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    Friday, August 31, 2007

    History, Work, and Jumping at Boom

    How do you impress a prospective employer? Jump through hoops, pass screening tests with flying colors, mount darned-near insurmountable obstacles on your way to the interview, and don't say a thing about it until he asks you the right question. *chuckle*

    8:30am: We woke up with a plan and a schedule already in place. Everything would move smoothly if we hurried and completed each phase of the plan with supreme efficiency.

    8:40am: Keebler gets a call from a prospective employer, asking him when he can be in for his second interview. He asks them what time is good for them, they say 12:30pm , and he tells them that he will make it happen. Yaaay happiness for the elusive second interview, but oh noes for yet another thing crammed into our already dangerously full schedule!

    9am: I popped over to the landlord's office to hand over my list of demands (repair requests) for the new place he has offered us, had them fill out some paperwork, and gave the secretary some homework to do for me so I can finally file taxes. I anticipate some balking at my insistence that the front of the house be redone with exterior-quality materials, and the basement get fixed so it no longer floods. The rest of what I asked for (on a deadline of two months after lease signing or my assuming occupancy), should be simple enough for him to do that he won't have a problem with it at all. Otherwise, we aren't taking the place. Not much to decide there. After what he has done to us, I have every right to be picky, and insistent. *grin*

    9:30am: Keebler finishes loading the car full of boxes to move into mom's garage so that we'll have more time to move into the new place, and more time to clean this one properly before we hand over the keys.

    10am: The mechanic was supposed to be here to pick up the bunnies, but got waylayed by his neighbor while he was borrowing the trailer to haul them home in. This was the first setback.

    11am: Road (the mechanic) finally arrived, just as I was preparing to tape a note to the front door for him, as we were running late taking lunch over to my mom's and grabbing the kids for the field trip. He checked out Eeyore, and declared him not quite dead yet, and gave me a "prescription" for car repair to fill at some local discount oil changing place tomorrow. Likely that will fix the problem. In a rush to get the bunnies out of the bunny barn and to where they needed to be, Keebler fell and twisted his ankle. This was the second setback.

    12pm: Rushing to provide lunch for and get the girls, and fearing the worst after Keebler grabbed a quick shower and change, I called another of the moms and asked her if there was any way I could drop the girls off at the museum and come join them after I dropped Keebler off at his interview. She told me that the field trip was at 1pm, not noon. Oh, the thanks for the little blessings were plentiful! But we still had to go to my mom's first, as the car was loaded down with stuff, and the kids needed to eat before the museum trip. His interview was on the opposite end of town completely. Setback #3.

    12:10pm: Unloaded the car like our lives depended on it (and in some ways, it did), dropped off the roast chicken we baked while waiting for Road, and flew off (carefully and legally, of course) to desperately try to get Keeb to the appointment on time.

    12:15pm: I head down the wrong road, and ask Keebler if we have 5 minutes for me to use up getting lost. He proceeds to tell me that he had a dream the night before that there would be a lot of obstacles in our way today, but that the job people would call, and all would end quite as we would all prefer it to, so while he was looking like a deer in headlights, logically he knew everything would be just fine. *boggle* Getting temporarily lost: Setback #4.

    12:18pm: I find my way onto the correct road again, and we are back on track.

    12:38pm: I drop him off at his interview, and I notice he has a hole in the knee of his nice dress slacks! Is it a setback? Nah, he noticed it earlier, and already had a plan. He'd just hold his attache' case on that knee, and nobody would be any the wiser.

    12:40pm: On the highway this time, in order to save gas, less than 1/4 tank of gas left, and the car getting an average of about 6MPG. I rush back to mom's place to grab a bite of chicken for myself and download the kids.

    12:52pm: I finally get out of her house with the kids. (one amazingly quick escape was all we could ask for a single day, I guess.)

    1:09pm: Arrived at the museum, found a close(!) parking space, and discovered that the museum was on the third floor.

