Find a Job: Check

It was the week before last. I was in the midst of wedding mania, with a to-do list as long as my arm and another hundred things I was hoping to get done if I could before everyone got here. So, you'll understand if my job hunt wasn't my first priority. I was kinda-sorta doing it; responding to emails, checking the listings, but my attention was elsewhere.

That Monday, when yet another recruiter called about a possible opening, I was polite, but dismissive. I didn't hit all of the employer's checkboxes, and I'd been turned down more times than I could count for such a gap in my resume. But, he thought they'd at least want to talk to me, so I told him to go ahead and submit me for the job. What the heck.

Tuesday, to my surprise, he called back - they wanted to talk to me! I told him Friday was out of the question, but I should be able to do Wednesday or Thursday. To my surprise, he called back shortly - Wednesday was a go!

So, Wednesday afternoon I put on my best interview duds and trucked on downtown for the interview. I managed to put all thoughts of wedding preparations out of my head, and focus on the task at hand. It went well, I liked them well enough, they were still smiling when I left. As I was leaving, the manager told me they'd be making a decision the following week. "Great!", I thought. "This frees me to focus on the wedding; I don't have to worry about how the interview went until next week."

I got a call from the recruiter's office on my way home, which I returned as soon as I walked in the door. He asked how the interview went, I told him I thought it had gone well. Then he said, "It went more than well. You blew them away! They called me and told me to cancel the rest of the interviews and offer you the job."

I can't recall another word of the conversation. Presumably I was properly enthusiastic and professional. Talk about being blown away - they had made up their minds to hire me within 20 minutes of my leaving their office.  Really??? Really!

I start tomorrow.
Ready, set, go?

Happy Father's Day

I miss my dad.

but it's not with the same intensity as I miss my mom. Recently, I've started to dig into the why's of that just a bit. His death certainly wasn't as wrenching; by the time he died, he was retired and living in Arizona, and I saw him at most once a year; talked maybe three or four times beyond that.

He was just 69 when he died - old enough to have lived a good life, young enough that he never got to be old. The week he died, he'd visited me in Kansas City on his way to Maria's wedding, then stopped in Iowa to see my brother. He died of a heart attack in his sleep. This may well be part of the lack-of-intensity-why - he didn't suffer, he just went to bed and forgot to wake up.

These past few months, as I haven't been working at a job, his voice keeps coming back to me.

I hear him finishing my bedroom when I was eight or nine - and making a common cutting mistake; he cut the mirror image he wanted of the paneling he was installing. Rather than getting upset, he calmly matched his cut and installed the board, telling me, "the important part is not that you never make a mistake, it's that you know how to fix it."

I see him fixing the old lead drainage pipe, embedded in the concrete floor of the second story bath in my old house. "That should hold for a while", he said, "just don't try to poke anything down it". It did - for at least another fifteen years.

I hear his voice telling me evenly, after I told him I was thinking of getting a divorce (when I was young, divorce was not considered one of the options within a marriage; I feared his disapproval.), "I can't tell you what to do here - you need to do what you need to do."

When he arrived for that last visit, he and my step-mother had just had a fight and hadn't quite resolved it. It seems she was upset about something, and was having her say. He was quietly nodding along, and she was fine with his nodding until he nodded in the wrong place. It was then she found he had turned off his hearing aids, and couldn't really hear what she was saying at all. She was still a tad bit upset; he just admitted being in the wrong with a small half-smile that told me he wasn't really sorry.

Yeah, I miss you, Dad.
Happy Father's Day.

The Wedding

A while back, I wrote about Joe and Rita-Marie - how I'd set something in motion between them - but they had taken it from there.

Well, they've taken it to a happy conclusion - they were married last weekend.

It's been a long time since I was closely involved in planning a wedding. It was madness, and theirs was low-key! Rita-Marie was the opposite of Bridezilla, whatever you call it. (Must not happen very often, if we don't have a word for it...) She just wanted her friends and family there to celebrate with them. Really. No discussions about colors and dresses and menus. Their attendants were free to wear whatever they thought would look nice, and they had a pot-luck dinner reception. (thank goodness for my friend Karlie, who organized the dinner and cleanup - she made it look effortless, but I know it was a lot of work; she obviously really loves Joe!)

James, the best man, offered to do the flowers. I was pleased, was picturing some bouquets from Costco; I couldn't have been more wrong. Turns out he worked at a florist for a while in college. He spent hours the day before the wedding creating over a dozen lovely arrangements to grace the altar and the reception tables. amazing work.

It was a beautiful ceremony, if I do say so my unbiased self.

Two flower girls, thrilled to be included; one carefully dropping one petal at a time, one dropping handfuls as they went up the aisle. Two attendants - both best friends from college. Rita-Marie and Kate, Joe's sister, had one of those adventures in college where you either end up friends for life, or never speak to each other again, so the groom's sister was the maid of honor. Joe and James met up his freshman year, and spent their last few years in Rolla bunking together, while in grad school.

And the bride and groom - so happy, so tender. I love them both; my heart was full; my eyes overflowed with happy tears.

Rita-Marie's family came in from Texas and Nebraska, all my siblings and some of Joe's cousins came in from Iowa and Minnesota. My friend Mary came in from Colorado, Rita-Marie had friends fly in from New Mexico and Canada. And lots and lots of local friends took time from their day to attend.

So many beloved people, so little time to talk to each of them. It was the only sad part of the day for me - not enough time to connect to each and every one I loved who was there. They understand; for some occasions, brief hellos are all we have time to share. Knowing this would be the case, they came anyways.

Lots of love, lots of joy.
Lots of hope.  Amen.