We all survived!

Well, we all survived the night, though I think Mollie's the only one who actually slept. Leo vacated the bed and slept somewhere else. Bow took her standard spot next to my pillow, and spent the whole night growling intermittently. For awhile, both the big ones were on the bed growling. It might have been fine if I'd managed to convince them to do it in unison, which might have gotten me a decent little massage happening, but oh no, they couldn't possibly do something to convenience me. So while we did all survive, unscathed, some of us were also unsleeping as well. Every time I was asleep nice and soundly, I felt a tiny movement near my feet, and then there was a growl that started in my ear. Fun times I tell ya!

While I've been in and out of the bedroom, puttering around the house and getting some things done, there's apparently been an understanding of sorts, develop, at least between Leo & Mollie. She stays out of his line of sight and he doesn't growl or hiss at her. Not that it really matters to her, since she can't hear it. Bow has decided she's just going to hide out. Earlier I came in and found her sitting in the sink in the bathroom. She was so happy to see me and purred her little brains out while we were in there, you would think she hadn't seen me in DAYS!

In other cat news, my friend and roomie, Erin (Nina) has gotten back into the cattery biz, specializing in hairless breeds, including Sphynx & Bambino. Check out HoBBiTcaTs at http://www.hobbitcats.com/. A little note before you start clicking… we ARE talking about hairless cats. Sure, initially there's a bit of squick for most people when talking about hairless cats, but they are some of the sweetest, most loving cats I've ever met. Also, they are not truly hairless, they do have a fine sort of like peach fuzz, and a bit more hair on their ears, and may also have thicker coats in patches or, like one I met recently, on their ankles. I adopted Mollie from her. Mollie is not out of her cattery and has normal cat hair, but is a dwarf, with short little legs and the sweetest personality that more than covers for the fact that she can't hear, which is why she was spayed and became a pet, instead of being part of a breeding program. One of these days things will settle down enough that I can get some video of her cute little rolling waddle.

As for me, I've had a bit of a busy day, and tomorrow's got several things on the agenda, including a trip to the Post Office, so I'm off to bed now.

Possibly my last post

This could quite possibly be my last post. For a bit anyway. Tonite marked the end of my 2 cat only world. I brought Mollie downstairs to move in with us. It’s been planned from pretty much as soon as I moved in here with E&T, especially since they have decided to get back into the breeding of the designer cats.



I’ve mentioned my 2 before. Leo, my big boy, is about 11 now, and while he’s not frightened of his own shadow anymore, change tends to stress him a bit, and if there is too much activity outside our bedroom door, it does tend to upset him. Bow, my precious baby girl is 12 now, and still rotten as ever, and relatively certain that the world does, indeed, revolve around her multicolored little self.


I can assure you that neither is particularly pleased with the addition of Mollie to the bedroom! And, quite frankly, I think at least part of their annoyance stems from the fact that she seems not to give a damn about the fact that they are growling and hissing at her. It matters not that she is less than ½ their size (and, as a dwarf, that’s all she ever will be).



When I first brought her in tonite, I took her to the litterbox, so she knew where it was, and then I let her go on walkabout, during which she found the water dish, the food dish, and Bow. That conversation went something like this:

{both cats on the floor at the foot of the bed, with Leo looking down on them}


Bow: GRRRROOWWRRR, PFFFFFT.

Mollie: *dopey look that says “huh?”*

Bow: PFFFFFFFFFFFFFT

At this point, I scruffed Bow where she stood on the ground and talked to her, telling her Mollie is fine and she doesn’t have to be ugly. Mollie passed her and went to the food dish. Bow heads around to the other side of the bed and goes under it.



Her first conversation with Leo went like so:


{Mollie jumps onto the bed about 4 inches from his face}


Leo: grrrRRRRRRROW pff

Mollie: (cuts him off) RRROWWW pft (and a swipe of her paw that misses him by a mile)

Leo: GRRRROOWRRRRR PFFFFFFT PFFFFFFT


Mollie: turns her back on him, waddles to the pillow and starts washing her paw


Bow eventually gets out from under the bed, Mollie has by now moved down to the foot of the bed for a full on bath and quick nap. Leo has been hissing intermittently and glaring, first at me, then at Mollie. I finally convinced Bow to come out and get up on the bed beside me, which she does, but she steadfastly refuses to purr, and is intermittently growling at Mollie, who, being deaf, doesn’t hear it, and thus doesn’t really care.



They have each finally settled down now, hopefully for the night. Mollie’s asleep on a pillow on one side of me, Bow’s in her favorite spot on the other side of me, where she’ll be right IN MY FACE should she need to tell me anything in the middle of the night, and Leo’s down at the foot of the bed with his back to me, so I’ve no idea if he is awake or asleep.



At any rate, it may be a couple of days before I’m able to update, should there ensue a heated discussion in the night, of exactly what the pecking order in this little abode shall be. If anyone has any “make the kitties get along famously” sorts of spells, incantations, or ideas, please send them my way, as I may need them soon….

Success & Re-evaluation

As Christmas creeps ever closer, I am having good days and bad days, and gradually the good are beginning to outnumber the bad. In the past year the circumstances have forced me to step back and re-evaluate my life, and what's truly important. I had truly become complacent, and lost sight of the direction I was headed. I lost sight of ME, in my drive to be helpful, and a 'good friend' and somewhere along the line, I forgot that not only am I a good friend, I have some very good friends as well.
My success is not measured by the number of people that I rescue or help, nor is it measured by the work I do. I am a good person, a good friend, and sometimes shit happens, deserved or not. I am in the process of starting over, from the lowest I have ever been. Everything I own could be packed into a 10x20 storage building. Growing up, it seemed that everyone around me had more than we did. Oh, we were not poor, by any means, but we did live fairly modestly, and didn't have a lot of modern material things, or the latest gadgets, but I also understood that THINGS were just that, and that possessions don't equate with happiness, love, or contentment. Even as an adult, I have tended to purchase items I really want, after considering my options, AND whether or not I truly want to invest my money into a particular item, rather than competing to keep up with the Jones', Smith's, or anyone else. Sure, I have many things that truly are luxury items, rather than necessities, and very few of them are collecting dust from disuse.

I have never been in this situation before… I always had Mom to fall back on, in the event of a crisis, but not this time. I have had to reach out and ask for help, which has always been hard for me to do, whether it was schoolwork, or moving. I suppose that my mother and grandmother did a bit too good of a job teaching me to be self-reliant and not allow myself to become dependent on anyone else, because having to ask for help makes me feel weak, helpless, and like a failure, when that it truly not the case. The failure that I have experienced in the last 18 months or so is not truly MY failure, it is the failure of other people to do the right and moral thing. My only failing is in being too trusting and trying to provide a safety net. I have long considered myself blessed to have friends that I can trust, and while this year has shifted where some of those friends are on the true and reliable friend spectrum, I see a much clearer picture of many of those people that have shifted. And, truth be told, I've discovered a level to some of the relationships in my life that is much stronger than I imagined it was, and for that, I am grateful.

