Grandma Is Mine!

Blogger is moody today and doesn't allow me to upload pictures.

Here is the complete post elsewhere: https://sotto.substack.com/p/grandma-is-mine

When I adopted Locky, I had given up my desire to have a dog because I traveled frequently. Then, a colleague who found out asked me to take him because they had too many dogs at home (with a new puppy litter). It came with a perk that Locky could stay with them anytime I traveled. I hesitated. I liked bigger dogs and almost adopted one from a shelter, but this perk and a pup that needed a home won the consideration. The arrangement is still ongoing, although all the other dogs (six of them, including Locky’s mom, siblings, half-siblings, and another dog) have crossed the rainbow bridge.

My colleague’s parents are always the ones who take care of the dogs. They are very kind, and although their way of caring for the dogs is more ‘traditional,’ they love those dogs unconditionally. They are always happy to see Locky, and Locky loves them all the same. Besides the lack of visual communication (they don’t keep up with technology), I feel safe leaving Locky to them when I have to. When all their dogs had passed not too long ago, I would bring Locky to the market where his ‘grandma’ works so they could meet for a while.

Now, they have another dog. He is still a puppy, less than one year old, but unexpectedly a big puppy (they were misled), and when I called yesterday, I found out that Locky is a demanding bully. He would walk with a swag and give this Kiddo a yap whenever he felt like it (he is probably 1/3 the size). Kiddo is not allowed to walk in front of his space, which is basically everywhere he could see. He seems to emphasize that although Kiddo stays there now, Locky was there first, and Kiddo doesn’t want to mess with this small, cute, but grumpy old man. Then, my little aholish fluff demands that his grandma pay no attention to the Kiddo. He doesn’t want to share his grandma; she is ‘not allowed’ to do anything with the Kiddo, and he complains whenever his grandma even walks in the Kiddo’s direction, while his grandpa, whom he loves slightly less than grandma, is allowed. Grandma doesn’t mind, and we laugh about it. It makes her feel special in a way.

So, yeah, I am currently away for family health reasons and miss him so much. How I wish I had a way to travel through space to meet my loved ones at any time.

Enough dog story for a day; I have plenty for another day. Now, books!

I want to say thank you to my beta readers; you all have been wonderful. I really appreciate your time and effort. I read and consider all inputs, they really help in making this WIP a better book. This has been an ongoing, wonderful, and humbling journey. My cover is almost ready, and I have finally decided on the title. Woohoo! My schedule is still on track, and everything is shaping up great.

Thank you always for being here.

I hope that today, everything that troubles you will be resolved, and that everything that makes you happy will be cherished and stay with you. Take good care of yourself.

The Curse of the Left Staircase

 

My second job working abroad was with a big corporation. The first one didn’t really count, it was a start-up, and the company went bankrupt in less than a year. However, it gave me some credentials to apply for permanent residency in that country. This second job in this corporation was somewhat related to my field, but I wasn’t very good at it yet (It was a new skill). I had no idea why they hired me after multiple interviews, maybe because it wasn’t a common skill back then, and I was a fresh graduate, just obtained my Permanent Residency; therefore, they could pay me peanuts.

I lasted five years there, but my first year was torturous. I felt anxious; I had no one to ask, and the internet was not that common/readily available yet, so I couldn’t just google what I didn’t understand. I had to be able to do what they paid me to do. I acted confident, but behind that, I struggled like a duck paddling underwater while pretending to be calm and collected. I learned, practiced, and worked late on my own so that I could deliver results and survive another paycheck to pay for rent in the foreign land, or I would die!

Fortunately, I improved as time passed, and most of my colleagues and my boss were decent.  However, there were nightmarish times and restless days. Unhappy boss, unreasonable deadline that I wasn’t good enough to tackle, and uncooperative hardware and software.

Then, I noticed one peculiar thing.

I had to take the subway every morning. Just like that daily montage in mind-numbing movies, I would take the same-timing train, board the same car, and alight at the same station through the same door in the middle of the train. It was as mundane as it sounds. After alighting, before me was a wide stair that would branch into two sides, right and left, because there was a lift core in the middle. Both sides of the stairs led to the same exit platform, so it shouldn’t be a problem whichever side I took right?

Wrong!

Every time I took the left staircase, my day would be horrible. I wasn’t happy with my work, anxious time, had imposter syndrome, high stress level, computer crashing, unsaved work, my mug looking at me funny, my colleague trying to kill me, something along those lines. I started to notice and didn’t believe it at first, and of course, it must have been a coincidence, with a splash of logic. The left staircase was closer to the exit, which I chose whenever I was in a hurry. Sometimes, when we were in project competition season, the schedule would be very tight, so I wanted to get to the office faster. The irony! Those were the times when the stress level and demand were high; therefore, it linked to horrible days.

Still, why would I risk it? I started taking only the right stairs, and for some reason, my days were better. The logic was that I was getting better at my work and was able to juggle the tasks, schedule, and expectations better. But hey, the stair theory worked!

Am I a superstitious person? I don’t think so. I am not superstitious, but I am a little stitious. However, I grew up in a family that respected tradition, including ‘good days.’ This belief exists in many cultures, there are good days to do important things. My mom uses this practice as needed. She picked our wedding dates (it works well!). She doesn’t just open up the calendar and select a good-looking number (just like all volume levels should be even numbers or dividable by five or the world will end!), but there is a ‘calculation.’ Date of birth, time of birth, type of thing to do, etc.

I have been asking her to pick my book publishing dates. So far, it doesn’t work well because I could never get the dates right (yeah, that is the reason, not because I suck at marketing) because of the time zones. Amazon’s time zone was in a twilight zone because I swear, on my last book release, I stayed up late to sync the timing, the one I am alive in and the one in Amazon’s universe so they both would fall on the same date that Mom had picked for me. It still didn’t work and the date was still wrong!

This time, hopefully, I will get it right, although I have no idea how to do that since I did everything right the last time. Yes, all these rambles are just a long-winded way to let you know that I’m happy to announce that my new book is coming out soon. It was supposed to come out in 2024, but my and my dog’s operations occupied us too much. Yeah, I’m stubborn and will continue to write if there is another person who likes it.