05 November 2009

Things continue to be a bit dire only more so than during my last post. I've sent resumes, made phone calls, begged even.

I tried to pawn a few things-seems I'm not the only anachronism, lol, the guy at the pawn shop got a real laugh out of my attempt to get a few dollars from my five year old computer.

Sigh. I even emailed my son's friend to ask him if he would ask Fox to pay my storage room for a couple of months. That has not generated a reply, so I think I know where that is going...

Yesterday I sucked it up and snuck down to the unemployment office-a 40 mile round trip that yielded only more depression. I should know something in about four weeks. But I have to check in starting the 15th to assure them that I am looking for work.

Just every day since the 29th of September, but hey, that's life nowadays. It's so great to be 53 and completely alone. Jeeburs, I'll never catch up, will I??

So, Life just hasn't been all that swell for years and it doesn't look to be getting any better anytime soon, dammit.

One of the little hand-outs they gave me at the unemployment office cracked me right the hell up-"How To Tell If You Are Stressed About Being Unemployed". Really.

Well, if anyone is reading this, keep a good thought for those of us looking to restart our lives.

30 October 2009

A quick update from the nice free computers at the local library...

Gonzo, Mozart and I are getting along although it has been now 32 days without a job. I keep sending the resume off, but no-one calls back.

I have to believe there is a reason, but holy moly, things are getting scary.

I come down to the library every Monday, Weds, and Friday to check the online ads and my gmail account hoping that something has turned over and I might find a job.

The cats and I are OK on food but the lot rent for the Tin Shack is coming due on the first-I have now $1.40, and no-where to turn.

Don't know what else to say. If you are a praying person, I would appreciate prayers. Things are tough everywhere-is Obama insane thinking that a recovery can happen without jobs? I lost mine to a younger and less paid girl-how is she going to make it if I wasn't making it all that well even though I live in a Tin Shack, and barely had Internet?

I read Catastrophe and The Big Squeeze, two books written recently about the nightmare we are going through. Catastrophe was a little (lot) slanted, but a number of the points were valid, and therefore scary. The Big Squeeze just made me cry from page one to page last-we are so screwed.

If I can find gasoline money (I am now on a quarter tank, with no money coming in-hey, if I had anything worth pawning I would, but I can't even afford a converter box for my old TV) I'll try to keep this blog updated.

Lord? I know you hear me, I know you have a reason for this, but Lord, I miss my little life, such as it was without my son. Could I please get a break here about finding a job??

08 October 2009

OK, things aren't going well for nearly every one on the planet.

There have been over 49 large earthquakes in the South Pacific, Asia, and other spots on the Pacific Ring of Fire in the last 24 hours.

Several credible sources (Google 'em, I can't afford to be screwed by some fat-cat whose last name is best known as being the daddy of that swell mainstream media outlet intent on charging for access to information) say this earthquake activity is "most unusual" and the FoxsMom Doom Meter is inching into the red zone.

Especially when I look at the global doom unfolding-the economy is about to see another hit from ARM mortgages going into default, additionally, reverse morrtgages are expected to become a huge problem-SOON.

Less than one job opening exists for every one thousand job seekers (of which I am one "...alms, alms for the poor...")

Panflu is hotting up, several people have died today alone and the news within the next week is going to be rather alarming even to those who have thus far skated by singing the ever popular meme "Wash yer hands, it's mild, just wash yer hands...". Sure, and that's why you are all of a sudden urging people to get that adjuvent loaded (although they swear it's not, but damn, what's thimerisol after all, if not something added? It's mercury, btw) vax, it's mild. Um huh.

In Detroit yesterday approximately 50K (yes that's right, I typed fifty-thousand) people tried to get in on 5K (yes that's right, I typed five-thousand) available applications for federally assisted housing money.

OK, so far Doom wise we've got:

Earthquake doom
More mortgage meltdown doom
Job doom
PanFlu doom
Housing doom

If that ain't DOOM-IN-YER-FACE, what is? But wait! There's more...

The fine city fathers and economic developers of a tiny Montana town named Hardin damn near lost what little they had left when a company claiming (but covertly claiming, they coyly never named names) to be an off-shoot of Blackwater and tried take over the town.

No, really, I can't make this stuff up. They rode into town in three black Mercedes Benz suvs emblazoned with the non-existent Hardin PD logo that supposedly somehow had morphed to include a Serbian aristocratic house emblem.

Luckily they were eventually exposed as two-bit chumps looking to scam a small Montana town that just so happens to own an empty semi-state of the art small prison...The self-styled CEO has a warrant out for his bad self in WY, and oh yeah, he's done time in a California DOC 'guesthouse'-read that as prison.

And oh yeah, the Mercedes Benz vehicles were leased and the payments not been made.

So add contractor doom to the growing doom list. We are so screwed.

And I still cannot find a job. Times like these I'm glad my children don't talk to me, or else I'd be having a terrible time keeping it from them-money is soooo short, I'm running out of it and lot rent (includes electric and water), cell, and Internet are due on the 15th. I am probably writing my last blog entry in a while...

If it is, hope to see you on the Flip Side.

Keep those hands washed, kids, and stay close to a doorway or sturdy table in case of a 'quake so big it reaches YOU.

04 October 2009

Wow, the world went through it on the 29th, right? Quakes, tsunamis, unemployment through the roof...

At 0720 where I sit this morning the sky is only now beginning to lighten. More rain is predicted for today and we are on a flood watch until tomorrow. The last flood here has left several area rivers so polluted we are being warned off so much as sticking a hand in them. Nice.

Since being fired Monday afternoon I have been doing a lot of tidy ups and winterizing projects but I need to find a job or else someone else will be reaping the rewards of my work.

When I was married and would try to prepare for a season change Crusty would become impatient-he really hated any kind of prepping against anything. We lived in Central Florida during Hurricane Andrew and he got a huge laugh out of those who were concerned.

He made me feel as though I was stealing from him if I bought extra food and water. Swell guy. So glad we are divorced.

I have been missing my children especially the last month. The past week more so. I wasn't kidding when I wrote that losing my job meant losing the only place I had to be.

In the end, it's a toss-up on why I am anxious to find a job-money for bills etc, or to have a place to be.

I want to be careful about the next position, but I don't think I can afford to be too careful considering my money situation. I simply don't think I have the time to be all that choosy.

And frankly I don't have all that much interest in leaving the house to go through what I went through at the old job. Jeez, I think I am traumatized by it all.

I went to work that first day so excited to be working for a Fortune 400 company. Wow, health insurance, a job where I could shine, make friends even.

OK, I never used the health insurance. Any time I shone, my co-workers made a point of slamming me, so the friends thing didn't work out all that well.

