A New Dawn?

Friday night was the worst night of sleep I've had in years (not counting when I've been sick). I kept waking up, shifting around restlessly. Much of that was due to a storm that blew through in those early, dark a.m. hours; thunder woke me up, and the occasional booms that followed kept me tensed for a little while. But even after the thunderstorms passed, I couldn't sleep for very long at a time. I woke up exhausted ... but to a piercing blue sky on a crisp, cool morning.

I hoped that my fitful slumber was akin to how you feel when a fever finally breaks, when that clammy but oddly refreshing sweating process begins and you know you're on the mend. Because just a couple days before that, my recruiter had called to let me know that I had a new start date for the job I thought I was starting 4 weeks ago. That, in fact, I would start on Monday (i.e. later today, since it's now past midnight). So I hoped that maybe that night was my fever breaking, my shedding the doldrums of the past few weeks (and of a year ago, and of 8 months before that, and so on). That maybe now the next phase of my life, the post-layoff phase, can finally begin in earnest.

Have I celebrated? Actually, I have a little bit. On the other hand, I'm not counting my chickens yet either. Athletes have their game-day superstitions, and occasionally I'll find myself tempted to follow a similar mindset. In this case, I decided that in the leadup to this start date, I should make a concerted effort to do the opposite of some of what I did 4 weeks ago. Then, I barely told anyone about the start date, I resolved to wait until after my first day to celebrate, I started factoring a new income stream into my spreadsheet beforehand, and I decided not to blog about it until after my first day. We saw how that worked out.

So over the past few days I've been a bit more open about telling people beforehand, I had a mini-celebration at happy hour/dinner Friday night (though I didn't go all out just yet despite the congratulations I was receiving), I haven't added any income projections into my budget yet, and, obviously, I'm blogging about it ahead of time. Maybe not polar opposites from last time, but different enough. I hope.

I know what I did or didn't do over the past few days won't really have an effect, but what the hell. The point is, when I wake up in the morning, I'll get ready for work. And hopefully this time, I'll get to stay.

Also, Meeka's regaining the weight she lost. Her blood sugar's up, but not in the bad range yet. So she's fine for now, but apparently I'll have to watch both cats for signs in the future that their kidneys are starting to deteriorate from age. At that point, we'll likely have to switch her off the diabetic diet and onto a more kidney-friendly diet, which is the opposite of what a diabetic needs. So at that point I may have to give her insulin shots, something I'd hoped we'd avoided by catching her diabetes early. But that's the future, and we'll cross that bridge then.

For now, I need to get some sleep and prepare for what I hope will be the start of a new and better phase in my life...

I thawed I thaw a puddy tat

Ahhhh, the thaw. Finally went above freezing today. We even hit 40, our daily high, all of 15 minutes ago, at 11 pm. The ice has finally started melting (though that led to Barbara having a close call with an ice sheet sliding off a roof). I know all this weather stuff may be no big deal to people up north, but for us to have schools, offices, and government pretty much shut down for 3 days in a row because of winter is really unusual. One or two days, maybe, but not three. The city slowly stirred back to life today; my car is even up and running again, for a lot cheaper than I'd feared, though that's a story for tomorrow (think: the rewards of procrastination).

The strangest thing about this car-and-ice-imposed house arrest this week is how un-isolated I've felt. In fact, I felt more isolated on any given day in the office at my last job than I did stuck indoors at home this week. And I didn't even see another human being between Saturday night and Wednesday morning. But between IM and the phone, I was able to stay better connected at home, alone, than I was at any time at my contract job in a cube farm full of people. What does that say about the atmosphere at that office...? (And no, I don't blame myself for that, as I've never had trouble connecting with people at any other job).

So what does any of this have to do with puddy tats? Well, while I was fairly productive during this ice age (mostly on the computer), other times, all I felt like doing was huddling up under a comforter on the sofa with my cats. I even spent two full days in my flannel PJs. After all, what better way to spend a frozen wintry day? Plus, cats are warm ... even small ones. So here, courtesy my cell phone camera (the only one within reach). is how I spent some of my iced-in isolation, cozy under a comforter on my sofa, watching TV, with both cats sleeping on me:

Cozy and warm
Click to enlarge