I can tell it's a holiday weekend

My, things are quiet on my f'list this evening. Guess everyone's off doing the-last-hoorah-of-summer things.

I'm lounging around, waiting for water to boil so I can make some pasta salad for potluck at church tomorrow. And if there are leftovers, I'll be set for a couple days. Usually holiday weekends have sparse attendence.

Mb, bless her, dropped by with Italian dressing and a package of bathroom tissue. She was cackling and quite pleased with herself...she was on her way over to ThunderBunny's to plot and plan for the "surprise" party they're throwing for me. The surprise being, I don't know where it's being thrown, or even if it's on my b-day.

It's casual, she says, but IMO, "casual" covers a lot of ground. Backyard barbecue casual is going to be different from restaurant casual, which would be different if it was a trip to the zoo (a couple years ago, we did just that, but it was just her and me), or a pool party (less likely now that Captain Ahab is out of the hospital). And sadly, my favorite pair of denim shorts gave up the ghost last month and are beyond repair. *sigh*

Still, it's not like I don't have other decent-but-not-too-formal clothes. Since 'Bunny's name has been invoked, that's why I'm guessing backyard barbecue, because she's got an awesome house for parties. I could be wrong, but I'm cool with it if it is. It's accessible if J shows up, and I *do* look forward to seeing RJ, 'Bunny's big love sponge of a mastiff-cross.

My loved ones have been letting me know that I have *other* things to look forward to---packages are on their way from Estonia (Europe), Georgia (USA), and Massachusetts (ditto), so I'll have surprises to unwrap. I love unwrapping things---I'm one of those people who will weigh the box, hold it and judge its size and shape and peel back each strip of tape an inch at a time and enjoy the process as much as what's in the box.

Okay, pasta salad is finished and resting in the fridge. It'll have ten-plus hours to meld. Now I'm going to take a shower and try to stop sweating. Ugh. After a few low humidity days, the thermostat is set back to EVIL.

TTFN.


.

I can tell it's a holiday weekend

My, things are quiet on my f'list this evening. Guess everyone's off doing the-last-hoorah-of-summer things.

I'm lounging around, waiting for water to boil so I can make some pasta salad for potluck at church tomorrow. And if there are leftovers, I'll be set for a couple days. Usually holiday weekends have sparse attendence.

Mb, bless her, dropped by with Italian dressing and a package of bathroom tissue. She was cackling and quite pleased with herself...she was on her way over to ThunderBunny's to plot and plan for the "surprise" party they're throwing for me. The surprise being, I don't know where it's being thrown, or even if it's on my b-day.

It's casual, she says, but IMO, "casual" covers a lot of ground. Backyard barbecue casual is going to be different from restaurant casual, which would be different if it was a trip to the zoo (a couple years ago, we did just that, but it was just her and me), or a pool party (less likely now that Captain Ahab is out of the hospital). And sadly, my favorite pair of denim shorts gave up the ghost last month and are beyond repair. *sigh*

Still, it's not like I don't have other decent-but-not-too-formal clothes. Since 'Bunny's name has been invoked, that's why I'm guessing backyard barbecue, because she's got an awesome house for parties. I could be wrong, but I'm cool with it if it is. It's accessible if J shows up, and I *do* look forward to seeing RJ, 'Bunny's big love sponge of a mastiff-cross.

My loved ones have been letting me know that I have *other* things to look forward to---packages are on their way from Estonia (Europe), Georgia (USA), and Massachusetts (ditto), so I'll have surprises to unwrap. I love unwrapping things---I'm one of those people who will weigh the box, hold it and judge its size and shape and peel back each strip of tape an inch at a time and enjoy the process as much as what's in the box.

Okay, pasta salad is finished and resting in the fridge. It'll have ten-plus hours to meld. Now I'm going to take a shower and try to stop sweating. Ugh. After a few low humidity days, the thermostat is set back to EVIL.

TTFN.


.

4 to 50 -- 2007

Meanwhile, back at the medical billing office, they'd taken me out of my happy little cubical and put me back on the phones. (Insert rant here.) I was stressed, but I was still writing. And I tried for every other job in the office that came up, and believe me, I was NOT pleased when I got passed over in favor of someone who'd barely been there six months.

And then---! One afternoon, during lunch---did I mention the daily lunch run? There was a rotation, where we took turns going out to pick up lunch---"I'm going to Woody's barbecue, get your orders to me in fifteen minutes."---and that day, as I well recall, the lunch run was to Tropical Smoothies, where I'd ordered my usual, an Asian chicken wrap and a chocolate smoothie.

While I was awaiting lunch, I got called into the manager's office and told I was being let go (for various spurious reasons), pack up my stuff and hit the road. Fortunately, my lunch arrived before I was through, although by the time I got home, the smoothie was kinda soupy.

Well...piss on 'em. The problem being, they'd pissed on me on the way out---their spurious reasons were enough to deny my unemployment benefits. I'd had a retirement account that I cashed in, which gave me enough money to live on for a while, but I still feel stabbed in the back and hope they get what's coming to them, kharmically speaking.

