December Day 3

I had a meeting on the morning of December 3. Well, I thought it was a meeting but it was more like an interview. I anticipated meeting with one partner and I met with two and they asked questions like, "what challenged you most about your previous job?" What? Perhaps I was a little unprepared for standard interview questions! Somehow, I thought we were just going to chat! The fact that I had not updated my resume since 1999, and had just performed that task two days prior to my interview, had me thinking and remembering things about my former jobs and I thought I answered their questions well. Or maybe not, since I have not heard from them yet!

When I got home, I was smugly thinking about how great I did and what kind of new working mom I would be. Then Tony called and asked me how it went and what would I do with my four kids during school vacations while I worked. What? What kind of mother does not consider this before going to a meeting such as the one I attended on this morning? Christmas break? 11 weeks of Summer break? What? Heloooooooo Mel, what were you thinking?

Maybe I was thinking: I have a twelve and a half year old daughter and after all I am only asking for a part-time job. A very flexible one at that, so this is something I could swing. Right? Who knows? Well heck, I think I'll just postpone that worry for another day!

I made our favorite snickerdoodles in the afternoon for Emily to add to the pot of goodies at her jazz band pizza and such dinner. The jazz banders and their parents [but not me] decorated their float for the parade and ate before heading downtown. Later in the afternoon when I took some things she needed over to her, I drove off without leaving the cookies! Me and the rest of my gang headed over to their school for a frenzied "family fun night." We met Tony, tried to make sure the kids were having some family fun, fed ourselves, and rushed over to the parade where Wyatt was meeting his Boy Scout pack at their float. Tony left with Wyatt and I took Eva and Sarah with me. We parked [what felt like] a mile away from the parade route, I got a little turned around downtown with all the traffic and the drizzly rain and the darkness. We marched up to our designated meeting place in front of the post office where my friends Pat and Chrissi had saved us a spot! What fortune! We arrived late, when the parade had already begun and we got a great place to watch it with our friends! The kids had a great time. Pat shared her cocoa and cider and I shared my snickerdoodles.



We have five or six santa hats that we have collected over the last few years. However, the one Eva is wearing in the photos here is vintage. In 1985, right after I graduated high school, I left California and went to live with my family in Tennessee. I planned to go to college there. I didn't start school right away because I was trying to get my status in order being from out of state and all. I did however have a job working for my grandparents [I think it was a rite of passage for everyone in my family] in a store they had in Rivergate mall. It was the Candle Cabin. It was the most wonderful place, especially when we were little kids. It had these noisy barnwood floors and was completely styled like a little log cabin with the wonderful smell that candle stores have. We sold all kinds of beautiful things from the ultra ornate Brass candlesticks to the novelty candle frogs and rainbows. Anyway, I am making a short story too long here! I worked into the Christmas season and everyone that worked there wore a santa hat with their name glittered onto the front of it. Eva is wearing what remains of my glittered name of 25 years ago. I have a photo of my and my grandmother, Meme, behind the cash register with our matching santa hats. Every noisy, old fashioned barnwood floor I step on for the rest of my life will remind me of that store, and of Meme and Papa.

I just dug out these pics. I was snap happy with my Canon Snappy in those days, I think I went to the Walgreens photo counter every other day to develop pictures at the mall. I've never been photogenic, especially not in the 80's! Sorry about the picture of pictures but you can clearly see the matching santa hats we wore that Christmas as we are pretending to transact some cash business! Isn't it super cool how I placed my hat so that you could see my really big bangs!