The hour's getting late

I’ve been feeling a little Dylan-ish, what with the new Republican-(bare) majority House of Representatives announcing they’ll take on their election issues of inflation, opioids, crime and immigration by investigating Hunter Biden and his laptop.

So the apocalyptic imagery of “All Along the Watchtower” seems appropriate. And what better than Jimi Hendrix’s version of it, which Dylan himself has said is the consummate take?

Crank up the volume and prepare for two years of assholery by jokers and thieves on a massive scale.

 

 

Ice cream castles

As we were approaching Dulles on my flight back from Paris, I was just gobsmacked by the beauty of the clouds. So I may have shot some footage.

Corporate hoops

<sigh>

It’s Day 3 of being a [Megalithic Software Company]er, and I still have not been able to access the HR system to set up benefits.

For non-Americans, this means that I may or may not be covered by health insurance, since in theory my old company coverage ended on Monday, when I officially “started” at MSC. You non-Americans cannot imagine the anxiety this produces, because to be without health insurance is like walking around under the sword of Damocles; you’re one stumble away from medical-induced bankruptcy.

This is not helped by me finally getting credentialed on my new MSC laptop and opening my new MSC email queue to find emails from HR admonishing me for not filling out critical information in the HR system.

I replied that I’d happily do that if I didn’t get bloody error messages every time I try to log in.

So—I wait. And wait. And…

 

Holiday mashup

 As my Uber was driving me home Sunday evening, I noticed one of the neighbors has jumped the Christmas gun by a holiday.

Then yesterday, returning from my walk, I got a close-up of the tree decorations.

So—maybe they get a pass?

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: just a few things

Okay, je suis revenue aus Etats Unis, but I think I’ll have one more Gratitude Monday for my trip to France.

WRT my work situation, I don’t believe I’ve reached any Big Conclusions. I have some ideas about the women in cybersecurity remit, which I’ll have to pull out of my journal, organize and put into action. I rather get the sense that my dotted-line manager would prefer me to tell her what I’m going to do instead of me consulting her on what she’d like done.

We shall see, I guess.

WRT Megalithic Software Company, I have about half a squillion emails involving onboarding in my inbox, which I’ll have to start sorting today. Also, I need to really read all the Teams chats from my colleagues in various groups to distil all the pitfalls and hacks they discovered to do with onboarding. There might be a quarter-squillion of those.

I also need to reconnect with the MSC recruiter and follow up on any leads she has with the Greater Group. I’m sending her some pix of France. Like:

Whaddaya think? Will they impress her?

I mean—I’ve got options, n’est-ce pas? So, that’s good.

I’m grateful for that.

And I’m also grateful that—even though my French has atrophied, I still get along. (It’s a bit of a curse that the quality of my accent implies that my overall mastery is better than it actually is. This gives people the impression that they can lay complicated histoires on me and it discombobulates them when they notice my blank stare of desperation.)

Also—since the whole EU thing, English is the second language of every nation, and overall, French folk of all ages are remarkably fluent in English.

I’m profoundly grateful to have been able to take this trip, because France speaks to me like no other country. Except, possibly, my own. It’s been that way since my very first trip, done on not even a full shoestring. It’s changed a lot since that journey—which is a good thing, because failure to change is essentially death. There are things that piss me off, but it’s like family: I still love it.

I’m grateful that my knees made it through this trip. I’ll be candid: there were a couple of times I wasn’t sure they would. Either the latest cortisone injections aren’t really getting it done, or my knees have just had it. I’ll be calling my orthopod this coming week to set up The Surgery, since there’s a lead time of a couple of months.

I’m grateful I have that option, too. And that I have health insurance.

There was one potentially major kerfuffle on this trip: as the taxi was taking me out to Charles de Galle, I reached for my mobile phone to take some pix of Paris-by-auto and realized I did not have it with me. Just as I was telling the driver that my phone was missing and ohmygod, the hotel concierge rang him and told him they had it. He swung back, parked on Boulevard Saint Germain while he popped back to the hotel (it’s a whole one-way street situation) and came back with it. I may have to have the bloody thing stapled to me.

The porter and reception person took a selfie for me:

(I tipped him €10 for the above-and-beyond. He totally earned it.)

And, finally, I’m grateful that the three bottles of eaux-de-vie made it back with me. 

I was really worried because it turns out that Air France views the PRIORITY baggage tags as suitcase ornaments. You can’t buy them in the Old Dominion, and they’re my new go-tos for kir royale.

Oh—one more thing: that Red Wave the Rs were touting turned out to be more like light spotting. We are not out of the woods, but I feel better about the near-term future of my country and its place in the world.

On the whole—a gracious plenty of Gratitude Monday.