load 16 tons and what do you get?

well, i'm two weeks in at a new job. surprise!
yeah, i left my job at a smallish non-profit and now work at a large name brand corporation. if you want to know which one you can email me and ask. the funding picture had become precarious, and i'd been kind of feeling the itch to leave for some time and not sure what to do/where to go. a friend who worked at the corporation encouraged me to apply for a contract position, as that was how he'd gotten hired on full-time. so i did, and now i find myself in the umpteenth different job/career path. again. next i will join the circus. i feel pretty good about it though.
to say that it is a change is an understatement. my old job had 9 people in the whole organization. now, gosh, i have no idea how many people work at this company. way more than nine. i have a photo badge that i have to swipe at the gate on the ground floor to get past the front desk. i'm learning a whole new vocabulary and process for my job and it makes my brain hurt sometimes, but i've realized that i like figuring things out and it's fast paced, so it's been good to give my head a workout. i'm looking forward to getting to know my new coworkers, that's what keeps me entertained/engaged at work.

jellyfish addendum

talking to my quasi-nephew, ping (he's 6), the other day:

me: hey ping, what color are jellyfish?
ping: clear!

there ya go.

last week, i went to one of those after-hours museum events, where they keep it open late play loud music and serve booze, so you can drink with your friends and learn stuff at the same time.

i was in the aquarium section of the Academy of Sciences, and staring at this really cool tank of jellyfish. such intricate-looking creatures. these two dudes walk up next to me, and one says to his buddy something like, "oh cool they're like chameleons!" my eyes got really big at hearing this, because these particular jellyfish were translucent - there were lights in the tank that periodically changed colors to red and blue and green and such (like how some cheesy hot tubs have these lights that change colors).

i stood there a little longer to see if he realized what he just said. then i hear, "how do they know to change to the same color at the same time?" waited 5 more seconds to see if his buddy would say anything, which he did not. then i had to leave quickly to get around the corner to start laughing really hard and find my friends to tell them about it. oh man.

the parentals

i stopped by my parents' house the other day to say hi. still seems weird to say that, even though i moved out several months ago. anyway, they were in rare form.

my dad was in the backyard gardening. in a sombrero. the sombrero that chevy's fresh mex gives you when it's your birthday. said sombrero was given to my youngest brother david at least 12 years ago, because it appeared to be a child-size sombrero from the way it was perched atop my dad's head. it had ben gathering dust in one of my brothers' old rooms for a while. granted, it was cinco de mayo, so maybe he was feeling festive.

then when i got up off the couch to leave, my mom walked past me holding a perfume sample that she had pulled out of a magazine. while she was saying goodbye to me, she proceeded to rub the sample all over our poor family cat, bosco. i was floored - that can't be good for the cat. she said some thing like, "now when i pet her, she smells good." as far as i could tell, bosco had no smell. at least, no smell that needed to be covered by some random perfume sample.

lord only knows what else is happening at home. amazing.