2010 Archive

January 1, 2010

Happy 2010. Hope you’re looking for the New Year to be better than last year. I know we are; that probably goes without saying. Before I dive into the briefest of last year’s highlights, please peruse the official Blogeois Disclaimer. You too, and you as well especially since I know you skipped over parts of it last year.

Question: What did you do in 2009 and what are your plans for 2010?

Blogeois’ Year 2009 in Quick Review

Life:
Got the handle on organizing EVERYTHING.
Gave up drinking coffee 3 times. Returned to the caffeine dark side 3 times.
Enjoyed the hell out of our little wine/liquor collection. Out of 80-some bottles, we’re down to a dozen.
Lost a neighbor to cancer and a couple others to foreclosures and divorce.
We got moles.
MsNoManagementSkills hounded me via email and sometimes in person.
WS survived layoff numbers 17 through 23 and took a big salary hit.
We cut back on everything, and then some.
We were hit with interest rate hikes on every single credit card we carry, despite not being late on a single payment for the past 17 years.
I cashed in my 9K retirement account and paid off WS’s car.
Have our budget under control but just barely.
I lost and gained 15 pounds and struggled with motivation and self esteem issues.
WS gave up writing, multi-tasking and traveling distances (all due to his MS).
I swallowed my pride and we now shop at Wal-Mart (It’s a tool).
I was propositioned once, pulled over once, and threatened with arrest once.
The Renter’s oldest kids drove us batty with lies, skateboarding and spitting.
I took up running.
We saw Fiddler on the Roof live with Topol.
Replaced or had fixed several major appliances and part of a roof.
Repainted our livingroom from red to cappuccino.
We celebrated 10 years in this house, 20 years in the Pacific Northwest and 20 years of marriage.

Writing accomplishments:
84,641 words were written for Blogeois.com last year
4 new fiction short stories were written, 2 actually finished
5 previously written short stories were edited (to death in my opinion)
1 quarter of a novel rewritten and edited
1 NaNoWriMo 50K+ novel written
181, 090 words written total

13 story submissions sent out into the big, scary publishing world
10 rejections received
2 still pending
1 short story sale made – due out in October 2010

3 science fiction/fantasy conventions attended
1 writer’s retreat attended
1 writer’s workshop run

January 3, 2010

The outside lights are down, the holiday mantle décor has been dismantled and that 15 foot tree that I really came to enjoy is in its box and stuffed back in the deep under-the-stairs closet. We’re officially over the holidays. What better time to catch a cold?

WS has been under the weather since, oh, last Friday when he told me he didn’t want to go back to work Monday. If I didn’t know a cold when I saw one, I’d think he was faking it. Sadly, he isn’t and so we’re chaffing our hands raw with all the washing of fingers, sanitizing hands and the Clorox wiping of every surface he touches (and boy, oh boy, does this man seem to pointlessly touch a lot of stuff!). I’ve avoided him like the plague because essentially, he’s got one in my eyes. Tonight, he’s sleeping elsewhere than in our bedroom not only because of his cold but because of the wall-crumbling snoring that come with his colds. Naturally, I had just gotten myself back onto a fairly regular sleep cycle. That’s now gone out the window.

But we’ll get through it.

Out in the neighborhood, the only other household to take advantage of the dry, somewhat sunny weather we had yesterday was The Howler Monkeys who stripped their house bare of anything holiday oriented. Many of the other families had lights professionally installed this year, because, don’t you know, the economy is improving…yeah, right, and usually what comes with that cost is a timelier taking down of the lights.

It’s not the ignored lights on the houses that bother me or that these result in the neighborhood looking shabby which in turn ends up lowering all our home values because that is what happens if you listen to any real estate market, it’s the bright red bows twisted cockeyed on the outdoor light fixtures and the three-foot candy canes and wire-framed deer that line the driveways more often on their sides than upright that people chose to ignore until those items are stolen or Halloween, whichever comes first.

But most of all, what looks the worst in my opinion, are the inflatable lawn ornaments that lay rotting out in the yards, wrinkly and forgotten, until March, April and June like used prophylactics tossed out some upstairs bedroom window. Then people start bitching about having these large, ‘mysterious’ brown spots of dead grass almost as if UFOs had targeted their lawns while they weren’t looking, above all others.

Anyway, it’s the same here every year. Only some of the faces have changed, the habits never do, and I’m extra glad that by getting our place quickly back into order, that makes us the oddballs on the street, ‘cause why would we want to have it any other way?

January 6, 2010

Hmm, you didn’t live in a neighborhood that had used prophylactics tossed out bedroom windows and left lying on the front lawns? [See previous entry] Must have just been me, in three separate neighborhoods, in three separate times of my life. Odd and yes, ugh.

Moving along…WS is still home from work with his bad cold. Combined with his mandatory two weeks off before and during the Christmas/New Years holidays, I think I now understand how retirees get on each other’s nerves.

Or maybe that’s just because he’s sick and I’m acknowledging that I’m worn to a frazzle with cleaning, wiping surfaces, cooking, cleaning more, wiping surfaces more, cleaning even more with more surface disinfecting, cooking again, cleaning and wiping yet more three, four, ten times every day since last weekend. Have given serious thought to duct-taping his hands and arms to his sides in the middle of the night while he’s sleeping on the couch so he’ll stop touching every god-forsaken thing in this house just so I don’t have to re-disinfect it all again. Ever. Wouldn’t expect him to think the same should the roles be reversed. Then again, I don’t touch everything.

But if I did get out that roll of heavy duty gorilla tape, the kind that specifically warns not to do just what I was thinking of, I’d probably get sick when I touched him which is why I’m mostly living upstairs and sleeping in the bedroom alone (after I re-disinfect it every time he goes in there for whatever reason – shower and dress in the morning, look for something in or on his dresser, etc). We can’t afford an emergency room visit right now with his cold having gone to my asthma-prone lungs. And it’s really, a bad cold he has.

I thought he would lose his voice last night and still do today. He croaks like the frogs out back. Don’t tell him I said so. I finally got him to drink tea with honey. He knows to do this because during the years we went to hockey games he used to scream himself hoarse every night and used to ‘fix’ it with tea and honey. But somehow, like he does when he deems things unimportant enough to remember, he’s forgotten those years and that cure.

He asked for something spicy to eat today, to help burn the cold out of him and when it comes to spicy food, I don’t have to be asked twice. Already, I’d been thinking of making a homemade chicken noodle soup and so I did but added two kinds of dried chili pods into the mix along with a shallot, a handful of noodles, a bunch of whole garlic cloves and the last of some fresh parsley and red bell pepper and let it all simmer for two and a half hours in a big pot. He nearly finished it all.

Well, the last of the daily laundry is finished, the one with his bath towels and bedding; his robe and pajamas already washed, dried and put out for him to wear later when he crashes on the couch downstairs in front of the TV again with Seth, the comfort cat. It’s probably time to wipe something down again or if not, it will be soon.

January 7, 2010

Have you ever seen that movie, “You’ve Got Mail” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan? WS loves that movie and it’s televised often. Well, I had a kind of “You’ve Got Mail” moment today when I was out grocery shopping with all the embarrassment the Meg Ryan character felt when she mistakenly found herself in a Cash-Only checkout line with load of groceries already rung up and only two bucks in her wallet.

Except I didn’t have two bucks and the line wasn’t Cash-Only. My crime to humanity was that my debit card had expired. You’d have thought I’d just announced I regularly skewered babies and served them up for breakfast (the true crime there may be that I would serve them with quince paste and a fleck of Roquefort cheese instead of baby carrots and mint jelly, but I digress).

The cashier was all cheer and smiles and puppy farts right up until her register showed that my card had expired December 31st. Then she announced, seriously, announced in a volume that had to have carried five or six aisles over that “Your card is expired!”

I think I said something along the lines of, “Oh crap” which probably didn’t help the situation because I instantly heard two of the six women in line behind me audibly sigh and felt them shoot eye daggers at me. A store manager rushed up while I was looking in my wallet for something else to use which I knew would be more futile that not because I don’t carry credit cards with me.

“Do you accept American Express?” I squeaked out, surprised I even had the thing in my wallet and knowing darn well I couldn’t afford to put much on it, not because the card doesn’t have room; it does, but because I can’t afford the bigger monthly payment it would then require.

Luckily, they did accept it and minutes later, (Was it only minutes later? Sure felt like an hour what with those waiting customers and a store manager all glaring at me.) I walked out of there with only half of my planned groceries and no five dollar Subway sandwich lunch trip either. Sucked to be me.

When I got home, WS was right on the phone to the credit union to ask with his froggy-croaking bad cold voice about getting me a new card, because one hadn’t been sent automatically, I guess, and they were less than enthusiast in trying to help out. In fact, WS came close to hanging up on them; the credit union he loves dearly. It took all he could muster to hang up politely when he did, without receiving an ounce of help from them because they demanded some information he didn’t happen to have. But I wonder if that was really it at all.

About two and a half year’s ago I had a run-in with this credit union when apparently, they ‘lost track of my debit card’ in their system. Unfortunately, they didn’t lose track of any of the purchases I had made on that card, a fact I chided them about in a not-so-joking manner. I remember posting about that here. Ever since then, WS and my accounts, although once one and the same, have always been off-cycle, off-system, off in la-la land from each other and naturally, no one there seems to have ever taken any notes on what has transpired to date leaving us to re-explain their own screwed up measures taken just so I could have my own debit card.

It doesn’t help when WS decides this is another thing he doesn’t want to remember and so he spent too much time telling me how the system should work, instead of believing my recount of how it did work that day those two and a half years ago, almost as if he didn’t want to believe what had happened when we were sitting there in the credit union office together, had indeed happened.

I know this is Thursday but secretly, I think its Monday.

January 13, 2010

Last week, The Queen went in for her fourth vet visit and checkup in the past three months, all to tell us what we already knew: She’s strong, mostly healthy and bitter. And still holding true to her nickname of ‘Hole Punch’ for her one remaining tooth and unyielding hatred of Maxx. Some four hundred dollars later, we’ll looking at a twice a year re-checkup at a hundred bucks a pop plus blood work at eighty bucks a pop plus monthly hyperthyroid medication at forty bucks a bottle IF she remains healthy. If not, the cost will only go up from there. Ah, the cost of raising four-legged family.

But can you tell we’ve never had a pet make it into old age yet? Too many things usually got them long before they reached twenty years old. Hell, we thought we’d always refer to Zooot as our six million dollar cat after her fatty-liver disease/3-times a day-six month tube feeding/big-time medication and vet office visit financial adventure back in 1998. I honestly think The Queen’s gonna come close to topping that, certainly if we have to take her in every time the vet says, “Jump!”

Now, we love our pets dearly and would never make, nor have never made, a rash decision regarding their well-being based on our tight finances. But I think I detected the slightest of smiles when The Queen’s vet was going on about the upcoming costs we can expect that was not too unlike that crappy dentist I once had that bragged loudly about how he could buy a Jaguar with the dental work he claimed I needed.

And another thing: I’m getting pretty fed up with this news story and that news story claiming they have found the world’s oldest dog/cat/bird/hamster. The story tonight said they found the world’s oldest dog at 22 years old. Really? At 22, that’s the world’s oldest? I guess all those claims people have made here and there about their dog being close to 35 years old is just bunk.

Ah, but here’s the key: You must have proof of age or proof of birth.

Okay, the little squeaky financial wheels in my head ask how I can market The Queen, who at 20 years and 6 months does indeed have both proof of age and proof of birth here and at our vet’s office since that’s the only place she’s ever gone? Call the local news? Feedback to CNN? Local newspaper? Invest in making T-Shirts, Queen calendars and bumper stickers?

Do I make her work for her 20 year room and board, or do we simply smile at the next ‘world’s oldest pet’ claim and give The Queen an extra pat for hanging in there so long?

January 14, 2010

So I’ve been making stabbing motions at this whole fiction writing thing for five years now, taking it seriously for almost four. I guess you know that. I sold a short story last month for the sum of about twenty bucks to a small but well-respected publication. My first sale! I’m still walking on air, but there are some near to me who think I’m nuts.

The other day, I was asked why I was still ‘goofing around with that whole writing thing?’ “Jeesh, it’s been what? A couple of years now? If you haven’t made it big by now…” A smirk, a shrug of shoulders with upraised hands implying why bother, time to move on to something different.

