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Job Needed


by Ann Bogle


Hi, Carolyn Holbrook. I guess you just poked me. Thanks. Sorry for being so lame. There is no excuse for it. I limp because it's comfortable to limp. My ex-cat, Francis, started to limp one day. I brought him in. He liked Doctor Jim, notable since as a smart man cat, he avoided men, except two, not other people's favorites, and dogs. At the vet, Fran leaped from the table without sign of a limp. Dr. Jim said that if Fran was still limping by Friday, he'd test him for diabetes. I told that to Franny at home, who had returned to limping in the hall, apparently for effect. Then, following a separate warning, since he wouldn't let me brush him fully, Fran removed the mat he had let form near his anus and deposited it at the door of my and my dad's former office. It might have made me look bad at the vet that he had grown -- that I had let him grow -- rasta balls. I saved the mat after Fran expertly removed it with his teeth, that my sister, visiting, verified was gross to hear described when I showed it to her. In the end, Franny lasted outside each day almost sixteen years without bodily injury. He hunted. He left the house in the morning in Minnetonka as if he were a fire fighter and returned at noon to eat dry food, even after slaying and eating half a junior rabbit, to clean his teeth. He never gave up the dry or his dish of water in the kitchen. Lizards in Texas, following their beheadings, tasted bitter, probably, so he didn't swallow them. He walked -- then and then -- the edge of the property as if he had read the deed. He was a Himalayan/tabby mix from upstate New York, gray long hair. Here is the point of my correspondence: I have enjoyed three paid teaching days in Minnesota, since my return in 1996. All three paid days were fielded through S.A.S.E., all three at Patrick Henry. I loved it there. I hope never to become certified to teach. I'd go in again, especially to Saturday morning detention. The kids were so responsive to my creative writing lesson that day. Did the proctor tell you, as she told me, the kids had never liked a lesson as much as they had liked that lesson. Please get me a job! Is there a way? I'd hoped to be in St. Paul tonight for Mankwe's performance. Stan Kusunoki invited me. I lost time today, so I feel welfare-lost in space again. I earn $1.33/hour for a 24-hour day that covers medical co-pays and premiums. The last therapist, a nice one at JFCS, said I'd be unable to hold a job. I have signed up for a job fitness test in Minneapolis in August. Minnesota Workforce Center offers the test but has been otherwise uncivil. I hope volunteering  for ACLU at the Fair will go better. If you attend this evening, please give my regards. ~AMB
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