Monday, March 05, 2007

Pardon the Shifting Soil. We're in Transition.

It's rather amazing how things can change in the space of fifteen minutes. As my work day wound down, Mark and Drew arrived home from changing the oil. Mark was on his cell phone, and Drew was covered in vomit. I extricated the boy while I overheard Mark saying things that sounded job offer-ish from his nearly-former job. Mark managed to sign off the call as soon as he could (wonder how many times he'll have to say, "I'll call you back shortly, my son just threw up"?) and start cleaning up the car while I cleaned up El Boyo. After the immediate mess was gone, Mark checked his email (the phone call was to mention that there was an email waiting for him), and Drew did his usual huddle close to Momma cuz I'm sick thing.

Turns out there's a project that got an extension and some funding wiggle room to meet an imminent deadline. If the science works out by the deadline, then the funding flows like wine, and Mark's got himself a job again. If it doesn't work out, then we'll have another few weeks of money from his job and even more glowing recommendations for the job hunt. The downside: the deadline is so imminent and the resources so tight that I pretty much won't see Mark for the next two to three weeks. Which means the Drew Monster is coming with me to Colorado next week. Still, a few temporary inconveniences are nothing if it helps Mark land a job in the long run.

As Mark gets on his cell phone to accept the offer, my work cell phone rings. Come to find out that someone's taking an unexpected vacay and spread the word (to one person, and that person was not me) that I would be picking up the slack for her next week. Um, yeah, OK, because they fly me back once a month so I can do other people's jobs. Makes total sense.

As I got off the phone and Mark went back to a more instense cleaning of the carseat, I looked at Drew, knowing this was his cue to barf again. But he didn't. Instead, he pushed himself off of my lap and picked up a toy to play with half-heartedly.

Sigh. Remember Saturday when I said that I wondered where we'd be by this weekend? Didn't expect to get so much answered by Monday.

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