Things are going well

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Love the new job. Love being a manager. Love it love it love it. I had a thought today. That the string of shitty bosses I’ve had over the years has taught me what not to do because I know how it feels to be treated badly, with hostility, how it feels to be told I’m incompetent, what it’s like to hate coming in, even getting out of bed, because you can’t bear to face that horror one more day.

I’m loving being a great boss. I’m loving being able to be kind and understanding to my new staff person, who’s been having a hard time of it since her friend and last boss left. I’m just thrilled she is telling everyone how much she wanted me to be her new boss and how glad she is that I’m there. I am making the faculty very happy, I’m making things better. It is an amazing feeling. The alarm goes off and I don’t dread going in to work. I have all kinds of ideas to make things run more smoothly thanks to the department peeps bringing me their wish lists. Very exciting. So this is what it feels like to have a job that seems tailor made for you.

Who knew!

Black Velvet

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The photo of course does not do this garment justice.  The silk velvet and silk lining are like liquid in their drape and softness. This fits perfectly and is going to look awesome with jeans and boots. I *love* the way they extended the lining to create that cool red border.  It’s not attached at the hems but floats free.  Pretty awesome construction job.

I found the following photos on my camera.  I took them to play with closeup shots and thought what the heck, I’m showing my stuff I never show… This silver is generally what I wear on any given day.  The bracelets are always the same but the rings can vary.  The carnelian beauty is a recent, very cheap, purchase that I bought to bring in passionate love.  We’ll see how it works.  It’s at least an inch high, I just love the stone.

The large ring was made for me by a friend as a barter.  She made me the ring, I made her an embroidered pillow with medieval “illuminated” letters that spell LOVE surrounded by crazy quilt velvet.  Citrine stones.  I’ve had that one repaired twice, it is rather snaggy and has snapped in two twice.  The snake has a garnet and the smaller ring which nestles so nicely that it is mistaken as one large ring, has a blue moonstone.

Top to bottom:  a gift from my brother in 1980 on his first visit to Nepal, silver and turquoise with a big etched dragon on the inside. A gift from friend, she no longer wanted it, a very good Viking reproduction, it has large silver balls on the ends where it opens.  A gift from a friend, a guy I worked with who used to work for a jeweler, he gave me quite a silver stash from his hoard of treasure, peridot, garnet, citrine, amethyst stones.  The last bracelet a gift to myself from me after the breakup with The Forgiven, it is a simple viking/indonesian chain.  Knotted black leather cord.

A silver chain I bought to replace the stainless steel lightbulb pull that an ex gave me.  A gift from a friend when a relationship busted up and she didn’t want the reminder. And of course, my 50th birthday present to myself.  Last but not least, Love.

First Day On The New Job

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It went well, I’m in a good safe sane place.  The people are all super nice.  Now that doesn’t mean that as researching faculty they don’t have their moments of crankypants, but they are fundamentally nice.  I can take occasional grumpous crap but not just plain nasty personalities.  I’m in a good place.  The work is going to be a breeze for me.

The one interesting thing I didn’t consider is that while I still work at the university I also work for the medical center attached and they are kind of a their own little world within the university’s own little world.  For the first time in 20 years I’m dealing with a dress code, no blue jeans of any kind and no open shoes.  Peep toes are okay but no sandals and the like even if they are fancy and black and professional.  You can wear the most jackassed hot pink with green daisy jeans but under no circumstances can they be blue.  Evidently a new CEO came in and he’s from the East Coast so no more western slacker shit there.

Thank god for thrift stores.  I found a pair of nice fancy type denim trousers (they are not jeans and it is the dark spandex denim that never fades) and some black pants and a pair of quite awesome leather clogs for wearing in the summer that I can leave there. And hey while I was there I got a total steal on a silk velvet jacket with red silk lining and these floopy red silk sleeves that extend past the velvet cuff .  The jacket is down to my ankles. It is GORGEOUS. Okay fine.  It’s a silk dressing gown.  But with a couple of easy alterations it is a coat, seriously easy stuff.  And the tie makes a very nice scarf.  Can’t wait to wear it out.  I also found a black silk velvet shawl with long fringe that I almost put back because you know, where am I going to wear a formal shawl, and then this voice in my head says, “Hey! that would look mighty fine on my altar there Missy.”  Hekate? She gets what she wants.  It’s nice to have a paycheck I can count on again.  All for under $50.  That’s my kind of store.

The other thing is all the tests.  Two TB antibody tests in my first two weeks and then once a year.  If I can’t prove immunization for a bunch of stuff, blood tests to determine if I got them when I was young.  Luckily as soon as my insurance kicks in I can prove a lot of it as I’ll have online access to my records.  But that Hepatitis B I got through being a bad girl in LA, well thank goodness I know I’m not a carrier.  But no immunization on that one (they pay for it all), too late for me.  I might qualify for the shingles vaccine. I think that the hospital gets a lot of employees from other countries where certain immunizations just were not standard.  But it makes one pause to realize, that yeah, you’re now working in a hospital (my department is even responsible for the autopsies) and there are communicable diseases here.  There is hand sanitizer everywhere and I do mean Everywhere.

Miss Mitty greeted me at the door, she’s going to miss me while I’m gone, she’s had me by her side for a long time.  It’s nice to be missed and nice to be home.

Gonna wash my new thrift store finds and crash like a big dog.