Today has been a roller-coaster of emotions all by itself.

Extreme Joy

I arrived at work this morning to an email greeting me with this wonderful news:

On behalf of [the Vice President], I want to congratulate you on your selection as one of the recipients of the 2009 Staff Development Scholarships.

The Scholarship Committee consisted of a group of your peers from [divisions within the organization].  Of the applicants, the Scholarship Committee selected you for your demonstrated talent, dedication, and merit.  Through the pursuit of continuing education, you and others like you are setting a benchmark of excellence that [the organization] is pleased to sponsor.  [The Vice President] is very proud of you!

Your scholarship is worth $1,000 and must be used  by August 31, 2010.

I applied for that scholarship way back at the beginning of July and had just about given up hope of receiving it. I had expected to hear something by now. This was fantastic news!

Needless to say, as soon as I read the email I was jumping around my office gleefully like a crazy person. Remember the ridiculous happy jumping dance Tracy Flick does in Election when she first thinks she won? Yeah, that was me this morning. I think I actually let out a little squeal and clapped my hands in glee. My office mate would have thought I was insane except that she is used to regular outbursts like that from me by now. I promptly told her the good news and then I ran and quickly told another coworker friend who wrote one of my letters of recommendation. Hugs were exchanged. I giggled.

The icing on the cake about getting this particular scholarship besides that a). I worked damn hard for it, b). I can sure use the money, and c). It’s a fantastic morale booster and a great résumé-padder, is that a good friend of mine applied for and got the same scholarship as well! We were in direct competition with one other and we both received the award! Hooray for overachievers!

Murderous Rage

Fast-forward to a mere 30 minutes later.

I got a semi-emergency call from my husband at work telling me he had just discovered that the meth-addict contractor we hired to paint the outside of our house (who had already finished the job, crappily, a few days ago) had stolen some stuff out of our garage and possibly from the inside of our house as well. I rushed home from work to find that the only possession in the entire world that I cared about, my Grandma’s wedding ring that I inherited 2 1/2 years ago when she died, was gone. No $hit. I had posted a comment on a friend’s blog less than 2 weeks ago about how this particular ring was the only possession in the entire world that I care about, and now it’s gone. I don’t know how long it has been gone. It could have already been gone when I posted the comment. They were working on the house for about 2 weeks.

A police report has been filed and I have made the rounds to every pawn shop in Norman, Noble, and Purcell looking for my ring. It is a one in a million shot I will ever get it back but I’ll still check back every week or so. It doesn’t help that the ring is so generic looking – it’s a white gold round cut four pronged solitaire diamond ring. Real distinctive. It fits perfectly on my right ring finger. Only I would be able to identify it if I saw it. It does have a slightly bent prong and the diamond is a little bit loose.

God is mocking me. God says, “Kathy, it’s just stuff. Even if it was your only remaining tie to your Grandma and you placed a great deal of value on it, it’s still just a rock.”

Yes, God, you’re right. But that’s not going to stop me from eschewing your mockery by ironically praying (to you!) to get it back and continuing to scope out the pawn shops… and also to hope that I’m not just an idiot and that it’s lodged underneath my dresser or something.

The situation with the contractor is really sketchy and we’re not even sure if it was him personally who took the ring and some of the other stuff. He definitely took a ladder and some other miscellaneous low-value stuff out of our garage, but we have no idea what else could be missing from the inside of our house just yet. We’ve tried to do an inventory on everything valuable we have, and we can’t find anything else missing just yet. The problem is that he brought at least 2 or 3 other people (read: drug-addict friends) over to do work at our house at various times who we never really met or had a chance to talk to. Any one of them could have taken the ring without his knowledge. The main contractor was clearly high out of his mind at least once or twice when he showed up to do work, and we could tell that one of his other workers was high a different time as well. They were hired to paint the outside of the house, and they only even had access to the inside because of a technicality where we had to leave a garage door unlocked for 2 days so they could paint it. They did not ever have permission to enter our home.

Hindsight is 20/20. We looked him up on the Oklahoma Dept of Corrections database this afternoon, and guess what? He has an extensive police record of drug offenses for sale and posession – meth and marijuana. He most recently got out of jail in November 2008. At least none of his criminal offenses were for violent crimes.

Lesson learned: Trust no one. This should really be common sense but sometimes you have to learn the hard way. With contractors:

1. Get multiple references, especially if there is a need for them to have access to the inside of your house while you are not there. Call the references.
2. Ask if they are insured. (Ensures further credibility).
3. If they seem a little bit high, they ARE high. This might be ok if they’re just mowing your lawn or something, but don’t let them in your house or garage! Protect your garage access code and door openers at all costs!
4. If they spout conspiracy theories they may or may not be high, but you should probably fire them anyway. You don’t want your hard-earned money going to support Ron Paul, 9/11 “truthers,” or antivaxers, do you? Not to mention that pesky meth habit…
5. Look them up in the OK Dept of Corrections Offender Database online BEFORE hiring them.
6. Yes, meth addicts do work for much cheaper than other contractors, but it’s not worth it. Believe me!

Cautious Optimism

I have nothing particularly noteworthy to comment on President Obama’s address to Congress tonight that hasn’t already been said by people far more eloquent than me, but his speech did fill me with cautious optimism. Of course, I thought that Obama gave far too much compromise to the anti-reform crowd in his plan as detailed in the speech tonight, but such is politics. I think this is the best we can hope for in this country right now.

We have a horrible broken health care system right now in this country. That is a fact. I think with this speech it appears that perhaps, after a month of complete and total standstill, perhaps progress can begin to be made again toward getting some sort of major legislation passed by the end of this year. Additionally, the unbecoming heckling outbursts of the anti-reform crowd during Obama’s speech clearly hurt their own cause… so yay for that.

So as to not end on a negative note, here is a happy little video that has been making the rounds lately online. Enjoy.