Today I will do some more things around the house to winterize. I'm clearing out some of the clutter, too. It's hard to motivate myself to do anything beyond read and crochet, though. Friday I found the Fall decorations, and I wasn't all that excited to try to put those out.

I've been depressed for years, I know that. But hopeless, well that is somewhat a new thing for me, and knowing that it happened at my job hurts.

I can't even begin to articulate how awful it was there, how disappointing that I was punished for excelling. Figuring out just how damaging it all was makes throwing myself back out there almost impossible-I've been putting it off.

All I ever wanted from life was to be a homemaker for a family that appreciated my efforts-others have that, why can't I? I am a good person, and I was a good wife, a good mother.

But I am sitting here on an early Fall morning trying to convince myself to get back out into the world because it is the only chance I have of surviving, the chance of finding friends, meaningful work...

When the only work for myself I ever saw as meaningful was as a homemaker. I think we are the souls who keep the world together, and God knows the world is not all that together now.

And I face its crumbling alone.

29 September 2009

Yesterday afternoon close to the end of the day I was taken to a conference room and informed my services were no longer required.

I gasped and said "Oh my God!", then I said "OK" and I was walked out of the building.

Four years (three years, 11 months and four day) wasted.

I hated my job, the work was OK but the business mission was not what I wanted out of life. The only reason I am at all upset is that how it was done was so wrong, but then again, the company existed due solely to the consumer spending spree that brought this country to financial ruin, so naturally the way I was fired was wrong.

It is a blessing whispered the little voice in the back of my head, truly, this is a blessing-you hated your job.

I got in my car and left the only place I had to be for the last four years without looking back and five miles down the road I was asking myself why I was so calm. Was I in shock, should I pull off and wait for the tidal wave of screams and tears that surely accompany being fired?

Why wasn't I shaking like a leaf, as I was Friday after the nut job co-worker went off on me?

Why hadn't I argued, pleaded, begged, anything at all to keep from losing my job??

Why wasn't I throwing up, screaming, crying, cursing the gods, anything besides calmly driving up the road out of Alpharetta towards The Tin Shack?

I pondered that the rest of the way home.

Although I usually don't make calls while driving, I called a friend once I cleared town and left him voice mail asking him to call me when he got the message; he did, and immediately offered me a job as a helper on his construction crew-HA, can you see me out there picking up nails? I may be doing that if I don't find something.

I got home, booted up the computer and commenced the job hunt. Two hours later, I've got a couple of interviews lined up for Wednesday, and I click over to the forums I frequent to look over the "Oh S*it, I've Been Laid-Off" threads. I mention in a couple of posts that I've been terminated (what an ugly word, especially when applied to one's self) and am the comforted recipient of several "It's going to work out" posts and private messages.

Finally, I turn off the computer after about three hours, and go to bed, where I lie there for only a few minutes still bemused by my seeming lack of real concern over my newly unemployed status.

It is the morning after, I am still calm. I do a personal inventory-can I feel anything?

OUCH, bloody well can, I pinched myself.

Do my legs, hands, mouth still work?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Hmmmm. OK, so I get on the Internet to check job sites, fire off a few more resumes.

I call the car company, yes, they'll stop the auto debit on the payment, get it mailed as soon as you can says the nice gentleman I speak with. He's obviously heard many of these calls lately, and is still able to be compassionate AND businesslike.

I call the bank to order a stop payment on the car-I'll have to go down there instead.

I make other calls all morning, arranging this, informing that. What a list of things must be attended when one becomes jobless!

And all the while I'm thinking, why am I so damn calm about this-I try talking myself into terrors. I say things to myself like-WTF is the matter with you, you live paycheck to paycheck, and your last one is not going to last long at all!

I remind myself that I am 53 years old, I won't be getting a reference from my now ex-boss; and I go on and on trying to whip myself into a foaming tear about my predicament.

But all I can think of is I never have to go to that place again, I never have to deal with any of those people again.

And interestingly, my mind is quite clear this morning. Much, much clearer than it has been for a long time. I've not felt like myself in a very long time and I am feeling more like me this morning than I have in years.

28 September 2009

I lost my job today.

26 September 2009

WHAT A PERFECTLY HORRID WEEK ON TOP OF AN UNFORTUNATE COLLECTION OF PERFECTLY HORRID WEEKS!!

Early on Monday afternoon our director sent us home with the advisement to return the next day after daylight to ensure our commute roads were clear.

I made it to work the next day by 0930 although I had some concerns about a bayou I cross (who knew that Georgia has bayous this far north?) and it took until Friday afternoon for the water level to drop away from level with the roadway. Yes, I said level. Why they didn't close that road is beyond me.

By the day after that the sun had made a brief appearance and things went back to normal-think SNAFU. Really. But I digress.

I am living in an official disaster zone, and it is disconcerting to say the least-it all just crept on me and frankly everyone else in the area.

I need to do somethings around the house, and this drought breaking/record breaking rain has been going on really for nearly three weeks. I took my holiday from my birthday until the 8th of September and dang me if it didn't rain nearly every day!

I took the time off to get the windows caulked, the house cleaned top to bottom, the bedroom converted to a storage room, the last pruning before Autumn sets in.

Oh well, so much for that idea, and I buried myself in Peak Oil research, good books, and my latest crochet project-a scarf/shawl done entirely in single crochet.

As it's been raining since the last day of August, I've read several books, learnt quite a bit more about Peak Oil than I thought I could (Have you seen A Crude Awakening? Google it.

I went back to work on the 8th-OH GOD PLEASE HELP ME FIND A REAL JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have three co-workers who think it's OK to play the race card if they're called on clocking in and immediately going on a ten-twenty minute break.

Hello, the President is bi-racial, the race card shouldn't work anymore honey, it's been punched off for the last time.

So Friday they pull the old "We can't get along with her" (meaning me, the only white) and are pissed they aren't getting away with it because they made the mistake of pulling it while our director was in the next work area.

I'm going along doing my work, reorganizing something I'd found out of date when suddenly the one who sucks up to the management team (while bringing them treats and pulling that 'sassy mammy' crap, she is openly contemptuous of them the minute they leave the room) says to me that I've got a chip on my shoulder and if I have a problem with her I should talk to her about it.

WTF??

So I tell her I do have a problem with her saying I have a chip on my shoulder when I don't even know what the er, hell, she is on about. The next thing I know three very pissed off black women are on me about how angry I seem, stomping out of the room (HUH??) and one of them says they only care about me and that I must be upset about something...

Well, no, I wasn't but I am now, dammit.

I try to patiently explain that I am just trying to get my work done without making a mistake, but I make a point of telling them perhaps we need visit HR and get this straight because I don't want a hostile work environment...

