Life is good again

In case anybody's wondering, after a good night's sleep and a productive day, I am relaxed and content, chowing down on some good old pasta ajo y ojo (olive oil and butter, plus copious amounts of garlic and freshly grated parmesan) hot off the stove. Yum.

Went to our local state employment office and was pleasantly surprised to see how much these places have changed since the last time I visited one, in Oregon. Not packed with people. Everything done on a computer except the interview, for which I did not have to wait more than a few minutes. Turns out I'm eligible (if approved) for more $$ than I expected. I told the woman I didn't expect I'd get approved because of the two angry employers, and she said it wasn't all up to them. I told her what happened yesterday and she smiled, told me to tell the person who'd call with final authority exactly what I'd told her. Especially the words 'get out!', and that I was trying to the best of my ability. So, we'll see. It'll take a few weeks to be approved or denied, but if I get it, it'll be retroactive. She also gave me a couple of good websites for job searches that I didn't know about.

Then, WallyWorld, the library, and to Kroger, where I posted a flyer I made this morning offering free-lance bookkeeping services. May or may not do any good, but it can't hurt.

My nice, clean paid for car! And no, all those odd dotted black lines do not exist in reality. They are merely a figment of my camera's vivid imagination. Maybe the glare from the shine was simply too much for it to handle. And the sun's hiding so the shine doesn't stand out all that much.  I should have taken a 'before' shot, for contrast. But trust me, it's clean.

And then.....I came home and washed my car. I know, I'm as shocked as you are! I think I've washed it once, and not very thoroughly. It had a good cleaning late last summer by a detailer who did some work for us, but it was looking pretty rough. Now, it sparkles, at least on the outside. Didn't have the interest/energy for the inside, but that's not so bad.

And then.... I put the bike rack on it because my friend and ex-fellow-employee at the insurance agency (my ex-real estate agent) is coming over tomorrow morning and we're gonna explore the Chief Ladiga Trail in Alabama, I imagine. We'd talked about a leg that's about 13 miles over unknown terrain that I know to be largely rolling hills, so we're gonna do a car shuttle, leaving one at each end so we don't have to backtrack. That's part of the beauty of having two people -- along with the company and conversation, of course. We may do some other trail entirely, I have no clue, but that's the one we last talked about. It runs between Anniston, AL and the first parking area on the Georgia side of the state line, which is less than a mile from the state line.

So -- all of yesterday's ugliness is wiped out. History. Gone. The past.