Random thoughts

This has been a strange week.

1.  I know it is lame to discuss the weather, but honestly, how strange is it that last night it poured rain? Ben said that it feels as though it is the early days of Spring, that winter is over before it began. Of course we still have quite a ways to go before March but I have to say this reprieve is going to make this Winter much shorter and go a long way in alleviating the dreaded February depression.  Thank God.

2.  Schadenfreude.  Absolutely am I shallow enough to thoroughly enjoy it and there is schadenfreude in spades at work right now.  I was called back in to help train the two young (very young and pretty) women he hired to replace me because he quickly realized how over his head he was which wasn't the only problem, I soon discovered.  They don't even have basic secretarial skills and are woefully underqualified.  And yesterday (after two days in the new job, just two days!) one of them quit when she saw the dichotomy between her skills and what was going to be expected of her.  She was smart. He is an idiot. 

 He had to "eat crow" (his words)  to call me back, and now matters have gone from bad to worse. This whole dismissal thing has truly been a roller coaster ride and I suppose because I have come to terms with my dismissal my emotional investment in the job is gone and I am really enjoying watching this roll-out.  He is not smirking at me now.

3.  Today I am the mother of a 19 year old son. I have had several conversations this week with parents who are struggling with their kid's attitude problems and failing grades.  I find it very strange that I do not and never really have had those problems with my sons.

By all rights I should have. I had a tumultuous childhood and teenage years, a difficult family situation and then a serious backlash when I finally got out of the family home.  I had some very "adventurous" years in my twenties and there is very little I didn't try at one time or another. My kids went through a divorce and at times I was very bitter. 

I have made so many mistakes and done so many stupid things over the last 19 years and they have been part of it all. And yet here they stand, tall and strong and smart with whip-sharp senses of humour and irony.  They are far better people than I ever could be and I honestly don't know how that happened. There is one small thing though.  I have always liked my kids and enjoyed their company and thought the world of them and they have always known that.  And maybe in the cyclical way life works that has been enough to make up for many of my failings as a person and a mom.

I am making things better by: working out diligently.  Forget about the diet thing. I am hardly being pristine about that (timbits yesterday, sigh) And I'm smoking like a chimney. Goddammit.