yesterday

photo by Monica Lopossay

Last night's interview went very well! The first thing that I noticed was that the District Sales Manager was at least ten years older than me, so I was relieved about that. The second thing was that she checked out what I was wearing (black pencil skirt, white blouse, brown belted jacket, calf length, high heeled leather boots) and nodded to herself as we were walking toward the coffee bar. Since I felt I'd been passed over by H&M due to age and/or image, this was a good sign.

We talked about former employees and who I might have regretted hiring, and those that I was proud of. We talked about operations, a lot. This store is only 3000 sq feet compared to 4000 in my old store, but the expected sales are almost a million more.

She said she was passing my phone number onto the VP to do a telephone interview and that very few had gotten that far. I hope the VP calls today.

We also mailed a letter away to Tina, Em's bio-mom. Em wrote the first page, saying she wanted to communicate through letters or emails for awhile, because she was having a hard time dealing with the stress of the phone calls. We included a letter explaining that Em had gone back to counselling around Christmas.

There were many phone conversations between you and she about trips/visits for the Christmas holidays, and Em started getting nervous.
It has always been our intention that if you would like to visit her here, we would not stand in the way of the court order but help in any way we could regarding supervised visits. However, we just can't send her to Newfoundland without knowing if she'd be alright, and to be honest, she is scared to go alone.

There were many calls that upset her in November and December. I think the biggest issue is the threat to take us to court. Once she started seeing her psychologist, it was determined that those calls threatened to upset the only stable home she has ever known. The stress of fielding those calls and trying to answer in a way so as not to upset you have caused her extreme pain and vomiting.

This letter is the result of three months of counselling and on the recommendation of her psychologist.

I was a little worried about mailing it yesterday, because that kind of thing usually brings out the worst in Tina. The last two phone messages she left indicated she was still using something - Vicodan or Xanax, or maybe sleeping pills. When she gets like that, she sounds like she's in the middle of a long narrow tunnel and speaking through marbles in her mouth. If she gets into the coke, we'll be in real trouble. That's when she considers herself all powerful, like the evil queen in Snow White.

Today I'm doing some laundry for Bill, but a little later I'll be going down to my office so that I can process some non-smoking forms for two clients.

Happy Humpday.