock keeps ticking so loudly lately?

GS