Over the weekend, I closed a chapter that a year ago, I would never have dreamed would close as it did, when I turned the keys over to the house that I once thought I would eventually purchase. It was a great size for me, and while there were a few little quirks about it, it could have been truly perfect for me, had I ever managed to sort through all the crap that I had been either carrying around for the last 7 years, but also that which I accumulated in the 19 months that I lived there, so that I could organize effectively. On my way out the door, after walking through with my friend and landlord, I smudged the whole house with a sage stick, in an effort to cleanse any negative energy still floating around and leave it with a clean slate. I am hopeful that closing that chapter, and the negativity that ultimately I came to have to live with while I was there will free me to move on to bigger and better things. I am truly blessed by the fact that while my living situation is far from perfect, it is MUCH closer to perfect than what many people have, as I do know where I will lay my head each night, and I know where my next meal will come from, and I can have my cats with me.

This will not be an easy journey, finding my way back to where I should be, emotionally, and physically, not to mention spiritually. Christmas, Yule, Chanukkah, each have their own traditions and ideas, yet somehow they work together, at least in my little head. I think that the most prevalent theme across all 3 is Light. Winter Solstice (Yule) celebrates the longest night of the year, which then gives rise to lengthening periods of light during the day. Chanukkah celebrates the 8 nights of light provided by only one night's worth of oil. Christmas the birth of Christ, believed to be the light of the world. I've been perhaps not in full darkness, but certainly not fully in the light that is available, sometimes by my own choice, sometimes as a result of the depression that does run in my family, sometimes simply because the combination of depression and other people's choices which affect me directly become overwhelming, and in an effort to not hurt the people around me, I withdraw into the darkness in order to try and find a little peace.

Tonight's list of things I am grateful for (aside from the obvious warm bed and a safe roof over my head)

1. Friends and family that loves and accepts me for who I am, and not what I can do for them, or anyone else.
2. Knowledge that I do not have to be perfect in anyone's eyes, and that striving to be so hurts me more than it does anyone else
3. The ability and willingness to measure my success by its own yardstick, independent of material or superficial things or events

And on that note, it is off to bed with my sleepy little brain.

OOH LOOK, I have posted again!

It's been a busy couple of weeks since Thanksgiving. The move is almost complete, literally. Tomorrow I'm going back to the old place to clean and pick up the last few items still over there, and Saturday will do the final walk through and turn over the keys I honestly had hoped that I would live there for many years, and ultimately purchase the house, but alas that was not to be.

My friends, The Rogues, entered a Battle of the Bands being sponsored by an Irish brewery. They took 2^nd place in the preliminary round, out of 65 bands from North America and Europe, and advanced to the finals. If they win, they will go to Las Vegas to perform at one of the resorts for St. Patrick's Day, 2010! If you would take just a moment to go to http://www.slbc.ie/involved/competitions/, watch their video, which is listed first on the page, and cast your vote, I would really appreciate it, as would they. Also, your vote will also enter you into a drawing for a trip to Vegas to see them!

Thursday afternoon I made my 3^rd annual trek to Galveston for Dickens on the Strand. I had hoped to head down earlier in the day, but alas that didn't work out and it was very nearly 4 p.m. before I got out of here! I was looking forward to seeing the island in the daylight, to see the recovery from Ike. Obviously since it was after 9 when I arrived, I was only able to see what was lit, and truthfully, that alone was an AMAZING difference from last year! I stayed with friends who live on the island, in a beautiful, late 19^th century home, which, fortunately sustained no real damage to the living spaces, though the workshop on the ground floor had about 5 feet of water & muck in it. Of course we stayed up entirely too late, since we hadn't seen each other since June. They added a train to the scene in their living room.

If you look closely, you'll see that it's a LEGO set! How awesome is that? Apparently you can go to the LEGO website and design whatever you want and get the pieces shipped to you!









Friday was full of roasting and other preparation of food for the party Saturday night. I promise to put up recipes later.  There were dire predictions of a significant (for Galveston, anyway) snowfall on Friday, however we only saw a few tiny flurries that didn't amount to anything, and about 5 minutes of sleet, but it was COLD! It was good to see more of the island than I've seen in a great many years! We had lunch at a little bakery called the Sunflower Bakery & Cafe as we had to go by there to pick up the birthday cake. I can highly recommend their Deluxe Grilled Cheese, made with Gruyere Swiss, applewood bacon, and tomato (which I left off, thankyouverymuch) on sourdough. Of course we stayed up way too late again that night, but that's because the rest of the visitors had rolled into town.

Saturday dawned COLD, and I layered up so in an effort to be warm but not overly hot and needing to go back and forth to the car. It was a cold, but pretty day, and the crowds were pretty good, from what I saw. I kind of thought I might run into more people from up here than I did, but for whatever reason, it just didn't happen. The Rogues had 2 stage shows and did several street shows throughout the day. I have to say that being back in the pub was AWESOME, since last year we were pretty much out on a street corner the whole weekend because so much, including the pub was not yet open again after the storm. Because of the weather in the Midwest, one of the pipers couldn't get back to TX in time for Saturday's shows, so we had an emergency fill-in, Stuart Clements, who did a fabulous job, especially considering that he had NEVER played with the Rogues before! It was a wonderful day, and the gathering at the house that night was, of course, a good time, as the bunch of us that was there tends to spend a lot of time laughing and enjoying the conversation, not to mention the food!

Sunday was a bit warmer, and another beautiful day on the floaty bit out there in the Gulf. I was only out until about 2:30 due to a need to get the Canadian contingent back to the airport in time for their flight. I did score some fun things, including a couple of Woozies, a smartass, an awesome 2 piece barrette thing for my hair, and a couple of other gifts that I am not ready to reveal, lest I spoil the surprise! My drive home was longer than I would have liked, largely because it was rainy for about half the trip, but I was certainly glad to get back to my kitties and my own bed, on the ground floor, as opposed to on the 2^nd floor of a house that sits about 12 feet above ground level to begin with… Have I mentioned my butt is quite tired from all those stairs?

Today's random weirdness can be traced back to Sunday at Dickens, and the smartass I bought. On Saturday, as I walked around looking at the various vendors, I came across one that had a variety of pins shaped like butts. There was a rat's ass, dumbass, a smartass, a kickass, a pain in the ass, cinnamon buns, a candyass, an ass 'n' 9, a grapeass, a buttface, and I don't even remember all of the rest of them, but I found them highly amusing, and went back on Sunday to purchase one of the smartass, and a rat's ass. While I was standing there deciding just which ones I needed, I noticed some beads on the other corner of the booth. When I'd made my selection, I was looking at the rest of the booth, and I realized that the beads over there were ROSARIES! That struck me as even more amusing than the asses in the first place, having both products in the same booth!

