Good News, Everybody!

It looks like I will not be going to debtor's prison this month instead of Disney World. It is very strange learning to live without two regular paychecks, one of which doesn't come during the summer. Unfortunately, that's the one we've got left at this point. As for the Hubs, I'm reminded of a friend years ago who would tell me from time to time that she wasn't going to spend money on something or other because "Billy's out of work," Billy, of course, being her husband. It was a long, long time before I came to realize that Bill was a very highly paid independent consultant of some sort, and if he had a week off between jobs, his very down-to-earth wife saw this as Billy being out of work for that week, even though he was going to be doing very well the week after. Anyway, the Hubs is basically getting his independent consulting business -- not in the same field as Billy -- off the ground, so he gets paid when he finishes a project, not every two weeks like before. As I say, it's a challenge. But today is a good day, so I'm okay.

There's been some drama at work, even though I'm not even working during the summer. Some of it has to do with the fact that those S.O.B.s did not call my kid in to interview for a job she is very qualified for. I am furious, hurt, and disappointed. In other school districts, people get hired because they have connections. Well, this is her connection, and it didn't work for her. Her grandfather was superintendent of the school system, for god's sake, but I guess that was too long ago to count, and my connection is meaningless. I wonder if someone is going to bother to explain this to me, or they're just going to pretend it didn't happen. I even emailed the supervisor in charge and the principal, asking for a courtesy interview, and got no answers back.

There's other crap going on too, but I won't even bother with that. I'm not getting angry over stupid things, only things that count, like my kid getting hurt.

We were supposed to visit my OldFriend in the city today, but the Sibs woke up with a migraine. I need to plan to see her the week after DW without my sister, just K and I will go in, or just me, if K, god willing, has gotten a job and needs every second to start planning. We were very disappointed that the visit didn't happen, but I'm going to make it happen next time. My sister doesn't have the summer restriction that I have, since she's retired, and her husband is happy to drive her into the city. I had wanted a girls' time visit anyway, so maybe this is all for the best.

Do I sound bummed? I'm not, I'm fine. Just a lot of crap flying around in the last couple of days. On the other hand, I am packed, except for the last minute things. Go me.




watching FRIENDS :: ENTRY #2097
READING: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

HEY!

I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!

You might say that it has just sunk in. I finally picked up all the paperwork from the travel agent, who didn't have it until last night, and then I came home and packed. Yessiree bob, I packed for a trip that I'm leaving on in ... let me check ... 18 days. (I have a countdown on the phone.) And my carryon in packed too, more or less. I have a short list of what's left to be packed, and then they just have to point me in the right direction.

I have not been as excited about this trip, I think, because, let's face it, I have no money. The trip is already paid for, but I could certainly have used that money for other things (not to mention the other trip to Florida I have to take in September, which is also paid for, and which money I could really have used for other things.) But I'm not letting anything get in the way of just going and having a good time. I'm not going to be bothered if I don't go on some rides that I want to go on, because, as I said last time, I'll certainly be going again. (And here I am.) I am bringing two, count'em two, bathing suits, not that I want to be seen in either one, but I'm okay with that, too.

Remember the tote bags I was going to make for the four of us as mementos of the trip? I wasn't sure how I liked that picture for a tote bag,


but I did realize a couple of hours ago with a resounding DUH that I didn't have to get the bags made at the mall kiosk (which is where I got the idea), all I have to do is get cheap bags at the craft store and print the transfers and do it myself! And when I checked in my desk cabinet for the transfer paper, I found ...

desk-jet printable Shrinky Dink material!

When did I get this? Anyway, I tried the picture and made a sample, and it looks FANTASTIC! I made a few adjustments and then I ran out of black ink, so I'll get ink tomorrow and then make the four shrinky dink keytags or whatever anyone wants to use them for, and all I need to get at the craft store is a can of Krylon to seal them with and something for keychains (although I actually have something at the library I can use that we don't use for anything anymore.)

