Job Interview and Household Pets

How's that for a good title? I shall start with the latter. Pretty simple: Dan suffers from severe allergies and asthma. An overwhelming majority of anything with fur is potentially lethal. I am a passionate dog lover (although I hate tiny dogs), have had dogs my entire life, in fact my latest Schnauzer, Ajka still lives with my mom in Slovakia. I had to give her up for my husband. We've toyed with the idea of getting a hypo-allergenic dog, but somehow that idea died away.

Ajka (bad hair day) in winter, without her Schnauzer style hair cut.

A month before our departure for Armenia there was an ad in the Yerevan US Embassy's newsletter which we'd been reading for the whole past year to familiarize ourselves with what's going on at Post. It was an ad (complete with picture) for a dog named Klara that needed to be adopted. I immediately fell in love with the dog as it was quite cute and fluffy and had persuaded Dan to meet her and see if her dander would prompt an allergic reaction in him.

FOSTER FAMILY NEEDED: Klara needs a home. She is two, smart, sweet and lovable. If interested contact Naira on ...

Indeed, after two months in Armenia and having been in touch with Klara's owner, we went to visit her. It's hard for me to tell who was in a more wretched state. The owner's apartment had dirt (not dirty) floors. There was an awful lot of dust and dog hair, piles of clothing, although neatly folded, on the floor, chairs, table and a couch. The dog was dirty, untrained, not used to people and therefore overly excited. She was as cute as in the picture, but since she was so unkempt and in such an environment, Dan started sneezing and his eyes started itching within five minutes. We left the apartment and schmoozed with the owner for a while before going back home. She told us she never had a dog before and she only got Klara to keep rats away from her ground floor apartment.

Bonding with Klara.

Even though I really wanted to rescue Klara as well as her owner from their situation, common sense prevailed and we told Klara's owner we could not take the dog.

Two days before going to Israel for Sukkot we'd been sitting in the living room, the pleasant weather allowing us to have the balcony door wide open, when we heard a squeaking noise. Dan thought it was a bird, but having had experience with this sound, I knew it was a days-old kitten. It was night and we didn't see anything and there was nothing to do.

The next day I was working at my desk with the balcony door open and I heard the crying again. I looked out and saw a tiny black kitten crouching next to our back gate. I went downstairs, picked up the baby and, as there was no mother anywhere to be found, I took it home. It was in a miserable state. One of its eyes had not yet opened, and it must have fallen into cement because its fur was white, clumpy and hard in several places. I know one is not supposed to bathe cats, but I had to risk it because the cement was covering the kitten's eye orifice and it was stuck between it's paw pads and the kitten had a very hard time walking. I removed as much of the cement as I could, also having to cut some fur off. I then wrapped it in a towel and sat with it in a warm room until it dried up. Meanwhile I got on the phone and tried to find it a home before Dan came from work. No luck with the Community Liaison Officer, or with two local vets used by Embassy personnel.

I fed the kitten some warm milk and then it burrowed itself in a new dry towel which I was heating with a microwaved cold pack. With Dan, I went to a supermarket where we got some cat food and fed it to the kitten which had drunk hardly any milk as it was still used to suck. It had no problem eating the cat food, and immediately after its tummy was full, it fell asleep.

We got in touch with Dan's colleague who didn't want the kitten but suggested another colleague known for rescuing strays. She wasn't answering her cell phone so I called her up in the bowling alley where I knew she would be that evening participating in the Embassy league. She agreed to be a foster mom for at least until we came back from Israel and she would pick the kitten up after the game. I wrote a short ad before going away and eventually an Embassy family adopted the kitten now named Simon.

SAVE KITTY —This cute little baby kitten was found abandoned on the street and covered with cement. Unfortunately, the rescuers suffer from severe allergies and couldn’t keep him, and he has since gone into foster care. Please open your heart and your home and adopt this weeks-old kitten, which is all black with a small white tuft of hair on the chest. He comes with a free bag of food and box of kitty litter. Call Christy at ... or Embassy extension: ...

I had another job interview yesterday. The interview part went very well, I had a feeling I made a very good impression, answered the questions of the interviewers well and asked good questions about the position. Then a simple "writing" assignment was to follow. I expected to be tasked with writing a paragraph on a particular topic. No, I was assigned to create an Excel spreadsheet. With input information I was to calculate a sum, an average and then arrange the data in descending order. I had no problem with the first two, and as I was trying to remember and figure out how to do the third task, I accidentally deleted the whole table. I started redoing it but at that point the lady in charge walked in and said my time was up. I explained the situation and asked her for more time. She nastily said she already had let me work for five extra minutes and I should print whatever I had immediately.

This is one of the worst feelings, knowing your action will influence the future, you make a stupid mistake, don't have a chance to fix it and the opportunity passes away forever. There is a Slovak saying that all bad is good for something. Let's hope so.

Hope. That's also a funny thing. Even though I know I screwed up bad and most likely I will not get the job, I can't extinguish this feeling tickling me in my chest and a little voice in my head saying that what if the other candidates screwed up as well, what if the interviewing committee really liked me?

After the interview I met with Dan. Down in the dumps and with tears in my eyes, I persuaded him I needed something to make me happy and that thing could only be a pet canary I'd been wanting for a while. I drove across town along with inconsiderate Armenian drivers, in terrible traffic congestion, dusk and pouring rain to the only decent pet store in town. I chose a bird, apparently the most talented as he allegedly already knows six different tunes. I got the biggest cage, seed, toys and a squid bone for him to peck on for calcium. He doesn't have a name yet and is slowly adjusting to his new environment. He ate, drank, bathed and even trilled a little. It is supposed to take a week before he is accustomed enough to sing properly. Hopefully by that time Dan will get used to him and we will give him a name. Ideas? Anybody?

Bird in his cage.

When I let him fly around the room, he landed on the dictionary first. Fierce intelligence!

On top of a picture.

It is time to fire the housekeeper when...

...you find her asleep during work hours in your home.

...she is so clumsy and careless that everything falls out of her hands.

...you start to straighten up after she leaves.

...she constantly puts things in the wrong place even after working for you for a long time.

...she asks every hour what she should do after she's been told what her tasks are for the day.

...she begins act like your mother and tells you to put your socks on so you don´t catch a cold.

...she feels familiar enough with you to tell you private and embarrassing facts about her adult children.

...she does the opposite of what you tell her to do.

...you leave the house ridiculously early just so you can avoid her.

...you have to separate out the laundry for her because you fear she will ruin it.

...she dries heavy towels on delicates setting.

...you keep finding her thick, black hairs all over your apartment, even in your bed.

...you can't find your underwear.