Advice Requested

I believe I may have mentioned once or twice or a million times just how thoroughly horrible my last work environment was. As is so often the case, even I didn't realize quite how bad it was until I was free of it. Suddenly, miraculously, I am now sleeping through the night, my daily headaches are a distant memory & I don't even know where the bottle of Tums is, much less need one on every floor for immediate access. Glorious!

The problem is (you knew there was a problem, right? I can turn anything into an issue, trust me), having found myself blissfully free of the weight of job-related stress, I am not exactly anxious to jump right back into the work force. Which is an issue since Chris & I are perhaps over-fond of things like eating and electricity and other luxuries like that. And then, of course, there's my Coach / Tiffany / Sephora / shoes of any kind habits. So, yeah, I'm going to have to get a job. And while I don't know exactly what I want to do (it seems that all of the heiress positions have been filled), I do know that I don't want to spend 40+ hours a week thoroughly miserable, overworked & underpaid, with my sole purpose being to make a multi-millionaire even more wealthy. I would like to get some sense of satisfaction and purpose from my job. Which leads me to the point of this post (and yes, there is one).

I recently applied for a marketing position at a non-profit organization. This job is PERFECT for me in virtually every way. The organization is one that I wholeheartedly support and would be thrilled to be involved with. I have been training for this position for all of my adult life. In spite of my rediscovered love for sleeping in & watching bad daytime television, I really, really want this job. And today I found out that I progressed to the next step in the interview process, an applicant questionnaire that includes questions like "why are you interested in marketing and development?" and "where do you see yourself in five years?". Oh, hell. I hate questions like that. I hated them as an interviewer and I hate them even more as an interviewee. They're crap questions with absolutely no good answers and they tell you nothing about the candidate. And yet somehow I have to answer them in a way that makes a complete stranger think that I would be an asset to her organization. That I am, in fact, the best person on the planet for this position. Sadly, the only semi-coherent thought (if we're judging loosely) swirling through my head is "please hire me, oh please oh please oh please, I am a marketing genius and I will totally rock this position and you will love me so much and I will bring you candy every day and did I tell you how pretty you are?". And you can see how the only thing this will get me is banned from the building.

Any suggestions? Please?

Four Days Left!

I'm training my replacement at the office this week. Fortunately, she's not a complete idiot (a ringing endorsement, no?), but the process is very difficult for me. I am more of a "just get out of my way & let me do it, God, why do I have to keep explaining things to you?" kind of person. Plus this whole training thing has taken up all the free time I have at work, which makes it nearly impossible to blog. Not that I would ever blog at work. Of course. But if I did, I would have time to tell you all about my mom getting lost in Pittsburgh for two hours, in spite of various sailors and construction workers attempting to send her in the right direction. And then she spent another two hours cleaning my louver doors with a Q-tip. And she's still speaking to me. My mom rocks. But since I should be packing, I will have to content myself with this:

One-Word Sarcomical Sunday # 6
(Only One Day Late!)

• Your Mood: frenzied
• What You're Craving: chocolate
• Your Favorite Day of the Week: Friday
• Your Mind: shredded
• Something that Cheers You Up: Chris
• Something that Depresses You: loss
• Where Your Keys Rest at Night: somewhere
• A TV Gameshow You Secretly Get Into: none
• The Way You Like Your Eggs: omelette
• Your Hair: curly
• The Last Thing You Ordered Online: curtains
• The Messiest Room In Your Home Right Now: all
• Your Least Favorite Month: January
• The Worst Fashion Fad You Participated In: blond
• How Many Times In the Night You Get Up To Pee (on average): one
• Your Journey: meandering
• A Sound that Makes You Happy: purring
• Your First Date: amazing
• Something You Wish You Did More Often: exercise
• Something You Admire: fearlessness
• The First Place You Go When You Get Home: mail
• What You're Going to Do Now: pack
  

Is It Over Yet?

Thank you to all of the nice people (well, all two of you that I don't know IRL) who have inquired about my health & well-being. I am still alive & kicking (ask anyone who has had the misfortune to get in my way recently), but it's been one hell of a month.

Only one week into it & February is kicking. my. ass.

My office computer's hard drive decided that this was a good week to spontaneously combust (figuratively speaking), taking every little bit of information it contained along for the ride. I did have a back-up CD, although I hadn't actually updated it since just before Christmas. (Yes, I know, bad Shawn. Believe me, I've learned my lesson.) Turns out, it doesn't matter because that disk is MIA. Of course it is. Why was I even surprised? What didn't surprise me was the complete and utter lack of any kind of customer service from Dell. (Except for the charming & sympathetic William. Chris, if I ever leave you, I will be with William in the Philippines. He assures me the beaches are quite something.) I spoke to six people in four days, which is how long it took to receive a new hard drive that was "overnighted" on Monday. In the meantime, my boss decided that he would rather pay me sit at my desk and do, quite literally, nothing, rather than let me go home and work from there. And if you thought I was neurotic before, when I had things like deadlines and responsibilities to distract me? You have no idea how neurotic I can truly be when I have unlimited time to do nothing but think.

