Mile 9 In A Half Marathon

After trading three emails with an H.R. manager at a grocery store where I have been trying to get hired since last April, tearing up during my morning meditation as I asked for the guidance to give my dream some real steam, holding the wish and intention of getting an interview with them, staring at the back of their store from the loading dock at my current job and trying to will them to call me, I began to falter a bit this afternoon.

For any job seeker, holding a positive intention is a difficult balance.  When do you throw your arms up during the roller coaster ride and scream your ass off and when do you grip the side rail? A prayer, a wish and an intention are made from the same cloth.  We call it positive thinking but maybe it is simply a belief in ourselves regardless of the outcome.  However, it is difficult when the interest comes and then it goes.  How do we relax?  How do we believe and then let go?

And so it is that I am almost dead on my feet tired at my now four months of working as a gardener.  The same uncertain climate has led to daily if not several times a day being overly criticized by the lead gardener for doing something wrong.  Not exactly.  Sexism and not such a pretty word when you watch your co-workers do the minimum and you are the one getting grief for doing excellent work in half the time.  No kidding.  It has gotten really, really old.  Yeah, I'm the girl.

I hold the dream that the H.R. manager really meant what she said in the last email and hope that tomorrow will bring a phone call for an interview.  I have been here many times and that is what it is like to look for work in 2012.  It reminds me of running a half marathon. At about mile nine, your mind tells your body to stop running though there are 3.1 miles to go.  As a runner, you then try to pry up that relentless voice in your head to find, underneath, the character and the guts to go the distance and cross the finish line still running. 

I am still running.

The Loving Hut And Harry The Whippet

Yesterday some friends took us along on their sweet adventure to San Francisco for lunch and a dog park and a coffee shop.  It was as if the heavens shown down upon us as the weather was clear and sunny in the city.  So sunny that by day's end we had seen four naked people on the streets of San Francisco.  Well then it is the city.

First stop at a dog park in Petaluma for a brief constitutional for our four legged friend and so many different dogs were there.  Cavorting and sniffing and running amok were various dog friends who all seem to be very well behaved in this large dog park near Hwy 101.  I was so impressed and for me, dogs are like a tickling breeze to my troubled mind.  Any kind of dog peaks my interest and I find a way to get close to them if I can. 

We then traipsed to San Francisco and found the restaurant that Ms. M. found for us on the great Internet highway.  A vegan Chinese restaurant is an unknown in our part of northern California and so it was an exciting event.  The Loving Hut as it is called has a 100% vegan menu.  It is a clean and bright place with so many wonderful things to eat.  Wow.  All our meals were outstanding and one could not tell that no meat in any way passed our plates.  In fact, for desert I had banana fritters with vanilla ice cream that made me feel giddy and almost otherworldly.  What an incredible lunch with our fascinating friends and their rich stories.  We left The Loving Hut feeling full and ready to take a walk.

We ended up at our friend's new dog park find and spent some time watching and petting other dogs as our four legged co-adventurer checked out her kin.  A man with an elderly Whippet came in a while and I made my way to Harry.  Harry had once been a puppy with lots to sniff and wag about.  I found that Harry seemed to be very stiff and in pain.  I wondered if his owner realized just how hard it is to be a 15 year old Whippet with back pain.

I wanted to snatch Harry up and take him home and treat him with Rimadyl and massage and acupuncture daily.  He came and stood in the crook of my bent knees, just like Rosie and it pretty much broke my heart.  Harry is one of those dogs who steal your heart before you know what has hit you.  Perhaps there is a Whippet in my future?  If so, may he have the kind of soul that Harry shared with me on a sunny day in San Francisco. May you have a soft landing Harry.

We left the dog park and walked "The Castro" which seems to have turned more vaudeville than I remember.  However, the bar where I used to drink was still doing a thriving business.  That bar now has cafe tables out front where the naked man we saw walking down the street found a chair amongst clothed patrons who did not even give it another wink that he was, indeed, naked as a jay bird. We stopped by the coffee shop and onto our car for a brief sojourn to the marina where the ocean was dotted with yachts and boats coming in from an afternoon on San Francisco bay.

All in all, I felt full of sunshine, people watching, great food, dogs and love as we traveled north past the beginnings of late afternoon across those Marin county hills that are the gateway to our beautiful county here. It seemed like I had stepped out of my troubles and I feel so fortunate to have been included in such a glorious adventure with great humans, a puffy dog friend and Edith, the GPS maven.  Thank you everyone.  Boy did I need that!