Feelin' 'Preciated

I don't just knit while I'm at work.  I do actually sell stuff, too, but the needlecraft is a good way to pass the time when business is slow.  And no, I did not make the exquisite sweater.  It came to me courtesy of Anthropologie.

Allow me to feel good about myself for a moment.

Last week I got a call from Kim, the wife-half of my employers at the olive oil stand.  If I haven't said so before, she and her husband Larry (and their grown children, Kayla and Louis and their spouses, Mario and Justine) are fabulous people, each and every one of them.  Kind of breaks my heart to think that I may not get to work for them much longer if Rob gets hired at the zoo.  But zoos are Rob's calling and peddling oils and balsamics was only something I took on to support the fam, and I'll get to stay home more with Goonie, but still, working with people like the Pitonis is priceless.  I haven't worked with them since before Christmas with January turning the Pittsburgh Public Market into a veritable ghost town, so I've been manning the fort till next week when they return to work.  Larry left us with their Saab station wagon (heated seats!) while he went to Florida for most of the week, which also made our lives easier this past weekend while Rob went to interviews and I worked.  Anyway, Kim called to tell me how much she appreciated the work I did for them, that when they were away I treated the business like it was my baby, and that she had gotten me a card to say so, along with a Trader Joe's gift card that she subsequently lost.  She told me that she made arrangements with the folks at TJs and I could just go in and pick up the newly-issued card they had waiting for me.  So we stocked up on our usual fare - bread, eggs, bananas, spinach, pasta, and sauce, and even got a package of samosas to tide me over until we can afford to go out to a good Indian restaurant (I've been having mad hankerings for Indian cuisine ever since I started reading Jhumpa Lahiri.  I'm going to start developing a Bengali accent if I don't watch it).  Of course I could attempt to make some myself, but I fear I wouldn't do it justice.  Plus, I love how you get to serve yourself with a teaspoon little pastel candies mixed with fennel seeds from a dear glass dish on your way out to aid your digestion.  Yum city.

It's just so nice to feel appreciated in a job.  Nothing like having someone tell you (a parent, not an employer in this case) that you've been "nothing but trouble since (you) got here, and it's a known fact," to make you feel completely unwelcome.  Yikes.  Sure, the pay's not as good, and the medical benefits are nil, but I'll take my current job any day over that last one.  When I feel like my efforts are being recognized it makes me want to work that much harder, putting that much more of myself into what I do.  It's so worth it.