career planning

You know how when you are having a bad day/month/year/career in high school, and you start fantasizing about your (future) high school reunions? And you think about how you might want to base your career choice around something so fantabulous and impressive that everyone there will be talking about how fantabulous and impressive you are?

Well, here's a hint: don't choose shepherd as your career path if you are looking for that kind of reaction.

I just came back from a get-together at a dear college friend's house. She and I have been in contact since college, and she knows all about the odd turn or two that my life has taken in the years since we graduated. We went to a women's college that emphasized that us girls women could do ANYTHING WE WANTED, gosh darn it, but she and I have agreed that things such as child rearing and knitting and spinning and taking time out of your career, or derailing it altogether, to take care of your family and other such traditional roles were probably not what they had in mind.

She had invited other women from the same school and they were more than a little non-plussed to hear my answer to the inevitable question of what are you up to these days. The last time they saw me, ten years ago at my friend's wedding, I was practicing law. Even so, they probably could have handled the above answers despite their indoctrination at a women's college, but "sheep farmer"?

Umm, not so much.

As if to rub in the really weird universe I live in, the sheep were making the point that they were in need of some shepherding as soon as we arrived home. I had moved them to fresh pasture this morning, one that did not contain a shed... and the heavens opened soon after we left the house. As we drove in we noticed them pointedly waiting at the gate -- in fact, they had positioned themselves so they could watch for our arrival.

They didn't really need to be moved, but it had been raining pretty hard and they looked pretty pathetic and soggy. A select few really poured on the pathetic and soggy pathos as I approached the gate.

As soon as it was open, they wasted no time in heading for the shed in the next pasture over. Remember the sheep with the pathetic face? She's in the lead.

Though there are always a few greedy souls who need to stop and sample the grass, because as we all know, it is greener on the other side.

Ten minutes later, and no evidence that sheep even live here.