New Beginnings

Small changes have such a big impact.  Getting a job might not be a small change, but it has more of an impact than just financial.  It changed my overall mood about life, the universe, and everything. 

Last night I was so pumped about my first day I urged Christian to go walking around our neighborhood after dinner.  It was ill-fated however, because we just passed the Safeway when we came upon two semis parked along the side of the road where we heard the most piercing yowling.  It took us a moment to get oriented because the yowling was echoing off the old Mervyn's office building.  When we finally located the source of the sound, we found a small black kitten curled up under one of the trucks.  We sat there trying to call it out.  Finally I decided to go home and get some cat food.  When I got back, the kitten was still yowling but the food enticed it a little closer to our location.  A few minutes later a guy in super ghetto gear smelling strongly of alcohol came up muttering to himself.  He asked what it was we were looking at.  When we told him, he decided to try to help us catch the kitten.  Unfortunately, his smell and consistent muttering (even softly) seemed to scare the kitten a bit.  Eventually drunk guy got up and went around to the other side of the truck where he proceeded to lay down in the road and mutter a stream of kitten endearments.  He quickly fell asleep.

There were several times where I almost was able to grab the tiny thing, but the cold made my hands too sluggish and honestly, I've never been good at catching cats, especially skittish kinds like this kitten.  Christian got so fed up with the thing that he began attempting to flush it out which involved him running around the truck bed (one of those that carries cars).  Eventually drunk guy woke up, but not before several people walked past asking us what we were doing.  I think it helped to assure them that Christian was wearing his old rent-a-cop jacket that said "SECURITY" in bright yellow letters.  After drunk guy woke up, a few of his friends walked by and he took off without so much as a "by-your-leave".  At this point Christian was actually under the semi because the kitten was hiding between the bed and the axle of one set of wheels.  Some goth metal head guys came by and asked me if I lost something.  Without thinking much about it, I said "No, I'm good."  I wish now I had said something like, "We're trying to rescue this stupid yowling kitten.  Wanna help?" They probably would have, except for my autonomic defense response. 

In the end, we scared the kitten into the engine bay of the other semi.  It was impossible for us to see where it was located or coax it out.  We would have had to pop the hood of the semi and frankly I was incredibly uncomfortable with that.  The only thing I could feel good about in our wild evening adventure was that we had fed it some food and tried for over 2 hours to rescue it.  It just didn't want to be rescued. Perhaps we could have done something differently, but I don't know what that would have been.

When we got back home, still pumped, despite my freezing limbs and our failure to rescue the kitten, I started writing what could end up being a short story or a full length novel.  It's an idea I got through a combination of high school experiences and some of the paranormal shows I've been watching.  We'll see how that goes. 

This morning instead of wallowing around in my pajamas for a few hours and playing repetitive flash games on my laptop, I decided to go for a hike on my own.  I got in the car and drove over to the lovely Lake Chabot where I walked around the lake for forty minutes.  I would say for a Wednesday, there were a fair amount of people fishing, running, and walking.  About half of the people I passed said hello or asked me how I was.  One man even chatted with me about the weather!  Of course there were the requisite older couples shuffling along, while young mothers ran with their double jogging strollers.  Above and beyond the usual suspects was a middle aged man wearing a kilt complete with knee high wool socks and giant black boots.  He looked fairly stern, but as he passed he said hello and wished me a good morning.

Mean while, I had a good first day on the job and I was able to get out and about a bit.  The world seems to be so much brighter.  The next step is to meet more people locally, perhaps volunteer at a local organization or something else.  We'll just have to wait and see.