The wife of a friend who informed me last year that she was going to write her memoirs, this after never writing a word in her life before, because “writing isn’t hard and I could use the fast bucks,” told me recently that she had penned her life in a week, sent it off to Simon and Schuster, a publishing giant that doesn’t even accept unsolicited manuscripts, and after waiting an entire two months, gave up the whole idea. “It’s not worth my time to wait,” she said. “I need the money now.”

Another friend who learned of my sale just a few days ago, asked if I had sold anything new. No matter how often I explain the long, arduous process, this person is of the belief that the publishing world works in triple time. A writer emails a story that immediately sells because, and I quote, “Why would anyone send in something that no one would buy?” and within days, if not hours, the story is printed in a magazine or book or better still, is whisked off to Spielberg and the movie production starts next week, Tuesday at six-oh-five in the a.m. to be precise.

The concept that thousands of works of fiction are sent to any one publication in a single month is inconceivable, that people hold jobs whose point it is to read and reject all but seven or ten pieces that stand above all others is unbelievable and that there is such a backlog of accepted work slated to be published, that stories often take up to a year, longer in the case of novels, to be seen in print, is so far out there, I guess I can understand why people question why anyone in their right mind would voluntarily put themselves through such bullshit.

“Because we can,” isn’t a good answer. Neither is, “Writing is therapy,” though I’m guilty of using it as such. “Because we have words in our heads that we need to get out,” isn’t too much better a reply but it’s the one I most often use because it’s the only one that seems to, momentarily, wipe the glaze off people’s eyes.

Non-writers don’t get it. Non-readers really don’t seem to get it. They can’t understand the what’s and why’s we writers do what we feel we have to do. But take away their big production movies, their goal-oriented computer games or their weekly television shows and I think they’d see quite clearly, quite quickly.

Writing is everywhere. Writing is everything, fiction and non-fiction alike. To stop just because a group of people choose not to understand it would be like living in a coma; yes, to that extreme. Whether I blather on about some silly neighbor prank, whine about some perceived injustice or hack out some piece of drivel no one’s interested in buying, I won’t stop writing, especially over uneducated comments, because it’s in my soul.

January 17, 2009

So I’ve said that Tuesdays are writing days for me. Sometimes I get out of the house to write, to a café in downtown Portland to write with some writer/author friends of mine, other times I stay home and write. It all depends on whether I have transportation or not. There’s more not than anything but I’m okay with that. Going to Portland once a week just to write gets expensive very quickly.

If Tuesday’s are writing days for me, then Wednesday’s are anti-writing days. I don’t know if I’m so intensely into the whole writing experience on Tuesdays that come Wednesday, I’m so burnt out, I can barely think straight or what but since I’ve been keeping track, officially as of December 1st, every Wednesday is just a dud day for me. I’m lucky if I can squeak out a blog entry. Usually not even that. I fall asleep if I read more than a chapter or a few pages of anything. I just don’t seem to have it in me to get anything much on paper, and by much, I’m talking two dozen words or less.

I used to really beat myself up over that. A writer writes and that’s certainly what I’d like to consider myself as primarily. So write, damn it, is how the mental conversation used to loop endlessly. Never one for a lack of words, you’d think I wouldn’t have a problem and yeah, I guess if anyone bought endless blather about nothing, I wouldn’t have anything to complain about. But until I wake up one morning transposed into the body of Stephen King or Paris Hilton (shudders, shudders), both of whom could have published their grocery lists scratched out on used toilet paper, endless blather isn’t gonna cut it for me.

The worst parts of these Wednesdays are the feelings of wanting to write, not to mention the need to write whether for assignment or not, and not being able to find the words to do so. I consider this true writer’s block, something I rarely suffer from, thought when I do, it’s usually around some kind of timed writing assignment which my mind automatically sees as a test and for as long as I remember, I’ve always frozen up on tests. I really need to train myself better on this, but ugh!

That’s when I have to pull out the big guns, the most rudimentary writing of all using the most basic of all English sentences. Remember, I can and will always go back and make them better later when my brain is engaged. I’m talking about 1st grade reading sentences (or is it kindergarten or before nowadays?) like “See Jane run. Run, Jane, run.”

Using this method, let me show you how I put this to work, using a scenario like this: I need to write a story about flying unicorns and a talking dolphin. First, I try not to laugh, shake my head or flat out refuse. Gawd, I hate stories with flying unicorns and talking dolphins. I keep in mind my mantra of writing faster than my fear, and specifically keep out of my mind, “This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid.”

I’d have no idea where to go with such subject matters and if this were an Wednesday anti-writing day, my brain couldn’t care less if the flying unicorns stabbed the talking dolphin to death who was probably blathered on too much about clichéd flying unicorns in the first place. Good for them.

I’d start with names because I’m a character-oriented writer foremost and these kinds of people seem to like names. On a normal writing day, I’d name flying unicorn number 1 Lance and flying unicorn number 2 Pierce (he’s French) and then I’d let the story run.

Lance and Pierce are enjoying a perfectly wonderful day of flight in the warm afternoon sun (though later they’ll go back and stab the hell out of the word ‘perfectly’ because –ly words are bad, bad, bad in writing) when talking dolphin number 1 whose name is Bob starts complaining about the unicorn poop plopping down from the heavens (Okay, tell me you wouldn’t complain about such a thing.).

If it were a Wednesday, the day after a writer-intense Tuesday, all I would be able to muster would be something like this:

Bob won’t shut up. Lance and Pierce are tired of Bob. L & P put an end to Bob and fly off in search of rainbows. The end.

See how easy/difficult this whole writing thing can be? Later, said as though I would ever do such a thing, I could describe the day (how warm, how wonderful, how golden?) and the unicorns (in all their unicorn-yness) and their relationship (are they friends, lovers, siblings?). I could add dialog and a bit of backstory, though not too much – best to keep it somewhat vague and stick with the action, and perhaps an ongoing feud with the dolphins. Is Bob jealous? Is he one of those ‘get out of my yard’ types? Is he secretly in love with Lance? Or just he just hate poop in general? There are so many places one could go with such things…and so many reasons why not to.

Certainly, I don’t do this often. But on those really off days, yep, now you know that I’m hacking out simple sentences…about anything other than flying unicorns and talking dolphins.

January 19, 2010

Another house in our neighborhood has gone up for sale. Today we discovered the sale price and it’s low. They, a family of eight or nine, maybe its ten now, just want out. The job market here, most notably in the tech field where the head of that household works, sucks badly with promises of getting much worse before it’ll get better. WS, working in the same industry, isn’t sure of where we’ll be in a year or two. All I know is that no positive spin, no looking through rose-tinted glasses, no choosing to only look at the good news is going to make me believe that we personally aren’t going to take a major hit within three years. Major hit. We might be in the same boat someday…minus the kids, of course.

But in the meantime, we go on, we all go on because nothing gets accomplished if we just sit and cry, not to say we shouldn’t do just that if we need to, to get it out of our systems. I think that family sees the writing on the wall, and with six or seven kids already under their belts and more planned, they’re probably a good three years past when they should have sold and moved on. We’re all in that boat. Gawd knows they would have gotten a flat hundred thousand more for their place had they sold then.

Another house down the street has been up on the market since last summer. Multiple houses around them have sold and in one case, resold yet again. Obviously, those people aren’t in a rush. I hear they are renting it out to a rich relative while they pick back up their old lives in Hawaii.

Around the corner, the Italian family (not actually Italian but so much in love with Italy, they had expensive, imported Italian tile, wood, stone and wallpaper installed throughout their house) still haven’t found a buyer for their house after three years. Money talks, and even though they say they’re ‘motivated to sell’ in order to move closer to their church, that’s only true if someone’s willing to pay their asking price, one that’s head and shoulders over anything this neighborhood has ever been worth.

I’ll confess here and now that in the recent past, I visited zillow.com and looked up the current market values for homes I’ve lived in since I was a wee tot. I’m happy to report that I live in the highest market valued house of the bunch. That’s really not saying much but every little bit of self-congratulations helps today.

The home of my childhood, a 700 square foot brick shoebox built in 1959 with no insulation, air conditioning or standard code-quality electric or natural gas lines and in a cockroach-infested town has somehow been converted into a duplex with enough parking on the dead lawn for eight vehicles or three SUVs. We survivors sold it in 1987 as part of my mother’s estate for $53K. Today, almost 25 years later, zillow.com says it’s worth $72K. It really was a dump. Sounds like it still is. I almost wish I could afford to buy it outright and have it bulldozed to the ground. The earth would then be sprinkled, liberally, with salt every year for the next twenty-seven, one for each year I lived in that state (of fear).

The house I lived in during my brief first marriage is going for $78K. It really wasn’t much better, and for the record, I never received a penny from its sale after the divorce. But I got my bed back. I guess that’s calling it even. The ex now lives in a half million dollar home in Colorado, and also just for the record, it definitely wouldn’t have been worth it to stick with that self-centered bastard. If I could buy that old house, located on a corner lot of a sizable intersection, I’d bulldoze it and built a park on it.

Ditto price-wise for the house of the stalker I lived with for three years. I didn’t own any actual stake in that home but did sink a couple thousand from my inheritance in improvements and from zillow’s street view, the outside improvements are still in use. The stalker died a few years ago and the house sold. Looks like it’s finally well-loved.

The abandoned car junkyard/meth house my sister reportedly calls home in Phoenix is valued at $48K amongst a broken down neighborhood of the same. I can’t even fathom owning a house in which the monthly payments are under two hundred dollars. I wonder if they have trouble coming up with that amount. I have no doubt my sister isn’t contributing a red cent. I’ve said for years that the entire area ought to be nuked. Nothing good has ever nor will ever come out of there.

My old roommate’s condo, a dinky property I would have helped purchase had I wanted to live a lie, is currently valued at $141K. Hard to believe considering the place is upstairs at the top of a very, very long staircase with no elevator, at 600 square feet with no designated parking spot. Oh, he’s got a garage of sorts but he uses it for…well, that’s best not mentioned. The condo’s in a good, desirable neighborhood or at least, used to be. Last month it was valued at $150K. Then again, housing prices in the desert southwest are really going through the wringer if you hadn’t heard.

I like zillow.com though I’ve read that their values are on the high side of the reality scale. No worries. We’re not selling, yet if at all if we can help it. It’s simply a nice place to visit if one is looking for cheap entertainment.

January 21, 2010

Today I began a project I’ve been trying to get done since 1994, the year I began journaling online: I’m finally printing out, almost in its entirety, my journal from the saved, year-by-year Word documents I use to create each with. It’s quite the undertaking but I’ve got enough paper and hopefully, enough black ink in the printer. Using a slightly smaller font than I’d really prefer, each year contains between three and four hundred pages, printed front and back, in one of my favorite fonts, Viner Hand. I feel so accomplished for some reason, perhaps it’s for keeping this crap all this time.

Back in 1994, I was known by a different name and I was using a different forum by way of our own local BBS transferred to an Internet version. I didn’t see anything wrong with sharing the most intimate details of my life with the world. I mean, who knew me? No one and that was just fine by me.

In 1994, we had some emotional vampire neighbors who also just happened to work with WS. WS was in the midst of fully embracing the corporate world and I railed against that every bit as much as I do now. Later that same year, I had sinus surgery which amounted to my collapsed sinus cavities, brought on by two decades of severe parental abuse, rotor-rooted out and then packed full of cotton batting and nylon stays to heal for thirty days. There were some pretty gross moments. What better story to share with the world?

In 1996, I had major breast reduction surgery as recommended by my doctor. I came through it with flying colors only to experience a rather scary ‘leak’ at home. I think I was doing a play-by-play journal entry at that point, including cleanup off the bathroom drywall. Lucky for the world, I didn’t own a camera back then.

In 1999, WS decided he wanted to buy a house. It was a completely out of the blue idea, one I absolutely did not want anything to do with. Up until about 2001 and already in the place for two years, I complained about it a lot, but also had gotten myself a good job to help WS pay for it. However, most of my complaining was in never-ending rants against my then boss, MsNoManagementSkills. All those complaints continued until, well, last month, I think. But no, really, I used to complain about her every single day, multiple times a day sometimes. Jeesh, reading some of this stuff makes me cringe. I don’t know how some of you longtime readers put up with it.