Giving Thanks

Another holiday season has officially arrived. Today's attire included this year's first wearing of the festive holiday attire. I left the headwear at home, but the earrings came out, as did the festive holiday socks. I went over for dinner with some fellow MacGiggles and had some fried turkey and tasty sides, plus chocolate cherry cake, a wee slice of pumpkin cake, and a bit of chocolate chip pie. Of course there was a good bit of giggling and some interesting stories told.
By the time I got home, my cats were unhappy, the dog & pig were more than ready to come back into the house, and the upstairs cats were STARVING! I got everybody fed and settled in for the night, and I am POOPED! (Ok, I THOUGHT they were settled, but it sounds as if Bob, Mollie & Blondie are having a conga line or something upstairs!

On my racing trip back to the old house in the hopes that my camera was still over there, I also located one of the 3 iPod cords that I'd torn up my space looking for last night, so I was also able to re-sync the Christmas playlist back onto it, because, well, it's time to listen to and sing Christmas songs! While I am of the firm opinion that Christmas carols should not be played publicly until Thanksgiving, starting on Thanksgiving Day, I'm blasting them as much as possible, and singing along, usually out of key, loving them! Christmas is generally my favorite time of year, I suspect partially because of the amount of joy that seems to be in the air.

Tomorrow's a busy day with finding a storage building, finishing the unpacking of what is already here, and posting the Christmas stash onto Ebay in hopes of clearing more of the stuff that I've been carrying around out. I absolutely want to have my room put together before I head to Galveston for Dickens next week! Since that's the case, I'm thinkin' it's time for me to head for bed, with Too Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar as my bedtime viewing/listening!

What a shocker…

Last night's bedtime viewing, since I don't yet have the satellite box procured to connect my tv to what's on real television, was Miss Congeniality. I have to fall asleep to something funny and light, or else I dream of being in the middle of whatever drama is playing, and restful sleep is elusive in those situations. I have a timer set to shut the tv off around the time that the movie ends, but haven't figured out how to shut off the DVD player/recorder, so when I turn the tv back on, the DVD is stopped at the end of the episode or on a menu of some sort. When I turned the tv on tonite, the menu is the Special Features menu. One of those features is a "Do You Have What it Takes to Be a Beauty Queen?" quiz, so just for shits & giggles I took it. Several questions I have no idea what I answered because the little circle around the letters didn't show up, however, whatever answer it took was either a. the answer I intended, or b. not different enough from what I intended to really matter in the grand scheme of things. Apparently, I SHOULD be the winner of the crown, because I'm beautiful, have a good outlook on life, AND I'm smart, however I won't win: "because of your brains, you don't need to win, you have other ambitions in life, however because you won't lie, manipulate, or cheat to win, you always lose to the one who will 'accidentally' trip you or hide the shoes that match your evening dress." I would say that's relatively accurate, because I won't cheat, lie, or manipulate people or situations just to win, and honestly, I would rather lose with class and knowing that I did the best I could, than to win because I cheated or caused someone else to lose because of my actions intended to harm their chances. Actually, it's just that standard, and the inability to truly understand how or why anyone else would have any other standard, that has gotten me burned in the past. I just have to work harder on listening to my inner cynic and pay a little more attention to what she tells me.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I'm going to dinner with some of my fellow Clan MacGiggle family members. I understand that there will be FRIED turkey (hopefully without a flaming turkey, which is how the last fried turkey prepared for a meal I ate wound up), some mashed taters, some sweet taters (eww), veggies, and tasty desserts. I'm in charge of dips & chips, so I mixed up some garlic veggie dip using a couple of dip mixes I bought at the last craft show I went to, and some bleu cheese dressing from scratch. I got the recipe from a former co-worker, who got it, as I understand it, from some restaurant in Lake Dallas. He never gave me amounts, other than the block of cream cheese, but these are my best estimation:
1 pkg Cream Cheese (I have also used neufchatel cheese & it's just as yummy)
8-10 oz crumbled Bleu Cheese (the fresher the better)
6 oz buttermilk (if you want it to be dressing instead of dip consistency, add a couple of ounces of buttermilk)
Seasonings are approximate measurements as I tend to shake 'em in rather than measure
2t Garlic POWDER
1 ½ t Onion Powder
1 ½ t Fresh ground Pepper
2 t Basil
Let cream cheese come to room temperature, pour in buttermilk and blend with hand mixer until well mixed, then add Bleu cheese crumbles and seasonings. Beat until well mixed, chill and serve cold
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Blue Cheese dressing. Truthfully, I was about 9 before I even knew that there were salad dressings other than Blue Cheese or Greek. There are several others that I will eat, but my first choice will always be BC!

This week's random weirdness was pretty well nonexistent this week, for some reason, save for the wren or sparrow or something that somehow wound up in the house tonite. I have NO CLUE how it ended up in here, however it did. None of the doors or windows had been open for a couple of hours, which was totally bizarre. I had left my bedroom door open for my cats to have a little time wandering around the house. Leo was immediately on the HUNT when he caught sight of the bird. I managed to chase him around a bit, and catch him on the kitchen counter, put him in the bedroom with his sister, then open both the front and back doors to try and coax the bird out. It finally managed to get to the back door and see the exit, but it was about 20 minutes worth of trying to talk him/her out of the house! When I let the cats back out, apparently there had been some conversation that went something like this:
Leo: Girrrl, there's a bird out there, and I almost had it, but then Mom picked me up off the counter and put me back in here!
Bow: you were on the counter? NO FAIR, she wouldn't even let me sit in the drawer with all the little bottles in it.
Leo: did you not hear what I said? BIRD! Prey, chance to eat some REAL food.
Bow: yeah, yeah, you were ON THE COUNTER!
As soon as I opened the door, Bow was in the kitchen, working out the best path to the counter. As soon as she got up, I told her to get down, and she just stood there looking at me, hollering.
At any rate, that's about all for this Wednesday… Everybody have a great Thanksgiving!

Tuesday again

Every time I post, I swear I'm going to get better at it, but somehow it just doesn't work out that way. It's been a busy week is my only excuse.