And I had plenty to think about, real estate-wise. I cannot even begin to address all of the issues that have come up with the sale of our house within the past week. But I would like to mention that every single one of them has been a result of some incompetent asshat not doing his or her job. I am so frustrated and sick of people right now, I haven't even been reading blogs. I KNOW! Can't get much worse than that, right? At one point earlier this week, I told Chris that I was considering a career change. To Unabomber. Not because of the whole letter bomb thing (although a few appraisers / Realtors / loan officers should be verrrrry careful right now. Kidding! I'm kidding! Please don't send the FBI to my house. Unless they would like to help us move, in which case we'll take any help we can get.), but because of the whole isolation-from-society-thing. Of course then I remembered that he lived in some little shack in the woods, and you know how I feel about Nature, which is where the dirt and bugs live. And besides, that would probably mean that I'd have to live more than 15 minutes from a Target, and, well, that's just completely unacceptable.

But don't worry, real estate didn't consume my every waking thought. There was my insurance company, whose claims line is apparently staffed by automatons that are only able to say, "You can find that information on the website," - which would be fine if I hadn't already looked on the website, which was woefully bereft of any kind of helpful information. Then there was my dentist, who would not release my x-rays and records on the grounds that "then the office won't have a copy", completely disregarding that new-fangled concept of photocopying. And let's not forget the utility company that attempted to hold me responsible for a delinquency from 12 years ago. In case you're wondering? The utility company supervisor could not possibly care less if you were living at the address at the time, or even in the same state, or if someone stole your identity, or if you have proof of all of the above, or even if Holy Mother of God, it was 12 years ago, are you kidding me? What he does care about is finding out that you work with two attorneys & are going to need his name in order to file a complaint. It's amazing how quickly that gets things cleared up. Oh, and did I mention that someone loosened / removed the lug nuts on my mom's tire? Luckily, the temperatures were well below zero over the past week and she wasn't been zipping around as much as usual (her last name should have been Andretti) before it was discovered. Otherwise . . . well, I'm trying not to think too much about what could have happened. Or about what kind of twisted person does something like that on purpose.

And, frankly, the Rolaids aren't helping, we're almost out of truffles*, I already packed my books & the liquor (I don't know what I was thinking either) & I've taken so many bubble baths, I look like a Shar-Pei puppy. I'm out of ideas, patience & fortitude. Do you think it would be possible to sleep through the rest of the month?

* Or as I refer to them, Chocolate Therapy. Unfortunately, Mary is rudely hoarding them for herself. Even more unfortunately, she needs them at least as much as I do. February is kicking everyone's ass.

Proof That I am the Normal One Here

Co-worker
I'm running out for a little bit.

Me
Okay.

Co-worker
I'll be back in about 20 minutes.

Me
Okay.

Co-worker
School just let out & I have to go hide.

Me
(Stop working & turn to look at co-worker, certain that I have misunderstood her.)

Co-worker
Someone keeps knocking over the snowmen in my front yard
& I think it's one of the neighborhood kids.

Me
. . .

Co-worker
So I'm going to hide in my neighbor's yard & try to catch them.

Me
. . .

Co-worker
Otherwise, I'll have to stay up all night tonight to do it.

Me
(Suddenly understand how it is possible that this woman had
an accident with a parked car. Twice.)

Thoughts

• When are we going to close when are we going to close when are we going to close . . .


• We SHOULD HAVE closed last week, except for the Twin Asshats, also known as Jack "oops, I forgot all about you & did absolutely nothing with this file for the past month" Loan Officer & Jill (also not her real name), the Incompetent Appraiser.


• If Jill does not sign off on the (spurious) conditions she placed on the loan & which resulted in Chris & I spending last Saturday outside in the cold & snow, replacing the (perfectly good) ceiling on our patio (lest an errant child climb up there & ingest paint chips that have a .0001% chance of being toxic anyway), I will kill her myself.


• Holy run-on sentence, Batman. And when did I become addicted to parentheses?


• We will be spending every single cent we have in savings within the next few weeks, and will still need to sell a kidney, or one of my co-workers, on eBay to get this mess wrapped up.


• Wouldn't it be nice if I could sell one of my co-workers on eBay? Talk about a win-win.


• Even though we will have no money & I will not be able to buy anything pretty, or sparkly, or really anything at all (not even shoes!) for quite a long time, I will be happy to hand over every single cent we have just to be done with this already. Perhaps I have mentioned this once or twice or 500 times already.


• Probably I shouldn't buy anymore shoes any way.


• Four dozen pairs of shoes doesn't seem like a lot until you have to move them.


• It's amazing what you decide you can live without when you are faced with the prospect of moving it.


• Why did I buy a donut maker? Did I forget about the sheer heaven known as Krispy Kreme, the gloriousness of which I could never hope to duplicate? More importantly, how am I going to convince someone in my family to take the donut maker? Because I know that I won't be able to just throw it away (it's practically brand-new!) & yet it seems rather silly to move it (not like I'm going to use it in the new place either).


• Maybe I can wrap it up & regift it for someone's birthday. Then they have to take it. Hey, Anthony, act surprised when you unwrap your new donut maker!


