The Union Preserved

I. Risk Is Our Business... Should We Choose to Accept It

I was––childishly, romantically––disappointed that Scots voted against independence last week. 
It made me mad that the ads against it played up the thing people fear most: fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). 

[Though here are "Five Reasons to Be Cheerful––Even if You Voted Yes".]

Maybe the "no" campaign was right, it wasn't "worth the risk," but now we won't know...
At any rate, it's certainly not worth risking unless most people are willing to take it on and do the work to give it a good chance, and they weren't.

Given that I never usually think much about Scotland, however, my disappointment makes me wonder, what risks am I not taking that I wish I were? 
How is my FUD holding me back?

II. Job Satisfaction

Last week, on the other hand, I was happy to reunify the head and body of the Star Trek rhino that Marz gave me for Christmas.

Its maker, Rocket World, named it
Commander Affonso, but it prefers Audrey, the name of a South African woman I met on Camino. 
Hm, maybe that's why its head popped off right away---it had identity dysphoria.

Once again, Thrift Store to the rescue! 
I was sorting a huge bin of craft supplies––untangling pin cushions and googley doll eyes from a web of hairy "eyelash" yarn, that sort of thing––and there was a stash of crochet hooks. I brought my rhino in the next day and asked one of the staff if we had a tool to cut the metal needle down to fit.

I love this staff guy––he knows how to do all the physical things.
He took my toy (with some eyebrow raising), cut the needle to fit, and then wrapped a rubber band around it to stabilize it in the rhino's neck opening:
the union preserved! 

Cost: fifty cents.

III. Job Offer, . . . Maybe

I came home Friday evening to a phone message from the activities director who'd interviewed me a couple weeks ago. She said the job offer they'd extended to someone else had fallen through, and could she go ahead and check out my references.

Yes! I wrote back. 

This morning she e-mailed me that she will call my references and then she can officially offer me the job in a couple days.

Now,  I am not taking that as a firm offer. She shouldn't even have worded it that way. I like this young woman very much, but she has been a bit [unwittingly] unprofessional about this whole hiring process. Not surprisingly---she's not an H.R. wonk, she's a music therapist (a far, far better thing, generally, but not if you're filing your paperwork).
But I am cautiously optimistic.