In 2002, WS’s car was totaled by a young woman who basically ran a stop sign and for the first time ever, we ended up with two new cars out of the mess. We’d always been a one-car family up until then. Because I was able to, I actively put my car through the car show circuit and did quite well for three and a half years. Today, it sits in the garage, under a fancy car cover, waiting for 2012 and its ten year anniversary to come out and test the car show waters for perhaps another three and half years, depending on whether the economy allows that to happen. So far, that doesn’t look promising.

In 2003, MsNoManagementSkills divorced FatHead and moved right down the street from us into a rental house “in order to keep an eye on us” she told our coworkers. It was a miserable time. We didn’t go out front of our house for almost two years other than to mow the lawn and we did that in record time.

In late 2004, I had major surgery to remove two sizable ovarian tumors (21 lbs. and 5 lbs.). I named them, the tumors, Emil and Hubert, because that’s how I roll. If you hadn’t noticed over the year, I name everything.

In early 2005, WS and I were laid off when the small company we worked for was bought out by Yahoo. The stock options they had to pay us in the deal have kept me from absolutely, positively needing a job for the past five years. We put some of that money into a retirement account (that for the most part, was eaten by the economy), paid off our cars, finished furnishing our house, learned the art of writing and gone into debt like most everyone else; all things I posted about. Thank you for reading me during all that.

In sixteen years of online journaling, I took three breaks, each lasting about three months. The first one back in 1998, because WS was an angry, young man who wasn’t too fond of my sharing our lives with the world, in 2000 when we found out WS had MS and I was too angry to speak, not to mention type (I singlehandedly built a brick, side patio by hand instead as a vent for my rage), and two summers ago I took a break when I needed to get away from everything related to writing.

I often posted while I was working. I often posted angry. I definitely posted while dripping with snarky sarcasm. I worked from home for six years, four years under conditions now deemed illegal by Internet employer/employee business standards. Back then, there were no rules for how long an employee could be made to work in a single day, no such thing as days off or overtime or holiday pay, sick days or even vacation.

I only posted drunk once and quickly discovered that just doesn’t work for me. I keep alcohol and my keyboard very far apart. I think that’s a good rule and I think the ghost of Ernest Hemingway would agree with me.

I wrote up journal entries days, sometime weeks in advance but later only posted half of them, the other half going beyond their expiration date and seeming pointless after the fact. Some of those were written in the throes of insomnia, some during relationship difficulties, some out of blinding anger, most out of fear of life that had gone awry and drifted far from perfect.

From 1994 to present, I’ve written:

1994 – 4,599 words, 1995 – 4,197 words, 1996 – 1,561 words, 1997 – 4,660 words, 1998 – 1,705 words, 1999 – 10,818 words, 2000 – 37,928 words, 2001 – 47, 399 words, 2002 – 87,960 words, 2003 – 152,376 words, 2004 – 152,435 words, 2005 – 172,686 words, 2006 – 140,798 words, 2007 – 103,642 words, 2008 – 47,012 words, 2009 – 88,695 words and 2010 – 6,454 words for a grand total of 1,064,825 words.

This doesn’t include stories, novels, outlines or anything I may or may not have posted elsewhere on another blog, should one exist. It also doesn’t include day planner entries or hand written notes from conventions and café visits, volumes of which I have created.

That’s a lot of writing, and yet, it doesn’t seem like that much. There’s an old adage, a myth perhaps, in the writing community that says a writer needs to have written a million words (some say a million words of crap) before they are qualified to start actually writing. Is it a coincidence that not too long, in writer’s years, after I passed the one million mark, I sold my first short story? Perhaps but I think not. Still, it makes for a cozy fireside anecdote.

Still, while I’m patting myself on my own back here, I don’t write every day. And I should. If someone were to write one hundred words a day, every day, for 365 days; surely most bloggers journal entries are longer than one hundred words, you’d have a novel-sized amount of writing in a year. That’s impressive and yet it’s just one hundred words a day, every day. Not only is that impressive, it’s powerful.

January 29, 2010

I’ve been writing like the wind this week and then came crashing back down to earth yesterday and didn’t do much of anything worth while other than have yet another long talk with WS. Twenty years of talking with him on every subject known to man has done nothing to alleviate his angry attitude or boost his confidence or self esteem, and while I know I shouldn’t have tried to help him in the first place, I rarely run from a challenge. Didn’t twenty years ago, didn’t until a few hours ago.

Next month he looks for help elsewhere. I just hope they don’t convince him medication is the only way. But I know he’d prefer a magic bullet. He always has.

When I was a child, my report cards from grades 1 through 3 took strong note that I lacked Self Control. My parents took glee in doling out punishment for that. It took well into adulthood before I realized what I think my early teachers were talking about.

We had so many rules growing up it was hard to keep track of them all, but we must – couldn’t talk unless talked to, couldn’t go outside unless given permission, which was hard to do when we weren’t allowed to ask, couldn’t watch TV, ever (I sneaked watching a lot so I didn’t grow up completely ignorant of the world – just mostly), wasn’t allowed to read newspapers or listen to the news or the radio and especially not music. Wasn’t allowed to have hair longer than two inches (yes, even us girls) and certainly not parted in the middle. Wasn’t allowed to wear pants or shorts or sandals tennis shoes or carry a purse or own anything that resembled anything a ‘hippy’ might think of wearing. My father was angry and terrified of change, especially in the changing world of the late 1960’s.

So I guess I talked a lot early on in grade school and couldn’t pay much attention in class. Might have been all the concussions and black outs. Turned out I wasn’t punished at home because of ‘lack of self control’ but because my parents were afraid I would tell someone what they were doing to us kids at home. Didn’t matter when I did start talking about that. No one believed it.

But I did learn what I consider self control. Oh sure, I still speak my mind most of the time and I stand up to bullies even when it’s not my fight. I tend to drive a little faster than I should sometimes but I don’t shoplift or steal or take credit for stuff I didn’t do. I try very hard never to lie and succeed with that most of the time. And I don’t let stuff that happened forty years ago or forty minutes ago or any time in between eat me alive every waking moment of the day.

Yes, the stuff I went through as a child and as an adult has shaped and molded me into what you know and see here today but that stuff isn’t a constant loop that I allow to run over and over and over and over and over in my mind unchecked and without brakes until I’ve driven myself half mad and essentially ruined relationships over it. That destructive loop is just that, destructive, and is certainly not my ‘comfort zone.’ But just because it isn’t for me, doesn’t mean others can’t embrace it if they choose.

That’s not for me to straighten out. I gave it a shot, longer than most probably would have. It’s like when someone warned me over and over that his mother would never, in a million years, accept me and that I’d save myself a world of grief if I’d realize that and give up. Finally, after years of trying, I finally got the message. Same thing. I tried. I failed. It’s out of my hands.

Confession time: Plans called for this journal to come to an end at the end of March of this year. The cost wasn’t the problem but it was angst-ridden for WS. Blogeois.com has and will always be an outlet for my innermost thoughts. It’s my blog, no one else’s (but you’re more than welcome to go start your own if you haven’t already!). Of his own admission, WS used this blog as a gauge, not of what’s going on here when he’s not around but how happy or unhappy I am in the life he feels he’s responsible for creating for me.

I don’t know where that came from. I didn’t think it was his job to make me happy. Hey, if it happens, great! But it’s not his job. Furthermore, I’ve insisted often that if this blog bothers him so much, we need to reevaluate the boundaries, meaning if he doesn’t want me mentioning him, I absolutely won’t. I am more than capable of censoring myself; in fact, did it for years. But he insists I don’t change a thing and asks that I speak my mind here, says he wants me to have this outlet…and so he keeps measuring himself, aiming for that pie-in-the-sky diamond he’ll never reach…because it wasn’t there to begin with.

What’s the saying? Oy vey!

February 1, 2010

I’m going through the stuff I’ve written over the past three two years looking for something to read at an out-of-town convention I’ll be attending in mid-February.

I swore I’d never read at this kind of event again after, in front of a room full of listeners, I missed hearing the timekeeper call time. She finally had to smack the table with her hand to get me to stop going on and on. I had become enraptured with my own goofy words. How embarrassing.

But it’s all part of toughing the author’s skin, something a writer simply will not do to be without so what the hell, right?

As I said, I’m going through my finished stories looking for something that’s no more than five minutes long when read aloud and I wonder when it was that my work started including adult content and swear words. I don’t have a problem with either; I tend to write gritty, urban situations with characters that are down-to-earth and as real as your oddball, next door neighbor.

Let me clearly state I don’t write sex. The topic just doesn’t interest me in the least and most writers and authors get it wrong anyway. I’ve since learned that readers of such don’t care if it’s written wrong. These people are often closet-fans of Penthouse forum too in which all men are irresistible bruisers regardless of their bad breath, bad hygiene, pencil-necks and thick glasses and all women sit home doing little more than playing with their own ta-ta’s.

Over the years I’ve noticed more and more of the listening audience have brought their children into the room with them. Can’t be reading along and at a crucial, pivotal point, use the word, ‘shit’ for effect with a group of three to thirteen-year olds sitting next to mom and dad, now can I? I’d have that timekeeper slapping the table again in a heartbeat. But then again, I’d be sure not to go over my time limit either.

Decisions, decisions.

I’ve selected a portion of a piece I worked on two years ago but never finished. Not finishing work is a bad thing so let’s not dwell on that. I read this bit two years ago at a different venue and got mixed reviews on it. Since it’s not finished and in rough form, I’ll post it here for your entertainment. Just think of someone reading it aloud. Comments are appreciated.

Dead branches swayed before an orange haze like finger bones flexing against the sun. That view alone should have triggered an internal alarm but didn’t. The birches once flush with apple-green buds and bursting with the sounds of one last spring, were scorched and bare. The opportunity to finish my study of the birds had passed and for Lily’s sake, I hoped I had enough.

With one hand, I shielded my eyes against the glare pouring through the smeared glass. The other I draped over the edge of the damp sofa where I laid and my fingers brushed against something soft. I peered over the plaid Herculon cushion and groaned in agony as idle joints and muscles ground against themselves as if made of sandpaper.

My gaze fell upon the flattened sprawl of Lily’s cat. It was hard to distinguish what was fur and what was mold. I couldn’t remember when I had last fed the poor thing, not that that should ever have been my job. For me, the tragedy wasn’t the loss of companionship. It was the loss of meat.

I fell back and stared at the fly-speckled ceiling. Had I lain here long enough for seasons to end and a cat to starve to death? Or was this the result of a life once spent wholly within my own universe but now used up with waiting and wallowing in apathy?

A rhythmic thumping rattled a window on the second floor and my thoughts turned to the obligation marriage had dealt me. She was practicing. I’d need courage before checking on her but I’d have to find a reason to peel myself off the sweat-soaked couch first.

#

She told me to take her higher and who was I not to oblige her? No one ever had, she claimed. She’d told the story so many times I could recite it to the word.
“All my life, all I ever wanted was a leg up, help in making something of myself,” she said. “To go higher than anyone else I know. Then I met my first husband, Huey, God rest his soul and his measly six-dollar bank account.”

She’d go on for hours if allowed, ripping into the integrity of men she had known. After Huey came Arthur, Bill, and Ray. At the sixth or seventh telling, I tuned out the sound of that Southern, high-pitched voice drawling from between puckered, fat-squeezed lips and if she’d changed the sequence of events one bit, I neither noticed nor cared. But just between us, I often dreamt of soaring in slow, lazy circles seeking updrafts whipped by earth’s fiery tornados below. Not that I was the one who wanted to fly.

It was the birds that drove me down the same path as those who came before me, that being the path to utter bat-shit insanity. But in the end, the birds brought me hope.

Lily had hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes and made from everything imaginable. Paper Mache birds hung in every room; each windowsill was adorned with a ceramic sparrow or wooden finch. Southern windows housed tissue cardinals; northern windows were black with wrought iron wrens. Glittery eyes accused my every move in every room, in front of the television, in front of the refrigerator where birds were carved from squash with curled carrot wings.

In the john, I’d discovered some were prone to float and had to be weighed down while others sank in the streaked bowl like a rock. Elsewhere, stacks were wrapped in thin crinkly paper that had to be sent for from overseas and packed away because, frankly, enough was enough.