• Speaking of surprises . . . our accountant (AKA my boss' wife, who does not in any way, shape or form have any kind of formal training in this area, or even the slightest bit of aptitude for this type of work but also doesn't charge by the hour the way the real accountant does) screwed up the amount of taxes withheld last year, which means that not only will I not be getting that little bit of extra money from the IRS (which, you may have guessed, we are in desperate need of right about now), but will actually OWE money. Perfect.


• I think I need a Mental Health Day. (No comments please re: how it is quite obviously too late for that.)


• I can't wait 'til I don't have to put up with my boss' inappropriate comments any more. Case in point: on Friday, he referred to the snowy conditions as "baby-making weather" & continued that there would be a lot of "pokin' going on" that night. No, I am not joking. Trust me when I tell you that my sense of humor is much more advanced than that. Please note that this is nowhere near the most inappropriate thing he has said to me. I believe that honor would go to the time he told me that he didn't like my tone (the phrase "little missy" implied but not actually spoken) & that (here's the good part, are you ready?) I needed to be spanked. !!!!!!!! Believe me, "inappropriate" doesn't even begin to cover it.


• Let's not think about it anymore & instead look at the pretty snow . . .
  
  

Oh No

It has just occurred to me that some time in the not-too-distant future, I will probably be looking for a new job. It also occurred to me that my new job will presumably not enable me to spend an hour or so every day catching up on my 30+ favorite blogs & browsing etsy.

Hold me.

Tips

I am the only one who bothered to show up for work today. As a result, I have spent the better part of my morning answering the phone, which, as I have mentioned before, is never a good thing. However, this glimpse into the psyche of the Public At Large has induced me to share the following with you:

Tips for the Home-Buying Public

(& Others Who Have Irritated Me Today)

• If you call a business for information, it would seem wise to have a writing implement within arm's-reach, or at least within a quarter-mile radius. It is entirely possible that the Nice Lady who answers the phone may have another line or three ringing and may not be able to wait for FIVE FULL MINUTES for you to find a pen. Strangely, she also may not care that you are irritated about being put on hold.
• If you do not have a writing implement & decide to enter a phone number directly into your cell phone, perhaps you may want to warn the Nice Lady you are speaking with so that you do not permanently damage her middle ear with the 130-dB key strokes.
• Similarly, please turn off the television / radio / power tools before making a phone call. Not only is the background noise deafening, the Nice Lady on the other end of the phone does not particularly enjoy having you scream at the top of your lungs into her ear.
• When calling a real estate office, please try to have at least a general idea where the property you're calling about is located. Believe it or not, we have more than one property listed with our company. (Oh, yes, I have had clients actually say to me, "Oh, you have more than one listing?") It is very difficult to ascertain which property you are referring to based on "Um, yeah, it's a white house near where the Quik-E-Mart used to be."
• I understand that the Public At Large has a compulsive and pervasive need for Instant Gratification, and that you are, of course, The Most Important Person on the Face of the Earth. However. It might be prudent to make an appointment to view a property rather than calling the agency once you are already sitting in front of said property and being stunned that there isn't anyone available to show it Right This Very Second. I understand that waiting an hour for someone to clear their schedule and drive 40 miles out of their way for you is simply unthinkable. Obviously, we should have Realtors stationed at all 200+ properties, just in case an interested party should happen by. We apologize for our lack of foresight.
• If, for some reason, you do find yourself in front of a listed property and cannot wait for someone to show you the property, please do not cuss at the Nice Lady on the phone who will not give you the lockbox code so you can just let yourself in. That's what's known as a "no-no" in this business, as well as a huge insurance liability.
• Also, if you have received a notice that you are going to be evicted from your home, please do not call and cry to the Nice Lady at the real estate office that will eventually be listing the property. Neither she nor anyone else at the company has any control over the situation. And while she sympathizes with you and agrees that the timing is unfortunate, and she's sure that you fully intended to "get back on track" after the holidays, the fact remains that you have not paid your mortgage for the past 19 months, you have received innumerable notices from the bank that now owns your property and surely you could have guessed this was coming.
• "Ax" (or "axe", as you prefer) is a tool used for chopping wood, not a verb meaning "to question". Please make a note of it.
• By the same token, "I seen" is never, ever correct. The proper past tense conjugation of the verb "see" is as follows, repeat after me: I saw, you saw, he saw, we saw, they saw. Notice a pattern? Not that difficult, is it?
• If you call & ask to speak to the person in charge of, oh let's say insurance, and upon speaking to this person, do not get the response that you would have liked (i.e., thank you but we are quite happy with our coverage at this time and do not plan on switching to another provider), it will not help you to say, "Well, darlin' maybe I should speak to the man in charge." Because the Nice Lady will likely respond, "Maybe you should, but since the man 'in charge' does not, in fact, run the company, but I do, you have now guaranteed that we will never, ever use your company. Darlin'."
• And finally, Realtors, please do not think that because you have been in the real estate business 25 years that you can call another real estate office and demand information that it is inappropriate, unethical &, in some cases, downright illegal for you to have. The Nice Lady there does not care how long you have been a Realtor, although she is stunned that you still have your license.