The estate sale was NOT what I had hoped, largely, I believe because of my signage (or lack thereof). The sale was in Watauga, who has, frankly, RIDICULOUS rules for their garage sale signs. The permit, which includes 1 sign, WITHOUT a stick to put it in the ground, is $5. Additional signs, which require location addresses & property owner's permission are $2 each, and there is a limit of 4 of those. The permit must be purchased at least 12 hours prior to the sale beginning. So on Wednesday, I trotted on down to the Public Works office to get my permit & whatever I have to fill out to get the additional signs, which I planned to pick up Thursday morning & place. Oh HELL NO, I can't do that. The form for the signatures IS the permit, and everything has to be turned in at once, and since it was the middle of a work day, I was pretty much SOL on the additional signs. Oh, AND there are rules about WHERE on any given property the signs can be placed. On residential property, the sign must be 10 feet from the curb. On commercial property it's 20 feet! Umm, yeah, like any commercial property has something besides a freaking parking lot 20 feet from the curb?! In the end, I sold mostly little stuff, largely at garage sale prices, and had one small item stolen from me. A knife, priced at a quarter, is not in the box of miscellaneous kitchen utensils, and I KNOW it wasn't sold. That's ok, they didn't get the warning that should have gone with it… it's probably 70 years old (or more, it was my grandmother's) and it will slice ANYTHING, and could probably amputate a limb if necessary, so do NOT handle the blade unless you absolutely must! So when they reached into whatever they'd put it into to steal it and cut off a finger, it's not my fault… What's left is going to be sorted in the next few days into "garage sale", "Ebay", "Craigslist", and "try to consign". I suspect that my planned 5x10 storage space isn't going to hold all that needs to go into it.

This morning's task was to get to the Post Office with my Ebay auction items. I've now sold & shipped 11 items, and am working on what I want to put up next. I'm thinking I'll get some posted tomorrow evening, on 5 day auctions, and hopefully get some sold and paid for before I head to Dickens on the Strand. I'm thinking perhaps a batch of Christmas things that didn't sell in the sale, that might generate some interest. And relist the 5 Polonaise ornaments that didn't sell the first time they were listed.

Tonite we played beauty parlor over here, because two of us needed the gray covered up, and another needed a haircut. So now we all have fresh & pretty hair for Thanksgiving, YAY! It's been so long since I had someone to put color on my hair, I'd almost forgotten what it's like to get in the shower after it's been colored and not have to scrub dye off my arms from trying to get the back of my hair done!

I'm off to bed, to sleep, and hopefully remember some of the random weirdness of the last week or so for RWW tomorrow.

Estate Sale

OK the weekend of my estate sale is here! Starting tomorrow morning @ 9am  please pass the word!

*x*x*x*x*x* PHOTOS OF SOME ITEMS*x*x*x*x*x*

*****ESTATE SALE*****

Antique hutch,

Antique tables, various styles/sizes

Nice couch,

Washer & dryer,

Painted drop front desk,

dresser,

chest of drawers

Kitchen items

Noritake china (Arvana, Roseberry designs)

Pictures, frames, albums

Bath & bed linen items

Misc. household items

Old vinyl albums

Various holiday items

Much more

******CASH ONLY******

Thursday-Saturday November 19-21

9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

NO EARLY BIRDS

6905 Declaration St, Watauga, TX 76148

Counting Blessings

Here lately, there has been much that I've been pretty damned pissy and bitchy about.
I have developed a tendency to see the negatives and dwell on those, instead of being grateful for what I do have. 

1. I have a safe, dry and warm place to lay my head, and that place includes space for my kitties.
2. I have amazing friends who love me and come to my aid when I need assistance.
3. I have a church family that has been loving and supportive for my entire adult life.
4. I have an opportunity to grow and try new things.
5. I am generally in good health

Right now it is a struggle for me to acknowledge and count the blessings in my life, but I am going to try. 

A dear friend sent this story to me in an email. I've seen it before, but it's a good reminder for anyone.

An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life



He said to them,

"A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One wolf is evil---he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.


The other is good ---he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. ...



This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."


They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win, Grandfather?"

The Elder simply replied, "The one you feed."

I am going to do my best, in this season of giving thanks, and preparing for Christmas, to feed the good one, and not the evil one.

Saturday musings

T-minus 4 days to the sale. UGH, yeah, tomorrow is going to be a mad combination of loading stuff up to get it out of one room in the house, and then trying to get some of the stuff that’s piled up in the dining room and bedroom into that room for the sale. Said stuff was supposed to be picked up last weekend, but the helper with the truck backed out at the last minute. Then it was supposed to happen today, but other circumstances prevented that. Frankly, I am quite tired of my stress levels being increased by other people’s failure to follow through on what they said they would do! In the end, I am probably going to have to spend 2-3 hours tomorrow, and another 5 or 6 on Monday just arranging and getting stuff put out. I’m betting we’ll need to go over on Wednesday sometime to get the few things out of the shed that need to come out before Thursday morning. I am so ready for it to be Saturday, let’s say around 6:30 pm, so I’ll be on my way home, hopefully with minimal stuff that will have to go into the next garage sale, or on Ebay.

When E&T got home this evening, they had in tow a TINYPUPPY. Yeah, she’s 8-10 weeks old, and cute as all get out. Probably a terrier mix. If anybody needs a tiny puppy, who will likely stay pretty small, email me! She’s really sweet. Well, unless you ask Mei Ling, the sharpei/lab mix who is the alpha dog and has bigger feet than tiny puppy actually is. TP does NOT like Mei Ling one bit! We need a tinypuppy like we need a hole in the head. Our menagerie is plenty thankssomuch.

 

 

 

 

And if you've got a spare moment, add my friend Mary E. to your prayer and positive energies list.  She's a week post-surgery for a radical mastectomy on her right side. The good news is that only a couple of the lymph nodes are involved, and the tumor is only Stage 2, so with proper treatment and care, it sounds very treatable, possibly curable.  This isn't her first go-round with the big C, which, I'm sure makes it even scarier, not just for her, but also for her children.  The next few weekends her husband is out of town at TRF working their shoppe http://www.estelril.com/. Hopefully she'll be able to join him perhaps for closing weekend, at least, so they'll be able to celebrate Thanksgiving together.

 

Oh, and another note, on Wednesday my sister is leaving for San Diego to walk in the Komen 3 Day event with some of her friends.  Her page info is here http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/SanDiegoEvent2009?px=2715758&pg=personal&fr_id=1298

 

And now I think it’s off to bed with me, another long day tomorrow.

