recipe of the month

Fall in the Midwest begs for soup. If your doctor’s been on your ass case to eat more vegetables, this recipe might be just the ticket.
A caveat about my recipes: I tend to throw in a lot of editorial comments. All my measurements – unless I’m making pastry or sauces or something where the science actually matters – can be called “more or less,” as I never measure that accurately.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found from The Moosewood Restaurant.

Autumn Minestrone

2-4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onions
2-3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

2 ½ - 3 cups peeled & cubed winter squash (acorn, delicata, buttercup)
2 -3 celery stalks, diced
½ -1 cup peeled & diced carrots
2 ½ - 3 cups cubed potatoes
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons salt (to taste)
½ - 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
6 – 7 cups chicken stock (or water)

4 cups chopped kale
1 15 ounce can of cannellini beans, drained

Warm the oil in a large soup pot on medium heat. Add onions and garlic, and sauté for five minutes. Add squash, celery, carrots, potatoes, oregano, salt, pepper, and stock and cook for 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are almost done. Add the kale and beans and simmer until the kale is tender and the beans are hot.

So, the notes:

This is not a good recipe to prepare while drinking. By the time you get done peeling the squash, you’ll wonder why you ever thought this was a good idea. I’d recommend using a smooth-skinned squash, so you can at least use a vegetable peeler. Ever tried to peel an acorn squash? I just did. I’m on my second umpteenth glass of wine now, if that tells you anything.

You could add cubed chicken breasts to this soup to make the non-vegetarians in your household happy. On the other hand, those folks are probably going to fuss about “that funny green stuff” floating in their soup bowls anyway. Give up. Make them a hamburger.

I think a dusting of parmesan would be good, too. I serve this with fresh French bread and obviously, wine.

bridesmaid

“You are a wonderful candidate, but…..”
“She was a sharp candidate, but….”
And the standard “while your skills are certainly impressive, we have decided to pursue other candidates……” which we all know is a boilerplate line of steaming horse whooey.

I swear, if I hear any of this one more time I will scream.

The premise, when I started this blog, was that I would write about being single and jobless. Yes, yes, yes, I realize I’ve deviated from that plan a wee bit, but most all of my travails spring from those two issues.

Being single and unemployed sucks. It’s as simple as that. Taken individually, they’re not great places to be in life; finding yourself in both of those situations simultaneously is more than any one human should have to bear. Oh, to hell with that nice phrase. It’s bullshit. It’s pure living hell, is what it is. I am fed up.

You married people that think for one minute us singles are having great weekends? Think again. My standard Friday/Saturday night typically involves wine, canned goods or rice, cookies if I’m really lucky (which hasn’t happened since, oh, April 22nd, to be exact), and falling asleep fully clothed with the TV blaring. Wild life, eh? [Ok, so maybe the marrieds have similar evenings, but at least you’re doing it together.] Living single means there is no one around to help you if you find yourself puking your guts out in the middle of the night, too sick to go out for 7-Up (no, it wasn’t alcohol related, it was really horrendous stomach flu); no one there to listen; no one there to notice if you make it back from your run or not. Now I’m an independent sort of woman, but this is getting old.

You do find out a lot about your friends when going though the rough stuff. You find out who they are or aren’t. I could write a novelette on that topic alone. [I know I’ve written about this before, but I think it bears repeating.] If you’re rich, you have lots of friends. Find yourself in the financial crapper, and a shocking number of those “friends” scatter like cockroaches on the kitchen floor of the dump you used to live in back in college. Single women are rarely invited to couples events. For now, I’ll just say this experience has been a depressing but useful education.

I found out yesterday that I was runner up – again – for a job I interviewed for earlier this week. That interview was the second one for this position, and a two and a half hour marathon grilling by three head honchos. When I got through reading the rejection email, I promptly got into my car, drove to the store, bought both tequila and vodka, and a family sized bag of Tostitos for good measure. This has seeming become my way of handling the stress and disappointment. It’s that or fling myself off the roof. When I got home, I wrote MK to assure her that I’d lock myself in the house for the night. The last time I went on a tequila bender, I decided to go walkabout in my front yard at dusk and fell into a very large hole.

So…I’m the runner up every frigging time, in both personal and business arenas. I swear. It has to be my turn sometime soon.

broken

I’ve got a laundry list of all the events and challenges that’ve been thrown in my path, like stop sticks, over the past four and a half years. It’s all happened between 2006 and right this minute, 2010. I’m not sure why I haven’t stuck my head in the oven yet. Who would blame me? Oh, wait…it’s probably broken, too.

