Can't Lose for Winning

You know how some days you can’t win for losing? It appears that on other days you can’t lose for the winning. Who knew?

Now as this blog has proven, I have been surprised by the blindness of this place in the back of beyond in failing to see what they have right in front of them – that would be me. The experienced, hard-working retail manager with a perfectionist bent that just wants a bloody job!

Well so far there are no manager jobs on the horizon (there is one that I’m fairly hopeful about) but at long last there are other jobs that seem to be coming out of the woodwork looking for me. You know I am no longer all that picky – funny how unemployment will do that to you. I figure any job will do at this point and I’ll worry about “career” jobs later.

All the little green gods being willing I will hopefully have a job by the end of the week.

Crossed fingers would be appreciated but are not mandatory.

Rant of Worthiness

This not finding a job thing is really starting to get ridiculous. I am a professional PEOPLE!!! You WANT me....you REALLY do!

10 ways to drive your Mom crazy

#1 Bark incessantly until your citronella collar is empty then bark whenever the feeling strikes you.

#2 Perpetrate a prison break from your cell (kennel).

#3 Work tirelessly to breach the perimeter (knock out the baby gate).

#4 Start a systemic search and destroy mission starting in the basement. Dig through all the kitty litter eat the good stuff and scatter the rest of it all over the floor.

#5 Move upstairs to the kitchen...eat all the cat food in the bowls, then knock over the cat food container and apply force (teeth, teeth and more teeth) to bust open the container and eat until full.

#6 Dump the lidded trash can over and scatter coffee grounds etc. all over the kitchen and into the carpeted dining room, grinding it in where appropriate. Take big pieces of garbage and hide them all over the house as presents for Mom (this will take some time but is well worth the effort when Mom finds them).

#7 Move in to the living room and show Mom why it's a bad idea not to clean the coffee table before she goes to work. Take everything on the coffee table and scatter it all over the floor. Chew a few bills so Mom realizes that some thought and effort went in to this concerted attack on her office space.

#8 Now move in on the hallway and attack the treat drawer. Use whatever means necessary to pull out the drawer in the process blocking the front door so Mom won't be able to get in when she gets home. Once you have the drawer open make sure to eat as many pigs ears as you can handle (you can always come back and work on them through the day as you do have hours left before Mom gets home). When you get tired of the pigs ears break in to the bag of Evo treats that Mom only let's you have one or two of a day because they are way too rich for you. Eat your fill!

#9 By now it's time to take a break until Mom gets home. When you hear her try to get in the front door and it won't open, run to the back door to meet her, barking the whole time so she knows how excited you are that she's home. When she finally gets in the house give her your cutest face and look hurt when she starts to yell.(in the spirit of teaching you from my experience...you might wanna hide instead of meeting your Mom at the door)

#10 After Mom has destroyed all your hard work by putting everything back, and you have spent a long time outside guarding the back yard, you go to bed with Mom. When she wakes up you make sure that all that stuff you ate has come out the appropriate end right where she puts her feet in the morning.

Now if all this doesn't work for you...then your Mom is a much tougher nut to crack than mine and you might need to add in some shoe chewing and stuff.

Good luck my brothers and sisters in fluff. Let me know how you do.

Studipidity is...

falling down the stairs because you were wearing your fuzzy feet.

Those same fuzzy feet that I warn everyone I gift them too, about how slippery they can be. I will have you know that as of right now I am the only one who has managed to fall in them.

Proud – that’s me.

Another Week Begins

Here’s hoping that this week is the one where a job shows up. Being unemployed is making it very hard to enjoy being here.

I swore when I moved here that I was going to take advantage of what this place had to offer. I was not going to be the hermit I had become in the big city. I was going to reinvent myself into a dinner party hostess extraordinaire, a brilliant book club member, a virulent (the distances I will go for alliteration) volunteer. Basically become the heroine of my own novel.

Now having known me for a really long time, I am aware that a lot of this is middle of the night, I can’t sleep, let’s reinvent my life, imaginative overload. Even knowing that, and knowing my trend towards the improbable if not the impossible, I yet again really believed that this time I was going to make it happen.

At some point I think I really need to get more in touch with who I really am. Because I don’t know if the person I like to invent for myself is someone I would even like being. Let’s face it, extraordinary hostesses have a ton of cleaning and cleaning up to do to keep up the reputation (I hate cleaning), brilliant book clubbers actually have to read books that are not all about escapism (there goes my love of Sci-Fi) and volunteers need to be somewhat selfless with their time (me not so much – I hoard my private time like Imelda hoarded shoes).

Maybe it’s time I rethunk this.

About a Dog

For a blog that has 'dog' listed in its description I should probably ensure that there is some dog content.

