In brief.

I had no choice but to schedule my RVT certification exam today - you only have a finite amount of time in which to do so, and my time has run out. Despite the fact that I really don't feel up to it, nor prepared. Next Monday, 1 p.m.

I have my doubts. Boatloads of them. So many mistakes made at work, so much I just don't know. So much that I should know. So much I've forgotten since school let out. Even if, by some miracle, I pass, I don't feel like I deserve it. I'm not -competent- yet. Despite the fact that I might have that bit of paper, and those initials after my name, I can't do the job yet. Every time I think I have something, the very next time I'm let on my own to do it... I screw it up. Not even in just one or two ways, either. Oh no. Multiple things. It frustrates me.

I am guardian, sort of. But for a couple days of the week, when I have to get to work early and the hour commute would just be too much, I am staying at Mr. B's house, so that it isn't empty. Too many people saw him taken away, and while the neighbors are generally good, the sad fact is that all it takes is one less than scrupulous person overhearing something about an empty house, and trouble ensues. That I lived in this house for three years is sort of good, I suppose. I am comfortable here. But I also keep expecting to hear Mr. B come in, drive up, move around in the morning when his clock radio goes off, playing KGO before automatically turning off an hour later. I hated that thing when I lived here. He also listened to KGO during dinner. I never understood why he listened to some of those talk shows, when he really hated some of the hosts. He never gave me a good explanation when I asked him, either. I wake up on the couch, and look at the dark wooden beams slanting against the white ceiling, and for a moment, I'm in my twenties, and I work at the shelter, and I'm wondering why there's no familiar scent of turkey bacon, eggs, and english muffins coming from the kitchen.

And then I recall. I'm now the only President of the Society for the Preservation of Aardvarks, where there used to be two. A joke the two of us had - we were, after all, the only members. I've taken the stuffed aardvark I bought him when I was living in Washington, and the beanie baby white mouse I got him on my first trip to visit AL, which he proudly perched in his white and green kitchen, and smuggled them home. Maybe not the most ethical thing to do... but they mean more to me than they would to anyone who buys his things at auction when they go to probate.

God, I miss him.