Polonaise & other auctions

A couple of weeks ago I put up my first Ebay auctions.  I put up 2 items, and both sold, however one bidder never paid, and 3 days after the auction closed their account, so I've gotten a credit on the final value fee, and it was a free listing to begin with, so I'm not out any money for their idiocy, but it IS kind of annoying.  My other item went in the mail today, all safely wrapped against breakage.
A couple of days ago I posted a bunch more stuff http://tinyurl.com/my1stebays including 11 of the Polonaise 12 Days of Christmas series of glass ornaments.  My mother started the series years ago, a set for her (ultimately me, since I am her only heir), and a set for my sister.  I am not in love with them, and frankly, I think the last time I was even home for Christmas (before last year, when surgery kept me home) was maybe 2000? For the last oh, 6 or 7 years, I have been gone for Thanksgiving, then I'm home for a couple of weekends, then I head back out of town for Christmas, using my vacation days around the holidays, to maximize days off, while minimizing the # of vacation days I have to actually use, and I've been gone for 10-14 days, returning home either new year's eve, or right after New Year's.  The last 2 years, I've also been out of town the weekend after Thanksgiving. There just doesn't seem to be a point to putting up all the decorations when I'm not going to be home to enjoy them. A couple of years ago, my sister had an incident at a party at her house that cost 3 or 4 of her ornaments in the series, and one of those she was never able to locate a replacement for, so I just gave her mine, since I was planning to sell them anyway.
I've also got a small Wedgewood box, dematisse cup & saucer made in Occupied Japan, a Troy Aikman Bobble head doll, a carnival glass bowl, and an English pewter coffee service. Hopefully they will all go well, and I'll have a little more $ in my account soon.  I am going to have to work on my stories for the auctions that I'm going to post in the coming days and weeks, to drum up more interest, etc.

I think I've had all I can stand for the day, so it's about time to hit the bed before my brain goes all 'splodey cuz my head has hurt all day long!

Introducing Random Weirdness Wednesday

Introducing what I'm hoping will become a regular feature, in Random Weirdness Wednesday. I’m sure there will probably be random weirdness on other days, but I’m going to do my best to focus on the weirdness for Wednesdays. I'm taking a page out of Bo & Jim's book, their Weird Ass Wednesdays are the most awesome days to tune into the show!

There’s been a pretty good bit lately, that I haven’t managed to post about yet. Most recently was this evening’s “fashion statement” at the restaurant where I had dinner with the teenager. My current phone takes crummy photos from any kind of distance and doesn’t zoom at all, but hopefully you can see the photo.

The kid has on jeans, a fitted tank top, and a long-sleeved shirt, which may or may not be a sweatshirt on. I know you’re asking yourself how I know what he has on under the long sleeved shirt, aren’t you? I know this because he only put the damned thing on half-way. Yep, apparently, he pulled it over his head, put his left arm in and pulled that side down toward his waist, and that’s all he did. The right side is still sitting on his shoulder, with the sleeve flapping around like some freaky, deflated extra appendage. Before you chime in with “maybe his arm is broken, or he has a shoulder problem” let me say that I saw him move his arm & shoulder freely, and apparently without pain, so I don’t buy that excuse. In the photo he’s outside talking on his phone like he’s some hip, important player or something. I wonder if he realizes how unkempt he actually appears.

Back in September, on the trip to Corpus, there was a good bit of RW, which, I suppose, is to be expected when you are driving through small town Texas.

In one little town, honestly, I don’t remember the name of the town, we drove past this sculpture, in front of a Knights of Columbus hall, and had to turn around and go back to be sure that we had seen what we thought we had seen. Sure enough, yep, a sculpture of what we have dubbed “alien baby fetuses”. Seriously? Who does a giant steel sculpture of FETUSES? It was just creepy!

Further down the road, in Hallettsville, there’s a restaurant called Snowflake Donuts & Chinese Food. Yeah, since I can’t even stand the scent of Chinese food, I’m pretty sure I’m glad they were closed, and we didn’t have to stop.

Spotted around Corpus:

Giant inflatable rhinoceros

Double baskets

On the road to Houston & in Houston

Beaver Nuggets? I think I’m afraid to know

RC car on the roof? Who drives their RC car on the roof??

And finally:

Ruffled panties for the BIG ASS chicks. UMM, yeah, we Fat Bottomed Girls need to add even MORE to our asses to fluff them up a bit!

 
Thanks for stopping by, and c'mon back next week for another installment of Random Weirdness Wednesday!  MWAH!

Starting to settle in

Yeah, I’ve been gone for several days, and I have a (few) reason(s) for that. The main reason has been, THE MOVE. I HATE ABHOR moving. One would think that after all the moves I’ve made, just as an adult (10, excluding going into & back home from dorms in college), I would have this down to a science, right? Never mind the fact that by the time I graduated from high school I had moved 9 times already. Yeah, notsomuch. I am a packrat. I save EVERYDAMNTHING, just in case it might 1. Be important someday, or 2. Be valuable someday. I come by this quite honestly, because my mother did it (and she openly admitted to doing so), and so did my grandmother (though she denied it vehemently). Edie (my grandmother), unlike her daughter & granddaughter, however, was relatively organized about it, and most of what she kept was paperwork. Over the years, we have gotten rid of tax returns and bank statements that were as old as my mother was. I have NO CLUE why Edie felt she had to save those things, they didn’t mean anything to anyone except her, and after 5 years, she really didn’t need to worry about having to provide them to anyone. Mom, on the other hand, bless her heart, had good intentions of being organized with her paperwork, but it just never happened. Her desk was virtually always chaotic, regardless of how many organizers and sorters she had. I suppose that technically there was some organization, which was only understood by her, because usually she could put her hands almost immediately on whatever it was that she was after. Where my paperwork is concerned, I am much the same way, I tend to have piles here and there on my desk, and while most people can’t see any method to the madness 99% of the time I could put my hands on the requested item quickly. Mom’s problem, however, went beyond paperwork to dolls (which, granted, the collection was started for me), cat figurines, angels, Christmas stuff, books, and miscellaneous other tchotchkes. In the 7 years since she died, there have been multiple purges of her stuff. The first was in the weeks after she died, trying to make some sense of her ‘study’. The second came about a year later, when we were getting ready for the estate sale, and to put the house on the market. That one was pretty big, and a whole crew of folks (mostly friends of my sister & b-i-l) came over to help get junk out and CLEAN. The following January came the 3rd, when the house had been sold, and I was moving into a tiny apartment, and small storage building. A little over a year later came the 4th, when I moved from that apartment into a small house with it’s own storage building. The 5th came last spring, when I moved into the house I’m moving out of now. Mission Arlington came and picked up about a half a roomful of miscellaneous stuff, and I tossed even more. Now that I’m moving from a house to essentially a bedroom, it was time for a MAJOR purge. Last weekend my sister & b-i-l came over and we emptied the shed… filled 2 big rolling garbage cans with misc. paper crapola and other stuff that was not worth trying to sell because of damage, or worthless, or whatever. On Tuesday afternoon, Charter rang my doorbell. Now, I’d been up to the Charter office and talked to them the week before, told them I was moving and that my contract needed to be cancelled effective on Wednesday, and that I wasn’t transferring because I was moving to someone else’s house and I wasn’t allowed to have Charter (true), and that I would bring my digital box & remote by on Wednesday afternoon. They said that was fine. The guy at the door said I needed to either pay him the entire bill, or turn in my equipment. WTF? I told him that the service was supposed to be cancelled the next day, and he told me that regardless of what the agreement I had with the office was, I needed to hand over the equipment & he was disconnecting the service unless I forked over the $. (He was in the Charter truck, uniform, and had paperwork, so I feel certain he was on the up&up. I’ve got my receipt, just in case, showing that I turned in the equipment). That’s another part of the reason I’ve not been around, my service got shut off a day early. (BASTARDS)
Wednesday morning we loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly Weatherford (on a hill, actually). That move entailed my bed and most of the bedroom furniture, along with clothes and a handful of boxes. I did manage to get everything put away, except the clothes that are in totes and the big suitcase in the closet still, but I have enough out to get my through a couple of weeks if necessary. On Friday I went back over and had another friend helping me get some of the kitchen stuff sorted into sell or store, packing up some of the Snowbabies, and emptying the freezer before the fridge move the next day. (By the way, a Snowbaby has gone MIA, and I’m not happy about it. I realized today, however that perhaps it’s Karma or something, as it was called I Have Lots to Give, which I have always been able to say, but now, I really can’t. There was an initial idea that we could, for the time being, do a whole ghetto internet hookup, and run the wire down part of the stairs from the modem, and across the ceiling in the hall, then drop it down into my room. Yeah, that didn’t work out because the modem is not a router too, it is ONLY a modem, and her desktop doesn’t have a second ethernet connection. Now, I was welcome to use her computer (which is in her bedroom) if one of them wasn’t on it, or in the bedroom for something that they needed/wanted privacy for. A fine and generous offer. The biggest problems there are 1. I intrude on their space, and 2. My ass is just about 2 inches too wide for that chair to be comfortable. Yesterday we went and did more sorting, dumped about 4 bags of misc crapola trash, and boxed up about 10 boxes to come over here. Those need to be unpacked over the next couple of days until I’m planning to go back to the house on Wednesday to do some more fine sorting and pick up a another load. The estate sale is being put off until the 19th, 20th & 21st, because I just physically can’t have everything ready before then. My goal is to have the sorting and packing DONE by Thursday, so that on Saturday, we can arrange the sale stuff and get to pricing things. In other news, I DO have a trip planned, to Galveston, the first weekend in December for Dickens on the Strand. This will be my 3rd trip, and I’m excited to see the differences from immediately post-Ike last year to the state of recovery now. My Rogues will be performing, and with all the awful I’ve been dealing with lately, I’m so very glad to have something to look forward to! I’m staying home with animal-sitting duty for Thanksgiving, and that will be fine, because, well, did I mention the bagpipes at Dickens?? I think that’s about it for tonite, my drugs have kicked in and this is about to become a redonkulously silly & non-sensical post!