I also make a point of going to my supervisor-also black, and who frequently tells people "it's a white man's world", and "now that we have a black president whites are gonna get a taste of what it's like to be the minority." Uh oh.

I'm not prejudiced, but I'm maybe getting there, so I consult a mental health professional on my way home work last night, who advises I find a new job. No, ya think? In this economy, me, a 53 year old white woman. Righteeo there Doc.

So I live for the hours after work, and I live for the weekend, and I live for the day Dr. King can stop rolling in his grave, and I live for the day all of the people who've died for racial equality to stop being a dream and start being a reality won't have died in effing vain.

Jeez, it's like the people I work with don't want equality, they want revenge. They are proving all of the racist stereotypes, and I don't know what to do except spew this out to my friend who mercifully doesn't charge me for consults.

Who tells me the world has gone truly mad, and I should find a new job so I can keep prepping for TEOTWAWKI.

Oh yeah, this is great.

The rain started again about noon today and I watched in disbelief as the meadow 20 yards from my house began to fill with water. On go the boots and rain coat, out the door I go to check on my neighbours-do they know water is feet from their back door; they hustle uphill to their friend's place on a level with mine and we watch the growing pond form as we shout across flooding lawns and gardens (did I mention that Monsoon One wiped out my winter square foot garden?) "Should we bug out??"

Which is stupid since we live on the highest point in town, and to get to any higher ground (about ten miles south west) we would have to go down through an even lower point than our meadow.

I come back inside and since we still have power I search the Internet until I find a Google Earth map of our neighbourhood and start plotting a way off this ridge on foot. Plus I pull the inflatable rafts from car and house BOBs (bug-out bags) just in case because now I am noticing the water is creeping up my foundation-the Tin Shack is on a cinder lock foundation, and I'm damned glad I parked the KIA on the highest point in my yard...

Then it hits me, and I pull the boots and rain coat back on, and get my neighbour to go check the end of the meadow with me...

We had a blockage from debris picked up in run-off. We cleared the blockage and the water drained off within ten minutes. Oh thank-you God, because frankly I could have used hip waders in there, the water had to have been four foot deep, deeper in some places.

We'll be taking turns through the night to ensure the blockage isn't repeated.

Oh, I love climate change.

14 September 2009

Winter is coming, I can feel it although the temp outside is 75. A chill in the air.

Winter is coming.

15 August 2009

I came home from work a couple of hours early yesterday. I have Pandemic A/H1N1 2009 for the second time, the first time being back in March.

The first bout with the 'novel flu' was somewhat unpleasant although it was so weird in presentation that I didn't really know I even had the flu until I realized I had a low-grade fever. I managed to become unwell enough on a Thursday that I had to go home and stay there until the following Tuesday but it wasn't until Saturday that I understood I was experiencing the weirdest flu I'd ever had. Weird is the only way to describe the damn thing, every mild symptom easily ascribed to something else-until the fever. All, that is, except the dizziness that sent me home in the first place.

At aged eight months I suffered the panflu, in 1957. I didn't have flu again until winter 1974, when I was so sick I passed out on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. A huge Irish Setter I'd rescued from the pound went insane barking, which roused my drunken step-mother to drag me back to the couch-the extent of motherly nursing instinct in the bitch.

I nursed myself amid accusations I was faking. I then avoided flu again until the winter of 1994, a whopper flu that laid my son and me up for over a week but strangely left my military contractor husband completely untouched.

That flu is why I no longer trust doctors-mine, when Fox and my fevers went over 103 for the third day, diagnosed a virus and prescribed antibiotics. Since I know antibiotics are not prescribed for virus, I never went back to her, and have only been to a doctor for STD testing when I caught Crusty with the hookers.


From Monday afternoon this past week I began feeling that horrid "Hmm, I may be about to have diarrhoea, but this is weird, no real intestinal cramping, just that sense of something not right..."

Tuesday a co-worker called out. Wednesday she was back and told us she'd had 'tummy troubles' that were much improved although she still felt 'funny'. I was feeling the same thing and as the week ground to Friday that feeling increased until Friday morning, when I realized something was wrong and I needed to go home.

Another co-worker left, and I was about an hour behind him. I stopped at the pharmacy for my sinus pills and scurried home.

On the way home it hit me that I was probably going through swine flu for the second time.

The symptoms are so weird-dizziness, mild intestinal cramping, very low fever, extreme sleepiness, mild sore throat and hoarseness-a deepening of the voice. The first time I had dripping nose and heavy cough so bad I thought I was going to cough up a lung whole but this time the dry nose and zero cough really had me fooled.

Late on the evening of 23rd April 2009 I turned off the computer and prepared for bed. I had the TV on to a news station and the scroll caught my attention, sent me racing to reboot the computer. Something along the line of two Southern California children being diagnosed with a novel virus.

I scoured the 'Net and found what I'd feared for years-a novel flu that had people in Mexico dropping like flies. Mexican ERs were overwhelmed, doctors were pleading with their government for honesty and assistance.

The American health institution CDC reacted in an utterly heretofore unexpected and frankly terrifying way-"No need to be concerned, wash your hands, people are not dying in Mexico, this is not a big deal, no worse than normal seasonal flu, wash your hands..."

In Mexico doctors were desperate to find help and get the word out to the world-we have a serious problem here, please send help. The help never really came and while the official toll is less than 200, it is highly likely thousands have died in Mexico.

The doctors were sending emails to England's BBC that people were dying of cytokine storm-young people who were previously healthy and were not the 'usual' flu victims. Those emails have since disappeared from the BBC site.

CDC convinced Mexico to keep their borders open, and within days the flu was everywhere. Slowly the case count rose, and with it a mounting death toll. One that continues although you won't know that from the CDC, ECDC, and WHO. To find out who has died, or at least a rough estimate of the death count, you must spend hours digging through online obituaries for deaths among young people, of pneumonia and organ failure.


I have been glued to flu forums and the forum I participate in on it's epic swine flu thread that has been going strong for over three months as we try to figure this one out. We share holistic health care info, we argue the vax; we share prepping tips and links to the latest news.

I read The Stand and The Coming Plague, the first of course Stephen King's horrifying story of a military engineered killer flu, the second an equally horrifying non-fiction examination of how we are going to create a super bug one way or another, and countless millions will die-off.

I've been a Doomer for most of my life-when your life is endured rather than enjoyed and maximized, you become a Doomer. When what earned you praise from your parents on Monday earns you a casual backhand on Tuesday, when the same unpredictable behaviours are the only predictable from almost everyone around you from parents to teachers, neighbours, and pastors, you become a Doomer; if the unpredictability of Life is reinforced over again, and it was for me, Doomerhood is yours for life.

