It's officially fall

Break out the pumpkin spice lattes and cinnamon-scented candles, kiddies, because it's always on Halloween when Autumn finally feels official to me.

Whenever it's this time of year, I always think back to my first fall in Boston. Back in New England seasons are seasons. More so than anywhere else I've been in the country. The winters are frigid and brutal, summers are best spent in sundresses, eating lobster on the Cape, and the most magnificent colored trees -- in bright reds and oranges and yellows -- dot the landscape when the leaves finally change and the season turns to fall. 

Back before I married D, when I was dating a different boyfriend whom I'd met three years earlier in California and was attempting to do the long distance thing with (future blog post on what I learned? I think so), these were the seasons, in all their truths, that I got to enjoy for a time. During this stint out East, I worked as a freelance reporter and one Saturday morning got to cover some energy policy event where Joe Kennedy II (son of RFK) was speaking. The event was out by Boston College, where the landscape is more suburban than city, and since I had no car I got to walk a ways from the last stop on the T line through the BC neighborhoods to my destination. 

This walk and this day is so vivid that to me it epitomizes fall. It had just rained a few hours earlier and the wet pavement smelled clean but metallic, like someone had washed a bunch of copper pennies. The sky was overcast and the still air felt crisp against my cheek like a newly starched dress shirt. Bright orange pumpkins sat on each porch I walked past. I wore a hounds tooth trench and boots, whose clip-clopping down the sidewalk cut the silence of the empty neighborhood.

I'm not sure why but ever since that day, I've always associated that moment in time with fall. So clearly that I can even see what my breath looked like with every exhale.

Thank GOD today is Friday

This is how I feel:

P.S. If anyone would like to buy me this vintage Mercedes I would not be opposed to the idea.

All light and airy and polka-dotsy. Why? Because you're lookin' at a lady with a three-day weekend on her plate. I decided to take Monday off since I needed a nice pajama-clad day of R&R, but ALSO because Monday is November 1st...and you know what that means -- NaNoWrimo begins! (I will not give up on novel writing just because I have a 40-hour (50, with commute) workweek. Repeat 10 times daily.) I've got to hit the ground running with this third novel, which I don't want to give too much away about but will say is going to be awesome. So I'm devoting Monday to kicking off this book right. I am totes looking forward to 30 days and nights of literary abandon.

If you like dogs...

Then you must read this. 

I found the saddest letter EVER that's been making the rounds on Craigslist for some time. It's an open letter from an animal shelter manager and it broke my heart! At lunch today I read it out loud to my husband and couldn't stop crying once I got to the end. (I'm much too sensitive for my own good, and yes I also cry in those SPCA commercials with Sarah McLaughlin music in the background.) Being the owner of a rescue dog and cat, this letter especially hit close to home and is exactly what people need who are so irritatingly particular about wanting a certain breed in a certain size or color or sex. It's a dog -- not a sweater!! And now, the letter:

Letter from a Shelter Manager

I think our society needs a huge “Wake-up” call. As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all…a view from the inside if you will.

First off, all of you breeders/sellers should be made to work in the “back” of an animal shelter for just one day. Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would change your mind about breeding and selling to people you don’t even know.

That puppy you just sold will most likely end up in my shelter when it’s not a cute little puppy anymore. So how would you feel if you knew that there’s about a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it is going to be dumped at? Purebred or not! About 50% of all of the dogs that are “owner surrenders” or “strays”, that come into my shelter are purebred dogs.

The most common excuses I hear are; “We are moving and we can’t take our dog (or cat).” Really? Where are you moving too that doesn’t allow pets? Or they say “The dog got bigger than we thought it would”. How big did you think a German Shepherd would get? “We don’t have time for her”. Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs! “She’s tearing up our yard”. How about making her a part of your family? They always tell me “We just don’t want to have to stress about finding a place for her we know she’ll get adopted, she’s a good dog”.

Odds are your pet won’t get adopted & how stressful do you think being in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn’t full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies. Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it. If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a walk. If I don’t, your pet won’t get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose. If your dog is big, black or any of the “Bully” breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door.

Those dogs just don’t get adopted. It doesn’t matter how ‘sweet’ or ‘well behaved’ they are.

