Loving My New Job, A Healthy Heart, and Alice in Wonderland in Haarlem
November 13, 2022
I’m living the dream life over here in Amsterdam these days. I’m a week into my new job and I love it. I ride my bike with my flower basket over the cobble stone streets along the canal to the shop, which is three minutes away from my house and I walk into what feels like a Nancy Meyers movie set. It’s welcoming and lively and feels comfortably familiar already even though I’ve only been there a week. I feel balanced again, learning new skills, feeling productive, busy and happy. Also, I love earning money, I always have. Not earning money makes me feel terrible and it’s not like I’ll be rolling in cash but it doesn’t matter, the fact that I’m working and bringing home a paycheck ticks an important box for me. When I quit my job in publishing because of my horrible boss it’s amazing how many of my (male) colleagues congratulated me. None of their wives worked. One guy told me to try volunteer work and another guy told me to join a book club. Anyway, I’m working again learning the ins and outs of the shop, how to ring up customers, who all the designers are for the lovely ceramics and handblown glassware, and next week I’m getting training on the espresso machine (which is a behemoth monster, I’m nervous about it, but still excited). I’m getting so much more opportunity to practice my Dutch. But the big thing is we had our first guest speaker event at the shop, and it went brilliantly. This is the area I’ll be focusing on most going forward. My boss was receptive to my suggestions on how to improve things a bit for our next event, and I’m excited to take on that role. I’ll be the moderator going forward and I’m writing the speaker’s bio and introduction and managing the events, which I love doing.
I’m very glad I was cleared to work after all the scary post-Covid health stuff I’ve been having. I had a big cardiologist appointment and they did lots of tests and it looks like my heart is healthy and fine. This crazy post-Covid high blood pressure and racing pulse and extreme fatigue are still concerns but we’re treating the symptoms and the cardiologist is optimistic that with a little more time my brain will go back to conducting my cardiovascular and nervous system orchestra so that all the instruments play together rather than all willy nilly like they are doing now. This has been really scary and I fucking hate Covid.
We did a super fun Alice in Wonderland Through the Looking Glass game in Haarlem this weekend and we came in 4th place out of hundreds. It was a virtual scavenger hunt with riddles and challenges that took place in the heart of the old city. It was so great, people were all dressed up in costumes running all over the narrow cobblestone streets. We had a great time.
Brian’s so old but he’s ambling along. I was doing the late night walk the other night and some guy asked if Brian was okay, people get concerned about how low Brian’s back hips are, but the conversation annoyed me because he asked how old Brian was and I said 13 and he asked how long his breed lives. I really hate this question and it’s ridiculous how many people ask it. What are they hoping to accomplish here? Do they really want to hear that my dog is at the end of his life? Oh hi, when’s your dog going to die? What is wrong with people?