You learn interesting things, like how to read a situation in a half heartbeat, how to turn anything at hand into a weapon, how to become invisible, how to run and not be caught. you learn how to prep mind, body, and pantry, against devastation that can come in that half heartbeat.

You learn that if you believe in God life is a lot less horrid even though bad things still happen and people still go from sane to savage in half heartbeats; you learn that sometimes you really do have to figuratively drag yourself over glass shards to get to safety-but safety is there if you will only hang onto that thought.

You learn there is an unfortunate majourity who do not want the safety because then they would be responsible for their participation in it. They throw their own children into the cook pot because "no-body said Life is fair" justifies eating their own child to buy themselves five more minutes of sucking air time.

Being a Doomer can save or destroy you.

But not even being a Doomer can save you from this flu, although because you are a Doomer you are prepped and things will be slightly less uncomfortable for you and your family should you have heeded the warning calls-and there have been plenty.

I read an article last week that the CDC hopes to be able to find predictors as to who will get this weird flu so severely that they will die.

We want, we need, Life to be predictable, and it's not. But most illness' are predictable, outcomes predictability is what drives the art of modern medicine-"You have this, take this, and because we are doctors and have studied this, we know this will alleviate/cure your particular case"

But they can't do this with Pandemic A/H1N1 2009-they do not know why A and D get mild cases while B, C, and E require life support, and why of the three on vents/super vents, only patient C will eventually walk out of the hospital alive.

In 1918 at least 30 million people died of a flu known as Spanish Influenza. The medical profession still has no idea why the toll was so high, or even how high the toll really was-estimates range from 20 to 70 million, pick a number.

91 years later we have a flu circulating that is presenting as worse in its first wave than the 1918 pandemic, yet we have CDC and WHO holding back sounding any real warning-as a consequence few people have prepared with extra food and water in case supply lines fail due to sick transport operators. People are dying, will continue to die, and I have to wonder if this is Mother Nature's housecleaning.

I have the flu. My doctor says to keep him posted via phone-ins. It is again too late for me to take Tamiflu, which would have been prescribed had I called him sooner as I am in the currently accepted 'potential critical' group with my stupid little heart thing, and my stupid barely there asthma (there, I've said it, yes, I have asthma. Shoosh, don' tell).

So I left work Friday afternoon after begging my supervisor to send the sheriff and an ambulance to my house Monday if I have not called out and am more than a half hour late for work.

Because I am alone in the world, and should I become seriously ill and unable to call for help, at least someone will find me Monday morning.

25 July 2009

Certified insane, I should be really.

I just signed off on the papers for the Tin Shack-it is now mine after a meager $2500 paid out over 20 months (on top of the lot rent).

I'm going to run a photo copy of the paperwork and have a little mortgage burning party. The guest list will consist of me, the cats, and maybe the mobile home community manager, and of course the guy I bought the Tin Shack from.

Feels weird, I am a home owner again. Oh S*IT! What have I got myself into this time???

I'd done some reno, cosmetic, I assure-now comes the hard part! Now it becomes quite, very, seriously, serious.

MUST DO FIRST:

Level 1968 Commodore 10x48 trailer (why call a sow's ear anything less?) and raise to 2'6" for service access (why make it hard for any repair person who has to climb under there?)

Install moisture/vapour barrier underneath, repair underbelly

Replace skirting (some metal, some cinder block) with all cinder block-remember the vents and service access) face with 'levelstone' look rock

Replace roof (including trusses) then build freestanding roof-over to extend out from front of house 8'

Rewire, replumb, running the wire and plumbing along interior walls

plumbing where baseboard hits wall

electric along chair rail height:

place outlets at same height-I'm not getting any younger

add dedicated circuits for heat and air, computer, entertainment center,
bath and stove vents-both to vent to outside

plan all electrical work to have 'at exit' shut-off switch to cut off all
but climate control and refrigeration to prevent phantom power use and
fire hazards

NOTE TO SELF: SCREW in cover panels to create easy access for (gulp) repairs

Pull wall paneling, replace insulation, install US made sheet rock

Replace all windows with insulated windows

Build functional exterior shutters (board and batten style)

Replace both doors, peepholes only-no windows!!

Move privet foundation plantings to make room for 6'x40' screened/covered veranda

Paint exterior: light-medium grey with white trim

AFTER THE BASICS ARE COVERED:

Replace entire ceiling system through-out house

Build corner entertainment center between back and side windows:
4'Hx12"D book shelves from back window frame to corner, expand for components
at corner then back to 4x12 under side window to front end of frame

2'Hx8"D cd/dvd storage atop bookcases between both window frames

Build office area between kitchen counter edge in LR to kitchen side edge of back
window frame:

6'Hx12"D with center pull-out keyboard and mouse tray

louvered door for center monitor and keyboard area

Replace kitchen counter eliminating curved counter (eats up too much LR floor space)

Replace kitchen sink eliminating weird angle

Install small 'diamond' positioned window over kitchen sink

Install Premier 21" range (made in USA, does it get any better?)

Install Edgestar countertop dishwasher with dedicated plumbing in extra space left from losing the huge existing range

Install smallest possible sidexside fridge-NO icemaker or water dispenser

Finish pantry area flanking front window by getting the high gloss black chicken wire and high gloss white lath doors on '6Hx19"Wx8"D and 6'Hx24"Wx12"D pine cabinets already there; mug hooks for mugs and potholder collection

Install 30"D pecan or walnut stained eating counter at windowsill height between the two pantries flanking the window

Install 8"D shelf across top of window frame between pantries

Install top loading washer/dryer combo in utility room

Replace old tub with walk in/glass door shower stall

Replace that completely horrid vanity with slim vessel or pedestal sink-NOTE TO SELF: find installer without attitude to install new sink, damn I am tired of hearing men bitch about installing specialty sinks!

Tear out existing closet in bedroom, replace with a unit stretching across entire back wall extending no more than 24" from wall. Leave existing window (which will have been replaced with insulated one) and use area under window as drawer area.

Yeah, that oughta do it.

Oh jeez!

27 June 2009

I used to be funny, and articulate. I used to be able to do just about anything I wanted to do. I used to be hope filled, and I had a sense of humour. I used to be able to make connections with people, I never had trouble making good and lasting friendships.

Over the past few years I've become withdrawn and unable to string together a coherent sentence. I have no friends, not one.

As is usual for broken souls, there was no final blow that crushed me but simply a long and linear cascade of painful disappointments. The weight of griefs has bent me completely; my options and opportunities crushed, stolen for the most part but also faded away in some cases.

It has always seemed to me that I was pushed by the people in my life into a cruel and different dimension, and it started early.

