Jobs, Relationships, Christmas, Cats, & Snow in New Beginnings

I’ve had a few bites regarding potential jobs. I applied to a position with my local county government several weeks ago, and last week I received a call back…er…an email response. They reviewed my online application and deemed me worthy to take an online test. To describe it succinctly, the test consisted of three segments: Data Entry, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Word.

The first segment, Data Entry, was easy enough. The simulation gave me a fictitious transaction’s information (taxpayer name, address, invoice number, etc.), and I had to key it into the appropriate fields. It was a timed exercise to see how many transactions I could enter into the system, measuring my typing speed. The next two sections consisted of online simulations of Excel and Word. Each section was 20 questions, asking me to perform a particular task (update a cell reference, change word to a particular font, etc.). I had two tries for each question. If I failed both attempts, I got the question wrong and was ushered onto the next one. I got 18 out of 20 on each simulation. Of each two that I missed, I missed one because I legitimately didn’t know the answer and the other because I fat fingered the wrong answer while trying to select the correct one. No matter, my scores put me in the 99th percentile for each section. I expect I did well enough to warrant moving onto the next step. Perhaps I’ll know after the new year.

I also received a call back for one of the job applications I applied to in Athens. Caterpillar has a small regional office in that area, and the hiring manager called me yesterday morning to ask if I could come in for a job interview on the 3rd. They’re either desperate or really, really interested in me if they’re willing to disrupt the year end book closings for job interviews. The job listing was vague, but it seems to be a entry level position. It also could have some promise. Being in a small regional office means I might not have to deal with the frustration that comes with working in corporate head quarters, but being a part of such a big corporation means the pay will be better than a position with one of the local organizations I applied to.

My brother’s fiancé dumped him a few weeks ago. I know very little. They became engaged around December of 2014. The wedding never showed any sign of happening because they were “saving” for it. She is very sweet caring, though a bit daffy. My brother can be very charming and gracious, but he has little patience when someone says something even a little bit dense. Together, they seemed like they would be the kind of couple where one partner is domineering (my brother) and the other just suffers in silence (my would-be sister-in-law). I suppose about a month ago, she told him she wasn’t happy with him, and she ended the engagement. Also, considering how poorly my brother has handled his health, I doubt she was on board with likely having to take care of him physically in the future. My brother was initially very upset, though he only showed those feelings to my sister. I think the bigger blow to him was how much time he put in the relationship. I believe he said, “that’s ten years I’d like to get back.” Nonetheless, he comes across as in good spirits when I talk to him. He has a lot of other good things happening for him with regards to his job, and I think he’s just focusing on those.

Speaking of my brother, I won’t see him this Christmas; he will be spending it in Vail with an old college friend. My sister invited me up to visit with her and her family in DC several weeks ago. I accepted, purchase my plane ticket, then she cancelled on me a few days ago. She had a doctor’s appointment in which she discovered that she has some uterine fibroids and an ovarian cyst that need to be removed. Combine that ordeal with her husband getting over should surgery, and they’re completely out of commission. I told her I understood, which I do, and I could handle things by myself this year. I regret that I didn’t purchase refundable tickets. The airlines won’t even give me a voucher to use for my next flight, so there’s $300 gone. Lesson learned.

Fortunately, with regards to Christmas, last weekend my uncle invited me to spend Christmas with him and his family. I initially politely declined, explaining that I had agreed to go to DC for my sister. When those plans fell through, I reached back out to him asking if that invitation was still open, and he said yes. I felt kind of weird asking to join them after I had said “no,” but he wanted to show me what he did with Dad’s old house, and I’m curious to see it myself, so that’s where I’m headed to tomorrow.

Going to Eastman tomorrow will be tough because it’s where I got my kitties, and I lost one this week. Mama Cat flat out vanished. I don’t know if the following has anything to do with her disappearance, but I’ll explain anyhow. There’s a neighborhood cat that during the middle of the night will come into my house via the pet door and start meowing. He doesn’t pick a fight or use the restroom. He just starts meowing. It’s not a caterwaul, and it doesn’t convey any aggression. My house has a pet door from the kitchen to the garage, and the garage to the back yard. I started closing the pet door to the backyard to keep him out. The cover is very loose, so if any of the cats need to go outside, they have the ability to push it up, though that can only be done from the inside. An animal on the outside can’t do the same. There’s always the risk that they won’t push the cover up far enough, and as soon as they exit gravity will pull it back down locking them outside, but I would vigilant to make sure it was open as soon as I got up.

Anyways, I got up a few days ago, and Mama Cat was gone. She had pushed the pet door cover up and left, presumably when that other cat was meowing outside. I haven’t seen her since. The weather hasn’t been that cold, even at night, though it has been rainy. The thing is, she hasn’t even shown up to eat. She seemed happy. She had plenty of food, plenty of water, a comfortable couch cushion to lay on, a space heater to warm her back while she slept, a human caretaker to scratch her head on demand. For goodness sakes, she would sleep on her back. Isn’t that the ultimate sign of a cat feeling safe and content? She’s been spayed for years, too, so I know she couldn’t have gone into heat. A part of me is worried she got hit by a car, trapped in a sewer grate, or caught by larger predator. Maybe that other cat has a home (I would expect as much since he knows how to use a pet door), and she’s moved in with that family. I can’t imagine her making friends with other people. She’s so skittish around humans aside from myself. I don’t even know when she would make friends with other people. She would only go out in the early morning. From mid morning to late night, she was in the house. My instinct overwhelmingly tells me that something bad happens; it just doesn’t make sense that she randomly decided she wasn’t happy here and that she’d rather be stray. What really confuses me is that other cat has still been showing up at night, meowing like he’s calling someone (Mama Cat, maybe? I thought she was now with him). Wherever she is, I hope she’s alright.

So as not to end things on a depressing note, we had a snow storm a couple of weeks ago. One inch was forecasted, but we got up to ten in some places. Georgia doesn’t usually get snow until the dead of winter around late January & February. Here are some pictures of what the deep south looks like as a winter wonder land.

Last updated December 22, 2017