By the way, "Nice Lady" is shorthand for "Formerly Nice Lady Who Is Now Disgusted and Weeping for the Public At Large".

In other news, I spoke to the Realtor who is (supposedly) selling our house. During the course of conversation, she remarked that she wished that this would close before the end of the year (just a few days away, in case you hadn't noticed). Since we still don't have a place to go once this does close, I was not very excited about that prospect. I wasn't too concerned about it though, since the appraisal hasn't even been scheduled yet. Good thing I didn't waste the time worrying. I just called the loan officer who is handling their mortgage to find out if we were on schedule for closing. He didn't even know what the contract closing date was since he never received a copy of the contract, which is required to schedule the appraisal and move forward with financing. AND the contract is in the wrong name, which pretty much makes it null and void anyway. So. Have I mentioned how much I love Realtors?

How Little It Takes to Make Me Happy

Considering the fact that I STILL don't know what the hell is going on with my house, it has been a surprisingly delightful day. (Continued as a list because lists make me happy &, as I keep telling you, it's All About Me.)

• As soon as I got to work, I was pulled into a pointless meeting with my boss & one of my co-workers, which basically involved sitting in a comfy wing chair, nodding & adding the occasional "mm-hmm" & "absolutely", & which allowed me to mentally compile a list of everything I need to do this weekend & completely avoid any kind of actual work for well over an hour.
• Then I had an even more pointless, but infinitely more entertaining, conversation with my friends from the non-profit organization downstairs about Dr. 90210, Britney Spears & the state of Tori Spelling's breasts. (Oooh, there'll be some interesting hits on the stat counter from that phrase!)
• Co-worker Karen practically kissed the UPS guy, who delivered a huge Harry & David gift basket this morning. Of course we had to eat a few of the Bing Cherry Chocolates right away. You know, in case they were, um, stale or something. Okay, I don't recall the exact reason, but I'm sure there was one. (Other than "no willpower".)
• Oh, and then - and this is like the Best. Thing. Ever. - I was instructed by my boss to spend the rest of the morning shopping online with his credit card. !!!!! It's like a dream! A happy, sparkly shopping dream! Well, in the dream, I'm sure I would be shopping for myself, or at least people that I actually like. Instead, I was buying Christmas gifts for various work associates, which isn't nearly as much fun. But still! Getting paid to shop & using someone else's money? Pretty much my dream job. God knows I've been training for it my whole life.
• I also went to lunch with my mom & my aunt, two of my most favorite people in the world. Impromptu lunches like this will be one of the few things I truly miss if we ever move. Plus I had smashed yukon gold potatoes, which were scrumptious.
• When I came back from lunch, a package from Sephora was waiting for me. Woo hoo! I love love LOVE receiving stuff in the mail, & I am a hard core product junkie, so this was very exciting. Especially since, if we do sell our house, we will officially be poor, so trips to Sephora will be few & far between.

The Realtor is meeting with the prospective buyers tomorrow at noon. So, hopefully, by this time tomorrow, we will have an accepted purchase agreement on our house. We will still have to take an obscene amount of money to closing, but I have decided to look at it as an investment in our future. If this is what it takes to move past this & start the next phase of our lives, it will be money well spent. Besides, my stomach can't take any more of this indecision. Just a few more hours . . .

I Am Way Too Easily Amused

God bless the person who designed this site. It's even better than Lite Brite & penguin cams for non-blogging procrastinating-at-work holiday entertainment. Although I would advise that you giggle a bit less than I did. It is awfully hard to convince co-workers that you find real estate (or lesson plans or spreadsheets or whatever) tremendously amusing. Fortunately, my co-workers are sort of used to me and are generally happy if I am not threatening to chuck my stapler at them. Happy pimping!

Productivity

Guess what I have been doing for the better part of the afternoon. Go ahead, guess.

Did you guess "diligently working since you will not be in the office for the rest of the week"?

Or how about "starting the project that is due on Monday so that the looming deadline doesn't bite you in the ass next week"?

Or even just "something productive", how about that?

Did you guess any of these? Because, if so, you would be so wrong.

Instead, I have spent the past 3, whoops, I mean 4 (holy cow, it's 4 o'clock already?) hours watching the penguin & sea otter cams at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, playing Lite Brite & reading blogs. (A big thank you to Teacher Lady, who shared that some Target stores have Starbucks inside the store, Holy Mother of God, how did I not know about this before?? More importantly, why doesn't my Target have one?) Oh, & I put up the office Christmas tree, a 7' tall fiber-optic monstrosity that makes me think of the Linus line from A Charlie Brown Christmas: "This really brings Christmas close to a person." I also discovered a recipe for a pumpkin pie milkshake which I fully intend to make as soon as I get home, so as far as I am concerned, that was 4 hours well spent.

I may change my mind by Monday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Is It Over Yet?

I know I say this, well, pretty much every week, but God, this week has just kicked. my. ass. It's pretty much been downhill since the Steelers beat the Saints on Sunday. (Thank God for that. If they would have lost, Cleveland would have had a better record and I simply cannot have that.) But anyway, this week.

Monday

Remember The Accident?

