I simply adore a Tuesday that feels like a Monday that follows a three-day weekend, largely because it means we only have 3 more days until the next blessed weekend. When did I grow to love the weekend so much? Like, always!
The only bad thing about it is that, even if you worked on Monday and Sunday (or at least did a bit of work on each day to keep apace) you seem to just have even more to do. I have a lot to do. And frankly, I should be doing it instead of talking to you people, but I do love you people, you know. Even if I don’t always show it. Whoever you are. And even if you don’t read me with any regularity or think I have anything good to say, I still love you. Love is good. Some even say it is “the answer.”
Some of you may know this already, as my identity is not so anonymous as I might like it to be, but I went to high school (5th grade through 12th, in fact) in a smallish-to-midsized Alabama town called Decatur.
Yes, there’s one in Georgia, too, and Illinois, for that matter. But my dad (a chemical engineer who’s now back to work after retirement, congrats Dad) was transferred to the one in Alabama to help manage one of the big chemical plants.
Christmas at the D-house. We’re full of traditions here, including partying it up on Christmas Eve, ripping through all the presents under the tree (taking turns on delivery based on whomever is wearing the Santa hat), drinking until we can’t stand (at least, me, but that was I think due to my dad’s Manhattan, with which I started the night), and generally rabble-rousing and having fun.
We used to have the tradition of always having oyster stew on Christmas Eve, but that’s gone by the by.
One of my favorite fictional characters of all time has to be Eeyore, the glum little grey donkey of the Winnie-the-Pooh series. I dream of employing regular sarcasm with such unfailingly dry, pitch-perfect delivery.
This morning, as I was heading over to the coffee pot for a fresher-up, a song popped into my head … a song you might remember from a movie digitally remastered during your youth, and that is, of course, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Ignoring the more obvious social implications of this film—Snow White gets in with the dwarves, who she first assumes to be a group of messy orphans, through her cooking and cleaning prowess, becoming their mom/wife figure; they in turn assert their collective manhood by preventing several of the queen’s nasty plots and eventually hook their gal up with a hottie who can pay her bills—let’s consider our dwarves and their occupation.
This is old, but certainly still applicable, perhaps more now than ever. In these trying times Hollywood is facing the same struggles as you and me: surviving on Ramen and dishwater, borrowing money from their parents, taking books back to the Strand, reaching out to certain ex-boyfriends who might happen to owe them $900.
photo credit: Castaway in Wales One among us has experienced that which we all fear – the dreaded UNEMPLOYMENT ORIENTATION. Read on for a glimmer of hope in these trying times. Come now. You have “nowhere to be in a hurry.”
I woke up bright and early (8:30 am) and headed on down to the Brooklyn “government center,” as I call it (it contains the IRS, Social Security, and Unemployment offices), expecting a simple affair.
From what I’d heard, your basic unemployment orientation consists of sitting around with a group of fellow unemployees listening to a government worker talk about how to apply for jobs. You present your résumé, and that’s that.
Maybe you’ve heard this already. A girl, recently unemployed in New York City, turns to dog-sitting to pay her rent. She’s checking in on a couple’s German Shepherd at their Tribeca apartment. But when she opens the front door, there is the dog, sprawled in the middle of the foyer, dead as a doornail.
Despite being paid (What do dogsitters make these days? Anyone know?) let’s say, $25 … no, $50 a day, this couple does live in Tribeca, our fearless and dedicated dogsitter takes it upon herself to immediately call and alert the animal’s owners (who are say, vacationing in St. Barths), that their pup has expired. The couple, demonstrating precisely why they don’t have children, assign their intrepid dogsitter the duty of disposing of the body.
