On the topic of my wayward brother-in-law, Tommy writes... "Sounds like the making of a good Southern Play....... where is Tennessee Williams when u need him."

It is. Want to fly to Paris?

The weather has been unusually gorgeous for this time of the year.

C2 was in town for the weekend. He now lives and works in Denver. He visits Washington State regularly as he has family here and he owns a few properties in the area.

C2 has stuff in storage in a few places. He has boxes at his sisters, at his dad's and at our place. He's had this stuff in storage for years.

We went through some of it this weekend. Most of it's near-garbage. You know-- stuff you don't need, yet is not in poor enough condition to throw out or give away.

A vegetable peeler. Internet routers. A shoe shine kit. An old LED alarm clock. A futon that's breaking down. Boxes and boxes of stuff. I'm encouraging C2 to throw it all out. He is still very attached to it.

C2 and his sister are not talking to each other. From what C2's step-mother said, they are both pointing fingers at each other. Neither will take responsibility for rebuilding their relationship. Neither shows empathy or curiosity.

Consider... "I'm in town. Do you want to meet?" v.s. "Hey. We haven't talked in a long time. Let's meet and catch up."

Its important to each that they be unrelentingly right. Or maybe they both want to play the victim to the others lack of social grace. 

We talked about showing empathy. C2 said "I can show empathy when I need to." My thought about empathy-- unless you can show it when you don't need to, then it's not really empathy. 

Family.

My brother in law-- when he's sober, he's a wonderful loving man. Danger, danger when he's not.

The brother-in-law spent a few weeks in France. Some of it was for a work-away. Some of it was at a Buddhist retreat.

Something happened on his way back to the States. The brother-in-law lost his passport. He made his way to the U.S. embassy and managed to call the Husband. The Husband wired him money to get a new passport.

Something happened after the brother-in-law picked up the money and before he got back to the embassy. The brother in law got drunk. He wound up somewhere. Maybe a hostel. He stayed there for a day. He lost the key to that room.

Since early this morning, the hostel owners and the brother-in-law has been on the phone with the Husband. The brother-in-law is asking for something. Not sure what. Mostly the brother-in-law is crying and saying he's sorry. The Husband has suggested to the room owners that they send the brother-in-law to the hospital to sober up.

The husband has been rescuing brother-in-law for years. Seriously, for years. I remember the husband helping out the brother-in-law over fifteen years ago when the brother-in-law had another melt down over drugs and alcohol.

The Husband is torn and has been reading about loving detachment. 

So far so good on the interviews. In the next month, I have two all day interviews coming up. These are with large companies.

I had two additional tech screens with smaller companies, but have not heard back from them. I've been told this is not unusual. Weeks from now they may ask me for another round of interviews. Or, I may never hear from them again.

I've started interviews. I've also started looking for an interview coach. I don't want to screw too many of them up.

The first call is with a recruiter. I generally pass those.

The second interview is deeper with someone who is generally hiring for the job. Different companies want very different things from their managers. Some want a manager who is super strong technically. Some want a manager who is great with the people, and differs all technical discussions to the team.

I try to be professional through it all.

I've started job hunting. So far, so good. Recruiters are willing to talk to me and I'm in the process of scheduling an on-site interview with an old-competitor.

Some old friends of the husband's stayed over Saturday night for a birthday celebration.

We also went out and attended a local haunted forest. The haunted forest is a fundraiser for the local Rotary club. It is a huge production! There were well over a hundred volunteers dressed up to scare. There were so many scary scenes. It was much fun. Parking, and the line to get in were crazy

Monday morning, I've started looking for a job. Mostly I'm polishing my resume, my LinkedIn profile and figuring out who the good recruiters are. 

I am trying to break my habit of regularly checking the internet. Writing is OK. Being creative or generative, that is good. But checking my email, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, whatever. There is little need for that. I could check them once a week and I wouldn't miss a thing.

I am doing well with my time off. I am not bored. I had better not get used to this because I have to return to work.

I talked to my old boss— the one who was fired exactly one year before me. He suggested I take a couple weeks to decompress, and then start a job hunt. The time will go quickly.

I've spent the last couple of days, reading, exercising and purging— getting rid of stuff I will no longer need.

I'm also collecting ideas on how to approach my job search. I have an interview with an old competitor coming up. I want to use this as a learning interview, and not be desperate to take the first job offered to me.

The husband has been wonderful though this. Suggesting that I take the tine I need to decompress, and offering my suggestions of recruiters I can reach out to later.

