So, my interview with the acupuncturist was short and sweet. I like the guy and would like the job, despite some of it's cons, which include no benefits of any kind (no health insurance, no paid holidays...no nothing..EXPECT I could get as much free acupuncture as I wanted..which is cool)..The pay would be $11.00 per hour which is ok (the lack of benefits kinda bothers me, though) but I think it'd be a job I'd genuinely enjoy.
The doctor is very short and very Jewish and very New York-tranplanted- to-the-West-Coast. He was wearing a lavendar shirt which struck me as cool for some stupid reason. He's really small, and I felt like an Amazon compared to him (and I'm only 5'7!)..His little dog (who looks like Toto) would be running around the office alot, which is cool. The office itself is a little house in The Friendly St. neighborhood (which is were I originally wanted to work ANYWAY, remember Hillside Heights?) It's just down the street from there. I may not get hired because I don't have any front office/receptionist experience, though..we'll just see if they take a chance on me. I have done acupuncture billing, so that is to my advantage. Anyways, I'm just not bothering to worry about it. It was funny because the interview was so informal that he asked me "illegal" interview questions about whether I was married, had children, etc, but I liked the guy so I didn't say "You know, technically you aren't really allowed to ask me those sorts of questions." He has a little bit of a nervousness about him that I relate to (because I'm sort of an anxiety-ridden person, ya know) but it also is a little un-nerving, but on the other hand he seems very down-to-earth...I don't know. One of those people that are hard to categorize!
I started to feeling weepy on the bus on the way home. I don't know if it's that I've been listening to too much early Sixteen Horsepower (which is so melancholy to me) or me dwelling on injuries and death.
Ok, let me explain. It all started yesterday afternoon. I noticed that one of the cute little neighborhood cats (never sure whether these are strays or just really irresponsibly owned by some people down the street) was lying on the top of Larry's MG (which has a tarp over it), basking in the sun. I thought this was unusual because this cat is rather shy and skittish. I actually went outside and went up to the cat and it just looked at me and stretched and allowed me to pet it. I noticed that it had a few nasty puncture wounds (I heard a cat fight the other night) on it's head by it's ear and so now I'm convinced that it's actually sort of sick (maybe the wounds are infected) and I'm worried about this cute little neighborhood cat. This afternoon it was out lying on Larry's car again but this time it ran away when I approached it (probably cuz Norman was with me)..Norman thought it looked like it might have an infection or be sick, too, so I don't know WHO owns it or what to do. I don't want to adopt it, nor do I want to pay for it to go to the vet because we don't have money to take care of strays, and we already have our own three cats, but I don't want it to suffer or die or anything..UGH!! I don't know what to do. I will go down the street to the house where I THINK it's owners (if it has any) live and check around about it, see if anybody has noticed it's wounds, and it is does belong to someone, I'll ask about whether they've taken it to the vet, suggest that it needs to go, etc. If they refuse to take it or say they are too broke or whatever, then I'll guess I'll call Greenhill or a vet and ask for suggestions about what to do. I can't just IGNORE the wounded little cat. Anyways, I was tearing up about this cat, and also the two strange deaths in Eugene we had yesterday.
It's really weird because these two "accidents" (I think one might have been a suicide) happened within minutes of each other in two different sections of Eugene and Larry and I happened to drive right by one of these accidents yesterday afternoon. We were driving on I-105 (I think that is what it's called) and knew there was an accident because an incident response team was there and a lane was closed off, etc. We didn't see any wrecked cars but as we passed we did see the coroners van and Larry then noticed the body covered by a yellow tarp that was lying at the side of the road. I'm glad I didn't actually SEE that part. Turns out the victim was some guy in his 20's who was supposedly walking on the freeway and possibly hiding behind a construction barracade when he suddenly walked out into the 55 mph traffic and was killed by a delivery van. YIKES! Sounds like suicide to me and it makes me sad.
Across town, a 67 year old lady rode her bike into traffic (she didn't have the right of way and crossed against heavy traffic) and was hit by a car. Anyways, she was taken to a hospital where she died a few hours later. We didn't see this accident but heard about it on the news. Both accidents happened at right around 1 pm.
This afternoon when I was riding the bus home, we went through the University area and I noticed on the corner of Kincaid and 13th (right by the University bookstore) that there was a group of people with candles and vigil was being held. There was also bouquets of flowers up against this tree and then it hit me that the female bicylist that was killed was the semi-famous homeless lady that lived on that corner and had all her stuff there under a blue tarp (I'd seen her retrieving stuff from under her tarp in the past as I sat at that busstop)...I didn't know her personally but knew of her. I read in the paper that nobody knows how to contact her relatives (if she has any) and that everybody just called her "Hatoon" (I think that was the correct name)...
Then as the bus passed into Springfield and I saw the usual guys on the side of the street holding up signs and then when I noticed the large group of homeless people sitting underneath the bridge on the banks of Island Park, I just felt so sad about these deaths and the homeless people and suffering in general and how I felt like there was very little I could really do to help anybody.
Once I got up the hill, I ended up talking to our nextdoor neighbor, Todd (he's cool) about the injured cat (it was now sitting underneath his van) and then we were talking about some of the strange people that live in our neighborhood and I offered my babysitting services to them for their little girl, Mona (she's so cute) and my sad mood was suddenly pretty much gone.
