I was out at Shoreline Park this evening for sunset. There were dark heavy clouds, pieces of blue sky and some of those fluffy white clouds that look like you should be able to bounce on them like a feather bed.
As I was driving along Cliff Drive towards the park, I spotted a rainbow hanging out over the ocean. When I pulled into the parking lot, it was faint, fading in and out, virtually unnoticed by the people jogging with their iPods and or huddling inside their coats urging their dogs to "hurry up".
Walking alone along the concrete path that wound up the cliffs, it struck me what an allegory for my life this cold blustery evening was. Wandering in solitude, searching the skies for a rainbow that keeps appearing and fading, hoping for a silver lining in the clouds to materialize.
It would be nice to have a soft place to fall, like one those fluffy clouds that hung low on the horizon. I can’t remember the last time I really felt that I had anyone to depend on other than myself. Maybe I never have.
And I wondered, if I were to vanish in a puff of smoke, without a whimper or a warning, how long would it be before anyone noticed?
How long would it take before someone started to worry? And who in this world knows me well enough to even know where to begin to look, or if there even was a me, out there somewhere left to be found?
I wondered, if I were to walk out on my life, leaving my house with the TV tuned to HGTV , my laptop sitting open on the bed, a cup of tea brewing on the counter in the kitchen – left it all like some kind of modern day Pompeii with everything frozen in a moment of time – would it even matter?
As I turned away from what was left of the sunset, I suddenly saw that the sky behind me had become a beautiful deep rose smeared with dark thunderclouds. If I hadn’t turned around, I would have missed it.
Maybe that’s all I need. Maybe I just need to turn around.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Pebbles and Me
Have I mentioned that I have a new job?
This is in large part why I have not posted in my little blog recently. I'm exhausted. It's only part-time, between 4 and 6 hours a day, but for me physically, thats a LOT!
But on to my job. I am now the Personal Assistant to a rich widow with twelve year old daughter. Her hubby died about five years ago and she took over the running of his many business holdings, many of which are in real estate. Something about which I know nothing, I might add. My duties are wide and varied, and my office is in the back of her guest house, in a very beautiful area.
My new boss, who for the sake of anonymity (not to mention the confidentiality agreement that I signed) we shall call Pebbles, is a beautiful woman in her early 50's who flys airplanes and races cars. Not your typical widow to be sure.
Pebbles is maybe a bit scattered, definately over-extended and everything is always an emergency. Everything. Always. But I am a person who takes care of people. It's what I do. And if ever I knew anyone who needed taking care of, it's Pebbles. So I have charged in with my post-it-notes and my calendars, determined to put her office, if not her to life, back in order.
Which is not an easy task. Take a recent day.
The second or third day that I worked for Pebbles, I recieved a call from her at 7:15 a.m. with an emergency. An event that is proving to be a rather common occurance. So the other day, desperately needing extra sleep, I turned off my phone, so that I couldn't be reached. When I finally turned my phone on at 10:20 there were several messages from Pebbles asking me to take one of her appointments at 10:30, as she was running behind schedule. What a surprise.
So I was off and running. In her message she had asked me to meet a contractor at a condo that we shall call Blue Bonnet, which is scheduled to close escrow this Friday. After finally finding the Blue Bonnet property, which I had not heard of until that morning, I charmed the closet man into doing what I wanted (have I ever mention how much clevage and a pretty smile helps in these situations?). Likewise the man who came to install the appliances and started to have a hissy fit because the plumber hadn't been in to do his job. While at same time dealing with the buyers who showed up unexpectedly and were upset by the fact that escrow was not actually going to close on Friday, were freaked out that the refrigerator was going to dent the new hardwood floors, the tiles that had just been installed in the kitchen were the wrong color and the pipes in the linen closet had suddenly sprung a mysterious leak. Mind you, I knew NOTHING about any of this. NOTHING. Bluffed my way through the whole mess. I somehow managed to soothe all ruffled feathers and put out all the fires, leaving everyone reasonably happy two hours later.
The day continued in like fashion with the icing on the cake being when the (new) Housekeeper came to the office, announced that she was leaving, and literally dropping her cleaning supplies in front of my befuddled face, dashed out the door without once looking behind her. Shaking free from my shock, and praying that when she said "I'm leaving" that she actually meant that she was going out for ice-cream rather than that she was quitting, I raced after her, only to see her peal out of the driveway in her car, yelling out the window "I'm sorry!"
Have I mentioned the high turnover rate of people in Pebbles employ? This is apparently the eighth or ninth Housekeeper to abruptly quit in the last 16 months. And I won't even tell you how many people have run away screaming from the job that I am currently holding.
I think I need a nap. I also need a new Housekeeper . . .
This is in large part why I have not posted in my little blog recently. I'm exhausted. It's only part-time, between 4 and 6 hours a day, but for me physically, thats a LOT!
But on to my job. I am now the Personal Assistant to a rich widow with twelve year old daughter. Her hubby died about five years ago and she took over the running of his many business holdings, many of which are in real estate. Something about which I know nothing, I might add. My duties are wide and varied, and my office is in the back of her guest house, in a very beautiful area.
My new boss, who for the sake of anonymity (not to mention the confidentiality agreement that I signed) we shall call Pebbles, is a beautiful woman in her early 50's who flys airplanes and races cars. Not your typical widow to be sure.
Pebbles is maybe a bit scattered, definately over-extended and everything is always an emergency. Everything. Always. But I am a person who takes care of people. It's what I do. And if ever I knew anyone who needed taking care of, it's Pebbles. So I have charged in with my post-it-notes and my calendars, determined to put her office, if not her to life, back in order.
Which is not an easy task. Take a recent day.
The second or third day that I worked for Pebbles, I recieved a call from her at 7:15 a.m. with an emergency. An event that is proving to be a rather common occurance. So the other day, desperately needing extra sleep, I turned off my phone, so that I couldn't be reached. When I finally turned my phone on at 10:20 there were several messages from Pebbles asking me to take one of her appointments at 10:30, as she was running behind schedule. What a surprise.
So I was off and running. In her message she had asked me to meet a contractor at a condo that we shall call Blue Bonnet, which is scheduled to close escrow this Friday. After finally finding the Blue Bonnet property, which I had not heard of until that morning, I charmed the closet man into doing what I wanted (have I ever mention how much clevage and a pretty smile helps in these situations?). Likewise the man who came to install the appliances and started to have a hissy fit because the plumber hadn't been in to do his job. While at same time dealing with the buyers who showed up unexpectedly and were upset by the fact that escrow was not actually going to close on Friday, were freaked out that the refrigerator was going to dent the new hardwood floors, the tiles that had just been installed in the kitchen were the wrong color and the pipes in the linen closet had suddenly sprung a mysterious leak. Mind you, I knew NOTHING about any of this. NOTHING. Bluffed my way through the whole mess. I somehow managed to soothe all ruffled feathers and put out all the fires, leaving everyone reasonably happy two hours later.
The day continued in like fashion with the icing on the cake being when the (new) Housekeeper came to the office, announced that she was leaving, and literally dropping her cleaning supplies in front of my befuddled face, dashed out the door without once looking behind her. Shaking free from my shock, and praying that when she said "I'm leaving" that she actually meant that she was going out for ice-cream rather than that she was quitting, I raced after her, only to see her peal out of the driveway in her car, yelling out the window "I'm sorry!"
Have I mentioned the high turnover rate of people in Pebbles employ? This is apparently the eighth or ninth Housekeeper to abruptly quit in the last 16 months. And I won't even tell you how many people have run away screaming from the job that I am currently holding.
I think I need a nap. I also need a new Housekeeper . . .
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