Broken and replaced: washer, dryer, computer, sump pump, water heater, home air conditioner’s compressor.

Broken and repaired: car’s transmission, oven, heat pump, garage door, wrist (1), house siding (2)

Broken and sitting, waiting their turn: car’s air conditioner (3), ice maker, various rotted windows, another refrigeration unit, car’s head gasket, door latches (4).

Not broken: my septic system, but the powers that be forced a sewer system through the neighborhood. I’ll be paying that bill for years. Literally.

Lost: to urinary tract disease or old age and loneliness - Monet, my gray cat, and Margaux, my black cat. Inseparable littermates. Both irreplaceable.

Lost: to alcoholism and untreated borderline personality disorder - a second husband (5).

Lost: to Tiger Woods Disease/WDS (6) - one boyfriend, who I thought was surely the right guy for me; the emotional abuse and psychotic head games took their toll, the person I thought he was still haunts me.

Lost: two jobs within six months of each other, and none found…yet (7).

I’m still here. To quote from the movie, Shakespeare in Love, it will turn out well…“How? I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

***
Footnotes:

(1) Surgically. The doc was a magician, though. I have full use of it, which, considering the number of bits and pieces, I still consider a miracle.
(2) Once the raccoon was removed and relocated; see http://uncontrolled-airspace.blogspot.com/2010/01/raccoon-resort.html
(3) Not the best summer to have to drive around without it.
(4) How I wish I could find an all-around handyman.
(5) Divorce can be construed as good or bad, but it’s stressful, nonetheless.
(6) WDS is not fit to print…Wandering d*** Syndrome…you get the idea…
(7) But I’ve had more interviews this year than all of 2009. That’s a good thing, right?

Brooks

Brooks was a good dog, and my first.
He was just about the worst physical specimen for a Gordon Setter you’ve ever seen. He topped out at 120 pounds one year, until I put him on a diet and got him down to a “reasonable” 100. Breed standard for males is about 80-85 pounds. He was big boned – really. I know, that sounds like the excuse we all make for being overweight. This animal’s front leg bones were bigger than my wrists. He had droopy eyes, crooked teeth, a sagging jaw line, and a pretty poor excuse for a tail, for a Setter.

He was a dreadful watchdog, too. He never met a stranger. He’d bark, alright, but then he’d run to the door to greet anyone there, whether I knew them or not. It’s a wonder he didn’t just let the burglars in and help them carry out anything they wanted.

Repairmen would come to the house, but never ask after my girlfriend or me. They always asked about Brooks as soon as they got here. Two women in the house, and they want to talk to my dog instead??? My florist loved him, too. If I remember right, he was upset the first time he came here and found out Brooks was gone.

I was thinking about him today. It was six years ago this morning I had to let him go. After going into shock, and a long complicated surgery for cancer, he just could not fight any more.

So, here’s to you, Brooks-y-dog. I’m not the only one who misses you!

rocket science

Only a complete fool would insult the person he/she is asking a favor of…..or so you would think.

I recently had someone comment to me that photography was not rocket science. (S)he (and I use that phrase to protect ME, not the innocent, because (s)he is most assuredly not) was begging for help regarding a photo shoot. Of course (s)he most likely wants it for cheap. [See prior blog post regarding misplaced loyalty.] Apparently (s)he thought any old Tom, Dick, or Harriet with a camera could shoot interiors without the resulting pics being dark as night, blurry, discolored…..you get my drift. Sounds like they got what they paid for. Oh….wait….they pay this guy $2,000 a month.

I was a professional photographer for a number of years for two local architectural firms. I also had my own darkroom business for 10 years. I was, as far as I know, the only Cibachrome lab in the state. I had a good reputation for nailing the color, spot on. I have enough camera equipment to weigh down a medium sized pack animal.

The problem that I continue to see with the advent of the digital world is that everyone with a camera thinks they can do the job. Thus the derogatory, derisive comment…."it’s not rocket science.”

Oh really?

Maybe…or not. I’ll grant you that half of a successful shot is having a good eye for composition. That, to me, means you’ve got an artist’s background. You were most likely born with it. You can foster it, but it’s pretty hard to flat out learn if you don’t have that inclination to begin with. The folks involved in this latest tale do not have an artist’s eye by any stretch of the imagination. You would think they would acknowledge that, and, knowing they can’t and you can, your God-given talents would engender some respect. Why is it, anyway, that art is so discounted?

Even so, after inherent artistic talent, shooting on automatic will only get you so far.