I tried therapy several times thinking surely it was something I was doing wrong, some nuance of everyday life that I somehow lacked understanding of. I thought therapy would help me see and learn to manage my life-I blamed myself first and sought to correct the mistakes I was making in order to go forward with more success.

Therapy invariably followed two patterns.

In the first the therapist would tell me what I was relating was so rare as to have not possibly been my personal experience. Any proof I would offer to back up my story would be dismissed as fraud. I would then be offered medication. Not being interested in a medicated response to the world I would quit that therapist.

The second pattern would end with me also being offered meds, but also with the therapist been rendered as shell shocked as I was. My documentation, and the therapist's independent confirmation of said documentation would leave the therapist as helpless as I was to deal with the problem. I had several look me in the eye and say they couldn't see anything I could have done differently. One or two wanted to write a book, and a few flat out told me I deserved a medal for not having gone 'postal'.

Meanwhile, all I wanted to do was be the wife, mother, neighbour, friend I knew God wanted me to be.

I've known all of life that God had no intention for me to become what it seemed everyone else wanted me to be; my dad wanted me to be an FBI agent so that I could arrest his second wife (my step-mother), my step-mother wanted me to be a thief and liar so she could pin her felonies on me (something she actually almost pulled off at least twice before I graduated from high school), my siblings wanted me to be away period.

My exes wanted me to be a paycheck they could fuck but had no interest in supporting what that took-if I tried to go to school they sabotaged the effort just as they sabotaged any job I took. I guees I was supposed to be a machine who worked 9-13 hours a day and then came home and catered to their every need and whim without needing anything including a thanks or occassional Christmas/Valentine's/Mother's Day/anniversery/birthday rememberance (it really is the thought that counts-DUH!).

My children seem to have wanted me to be a silent ever-flowing ATM and nothing else, both are apparently dining out on lying through their teeth that I was a "drunken, abusive parent". I don't drink (I did get drunk on very cheap cold duck when my divorce was final, my son was 19, guess that makes me a drunk?), and would someone please explain to me how telling my children 'no' when they wanted to play on the freeway constitutes abuse?!

When I was six years old God offered me the hope to make it through to the other side. I grabbed onto that hope and I was able to make it through to age eighteen.

It's taken until age 52 years and ten months but I've lost that hope. Oh hell, I've lost all hope.

Losing your family and losing your earning capacity will do that to you. Your sense of worth is completely tied to those two things-family and the ability to provide for them.

I lost my family because a sociopath decided that my "no" meant his permission to destroy me had just been granted by the cosmos.


My job is in jeopardy because my anger at the steer manure I see rewarded got the better of my ability to do my job well-I'm making stupid mistakes because I am so completely pissed and disheartened by the outrageous antics successfully pulled off by my co-workers.

They come in and immediately go for coffee. They spend more time 'networking' than actually working, a well known form of networking that includes name dropping, raised eyebrows, arch tones, and if those acts don't get them want they turn to arm-twisting and outright threats. Which work.

And of course they are rewarded. I can always tell when someone wants whatever work I am doing. People avoid me in the halls, cut me out of the email loop, cough and change the subject when I come in to the room. My boss begins frowning at me when he sees me, and then after a few days I am called into his office to be written up, usually for something I had no idea I was responsible for.

And it happened again this week. But this time I actually deserved it and so didn't argue or try to defend myself, not that I would have anyway as it never ends well anyway. I have given up trying.

My boss wants me gone, why bother trying anymore? He believes bullshit instead of what is really going on before his eyes, and I've lost any hope that he will see what is going on in time to save his or my job.

He is on vacation, and while he's been out there have been several successful power plays that go directly against his plans for increased and smoother production. I wonder if he has any clue that his job is probably in more jeopardy than mine is.

I'm not sure about his boss, I have a feeling his boss just wants the job done right. That was the feeling I got from the 'counseling' session I went through yesterday afternoon.

I got the feeling that he was surprised that I didn't react the way I am 99% sure he was told I would react; I really got the feeling he was surprised that I could document the mistakes I made this month and that I had been talking with my supervisor in an effort to remedy the problem. I also got the feeling that my documentation that the previous month was essentially error free came as news to him-I've suspected for three months that my supervisor has been reporting someone else's errors as mine, his reaction and the later behaviour of the someone I suspect knew her errors were being reported as mine have confirmed my suspicions.

(OH JEEZ, seven cost errors, I have caused the accounting department a bit of extra work! I hate making extra work for others-and that is why my current co-workers hate me. They spend an inordinate amount of time making extra work for others, and the current 'in' crowd have an especial grudge against me in that regard as I transferred away from them the last time my work ethics threatened their jobs.)

So. I've lost my family and I worry quite reasonably that a group of harpies who are trying to protect their paychecks are going to take the last thing I have-my job and work reputation.

Yeah, no pressure.

And, oh yeah, I know what today is. I'm not Job, I want my family back. But they don't want me. OK fine, I'd like to move on now please.

PLEASE!

07 June 2009

I gotta get over to Mozart and Gonzo's blog so they can catch people up as the furballs have seven followers!

As for me, the handyman is coming by in a couple of hours to rip out the old kitchen cabinets and install some good old fashioned farmhouse shelves over the sink. I'm hoping to get him to build a pantry over by the freezer, we'll see.

The cherry tomato seed I planted in an unused hanging pot seems to be doing nicely. Again, we'll see, but I have such hopes that I am looking into planting more container veggies. I'm even looking into planting a potato eye or two.

Both sets next door neighbours moved across the lane into bigger houses, it's much quieter without them on my side of the lane.

It's been hot up here, rainy, humid. I planted some roses and have only had to water once, same with the tomato (only one of three seeds survived, sigh). Nice change from the drought we've been enduring the last three years.

I'm still on about TEOTWAWKI happening sooner rather than later; between Peak Oil, the economic crash/crunch, and the damn flu, things have been rather doomish since September '08.

I wonder if my former classmates think about me as they are laid off despite their bright and shiny 2004 UoP business degrees-my thesis was titled "The New Working Poor-Priced Out Of Life" and most of them laughed tao at me for thinking there was a PTB war on the middle class.

Of course time has proven me right, Thursday the CountryWide exec was indicted for mortgage fraud and running a (say it with me...) Ponzi scheme-no, really???

I think about Crusty, who let himself get caught with hookers because he wanted to punish me for not letting him get one of those sub-prime loans for a beach house.

Haha, Hurricane Ivan took out his beach house.

DAMMITT the sorry bastard got an SBA loan of close to 100K to rebuild his friggin beach house-I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pissed off about that!

I'm trying to rebuild my life. Not easy. How do I explain to people that my son hates me when I don't really understand it myself? I miss him more everyday, and try to keep from going insane but frankly it is not easy.