I hated every last one of them and if she had noticed how often her birds disappeared, she never said a word, and that was fine by me.

Lily brought the notion of flight into my world. I wasn’t looking for anything of the kind. I already had a life, thank you very much, dull and bland, a grounded one I had worked long and hard at to achieve. I didn’t need anyone mucking it up. She had baggage. Show me someone who doesn’t. Back then I was more interested in creating new and improved baggage than listening to old stuff brought aboard by someone else. It was years before I ever said thank you or showed an ounce of appreciation and I was terribly proud of never having said those words every woman longs to hear: Let me help you with that.

Even the time that horrible, pale creature crawled out from the can of beans I’d pried opened for dinner, I stood aghast and did nothing. My Lily not so much as batted an eye, threw a dishrag over the thing, and whipped it out into the garage where she ended its screeching with a heavy cement owl she may have kept handy for just such an event.

She did everything for me and not once did I notice her efforts in keeping life’s unpleasant moments from becoming bothersome. It was all about me, you know.

After that, after throwing out every can of beans in the house amid much sorrow because I love the ease of beans straight from the can, my feelings toward her shifted to something resembling, dare I say, fondness. I began to understand the depth of her devotion. I should have guessed, what with her collection and all, at how dedicated she could be. And because I’m not too big a man to own up to my faults, I cast about looking for a way to make up for all my cold fish years.

But that wasn’t what Lily wanted.

“Bring the birds,” she’d wheeze from our upstairs bedroom, the one we used to share. “The birds are my children.”

She had taken to lying down some time back. I’m not sure of the year. She said it was to ease her knees and to catch her breath. Her interest in her birds waned. About the same time, mine peaked. Who knew a Post War sketch of a preening peacock could be worth so much? It wasn’t long before I was studying, researching the value of each and in the process, I left my job and forgot about what Lily would say when she discovered her collection gone. Whereas I never wanted to become part of her sad story about men who done her wrong, when I came to my senses, after I sold the last bird, I figured not only would I be added to the list, I’d have moved far and away ahead of Arthur, Bill, and Ray.

February 9, 2010

The past week has been overly filled with writing and yard work. Yes, we’ve had a bit of sunshine and dry weather and I sure as heck-fire aren’t gonna let it go to waste.

As of 2 p.m. today, I had already finished laundry, ran a mile, wrote a little on two separate stories, answered a butt-load of email, gathered maps and manuscripts, notes and notebooks to take to the convention I’m heading to Thursday morning and organized them enough to make a person’s head spin, or at the very least, make me smile because I like being organized that way. I’ve already practiced my reading aloud because I’ll be doing a bit of that at the convention and I need to practice, practice, practice to say my own name out loud some days.

And I’m waiting for WS to come home from work where he’s been for a few hours today after working from home nearly every day for the past month since he now has a boss that works in Boise and no one really needs to be in the office much anymore. In fact, rumor has it the ‘office’ is going to soon be converted into a ‘on-demand’ meeting place and quiet space kind of building without a cubicle in sight and all employees who have proven they can work from home and actually get work done, can do so and choose to only go into the meeting center to meet face-to-face when warranted or to work if their home isn’t quiet enough to do so. No one will even have personal spaces or even desks anymore.

Welcome to the changing face of software technology. So glad we built this place to have several different quiet spots in which to work. Too bad it’s so open, whenever WS has a conference call, which is three to four times a day, every day, I can hear him throughout the house. If I’m to get any writing done at all, quality writing that will make us some money, we’re going to have to set up some ground rules with rotating working areas so we both can have a quiet place in which to work.

February 11, 2010

I’m getting ready to head out to Pasco, Washington, to one of my favorite conventions (that might change if the people in charge keep assigning me to panels the subjects of which I know not one thing about – like asteroids and quantum physics; do you think they’re trying to tell me something?).

Naturally, I’m uber prepared to leave having packed last night and carefully timing today’s activities before driving off. And just as naturally, things have decided to test my patience.

I left instructions for WS, who doesn’t like conventions or travel in the least and doesn’t go, to fill the bird and squirrel feeder when they empty while I’m gone. He’s very good at this, usually, unless his work conference calls start piling up like they steadily have been since, oh, last November. Then this morning, we discovered that for some reason, with less than two hours before I leave town, we’re out of birdseed. No idea how that happened, though flying pig syndrome might be to blame – the Starlings are back.

WS is foregoing a somewhat boring meeting this morning to race to the bird food store, located about ten miles away, that conveniently doesn’t open until an hour before I’m scheduled to depart to get a load of seed to carry us through the weekend. Meanwhile, the birds are dive-bombing our windows with poop to get our attention. When did this start happening? I’m thinking some birds with attitudes might need to be culled from the teat soon.

Socks are another issue. Apparently, they have a mind of their own; the right ones being quiet, mellow and quite conservative while the left ones being loud, boisterous, daring and perhaps a bit liberal.

Last night, with plenty of time, I did laundry. No biggie, would have done it anyway. Except when I took it from the dryer, each pair of socks was missing its match. That might happen to the rest of the world, but not here, no sir-ree Bob. I’m sure I’m just anal about such things but I don’t leave clothes lying around to get misplaced or lost. Just doesn’t happen. I’m careful, to a fault, I’m sure.

So, after a while of looking, I discovered that somehow they, surely the left socks because the rights like things to remain constant and routine, ended up between the washer and the wall, a place I have never in my life lost clothing, but nonetheless, there they were, plotting to take over the world, no doubt, meaning that I’d have to do a whole ‘nother load of nothing but four rebellious socks. A waste of electricity and water and soap but I needed those socks because they were black and I only own four pairs of black socks and I’m wearing mostly black all weekend long at the convention in Pasco. No, I wasn’t even going to entertain the idea of wearing white socks with black attire. Besides, the white ones would revolt and mysteriously come up with holes in the heels, I’m certain. They’re not as meek and safe as one would think.

Or maybe that’s just what happens in my house.

Anyway, time to pack and wait for WS to return and get those flying pigs fed. Have a good weekend and keep an eye on your socks.

#

I’ve got a dilemma. I can’t seem to get across to Drill Sergeant Dave that I don’t want to, can’t afford to, not really interested in autocrossing my car, WS’s car or any other car anytime soon. Yet he continues to push the topic every time I see him. It should be easy enough to just dodge him and stop going to car club meetings. I can do that through April without any problem. Except the problem is, autocrossing begins in May and I didn’t want to stop going to the car club meetings entirely. I just might have to though. We should all have such easy problems.

Autocrossing is the sport of driving one’s car as fast as possible through a set-up course of turns and tight corners and straight-aways without touching a pylon cone, missing a ‘gate,’ crashing or killing yourself. It takes skill, incredible concentration and consistency. Thirty-plus years ago, I used to do this on a regular basis. I was decent at it but never brought home a trophy or was highly ranked like my roommate at the time was. Then it became a rich man’s sport and I had to quit.

Two summers ago, after I opened my big mouth about doing this once upon a time, Drill Sergeant Dave and WS talked me into giving it another shot. I was curious to see if I could still do it reasonably well but I would only do so in WS’s car with WS’s permission. I will not race my own car. Just won’t do it because when I race, I get too serious about it and I drive cars hard, much harder than I ever want to push mine. I told WS it was expensive, that it could get real expensive real fast. But WS had no problem with it and in fact, was interested to see how his car would do on an autocross track. Don’t we all want to know what our car could do if pushed? Okay, maybe not but run with me here.

So I autocrossed his car and had fun and pretty much picked right up where I left off over thirty years ago. Additionally, I proved to Drill Sergeant Dave and the rest of the car club that on the rare occasions that I talk about my racing past, I’m not blowing hot air.

After the race, in my mind at least, I had nothing further to prove regarding autocrossing and that was good because the following year, the group that puts on these races five times a year decided any car that wasn’t a particular sports car could no longer race with them. Basically, they became even more snobs than they already are. All they wanted to see when they looked out across the race course was this one kind of sports car. They didn’t want to see anything else, no trucks, no Volkswagens, no Ferraris and definitely not WS’s car.

Okay, so what? I could care less. Didn’t bother me ‘cause I didn’t plan on doing it again. Too much wear and tear. Too expensive. Too ego-laden. Whatever. Moving along.

I found out that Drill Sergeant Dave had planned last month to buy an old sports car, the kind the autocross group approves of, and was going to fix it up to let me race it. Lucky for all involved, that particular car sold to some other poor sap who wanted to film it getting crushed or something like that.

NO! I said when I heard this. Shades of my last days of racing professional Go-Karts came to mind, back when I had a sponsor and we were doing well in our standings until another sponsored driver badly wrecked his kart doing something very stupid and refused to help pay for the cost of fixing it. My sponsor took that situation to heart and let me go as a driver because I had what he considered a low paying job at the time (which was actually the second highest paying job I’ve ever held) and he thought, theoretically, if I wrecked my kart, I couldn’t afford to help pay for repairs. He wouldn’t listen to reason, wouldn’t look at my five year history of never wrecking, didn’t care that at the time we were leading in season points.

So I raced one last race, sponsor-less, with an engine slapped together with spare parts provided by racer friends at the last minute with the understanding that I would no longer take their precious trophies away from them and that was the end of that.

At last week’s car club meeting, Drill Sergeant Dave gave me all the autocrossing dates for the coming season. I politely jotted them down but didn’t show any interest. I said something to the effect that perhaps once or twice I might drive all the way up to Shelton, Washington, where most of the races are held, and would perhaps play course-worker. They always need people to do that.

He said he wanted me to drive his car and I shook my head, again. He’s still pushing. I should feel honored, and I do. I mean, he trusts me to drive his baby, his 2009 ZO6 Corvette – the one with the 505 horse engine and paddle-shifters, over nearly anyone else he knows, even his own wife, who admittedly, isn’t a good driver in the least and says she’s scared witless of it. To be honest, I’ve driven a ZO6 and it was sweet, but you know, if something were to happen, if I wrecked it, tapped a pylon cone with it, if I breathed on it wrong, I could no more afford to fix it than I could afford to buy the entire GM company with the sole purpose of eliminating its SUV line for all of eternity.

No, not going to happen. Obviously, just saying thanks, but no thanks isn’t working. I need to figure out an understandable, big-ego guy way of getting my point across while not coming out of it looking like a fraidy-cat.

February 16, 2010

My trip to the convention over the past weekend was warm and wonderful full of win and I met a lot of people, published Science Fiction authors mainly like Larry Niven and C.J. Cherryh, whom I never would have mingled with before taking up writing.

And then I came home and my world fell apart and I spent the next 30 hours crying almost nonstop. WS has lost the battle to keep his job.

Technically, he still has a job until the end of October, but only if he doesn’t find something else first and if he does, well, he doesn’t get a little something called a ‘retention bonus’ to the tune of X dollars. They won’t tell us yet how much X equals. Could be a hundred bucks, could be five thousand bucks or more. But after October 31st, he’ll be out of work. This is a given. I’m calling it Option A.

Option B is to relocate to the next nearest office which is in Boise, Idaho where I’m sure the lifestyle is very good from what I’m told. But the summer heat would most probably stir up a number of hearty MS exacerbations for WS like the inability to walk, talk or see because that’s what happens to people with MS who can’t be in summer heat for longer than ten or fifteen minutes, for the entire summer.

The hitch in this option is that the offer to relocate to Boise might have been pulled off the table because of WS’ snake of a boss who, hypothetically and out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, asked if WS had ever thought of moving to Boise. WS answered with something along the lines of “Doubtful, but I’d keep that option open if I had to.” The snake boss then ran straight to the Division head and told him WS wasn’t interested in Boise. His name was removed from some list that was secretly being compiled.

WS isn’t and neither am I in moving to Boise, unless that’s the only way to keep his job which is the corner WS was painted into last Friday while I was living it up, blissfully unaware, in Pasco, Washington.

We won’t know if Boise might still be an option until later this week or the next. Something about having to have a super-secret, absolute final headcount last Friday in order to get the money together for relocation costs. Adding another head would throw the figures off and this company has never been too hip on redoing figures. Never.