Do you really know your equipment?
Do you know the correlation between f stops and shutter speed?
Do you know the concept depth of field, and why a shallow DOF is sometimes desirable?
Do you know the difference between shutter priority and aperture priority, and in what circumstance each should be used?
Do you know what ISO is?
How about white balance?
Do you know why you shouldn’t use an ordinary polarizing filter on an auto focus lens?
Do know the differences between jpg’s, TIFF’s, and raw files, and the advantages raw files have?
Do you know what a histogram is?

What happens remains to be seen. I’m still waiting on the phone call. The pity of it is, it’s a job that would be fun. I love photography. I love going to job sites, setting up, working through the problems until you get a good product. [Frankly, I would never turn in substandard work, and it amazes me the other guy did.] But is it acceptable to work for people who insult the craft and, it follows, me?

misplaced loyalty

It’s my fault, I know it.

Historically, I’ve a tendency to embrace a new person/company without reservation, flinging myself into the relationship with abandon. Never stopping to think…does that person/company deserve my loyalty?

Everything is rosy at first. Who can resist feeling useful? That’s human nature. Requests for help are met with an unqualified yes from me. Photography, accounting, writing, you name it. If I think I can help someone and I have the skills they need, I jump right in there. Both feet. Right smack into Very Deep Quicksand.

There’s reciprocity at first, and seemingly genuine gratitude, but the further I go down this happy-to-help-you road, the quicker that all falls by the wayside.

And then it starts….

Slowly, at first. More solicitations for help, which isn’t really the point, but also more expectations of hearing “yes.” I don’t notice, then I do, that the requests come either more frequently or with less appreciation, or both. All of a sudden, the person/company thinks they’re entitled.

It’s often not the favor they want that’s so objectionable, it’s their presumption that I won’t say no, no matter what it is. “Let’s ask Deb! She’ll do it!”

Eventually the person/company makes an assumption that’s so outlandish, it pushes me over the cliff.

I’ve got examples. Boy, do I have examples….

*The woman who asked me to do her corporation’s year-end and tax returns. She knew, at the time, that they’d be filing Chapter 11 soon, but “forgot” to tell me. Believe it or not, that wasn’t the shove over the cliff….it was when she destroyed my pre-petition invoice, then picked up the phone to call and tell me what she’d done, and, thinking she was doing me a favor, told me to re-bill the company post-petition. In other words, commit fraud. She assumed, being “friends,” that I’d do that. Result? Loss of about $2,000. But I kept my license and my integrity.

*The guy who wanted accounting help for his firm. I actually took personal days off from my “real job” to go have a look. Seems his bookkeeper was double-booking his cash receipts, his trust account hadn’t been balanced in a year, and his bookkeeper before that had stolen from him (Quelle Surprise). He said he’d pay me to straighten out the mess….until he got my bill, and cried like a school child. He still owes. Well over $1,000. Thus far I have restrained myself from prancing back and forth in front of his office door with my middle fingers extended.

*The company/VP who wanted writing help. [I was the college kid who tested out of all the English requirements and re-wrote every composition my dorm mates brought to me. See? I was doing it way back then, too.] I edited submissions for awards. I proofread. I started writing for the newsletter. The shit hit the proverbial fan when one of my articles was used without authorization for another corporate entity, and another was so badly edited when published that it’s completely FUBAR’d. I’ve asked for a retraction or a reprint, but have yet to get it.

*The woman whom I fed every holiday, did innumerable favors for, free tax work for over a decade, garden labor, loans….was discovered to be trash-talking about me behind my back in terms that would make a sailor blush.

So…what to do, what to do? One can hardly spend the rest of one’s life never trusting another person/company. As soon as I take that approach, some very worthy non-blood-sucking people/companies are sure to come into my life, and I wouldn’t want to pass on the opportunity to get involved with the Good Guys. On the other hand, having had my teeth kicked in so many times, I’m inclined to go sit in the time-out corner and contemplate the situation. I’m taking pizza and beer with me; I might just stay there awhile.

Radio Technique at Non-towered Airports

Based on what I’m hearing lately, the winter and extended lousy spring flying weather may’ve left a lot of us a bit rusty in the communication area. I’m fairly certain that “okey-dokey” is not a standard radio call, nor is “no problem.” I checked the AIM and the Pilot/Controller Glossary and couldn’t find ‘em anywhere. Don’t forget to use your call sign any time you reply to anyone. And what is with the pilots who begin every call they make with “…and….?” Did they key their mics halfway though their call and we’ve missed something important like, say, the fact that they’re breathing down our tailpipes?