I read the book The Road, and could not stop thinking that will be my son and my grandson.

I watched an episode of Criminal Minds featuring a pig farmer who kidnapped young people, one of the victims looked so much like my son I had to turn off the TV.

Life is harsh when you are alone. I am alone. I hate it. But I would not turn back time if it meant having to be with Crusty; I love my son, but I will not put up with the physical and emotional violence he put me through, not to mention the two paid for cars he trashed...

For now, this is as good as it gets, I guess.

09 May 2009

Yesterday my grandson turned five. I was not there.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. My son will not be here.

Hope floats.

30 April 2009

DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!

It's my blog and I can shout if I want to!

Last Friday at work I broke a tooth. No pain, but I hied myself to the dentist who took impressions (of what, the painfully jagged edges??) and told me the new guy would be ready in a week, his office would ring.

K, well, if you follow this blog (btw if you do, leave a comment, I've become convinced I am invisible) you know two important things about me-that I don't get a lot of phone calls I care about so I rarely check my voice mail, and 2, that I am worked obsessed and try to schedule appointments for the weekends. I chose my health care providers by three criteria and weekend hours was high on the priority line.

So the new tooth comes in early and the dentist's office leaves me a message which I get later than I should have. He has two appointments available, one on Thursday morning and one on Saturday.

K, so I call during a break and I get Thursday off and I am getting ready to go in when the phone rings...

Bottom line, his office will call back if they can get me in today but my first thing in the morning appointment is out because he's had an emergency case come in. And oh btw, since I chose the Thursday appointment they gave the Saturday one to someone else.

So I'm on standby for the dentist. Swell.

I never take personal days. I schedule most of my appointments for anything before/after work or on the weekends.

So I will use the time I have unexpectedly to clean house and make sure I have sickroom supplies in case this damn flu hits as hard as it looks as though it may.

Oh, I just love the 21st century! Well, maybe I do after all. They didn't have disposable vinyl gloves and isopropyl back in 1918, did they?

20 April 2009

Things change daily, but as of now I am still employed, and striving to keep it that way. My hours have been cut-I only put in 43 hours last week,lol! I was putting in 60.

I try to keep busy with the extra daylight hours I now have courtesy of the hours cut. I made a killer purse, and am about to start another; I started another scarf, and I am spending a lot of time figuring out how to make The Tin Shack more winter proof.

Re The Tin Shack winterizing, the work done last spring and summer paid off enough this past (passing?) winter for me to be inspired to do more this spring and summer. I know, I am on a tight budget and so have to look carefully for the bargains. I also have to use ingenuity and improvisation.

For example, I am redoing my exterior door frames with found materials; I made draft stoppers using trouser legs and the old bath towels I almost tossed-WHAT WAS I THINKING?? I mean those poor things were poised over the bin when I noticed the cats had dragged an old pair of slacks out of the Goodwill box. Really, what was I thinking?! I cut the legs off the pants and stuffed one of the towels into the cut leg-WOW!

The draft stoppers worked really well, so well that I dragged out the rest of the pants and made whole frame draft stoppers-yeah, my doors are a warped mess-that I stapled to the frame, which clued me in that the frames needed replacing, so I started looking for construction leftovers from a friend in the business.

This weekend I was going to get uber serious about the Goodwill boxes but my previously mentioned friend decided to drop over unannounced to see if my garage sale power mower would fire up after my abuse of it this winter-no cover, no draining, nothing. I parked it at the end of the driveway in October and beyond a daily check of it's whereabouts, didn't really think about it until early Saturday morning as I passed the kitchen window and saw Jack out there on the lawn with his helper spraying WD40 all over the cables...

By the end of Saturday afternoon my entire front yard had been spring-cleaned.

Jack mowed and I felt guilty about going back inside so I got the rake and started raking.

That led to straightening the 6x6's lining my drive (another construction left-over of Jack's) which led to trimming the privets, which led to more raking, which led to a new compost heap, which I will have to make a point of telling Jack is a compost heap because he has a nasty habit of carting off my compost heaps thinking the heap is just a heap of leaves I forgot to cart off. Hmmm, it may be time to build a real compost bin.

OK, now halfway through raking the driveway Jack finished mowing, and went over to his ex-wife's to fix her roof-they aren't really exes, they just can't live in the same house and she divorced him a few years ago. He makes a big thing out of calling her his ex with benefits. He gets Sunday dinner and the honey-do lists, laundry, a place to spend the holidays, and probably the other kinds of benefits that are really none of my business...

But after Jack left I kept working, and by the time I went in last night the yard really looked good. So good that this morning after Breakfast Club (with the previously mentioned couple who are Baptists who go to breakfast before church instead of after the way we Anglo-Catholics do) I hit the clearance rack at the Wal-Mart Garden Center.

I got a six pack of petunias ($1.75 for six) and three bare root roses (an incredible $3 each, I was thrilled). I love the clearance rack!

The petunias needed a pricey ($3.75-OUCH!) sack of Miracle Gro potting soil, but I am mollified that I was able to get enough out of the bag to plant my little cherry tomato seeds in the third of the hanging baskets I had left over from last summer.

Everything is planted. The petunias look great on the double shepherd's hook, the tomato doesn't look like anything yet. And the roses are planted along the front walk.

So, I guess I'll do the Goodwill boxes next weekend.

15 March 2009

I'll probably be offline for a while, a case of frugalalty vs spending the money to have it take over 30 minutes for McAfee to permit my computer to boot-hmmm, hard choice, right?

I plan to use the library a lot but not to go online, I don't think. So, if you want to get a message to me, you'll need to contact someone who knows f2f where and how.

To my son, this is not a drill, get outta there, and if you leave the 'tude there, you and yours are welcome here. It ain't paradise, but then what is, right?

Things are just so bad now, and it would be nice to have family around, but, well, you know. I love you son, always have.

I'm hoping we have about another year of things limping along before it gets really, really bad, once it gets really really bad then travel will be so difficult you may not be able to get here.

I was also hoping I was wrong, but we know how that turned out. Everything I said would happen did, is, or is looking clearly as though it is about to, so if you're coming now would be the best time.

Your birthday is in two weeks, and I wish I could be with you, I wish you wanted me there.

To the rest, fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be one hell of a bumpy ride.

I bought seeds today, hope I get to plant and then harvest them.

Take care, hope to see you on the the other side of all this.

23 February 2009

Cold and windy up here tonight. Yesterday was so beautiful I stayed out in the yard all day.

This morning I went to breakfast with one of the neighbours, then I came in and overdosed on Doom. I spent most of the day looking at bicycles that fold, and rucksacks that roll up and fit down in the bottom of the toteback that doubles as my briefcase, and reading the posts at my fav Doomer sites.

