I refilled my bird feeders this morning. One of them looks good, and I thought it would be very sturdy, but the design is lacking in insight--when I fill it one side lets a lot of seed pour out of the little hole with a perch 1/2 way up the fine mesh screen. It's always something.

I have stuff to mail today. It has moved to the top of my list.

And for work things, I have my evaluation tomorrow. I never enjoy that, though I work for a really wonderful boss. I was trying to think back to my earliest job experiences yesterday, wondering what about my early history impacts my current history, and flashed on an event I haven't thought of in years. The thing is, I don't think it impacts today at all, but it's a memory that comes back very complete because it was so shocking. The guy wasn't a boss, he worked for someone else, but he was an alcoholic and was usually drunk by lunchtime, so I can only assume he carried a flask or kept something in his desk. This was the early 1970s. We passed in the hallway in the middle of our Forest Service office cubbies, and he exploded in anger at me one day, out of the blue, and out of his drunken rage came the vitriol of a middle-aged man who was divorced, living alone, who proceeded to verbally stomp an 18-year-old for working in the woods and for not being feminine enough. He was so nasty--and none of this impacts the work I do now, but you know how sometimes you can look back and realize how much times have changed? I don't think I said a word, I was in such shock, I simply picked up my papers and went and sat in the secretarial pool to work and calm down. And the guys in the back got him out of there and gave him what-for for being drunk and out of control. But nothing was ever done about his behavior or drinking.

I hope times have changed.

SRS