Remembering happy days at work

I don’t know if I should start with the meeting in the Cape Cod conference room or the insomnia-induced emails that got us to that point.

Either way, I must include that Saturday afternoon, when I was interviewing for a job in a T-shirt and jeans because the offer for the interview came up while Suzi and I were house-hunting after she got a job on the Cape and therefore we were going to be moving from where we had been living outside Albany.

And while that was going on, my father-in-law poked his head in to ask if there were any restrooms in the building.

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The best boss I ever had

I knew I was going to get fired.

I tend to be a bit paranoid, especially after having been fired from a job, but this didn’t feel like paranoia.

This one, I felt like I had earned.

When your life catches you off-guard

Not to get too inside baseball about how I do this here blog, but on Wednesdays I either post something I wrote years ago or something based on what I’ve written before — hence the “Written in Past Lives” tag.

Unless there’s something specific that I know I want to revisit, I basically just poke through my old stuff to see if there’s something that grabs my attention.

Which brings me to last August.

Anything is possible, until it isn’t

First the was the flight — overnight, over water, over-tired me at the end because I didn’t sleep.

Then there was the train from the airport to the hotel, keeping an eye on our luggage so it didn’t roll away.

Then, before everything else, there was this view out the hotel room window.

Back at the desk

Suzi’s upstairs, reading.

Having just gotten her 10 p.m. feeding — I also have a notice to take nighttime medication set for that time, so when she hears it go off, she knows it’s time to eat — Sasha is sitting in her chair in the living room a few feet away.

As the wind gusts outside the window, I open my iPad and sit at my desk to type.

Starting them young

Originally posted July 5, 2017. A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook about her son’s concern that he won’t get into a good college if he doesn’t take four AP courses as a high school junior. (He’s taking two as a sophomore.)

I’m so old — how old are you? — that when I went to school, classes started after Labor Day and graduation was at the end of June.

If I wanted to play a sport, I signed up. If I wanted to be in an activity, I signed up.

And when school let out for the summer, that was the end of it until my parents said it was time to start school shopping.

Not my problem anymore

Heading into town, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on the radio, the sun shining outside the car while I’m warm inside it.

A house on my left has inflatables, including a dragon holding a Christmas gift, on the front lawn. The impatient driver in front of me passes illegally over a double yellow line.

It’s a common route, even now, but I used to take it every day, and about four hours sooner, because it’s the way I used to go to work.

Someone actually wanted to talk

My phone rang.

It was a number I didn’t recognize from a town where I hadn’t done anything lately, so I almost didn’t answer it.

I answered it.

Getting dumb at the holiday party

I had just arrived from another unit a few months before, so Suzi and I were sitting at a table with some of the very few people I knew during the company holiday party when he walked in.

He was tall, well-built and handsome, with the type of charisma that can only result from being given the allocation from four or five other people … which would explain how some people (raises hand) seem not to have any at all.

Honestly, he was the type of guy you’d hate if he wasn’t also really nice, with a great sense of humor.

Maybe I’ll be there someday, but not yet

They took his office.

They took his parking space.

He still took his students to lunch.