Repurposed

I think the British term for being laid off is more fitting than ours, theirs is "made redundant." That's just how I feel. There are more jobs here in San Francisco to apply for and yet, even for ones that I am eminently qualified for, I can't secure an interview. So I send resumes into the ether and what I get back is -- nothing.

Not sure what is worse: nowhere to put your energies, or expending them hopelessly.

In the meanwhile things creep along at their petty pace: walk the dog, feed and change the kid, figure out something for supper. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Seriously?

It's a double case of "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Saturday Olivia and I went to the St. Patrick's Day parade, which was literally up the block and had woken us with bagpipes. In a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" bleary-eyed spirit we toddled through the spitting rain to Market Street to watch the festivities.

We were greeted by a motley assortment of end-of-parade marchers -- a number of whom had Sinn Fein banners. (I nearly typed "bastards" instead of "banners", oops.) I was bummed to see, in light of the recent IRA bombings in Northern Ireland, that local folks would care to export that nonsense here.

Yesterday we all (Sadie included)went to look at an apartment to rent that actually met all our criteria: reasonable rent, month-to-month, clean, quiet, furnished, takes dogs, has laundry, an elevator -- oh and reasonable rent. It just happened to be the very same apartment building where Aaron crashed when he first moved to San Francisco in 2005. He slept on our friend's couch there for a few months and was staying there when I first met him.

The landlady was trying to get us to be flexible about which of several units we might take, but I was only interested in one of them. Then Olivia reached up to the landlady and gave her a hug, which seemed to seal the deal. So we will see if we end up as T.S. Eliot wrote and: "the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

Plus Ça Change...

Olivia got her 1st computer today. She is fascinated with all things electronic and we figured the only way to keep her off the computers that we were working on was to provide the mother of all diversions. Apparently it does some cool stuff, no one has read the instructions yet.

We spent the day in Alameda -- where some friends are buying a condo. I hadn't been there for a few years, when I'd once taken Sadie to a dog run in a nice park with some water to dip her paws in. We went to this same park and Sadie did exactly as she did last time: zilch. Stood staring around a bit then found a dust patch to lie in. SO glad we drove all this way to provide this particular experience.

In some way being here is as if I just hit fast forward on the tape. Like when you skip a few episodes of a series and for a few minutes you're saying to yourself "Wait, she's married? Where'd the kid come from? Ok, apparently she must be doing a different kind of work than before." But pretty much you can find the plot.

So I keep expecting that I will catch up with this plot and that there are more intervals of happiness, or calm, or whatever it is that makes for boring TV shows but satisfying lives, soon to come.

Limbo

Still betwixt and between. The economic predictions are dire, the job market grim. But we are out of the snow, into the rain, and Aaron's commute is much more manageable now. Hard to know yet if the trade off of one coast for another is or will be worth it. So for the meanwhile, it's hunker down mode.

Olivia has been sick the last few days: vomiting and diarrhea. She lost 1lb, which to me seems a lot, but apparently is not worrisome to the pediatrician. So we are still in a massive sleep debt which means we are not taking much advantage of our location.

I am still doing some coordinating for PAX Programs in the New York area which means I need to talk to people on East Coast time. I find myself not knowing how to articulate my place. For example: I don't know whether to say "Oh good, WE need the rain" or "Oh good, California needs the rain." People have asked me if I am a local and I short-circuit. I keep telling myself that it is early days yet but the pressure has not let up.

We had our taxes done and something about the black-and-whiteness of the reversal of fortune was really stunning. And yet we still owed. WTF?! What in God's name do you have to do to get a refund these days? Foreclosure wasn't enough? Should change my name to Citibank.