The one that happened on my wedding day?

The one where the insurance company (evil State Farm) won't pay for my medical treatment, not because they deny their client's culpability, but because I foolishly attended my own wedding and reception after said accident?

Yeah, that one.

Well, the deposition was scheduled for Monday morning. What a fiasco. I actually made it to the building early, which in & of itself is a minor miracle. However, the doors were locked. All of the doors. I can say this with complete certainty because we walked around the entire building (the length of a city block, in the rain) & through the attached parking garage. We finally made it into the building through the stockroom of the bar next door. I am still curious about why it was open at 9am, but who am I to judge? It's Happy Hour somewhere, right? At least we finally figured out a way into the building. Unfortunately, our excitement was short lived when we discovered that it was vacant. Say it with me, people. Vacant. No people. No elevators. No heat. Just us, a mint green propane tank & what may have been the world's largest rat trap. Oh, yes, I said rat trap. It should also be mentioned that I was with my mom (hi, Mom!), who has a pathological fear of rodents. She wouldn't even watch Stuart Little. (Okay, I know, no great loss, but still.) My attorney, who was driving in from Cleveland, eventually showed up & we figured out where we were supposed to be. (The court reporter's office was moved to a new location across the street, something that you think they would have mentioned to at least one of us when this was set up.) Then we waited for another hour for opposing counsel to show up, which was fun, but, you know, at least this building had heat and plumbing and no apparent rodent infestation. And the defendent was cranky, clueless and defensive, which would seem to be in my favor if we have to go to trial. Also, there's no way you can win if a jinglebell necklace and a sweatshirt with an enormous cardinal on it are your going-to-court clothes. Especially if the plaintiff is wearing Tiffany jewelry and heels and actually did her hair. Those are the rules.

Tuesday

My boss informed me that everyone is getting a raise. Oh, wait, did I say "everyone"? I meant, "everyone but me". But I was the lucky person that got to inform everyone about their raises, so . . . that's almost as good, right? And since I haven't had a raise since July 2005 (and that one was miniscule), the shock might have killed me anyway.

Wednesday

My boss attempted to convince me that the company is going to lose money now that everyone (else) will be making more. (And therefore cannot afford to give me a raise too. He does not attempt to explain to me why I should care.) When I point out that his budget information is flawed, that our commission income is more than double the amount shown & that I make $10,000 less (gross!) than is indicated, & that in fact the company is making a considerable profit, he refuses to discuss it further. He engages a colleague in an extremely non-PC conversation (sometimes I swear I'm working for Archie Bunker), then leaves to set up his brand-new plasma television. Probably responding to the negative energy in the office, my fax / printer refuses to work.

Thursday

A homicidal maniac is on the loose. He is obviously enraged by my lingering Halloween decorations.

This is what greeted me when I came home from work today. Pumpkin seeds are strewn across my entire front porch. Stupid squirrels. But my mom was nice enough to bring me freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies, and I think we may have a solution to the Christmas Conundrum, so today wasn't entirely bad. Maybe there's hope for tomorrow. Or maybe I'll eat enough cookies that I won't care.

Today's Happy Thoughts

Or:
Things To Focus On So I Don't Strangle My Co-Workers

Gingerbread Macadamia Biscotti
the amazing letter Chris wrote to me for our anniversary
Starbucks Pumpkin Bread recipe
unseasonably warm weather
Most Haunted Live

leftover Halloween candy

what I want for Christmas (no idea, actually)

TSO concert this weekend

pants from last winter that still fit

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee

french fries for dinner

a new episode of ER on Thursday

not working tomorrow
not working tomorrow
not working tomorrow
not working tomorrow
not working tomorrow

Yes, I Know I Need Therapy

One of my blog friends (if by "friend" you mean someone that you don't actually know & have never met but for some strange reason know intimate details about their personal lives) mentioned that when she's feeling anxious, she calms herself by playing the worst case scenario game. You know, think "what's the worst thing that could happen?" in any given situation & then figure out how you would handle it. I suppose the rationalization is that if you have a plan, it makes you feel more in control of an uncontrollable situation. Or maybe that the "worst thing" isn't all that bad after all. Or something.

It's entirely possible that this helps some people.

Note: some people = not me.

My imagination & capacity for worry are utterly limitless and my worst case scenarios often involve death, dismemberment & financial ruin. My imaginary plans for dealing with these scenarios often involve curling up in the fetal position & hoping it all goes away. (I am a big fan of the Scarlett O'Hara "tomorrow is another day" school of thought.) So, not all that helpful as a planning tool / coping mechanism. That doesn't keep me from playing this game religiously, normally right before I go to sleep at night. Thus ensuring that not only do I have an ulcer, I also have chronic insomnia.

