A cat showed up at our window tonight. Josh and I were at the table when I heard a cat crying. I thought it was Midnight but when I went to the window to look it was a mostly white cat with light brown spots. Usually the stray cats run away when they see us but this one was acting like it was wanting people to give him attention or at least food.

We named him Casper. I don’t know if he’ll stick around or not. He seemed pretty used to people so maybe he just came over for something different to do. Tom showed up at about the same age as this one so we wonder if sometimes people don’t just drop them off somewhere and they find their way to the house since there are other cats around.

The interview I had today went well. She said she was going to offer me a position so the next step was to get set up with human resources for the things you have to do with them as a new hire. The first thing she said when we sat down was “It’s been a while.” Then I was supposed to tell her about myself and then we asked each other questions.

I asked if she could show me the resident wings. One is named Spring, and one is named Summer. I don’t remember the name of the third one as it wasn’t a season. It’s a huge place with varying levels of senior living options but the parts I would work at would basically be the areas that were more similar to a nursing home or rehab facility.

This is all a very new again experience for me. She said she was basically going to treat me like a brand new nurse because of how long it’s been since I’ve worked as one and also because of how much has changed in the field. When I was doing it we still had all paper charting and documentation. Everything like that now is done with computers.

What I’m happy about with this place is that you also have the option of working four hour shifts. The 3-7 or 7-11 evening shifts were always my favorite. You can go in and get some hours but you weren’t there terribly long. I wouldn’t ever have to work a 12. When she asked what shifts I’d work I said days, evenings, weekends, but no nights.

At some point I do have some feelings about this. This all just happened kind of fast and I know I partly do these things to myself. But I also didn’t ask for my school to close before I could graduate. I was liking that path and when I got back to the car I did feel a pang of sadness for the educational route and path I thought I was on but changed.

And when I saw the wings it looked so unfamiliar. Hospitals essentially all look the same. But the more home like environments have different hallways, different pictures, different co-workers, different residents. I didn’t like it. I didn’t love it. And it wasn’t because there was anything wrong with the place. It’s because I did not know it yet.