Listen first, before you key that mic and ‘step on’ another pilot. Start your calls 10 miles out. Be brief, yet complete; unhurried, but don’t take a day and a half either – remember, you’re talking on a party line. If you need to have an extended conversation with another aircraft (about anything other than flying), switch over to the air-to-air frequency, 122.750. Your aircraft call sign needs to be mentioned right after the name of the airport traffic to which you’re self-announcing. Using your aircraft model name will provide a better visual than the aircraft manufacturer’s name. You can call yourself a Cessna all you want, but there’s a world of difference between a Citation and a Skyhawk! Mention the airport name again, at the end of your call, in case another pilot didn’t catch the beginning of your transmission.

“Indy Exec traffic, Skyhawk 5-2 echo foxtrot, 10 miles northeast at 4000, inbound, landing, 1-8, Executive.”

“Kokomo traffic, Skylane 4-6 echo foxtrot, 10 miles northeast at 2900 on a practice ILS 23 approach, low approach only, Kokomo.”

“Boone County traffic, Premier 1-2-3-4 alpha, turning final, 3-6, Boone County.” [Kidding. Just checking to see if you’re all still awake.]

See AIM 4-1-9-g and h for more recommended self-announce phraseologies.

A final reminder: even though you’ve probably heard pilots who should know better stating “traffic in the area, please advise,” that is not a recognized Self-Announce Position or Intention phrase and should not be used, ever.

Blue skies, tailwinds, and safe flying!

gardening theory

While weeding today, I came up with some theories regarding gardening. Keep in mind, it was 98°F in the shade and I forgot to take water out there again, so maybe some of these “truths” are only figments born of heat induced delirium….

There is a difference between landscaping and a garden. Landscaping is what you install to ensure your home doesn’t look like it was just plopped down in the middle of a corn field. Oh...it was….never mind. It’s also what your realtor advises you plant to ensure great “curb appeal” and his or her next commission. A garden, on the other hand, is what you plant because you love beautiful, living things. A well thought-out garden will add more value to your home than landscaping….but you don’t care, because that’s not the reason you planted it.

If you don’t enjoy weeding and just being out there, mingling with your plants and the bugs and all nature’s critters, don’t plant a garden. [There are exceptions for spiders and chipmunks. See below.]

Plants are going to do one of two things – grow, or die. I cringe whenever I hear “oh, we had to take that shrub out, it got too big.” Either the garden shop fibbed to you about mature size, or you didn’t believe them. Think a one gallon, two foot Norway Spruce won’t grow into a 100’ tree? Think again! Though they’d kill it on purpose by digging it out, these same folks get upset when a plant/shrub/tree dies on its own. If you don’t want your plants to grow, why not just run over to K-Mart, buy yourself some nice red plastic geraniums, and call it a day?

Shrubs usually don’t grow in round shapes. If you want round shapes in your front yard, I suggest you plant bowling balls. I have a friend whose husband refused to believe that shrubs should be hand-pruned. I had to send her this link
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/HO-4.pdf
so that she could prove her case. Another friend’s husband insists on “ballifying” their shrubs annually. This overwhelming need to ballify seems to be, for the most part, most prevalent in men. Hmmmm…..

I have 'gone green," and am now mowing with this…

Now before you think I’m all noble and everything, the truth is, it was a financial decision. I retain the old-fashioned notion that I shouldn’t hire people I can’t pay, and I can’t afford a “real” (pun intended) mower, either. So far, it hasn’t been as bad as I thought, and there are some advantages. I can mow at Oh-dark-hundred without upsetting my neighbors. My garage doesn’t stink like gasoline. I don’t need a gym membership. It does an OK job, for the most part. It actually cuts through the thicker grass fairly well. It’s the thin scraggly stuff under the trees that, as I head its direction, lies prone before the mower, as though saying, wait, wait until I grow some more, I can’t live like this! Actually, a goat would probably do a better job, but would leave gifts behind, and I already have enough of that with Jasmine.

Chipmunks are vermin. They are not cute. They build multi-family multi-generation chipmunk condos in your backyard, dig up the foundation of your house, and dig up every plant you put in. Right now, they're mocking me and my poison peanuts. Give them pool passes every chance you get.

Wear clothes when you garden. Yes, I know that should be evident. You won’t get that much of a tan while gardening, anyway. The point here is, spider bites are not fun. Currently, I have a forearm half the size of Montana. It’s red, swollen, and itchy. I’m lucky, from what I hear, that I didn’t have an anaphylactic reaction.

