Monday's Survey Interview

Had a nice quiet uneventful weekend. Friday my physical therapist worked my arm mostly to death, but it's feeling better and I'm doing more of the right things so it will continue to feel better.

Saturday R and I went to see Bottle Shock, which was excellent. I sort of intended to see Gonzo on Sunday but I was too lazy to go out. So I stayed home and played with the birds all day. Or rather, let them out so they could play on their own. I did go over my poetry manuscript and changed a few things, but not as much as I feared I'd have to do. I can let it go today if I needed to, so I feel pretty good about that.

Charli wasn't very perky yesterday and took a lot of naps -- which isn't like her, so I'm going to keep an eye on her. She even refused orange juice, which she loves.

I chatted with B a little bit about this new "interview with HR person" thing at work. Some level of management is having a poor innocent soul from HR interview all of us in this department to see how things are. My "survey interview" is this afternoon, and the more I think about it the madder I get. By the time I got to work this morning I was furious, and I imagine my blood pressure was sky high. I fully intend to speak my mind about the crap that goes on around here: how only a select few get big raises in the middle of the year, how certain managers are incompetent, how I and some others feel it's a waste of time to talk to any of the managers or administrators (based on past experience), the blatant favoritism that goes on around here, etc. ad nauseum. It's supposed to be confidential, but I don't believe that mine will be. My job is too different from the others to blend in with everyone else's. And if it's noted that I seem to have a "bad attitude," well, I've certainly earned it.

But in my heart I know none of this will do any good. I've worked here for 24 years and endured all manner of interviews and surveys and questionnaires -- and nothing ever changes. I can tell by her voice that the HR person I'm meeting is young and is most likely new to the place -- she probably believes what she's doing makes a difference. I don't want to be the one to disillusion her -- somebody else will do that soon enough.

Birds and Mother and Saturday

I swear, I wouldn't recommend GoDaddy to my worst enemy. I've transferred my domain names from them to a new provider and GoDaddy won't let go of them. My sites are not showing up because "transfer is denied," because it's "registered," it's "private," I need to log onto this and click that and then log in over here and click that other button. This has been going on all damn week. So if you tried to access my blog and couldn't, it's because GoDaddy wouldn't release the domain name.

The other situation with GoDaddy is so convoluted it would take me months to explain it due to the impossible happening for three friggin' years. I'll have another site set up later. Even the most advanced tech person I know said it was "possible but highly unlikely," which from him means "impossible." sigh . . . .

I've been on the phone almost all morning to powweb.com, trying to get through to tech support and then trying to make myself understood by the folks in India.

Sugar Franklin was declared okay -- Thursday's gram stain only showed one little yeast thing, so she's okay. I put her water bottle back in place, and I suspect she's glad to taste "normal" water again.

My physical therapist is from South Africa, which explains her accent. We talked for a few minutes about apartheid; she said she and her family left in the mid-80s because of apartheid (she's white and didn't want her family living in that kind of environment). She said it's all open now except that there are no jobs any more for whites, and that Indian women get first pick as doctors. I think it's fascinating to talk to someone who lived there during apartheid, but we didn't have time and I don't exactly know her well.

She did some ultrasound on my shoulder then I did some arm rotations on a machine like a bicycle, then she gave me more exercises to do. Because of vacations I won't see her again until mid-August. My shoulder didn't feel good after the session like last week.

My mom came to town today (she lives about 60 miles away) and I took her out to lunch. She makes beautiful, award-winning quilts, and she wanted to go to one of the fabric stores here. She seemed a bit more calm today, thank goodness.

Charli bit me last night. I had her out for over two hours, giving her scritches, letting her nap on my chest, and even letting her chew up safe things on the coffee table. And then the phone rang.

Charli cannot abide the phone or for me to use it. I've learned to either put her down or hold her far away from me when I have to answer the phone, and that's always worked. But last night she bit my hand several times and wouldn't let go. I had to shake her off, which wasn't good for either of us. It was a terrible way to end such a nice time we had had, and I feel awful about it. I got her in her cage and gave her a good lecture then ran ice cold water over my hand to stop the bleeding. I gave her some more scritches later in the evening to show I forgave her; this morning she's fine and back to her normal sweet self.

I think I deserve a nap.