Later today he heard that if the Boise offer was still open, he’d lose his current insurance benefits and have to apply for a different kind of work insurance that the Boise office uses…which may or may not have a pre-existing health condition clause written into it. We don’t know yet. The paperwork and legal wording in the policy is unbelievably confusing to decipher at best, when the paperwork can be accessed online at all. WS’ MS medication costs $1000 a month. Out of pocket expense to us right now is about $60. If such a pre-existing condition clause exists in this new insurance policy, they won’t insure WS and we’ll officially take the first step toward pre-existing medical condition bankruptcy.

Moving along we have Option C: If we pay for relocating ourselves entirely out of our own pocket, we could move to San Diego and WS ‘might’ be able to get a job with the office headquarters. Technically, his boss works out of the San Diego office but there are no guarantees and they are having attrition and layoff problems of their own. The good thing is that the insurance benefits would remain the same, but since we all know how bloody expensive it is to live in San Diego, I think that Option C is pretty much closed.

Options B and C will require us to sell our home and go back to apartment living. Having five cats will undoubtedly throw a wrench into that plan. Renting a house might be an idea, similarly to what we did before we built this house, but we’ll have to hide a few initially and only own up to having two or three depending on rental restrictions. We can live with that, hell, I’ve done that all my adult life.

Option D is the scariest of all, in my opinion but the one I’d most prefer: Staying put and WS finding a job locally. The wrenches here are that there are no jobs in this technological job-depressed area and certainly not anything that pays his current salary of 90K a year. And then there’s that whole issue with WS having MS and having to qualify for new insurance benefits of which up to 75 percent of all carriers won’t insure. Almost all that will insure MS patients have a dollar-figure cap on how much they will insure up to – usually around 1 million dollars. At $1000 a month for medication, you can see that the costs will rack up pretty quickly with that kind of plan.

But it’s better than nothing for a few years, right? Or we could apply for COBRA and be raped for $1600 a month plus medication out of pocket costs. And that’s just for him. My pre-existing condition is that I’m a woman. Don’t laugh. Some insurance carriers have actually started to write this into the policies. Fifty-two percent of the population is going to start to have fun with that one in a few years.

So, there you have it.

Options A: WS stays at his job until the end on October 31st. Then he looks for work, we apply for COBRA insurance (only good for 18 months at outrageous costs) and we hope not to lose everything shortly thereafter.

Option B: Sell our home and everything, move to Boise to keep his job if the offer is still open and potentially lose insurance benefits. Try to keep him cool in the summer and learn to drive in winter snow. Hide two or three cats somewhere occasionally and learn to live in a smaller, yet cheaper environment. I should probably mention here that Boise has already begun to shut down buildings similarly to the way the office here in town began going south about five years ago.

Option C: Sell our home and everything, move to San Diego in hopes of keeping his job, sell our home and get used to paying twice as much as our mortgage is now for a quarter or less of the space but keep benefits. Ditto on the cat hiding.

Option D: Forego some undefined retention bonus, find a new job now, cash out our measly retirement account to supplement the salary cut, potentially lose insurance benefits but keep our home and everything until things get better or worse.

What do you think?

February 18, 2010

I had a dream the night before last about being in a plane crash. Lots of people dream of plane crashes but I rarely do. I can remember one once before and that’s about it. I’m quick to say that most likely I dreamed of being in a plane crash because of the high amount of stress WS and I are both going through at the moment around his upcoming job loss and the possibility of having to sell our home and move out of state, and I think that’s a valid reason. We deal with stress differently, WS and I; he gets an eye twitch that lasts for months and obsesses obsessively over everything obsessible thing. I yell and snap and walk around feeling angry for days and weeks. And I dream.

My dream was very vivid as they usually are when I feel my back is up against a wall. It was an Alaska Airline flight. I was sitting on the left side as viewed from the back of the plane looking toward the cockpit, a side I have never inhabited in real life simply because of the whims of the seating chart gods. I had an aisle seat and no one had the window seat next to me, both also firsts. The backs of the seats in front of me displayed that old, mosaic patterned print flyers of Alaska Airline would recognize in a heartbeat. Everything else around me was white.

Outside the sky was blue without clouds. Rolling hills defined the ground, not brown but not quite green either. A tall deciduous tree or two dotted the plain. I didn’t notice any homes or farm houses, roads or cars. Perhaps I was on my way to San Diego and was nearing the central California valley area.

But the plane crash I dreamt of being in wasn’t a full-blown, Oh-My-God plummet to earth, full of smoke and fire and explosive death kind of crash. I dreamed I sensed the plane gliding downward from cruising altitude and the pilot’s voice telling us to prepare for a hard landing. All around me, people began what people in life-threatening situations such as this do. They screamed and tore at themselves and others in what everyone believed were the last moments of each of their lives. They swore and swung fists and arms and shrieked at the top of their lungs. They stood and ran and blocked the aisles, clawed to clamor over one another, to get somewhere else, anywhere else other than in the long, tin cylinder we willingly, almost unconsciously loaded ourselves into an hour before.

I remained in my seat, buckled in because once I put on the seat belt, I leave it on for the duration of my flights and somehow, amid all the screaming and violence, I quietly watched out the small, square-ish window, not all that surprised that the position of the plane against the horizon didn’t show us pointed downward like a nose-heavy arrow falling straight to earth, but that the plane was gliding silently, level almost, without smoke and flame, down to some undetermined flat spot.

Somehow I knew we’d all survive, more intact than not. Some of us would be thankful, some of us perhaps ashamed of our last moment behavior and some of us maybe a little of both. I think I’d be in that last group though that neither surprises nor alarms me. Its how I deal with things; with a lot of initial crying, a bit of yelling and screaming and a whole lot of quiet self examination. Why this change? Why now? What does this mean? How can we survive? What will happen moving forward from point of impact?

Anyway, we haven’t made a one hundred percent decision on what we’re going to do yet regarding WS’ job loss and potential move out of state just so he can keep it for a while longer, but I’m done with my crying bit, finished my yelling and screaming. WS’ eye tick is still going strong but he’s not obsessing as badly as he was just a few days ago. And we’ve done the vast majority of the quiet self examination.

The specifics haven’t been given to WS yet on what costs we would need to absorb with moving elsewhere and what the company might pitch in with, or even the hard timeline on when a move would need to occur. But we think we’ve come up with our decision. Scary times loom ahead. That much is certain. The question is: Can I ease this transition from a full-on crash into a slow, easy glide.

February 19, 2010

The specifics surrounding WS’ job relocation has gone a little like this: During a recent work conference call, WS was told a decision on whether he’d be moving to Boise was needed asap. WS replied that he hadn’t been given any relocation information yet to be able to make an informed decision. He was then told the same thing he was told last Friday, that information would be sent to him. But that in the meantime, Human Resources needed an answer now.

WS restated that until he was sent relocation information, he couldn’t make a decision yet. Yes, yes, he was told, we’ll get you that information, but you must tell us now whether you plan to move to Boise or not. We need it for our headcount, they said.

With the patience of a saint, WS again said, in his gentle, diplomatic, yet firm way, that he’d need to read through the relocation paperwork and talk it over with his family, meaning me and my tendency to lean more toward a brash “WTF?” way before making an educated and informed decision. Until the paperwork was sent to him, which it hadn’t, he couldn’t say one way or the other.

He wasn’t asked a third time. Decisions were needed by HR today.

Yesterday, Boise relocation offers were handed out to all married couples who both work at our local plant. There are several in this bucket, all engineers either in test or R and D (Research and Development). Except offers were only given to one member of each couple, excluding the other, leaving the couple to make a choice to split up – one following their job to another state effectively immediately while the other tries to stick it out here until the plant closes in October, or one remaining employed with the company in Boise and the other losing their job completely. Tacky move, in my opinion, but that’s what happened.

Then, yesterday afternoon, the entire R and D department got their walking papers. No relocation offers, no severance. All their jobs end July 1st. End of story. The real awful part here is that a quarter of the test engineering department, where WS works, was involuntarily transferred to the R and D department just three weeks ago to make the quarter headcount numbers look good on paper. Then the decision came down to let the entire department go.

Research and Development is what invents and creates the product ideas the rest of the company builds and works on over the next year or so. Without R and D, there is no need for test engineers, unless all this is being generated offshore.

Unfortunately, that can’t be blamed because that venue isn’t ready yet. Boise’s engineers are training the offshore people though. Perhaps Boise knows it’s time is coming for layoffs, perhaps they don’t know. But for employees in our town’s plant, it’s just a plain old case of “now that we’re closing one of the plants, we’ve got too many of you.”

So bye-bye to R and D, and additionally, by offering local employees Boise relocation packages that, perhaps intentionally, never arrive or that only apply to half a married engineering couple, headcount is further reduced and the numbers end up looking very, very good on paper.

Since I’ve been through all this exactly five years, one month and four days ago with the company I was laid off from, I have to wonder if the company WS still technically works for (for a remainder of time that’s anyone’s guess at this point) might not be setting themselves up to be bought by some other mega-huge corporation.

Been there, done that. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Not one bit. All that’s missing is the bigwig telling us not to take any of this personally.

WS says no. The company he’s still working a while longer for buys companies, not sets it’s self up to be bought by someone else.

Hmm, okay. If you say so.

February 21, 2010

Did you notice the credit card rule changes last week? I’d hoped not to pay it much attention but the week before did nothing but smear those rule changes in our faces.

I’ve mentioned that we carry a lot of credit card debt. No one’s fault but our own, one we take complete responsibility for, one we’ve been working hard for over a year to cut down to a more manageable size. However, those rule changes made it a whole lot harder to do that.

For reasons I can only speculate on, the powers that be gave the banks ample time to prepare for tougher regulations by not stopping them from upping their interest rates to ridiculous levels, even to those of us who have never been late on a payment and/or have always, ALWAYS paid more than the minimum due. Like us.

Ten days ago, the last couple of credit cards we carried balances on upped the low interest rates we enjoyed (definitely enjoyed too much) from 6 percent to close to thirty percent, because they could and because no one would stop them.

We complained. The patient men and women on the phone told us, in a nutshell, tough titty. Doesn’t matter if you’ve never been late on a single payment, doesn’t matter if you’ve always paid more than the minimum due, sometimes way over the minimum due. It’s not your personal debt we’re worried about; it’s the heavy debt most of our other customers carry that’s driving our interest rate changes. We’re afraid that they will default, all of them, so, sorry, but you good customers have to carry that burden by paying us more money to make up for that potential loss.

Yep, that’s what they told us, every last one of them. As a result and in one fell swoop, our personal credit card debt went from about 70K to 87K. We are so screwed, doubly so with WS’ job loss.

But there are still options. Nothing’s set in stone. The world is still one big adventure with slightly more scary edges. But with heads cleared after last week’s job loss news, we’re confident we’ve got options we can make work for us one way or the other.

February 22, 2010

It was a great dry, sunny week. Unfortunately, the strong east winds kept the outdoor wind chill temperatures down into the 30’s despite the claims that it was close to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Now that sunny weather is coming to a close and we’re back to clouds and rain tomorrow. Even now, the sky outside is white with high cloud cover instead of the clear blue of last week.

Fine by me. We couldn’t find much joy it anyay. We’ve got bigger fish to fry to have bothered much with the weather.

That’s not to say we haven’t done a bit of spring clean up. A week before the job news, we finally retired our broken rakes and bought a de-thatching tool for the front yard. WS worked on the matted grass and I spread new grass seed. He’s clipped branches out back and cleaned out the last of the dead fall leaves. I sprayed 30-second cleaner on most of the cement walkways and am always gathering birch branches the wind knocks down. Beyond that, it’s too early to do much else and I’m not sure I’ll have the motivation by April anyway.

What I need is a serious attitude adjustment.

Still no news from the company about relocation packages or timelines. I still think this is all by design. Rumors have been confirmed that they are looking for any means possible to get people to quit.

February 23, 2010

Way back in 1994, I started this journal. I’ve already admitted that it was under a different name than Blogeois and that I used a different forum. In 1996, I learned HTML and created my own journal page. Nope, none of that icky Blogger or BlogSpot stuff for me. I quickly ran into trouble. At the time, no one was doing free commenting service and I had no way to check my code against other platforms like Mac. It got very ugly, very quickly and I gave in to Blogger where I stayed for five years.

