Decades

Time to resort to one of the strategies that existed back in the olden days of AOL j-land...those days when I would happily post every day, sometimes twice or three times a day. 

Remember those "getting to know you" memes we used to share around?  "100 Things AboutMe"  (Which, because of AOL's 2000-character limit, stretched out to 11 entries...!); "My Dream Life Movie Script;"  "My Biggest Mistake."   I got to thinking that one or two of those old memes might be helpful in this 87-post marathon I'm running.

But it seems there's no one around the blogoverse sending out handy memes anymore, so I had to come up with my own.  I'm thinking this will be the first of at least a half-dozen of these I will have had to cook up by December 31, to keep myself engaged in this long, long slog.

I call this one "Decades Past."  It goes something like,  "40 years ago today, I was doing  'a';  "30 years ago today, I was doing 'b';  etc. etc.

So...let's have at it.

40 years ago today--Was one week before my wedding.  Yes, my only wedding.  And, yes, to the man to whom I am still married--for better or for worse.  So though I can't recall the exact specifics about what I was doing on that particular Saturday, one week before tying the knot, I'm sure there was plenty of last -minute craziness having to do with churches and music and receptions and bands and catering and wedding gifts and RSVP's and appropriate underwear for the wedding night.

30 years ago today--Was very close to the time I started my "dream job"--the only job at which I ever had any success.  I had been hired by a Seattle company to work as assistant manager for a bakery that they were going to open at Valley River Center in Eugene.  At this specific time, 30 years ago, I was probably staying with my sister in Milwaukie while I carried out my training at the Washington Square location of...Le Chatel.  Honestly, this would be the beginning of the best almost-decade of my life.  A decade where I would do the best work I had ever done, meet the best people I would ever meet, feel the best about myself and life in general that I ever had or ever would again.  A decade that would end with my sister's death and a precipitous plunge into loss, sadness and uncertainty.

20 years ago today--Was a time of murkiness, stops and starts, too many losses and too many challenges.  Trying to get my life back together after losing my sister and my "dream job."  Trying to reach out to her daughters, and failing miserably at that.  Being too far away from the family I longed for, aching to move back to them, to leave behind the place of lies and failure to which my job had taken me before it blew up in my face.  Between October of 1994 and May of 1997 I had at least six jobs...some for as little as two weeks.  I just could not get my feet back under me. Nothing measured up to what I had lost, and I was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that, when it came to the working world, I could not trust anybody.  In October of 1996, if memory serves, I was working as production manager for a small specialty food manufacturer in Lake Oswego.  My boss was a crazy woman, but, in retrospect, not the craziest person I ever had or would work for (I could pick 'em!  Some day I will have to write an entry about the crazy bosses I have had in my life...)

10 years ago today--I was in the early stages of the chronic state of desperate exhaustion in which I would exist for five years, working for probably THE craziest boss I've ever had--myself.  In July of 2006, we took over the Old Town Cafe.  By October of that year, I knew I was in for it...but I really had no idea of the depth, breadth, and scope of  "it."  It doesn't bear wasting a whole lot of ink on at this writing.  In case you've forgotten, or were not of my acquaintance at that time,  you'll find the story here:  Hot Flash Café. 

Hmmm...  Was that engaging?  Cathartic?  Anything better than a total snooze?  Nothing like a little trip down memory lane at midnight on a rainy Saturday night.  Now I'll probably have one of those dreams where I'm dressed for work in my pajamas and I can't remember which job I'm going to...