Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days...

[rebecca_in_blue]

[Error: unknown template qotd]
What? There are four seasons? Not just hot and cold? Just kidding. You can see the seasons here in Louisiana, but you have to look (really! hard!) for them. I have a tag for each season in this LJ for that purpose.

Any guesses as to how Rebecca spent her evening? She was eating some very spicy boiled crabs off old newspapers, with three old Cajun ladies and one five-year-old one (my cousins from Alabama are in town). We were all buried up to our elbows in crab meat and pieces of shell, and my lips felt like they were on fire! Here are some snippets of conversation I want to remember.

Karla: Do I smell like crab?
Mackenzie (the five-year-old): No, you don't smell like crab, but the crabs do. They have pinchers to fight with, 'cause they think we're gonna kill 'em. And we do.

Grandma: I remember, after Hurricane Audrey in '57, my mama swore off crabs and crawfish for over a year.
Rebecca: (not getting it) Really? Why?
Grandma: 'Cause they're scavengers.
Rebecca: (still not getting it) So?
Grandma: Well, over 400 people drowned in Hurricane Audrey. You know, in the water. (I like to imagine her thinking, "What the hell? Do I have to draw her a picture?")
Rebecca: (with awakening horror) Oh, wait... you mean... oh, gross! That's disgusting!

Last week I began job-hunting in earnest. Lately I've begun to feel that no job on earth could be worse than the one I have now, and I know that's an exaggeration (my job isn't that bad, and there are certainly worse ones out there) but that's just how it feels to me. I would've started looking sooner, but I really hate job-hunting. I can't stop thinking back to the gut-clenching marathon of misery that was the Job Hunt of Summer '08. I keep telling myself that it won't be that bad, it couldn't possibly be because #1) I already have a job, something I didn't have that summer, and #2) I'm not living with Mom anymore, like I was then. Two big weights off my shoulders right there.

The job hunt has already had its ups and downs. The idea of new possibilities is hopeful and invigorating, but the application process is stressful and time-consuming. It's almost like having a second job. I hope to search thoroughly and consistently, but since I just started, I haven't even heard back from a single person yet, and I'm sure it'll be hard to keep the search up once the constant rejections start rolling in.

Still, I hope that 2011 will be a year of good things. It might even see Rebecca officially convert to Judaism. I hadn't intended to jump into that so soon, but I made the mistake of mentioned it to my rabbi, and now he seems to have hold of the idea like a dog with a bone. Say a little prayer that Rebecca's doing the right thing, because you all know how I go through phases, and there are some people out there that I would hate to disappoint.