When we put our house on the market (dear God, 305 days ago. three. hundred. and. five. *whimper*), I played the game endlessly. My major concerns were:

• we won't be able to find a house within 30 days of receiving a contract on our house and therefore will be homeless once our house is sold.
• we won't be able to find a house we can afford in a neighborhood that doesn't make me want to weep or buy a bulletproof vest.
• we will find a house that we love in a nice area but it will cost more than the GNP of Belgium.
• we will buy said house anyway because otherwise we will be homeless or living in the ghetto. (Cue Elvis: ". . . in the ghetto . . .")
• we will have to eat ramen and sell plasma in order to pay our mortgage.
• we will have to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to pay our mortgage.
• I won't be able to find a job before we move and will have to sell extraneous body parts (are both kidneys really necessary?) to pay our mortgage.
• I will find a job that's just as bad as the one I have now & I won't be able to quit (see: GNP of Belgium).
• we will never be able to have children because I won't be able to take any time off to actually give birth or afford child care afterwards (see: GNP of Belgium).
• we won't be able to find people to help us move.
• we will hire a moving company that will either lose all of our belongings or hold everything we own hostage unless we pay some exorbitant sum that was never mentioned in the contract (it happens, I saw it on Dateline).
• we will find a house that we can afford in a good neighborhood, everything will be perfect & then the buyers won't be able to close but we'll have already closed on the new house & we'll end up with two mortgages that we can't pay . . . (start GNP of Belgium cycle again).
• and on & on & on, until I finally put myself to sleep by naming everything in the room in French. What, you don't do that too?

Notice anything missing from that neurotic yet seemingly comprehensive list? Oh, yeah, that we wouldn't be able to sell the house. At all. Ever. No matter how low we dropped the price (already below the appraised & assessed values, at a significant loss to us) or what we offered (home warranty, inspection, chocolate chip cookies baked fresh for you every week for a year just please please please buy our house!) to make it more attractive to buyers.

So here we are, probably about a month or two away from being hauled back to court by The World's Stupidest Ex-Husband. (Scintillating backstory here.) The worst case scenarios (weeding out the ones that involve death & dismemberment) include being told that a.) we have to relist the house with another agency, which means that we will end up owing even more money if it ever actually sells or b.) the house will be listed for sheriff's auction, whereupon we could end up owing as much as $60,000 and yet having nowhere to live. The best case scenario is that the magistrate will take pity on us (& believe me, I am not above crying in court) and allow us to continue to try to sell the house with my company. Considering the condition of the market, this could continue indefinitely. This would also mean that I would have to continue working at this job, Chris would spend at least 3 hours a day commuting and one of us will eventually spontaneously explode. You can see how there are a few flaws with this option.

I really, really, REALLY try to keep this all in perspective. Chris and I are together; other than this mess, we are happy; we love each other; we're healthy; our families are healthy. I know that if this is the worst thing that ever happens to us, we are amazingly lucky. It's even possible that someday we will look back at this time and laugh. Well, maybe not laugh, but at least it will be in the past & we will have gotten through it. All of which is true but doesn't make the situation any less difficult or frustrating right now. Especially when I have to go home tonight & unpack several boxes of winter clothes that I packed last April in preparation for our impending move. *sigh*

Things We Do

A few years ago, I was in Connecticut for a cousin's wedding. (And that right there is a story in itself, but it will have to wait for another time.) While I was there, I saw a sign that said:

There are things that you do
because they feel right,
and they may make no sense,
and they may make no money,
and it may be the real reason that we are here:
to love each other
and to eat each other's cooking
and say that it was good.

I love that. For many reasons, including the fact that Chris routinely tells me that he likes my cooking, even when I forget to put the filling in his cream puff or burn the biscuits. (Am I the only one who thinks that both of those sound like euphemisms?) And I firmly believe that there are things that you do in life even if you really, truly, desperately don't want to, because you were raised right & it's the right thing to do. Which is why, instead of going home early, snuggling with my cats & willing this cold to be gone, I found myself in my boss's office this afternoon, holding his hand while he cried about his mom, whose health has suddenly deteriorated.

Now I really need a nap.

Is It the Weekend Yet?

This has been such an odd week. Not like "I went to New York & became an assassin" or "I ate a live cockroach to get to the front of the line". More like mundane mixed with just a bit of "what the . . . ?".

• Received an offer on our house. Excited? Yeah, me too, until I realized it was for over $20,000 less than our asking price from an investment company looking to buy homes for much less than the market value & then "flip" them.
• Had a squirrel sit on the roof outside my window & stare at me. (This actually happens all the time at work, but it's still disconcerting.)
• While screening a prospective tenant, discovered that, other than her name & social security number, virtually everything she had put on her application was false.
• Met my new dentist, Malibu Todd.

  