rough day

Today has been a hard day. I managed to coax all 4 of the kittens into the house with the food, and trap them in. The 3 originals were easy to get into the carrier, but the beautiful tabby boy was NOT having any part of being handled, and tried to get out the closed door, and then made his way into the kitchen and tried to go out the window that he usually sits in. THAT was a mess, he took out my pink ceramic parrot from Campo Verde, and my little elf man that had survived 1 leg/hand amputation & reattachment.

I had planned to clean him up and repaint him, because I do love him, he is older than I am, and spent MANY years sitting in a potted plant at my grandmother’s house, then at Mom’s. He’s now had his leg/hand amputation reamputated, his arm amputated to match that leg/hand, and had his other foot amputated, and chips are everywhere. *sigh* yeah, I think he’s going in the trash with the ceramic parrot. It could have been much worse, the crock from the large crockpot is still on the counter, the butter bell survived, and so did the garlic cellar. I eventually gave up and just opened the door to let him back out, and haven’t seen him since. I cried all the way to HSNT. I know that they stand a better chance there, probably, than at one of the city shelters, and I have a friend who works there, and can help be sure they find homes. The little tuxedo boy and the girl (lynx point) have already been vaccinated and taken to pet adoptions. They are both sweet, handleable kittens. She is much more of a cuddler than he is, but both allow themselves to be picked up and petted without putting up a fight. The grey is personable, but still pretty feral, he’s a flirt, and wants someone to talk to him, but doesn’t want to be touched, and is, of those 3, the mighty hunter… he regularly brought snakes and birds to the porch to show me, and there is a woman in the area who adopts cats to control critters around her barns, and he has a home there. I realize that this is the best option for them, but it was terribly hard for me to give them up, I suspect largely because they’ve been such a little spot of joy in my world lately, when it has seemed otherwise very dark. My situation is forcing me to give up so much, both physical possessions, but also my independence, and my lifestyle, and giving them up is one more thing that I am having to give up. I’m not nearly done packing, but most of what MUST go with me is packed, other than electronics that I’m not going to disconnect until the morning of the move.

Extravagant Generosity

Countdown to moving day, T minus 7 days to pack & prep. I’ve not done much yet, other than decide to focus on the bedroom first, packing EVERYTHING except for clothes to get me through the week. I’m in the process of laundering summer stuff so I can put it into the totes it will stay in until it’s warm enough to get back out again. I managed to get myself up, showered, and dressed for church on time today, and went for the first time in about 6 weeks. As a church, we are finishing a study called Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. It’s a 5 week study, and obviously, since I missed the last 6 weeks, I’d missed the other sessions (though I do have the book. Somewhere). Today’s lesson (and sermon) talks about Extravagant Generosity. In all honesty, I do have trouble with that, right now. Not simply because my pennies are so carefully pinched and budgeted, but also because, well, frankly, I believe that I have practiced that in the past, and while often I didn’t see the results of those actions, there have been some instances that I did see the results. One of those instances was helping someone get out of what was (so she claimed, though now pretty much all she ever told me is suspect) an abusive marriage, including paying for a car repair on the way, making sure she had a place to stay, insurance on her car, and food in her belly “until she could get back on her feet”. What I didn’t realize was that while she made as much money as I did, from the day after she arrived (as she had a job already lined up via transfer within her company), she had no intention of contributing to the household, car insurance, or anything else, and that she would repay my generosity (kindness, stupidity, whatever you call it) by trying to steal from me. Another instance I helped someone that needed it, and that backfired on me as well. My generosity in the last 15 months or so has put me into a poorhouse, homeless, save for some awesome friends willing to take me (and my cats) in. While I am loathe to even consider practicing much of any kind of generosity, I also realize that I find myself now on the receiving end of just such Extravagant Generosity. And for that, I am grateful. I am fully aware that I need to put my anger at the people who took advantage of my giving nature behind me, and move on. I will. Eventually. One is easier and less fury inducing now, and that one I’ve gotten to where I’m not quite as angry at her. The other, well, it had a much more far-reaching effect, and that one will take more time. Today, a pirate friend was asked by the owners of Weston Gardens to bring a crew and “take the ship” during their Cooking with Tea presentation. There was a previous invasion, back in March, which I missed because I was in Midland at the Celtic Festival, so today was my first experience. The gardens are awesome, and I would love to do more exploring and photographing than I had the opportunity for today. (will try to get pics posted later in the week) The audience seemed to enjoy it, and I think it would be great for us, or at least Captain Greybeard, to come up with a more practiced routine, that we could do instead of totally flying by the seat of our pants. After we determined that we would be unable to move the ship from the mud and sandbar, we released the prisoners (no royalty, so they were essentially of no value anyway), left the ship where it stands, and headed to Burleson to invade Golden Corral, which is always amusing. None of us thought about it being nearly Halloween until a customer asked me if we were dressed up for it. At any rate, the storms are headed this way, I’m pooped, and the cats are already snuggled up on the bed, so I’m outta here folks!