If your dog doesn’t get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed. If the shelter isn’t full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed it may get a stay of execution, but not for long . Most dogs get very kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs will turn in this environment. If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because shelters just don’t have the funds to pay for even a $100 treatment.

Here’s a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being “put-down”.

First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look like they think they are going for a walk happy, wagging their tails. Until they get to “The Room”, every one of them freaks out and puts on the brakes when we get to the door. It must smell like death or they can feel the sad souls that are left in there, it’s strange, but it happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by 1 or 2 vet techs depending on the size and how freaked out they are. Then a euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process. They will find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the “pink stuff”. Hopefully your pet doesn’t panic from being restrained and jerk. I’ve seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting blood and been deafened by the yelps and screams. They all don’t just “go to sleep”, sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves.

When it all ends, your pets corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You’ll never know and it probably won’t even cross your mind. It was just an animal and you can always buy another one, right?

I hope that those of you that have read this are bawling your eyes out and can’t get the pictures out of your head I deal with everyday on the way home from work.

I hate my job, I hate that it exists & I hate that it will always be there unless you people make some changes and realize that the lives you are affecting go much farther than the pets you dump at a shelter.

Tentative good news

No I didn't find a new job yet or anything, but this is is even better! My husband finally got a callback for an interview at one of the many firms he's applied to recently! (Inner squee is currently a few decibels off the auditory chart.)

I've always had mondo faith in his abilities. He's kicked butt in not only law school but life overall. His work ethic is superb -- the best I've ever seen -- but right now it's all about getting his foot in the door, which is the most frustrating part. Since he's turned down solid job offers for me to stay where we are near family and friends I've been even more of a cheerleader for him to soon find something in the area.

So while it's not a job offer, it's still an interview in this area -- where the legal field has been hit pretty hard -- and that counts for something. Most all listings he's seen are looking for lawyers with 3-5 years experience which obvi takes him out of the running, but this position was looking for someone with his level of experience. Finally! The clouds part and there are a few rays of hope in this godawful job market. He wants to be a corporate litigator and his resume is tailor-made to becoming one so I hope hope hope they're impressed enough and don't end up going with someone with a a bit more experience who's willing to work for the same salary. Because he's going to make a great litigator someday soon...like Mel Horowitz in Clueless. (Cher: "Daddy's a litigator. Those are the scariest kind of lawyer. Even Lucy, our maid, is terrified of him. And daddy's so good he gets $500 an hour to fight with people. But he fights with me for free because I'm his daughter.")

Anyhoo it goes without saying that the reason I'm really giddy about this interview is that it means I might be one step closer to quitting! Don't want to jinx it but To Whom It May Concern Up There: For once let my husband roll a 7 or an 11 with this opportunity. Mama wants a new Buick.

Highs and lows, Oct. 24th edition

High:

This week I got a letter from some retirement fund account, informing me of a balance I didn't even know I had in an account I didn't even know I'd started. Apparently I'd signed up for automatic deposits in a retirement account through my old job on the East Coast and when I left that job over two years ago I closed out all accounts except this one. (I guess I forgot?) So I've got $1,000 just waiting to be claimed! It was a pleasant surprise, like finding a dollar in an old jeans pocket -- but better. I think I'll use part of it soon to fund a weekend getaway in Napa with my husband, since we've been talking about taking said trip for a while.

Low: 

The federal building where my husband works went into temporarily lock-down for an hour or so last week when a suspicious package was found on one of the first floors. He texted me while I was at work, letting me know what had happened, and I didn't think anything of it since these kind of things happen all the time (right??). But then he stopped responding to my text messages for a while and I had a mini inward freakout moment at my desk. 

Visions of the federal building blowing up with my husband on the 17th floor crossed my mind and I was about ready to leave and inspect the area myself (since I work four blocks away), but then he texted me back (turned out the package was nothing) and all was well again. But for those few long minutes, everything went into slow motion for me (ok, so I have an overactive imagination) and the terrifying thought of no longer having my husband to wake up next to, watch movies with, go on long walks with, talk to and just laugh with truly freaked me out. Is there such thing as loving someone too much? Because after 3+ years of marriage I'm still intoxicated by his presence. I love this, but it makes little things like suspicious packages seem much more dire than they actually are.