Oh jeez I have a bad feeling about all of this. The Ring of Fire is hotting up, lots of mid sized 'quakes. The New Madrid is also hotting up, lots of small ones but right on the line.

The weather is so unpredictable I don't bother much anymore. I want to grow tomatoes and a few other veggies this spring, and I think instead of starting seeds I am going to buy a plant when the things come available at the Feed 'N Seed down the street.

I'm making a rucksack to carry in the tote because I have lately been thinking I may have to walk home WTSHTF; I looked at folding bikes, but I think I'm going to forget that idea because the little voice in my head says the car might not survive the whatever it is that I am suddenly worried about, so I wouldn't be able to get the bike out of the trunk.

I'm going to start scouting the thrift stores for a three wheeler, used to have one but I gave it away. Stupid. WTSHTF I won't be able to get gas, either through lack of money or lack of supply chain, and the bike, especially if it isn't all shiny bright, would be a good way to get around.

I don't have enough guns, and I don't have enough ammo, and I damn sure don't have enough of the things I know I will need to survive in the post EOTWAWKI era, like a treadle sewing machine, a butter churn-hell, I don't even have what it takes to buy and keep a dairy cow. Chickens are cheap but I hate the little bastards, and besides, the coyotes would get the hens while I was out at work.

I do plan to try to keep working as long as I can, and I keep hoping we'll all figure out a way to keep this a simple Depression instead the collapse of the Western Civilization so many people are starting to realize will happen sometime in the near future.

I really hate all of this, I truly hoped that I would be wrong. Now the rest of the country is on-board, and everyone is admitting what I saw back in the eighties.

In '98 my soon to be ex, already bent because I wouldn't let him get us into a subprime mortgage, was further incensed when I wouldn't let him have Fox's tuition money to invest in the stock market.

Oh yeah, I saw all this coming.

I just wish I were not a stranger in a strange land, on rental land, and alone. Everyone has someone-family, close friends, church, community.

I have two cats, a tilting house, and a very thin shred of optimism that is fading.

The rucksack will hold the contents of my tote, and some basic supplies like ez carry food, 1st aid, clothes, a mylar blankit, a compass, and a weapon.

Oh yeah, I just love all this EOTWAWKI stuff. Damn. Dammit.

Have you read The Road? Oh jeez, what a Doomer nightmare!

Fox, please. Please. Ed knows how to reach me, and I wish you would ask him for the number. Things are just getting too wierd, and I am really hoping yuo can find it in your heart to get you and your loved ones out of there.

Viggo Mortensen is playing the father in the movie. But while I was reading The Road I was seeing you and your son.

07 February 2009

Every now and then during the last five thousand years life has got a bit dicey.

Like now-life is so damn dicey it is positively discouraging. Not 'cash in the chips and blow this Popsicle stand' dicey/discouraging, but damn close.

My last lifetime was so sad that I came back loaded with grief, and this one hasn't been at all better, not really. At least last time I had money. I used it pretty well, too, I think, especially in those last years after the war. I gave most of it to the DPs so that my family's sacrifices would not have been in vain.

Let's see, what have I manged to do that the friggin Nazis kept me from doing last time?

I managed to find (only with God's help) Johnny, who turned out not to have changed much-still a self-righteous and prideful git who walked out on me on our honeymoon and later worsened everything by dropping out of med school shortly before graduation-HUH?? He gave it up to be an actor-WOT??!@!

We married in June of '39-deliciously happy although we knew TSwasabouttoHTF; Johnny, Eric, Richard and the rest of the lads I'd grown up with had gone to Spain for a bit. They came back thoroughly frightened, hiding it well, I thought, but fully aware that things were afoot that boded great unwell for all.

They busied themselves between wedding plans with preparations for the coming War. They seemed seriously silly, making rules about our actions while they were Away At War...

We married June '39 and the Nazis invaded Poland on 1st September. The lads were called up on the 3rd. Oh Johnny, OH!

I was forbidden to join the Wrens. The most they would permit me to do was roll bandages and knit socks. Oh big woo, and the Red Cross asked me to please fund the knitting, but give the needles to someone who actually knew how to use knitting needles to produce something functional.

As a group, we managed to make it 'till '42, then Nigel and Julien were killed in Africa of all places, at a place called Al Et something or other. I know for a fact both came back almost immediately.

We married in June of '39 and in September the Germans invaded Poland.

The last time I saw Johnny was 5th June 1944. A Panzer division took him and some of his men out on D+2. Somewhere near Cherbourg.

I lost the baby, our son, the boy we owed a good life with parents who loved him and were there for him in a modern world that eschewed horrors like fostering out sons and daughters to maintain alliances and peace. Well, in this life, I managed to meet Johnny, become pregnant on our short honeymoon, carry the baby to term and deliver. Our son hates me. That turned out real well, huh?

Richard died on the bridge around noon on D-Day. I think I miss him the most. He was my best friend, we had a joke-"Call me Al, and I'll call you Betty. Consider me your personal and forever body guard." I almost fell over when Paul Simon sang that and it was the only album I bought that year and I was thrilled when it won the Grammy.

(Of all of us I think Nigel and Richard fared the best this time around. Nigel died of lung cancer just after 911; Richard is still out there working in personal protection. He hasn't married-life is so sad, his fiance outlived him in that life and he outlived her in this one. It's not fair, really. But Nigel had a life so complete that when he died his only concern was for me, and Richard says he's happy and he really means it. It worries me that he is alone, though, like me, and I hope that he will come Home one day and let me care for him-he says he is seriously considering it.)

Eric went down with his plane on 21st December, 1944.

This lifetime Eric and I were reunited with our older brother from several previous lifetimes except the last; both of my brothers turned out to be the same total gits they have always been.

Harry hurt me so badly at a time I needed him most that I stopped talking to him ten years ago, and Brother #2 Ian is an actor. Aaaaaaaccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkk since he acts in total C flickers that have absolutely no redeeming qualities while managing to be loaded with completely gratuitous sex scenes straight out of cheap bodice rippers written by college drop-outs on Xanex. I haven't spoken to him in years, either.

(BTW, pinhead, if you are by some insane chance reading this, F U, and if you think I've forgot the way you acted at Grant Street Dance Hall you can F yerself, 'cuz once I realised what I was remembering, that was and still is the SECOND most painful memory, the first being what your worthless BFF did.

