11/22/2014: Another Post

This is the second post today.

In the past month, I was hired by a commercial snow removal as a shoveler. I was excited at the opportunity to make $18 an hour over the winter and finally get some of my finances in order. I was hopeful in the past couple of weeks because we had a total snowfall of about 24". It was a bit early and I waited by the phone, available and excited.

Only, I got no phone calls and the snow stopped and the weather has warmed up. And my finances have not improved, so today I made another momentous decision: I reapplied for my old job at Meijer. As I write this, I wonder if you, dear reader, even know about that. Did I even tell you? Well, I shall check and if not, that will be a post for another day.

Now, I await contact from Meijer.

Nov. 22, 1963. A Day Of Significance

For people of a certain age, this is a significant day, a day you remember where you were when you heard the news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It is also the last birthday my mother celebrated. She would have been 86 today.

For me, it was sitting beside the piano in our house in Amman, Jordan, listening to her play Chopin. Or maybe Brahms. I don't actually remember the song, only what happens when the VOA, the Voice Of America radio interrupted the program with the news.

I never heard such silence and I had never seen what used to be a group of happy American expats enjoying their time together a moment ago leave in that silence. Or my mother cry like that.

Little did I know what left that living room that night.