I have an on-site interview with a competitor of the old company. I had a phone screen with them last week. This is good news, but I must be cautious. The competitor doesn't know that I am currently unemployed. That news could change things. 

We spent the weekend at Disney in California with Evan and Allen.

Allen called the event a Disneyathalon We walked over 10 miles each on Friday and Saturday. Then 5 more on Sunday.

We were in the park by 8am on Friday and 7am on Saturday. We didn't leave till after 10pm both nights.

Disney is a very special place for the husband. He grew up in California and spent many family vacations there. As an adult he loves to go back.

The first thing I decided to do today is to apply for U.S. citizenship. After 22 years of living in this country, it's time to naturalize.

The citizenship applications asks for much old paperwork to document my past. Every trip outside the country. Old divorces. Old fights. Where I have lived in the past five years. My husband's divorce. That night I spent in jail.

I don't like myself on paper. Or maybe it's just the shock of having old memories dredged up and aired in front of me.

I talked to my former boss, who coincidentally, left the mother company exactly one year ago yesterday. We talked about life after that career-- we were both at the mother company for over 20 years.

The old boss warned me that time would go quickly. He suggested I take some time to decompress before I make more plans.

I am getting inundated with messages from old coworkers, Curious. Wishing me well.

So what's new?

I am no longer an employee at the mother company. I've worked there for 22 years. I've been through so much there. Lately, it's been super frustrating and stressful. For months really with no end in sight. Sometimes the difference between stress and excitement is a deep desire for the battle.

Today we agreed to part ways.

This is a strange moment in my life. I have had a job full time schooling in my life since I was 15 years old. I am 49 now.

This husband is thankful that the stress has been lifted. He has a good job, and we have a good chunk of savings and investments. Materially we'll be OK. Maybe I won't retire when I'm 55, but there are worse things.

What's new...

The husband's mother was in town for a few days. We took her to a play, took her to a dinner circus and hosted a game night with some friends with her.

Fall is here. Looking over my past years blogs, I see that I post the return-of-fall every year. This year the return was sudden. One day it was sunny and warm. The next day it was cool, clouds with a lite drizzle.

A dear friend of the husband is in town for the weekend. We have been seeing the sights and eating too much. 

A wonderful Labor Day weekend.

This last weekend the husband and I went to a retreat for people in AA. This is the third time we've gone. The lodge that hosts the retreat is pleasant and tranquil. It's a great weekend away.

Talking to folks at the retreat has emboldened me to shake up my career. Maybe find a new job elsewhere. Many of the attendees are now living well, despite having burnt down their careers in past lives.

Either way, I've managed to reacquainted myself with a few old friends, including an old coworker who made the decisions that ended up with me (and others including himself) moving from Toronto to Seattle. It was good to catch up with him.

Casey died.

Years ago, when Yo was my roommate, he had a wonderful dog, Casey. I would take Casey on hikes up the small mountains around us. I enjoyed that so much. When we  came across a stream or pool she would run through the water all excited.

Of course she would also run through mud puddles all excited.

But she has aged. She had problems walking, cancer and vestibular disease. She died peacefully.

Our trip to Ontario has me thinking through the future.

What is to become of my parents? They don't want to leave the farm. They are capable of taking care of it now, but every time I'm there, it seems they have slowed down a little more.

We spent some of our time there doing the big chores. Chopping up trees that came down. Removing an old freezer that died.

They have too much food that they don't use. The fridge had year old, expired, salad dressings in it. Dad admitted that some of the frozen chicken in the freezer had been there for at least 5 years. I have a brother who lives more close to my parents. I'll ask him to regularly check these things.

The husband and I now have friends all over Ontario. It's a lot of work to visit when we go back. We can't have lunches, dinners or coffees with everyone. There are cousins that we are growing closer to. And old school friends.

One of the old school friends asked if we would retire to my original hometown. I didn't know how to answer. It's pleasant there in the summer. But, it could get boring and the winters are cold.

It could get boring... like I have an exciting life in Seattle. 

Mac has moved back to Seattle. It's made me very reflective. We were once best friends. Time, jobs and life moved us apart.

When I told the husband that Mac was moving back to Seattle, the husband quickly responded that he was in no rush to reacquaint us with Mac. We do live very different lives now. 

We are flying back from a week in Ontario. It was a hectic week, seeing sights and meeting old friends.

My brothers were in town. It was good to spend time with them as well as my parents. We spent a few days doing errands around our parents farm-- chopping wood, getting rid of appliances that don't work.