Let There Be Light

The job progresses. I'm no longer a temp, having been absorbed into the company last Monday. I've hired one employee and been through the ringer hiring a second, but the hiring manager owes me a decision on Monday, so that will be finished.

There is a lot of work to be done, but I like the job. I struggle not to make this blog all work all the time. I've gotten sucked into jobs that have taken over my life, and this job could do that. But school and the chorus should help to keep me grounded. And the condo.

Yesterday I installed a new chandelier in my dining room. I have to take it out and do it over. It's adjustable, but the cable inside the post is too big and inflexible, so I have to take the whole thing apart and cut the cable down and reinstall it. Right now, when you sit at the table, the lights are at eye level. But the good news is that I installed the thing and lived to tell the tale!

As a kid growing up, my father feared for my abilities. We had a gas stove and I was forbidden to try to light the oven for fear I'd blow the house up. To this day I break out in a cold sweat if I have to manually light my oven. I think I mowed the lawn twice, and again was forbidden to ever touch the mower because I'd cut off my feet. I was a mess during driver's ed because I just knew I'd wrap the car around a tree. My instructor actually told me that in the sixteen years of teaching, I was his worst student. I've never owned a car. In college, I nearly failed my scene design class because I was afraid of the power tools.

The irony in all of this is that after I'd grown up and moved away, my father actually did saw his thumb off with a table saw and nearly died.

But when I flipped the switch and the single test bulb in the chandelier lit -- and there was no fire -- I knew I was a big boy!