Moving on

It’s been a rough several months. I’ve had good days and bad days, but more and more the bad days are beginning to overwhelm the good ones. I have had to make some decisions that, frankly, it pisses the hell out of me that I even have to consider! I realize that I am not the only one in the world looking for a job, and I realize that the lack of response to my resume and application submissions is not a personal attack, It does, however annoy the crap out of me that I did the “smart” thing and got my Bachelor’s degree. Not that it has done me a damned bit of good, thankyouverymuch. In the current economic climate, in the industry I have chosen, it is almost a liability, in that it’s not related to my field, and it really doesn’t add to my abilities or skills in my work. For months I have been trying to stay afloat and keep my head above water, but it’s become more than I can do in my current situation. As much as I love my house, I just can’t afford it. Fortunately, I have awesome friends who have offered me a place in their home. It means I have to SERIOUSLY downsize and liquidate a LOT of what I own. It means I will have to adjust to living with other people again. My cats will have to adjust to just one room in which to roam, rather than a whole house. On the one hand, it’s a great chance to start fresh, in sort of a new place, but not so far from family and friends that I feel lost. On the other hand, I’m scared spitless, largely because the last 2 people I lived with who were non-relatives were friends at some point, but by the time the living together ended, the friendship was either over, or stretched VERY thin. I have to trust that this is the right thing to do, and that it will turn out to be a blessing, and the beginning of a new chapter in my life. My goal is to have what I want in my room, and the cats moved by the first of November, and by the middle of November have sorted through everything else to sequester what is going to be moved to storage so I can have a moving/estate sale, instead of just a garage sale, because I think it will get me more $ to pay for the storage.

Hump Day

Last weekend I headed west, for the first time since Thanksgiving, at which point I had decided that I would not likely go again, because of the stress under which I spent the holiday weekend. I made the decision to go this time because my #1boy had been asked (and agreed) to be part of a re-enactment team for the Fort Stockton Sesquicentennial celebration. He was part of the Texas Camel Corps, and had marched over 50 miles from Fort Lancaster toward Fort Stockton. They wore period-correct uniforms (other than underwear & shoes). Yeah, they marched for about 5 days, in the Texas sun, (fortunately, it’s been a relatively cool fall, so at least it wasn’t hugely hot) in wool pants and jackets. He DID get a touch of heat exhaustion, but he didn’t pass out or anything. I’m proud as hell of him, and I know his blood kin is as well. We had no less than 5 people tell us how awesome the boy is. Doug, who is the camel rancher that runs the Camel Corps treks said he fully expected to have to provide some help to the boy, as he is technically ‘disabled’, however he was amazed at the boy’s ability to not just pull his own weight, but also to pitch in and help wherever an extra hand was needed. The baby is not a baby anymore, he will be 3 in just a couple of months, and that’s hard to believe. He’s cute as all get out, and smart as a whip. Once he starts really talking, I’m guessing we’re ALL in trouble! Not all of his jabbering is particularly understandable, but we got along just fine, and he seemed to accept my attempts to understand him, even if I wasn’t exactly right. Anytime I asked him a question, he answered appropriately, sometimes verbally, sometimes with a shake or nod of the head. I did notice that he talked to me more than he did Darla, but that may be a conditioned response, in that his screeching generally manages to get him the response, whether it be to give him food/drink/toy, whatever, from the people who live with him, if just to get him to shut the hell up, so why should he bother articulating it. I didn’t respond to the screaming, and insisted that he tell me what it was that he wanted, instead of just pointing and hollering. I did learn, that in his vocabulary, “please” is “peas-tanks”. At least he has manners, right? I have concluded that there will only be 1 more trip out there, at least while they are living in the town they are currently in, and that will be at the end of May for graduation. There’s just BAAAD Karma in that town, and it’s just entirely too exhausting for me emotionally to keep my chin up and keep a decent mood while I am there.

Company

This afternoon my friend Victoria & her friend Andrea came in for Tribal Alchemy this weekend. They got here about 4:30ish, and needed caffeine, so off we went to Starbucks, then over to Sam Moon, because my most favorite shades, also a Sam Moon purchase, broke yesterday, and I'm unhappy about this, because I loved my Pirate shades. Vicki had never been to Sam Moon, and we spent an hour, easily, in the store, looking at various stuff before we went next door to the Sam Moon Luggage store to find me some shades. Of course the ones I had are no longer available, but I did find some other cool ones that I'll get pics of one of these days. Eventually I'll get photos added of the other funny shit I found in there, including the flask I NEED which says "Old enough to know better, young enough not to give a rat's ass" Once we finished, in there, we headed back toward the Stockyards to hit Byblos for dinner. They have an awesome buffet, and I tend to forget about them, mostly because I rarely get over to that part of town. I also forget how much I like a really good, GENUINE Feta. And by genuine, I mean made from goat and/or sheep's milk, not cow's milk. Yeah, I could have stuffed myself on just that, thankyouverymuch. In the end, I had a bit of vermicelli rice, a bit of beef, a chunk of the kebabed chicken, and a wonderful pita to go with my Feta. And just a note, unless you like a good dose of VERY rich chocolate, you'll want to limit your Baklava choice to not the chocolate. It was tasty, but, as much as I LOVE chocolate, I couldn't eat more than one bite. The plain was AWESOME though. My house is still a wreck, well, parts of it are a mess, but that's life. Tomorrow morning we're going to hit British Emporium and see what trouble we can get into before they head for Ft. Worth and I head for Sheffield, and ultimately on to Ft. Stockton for the sesquicentennial. It's late, and I'd better get off here and get some sleep with the driving I've got in store for me tomorrow.

