Where's My Mary Poppins?

I received a huge box full of packing material earlier this week in the mail; here's a cat for scale. It contained exactly half of my order from Pottery Barn: one washcloth. The other washcloth arrived in a similar package a few days before. No doubt all of that plastic packaging was so that my fragile washcloth would not shatter during the mailing process. Yeesh.

We spent today hauling things to the new apartment and also interviewing respite care workers, which is kind of weird. I mean, I never quite know what to ask, other than the usual about references and background checks. Other than the obvious question given my son, which is: "You do feel really, really comfortable doing CPR, right?" After confirming all of those things, then we're left to figure out which care giver would be the best based on some sort of gut instinct. This is difficult. I'd kind of hoped that someone would come flying up, Mary Poppins style, and wow with their sheer awesomeness, but that has yet to happen, so we're stuck. Even worse, since a giant wind didn't blow away all of the other candidates, once we've made our decision we're left with the problem of telling the other applicants that we've picked somebody else.

I will attempt to foist this off on Jeremy, as I find it horribly difficult to disappoint anyone and find myself trying to come up with reasons why we need three respite care workers instead of just one so I don't have to tell anybody that they "lost" to someone else. I mean, when you think about it, the respite care workers who made it as far as the interview process are all more than qualified to take care of Connor, so it becomes a personality contest, and this is awkward for me. Jer is much better at using the word "no" than I am. I think it's my Southern upbringing that makes that word such a hard one to say. While I learned that it is perfectly acceptable to say horrible things about a person as long as it is prefaced with "bless their heart," and I can guilt-trip with the best of them, there's no passive-aggressive way to tell someone they didn't get a job-- at least not that I can think of. I may be out of practice, as living in the Pacific Northwest has forced me to set aside many of my former Texan habits, such as calling everyone older than me "sir" or "ma'am," everyone younger than me "sweetheart" regardless of gender, and waving hello to every person I pass on the street. Those actions get you weird looks here. As a sidenote, I haven't had a decent glass of sweet tea since I went back to Texas for Christmas. Nobody can make it here. They actually put artificial sweetener in it-- can you believe it? Where I'm from, that sort of thing would get you shot. Oh well.

We'll finish up our interviews tomorrow and make a carefully thought-out decision; possibly by flipping a coin. Then it'll be back to the business of moving.

~Jess