The dog in question is a 4 year old rescue BichonX named Boogie. I got him when he was 14 months old and I was his fourth owner.

Here’s his story - in his own words.

Hi, my name is Boogie. I spent the first year of my life with my first owner, I don't know what happened but all of a sudden I ended up in a cage with strangers looking at me.

Another family took me home but I was a little freaked out by what was happening to me and I got 'separation anxiety'. I would bark all the time and pee in the house when I was left alone because I was scared.

I went back in the cage with the strangers again.

Then another family took me home. I was so afraid that they would leave me that I followed my new owner everywhere and he didn't like that. He told people I was retarded because I wouldn't leave him alone.

I went back in the cage with the strangers again.

I was really scared now and started barking the whole time I was in the cage. It was driving the strangers crazy, I don't think they liked me very much. They would turn my cage to the wall to try and get me to stop barking...it didn't work.

Then one day they took me out of my cage yet again and it was yet another stranger in this little room. I jumped and wiggled and blitzed and played with her and she stayed for HOURS.

They put me back in the cage again.

Next day, the stranger came back! She took me home and I've been with her ever since. She knew about my anxiety and helped me with it. She never left me alone in the big house all by myself, when she's gone I go in my own 'house' and I like it in there when I'm alone. It's not so scary.

She says that I will never have a fifth home, that I'm hers forever. No more cages and strangers ever again!

Is Rudeness a Right?

Is rudeness becoming the status quo? Have we forgotten the old adage “you get more flies with honey than with vinegar”?

Case in point…I was in a fast food joint the other day (which in and of itself is an odd thing as I am a huge believer in the drive-thru) and I was treated to a display of behaviour that has me shaking my head even now.

It was quite clear to everyone that this woman did not get what she expected (a freebie bottled drink). After talking to the staff and having her order changed so that she could get the free drink she made sure that we all knew she was unhappy with the service through out her entire meal. Including the employees in the back.

I don’t know if she was having a bad day. Or simply enjoys making a scene. Or feels powerful when she’s abusing people that can’t fight back. What I do know is that I was put off by it. I felt like I was watching a schoolyard bully at work. Although nothing I said would have had any effect other than to ramp up the situation and give her another target, I still felt slightly ashamed at having been part of her captive audience.

Is this just how we live now?

We no longer value politeness?

Is rudeness a right?

Moving...and a few other ways I decided to screw up my life

So, I decided to change my life. Little did I know how completely I was going to end up doing exactly that.

Two months ago I was a successful middle manager in retail, making good money with a roof over my head, a dog at my feet a decent car in the driveway and absolutely no time to take advantage of anything. All I did was work, walk the dog, eat and sleep. I had been thinking for the last half year or so that maybe it was time to move closer to family. I had stopped taking advantage of the big city that I professed to love. I had become so isolated with my job that my friendships were already playing out like they were long distance. Mainly Facebook updates and messages with the odd phone call thrown in so I could remember what they sounded like.

I had gone so far as to decide where I would be willing to live, how big it would need to be for me not to feel suffocated and yet close enough to family to make the move worthwhile. Since I professed that being closer to family was the reason for this drastic change it did mean I would have to go much smaller than I truly wanted. It so happened that I already had a member of my family living in this city (totally a fluke...why would I choose to move to a place where I could take advantage of the bonds of family?) and that would give me a certain built in support network. Which became very important in the long run, but I'll get to that later.

With this decision made I was left to decide on when. Those who know me well will tell you that when it comes to making personal decisions involving change I could seriously challenge for a gold medal in the procrastinators Olympics. Truly I think if left to my own devices I would still be in the big city years from now blathering on about how I'm going to move...next year. I allowed this decision to be taken out of my hands by agreeing with a friend of mine that THIS year was the time to move and as she was intending to go to the same place as I was it only made sense that we would do the move together. We set a plan that we would be in our new city by no later than October and I settled in to ignore the decision as it brought about a horrible sense of foreboding whenever I caught myself thinking about it.

Then June came and she had the opportunity to transfer to our chosen city with her company. They offered to pay a flat fee for the move and that was that. She said yes. I managed to convince myself that it made complete sense to move with her, taking advantage of having the majority of the move being paid for. In my most optimistic moments I figured how hard could it be. Sure I didn't have a job yet but I could stay with family until I did have one. If it was at all like where I was moving away from I would have my choice of offers. I allowed everyone and my own self to convince me that it would all be okay.

I was wrong...or is it I was right. At least the doom and gloom part of me was right. Here I sit 2 months after an excruciating move (that will probably end up being a post of its own one day) unemployed, dead broke and taking advantage of family. I have a dog at my feet, a decent car parked on the street and nothing but time to worry about what I've done.

Deciding to change my life has been...interesting.