In 2001, I created Blogeois.com and again, thumbed my nose at Blogger, BlogSpot, Live Journal, Front Page, Typepad and WordPress because they just didn’t have the control I thought I wanted in a blog page. Most of them had some stuff I wanted, no one had everything I wanted. Like how to have your own header graphic. I like header graphics and it’s come to be the only thing I change (not including daily picture) thanks to advice JimBob once mentioned in a passing comment about having to reload the same icons every season because I was renaming them every season.

Silly, goofy me.

Well, I still want to have my own header graphic. And because I like to use tables in my HTML so that it looks like a professional blog with links and such on one side, I still can’t get the actual blog entries to be as wide as I’d like, resulting in terribly, terribly long-looking posts some days.

But with the end of Haloscan’s free commenting service last weekend and not happy with what else I’ve found out there to replace it, I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t just bend again and create a Blogeois.com Live Journal page.

Confession time: One already exists. And just as soon as I can remember my password so I can start posting in there again, I’ll get rid of its new backup Live Journal page, Blogeois2.com. Now don’t mind me. I’m just tearing apart the library looking for my notes.

Later update: Found it. For the time being, all posts here will be cross-posted to Blogeois.livejournal.com. Yes, it’s more work on this end but only marginally so. I don’t mind. Besides, commenting is open over there. Now go, comment away.

February 24, 2010

Today’s daily drama involves that mental health therapy WS was going to begin this week. You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

You might be half right – it’s not going to happen. But not on his account. The therapist’s office just called and cancelled his appointment. I hear stuff like this happens all the time, though rarely on a first visit. Kind of doesn’t speak well about the therapist in my opinion but it’s not mine to judge.

This can also happen, I’ve read, when a therapist or any service catches wind that their client might be out of a job soon, meaning they fear the possibility of troublesome paperwork looming in the future when dealing with workplace benefits that are spiraling toward extinguishment. WS’ therapist would have been paid for through his job benefits.

Tip to the wise: If you know you’re going to be laid off, don’t tell anyone. Not your doctor, your dentist, definitely not your banker, not even in passing to a waiter who’s running your credit or debit card to pay for your dinner. Anyone who has, however temporary access to your credit, could use that information against you. I’m not sure yet to whom and to what agency that information might be reported to. I’m trying to figure that out. It’s like going out to qualify for a house or car loan. They look at your credit, past and present and you provide them with information about your job. If you decide you need to be honest and tell them you’re about to get your pink slip, do you really think you’re going to get that loan?

Not likely. Apparently, this can also happen with your dentist or eye doctor or anyone else who might be somehow connected to your credit and/or the job benefits you use.

Now, just because I read this on the Internets, doesn’t make it true. Still, best to err on the side of caution, I say, especially right now. In the off chance the guy who makes our Subway sandwiches is reading this, I was kidding about celebrating WS’ upcoming job loss. But thanks for the extra tomato on our sandwiches!

February 25, 2010

The rain is back and that’s good. I feel we need a wash down like never before. The leaves of tulips, daffodils and other bulbs are up and the crocuses are already in bloom, as is one rhododendron (P.J.M.) in our back yard. Spring is here.

Today’s the day WS finds out what the company he’s worked for over the last eighteen years is willing to do to get him to move to Boise, where that office may or may not, depending on who you talk to, be in the very early stages of shutting down similarly to what’s happened here over the past five years. We suspect actual dollar amounts will still be withheld and I find this absolutely unbelievable at this point.

But here’s what we do know.

Shutting down this town’s office and relocating a small portion of the professional workforce to Boise is being done on what employees have been told is a ‘whim’ of the new guy in charge, who just happens to live in Boise. Command struggle and territory grabbing tactics are at play between the long standing seat of the division, powerhouse San Diego, and little, old Boise, known up until very recently as the unwashed armpit of the entire company. Clearly, resentment has been building. Everything came to a head last year when San Diego stretched beyond its tolerable reach and bitch-slapped the top Boise office executive down to the unemployment line.

That’s why all this is happening. The top Boise guy is holding a grudge and doesn’t care if lives are crushed under his war wagon wheels. This is war and employees are expendable.

Regarding relocation terms for those ‘privileged’ few to be offered such, I’m not the only one who believes the level of unprofessionalism regarding the secrecy surrounding these terms resulting in the upheaval of so many lives outstrips anything seen in this neck of the woods since Tektronix left town over twenty years ago and single-handedly collapsed the local economy. We’re not talking disgruntled factory workers here; all those were let go almost ten years ago and for the most part, our town has gotten over it. I’m referring to overly-intelligent, highly paid professionals.

I’ll probably get into trouble for that last statement. It sounds snobbish and elitist and let me be the first to agree with anyone who takes exception. This company hasn’t had need of its factory or lower wage employees for a decade, since the component building was moved offshore to India and Singapore. WS and I both had friends who were affected negatively by that, and WS’ department has been working under a reign of layoff fear and duress ever since.

But something changes in a town when a big corporation pulls up roots and leaves the state entirely. Sure, our ten remaining Starbucks locations might take a little hit on latte and scone purchases because a portion of their white collar customers won’t be stopping by every morning on their way into the office. Engineering Experts and Masters might need to pull their kids out of private school, will buy or lease less Mercedes and BMWs, won’t be able to justify shopping at Nordstrom’s once a month.

Or maybe nothing will change, with the exception of those professionals moving elsewhere so they can continue more of the same lifestyle. Being a blue-collar worker almost my entire life, having come from the wrong side of the tracks yet finding myself, somehow, married to a white-collar worker, I gleefully embraced a few of these things. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that these high maintenance people have skewed views of living standards and for the most part, will demand that they continue to have such things available at their disposal. And they will go elsewhere if need be to get them.

Boise does not have such things. Oh sure, they have Starbucks; show me a state that doesn’t. They have Mercedes and BMW dealerships and I’m sure they have something reportedly similar to Nordstrom. They have private schools and high-end nail and tanning salons. I hear they even have drive-thru Botox centers now.

But let me share something someone close to me and whom I respect said when she heard WS and I might have to relocate to Boise on someone else’s whim. “Boise’s a cool town. The only trouble with it is that once you step outside the city limits, you’re in Idaho. Something to think about.”

It’s not so much that I don’t want to live in Boise or in Idaho; I’m deeply saddened by how our local, depressed economy here is going to be affected. This is truly a great town, a great little city. But even optimistically, I eventually see it returning to its roots as a poor farming community; Goat Town as it was once called, only this time, without all the farms that have long since disappeared, and without all the goats either, unless you consider those as anyone who’s still around. We don’t think that’ll be us but it’s still too early to know for certain.

February 26, 2008

Finishing yard cleanup this weekend. 3 trees to be cut down. Adding to garage sale list: Big plant pots. No more veggie growing; takes too much water and time that neither of us (meaning me) has. Keeping the bird houses for the time being but cleaning out our little storage shed of more unnecessary outdoorsy stuff.

Yesterday’s job loss news: Those in high positions who claim they have important stuff to say often say little to nothing of importance at all. Listen up, they’ll spout, but it’s hard to find value in the noncommittal dribble coming from their mouths.

Such was the case yesterday when WS was supposed to find out about job relocation plans to Boise, what all that would entail and how much it would cost. He got a big dose of ‘We don’t know yet’ and ‘That information has yet to be determined.’ He got a whole lot of basically nothing.

So why did the company HR head fly into town? To tell him and his coworkers ‘We need to be discreet about what being shared because it’s upsetting employees.’

No! You think? Whose fault is that?

Then, just this morning, word came down that supposedly, the cut off date for those being offered relocation packages has been extended a week. Speculation has it the reason behind this is because most employees aren’t taking relocation, meaning, they’re willing to lose their jobs beginning this July. People are willing to take their chances elsewhere. From what’s being said, no one’s confident in this company change. Not being upfront with the hard information hasn’t helped the division manager’s case one bit. A mass exodus is in the planning stages.

We also found out over half of WS’ coworkers weren’t offered relocation packages, and in fact, WS hasn’t officially been offered a relocation package himself. The company just wants these people gone, preferably without having to pay them a cent more than need be. None of these people were offered retention bonuses. None will get severance pay. People are pissed.

Making the whole matter worse, word’s gotten back from the Boise office to our local office here on how bad working and living in Idaho really is.

“It’s a very depressed market here in Boise, in every sector, not just in this company,” it was said. “The town’s drying up. The company’s going to move you here and then dump you here, in some kind of promise to the local government to try to boost the economy. Unless you’ve got a wad in the bank, you’ll be stuck here for the rest of your life. Don’t come if you can’t handle that truth.”

Wow, okay, but do you believe it?

Last night, WS and I did a little research and well, sad to say but it would appear that those people are right. The city’s not doing well at all. And do you know how badly the Idaho real estate market has tanked since 2007? OUCH! I guess things will turn around eventually, but that’s years out at best. Even Forbes magazine rated Boise one of the worst places to live if you want to make anything more than a hard-scrabble, living wage and that only the significantly lower cost of living compared to most cities of equal size is what’s saving it from becoming a ghost town. I found it telling that this morning I saw no less than four commercials within a half an hour for REDC and auction.com advertising hundreds of foreclosed homes in Idaho to be sold this weekend ‘at forced auction prices’ at a big hotel in Portland.

Moving forward, the company would like their local employees here to return back to square one. WS’ isn’t supposed to remember when the local office is closing up shop, he isn’t supposed to worry about not having a job, theoretically anytime past this weekend, he isn’t supposed to wonder if he will receive a relocation package, retention bonus, severance or even his unused vacation pay. He’s been told its back to business as usual and if anything ‘upsetting’ crosses your desks, remember it’s not personal, its business. (What was I just saying last week?)

So WS and I won’t add the retention bonus, severance or unused vacation pay figures to our ever-changing Option plans or budget. If he receives anything more than a pink slip and a security escort to the door, we’ll consider it frosting on the cake.

But this is certain: We’re not moving to Boise, especially on some Johnny-Come-Lately division head’s whim. You can cross that Option off the list.

Another certain thing: This is no worse than anything either of us has been through before. Together, we’ll get through this and find a silver lining that fits us.

February 27, 2010

Looks like it’s going to be a glorious early spring day outside. Local weathermen promised us a morning of showers and fog but we’ve seen neither and doesn’t look like anything’s coming in from the southwest, the direction most of our rain-filled clouds come from.

Cap’t Dan behind us is pressure-washing his tiny wood deck using an electric pressure washer that while less damaging to the environment with it’s lack of gas usage and fumes, takes five hours to do what a gas-powered pressure washer does in under an hour. I wouldn’t have the patience. Then again, maybe he’s got nothing but.

Once I get some writing done and a little running on the treadmill in, I plan on working outside most of the day. Trees have to come down and serious amounts of thinning and cutting back have to occur around the back of the fountain where I haven’t seen the surrounding boulders for going on four years for the mound of star jasmine that thrives there.

In our area, star jasmine is often used as an annual. It’s a tropical and we certainly aren’t a tropical area. Replacing star jasmine every year would be an expensive habit to get into. But if you love the smell throughout the summer, you might poo-poo the cost. We can’t but we’re lucky in that our backyard, with our thick, heavy plantings, contains many micro-climate areas that allow tropical plants to survive, even under light snow and ice.

But I’d really like to see the fountain bones, the boulders that make up the structure, especially on the far side. I’ve also got some thinning to do of a bright, yellow thread-leaf cedar that drapes over a section of rock, and the continuance of getting rid of a lovely red-trumpet-shaped flowering perennial that the hummingbirds enjoy, but has gotten out of control over the years in that it’s coming up in the middles of trees and evergreens all over the place now. Had I realized this was a runner-type of perennial, I never would have planted it in the ground. We don’t have much ground back there, definitely not enough to warrant a yard-full of red trumpet flowering perennial, as pretty as it is.

Last year, I bought a magenta-colored version of the same perennial and wisely planted it in a pot. It requires more watering that way and eventually, its own thick, matted roots will choke itself to death, but containing it eliminates hours I don’t have to pull and dig it out of everything else growing back there. And the hummingbirds like it in a pot just as well.

March 1, 2010

While it wasn’t anywhere near as sunny or dry as the local weathermen forecasted, it was dry enough to get the vast majority of our spring yard work done, including removal of two of the three trees we’re taking down this year. I also bark-mulched the entire front yard and while February is way-way too soon to normally be doing such things, the early spring weather and the overload of other stuff we’ll be worrying about later this spring dictated bark-mulching be done now.

