Hope and Fear

Last week was all about the fear.
First it was my usual worries about job and money, which I have neither of. I had worries galore and then the worries all went away as I saw the prospects of getting a job. There is an opening at my old school Art Center in Pasadena. Its not a teaching job, but just a staff position. Id be supervising the prop room looking after students who've enrolled in the Federal Work Study Program. Its a roll I am quite familiar with as I used to be in the program when I was as student. I'd be working for my good friend Wendy who was the supervisor when I was in the program as a student. So all around good prospects there. My fears dissolved and were soon replaced by another...
Shortly after getting home from the interview, another worry took over. We found a stray cat had taken residence under our house. There is a little crawl space and after some recent rain and cold weather, this cat had decided it was a good place to camp out. So after some coaxing and persuading we got the kitty to come out and we isolated him in the garage. This was no alley cat, this was clearly a well fed and groomed domestic kitty. Now my worries about job and money had been replaced by the cat. I have a huge softspot for cats and considered it my obligation to take care of this cat. The cat was starving hungry, but in pretty good shape. We put him in a carrier and spent the afternoon and evening going around the neighborhood trying to find if the cat lived locally. Eventually we found that the kitty had come from a house around the corner and down the street. The people who owned the cat were quite retarded and backwards. They had big dogs which lived inside the house, and a little kitty who lived outside the house. I only met a young boy who seemed to be home alone and not especially thrilled that the cat had been brought back. I told him that if I ever found his cat wandering the neighborhood with neither collar, nor nametag, that I'd come back in the middle of the night and kill him and his parents (like I said, I have a softspot for cats). My fears dissolved and were soon replaced by another...
I got an email from a friend. This was an economic forecast. It was pretty grim. Now I've heard whispers of rising oil prices leading to higher food prices and the effects it would all have on the recovering economy. Now the last time my friends warned me with economic forecasting, it was about 8 years ago, and they told me that the economy was about to crash and that I should invest every penny I had in gold. I wish I'd had more money to invest at the time, but what I had I put into gold. I doubled my money in about 5 years. That was good. The current forecast for the economy is not so good. Mostly its the problem with rising gas prices and the global reserve currency. The US dollar has been the consistent global reserve currency for decades, but lately as our economy has been failing, more and more international trading has been done using other currencies. This is very bad for our economic recovery and the more I look at it the more likely I think things are just gonna get worse. Rising prices of gas will lead to rising food prices which could even lead to food shortages and riots. Its a big complicated mess and Im no expert, but my intuition says that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
This week has been all about hope.
I spent the last 4 days helping my friend move and I always feel good when I have the opportunity to help a friend in need. I've been kicking back today and for the next few days I've got some freelance work. I get to go back and work for some people Ive worked for in the past. Its not a fun job, but it pays well. That gives me hope. I've not heard back from the folks at Art Center but Im hopeful about that as well.