What Day is This? in Everyday Ramblings

Sammy has been purring and doing his Yoda imitation. With the weather turning cold all the time he would prefer to be on me as much as possible. This makes it challenging to be active. I worked all day yesterday (Sunday) and there was a gentle kitty removal pretty much once every hour. Now I am completely disoriented.

What day is it?

The fact that it is so dark during the day doesn’t help. My understanding is that we are about to have a break in the rain and although it will be colder we will have some semblance of light.

I don’t miss Pacifica at all. At all. But it is a tad bit challenging to do her job and mine. I am holding my own, trying to be reasonable and balanced but give it my best shot. I understand there are some interviews for her position in the works. But as no one talked to me today even though I was physically in the office all day I haven’t a clue who and when.

Some conversation about me must have taken place on Friday when I was home working hard because the attitude in the office today was…umm…frosty.

Our departmental admin left a few weeks ago and she was the one who organized almost all the social events. So I was surprised to see an announcement today that we are having a departmental end of year party in the same venue as last year on the 19th of December.

I so declined.

Last year the party was abject torture for me. And ended with my director being mad at me about the fact that I didn’t want to wait while they all had drinks in the bar with the “in” group (to which I was not invited) before the shuttle would take us back to the office.

Why would I go through that again? Even though I report to someone new now and belong to a new sub department. I have hopes for next year though. :)

I have been trying a new strategy with how I interact with others at poetry readings over the last few months and I had a big score a week ago Sunday. There is this woman, very influential locally in the more sort of academic social world of poetry. She has been our state Poet Laureate for some time now.

Basically she has ignored me every time I have seen her over the last few years but this time I did some interesting social interacting and then I read this really good poem at the Open Mic and afterwards she came over and very publically put both hands on mine and said how she hadn’t seen me in a long time and how lovely it was. People are schmoozing up the couple that I made friends with a few years back and I was sitting with and talking to them. They are wonderful people.

I think she finally recognized me without Mr. Finch. They never met Mr. Finch.

The cool thing is this all happened organically. I was just being me. I have to try that at work. And be patient and hopeful and not hurt that I can spend a whole day with people who for some strange reason act like I am evil incarnate.

They must be projecting.

Grown up teenagers can be so mean.

At lunchtime today I was giving Sammy his subcutaneous fluids and I must have nicked a vein. There was blood. In 10 months I have never done that. It is bad enough having to stick him; this made me slightly insane. He’s fine. I’m recovering. He’s talking to me and rubbing up against the laptop.

I have decided to stop teaching yoga at work in mid December and start teaching a “real” class a couple of times a week over at the studio. I have a meeting with the new manager of the studio on Saturday to hammer out the details.

It is a big change but I think I am ready. Olga seems to think so too.