Papa Smurf is back and looking better than ever. He has a lovely, shiny, new rear end, and the nice folks at the body shop gave him a thorough wash, so that when I saw him again he was looking shinier than I last remembered. There's no hiding the little door nicks and scratches, but for a someone who is four years and 75,000 miles old, Papa looks good for his age. Also, today marked a milestone as Papa crossed that 75,000 mile threshold while driving on the 10 freeway. Sinatra was playing on the radio and Papa was looking his best. No better way to celebrate a big milestone.
FJ had to cancel our Sunday run, but I would have had to cancel it myself anyway because I forgot that I already had family plans at that time. With two weeks until San Diego, I really ought to have done about 12 or 14 miles today. However, my right glute is still feeling pinched, so I decided to take it easy--that is if you consider running three miles, an hour of demanding yoga, a half hour on the elliptical, followed by a couple of hours of shopping easy. Since I ran an unplanned three miles last night, I don't feel too bad about "slacking" today. Hopefully I can get in 8 or 10 miles next weekend.
This weekend marks the last days of my sabbatical. On Monday morning I check in for my first day at my new job. I did some shopping this week to replenish my business attire, adding a couple of trousers, a couple of dress shirts, and today I bought two pairs of new shoes and a belt. One pair is for work, the other I bought because it was half off and would work well for weekend wear. Over two years of working at the corporate headquarters of a rock-oriented retailer, where you're overdressed if your jeans had no holes in them, had left me with plenty of t-shirts and a few, older dressy attire. I'm looking forward to dressing up, but I'm sure the novelty will wear off in a couple of weeks when I've gone through my cycle of dress shirts and the hours of ironing required to keep them looking presentable.
I also realized today that this job will be my first full-time job in four years. Four years! Four years I haven't had a job that provided health insurance and other benefits. Four years I haven't had a job that provided me my own workspace. Four years I haven't had a job that required me to be there full-time. Four years of impermanence. Four years. I knew it's been a while but I didn't realize it was that long.
I'm still figuring out how I feel about starting a new job. Of course I'm excited but I don't think I'm nervous. I'm more nervous about the commute. I'll write a post on Sunday night and hopefully I'll have a clearer sense of how I'm feeling about this.
My last free weekday ought to have been more extravagant but it wasn't. I met up with Preeti for lunch at the School Cafe in Pasadena. Actually I met her in front of her office and we walked together to the School Cafe. I haven't seen or talked to Preeti in a few weeks, so she was just finding out that I had accepted the job. It was great catching up with her. Afterwards I spent a couple of hours at the museum helping them prepare for Sunday's big MOTA Day event. I'll be there in the morning, so stop by. Apart from that, nothing else. I wound up turning in early last night with a slight headache.
Now it's Saturday night and I'm at home. I missed a few calls from Nate and Audrey inviting me to watch Shrek the Third. I really needed to do laundry today since I won't be able to tomorrow, so I doubt I would have been able to go. How good can the movie be anyway?
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