Burrowing Sheep & Other News

A couple of days ago Tim and I were driving down Arizona Avenue and I mentioned a herd of sheep I’d been seeing near the post office. That herd had a sheep dog that was the same color as the sheep and anytime I saw it, my first thought always was, “What an odd-looking sheep,” until a second later I realized it was actually the dog I was looking at. Driving with Tim that day I didn’t see the sheep at all and wondered where they had gone. Tim suggested that they might be burrowing to escape the strong afternoon sun. He said that if we saw a bunch of 3-foot-wide holes in the field, we’d know that’s where they were. We had a good laugh at the idea of sheep digging burrows.

This strange suggestion reminded me of another explanation that couldn’t possibly be true but was also very amusing. A few years back I went to the home of FDR in upstate New York with my friend Mike. We were taking a tour of the house and our guide showed us FDR’s elevator. She asked how we thought the elevator worked and Mike immediately suggested, “Dynamite!” And I’d been thinking of pulleys—silly me.

The other news is that my poor car is pretty much a goner. We finally took it in to a body shop and to our dismay, we were told that the cost of repairing the car fully would be about 73% of the car’s value. This means that repairing it doesn’t make sense. So we left it there overnight to consider our options and brought it back home yesterday. It is now sitting in our garage, where Tim will work on it to get it functional again and we’ll try to make it last as long as possible while we save money for a replacement. While Tim works on it, we’ll share the other car, which means that on the days we both work, I’ll take Tim to work, come back home for about another hour, and then take off toward my place of work. In the afternoon, I’ll pick Tim up and we’ll head home together. It’s far from an ideal arrangement but it will work for the time being.

Of course this brings up the other bit of news, which is that on Monday I’m starting a new job. I found the job through a temp agency, which means that I’ll start out as an employee of the agency and if things go well, I could go on as a permanent employee of the company. I’ll see how the job works out: whether I like the company, whether they like me, etc. If it doesn’t work out, it sounds like there are plenty of other temp opportunities out there so I wouldn’t be out of work for long. And if that is the case, I can always continue looking for something permanent on my own as well. The good thing is that I’ll start having some income, and considering the car situation, it will be especially helpful. I still can’t believe that such a dumb, low-speed crash has basically killed my little car!!