I swore I wouldn’t whine about the heat this year, considering the duration of last winter. I may have to renege on that promise. The temperatures here have been insane….and I’m headed that direction. Bring your rake, your garden gloves, and a six pack, maybe two….I promise, you'll be entertained.

you get what you pay for

This is just a quick observation. I'm hearing "too expense" way too often. I contend that's a matter of perspective.
Say, for example, that you have three positions to fill. Say that you have two choices - hire three people, each at, let's say, $3 each, or hire one person who has the knowledge and energy to do the work of those three, and could be hired for under $9. Let's do the math. In addition to saving some base salary - or even if you didn't - you'd also save on unemployment tax and health insurance benefits, as you'd only have to cover one individual instead of three.
Voila! All of a sudden, that "expensive" hire become viable, even economical. That expense hire has the ability to think, learn, and contribute in ways you've not even thought of. Do you want three followers or one leader on your staff?
Now look at the big picture. Which option do you think is really your best? I know what I'd do.

reliability

re•ly\ to have confidence: trust.
re•li•able\ fit to be relied on.

I don’t know why this is such a foreign concept. Maybe I’m a fossil. I was taught personal responsibility as soon as I could form sentences more complex than See Spot Run.

If I call someone, I expect a return call. Ditto if I email them. This applies double if it’s anything to do with business. If someone says they’ll call me, I expect them to do so. Why does this never happen?

If someone tells me I’ve been offered a job, I assume they mean it. It blows me away when I get a cavalier phone call saying “never mind.” “We were just kidding. We really didn’t offer you x, y, or z.” Of course, that’s assuming I even get a phone call telling me they’ve changed their minds. I’ve had that sort of news filter back to me in rumors and innuendo. It’s crazzzzzy.

If someone asks me to do something, and I say I will, I will. Again, I am just floored if anyone should doubt that my word is not good. Does that means theirs isn’t? I think so.

understated confidence

Once in a while, you have a day where you just know Someone Upstairs is trying to get their point across. I would be the first to admit I’m a little dense, maybe even stubborn, so it often takes more than one ‘lesson’ before rational thought sinks in. OK, maybe many, many more than just one. At least, this time, the message was subtle instead of the hit-me-over-the-head-with-a-two-by-four lesson that I’ve been subjected to for, oh, say, at least five years running now. Maybe that means I’m almost there.

Last week, I got to observe all the disparities in egos humanly possible (it would seem), compacted into two hours, within the confines of an open house, fueled by cocktails. People watching couldn't have been much better. All the attendees were accomplished businessmen of some flavor. I myself was responsible for two of the guests, who both turned out to be totally delightful.

Talking to them, meeting other guests, watching the rest…the contrasts were glaring. Some of the (primarily) men there were successful beyond my wildest imagination, but they were not the peacocks in the crowd. Most likely to strut and preen were those who’d run their lives aground and were desperately trying to convince themselves (and all around them) that they were big shots, perfect examples of the success they thought they were or pretended to be. Pretense and the real deal in the same room; I saw the businessman’s equivalent of the woman who walks into a party wearing revealing clothing, laughing too loudly, too often, in all the wrong places, all the while looking over her shoulder to see who might be noticing. The behavior of each is born of insecurity.

I know one thing. Ego can be defined many ways, and you have to have some to get through life without getting trampled. Ego run amok is something else. A quiet confidence which springs from the knowledge of self and one’s capabilities, unthreatened by others’ intellects and accomplishments, speaks to that first kind of ego.

That, it seems, is what I’ve been looking for, and that, it seems, is what so many don’t have, substituting arrogance and bravado for self-confidence. Anyone with that kind of uncontrollable egotism I don’t need.

You’re on notice. Get out!

simple pleasures and complicated observations

It could be just my imagination, but I think life at Hell House may be starting to turn around. I’m almost afraid to say this out loud. This supremely ridiculous statement is being uttered by someone whose water heater just broke, as well as the compressor on the air conditioner (for the third time in five years), and who is currently sitting with an inoperable land line phone and a semi-useless television (hey, who needs video when you have audio, right?). That’s only the stuff that’s broken this year….the list of broken stuff still sitting around waiting for repair could fill a page.

So where does this irrational exuberance come from?

Some little things have gone right….I managed to add another rating to my pilot’s license (Instrument Ground Instructor)…an article I wrote may end up being published (for money, even!)....I’ve had at least six interviews to date this year (last year I only had two)….my female bullshit detector finally kicked in (you know that needed to happen!)…I haven’t set the oven on fire lately….small victories, all around.

