Aftermath

The "employee satisfaction" survey was, of course, a joke. The interviewer said it came as a directive from the big dude, then tried to change it to saying it came from the semi-big dude. Either way, it was a waste of time. The interviewer said they understood that happy employees produced more and better work. She kept her face as hard as a mask through the whole thing. I told her I'd been trying to transfer for 13 friggin' years and she just looked at me, as if I was exaggerating. She knows as well as I do that the entire HR system is set up against employees, not for them.

B and I think it might be an excuse for a reorganization. Or, my personal favorite, making everyone apply for their current jobs and then finding out they're "not qualified."

Thank god I'm a union member in good standing. Just in case.

O hurt her back so between my trip and her back I haven't had a piano lesson in four weeks. This is okay with me since I haven't practiced in four weeks. She even left chorus practice early last night.

Got a note from Avian Publications last night. He said because of the economy he's holding off on publishing the brown-head book until next year. Damn it.

The birds were all frantically chirping this morning when I left for work, and they went crazy when I got home from chorus practice last night. Maybe they think I'm going away again, even though I told them I couldn't afford to go anywhere except to work and rehearsals.

In Anticipation of Rain

The weather people are promising thunderstorms today, and I hope they're right. I could use a big ole' thunderstorm about now -- lots of lightning and thunder and pounding rain that rushes into the street and down the sewers.

The Evil Committee was its usual evil self yesterday. It's what you'd imagine a committee in Hell would be like -- a little conference room with a white screen and no windows, tables in a square formation with little chairs around them. The tables have dried rings on them from countless wet glasses and cups. Pictures of males on the walls along with plaques for excellence in employee satisfaction or housekeeping or softball -- all slightly crooked. Extra chairs and odd broken pieces of equipment piled in the corners, so there's really not much space to move around in. The computer only shows half of the document on the screen, and everyone peers at it and then someone will ask about a particular word, then someone else will chime in about that word and another word. T will write everything down on her copy, L will bring up something that has no relation whatsoever to the subject at hand, A will address L's comment, so that P and M have to express their opinion on the matter. Then C will jangle her bracelets and state her views, causing T to mark out what she'd written and write something else down. The room and meeting are all self-contained, with no escape. I drink my tea or water very, very slowly and wonder why I'm even there and how I'm going to survive another one.

Our summer chorus taper rehearsals have been moved to Mondays instead of Sundays, and the place we normally meet at has broken air conditioning so we're now meeting in a big church basement. Last night's rehearsal went pretty well, all things considered.

Got my Vermont workshop workbook yesterday, and it's about what I expected. Some writers included stuff that's simply incomprehensible to me, others included respectable work. Maybe it's just because I'm older but I strongly believe a poem should be about something recognizable, notwithstanding "language" poems, which I look at as exercises rather than poems. I'm concerned that my instructor is not Bruce Weigl, who I signed up for, but someone named Baron Wormser. Never heard of him (her), and I don't appreciate the switch with no explanation. I wrote Louise to see what was going on, and she said Bruce had health problems and then Jack bailed. I hadn't gotten the e-mail about Bruce, so it was all a surprise to me.

No meetings today, so I can deal with this pile of work without having to leave my office right in the middle of it. I had a lot of phone calls yesterday, so I may just let the system take messages today.

Sugar Franklin has been drinking her special water more and more, without a problem. Seems to me she's a bit perkier, but that could be my imagination. We go back for a gram stain on Thursday.

Charli has taken to sleeping on the other side of her cage, on top of a half-chewed toy. Parrots can sleep in the oddest places in the most contorted postures; clearly they don't have arthritis, or at least they don't have it yet.

On the drive to work this morning, I heard on NPR that McCain's latest commercial blames Obama for the increase in gasoline prices. There is no twisted form of logic or madness available to me that would make that make any sense whatsoever.