Lemme tell ya about brother #2. Last life time he died in his Spitfire over Belgium, a true British war hero. OK, I knew he was a git, most everyone did, but hey he was M'Lord, and as M'Lords go was actually pretty good to the folks just the way Uncle Ian taught him to be back in the day. His Git'ness got away with a lot just by pretending to be a swell guy. At his memorial every one in the village and those who came up from London said the same wonderful things. So the pitiful few of us that were left in '45 kept our mouths shut. If I'd known what an ass he would become in this life I would howled the truth from the nearest rooftop-my dear brother was a total git who never intended to be a hero so much as he wanted the bloody scarf that would earn him the momentary devotion of the nearest socially acceptable female. My dear lamented brother died chasing the scarf.

OK, where was I? Oh yeah, personal assessment.

I died in '49 of the consumption. I caught it from a DP child. After the war Richard's fiance and I devoted ourselves to trying to make our losses mean something better than the simple futility of it all. We thought if we kept to the ideals most of the lads went Away with that we would be able to make the deaths less worthless.

But the rationing was still going strong, right up to the moment I died. The consumption was a true vampire and the rationing made recovery for someone like me impossible-weakened from grief and mild physical deprivation I wasted away before her eyes. She could be imperious, and I nicknamed her Duchess for her sure determination that her will would prevail.

She stayed with me to the end, faithful friend, nurse, my BFF, and when she died this time so very F'ing too young, Richard and I were destroyed. Completely destroyed. She was and always has been the epitome of all that is good about Life, and the world is certainly a bleaker place without her.

For me, in this lifetime, it all came tumbling down in 2003. That was the year I found out Johnny had remarried, had another child, and I realised the right thing to do was let it go, and get on with my life.

My husband has got on with his. Crusty has got away with unspeakable evil. My son hates me, and so does my daughter. My job is a total dead-end.

I came back for my family, and they don't want me. Now what?

24 January 2009

I am a serious 'holic':

workaholic
newsaholic
weatheraholic
forumaholic

Please make note of my reluctance to call myself a work/news/weather junkie. Eeeeew, who wants to be known as a junkie?? 'Holic is much more socially acceptable.

Yesterday afternoon my workaholism was officially placed into involuntary rehab-although I am the quintessential Employers dream-salaried-the so-called youngr&wisr PTB (Powers That Be) cut me off.

No longer will I be permitted to come in at 0600 and work until 1800 or 1900; no, I must cool my heels until my newly assigned assistant drags in at 0730. When she lunches from 1200 to 1230, I must also, and when she departs at 1600 so must I. And with only rare exceptions, weekends are also now OUT for time to get things done at the office.

OK, no problem, maybe I can find a second job. I'm thinking maybe laundry and housekeeping work that has been sorely delayed around The Tin Shack, LOL.


RighteeO, now I get to feed my other 'holisms, namely news and weather. YIPPEE!

Once upon a time I favoured (heavily) CNN for must-have-news. But ya know, MSNBC has really done magnificent things with their site, and I am now clicking on that link first thing after the "Jeez How Much Longer Is This Boot-Up Gonna Take?!" permits me to avail myself of the lightening fast Internet speed of my Internet provider. I could spend all day on the MSNBC site.

With only one annoying exception. OMGosh, when are they gonna cut the Today Show death trap?? I am really bent when TTS hijacks me to the hideously slow/totally useless fluff site, but I have those r*tB*st*rds-I just snap up to the MSNBC logo and click back to reality. Hmmmm, that logo is getting smaller and harder to find...

I have two primary weather sites, TWC of course, and NOAA. 'Nuff said:)

I am trying to break my very serious forum addiction (Hello, My name is Fox's Mom and I am addicted to on-line forums), recognized when I spent at least 80% of my recent holiday (twelve days, sigh) toggling back and forth between three of my favourites. Frugality, TEOTWAWKI, and Tin Shacks.

Signs of the times, I guess, how to save money while prepping for the end of the known world in a Tin Shack. Kind of a Low-Rent Survivalism, huh?

Maybe I'll sign up for the Cat Lovers forum instead.

Have a great weekend!

17 January 2009

So far I still have a job. Dunno for how long, things are bleak all over.

Yeah, word for the day, month, hell, maybe year, is: BLEAK

I went back to work and have been there pretty much straight through, with quick/brief time-outs to run home for what amounts to a nap-quick shower-change clothes-feed cats-go back.

I thought I'd discovered the perfect quick lunch/snack in low-sodium Ritz Cracker & peanut butter sandwiches until I read the MSNBC news post that the FDA is advising people not to eat peanut butter until they figure out how widespread the salmonella contamination is.

Figures.

Life is rough and becoming more so. I'm finding it quite difficult not to want to shred Crusty for everything he did to ensure that Fox and me would have a terrible time in the coming onslaught, the one I warned him was coming back in '98 and he was furious with me for keeping him out of a sub-prime mortgage and investing the retirement fund in the stock market.

I try very hard not to think about it, but frankly, times like this, when I am sitting here in a near freezing tin shack clinging to the side of a North Georgia mountainside, well, it is damn near impossible.

We were in good financial shape-if he'd been a real man Fox and I would have been OK after the divorce, but of course, a real man wouldn't have needed to use threats of physical violence against me and Fox to keep me from grabbing the kid and running. A real man would have listened before Fox was a glimmer in his father's eye when I said-"No, you're getting too serious, I don't want to marry you, or even date you; a real man would not have pointed a loaded .41 mag to keep me from leaving, and a real man would not have needed a Q'Lude to drug me into bed, but there you go, Crusty was not, is not, and never will be, a real man.

He used to try to say he was a bad machine, a mad dog. Right. Not a viable excuse.

IT IS COLD! My toes are encased in tights, thick socks, AND fake-fur lined boots, yet are still cold.

Last night I huddled on the bed under several blankets while the radiator struggled to keep the house at 50F-oh yeah, thanks ever so, Crusty, you rat s*it bast*rd, where ever you are.

PS, you dirtball-I'm still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay happier sitting here worrying about my job-rent-car-Fox than I ever was married to you!

Ain't life grand?

05 January 2009

Well, holiday over. I am back to work in the morning-if the job is still there, sheesh!

The news from anywhere is pretty bad. Not much of anything coming up, well, optimistic. So considering everything, I am more than a little worried about my job being there for me in the morning, and I worry like this every night as I try to drift into sleep.

Friday night I had the "Oh hell, what do I do if I lose my job" middle of the night shakes so badly I didn't fall asleep until 0400.

All the positive self talk in the world is not helping (blah, blah, blah, yadda, yaddah...).

Knowing I am one of millions worried does not help one whit because this little bit of misery is vehemently opposed to loving company-"G'WAN, Gid'oudda'here!" I'm just not into feeling better seeing others suffer.

So, we'll see. Obviously, I was unable to find other work over my first holiday in nearly three years. I don't really want to because I like my work but holy moly do I have say that with this economy even if I hated my job I would do everything I could to hang on to it.

Happy New Year, here's hoping 2009 turns out to be fine.