Better, I think

So nearly a week has passed since I last posted. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again, but the bottom line is that I never intended this to be a whiney, negative space, and therefore, I try not to post too much when I am feeling that way. 2009 has been a tough year for me, and I'm truly hoping that things will look up this last quarter of the year. On Monday I had a HUGE meltdown, as a result of a combination of things that have been ongoing, and things that happened over the weekend, and then receipt of a letter that stated "We thank you for your interest in XYZ Company, however at this time we don't have anything available for someone with your background and experience." Yeah, thanks bunches folks, not only did I meet EVERY SINGLE ONE of your requirements listed in the advertisement, I went above and beyond, AND took the initiative to print out and complete the application forms posted on the website prior to the interview. My sleep is out of whack, for multiple reasons, and I hurt all over, including my skin! It was HORRIBLE. Today my horoscope that comes to my phone every morning said: The establishment of a new business partnership could require a lot of paperwork today, dear Libra. It might be really tedious trying to make sense of all the jargon involved, but it's important to you, so you're more likely to be more persistent than usual. Someone more familiar with these matters may explain the ins and outs to you. This is likely to be a very fortunate development for you, so don't lose heart. Hang in there.

Yesterday I had a call from a recruiter about a position that sounds very promising. She asked me to reformat my resume so she could present it to the client company. Today she asked me to meet her at a coffee shop not far from the client's office, as well as being MUCH closer to me than her office in North Dallas. I believe the interview went well for me, and hopefully I made a better impression on her than the woman who arrived when we were nearly finished (who sat down near us, and made NO effort to pretend she wasn't listening to the conversation), as she arrived wearing toe ring sandals with no hose. Now, I will admit that I don't always wear hose when I go to a job interview, however I always have on slacks and closed toed shoes, so you can't tell whether I have them on or not! I should hear something from the recruiter tomorrow, hopefully in the morning so I can interview with the firm in the afternoon.

I am making an effort to be more positive, and once I finish getting the house back in some semblance of order, I'll smudge and cleanse out the negative energy. Tomorrow I have to finish getting the guest room ready for Vicki & Andrea who are coming in for a bellydance workshop over the weekend.

I've got several things rolling around in my head as possible posts, and am committed to making an effort post on a regular basis.

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

Boycott is over now

I have heard now from 2 separate sources, that Victoria's Secret has made right the wrong. They aren't calling it a prize, but they ARE giving Casey the trip to New York, including airfare, hotel, spa, etc. While most of us that I know of, anyway, have not gotten anything other than an autoresponder notice about receiving the comment and getting back to you within 24 hours, it appears that our efforts made a difference.

BOYCOTT VICTORIAS SECRET

Back in August, I was made aware of the Body By Victoria contest, because the daughter of a fellow rennie had entered. Her name is Casey, she is 19 years old and has Osteosarcoma, which is advanced enough that she will lose her enough of her right leg that she will not be able to have a prosthetic leg. This is part of the post that I first saw posted on Wench.org: "I don't love the parts of my body that are affected by cancer. I don't love my tumor, or any of the nerves it's currently pressing against. I don't love the bones it has weakened to the point that I will have to use crutches even after the fracture heals in order to avoid fracturing more bones. On the other hand, I love my legs because they transport me, because I like their shape, because they've been pretty reliable for the last 19 years. I love my legs because I can move my little toes out separate from the rest of my toes. I love them because they make it possible for me to get piggy back rides. I love them because they help me dance. I love them because they come in a pair, so even when my right leg is amputated, I can still enjoy these things with my left leg. I love my arms because they support my weight on my crutches and make it possible for me to still get around without having to ask for too much help. I love my fingers for being able to grasp some things while still holding on to the crutches, without always spilling or dropping those things. I love my body's tolerance for pain, and the fact that it can take so much without making me cry in front of people. I love it for the fact that I didn't cry that one time when they were trying to hook me up to the IV and kept digging around the more tender veins in my arms. I love my body even though it doesn't look like the Victoria's Secret "A Body For Every Body" ad to the right of my screen as I type this. I love it even though it's bald and can't sexily toy with its hair, even though it has no eyebrows to arch at men, even though its bra size is only a 36A, even though its weight fluctuates but will probably never have that flat of a stomach, even though it will soon only have one leg and some people will be disgusted by it. I love it even though it's falling apart. I love it because it's mine." The prize for this contest is a three-day all-expenses-paid trip to NYC, includung a full spa day and other pampering prizes that she could really use after all of this awful trauma. http://www.bodybyvictoria.com/#/Gallery/880 Over the course of the last month, there were lots of fraudulent votes, and Casey's supporters were vigilant about reporting the spammers, whether they were voting for Casey, or for other contestants. Casey won the popular vote, by THOUSANDS of votes. Unfortunately, Victorias Secret is run by toads, because though they admitted to her in a telephone call that her votes were genuine and fair, they'd decided to change the rules because of the tampering that occurred, and gave the top 50 vote getters in random order, to uninvolved judges, who then selected 2 grand prize winners, neither of them was Casey. As a consolation prize, they've given her a $500 gift card. What a slap in the face! I am FURIOUS about it, and have made my opinion known to them. I have also told them that I will be making sure that every forum I frequent, as well as the hundreds of people in my email box is aware of how they do business. I realize that I am but one voice, but if enough voices band together, it CAN make a difference! This is my letter to them Hello, I am writing you today regarding your “Body By Victoria” contest. I was made aware of the contest on one of several forums I am a member of, and I was one of the supporters of the popular vote winner, Casey. I am aware of the fact that there was more than one issue regarding fraudulent votes, and some of our forum members were among the honest folks who were watching and helping to ensure that your company was notified when they occurred, whether the fraudulent votes were being cast on Casey’s behalf or not. As I understood the rules when I read them, there would be a popular winner, and another winner would be selected by judges as well. I cannot quote specifics because I failed to print said rules off, and, well, they are no longer posted. I find it to be sneaky, underhanded, unethical, and utterly abhorrent that you decided, once it was clear that a real woman, who will never have a perfect body was winning, to change the rules. My understanding is that she received a call from your company, admitting that the votes for her were genuine and fairly cast, but that instead of awarding her the grand prize (which was now available to 2 winners, just not her), you were awarding her a $500 gift card. In my opinion, that was a slap in her face. Her entry is certainly the most genuine, and the most honest without being shallow, vain, and self-centered. To be frank, I have not shopped in your stores for myself for many years, as you do not carry anything in my size, however many of my friends do, and I have bought many gifts and gift cards from you. That has stopped now. I refuse to do business with a company that would handle its affairs in the manner in which you have handled this contest. I can assure you that I will be posting the information and my opinion of your practices on every forum I frequent, my blogs, Twitter, and all the hundreds of people in my email box. I sincerely hope that you will reconsider your decision and award the grand prize to Casey, however I realize that I am but one voice that you may or may not pay attention to. I used their comment form here http://www2.victoriassecret.com/html/custsrvc/contact/comments/?rfnbr=8678 to register my opinion and I encourage you to do the same!