And now, the front yard has been staged for potential sale of the house should it come down to that.

No new news on the job loss or relocation front. Just your typical hurry-up-and-wait scenario. We’ll take it today and spend the time taking our first deep breath in just over two weeks.

March 2, 2010

The neighborhood flowering plum trees are blooming pink flowers, the only time these trees are pretty in my opinion. The multi-trunked trees have weak wood and often entire sections become infested with aphids and disease and snap easily in the east winds that howl down our streets. But they look nice now and I love when the petals blow loose in the breeze and create that dreamy look, like the magical land in the 1980’s movie, “Legend.” Yes, that fantasy one with Tom Cruise, Mia Sara and Tim Curry.

Little-to-no news on WS’ job front. Yesterday he found out that three office positions were going to be kept here in our area and those would work from a small office location yet to be established; three jobs, three people, from the two hundred locally-held jobs. A year ago, there were about a thousand people. Two years ago, fifteen hundred. Ten years ago, just under six thousand.

Last week, twenty people were given relocation cost information, which is vastly different from being offered relocation packages. For only for a handful were the offers made official. Nothing else counts. The rest, the other fifteen, are being kept in limbo.

Day-to-day business is expected to go on as if nothing were amiss. I’m waiting for the cracks to appear.

I asked WS the other day, if he thought anyone at the office might do something rash and bring a weapon to work. He said no, but isn’t that what everyone says in such circumstances?

I’m not being paranoid here. Some people, his coworkers, are very upset and a number have been unhappy for a long time. Could you blame them? After twenty-three rounds of layoffs, the new division head suddenly decides to close one of the most productive offices in this branch of the company in an admitted power play move to show the San Diego office who’s really in charge. Workers are burnt out and worn out, not from doing any actual work (or each the work of three-five people) but from dodging the political gamers and now, having learned they’ve lost.

So yeah, I still think it was a legitimate question to ask and since asking it and hearing WS’ answer, I won’t think of it again. It sounds like relocation will begin next month. The managers are going first, to Boise, to acquaint themselves with the office and Boise employees, to smooth the transition for those who might follow.

Wouldn’t it be funny if no one else did?

That would be the easiest elimination of employees ever and wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly what the company’s banking on to happen.

March 3, 2010

A cold day here today with thick clouds and a healthy drop in temperatures from the 60’s (Fahrenheit) that teased us over the past weekend. The good thing is that next weekend is shaping up to be a repeat of the last. I’m hoping to continue the work of bark mulching, in the backyard this time, because boy, oh boy, does this back-breaking work ever clear out my mind. Like taking baths and showers help some writers, hard landscape labor floods my brain with ideas. Good thing I don’t mind the work so much.

A mere trifle of job information trickled through last night. The division manager who called for our local office and plant to close was expected in town today, specifically to discuss WS’ possible relocation to Boise. Then the guy never showed up, never made it into town and doesn’t have plans to show up anytime soon.

Basically, WS got stood up. I told him not to hold his breath. This manager has a past history of doing such. But he’s a division head manager so he can get away with it. Yeah, right.

On a semi-related topic: Okay, I have to ask. What’s with all the mobile homes and acres of trailer parks in the Santa Clara/Sunnyvale California area? Sure, they’re practically giving them away at 129K and under compared to half a million for a 500 square foot studio apartment/condo conversion. And yes, they can make them attractive inside, but ugh, the exteriors. And ugly, ugly trailer parks.

Wanna see how whack the for sale housing/condo market is in that area? Type Sunnyvale, CA into zillow.com. Then type in Palo Alto, CA. I’m sure the housing bubble burst there too, right? *wipes hand across forehead* Then what were the prices for tiny, dinky places before then??

March 3, 2010

WS has been offered relocation package B to move to Boise. They want him settled in there by August 1st. He has to give his answer, yes or no, no later than 5 p.m. Friday, March 12th. Earlier in the day, his boss in San Diego asked him to go to Boise for a few days the third week of March, to work with a few people there on the current project.

Odd timing.

March 4, 2010

Have you ever watched the NFL draft? Young men in suits sitting not so comfortably in auditorium seats too small for their muscular, athletic frames flanked by parents eager to see their cream-of-the-crop son rise above the grind they themselves struggle daily to keep up with.

That’s not too far and away of how we’ve felt waiting for word on whether WS would receive an official offer for relocation to Boise. Unlike those dreamy young men with visions of gold-plated Escalades, parties with Hef and shapely women hanging off each arm, WS doesn’t want any part of the offer. To accept would likely be the final hole we’d never crawl out from.

So it’s not all hope and eagerness, optimism and starry-eyed anticipation here.

I received an email the other day from someone I used to know who’s kept up with my whining on this latest job drama and they said we ought to suck it up and ‘get the hell out of Dodge.” “Because you go out of your way to view life negatively, you deserved to crash and burn,” they said. They went on to say they were tired of seeing us come out of so many things ‘smelling like a rose’ and ‘doing so well when [they’ve] struggled all along.’

Well then. Haters, you gotta love ‘em because well, you can’t shoot ‘em.

Who wouldn’t love to come out ‘smelling like a rose?’ Personally, I never saw it that way (big surprise, I know). Must be my blinders blocking the view.

That said, last week I was talking to someone after a writer’s group meeting and we were both lamenting our perceived dire financial straits. And suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, my friend said, “But aside from all that, this really is a good life, a really, really good life.”

I stopped for a moment and thought about that and I had to agree one hundred percent. My friend had summed it up perfectly.

Whatever the outcome, whatever our final choice, we’ll begin again with new worries, new pain, new crashes and burns and perhaps even new adventures. I’ll still whine and lament like always, trying to appear to suck it up but perhaps only fooling myself.

But whatever the conclusion, I’m sure I’ll still agree that this is a really, really good life.

March 6, 2010

On this soon-to-be warm and dry pre-spring Saturday, I hope to get half our backyard bark mulched while removing the rest of the fall leaves that tucked themselves very well under rhodies and azaleas. Today, WS will be removing additional trees from our back and side yards. This is in addition to the two he cut down last weekend. We already have enough yard debris bagged for the next three yard debris pick ups which in our neighborhood, is every other week. We’re going to be looking at stacks of branches and pieces of trunks for a long while, I think.

I asked Mr. Dimmer if he wanted any of the wood for burning in his fireplace. He’s one of only three in our entire development who have a wood burning fireplace as opposed to the natural gas fireplaces the rest of the development preferred.

He said no which surprised me a little. He was all about burning anything he could get his hands on up until last year. Then he said his fireplace was out of commission. I must have looked confused because he said they had burned so much crap and food in it when they couldn’t afford garbage pickup for years, the flue was clogged. And whenever they tried to burn anything in it now (the flue is clogged and yet they still try to burn stuff??), it turns the wall and ceiling gray.

Gee, now why would you suppose that would happen, hmm?

The Dimmers. It’s not just a clever name.

So anyway, our side yard will be stacked as tall as the fence with branches and cut tree trunks and heavy plastic bags containing spring clean up yard debris and yes, I won’t be able to bark mulch over there until everything’s gone which will most likely be sometime in May but damn, if the rest of the yard won’t look good!

And the whole thing will be done in perfect timing to worry about more important things, like whether we get to keep this place or have to sell and move to find jobs. If we have to sell and move, that’ll be the least ideal time to have to whip it into shape. But if we can stay, we can enjoy this place to the fullest, knowing the work outside, front and back, is done until fall.

Don’t even get me started on repainting the last room(s) in our house. That necessity is coming soon enough.

March 9, 2010

It snowed here yesterday afternoon. Only for about five minutes and then hail wiped out most of anything that stuck. The local weather forecasters say it’s going to do the same today and even though I don’t trust any of them as far as I could physically throw them, it’s pretty safe to say I won’t be driving anywhere. Today’s writing day but because the memory of trying to get home in Portland’s unexpected late December blizzard is still fresh, I’m choosing to write from home today, which ought to ensure the day will be perfectly pleasant for man and beast alike.

Yesterday I rewrote the beginning of something I’m working on for an April deadline. WS hated the original unfinished story and I’ve no doubt he’ll hate this one too. My error is in asking him to read it before I’ve written the ending and that’s hard not to do because I have the worst, absolute worst time figuring out endings to anything I write. Some part of my brain is convinced WS will spark something within me that’ll make an ending obvious.

But of course, it never works that way, and I never seem to learn the lesson.

Half the bark mulching is done in the backyard with the other half happening sometime after the week’s forecasted rain and after the remaining scheduled trees are cut down. Half the yard debris is gone already due to being able to cram more in the bin than expected, though we’re still running about a full load ahead of pickup. I think we’ll be caught up in early April and by then, our yards will be ready for summer enjoyment and I’ll move on to finishing up painting indoors.

No news on WS’ future job loss other than to say the big boss promises to be in town later this week. Not.Holding.Breath. Don’t think it’ll matter anyway. We’re still hashing over options; up to six different ones now, some fun and exciting, all terrifying as hell.

March 11, 2010

Shortly after I arrived at the grocery store yesterday, it began hailing outside. The store has a warehouse-style roof (though it’s not a warehouse grocery store). The sound of the hail on the metal roof was loud and although I knew what the sound was and could easily look out the windows to see it, apparently not many shoppers in the store knew what to make of it.

In fact, many were screaming their fear into their cell phones. “I don’t know what it is.” “My god, I think they are running the fans. THE FANS!” (I have no idea why running fans would be such a scary thing but this woman was literally screaming this in to her phone.)

The store seemed full of crying children terrified by their screaming parents, none of whom would look past their own noses to see that it was hailing outside and the sound was simply hail on the roof.

Good god, is this what people are becoming? Morons afraid of their own shadows?

Fear is rampant. So much for telling employees to stop upsetting each other by spreading truths and rumors. That’s like opening the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich snack bar after Elvis has left the building.

WS had an internal company interview the other day, one that didn’t go well. He said he wasn’t at his best and he could tell the interviewer wasn’t at her best either. She left him with an unprofessional parting shot questioning his job, his role and his title; a single, fragment of a sentence, a comment that could’ve easily been held in check, but so telling of how deep the fear runs in some departments over the upcoming job loss.

And how ruthless they will be to keep their own. This interviewer, this woman wasn’t in immediate jeopardy of losing her job but by bringing WS on board, it would ensure one of her close coworkers wouldn’t be promoted. Not laid off, mind you, just not promoted. In her mind, that’s one step away from being found redundant and a half step away from lay off. So she called WS to the mat and implied he wasn’t what he appeared.

In my eyes, clearly, this isn’t a department I’d want to have anything to do with but that’s not my decision to make. We do what we have to do; we deal with what we have to deal with. I say learn from the experience and move forward. He seemed to agree but if I’ve learned anything over the years of living with WS, it’s not that easy.

Naturally, the comment ate at him for days, completely wiping out the twenty-one years of confidence I’ve tried to instill in him. In his head, he’s back to listening to his mother, his grandmother, his ‘friends’ and enemies, most of whom had him for twenty-three years before I tried to repair the damage.

This isn’t the first time I’ve complained about him still believing everyone else but me, even after I’ve been proven right time after time. It won’t be the last. More damage has been done to our relationship over the years on this one topic alone than anything else, creating at times and again, I say so in my opinion, a quiet, reserved yet hostile home environment.

But to him, he doesn’t get it, never has, and probably never will. He doesn’t see it that way. This is his comfort zone, questioning anything he’s ever been, everything he’s ever done. To talk to him about it causes his eyes to glaze over faster than fresh, hot donuts on the conveyor belt at Krispy Kreme. This is just where he’s chosen to live his life where what everyone else says is truth, anything I say is background noise.

Nothing’s wrong. It’s life as usual. Same ol’ same ol’.

March 12, 2010

Yesterday I had a decent writing day in that I figured out an ending to the story I’m working on.

Today my writing day turned into a sucky pile of goo because I don’t have the middle to go with the ending to the story I’m working on.

Yeah, I thought I wanted to be a writer. I’m having serious second thoughts.

WS’ prom date finally showed up, a week late. The Division Manager who was supposed to meet with WS last week sauntered into town yesterday, no apology given other than to say he had his date wrong. Sounds like someone needs to fire an executive assistant.

