Square One

Everything is as it was! I just finished my five week course on job preparation.  I'm ready to take flight, but apparently, I have nowhere to go. I'm a pilot without a plane, a debutant without a ball, a rower without an oar. The good news is that now I can go back to updating this blog on a weekly basis and I'm at home and available to pick up entertaining phone calls from various relatives. That could also be the bad news.

When I'm not sitting around feeling like the puppy at the mill that didn't get adopted, I'm online, trying to brush up on my PowerPoint and Excel skills. The last time I used Excel was to document literally each and everything we own before moving to Canada. Items such as pair less left shoelace and shiny black pebble in vase number three were part of my manifest.

So I guess I was rather detail-oriented, an adjective I sprinkle as liberally on my résumé and cover letter as I do sugar into the coffee I’m not supposed to be drinking on my liver preserving diet. Oh yes, that has gone to pot (belly) as well.

The five weeks proved detrimental to my liver diet, especially when we had access to goodies like potentially industrial grade manmade powdered cream for our coffee, cookies, cupcakes and the like more often than not. It takes a lot of sugar to get through listening to lectures or surfing the net all day in search of a job.

In the meantime, I keep having recurring dreams of finding an apartment in the DC area. I also constantly dream of flying a plane that has invisible walls, but that’s a different story for a different therapist--must be because I'm a Wonder Woman fan.  Now I’m wondering if the universe is trying to tell me to start applying for jobs in DC or the greater Maryland area.

I can see my far more practical spouse, P, holding his head now. Any old how, I shared this dream sequence with my nutty sister, who at once chimed in with her returning nightmare, I mean dream. It’s all about perspective really.

Just as a background, my sister and I, shockingly, cannot ride a bike. Yes. You read correctly. When we were growing up, our house was on a very busy road, and my father, being in insurance and thus suitably paranoid and well versed regarding worst case scenarios, decided that we should not be biking around the neighborhood.

When people find this out about us, and by people I mean our husbands and strangely our father, my sibling and I have found ourselves to be the butt of many a joke. However, by not riding a bike in our younger years, I believe we have contributed greatly to the longevity of the stray cats and dogs that frequented the area.

Any old how, my nutty sister claimed that her recurring dream is that she is riding the bike at breakneck speed. In her sleep, she is riding up and down hills with a ferocious joy. If she were to take lessons and make her dream a reality, several post boxes and squirrels in her neighborhood might be put out of commission. I shall have to issue a state warning. It’s the ethical thing to do.

I can picture her. Her hair pulled back in a wispy pony tail, her eyebrows raised high like upside down Cs, her eyes round and wide, and she would be grinning with glee, flashing all her molars—kind of like Dracula on a sunshine and lollipops diet.

She would probably even try to pedal with her hands off the bike screeching ‘whee!’. Next thing you know, she will be dreaming she is in the Tour de Farce. I mean France. Silly typos.

It is conversations such as this that I've been missing out on while I was attending the workshop. Good times. In the meantime, I am supposed to go to a CPR/First Aid Workshop tomorrow. I can only hope that we can practice on inanimate objects. Otherwise some poor person is going to get mummified while I'm trying to apply a splint.

With that, I must go and try to resuscitate myself. I've got the mother of all colds . Hopefully, I'll feel better and be able to go to my class. If I get there and pass out, at least I'll get points for participation. Nothing like being a real live dummy in a first aid class. More musings from BC next week...(and for my mother and aunt who are freaking out at this juncture, I shall stay home nice and warm with chicken soup if I'm still ailing in the morning).