In other news, I got my hearing aids adjusted -- again -- and they seem to be slightly better. I have not heard from the ob/gyn, which is disappointing, even though I know it's not serious; I should have had a call by now.

No news yet either on the possible excellent job possibility for K, but then this morning, yet another possible excellent job came up, and she sent in her application immediately. She says she has 100 cover letters on her computer, so she applied for at least 100 jobs. (Some of them she applied to directly online, no cover letter needed.) Can you believe it? But either of these would be just incredible, both very good districts with fairly big schools, and good Social Studies departments.

I'm finally reading that book I was trying to get my hands on for weeks, and it's a challenge, although an amusing one.




watching THE GOLDEN GIRLS :: ENTRY #2093
READING: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Average Bear

Yogi has it better than a millionaire.
That's because he's smarter than the average bear.

I'm not so much calling myself an average bear, or smart or not smart. However, in very many ways, I probably do have it better than than a lot of millionaires, except, of course, in the having money department. I shall backtrack.

This has been not so much a good day, although it's mostly okay now. Once again, I fell asleep after four, and after a couple of hours of disturbing dreams, I woke up about 6:15, shortly after which it became apparent to me that I must have a UTI.* Ick. I slept for another couple of hours, woke up feeling pretty crappy, decided not to go out, and left it at that. At nine, I called the doctor's office and they called in a prescription for me.

The Hubs had a business appointment and K went out for a long walk, so I was here alone, which rarely happens these days. I thought this would be my golden opportunity to start a little packing -- it's only five and a half weeks until the Disney trip, so I'm getting a late start for me -- but I found there really wasn't much I could do at this point except put a few things inside the suitcase that I had had sitting on top of it. Oh well, I had some bills to pay, so I fired up Quicken. That's when the fun started.

Let's just say the family Chai is having its own little economic crisis and it all hit the fan today. It's always been a bad subject for me, but with the help of therapy and other stuff, I've managed the stress very well for awhile, but it fell on me hard today. The old familiar knot reappeared in its traditional place in my gut, and I was stressed out, more than I've been in ... well, a year, really; I started taking the anti-depressants a year ago this week. I was still holding on, though, I was managing. I just knew I'd need to have a talk with the Hubs when he got home.

K came home, we had lunch and such, and then, I guess it was around 3:00? Maybe? we had an odd bit of an altercation, this because she commented about something she saw in the backyard and I didn't hear her and said "What?" and she repeated it and I still didn't get it and must have said "What?" again, and she lost it. And I felt like shit, mostly because it makes me angry when she does this; I mean, I didn't ask to become hearing impaired and I don't personally enjoy it, and I was close to being a mess already. She quickly gathered up her things and retreated up to her room.

The Hubs came home moments later, and we talked. I told him that other than the obvious need for more money, it needs to be not my problem anymore because the stress is not good for me. And he took it, I think, and told me that the meeting he was at all day was in setting up a kind of new business plan and stuff, so, YAY! I felt soooo much better after I talked to him and got the weight taken off of me. And while I was adjusting to the knot getting smaller ...

K came downstairs, took the remote off my desk and switched my TV from Law and Order to a new channel we're getting called Boomerang. Why? Because there was a Quick Draw McGraw cartoon on -- she had been watching it upstairs -- and she knows that Quick Draw is my most favorite of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters. (They show the Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound hour every day at three.) It was an apology that worked for me, and after grinning like an idiot at the cartoon for a few minutes, I gave her a hug. (We also watched a very early Snagglepuss cartoon together.) Oh, and K had offered to make dinner (chicken parm) if I don't feel up to it.

