EmbarkingHalfway through hour 6 of my workday, starting hour 5 of meetings. Uhg.

I'm gonna take a stand and say that is too many hours of meetings.

I would adopt from the shelter but my cats thus far have saved me the bother of making the trip. Sammie was up in a tree after a rain storm, crying her tiny little half-starved heart out. She climbed down while I was asking neighbors for a ladder to retrieve her. Neighbors kept saying, "gosh, we have three dogs, a kitten probably wouldn't do well with us." And I kept saying, "That's ok, she's coming home with me." And so she did. As for Harvey, well, his tale is a bit more involved. You see, when I moved out to Arizona, I brought Pachisi with me. She was a blue and cream torbie. Pachisi adopted a kitten out from under some neighbors. Between the time those neighbors officially let me have Silver (a tabby-pointed part-Siamese), and the time I could scrape up the money to get her fixed, she got pregnant. Then Pachisi died. Silver would lie on my lap purring, and I would feel the kittens moving around. I knew there was a Harvey in there. When they were born, I figured out Harvey was the one with the blue points. I didn't want to keep him because his coloring reminded me of Pachisi too much. But he had an umbilical hernia so no one would take him. And he was mine. Poor boy, he felt from the beginning of his life he had to make me feel better, since I was hurting so much from losing Pachisi.

I love stories about cats and dogs getting themselves adopted. And Harvey, who apparently had a bond with WS before he was even born.

Steph, you take the initiative to create your own checklist to follow? You actually care about whether you're improving beyond what your employer feels is necessary to tell you? I'd commit minor felonies for an employee like you. I think you are too hard on yourself, and too anxious about whether you're pleasing your employer enough. (I am like this too.) I suggest continuing in your own way to improve and being proud of what you have accomplished. Given that people are more likely to give negative feedback than positive, I expect that if your employer feels you need to improve something, she will tell you, and if she doesn't, you can safely take that as a sign that you're doing well enough.

The only pet I specifically chose to buy was my guinea pig, though my parents bought my first dog from breeders. I learned from the mistakes of that first pet and chose a shorthair more suited to the southern climate (and my reluctance to pick poop pellets out of an animal's fur). Must have done something right, he was full-grown when we got him and lived another 7 years, quite a bit more than average.

I don't see any jobs that are tailor-made for me. But I'm still trying for internal jobs, and when my meetings end early, I'm surfing external job sites to see what's out there.

I'm cycling from "I am competent!" to "I guess I'll go eat worms?"

Given that people are more likely to give negative feedback than positive,

This bugs the hell out of me. I work in customer service; if we get a negative evaluation we hear about it ad nauseum. We started getting a string of really positive evaluations recently after we hired a new staff member (and moved a disgruntled one off the front line) and after the second really positive one, the staff member who gets the evaluation e-mails asked, "Do you really need to see these?" YES, we need to see these! How do you think you keep people motivated? And this is a career counselor!!

shrift, you'll find one; I have faith in you.

sj- congratulations!

I had to take a mental health day today, then realized I had planned on going to the garage tomorrow, and now couldn't because I had to go in to work since I took today off to do something that is due tomorrow.

So I hauled my sad butt out of bed and got a fantastic quote on replacing not only my timing belt and water pump, but the mechanic discovered a leak in the something something (we could see the sludge congealed on the outside of the something something). Even with the extra unexpected work, it was still 500 cheaper than this other place I got a quote at. Great garage recommendation, neighbor!

My family had one pet that claimed us. We were vacationing at the lake and one of the locals had a Manx that we would play with, teasing it with cattail leaves (fucker shredded those up, fuckers claws were no joke). I don't know how it came about, but we started sleeping with it in the cottage, and before we left, my parents asked the owner if we could keep it. They said yes. Max the Manx, man, what an awesome cat with his jackhammer back-legs. We had to wear sweaters and oven mitts to play with him.

I actually had to confirm decades later that my older brother hadn't actually stolen him, like he'd done with Bishop from the trailer park (and awesome long-haired tuxedo). But apparently the former owner was so disgusted by the cats disregard for him (and hey, what's the value of a pure-bred Manx when you can afford a lakeside house? pshaw) that he really did cede ownership.

It still feels fishy to me, but nobodies fessing, even when they've 'fessed to other kitnappings.

I got one cat (Si, who was a total sweetheart) because a co-worker moved into a place where she couldn't have cats and "temporarily" had me take her. 3 years and at least two moves later when (by then former) co-worker made noises about taking her back, I told her she couldn't.