Monday Thoughts

1. My assistant who walks from the mail room past my desk and tells me that I have mail in my slot won the Employee of the Month award. This is the same girl who just last week, upon my asking her where I might find some toner, showed me that she keeps a supply under her desk and I should consider doing the same. She did not offer to share hers. I have lost all faith in the Sunshine Committee, the group entrusted with selecting the Employee of the Month.

2. I don't care what your Farmville score is.

3. You should, however, care deeply that I bought my first pair of Tory Burch shoes on Sunday. They are totally worth it. I want to take them off my feet and put them on my desk. They are for THE interview.

Yipee! Boo.

I didn't end up having to do that terrible thing that I thought that I was going to have to do in cube world. We had a pre-meeting before the event and my supervisor's supervisor was there. The supervisor's supervisor caught on right away that we could not go through with the terrible event. Ah ha! Someone on my side, even if it is the lady who picks through the sandwiches. But then she turned to me and said, "So, just what have you been doing for the past month?" Uh oh. Because really the answer to that question is that I actually gave up on even trying to look busy several months ago.

And it was good

Very very good. I cannot explain how incredible it feels to have your own business. The first seminar went very well. I ended up with enough clients to cover my facility costs, and a little bit of the business web page. So, no, its not a profitable business at this point. However, it's mine, it's a good product, and people liked it. That evening there was a celebratory margarita. Or two.

I cannot wait to do it again. A little less than a month, and on to the next city for the next seminar. And just in case you neglected to read the first part of this post - oh my god there is nothing that compares to the feeling of having your own business. Everybody should do it once.

In summation - I have the Cube World job (and oh boy do I have something painful to do there this week); I have my own business (oh what a feeling); and I have an interview for a real job (six months after the layoff, I have my first law firm interview). I predict that fall will be a very interesting season.

Cat Pillow Mystery Solved

My mom passed away four days after my son was born. One of the greatest tragedies of the whole thing is that she would have been the world's best grandma ever hands down. She was so good with kids of all ages, from babies to toddlers to teenagers to young adults - they all loved her. And she loved my son. She would say hello to him in my belly and we would both stand in his soon-to-be room and grin from ear to ear. She was so excited that I was sure she was driving her work friends crazy. Blissfully obsessed - that would be a good way to describe the way she felt about her grandson.

Many years earlier, my mom made a needlepoint pillow with a picture of a cat. I remember her saying that she did not know why she was making a needlepoint pillow with a picture of a cat, because she didn't even like cats. Well, now we know the purpose of the pillow.

On Monday, my son's third grade class set out on a two night camping trip. He had packed for the trip over at his dad's house. When I went to see him off on Monday morning, I noticed that he didn't have a pillow wrapped up with his sleeping bag. He said, "Mom, I do have a pillow." He unzipped his backpack and said, "Look, I have grandma's cat pillow!"

I had forgotten all about that pillow. When I moved out of my ex-husband's house, I was so ready to just be out and to get it over with that I had missed the pillow. But my son found it. On Monday night, when I was missing him desprately, it was nice to know he had his grandma with him. I want to believe with all my heart that she somehow now knows why she made the needlepoint cat pillow.

Job Search Update

The firm got back to me on Saturday and asked me in for an interview! One of the things that I love about the law is that, as evidenced by the timing of such email, the law is not a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday career; rather, the law becomes a part of you and not something that you just do on certain days at certain times. That is also, of course, one of its biggest challenges. I must admit, sometimes I wonder if my son has ever suffered because of it. However, except for the job I have now (because of the low pay and low challenge) I have never spent one minute sitting at work wondering if I made the right choice by being a working mom. I quite simply have never had that moral dilemma with myself. My concern has been more along the lines of, because I am a working mom, how can I mediate any negative impact that has on him, if any. Anyway, discuss among yourselves. The point for now is that I have an interview. A really important interview.

Job Search Update

Due to a series of events and a network of friends, the extent of which I won't go into here, I had lunch last week with someone who practices in the same area of law as I do. When I think about all the things that had to happen for me to get introduced to this guy, it blows my mind. We're talking missing the right elevator and making the right green light kind of stuff over a series of months. This outlandish series of events allowed me to meet a friend of a friend of a monkey of a relative of a coworker who knew this guy.

I told him that I was trying to meet all the attorneys in town that practice our area of the law. We chatted shop for some time and then and then - get this - he tells me his firm might be hiring another associate in his department. This fall. I tried very hard to not look like in my head I was doing back flips and jumping up and down and already purchasing the fall Kate Spade bag. He takes me back to his office to meet some other people. Later that day I get an email asking for my resume.

And I have not heard from them since. My husband and counselor say to call. My dad, who was the head of hiring and firing for a Fortune 500 company, says not to call. He says that they obviously know who I am now and when and if they are ready to call, they will call.

You know what Tom Petty says. The waiting is the hardest part.

Potluck

I just got invited to a potluck dinner.
(1) WTF!
(2) I think potlucks are illegal outside of church functions in Indiana.
(3) Someone needs a new hobby. May I suggest US magazine and the Rachel Zoe Project.
(4) Food and luck should not go hand in hand. If there is luck involved, this means there is the possibility of bad luck occurring, and I do not want to attend a dining event where there is an advertised potential for bad luck in one of the pots.

Levi Johnston

Levi Johnston is a trip. Is there anyone else that gives Sarah Palin more grief. He's just a teenage hockey player that screwed her daughter, and now he's giving interviews to Vanity Fair. I admire this kid's chutzpah!

But hey, Levi, you can't state in one sentence that you are not white trash, and in another that you have a sister named Mercedes.

On another note, Vanity Fair has hit a new low.

This is hysterical

My assistant walked back from the mail room, past my cube, and told me that I have mail in my slot.

'Tis the Season

Today I had my first pumpkin spice latte of the season and it was so good that I moaned in my cube while I was drinking it.

The Count

I have been going around like the Count from Sesame Street all day singing One! Two! I've got two beautiful customers! (insert Transylvanian accent) That's right. I now have TWO customers.