I'm the Good Humor Man, Doo-Wop, Doo, Doo-doo-doo!

Okay. Today has gone a little better than most days since mid-January. I had an interview for a writing position at a major banking corporation in Minneapolis, MN. The funny thing is, I never applied there. I came home from a weekend at the cabin to find an email from a headhunting group wanting to place me in a 6-month contract position with their client.

So for the last four months, I have been manically sending out resumes to companies and looking for acceptance and all of a sudden a company comes looking for me? That's different and refreshing. VERY refreshing.

So I am in the parking ramp on 7^th street in Minneapolis, hanging up my suitcoat on the hanger in the back seat, not seven minutes removed from talking with a VP of Business Development and my cell phone rings.

BAM.

We want you.

We want you IMMEDIATELY.

We're sending the paperwork over now.

Now, I am generally a humble person. Hell, most people are very humble, but when you are laid off, this type of development is like nitrous in the tank, baby.

I'm also in a doubly fortuitous circumstance, as another company in Minneapolis (actually right across the street from this job I just got offered) has also expressed interest in my services. I'm a finalist candidate for a marketing coordinator position and I've been told they're making the decision this week. Which means I may have the possibility of having to choose which one I want – which is a no-brainer. The marketing coordinator gig is much more lucrative, stable and long-term. So by Friday of this week, everything I have been working toward could possibly happen.

(knock-knock)

That's me knocking on wood to protect the positive mojo surrounding me right now. Lord knows it will evaporate soon enough.

So, in light of my good morning, I arranged to have a great lunch with a friend at a Moroccan restaurant, then came home with cake and made a great carnitas taco dinner for my family.

And I make mean carnitas.

Braised in chipotle peppers, tomatoes, onions, and other herbs and spices for over four hours.

The very definition of succulent.

So at 6:20pm, I sat in this same wooden chair at the dining table, patting my enormous, carnitas-stuffed belly and bolted upright in panic.

What about my blog?!

What can I do?

I haven't thought about it all day.

Think, DAMMIT!!! Think!

Then my youngest daughter, Christa, ran in and said, “Mom and dad, we're going across the park to get ice cream from the ice cream man.”

“Okay,” I said in an ignorant, meaty bliss.

Ice cream man.

Ice cream man!!!

Dabbing guacamole from the corners of my mouth, I dashed out of the dining room, grabbed my wallet and bolted out the front door, looking for the lineup of children racing to get to the ice cream man.

Now imagine this. A whole troup of kids crusising on their bikes down the street, destination – ice cream man – and behind them, a lumbering, 37-year old man in oversized jeans and a tattered orange hawaiian type shirt chasing after them with visions of ice creamy goodness rampaging through his brain.

Arriving winded, I was a bit underwhelmed. I had visions of a white truck, carnival music playing and a gentleman dressed in a white hat and suit handing out popsicles. What I got was a decked out red mini van plastered with promotional stickers of various ice cream treats like Big Dippers, Sour Pops and Bomb Pops. And there wasn't any music. There had to be music. How do you lure children to ice cream without the pied music of the ice cream pipers? And there wasn't even an ice cream man. It was a lady and her daughter, who drove around the neighborhood with ice cream treats in Coleman coolers.

I felt bamboozled.

I felt no nostalgia.

I got my Super Choc Big Dipper and followed the kids to the playground and ate my ice cream while a thunderstorm approached from the west.

But even though the ice cream man of 2010, looks nothing like the ice cream man of 1979, it still tasted good. And it reminded me that sometimes good things don't announce themselves with carnival music or roaring fanfare. Sometimes good things come out of nowhere, land in your email box or stop in the cul-de-sac with dreamsicles. And you may not have even thought about them or even wanted them at that moment, but they're there for the taking.

So grab your wallet and run like the wind!