Back to Work?

I've had three bites in the contract-work fishing pond. The first two I covered an earlier Miscellany post. The third is the most attractive because it is a telecommuting job and I love my jammies. As a bonus, it requires occasional out-of-state visits to a client in SE Wisconsin, which means I would probably be able to stop on the way home and have an evening visit with my sister, who lives there.

As I've said before, the contracting world is all about timing. I wish the rep with the Wisconsin job would have been more aggressive about emailing. It has gone like this: he emails me in the evening, I get the email next morning and respond; I hear from him, not that day, but maybe the next evening. We have just got to the point where I gave him my rates. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Grove people have moved past the legal department bottleneck and it looks as though it will come through first. I so want to wait and see whether the Wisconsin job will materialize, but a contract in hand is worth three in the ether. Hold on I just got an email.

Yes, I just got the contract for the Buffalo Grove job, so I must go fill out paperwork and then let the other nibblers know that I am going to dry my tackle for a while. Two or three months anyway. Advantages of this job: likable lead writer with whom I interviewed, interesting product, what appears to be a very challenging project, uses FrameMaker, conducive to lunching on occasion with the Suburban Hausfrau. Disadvantages: "Casual Friday," which I interpret to mean that Monday through Thursday are dress days, a commute that will be over an hour each way, and what appears to be a very challenging project (cuts both ways, you know).

Bird Update 2

A day after Beefy went off his meds, he seemed almost normal. Two days after, he was sick all over again, so back to the vet and a change of prescription. For two more weeks, he was vomiting only once every two to three days until one night he just kept going, so back to the vet again. He theorized that the bacteria were now under control, but as killing bacteria tends to encourage yeasts (a truism that I know from my own experiences with antibiotics), we should give Beefy a shot for yeast, continue the antibiotic, and give him another shot in a week's time.

That was last Thursday. The vet told me that the shot might actually cause stomach upset initially, so if the bird vomited within two days--more likely within a few hours--it would be the effect of the drug. He did vomit a small amount on the next day but has been vomit free since. Tomorrow we go back for his second injection. We may actually be on the down side of whatever this was. Yay!

And just in time: I may be starting work on Monday, which is about an hour and three quarters away from the vet, making workday appointments just about impossible.