Everyday Stupidities

I'm still on the wild ride. In the last entry, I told about how Ken had reminded me of an old friend / my sophomore year locker partner, Dean. Totally on his own with no prompting from Ken (they apparently had lost track of each other for vengeful human reasons beyond their control), Dean did a websearch for his name and found my Daybook entry... and got in touch with me. And I put him in touch with Ken. So the wonderment of reminiscing with folks I havent seen in 20 years continues. I wonder who comes next...?

There's no stupidity to report on the employment scene at this moment because I just got back from a second interview. In fact, it may be the opposite of stupid, if things are the way they look (and I have never claimed I'm able to read people in a hiring capacity). So here's the deal: I sat down with the guy who interviewed me last week, who had a Criminal Records Check form for me to fill out and sign, and he sat with me until one of the managing partners was ready to discuss stuff. I talked to the manager for awhile, we chewed the fat about computer bad-guys and 1980's soft rock (really, it was relevant!), and then he pushes the form to me to fill out and goes out, and I'm to wait for the first guy to return to pick it up. I get the form completed, I'm twiddling, and I decide to have a look at the copy of my résumé he printed for this meeting. There's a bonus page tacked to the end: the first guy had typed up his thoughts about my first interview, a whole page's worth in detail, and apparently I made such a good impression that his final comment was "my recommendation: hire this guy ASAP". *warm fuzzies* It'll be the first half of next week before they get back to me (once that CRC goes through and shows I'm not a felon), which works for me since this weekend will be spent painting the livingroom and hallway if we can get our asses in gear. (And if on the off-chance y'all are reading this, Chris et aliis... You're a good judge of character, and don't hold my investigation skills against me; they're an asset in your business, right?)

Valentine's Day went down perfect for me. Last week I bought two planters of very unique primroses (see above -- a double-primrose and this surprisingly large cultivar of primrose), a bar of 70% dark chocolate with almonds and a heart-shaped box of truffle Hershey Kisses, a cute card (1940's photo of a couple making out on a parkbench, inside says "Any chair we sit in together is a loveseat"), and... I went to Jared. For those blissfully unaware, the Jared Galleria Of Diamonds chain of jewelry stores advertises themselves with the simple slogan "[pronoun] got it at Jared." (Ads go like this: Man says confidently to wife as she opens the box, "I got it at Jared." Woman loves the gift and beams proudly, "He got it at Jared!!" Woman's friend turns snidely to her husband and snipes, "HE got it at Jared!" Friend's husband rhetorically says embarassed, "He got it at Jared.") Last week when I got home from that interview, I parked in the front driveway rather than trying to scoot past my wife's car because I intended to go do some shopping, and she asked why I didn't park in back. I told her that I was going to go to Jared. She laughed, not taking me at my word. Okay, fast-forward a week to today. When she got into the shower, I put on my sweats and went to the shed to get the plants and put them on my side of the bed, covered by clothes, then put the chocolate under her pillow, the card under my pillow, and the Jared bag in her sock drawer. She comes in after she'd dried off, and the show started... She's starting to get her underthings on, and I whip out the card and say "here's your card", pull the candy out and say "here's your candy", take the shirt off the pots and put them on the bed then said "and here's your flowers." She gives me a kiss and thanks me. She thinks that's all there is. She puts her outer clothes on, and the socks are the last thing she puts on... opens the drawer, and there's the bag. Totally takes her by surprise. The gift is a pair of emerald earrings, five stones per earring in a downward arc. I told her to put them on, "they match your shirt and socks" I said persuasively and she agreed. Yeah, she might have been a couple minutes late getting to work but she had something to show for it.