Cold and Gray Day

i have a crushing headache today and i can feel my level of depression rising for every day there is no sun. cold, gray weather always reminds me of my childhood. as a matter of fact, if i didn't know better, i'd swear every day i was growing up was cold and dark. of course, that just speaks to my psychological state at the time.

i've spent a fair amount of the day working on osha logs...never a particularly appealing task. on the up side, i spent some time reformatting data in a company database. that's more palatable for me somehow.

hubby had a job interview today for a writing job with the department of agriculture. he chose not to prepare for it other than to check out their website. he did get some valuable information there. my advice would have been to practice some interview questions, just to make sure you have a ready answer when they ask those predictable questions like "how do you handle multiple projects with the same deadlines." they also asked him what type of writing he prefers. he didn't have a particularly good answer for it. successful interviewing techniques require practice, unfortunately. they're going to select 10 candidates and start round two of the process. they're anticipating that should happen in about a week to ten days.

ruski seems to be improving. he's been eating more regularly. in addition to his special diet food, he had a couple of bags of moist dry dog food at lunch today, then an oatmeal biscuit, then a vegetable chew treat. i think that's the most he's eaten since he became ill. he even initiated play with sheba yesterday afternoon. the past couple of evenings, he gets on his bed in the living room about nine, lies down and starts flopping one foot at us periodically. it's kind of like a little wave at us...that means he's ready to receive pets. not only is he ready, he's a little fascist about it. hubby and i have a tag team approach so one of us isn't stuck petting him for a solid hour. hubby periodically has to go in the den, though, to make sure that The Princess of Woo isn't feeling neglected. i figure once she goes to her crate, she's just doing her greta garbo impression...she wants to be alone. i'm very cheered up by The Mighty Tusk's improvement. if only i could get the timing right for all of the things i need to do for him first thing in the morning. this morning i forgot to give him his liver pills until 6:45, which made me late for work.

my mom is feeling ill still. she sounds like she's very stuffed up and she's coughing, but she says she feels okay. when she's sick i start feeling like i need to be in control of the management of her illness. i guess that comes from having to deal with my dad for such a long time. when he would call me up and not be feeling well (a lot), i would leap into action intellectually and come up with a series of things i thought he should do to feel better. that didn't mean he'd do any of those things, of course, but sometimes he would. i guess the fact that he would cooperate sometimes ensured i'd continue to try to crisis manage for him. i don't generally think of myself as a controlling person, especially since my dad's suicide. that was the best lesson i've ever had in exactly how much contol one really has over other people. i recognize my need to control in this situation is really just a function of how much anxiety i'm experiencing.

that reminds me. last night i was watching some television program in which a husband and wife were having conflict. the husband arrived home late and hadn't called to let his wife know. the children ran to greet him, his wife made some comment clearly indicating her irritation and then left the room. it was surprisingly triggering. i remembered how frightening it was for me when my father came home late. even more frightening when there was even a hint of conflict. in my flashback, i noticed my need to try to assert some control over the situation. how much control could a little kid have? i would try to assess the immediate danger related to him being late. then i would try to distract my father in the hope that the situation wouldn't then become explosive. in retrospect, i'm not sure i was ever successful in completely defusing the situation. sometimes i was just able to get him to focus his anger on me. that's a cheery little tale to end with.

here's the quote of the day:
"Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise." ~ Henry Ward Beecher

america held hostage day 1850
bushism of the day:
"A surplus means there'll be money left over. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called a surplus." website of the day:
Economic Justice Now (Global Debt Relief)
http://www.economicjustice.org/resources/media/aslam042099.html