I was out of work for exactly six months to the day. That was the summer I discovered House MD, and got really active on LJ. I got a couple really close friends out of fandom---karaokegal and pwcorgigirl, and another---foreverhermit---by way of...? grammar_whores? little_details? Something like that.

Because I kept seeing references to it on my f'list, I tuned in the season opener of Supernatural, and boom! I had a new fandom. I'd lusted after Jeffrey Dean Morgan back in his Burning Zone days, and he'd only improved with age. The younger two weren't exactly gargoyles, either. I did one ficlet, then let it all hang out with a 10K word, three-way crossover for karaokegal's first annual "Come As You're Not" fiction party. (That would be "Bad Fairy", which was preseries for SPN, House MD and The Burning Zone.) I've spent the last four seasons writing SPN, and I'm finally getting to the point where I'm over it. (Let me tell you about Justified!)

In September, the money was running out, and I went to a job fair in Melbourne, which was traumatic---I was still freaked out in traffic---where I gave my resume to everyone with a pulse. (Anyway, that's how it felt.) I got ONE callback, from the call center that ended up being my next job.

I didn't want to drive to Melbourne every day, it scared me stiff---literally. I had a white-knuckled deathgrip on the steering wheel both ways for a very long time. One thing that made it a little nicer, though, was the presence of a Goodwill store in the same plaza. My first trip down, when I was turning in an application and doing the obligatory "at least 20 WPM" typing test, I wandered in there and got a great denim jumper, a patchwork shirt and a Wild Woman jacket. Score-o-rama!

I was hired as "seasonal", and I desperately wanted to be permenant, despite the daily trauma of the commute. There was an incentive running during the holiday season that year, where they had a pot, I think it was something like $2500, and if you missed any time between Thanksgiving and New Year's, you were knocked out of the running. I don't remember exactly how much I got, it was something like $150, but after New Year's, I noticed fewer and fewer people sitting in our section. I kept my head down and worked hard while they thinned the herd, and got hired.

And once I got over my asphalt anxiety, I liked it a lot. For one thing, very seldom was I called "you people".


.

4 to 50 -- 2007

Meanwhile, back at the medical billing office, they'd taken me out of my happy little cubical and put me back on the phones. (Insert rant here.) I was stressed, but I was still writing. And I tried for every other job in the office that came up, and believe me, I was NOT pleased when I got passed over in favor of someone who'd barely been there six months.

And then---! One afternoon, during lunch---did I mention the daily lunch run? There was a rotation, where we took turns going out to pick up lunch---"I'm going to Woody's barbecue, get your orders to me in fifteen minutes."---and that day, as I well recall, the lunch run was to Tropical Smoothies, where I'd ordered my usual, an Asian chicken wrap and a chocolate smoothie.

While I was awaiting lunch, I got called into the manager's office and told I was being let go (for various spurious reasons), pack up my stuff and hit the road. Fortunately, my lunch arrived before I was through, although by the time I got home, the smoothie was kinda soupy.

Well...piss on 'em. The problem being, they'd pissed on me on the way out---their spurious reasons were enough to deny my unemployment benefits. I'd had a retirement account that I cashed in, which gave me enough money to live on for a while, but I still feel stabbed in the back and hope they get what's coming to them, kharmically speaking.

I was out of work for exactly six months to the day. That was the summer I discovered House MD, and got really active on LJ. I got a couple really close friends out of fandom---karaokegal and pwcorgigirl, and another---foreverhermit---by way of...? grammar_whores? little_details? Something like that.

Because I kept seeing references to it on my f'list, I tuned in the season opener of Supernatural, and boom! I had a new fandom. I'd lusted after Jeffrey Dean Morgan back in his Burning Zone days, and he'd only improved with age. The younger two weren't exactly gargoyles, either. I did one ficlet, then let it all hang out with a 10K word, three-way crossover for karaokegal's first annual "Come As You're Not" fiction party. (That would be "Bad Fairy", which was preseries for SPN, House MD and The Burning Zone.) I've spent the last four seasons writing SPN, and I'm finally getting to the point where I'm over it. (Let me tell you about Justified!)

In September, the money was running out, and I went to a job fair in Melbourne, which was traumatic---I was still freaked out in traffic---where I gave my resume to everyone with a pulse. (Anyway, that's how it felt.) I got ONE callback, from the call center that ended up being my next job.

I didn't want to drive to Melbourne every day, it scared me stiff---literally. I had a white-knuckled deathgrip on the steering wheel both ways for a very long time. One thing that made it a little nicer, though, was the presence of a Goodwill store in the same plaza. My first trip down, when I was turning in an application and doing the obligatory "at least 20 WPM" typing test, I wandered in there and got a great denim jumper, a patchwork shirt and a Wild Woman jacket. Score-o-rama!

I was hired as "seasonal", and I desperately wanted to be permenant, despite the daily trauma of the commute. There was an incentive running during the holiday season that year, where they had a pot, I think it was something like $2500, and if you missed any time between Thanksgiving and New Year's, you were knocked out of the running. I don't remember exactly how much I got, it was something like $150, but after New Year's, I noticed fewer and fewer people sitting in our section. I kept my head down and worked hard while they thinned the herd, and got hired.

And once I got over my asphalt anxiety, I liked it a lot. For one thing, very seldom was I called "you people".


.