Typical Thursday

Wow. Today was totes an emotionally draining day at work -- but for once it didn't have anything to do with me! w00t!! I don't even know where to start, but since I don't want to divulge too many details on this here blog, I'll just say one of my coworkers had a major meltdown in the office today. Like, Brad Goreski-style mah-JOR. She caved under pressure, plain and simple, and I was caught in the middle as mid-level management. Draaamaaa.

Which means I spent most of my day trying to calm her down and get her to stop sobbing. Hard to do when she and I never really got along in the first place, but I guess this comes with the territory. (By the way, have I said that I officially despise managing people? I feel like I'm a cross between an air-flight controller, standing out on the tarmac waving my two orange flags at incoming jets, and a babysitter dealing with teenagers who are theoretically old enough to stay "home alone" but whose parents don't trust them to behave.)

Though I don't like seeing anyone cry at work, in some sick, twisted way I was happy to see someone else miserable in our office. Especially her, since she has been the source of most of my problems since I started (refer to blog post #1). Karma's a bitch, I wanted to say. I know, totally wretched of me, right? I was both disturbed and pleased. Totally sick.

I left work needing a cocktail or three. Badly. But when I got home I was elated: I found out my old car I'd donated to the SPCA here had just sold. It netted the SPCA a donation from me of $1,000, and they sent me a thank you letter for the gift. I'm not big on donations right now (since I'm still getting my life financially set up), but it felt SO GOOD to give something to a cause that's close to my heart (my little dog is a rescue pup). Could I have sold the car myself and probably gotten more? Of course. But I didn't need the money after I bought my new car and figured I'd give the old one to a charity that actually needed the money.

"There are dogs and cats in that SPCA that will live longer because of our donation," my husband said, as he handed me the letter. And I couldn't help but smile, because I hoped he was right. 

So yeah maybe it felt good to watch that chick suffer today, but this letter proves that I'm not all bad.

In search of trabajo

So I've officially decided to start looking for another job. 

I told myself I'd stick it out, that it wasn't worth hopping to another job out of frustration since whenever my husband finds his dream job we'll have a better idea of where we're going to settle down and I don't want to have to skip out on two employers in a one-year period, but JESUS. After today I don't even care anymore. 

Long story short: I was having a fine day until my boss, L, decided to confront me in the most childish, passive aggressive way about something that wasn't even that big of a deal. Seriously. Everything is so informal there (to the point of being annoying) that the one time L fails to inform me that something IS actually going to be more formal than 99% of everything else we do, I get chastised. Well, sitting at my desk at 5pm, packing up the last of my things in my purse and listening to L act like an overgrown child, I was about ready to tell him (excuse my French but it's greatly necessary) to go fuck himself. 

But I didn't. Instead I suppressed it like a good little worker bee. On my short walk to the metro I told myself to not let it ruin my day. Then I boarded the metro car with my husband, who apparently had a good day because of some legal-briefing-whatever he had worked on. Being the gray cloud I was I told him that's great, and that maybe someday he'd actually get paid to do that stuff instead of talking about it for free. Ouch. Soo, he was silent looking at job listings on his smartphone the whole ride home, while my anger turned more to sadness, and yes, I was that girl sitting near the window, crying the whole way home with big dark sunglasses on. I need to get a freaking grip.

So to salvage what sanity I have left, I'm going to bite the bullet and see what I can find on the job boards. Hilariously enough, retail is not out of the question (says the girls with two degrees that swore she'd never work retail again after college). At first I didn't want to look for just any job since I didn't want to deal with my parents' (and everyone else's) judgment about my choices, but anything is better than now and I need to work on making MYSELF happy. Not anyone else.  As long as I can make enough to cover our rent/car payments/credit card bills/food/utilities, then I will be happy. I love clothes and shoes just as much as the next girl but I can do without new things all the time if it means never having to go back to that awful joke of a workplace again.

So far most of the Craigslist openings I've seen in this area are for dentist's offices. Random? I have no experience with anything dental-related, and it looks like they want some dental office experience for even their front-desk peeps. Sigh. Too bad, since the pay is pretty good, but oh well. The job search continues...