    1:10pm: Keebler called me to tell me he was done with his interview as the kids and I ran up three flights of steps, and joined in only one room late in the tour. We made it! Keebler would have to wait for us to finish. I turn the ringer off on my phone, because we were in a museum.

    The girls had a lot of fun for the most part, even if Littlebit was a turd a few times. Ladybug complained about how boring, opinionated, gender stereotyping, and assumptive the guide was after we left the building, but that's another matter. I'm kind of proud of her for noticing, as well as for speaking out against it in small and appropriate ways during the tour and afterwards. I told her that I didn't like guided tours of anything either for the most part, and we shared a smile.

    2:45pm: The group decides to check out another historical spot in the building, showing the history of the Springfield fire department, so we join in for a short bit, then head outside to hunt our cache.

    It was to be our very first geocache, but it was missing. Mayhaps it got picked up or some such by one of the construction workers nearby. *shrug* We will try again at some later point. In the nice time, we will try to do a bit of geocaching elsewhere nearby. There are a lot of caches here in Springfield and surrounding areas.

    3pm: After making a full lap around the building and checking every spot we can possibly think of both visually and with the GPS, we give up and get into the car.

    3:15pm: I get the kids back to mom's, grab the leftover chicken, and head to get Keebler from his interview.

    3:30pm: He's not angry! Amazingly, Keeb wasn't angry at me in the least. The interviewer ran him through a couple of customer service scenarios, and he nailed them, then the fellow asked how capable he was at handling evolving situations. *laugh* Needless to say, most of the story unfolded about the trials of the day thus far, and there was a serious case of impressed on the face of the other fellow. *ponder* Mayhaps all the weird today was for a reason? *chuckle*

    Anyhow, it seems that doing everything right on the interview impressed the boss so thoroughly, the he is practically assured a spot in the training program! They'll pay for him to get his training and certification in some special computer thing and everything. While he was waiting for me, he smiled and made small talk with the other folks in the office, and everyone smiled approvingly, no doubt thinking "hmmm, team player, good social networking skills". *grin* Wow!

    3:45pm: We arrive home late for the tailgate party, spot Sheldon in front of the house (Thanks Road!), enact a quick-load on Eeyore, and rush down to set up face painting for the event, nearly on empty. We decide to risk it, and don't stop for gas.

    3:55pm: We arrive at the event just as it is starting up, and the coordinator hollers 'There you are, I missed you!' as we drive past towards our parking spot. It feels great to be missed like that by a business associate. *smile*

    7pm: The cannon goes off, signaling the kickoff, and making everyone jump a little, no matter how much they are expecting it. The cannon fire means it is time to pack up and head home.

    7:15pm: Load up the car again, head to the gas station, and prepare to pump a bit of danged near pure ethanol into the tank, when the cashier runs out and advises us against buying their premium 110 octane(!!!) E-85 fuel because it will blow up the car! Wow indeed. Who the heck needs 110 octane!?! Dear GODS! So we pull forward to the next pump and get a bit of normal gas, then head on home for the night. Glad she was there to warn us, we have enough troubles already.

    7:19pm: Finally home, we didn't even bother to unload the supplies from the car, instead opting to just lock it up and head inside. Keebler's ankle had a swelling the size of a small lemon on the side, and he was limping bad. He's not one to usually complain about physical pain unless it is excruciating, so I was worried.

    8:30pm: After a warm soak, some magic home made arnica gel, and some rest, the swelling had subsided significantly and it was feeling a bit better. His thoughts on this predicament? He's upset that he can't do as much right now as he'd planned to do, as fast as he'd planned, but he's glad the swelling didn't start really showing up until after I picked him up from the office.

    Of course, now it is nearly midnight, we've had dinner, cleaned out another closet, and made plans for the morrow.

    I'm glad it all turned out well. *smile*

    1 comment:

    Todd said...

    Wowzers, what a BUSY day! :-) Sounds like everything turned out well though. YAY!