Several Updates Necessary

1. Happy March (or as Shalene would say, Birth Month). Tuesday I happened to glance at the tiny blue text on my desk calendar to discover that SUNDAY IS DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME! Oh man this makes me so happy. Proof! Spring! Baseball! Sunlight! all of it.

2. I'm counting down til my last day at work. I took two days (today and yesterday) to tie down the balance sheet and backup our Quickbooks. Then I'm taking Monday through Thursday of next week to train my replacement. Then I'm taking Friday off to put together my birthday party. Saturday is party, Sunday I'll be getting my head in the game and Monday the 17th, walking in the door at Emma.

3. As I mentioned, I'm training my replacement at work, which means I've been handling advertising for the position, fielding resumes, interviewing candidates, and now making the final decision with my coworkers. Let me tell you, this has been an adventure. At Hatch, we used to make a game out of handling all the intern applications, which were often funny or creative, or at least occasionally so dumb it was entertainment-worthy.

This time around, I am alternately saddened and appalled by the things that the general public might think is appropriate for a resume. Here's a hint: no floral or smiley icons. Also, please don't center-justify your cover letter. Additionally, I don't think it's proper to tell me you're charismatic. Isn't that for me to decide? And the most important detail of all: SPELL CHECK YOUR RESUME! PERIOD! This is not negotiable! These are WORD documents that weren't spell checked! Word does it FOR YOU! Oh man. One applicant misspelled the word "government" when she was telling me she used to work there. For the goverment. And another applicant, happily, joyously, delivered to me the Elusive True Definition of Irony: misspelling "detail-oriented" on your resume. Thank you, Ignorant Job Applicant!

I know this is all incredibly mean-spirited. I should tell you that out of the 50-or-so resumes I received, we had at least 15 strong candidates, and out of those, seven interviewees who all seemed bright and sharp and at least partially qualified. And I think we've made the right decision with the final candidate. I really don't want to leave any big vacancy here. I'm trying to make the transition as smooth as possible.

4. In one week I've had two cooking disasters. One burned skillet lasagna and one totally foul one-pot kielbasa mess that I don't even want to detail. What is WRONG with me? I can't take it too hard, though, and I should cheer up my bruised chef-ego with thoughts of the delicious Italian sausage, mushroom and onion penne with a white wine cream sauce from Wednesday. That was tasty.

5. What, you wanted bigger updates than those ones? Something that makes a better story than Random Annual Time Changes, The Idiotic General Public or Ruined Dinners? Oh, okay.

Last Thursday morning I headed to the bank on my way to work. I was sitting at the light at 5th Avenue North and Jefferson Street and realized that traffic was stopped despite the light being green. Being an unnecessarily aggressive driver, I said, out loud, in my car, to no one, "WHY are we not going forward?" Then I saw some white and black movement between the cars in front of me and realized that there was a dog in the road, and people were (politely, safely) stopped to avoid hitting it. I watched the dog wander around in the road, on the median, in front of other moving vehicles, and then it finally ran right up to my car. I opened my car door. The dog jumped in my backseat and laid down.

Oops.

I drove around Germantown and asked people in the street if they'd ever seen him before. He was wearing a chain collar, with no tags. Then I just let him out of the car when we were far enough away from 8th or Jefferson that I felt like he could find his way home without being on any major thoroughfares. He ran in circles in the street for a minute, then ran straight back over and put his paws on my driver's side window.

Oops.

SO I put him back in the car, drove straight to Eckerd, bought a leash and a rawhide bone and a small bag of food, and brought him to work with me. I posted his picture on Craigslist and two petfinder websites. He spent the day sleeping on my feet under my desk.

Oops.

After work, I drove around with him to give Austin time to get home and wrangle Mischa and Bridgette so we could at least partially control their introduction. Which didn't end up being entirely necessary: Bridgey was a little iffy at first but Mischa was overjoyed at another friend to follow around and play mouthbiting games with. Within an hour, all three were crashed on the living room floor and we were suddenly seeming like a bigger, happier family.

Oops.

When I first brought him into the office, I was calling him Buddy. "Hey buddy, come sit in here with me." By the time I took him home that day, he had a new name: Digby. He stayed with us over the weekend, got along famously with the girls, basically ignored the cats (which is quite a feat when Mackenzie is launching herself at him, spitting and hissing like a banshee), slept on one of the dog beds in the dressing room. The only behavioral problem we're having with him is a territorial issue with the couch. As in, we are territorial about our couch, and he feels he could share it with us.

So I took him to the vet on Tuesday, got him his shots and all checked out. He's a 70 pound Dalmatian/black lab mix (at best), 2 years old with no health problems other than some issues with his Man Part that they are going to fix surgically when he gets neutered on Monday. I won't go into more details than that unless you want me to. I think most of you do not want me to.

Originally we were intending to find his family. But after thinking about it, maybe that wasn't the best place for him in the first place. As Casey put it: (found him in) North Nashville + (he still has his) balls = ghetto. And that's assuming that they even still wanted him; my theory is that he was dumped in that neighborhood after he wasn't aggressive enough to be a fighting dog. He has scars on his ears and mouth, and it's also possible that his ween problem was from scarring. So then we said we'd try to find him a good home. And now, I think, obviously, we have.

Oops.

Meet Digby.