(I mentioned to the Hubs that I have never gone so begrudgingly to Disney World; I wouldn't have spent a dime on a trip now, but I didn't have much choice, it being the wish of a dying aunt. The second Florida trip, in September, is something I could also pass on, but unfortunately, we didn't go to my cousin's first son's Bar Mitzvah two years ago because of a threatened hurricane, and not going to this one would cause a breach in the family that no one wants. I'm pretty much taking both trips against my will, which is not to say that I don't want to enjoy them when I go. I just wish someone else had paid for them.)

So, it's been quite the day for me here. Not so much ups and downs, but a long down followed by a nice little sequence of ups.

*For those that need an explanation, a UTI is a urinary tract infection.




no wait ... it's

no. more like


okay. I'll go with
and maybe one more
watching L/O :: ENTRY #2083
READING: ----- by -----

It's a Mystery

One of my favorite lines from filmdom is in Shakespeare in Love. The theatre owner (played by Geoffrey Rush) is asked several times how something or other is going to work out, and he says he doesn't know. It just will. How? "It's a mystery."

Seriously, that ought to be my next tattoo. (I am not planning to get another tattoo.) Things have been a little tight around here, what with the Hubs going into private practice perfectly timed to coincide with the economy falling apart, and I thought that today was going to be the day, finally, when I did cry while paying bills, but somehow, it worked out. How? It's a mystery. All I know is, it made me happy enough to take the kid out to IHOP for dinner. (But not the Hubs, since there is virtually nothing there he can eat. Make that absolutely nothing.) Anyway, that makes it a two-smiley-face day for me.

(In the summer of 1929, my father's father, who had worked as a furniture salesman for his uncle for more than ten years, decided to strike out on his own. He was a good salesman and had a lot of contacts. But then, of course, in October, the stock market crashed and contacts or not, he had no business, no nothing. A tough six months or so later, his uncle had a sudden stroke and managed to get the message to his teenage son that they had to get Louie -- grandpa -- back in to run the store, even though they hadn't spoken since he'd left. Voila, the uncle lived, and Louie kept the business going strong, since they dealt in buying and selling used furniture, mostly, and my father grew up comfortably middle class during the Depression. I digress, I know, but I keep thinking of this family story a lot the last few months, as you can imagine.)

As far as the trip goes, the current plan is to go to Charleston, S.C. in late September, when I have a day off work for Yom Kippur, so, a three day weekend. This is still hurricane season, however, so the plan needs work. But Chicago is out. The flaky cousin only wants to "sit and watch the water", according to her sister, so that means an ocean, I guess; she could sit and watch a lake in Chicago. And she wants to go someplace warm. Her sister, the "normal" cousin, wants to go in late June, where, let's get real, everyplace is warm. In fact, anyplace we'd want to go in late June is either hotter than hell, or already booked solid (New England, for example.)

Oy, mishpochah.



waiting for FRIENDS :: ENTRY #2017
READING: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Happiness Is

For me today, happiness is going to the accountant and leaving with a smile on my face. You know, if I could change one thing in my life, it would be that I would have handled money very differently -- or had the Hubs handle it -- and not have had the stress money has always caused me. Now that our income is so much less, I am fortunately taking wonderful happy pills (or else I have matured a great deal, which is far less likely), and I am just going with the flow. But I understand money so little, that each year, the trip to the accountant is like a trip for surgery, and I never know how it's going to come out. Whatever he tells me, I believe him, and it could go either way from year to year. Now it's over for this year, and no one is asking me to send them money I don't have. It doesn't get much better than that.

Have you ever read a book and you say to yourself as you're reading "If one more bad thing happens, I am walking away from this?" When I read Angela's Ashes, I said to myself "If one more baby dies, I'm outta here!" but no one else died, and I finished it. Well, I am loving Edgar Sawtelle, it's so beautifully written, but if there is anything else sad, I don't think I can take it. And I know it will. :<

I must get back to writing during the day, when my brain is still working. It's almost seven, and I have nothing left. But I may have a neat picture for you all tomorrow.



FRIENDS :: ENTRY #2005
READING: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by Davbid Wroblewski