11:17 p.m. - 2003-10-08
Dissonance
I was in a deep sleep, aware only of gratitude for the fact that I could breathe fully and deeply into the bottom of my lungs, and dimly conscious of activity happening in some sort of reverie. Suddenly, a fierce growling began under my bed, rising and falling in pitch, but increasing finally to a loud yowling and wailing. It was not my idea of a good way to wake up. Kittens were flying in panic in all directions, heading for the safety of the under sides of furniture or the closet. At first I thought it was part of the dream I had been in but had lost, but then I realized I was sitting bolt upright, wide awake and the yowling hadn't stopped. Fear is a good description of what I felt then. It was Miss Kitty who was howling. Even talking quietly to her, did not stop or reduce the noise. Until my youngest came into the room, she would not even come out from under the bed. It was dark outside, but my son carried her to the window where her growling began again, ears pricked, twitching and laid back, tail thrashing dangerously. This is not normal behaviour for our lady cat. If she sees another cat in our yard she whines and begs to be let out to play. If she sees dogs, she hisses and snarls. To humans she is generally indifferent, but something outside was causing her great fear and anger. Neither my son or I could see anything. Don't know what caused it but it doesn't leave a good feeling - that's certain. Full moon on Friday and Hallowe'en soon - maybe there's a werewolf lurking about.
The day was productive. I got out about a dozen resumes by e-mail all for job postings that I would find interesting. Surprisingly, half had more to do with my volunteer experiences than with the industry I've worked in the past decade and there was a mix of permanent and contract offerings. One of those would even offer me the opportunity to study in an area I've been feeling strongly I need to explore and I would get paid for the privilege. A dozen applications doesn't sound like much I guess, but nearly each resume and each cover letter needed to be re-tailored slightly to address the specifications in each posting. I've got a few more to send, but I'll do those tomorrow.
Got a lot of housework done, but didn't make it outside to do the raking necessary - maybe tomorrow. I got a call from the city about the community garden plots that my son's mother-in-law would like to know about. When I was an at home mom, one of the things I did a great deal of as part of my volunteer duties was the research necessary to ensure our projects were well-founded and our presentations were grounded in fact. Usually gaining one substantial piece of the puzzle required six calls or contacts/transfers. Seems nothing has changed. The first person I spoke with two days ago called back yesterday to let me know it was someone else's responsibility to deal with Chinatown issues - fair enough. Today that lady called and we spoke for a while. She stated that she would have another woman call me because there seemed to her to be some social welfare issues embedded in the fact that my son's mother-in-law was newly widowed. I explained that we were all just trying to gather information to help her make decisions about how to proceed, because she can't speak enough English to do it easily herself. She is healthy and mentally competent - she doesn't need any intervention or outside help.
I'd forgotten how rigid the social bureaucracy can be and how much I hated the assumption, on their part, that someone with a short term challenge other than them was incompetent to make their own choices. That's why I had gotten involved in bringing support services into my community. I wanted to ensure that our residents got the resources they needed without being bullied into the social service system - a study in classic dysfunction if there ever was one, oftentimes. Could I get a simple answer about the access to the public garden plots available? Nope - confirmation that they do exist, but no information on how to sign up, or how long the waiting list, or what responsibilities would be incumbent on the user. Another woman will be given my name, and after some research, she will get back to me. Fine, but she's got another thing coming if she thinks she's going to bother my son's mother-in-law. If I have to call the alderman's office for that area I will - it's probably what I should had done in the first place. Don't mess with this mommy bear. The only thing is, I learned long ago that one has to go through all the hoops first to satisfy the system, or it is impossible to break its rules. So to date that's five calls made or pending. See what I mean?
I did a Harris Poll survey tonight on local utility companies. Now I've found having worked in a private sector industry for a decade, that one of the things you can be assured of is that what is said in advertising or media stories about a company tells you very little about the internal culture of a company or it's ethical or environmental practices. Unless I checked out their data directly and observed the dynamics in the workplace I wouldn't feel comfortable making any comments on their leadership, management, or ethics. I had expected to answer questions about service, cost, community involvement, and stockholder issues. Those questions were included, but the others were there too and the request was to answer even if you didn't believe you knew enough to answer. I don't think that's a responsible request, so on those questions I'm guessing that my answers won't be well received. Even odder was the question near the end about how often I had exercised vigorously in the past month. What has that to do with anything? Next questions were: was I a risk taker, did I fear or like change (yes) and did I care what other people thought about me (depends on their level of cognitive/social functioning)? What's up with that? How does it apply to a survey ostensibly on utility companies. Unless they're going to try a pilot program where we each generate our own electricity running on treadmills, it doesn't. And yes, I did comment on the polling company's methodology. Don't know whether it will do any good or not, but that slow drip of water can break a stone in half, even if it takes a millenium or two. My behaviour is usually determined by long term goals - sometimes that means I don't fit in too well - oh well. Can't say my days have been dull lately.
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