Hippo Birdies

Yep, today's my birthday. It was a fairly uneventful day. I didn't get my birthday lunch today... because I got it YESTERDAY, courtesy of my boss, who, knowing that he had a meeting today and might not get back to town in time to take me for lunch, decided that we should do it yesterday. I'm good with that. In the end, he never did get to the jobsite today, so I'm glad we did it yesterday! I had about a hundred posts on my wall and private messages, emails, texts and phone calls, which always makes a girl feel loved! Tonight I had dinner with my clan at Razzoo's. It's not my favorite place, but they've got half price appetizers and we can all eat fairly reasonably. There were 4 of us celebrating birthdays, so there was plenty of dessert to go around, since we all take a bite and pass the plate along, even when there's not a birthday! 
I came home and turned on my computer to discover that Steve Jobs had died. Wow! I firmly believe that without the success of his Apple OS and the platform of windows that it used, making it much more user friendly than DOS, I would not be as computer literate as I am.  I don't use an apple product, other than my ipod, because everything I need a computer to do can be sufficiently and well accomplished in a Windows environment. If I needed more graphic or music kinds of stuff, I would absolutely invest the $ in a macbook or something, but my PC works for me.  

Mr. Jobs, your vision and dedication forever changed the way that the world computes, listens to music, and communicates. You will be missed.

I just don't understand

how anyone manages to get a job in the internet age. I have submitted literally HUNDREDS of resumes and applications. I have had a grand total of, well, let's count them up here, 2 phone interviews, one of which led to an in-person interview, and a whopping 7 in-person interviews, including the one I already mentioned as coming after the phone interview, and counting the 2 I had for a position that was apparently not ever intended to be permanent, though they led me to believe that it was. I have submitted resumes and made phone calls to every reputable staffing/temp agency in the area. Yeah, I actually managed to get in to see ONE of them, now they won't call me back, or answer emails. Even the ones with whom I spoke with a person, I couldn't get an appointment to go in and speak to someone or do performance testing. TX Workforce has told me that I MUST consider positions that pay 25% less than what I was making, which was about 20% below the average according to every salary calculator I can find, INCLUDING THEIR OWN. Frankly, the TX Workforce job board hasn't done SHIT for me, except get me a job for 6 days, which I was led to believe was a PERMANENT position. I have completed my profile as completely as possible, including all of my experience, regardless of whether or not it is in my current field. If I'm lucky, on any given day, I get 3 'MATCHES', and my browse pulls up 75 jobs within a hundred mile radius. The 'matches' are actually jobs that are allegedly within my skill set, however more often than not, instead of an "accounting/billing clerk" they are looking for a CPA. UMM, yeah NOT a match. Or they are 90 miles away. The browse feature pulls up 75 jobs, and guess what? 60 or more of them are VETERANS ONLY. WTF? My profile clearly states that I am NOT a veteran, so why are these included? Take out the ones that are more than 30 miles (and thus over an hours commute by car), and I'm down to maybe 5. Take out the ones that are for legal or medical secretaries, accountants, HR generalists, and other specific administrative support positions, and well, if I'm lucky, there is ONE option left for me to apply for. I have put in applications at the area grocery stores, big box stores, and various other retail outlets. You have NO IDEA how tired I am of hearing "we aren't actually hiring right now, but we'll keep your application on file"! Every time I think I am past being angry about this whole situation, something pops up that has been part of my normalcy, but now it can't be, since I don't have a fucking job, and I can't collect fucking unemployment because someone LIED about how things were handled, and the state believed them! I realize that the anger doesn't hurt anyone except me, and I really am trying to get past it, but a person can only take so much rejection before they start really taking it personally. I realize that it is not my place to judge other people, and that sending negativity out into the world does not do anyting except increase negativity, but sometimes I really hope that what comes around goes around, and those who wronged me will eventually suffer something that leaves them feeling as lost and desperate as I have begun to. I recognize that I have awesome friends who love me and give me all the support that they can, and I am unbelievably grateful for that. I have had to seriously re-evaluate a lot of my relationships this year, and while I have always known that in general, I don't have a lot of friends who are the friend to me that I am to them, admitting to the fact that several of them I've long considered to be relatively equally give/take relationships are really not, no matter what I try to delude myself into believing. Over the weekend, I had my first birthday party in many years. Certainly the first since I've been grown, that wasn't hosted by me. There are 3 of us who have birthdays within 6 days. A large group of us had a plan to go to Middlefaire on Sunday, it's last day of the season. Unfortunately, rains came on Friday and Saturday that turned the parking lot and festival site into a major mud pit, and Saturday evening they decided to cancel Sunday's festivities. Already planned for after faire, was a birthday dinner, hosted by the birthday boy's parents, for the 3 of us. In the end, we spend the day with most of the originally planned group in Weatherford and then went to the dinner party afterwards. God bless MJ, for remembering my food sensitivities and making sure that in addition to her seafood gumbo there were a couple of other soup options, plus chicken salad, fresh fruit, tossed salad, and A-MAZ-ING pimento cheese bread! This coming weekend I would dearly LOVE to be going to TRF for opening, and to see my favorite Bard, Marc Gunn, as I've done for the last couple of years. But OH NO, I got screwed out of my job, and out of unemployment benefits, so I can't justify spending the $ to go, even to ride down with someone else and use a discount ticket. I'm sure I'll have a fine time out at Screams, with the crew up here that's doing that instead of TRF, using a free ticket, but it still makes me angry that I've had to make all the adjustments I've had to make, over some bullshit

HOUSE CONCERT

OK folks, I'm hosting a house concert for my friend Marc, formerly of the Brobdingnagian Bards. He's recently moved to New Orleans, and is beginning to travel nationwide solo. He's got a gig in Dallas at the Tipperary Inn on the 5th of February, and of course I jumped at the opportunity to have another show at my house that weekend. And I SWEAR it's not for purely selfish reasons because I miss seeing him live. I will have snacks/hors d'oeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as birthday cake as it's just a few days before my friend Lissa's birthday. Saturday, February 7, 2008 @ 7PM Watauga, TX Suggested donation $15. BYOB. RSVP to raevyn3450-iwg@yahoo.com Marc Gunn is Celtic American Musician and Podcaster. Good food, good drink and good company. Folk ballads, Irish drinking songs, fantasy, Sci Fi, and cats on the autoharp (I wish they'd get it off it already). Embrace independent Celtic music!