Oh damn, I was so hoping that UCLA would come through. I finally had the finish of the phone screen with the guy from last week, which was cordial, and ended with us concluding that I wasn't the right fit. I went away feeling like I wasn't a failure, anyway, which is important for me emotionally.

...I feel like I should break into a round of Solidarity Forever. Again.

I wemt into work for a lunch meeting today. They announced that they are offering voluntary retirement (is that an oxymoron or what) to some. Once that process is done, depending how many people take it, there may be "reductions". Oh joy. And those announcements? Will be in 6-8 weeks. Right in the start of holiday season.

I'm pretty confident that my job isn't at risk. Though those little doubts sure shout down the confidence. We will see. My manager has not idea if they are looking at our group for "right sizing".

I love climbing on the porch roof in the rain, first thing in the morning.

(I cleared the leaves out last night. More showed up overnight and were clogging the drain. I'll probably need to go out there again tonight.)

The downside to pretty trees. Job survival~ma, sarameg.

I think I can say with some certainty that the job economy sucks.

And yet, I have gotten one really good candidate for a position I'm trying to fill, and she took a different job elsewhere! I do not understand.

Dear Coworker-

If the instructions "edit this file. Put in appropriate message in the section starting at XXX" is clear as mud , I'm really not sure I can help you much further.

By edit, do you mean to put the appropriate message in the section starting at XXX? Or is there other editing that needs to be done?

I am celebrating/taking-advantage-of-having-the-day-off by trying a duck recipe that involves dry brining, air drying, steaming, cooling to room temperature, and finally glazing and roasting. I am excite. We are at the air drying stage right now, the duck is brined and stuffed with cilantro and ginger and already smells pretty amazing. The recipe called for a 4-lb duck and I have a skinny little two-pounder, so it's going to be heavily seasoned. Which I think will suit me? We'll see.

I gave the leftover cilantro to the rabbits, of course, and now I am observing to see if they like it or not. One dove in for a few nibbles right when I gave it to them, the other declined to come from the platform she was resting on, but I went back to dealing with the duck and didn't see what happened nxt. The pile has not diminished much. Neither is doing anything to lead me to believe they experience a soapy taste, but how would I know? Results are inconclusive thus far.

I don't mean to gloat, but staying in my pajamas and drinking coffee on my couch while it rained this morning was SO NICE.

Went to Rosh Hashanah services at my parents' synagogue. That was the first time I've ever walked out of a synagogue during a sermon. I just couldn't sit there and listen to that. (Israel, of course. He started with quoting Ben Franklin, "There never was a good war or a bad peace." The said that Franklin didn't actually mean that, he meant this whole equivocating thing. But, in any case, Franklin was wrong, because this latest was in Gaza was a good war. I can usually get through this stuff by making snarky comments to my dad under my breath, but this was just too much.)