• I swear to you, he looks exactly like Malibu Ken, except for the outfit.
• Watched United 93.
• Realized that I am an idiot for watching United 93. Five hundred kleenex later, all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball & hide.
• Watched The Wild (or, as I refer to it, Madagascar Lite) in an effort to cheer up after United 93. Not even Eddie Izzard could save it.
• Had a "customer service" person hang up on me when I asked to speak to her supervisor. After I sent a fax to the company, I received a very nice call from the head of the department, apologizing & generally kissing my ass which is always kind of fun. At least for the first few minutes, then it just gets annoying.
• Steam cleaned the carpets on the 1st floor. Note to self: the little wet, soapy balls of cat fur that shoot out from the machine (yuck) are not mice, so stop jumping out of your skin every time it happens.
• Steam cleaned the carpets on the 2nd floor. Little wet, soapy balls of cat fur still aren't mice but still make me jump out of my skin.
• Had a colleague tell me she married her husband because she thought he'd be "good in an emergency".
• Lost one of my diamond earrings but had no idea when or where so I couldn't even begin to figure out where to look for it.
• Also lost my brush, dental floss & a pair of pants, all before 9 am on Thursday.
• Had lunch with my mom, who could only drink tea since she's on the BRAT diet.
• Wondered if my assistant ran away from home since I haven't seen her all week.
• The UPS guy tracked me down as I was walking home from work to deliver a box full of hair products that I apparently won last month on allure.com. Yay!
• Found my diamond earring quite by accident on the floor by my bed.
• Brush, dental floss & pants still MIA.
• Watched ER. Managed not to cry.
• Started reading a (so far) really good book by Anne Tyler, Digging to America.
• Had to call the police not once, not twice, but THREE times last night. From 11:30 to 12:30 last night, one of our neighbors played with an excruciatingly loud remote control car in the middle of the street & then spent 20 minutes revving his Harley & three-wheeler. The noise could wake the dead. Lights were going on all over the neighborhood. We can only assume he has completely lost his mind.

So now it's 11 am on Friday & I am sitting here drinking chai tea, staring at my computer & the piles of work on my desk & trying to wake up. And I just realized that I have a huge deadline that has to be met by the end of the day today. Completely forgot about it. Thank God I glanced at my calendar.

How many hours til Happy Hour?

Unbelievable

Someday soon, I will have to interview for a new job. It is likely that job will be in Pennsylvania. This is actually something I've been looking forward to, for reasons that should be obvious if you either know me (& have listened to me complain incessantly about my job) or routinely visit this blog (where I also complain incessantly about my job). Of course, I have the usual change-related apprehensions, but I never worried about this:

In the state of Pennsylvania, it is legal to ask a prospective employee if she is married, pregnant & / or has children & then deny her employment based on her answers.

Preposterous! Of course that's illegal . . . except it isn't. I even called an attorney I know to verify it. (Yeah, I'm a suspicious bitch & believe nothing without verification, even if the nice people at MomsRising.org tell me it's true.) If you think this is ridiculous & needs to change, click on this link to sign the petition. You don't have to be a Pennsylvania resident, just someone who thinks this archaic practice needs to stop. Let's get this bill passed!

Holy Cow

Continuing the shoving-my-beliefs-down-your-throat theme today, I received an email from a prospective client whose username is catholicmomtobe. Turns out, catholicmomtobe is an acquaintance who rushed my sorority back in the day. I was a bit surprised at the username because, well, she was not what you might call discriminating back then. (I won't tell you what we did call her, but it rhymed with cranky doe. Yeah, we weren't nice. Thank goodness I'm not like that now.) Anyway, she recognized my name when I contacted her & we exchanged small talk. Literally five minutes into the conversation, she asked me if I attended the Catholic church near my home. I told her that I am no longer a practicing Catholic & occasionally attend the Unity Church where Chris & I got married. That began an irascible, five minute long diatribe about how we weren't truly married in the eyes of the Lord, our children will never be able to be baptized within the Church, I was going to go to Hell for turning my back on the Church . . . there was more, but my brain stopped listening after about 30 seconds. After that, I heard Andrea Bocelli singing Ave Maria. Appropriate, no?

Remember that this is a girl that I barely knew over ten years ago, yet she feels completely justified in judging my personal choices & blithely condemning me to eternal damnation. I'm going to Hell for not attending mass, but this girl, who honestly drank, smoked & slept with everything she could get her hands on in college, & apparently has some anger management issues these days, is completely assured of her place in Heaven. The worst part isn't what she said, it's that I couldn't really respond that way I would have liked to because she's a prospective client. I think I said something along the lines of "Well, at least I'll be with people I know" & got off the phone.

Now, I think it's great if you have a strong faith in a higher power, whether that be God, Buddha, Allah, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, whatever. And while I have strong opinions on God, same sex marriage, the right to choose & many, many other issues, I can recognize that other people may have differing opinions, & that's okay. I guess I am just from the "religion is a private thing" school of thought and would no sooner ask someone about their religious preferences than I would ask them about their finances or their sex life. It is a personal choice and certainly none of my business. And I cannot imagine demanding that everyone believe what I believe or face everlasting anguish if they have the audacity to believe something that differs in even the slightest way. To me, that's not much different than feeling justified in killing thousands of people in the name of Allah. But maybe that's because I'm a heathen.

Well, That Was Fun

Today started off fairly normally. I woke up to say good-bye to Chris, felt vaguely bad that he has to gaze upon my overwhelming loveliness every morning, fell back asleep, hit snooze twice, watched Stephen Baldwin proclaim that God told him to write a book on Today while I put on my makeup (did God tell you that you have to refer to yourself in the third person too, Stephen?), realized that I was running late, threw on some clothes, scraped my wet hair back into a bun, scooped some cantaloupe into a bowl & made it to work on time. In case you're wondering, my interpretation of "on time" means anything less than 15 minutes late.