Or was it a test? Coming from a company now known, according to Forbes Magazine, for pushing employees hard and without mercy, through tests of personal trial and tribulation, I kind of think it was just that, a test.

The Boise relocation offer is officially off the table. Moving to Boise is not anywhere in line with our personal objectives and aspirations moving forward. In fact, it’d nearly bury us financially. The Division Manager accepted this and thanked WS for his honesty. He said he knew the relocation would hurt a lot of people, offhandedly mentioned that most of them just didn’t know it yet.

I find that information scary.

The Division Manager wanted to give WS a retention offer to stay working here in town until the end of the fiscal year, which is the end of October. But he couldn’t because the assistant typed up the offer wrong. Wrong dates or something like that. WS didn’t get to see it so we have to take the Division Manager’s word on it.

Another test? Hmm…

For the record, no dollar figure was attached to this alleged offer. Reportedly, retention offer money has traditionally been given in such cases and is based on number of years worked but even so, no one could agree that those rules hadn’t changed in the past twenty-four hours year.

Even if WS finally gets an official offer, literally in his hands, and accepts the retention offer to stay until the end of October, he’ll have no idea what amount, if anything, he might get in addition to what we hope will still be a monthly paycheck until then. I say might because we’ve heard one report of an employee who had to give the money back, because the company changed its mind. No reason. Just changed their mind.

This is the new model of corporate business where employees are expected to continue their undying gratitude to work eighteen-nineteen hour days seven days a week regardless of pay, or lack of.

WS had another internal company job interview yesterday evening. It looked promising right up to the point where WS learned the only position available would be a step down from his current position. Definitely not what he’d been led to believe would be the case.

In this field of work, even in this job climate, stepping down in job level, even taking a lateral move, is considered a nail in the career coffin, regardless of whether that’s the only job available or not, regardless of whether you stay with the company or go elsewhere. It shows weakness and a willing acceptance of allowing oneself to be walked all over. It exhibits a belief in the lack of one’s own value and future employers are hesitant to hire such people. I guess it makes sense. Who would want an employee who didn’t stand up for oneself? Who wants a doormat?

In this interview, again, no pay could be discussed other than to say he would definitely not be looking at a pay increase anytime in the foreseeable future. And by foreseeable, they mean the next ten years.

We’re back to square one. But he’s got a job for the time being. We need to count that as something good.

March 14, 2010

It should have been a quiet Sunday morning, the first Daylight Savings Time day of the year, a day when three times as much coffee needs to be consumed to get through it. But that would have been too easy.

Early this morning (yes, on Sunday), WS received an email congratulating him for “landing a position” with a team in another department. This came from the big cheese, the Division head.

Certainly, this would be great cause for celebration, had WS actually received an offer for a position with a team in another department. The sad fact is, the team leader of that department was the one WS had an interview with last week in which he was told the position would be a step down from his current job. Essentially, the nail in the career coffin job. Additionally, all truths being told, the position did not or would not come with a salary increase quite possibly ever. Team leader’s words, not ours.

Just to be perfectly clear, the job was NOT offered to WS, and therefore, he couldn’t have accepted the offer because there wasn’t one. He didn’t land anything.

Okay, who looks stupid here? Before you answer…

WS had to work all weekend. On top of ‘deliverables’ that are due tomorrow morning, he had to sort through all this misunderstanding mess, contacting his current manager (who was none too happy), the other department team leader (who was WAY confused), HR and the Division Manager who WS is still waiting on to receive retention offer details…only to find out through round-about means that his old boss, Mr. Snake-in-the-Grass had set the whole misinformation thing into motion.

It was all a set up. The guy has nothing what so ever to do with WS any longer and hasn’t for over a month and still, he set WS up.

I’m sure Mr. Snake got a big laugh out of it. And will get an even bigger laugh after hearing that WS wasn’t able to complete the tasks due.

This is what that guy does, particularly when people no longer work under him.

You see, Mr. Snake takes all management changes personally, doubly so if his ex-employees have nothing to do with management changes. That’s when Mr. Snake works overtime on burying the employees, systematically, one by one, for what we can only assume is that ex-employees no longer serve a purpose to Mr. Snake. In fact, Mr. Snake is responsible for causing so much internal job grief that many of his ex-employees have left the company. Of course, Mr. Snake is rewarded for that. He just saved the company from having to pay severance and unused vacation pay! Let’s pay one hundred percent of his relocation expenses to Boise for our gratitude.

If any part of this could be considered humorous, it’d have to be that Mr. Snake did all this, not from across the aisle where he used to sit from WS, but from Boise, where Mr. Snake and his family’s been since the end of February. And before dawn on a Sunday morning, no less.

WS had seen this happen time and again over the four years he worked under the guy. All too well we know Mr. Snake’s next step: To put the bug in the ear that no one should offer a job to someone who isn’t able to keep up with the work load.

Yep. That one’s coming. Mark my words.

March 20, 2010

While I’m waiting for another dry spell (which at the earliest might happen late next weekend) and during this panic and wait job period, I’m trying to get a lot of little things done around the house. You know, those little things that eventually add up to a whole crap load of stuff and just when you figure it’s not all that bad, the house falls apart?

Okay, nothing’s that bad but I swear I could have swung around the bedroom on the number of cobwebs wafting around the ceiling. A winter of gray followed by one sunny day and suddenly the ceilings look like a thick, spidery jungle up there. Ugh.

Chandeliers are clean, outside windows washed, three-quarters of the bark mulch laid. Still to do: All artwork nail holes need filling and painting (this is gonna take forever), upstairs laminate floor chip repair needed (mere minutes to do), three trees need cut down (just messy and well, messy) and what better time than now to get the final upstairs painting done?

Regrettably, our master bedroom ceiling didn’t have the same final drywall finish that the downstairs ceilings had been given when this place was built. I didn’t know that at the time. And the cream aged faux finish I put on those downstairs ceilings, the ones I love enough to never paint over, didn’t translate well upstairs. Luckily, I only tried to replicate it in our bedroom. But that’s a tall vaulted ceiling.

So going into next week, I’ll return it back to its original flat white color while balancing higher than anyone my age probably ought to be. Good thing I don’t mind painting or balancing on tall ladders. Ditto in the master bathroom. Returning painted ceiling back to white. Putting fresh coat of paint over seven year old butter pecan color.

Eight months after getting rid of our red living room did I realize why the paint I used in there didn’t match the same latte color of the kitchen: The kitchen was painted with eggshell paint. The living room paint was semi-gloss. Stupidly, I had forgotten that little detail and when I was working to blend the two rooms together, I painted over parts of the adjoining walls and they don’t match up. Duh.

No worries. I can fix all that soon because the paint I’ll use in our bedroom is the same color, same semi-gloss paint that I used in the living room. The kitchen wall that needs work is a relatively small wall and can be repainted quickly. Good thing I always buy extra paint.

Back up in the master bedroom, I’m still tempted to put a darker shade on one of the walls, the bed headboard wall. I use a paint color palette from the paint company and I think a dark-ish tan in the same hue range as the latte color would look nice, and still be marketable too should we have to sell this place. If I really don’t like the result, and I don’t expect that’ll be the case, repainting one wall is a heck of a lot better than painting the whole room. I can handle that.

The whole painting thing will probably take me a week or two because it’s a big room, completed vaulted up some twelve feet in spots and is full of ungodly, heavy furniture. Look for before and after photos soon, but not too soon.

March 21, 2010

Small dogs scratch and whine incessantly at a back sliding glass door. It’s the same every day, rain or shine, thirty degrees or a hundred and five. Scritch, scritchy, scratch, whine, whine, whine. It’s why we keep all the windows in the back of our house tightly closed even though we’ve got a water fountain out there that would be great to listen to.

Rocks fly over the fence from The Renters. It’s like we’ve taken a two-year step backward in time. WS went over and talked to Mr. Renter yesterday, alone, after glaring but not saying a peep to the youngest Renter kid sitting on top of our shared fence who with a friend was stripping bark from our birch trees and after gathering softball-sized rocks off our front yard grass and picking a handful of golf ball-sized ones off the cement in back. WS went over there at my insistence because we all remember what transpired when I went over there and because WS didn’t want to do anything but look up legal services and surveillance camera stuff online.

Nothing changed then, if you don’t count the year-long daily spitting and flipping us off at every occasion. Nothing has changed now.

But at least our house wasn’t set on fire overnight. For the first time in years, I honestly feel threatened living in my own house.

Two weekends ago, The Renters chopped down a couple of bushes that had gotten out of control on their property. They left the branches lying in their side front yard (an area approximately five feet wide by fourteen feet long), the one next to our front yard. We’ve had two big windstorms since and every morning I’ve pulled their branches out of our flower beds and grass and laid them back in their side yard. Every morning since, I’ve had to do the same.

This is no different than last year when they did the same thing with another bunch of shrubs. This year, however, unlike last year, we can’t afford to pay for yard debris pickup where our bin is filled with their dead branches picked up from our yard. Unfortunately, WS didn’t talk to Mr. Renter about that little problem.

WS wants surveillance cameras even more than he has wanted them in the past. I still fail to understand why we seem to have this level of neighbor problem and no one else seems to. Why is it a crime to keep a place nice? Wouldn’t that just help to raise surrounding property values? Why is it flawed to expect people and kids to have respect for other’s property? Why does this matter to us and only us? And why do people allow members of their own families to get away with perceived destructiveness under the guise of “Kids (Boys in this case) will be kids” and a shrug of the shoulders?

I just don’t get it. All my young life, when I quite literally had little to my name, all I ever wanted was nice stuff. Now, as a maturing adult, when I think I’ve got it and am starting to enjoy it, others are just as determined to ruin it. Those, I am supposing here, who are to look out and guide those young destroyers, don’t think it’s a big deal in the least.

I think our days are numbered here, in the house we built with love a decade ago, regardless of WS’ job-issues and the eventual turnout of that. Now might be time to pull out and begin the move countdown clock.

March 29, 2010

Accomplishments so far this March:

Chopped down six trees, cut up, stacked and/or bagged debris for yard debris disposal.
Shopped for and failed, again, to find/agree upon outdoor firepit for burning tree wood.
Uncovered and set up backyard patio furniture.
Cleaned three-quarters of the backyard cement.
Finished bark mulching entire property.
Repainted entire master bathroom.
Repainted entire master bedroom (including returning bad faux-finish painted ceiling to stock white).
Bought and hung drapes for master bedroom (that never had drapes before).
Paid off first (and lowest) credit card bill to tune of almost nine thousand dollars.
Worked with editor on story for October publication.
Gave up work on anthology story due to high stress.
Created requested artwork for car club flyer for event that was then cancelled due to economy. Received no acknowledgement or thanks whatsoever for work.
Gave up on LiveJournal version of Blogeois.com because of site script crashes. Another solution is in the works.
Made decision not to sell everything and move to Boise, Idaho to keep WS’ job, which would come with a demotion and further salary cut in keeping with Boise’s failed economy. Still waiting on painfully-slow, yet promised, further job loss/opportunity information from company. WS’ job still slated to end either July 1st or October 31st.
Took my car for a drive, twice.
Planted old lily bulbs.
Avoided all Internet and computer use for three straight days. It was heaven.

Yeah, I’ve been busy.

Still to do:
Pressure wash house and cement walkways.
Freshen paint in kitchen.
Make garage cabinet space for leftover house paint.
Garage Sale!
Learn to manage time better with WS working from home.
Stop eating out.
Lose ten pounds by first week in July.

April 2, 2010

Please excuse my mess while I work on a redesign of Blogeois.com, with luck, maybe even a commenting feature that actually works.

April 4, 2010

Testing new Blogeois.com blog with comments!
After a big fat fail on getting a free comment service to work for Blogeois.com, the old format, it was a clear case of you get what you pay for and I got nothing. We’ll give this new format a try and see what you think. Go ahead and kick the tires, look under the hood and tell me what you think, what you like and dislike and any problems you might run into. I really want to know how this works for you.

A big thanks to Jafer for letting me know how the LiveJournal version of Blogeois.com was misbehaving. It was doing the same (and worse) for me and unless anyone spoke up, I could only assume I was the only one affected.

End of pre-Wordpress Archives. Please click Archives from main Blogeois.com page to continue forward. Thanks for reading!