About an hour later, my boss came & asked why one of the checks I gave him to deposit on Saturday was dated July 31. For one thing, the person who writes the checks isn't the person that signs the checks, so the checks languish on one desk or another for a few weeks until they get mailed to us. Then I deposit & distribute a batch of checks about every six weeks. These are not payroll checks or company income, but part of an incentive program for the Realtors. They receive 100%. This is also not a new procedure; this has been the standard operating procedure for at least 3 years. He started getting all worked up about it, telling me that these checks have to be deposited & distributed at least every 30 days, blah blah blah. I tried to explain to him why that would be an issue & that the Realtors were quite happy with this arrangement, but I could tell he wasn't listening since he kept talking over me & repeating the same thing over & over. So I just stopped & did what I normally do with him: tell him whatever he wants to hear. This is when, for no particular reason that I could tell, he started to shout at me. He does this periodically when he is in a mood & wants to fight with someone. I don't see any point in fighting with him since a.) he's my boss & b.) he's not listening anyway, so normally, I would just walk away. This is when today stopped being a normal day.

I don't know if it's because I wasn't feeling well last night, or if the insomnia has finally caught up to me, or if I have just had enough, but whatever the reason, I finally reached my breaking point. I snapped and told him that he was not to raise his voice to me, I refuse to put up with this behavior & if he is going to continue to behave like this, I am going to leave & he can deal with the checks and everything else on his own. There was more of this nature, then I ended with "Now I am done discussing this. That's it." Then I turned away from him & continued updating the website. After a few minutes, he quietly walked away.

I'm sure there is a lesson in here somewhere, but I'm not quite sure what it is.

I Hate Fortune Magazine

I just read Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" report. This was a mistake. First of all, surprise, my company's not on the list. Yeah, who would've guessed? Second, did you know that some companies actually pay 100% medical & dental benefits, 100% tuition reimbursement, maternity & paternity leave including the month BEFORE your due date, AND offer adoption benefits, 401k & profit sharing, onsite daycare, 16 paid holidays plus sick days plus vacation days . . . I could go on & on. Lastly, are you aware that a customer service rep at Smucker's, Nordstrom salesperson & Fed Ex courier ALL have a higher average salary than I do? PLUS benefits! Benefits like you can't even imagine! Benefits other than "ridiculously short commute" & "can design & print wedding programs at work"! Sigh. That's okay. I've made it possible for my boss to build a new villa in Florida, install a home theater system in his other home & spend a third of the past year on vacation while I run the company. You just can't put a price on that kind of achievement, can you? Apparently not, since I haven't even seen a cost-of-living wage increase this year.

God, I need to sell my house.

BTW, don't you just adore Anne Taintor? Me too. Maybe I should just move to New Mexico & work for her. Probably she'd hardly ever say "What happened with the thing?" and then get mad when I didn't know what "the thing" was. Or call me at home on a Saturday morning to ask what the FedEx number is. Or tell me that I should put half of my salary in a secret account, so that I'll have it when my marriage fails. Probably. Of course, she might not greet me with "hi, sexy" either and where would the modern workplace be without a little soupçon of sexual harassment?

Thank God for the Three Day Weekend!

At about 11 am today, I found out that one of today's advertising deadlines was moved up to YESTERDAY. Um, yeah, see, I left my psychic powers at home AGAIN, so I didn't actually know about this, and I forgot my time-reversal powers as well, so just how in the hell am I supposed to submit these pages?? Our rep grudgingly said I could submit them today (I would probably feel a bit more grateful if it hadn't been her responsibility to tell me about the change in the first place) , but it had to be done by noon, when I originally had until 11:59pm tonight. No one was allowed to talk to me this morning.

Then the MLS spontaneously & mysteriously shut down for the afternoon. Which was right about the time that a client called & told me he wanted to buy one of our listings and was willing to pay full price and where should he bring the money? As much as I would enjoy just looking at $75,000 in cash, I had to explain to him that there were a few legalities that needed to be observed, such as, oh, I don't know, executing a purchase agreement, and even then he was absolutely, positively, not going to bring $75,000 in cash to my office in a brown paper bag. And did I mention that he calls himself Sir Richard?

We have another showing on our house tomorrow, FINALLY. After 2 full months with no pending sales in our area & price range, hopefully this is a sign that the real estate market moving again. And I just cleaned the house on Wednesday, so I don't have to rush home & clean like my life depends on it. Which, in a sad & twisted way, I guess it does. Although since the basic cleaning has been done, it leaves me free to focus on the Really Important cleaning jobs like vacuuming the basement & organizing the linen cabinet. Sure, because most people base their homebuying decisions on things like basement cleanliness & cabinet orderliness.

After the showing, we're off to Detroit. Yes, you read that correctly, I said Detroit. Don't be jealous. I'll let you know if it's as fabulous as everyone says it is . . .

Edited to add: Comerica Park was amazing & the Zoo was one of the nicest we've visited. I might not want to live there (don't be offended, I don't want to live here either), but it definitely didn't seem to be the crime-infested cesspool that many had led me to expect. And I'm refering to Detroit residents! Might be time to take another look.