Strange, unsettling things have happened, too, of course. In times of serious adversity, you find out the folks you thought were friends, really aren’t, and the ones you had no idea even noticed you come though in a pinch. The situation reminds me a lot of the reactions I’ve observed in my friends when, in my prior life, I suffered a death or divorce. Some people don’t know what to say or do, some laugh it off, some ignore it, some quietly go about helping you any way they can without making a big deal about it. Enlightening. People perpetually surprise me. I’ll remember them all.

Shoe Box People

Now I’m prone to putting off unpleasantries just as much as the next guy, but some parts of life are inevitable. Christmas, housework, weeds, the dentist….and of course, taxes.

Being a CPA, I have a bird’s eye view of the latter and I just want to say one thing right up front – it happens pretty much the same time every year, people.

I’m very popular this time of year. I have friends I didn’t know I had. The phone starts to ring the second week of April, usually about the 12th.

There are many types of tax clients. Last Minute Callers. First In Line. Shoebox People. I’m So Smart I Can Do Everything Myself People.

First In Line People are typically fairly easy to work with, though they can’t comprehend why they don’t have their W-2s on January 5th, and are very annoyed with their employers’ perceived sloth. These folks are prone to using The Bank of Uncle Sam for their savings account, and are in a big hurry to see how large their nest egg has grown – never mind that it “grew” interest-free.

I’m So Smart I Can Do Everything Myself People are dreadful. They are usually smart (or think they are) and good at what they do (ditto), but their self-perceived intelligence causes arrogance about the complexities of the Tax Code. I frequently see electrical engineers, lawyers, some doctors, and college students in this group. Mightily they struggle with the forms and calculations until the due date, only to come up with an answer they don’t like; only then do they call in the professionals….maybe. They may wait until the first Notice of Completely Screwed Up Return comes in to cry for help. If you’re a CPA, do yourself a favor, and charge these people double your billing rate. Call it the Hassle Factor. Even if you rescue them, they will not be grateful, nor will they acknowledge that your expertise might be a skosh better than their own, given the fact you do, say, hundreds of these a year as opposed to, say, their one or two. Your expensive software might be a wee bit better than theirs, too. They are going to be indignant as hell because you’ve embarrassed them by proving them fallible.

I find Last Minute Callers fall into two camps: those with only a few scraps of paper (Les Petit Papiers), and those with shoe boxes full of random receipts (The Shoe Box People).

Les Petit Papiers come with little or no information yet expect their accountant to be psychic. But no, sadly, I cannot guestimate your income. Nor can I tell you where you lost your W-2, no matter how beseechingly you look at me while you beg. They look like puppies. These types will dribble in the necessary information, piece by piece, but only with frequent prompting. It’s as though they think I’ll just ‘forget’ about the missing information and prepare the return via three-way séance with the government and banking agencies.

The Shoe Box People are more prevalent. They walk in as though they’re bearing gifts to the Magi, and usually dump the contents of a boot-sized Florsheim box on my desk with the same proud look your cat has when she drops a mouse at your feet. But alas…once you’ve plumbed the depths of that shoebox (ATM withdrawal slips will not give me any idea what you spent that cash on) you will find as little useful information as the folks with the three pieces of paper in hand.

The trouble with both flavors of Last Minute Callers is that they get upset with any bill more than what they’d pay for dinner for two at Chili’s. This is problematic, as usually you have to invest at least 10 hours or more with these people to get anything you’d be willing to sign your name to.

I was thinking of changing careers again. Maybe I won’t. Where else can you be so entertained at get paid for it?!

Spring...

It’s a good thing it got here when it did. People – namely me – were starting to get grumpy.

Of course, the season brought out all the critters. Raccoons number two and three were trapped and transported a week or so ago. There was fighting over rights to the abandoned Raccoon Resort, so I evicted them both.

With spring comes renewed hope. I am cautiously, carefully, warily hopeful….I have a real interview with a real HR department for a real job. After being demoted before I was even hired by the last company I wanted (so desperately) to work for, I’m just a wee bit leery, but this one looks like the real deal.

To paraphrase a quote from my favorite movie….

“It will all turn out well….how?...I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

Worse

About the time you think you’ve hit bottom, you find out you haven’t.

It started with an article in the local paper about a guy who will buy coins. The article says ‘the coin market is hot.’ My parents half-heartedly used to collect, and I know I’ll never be interested. Maybe there’s hope, something here I don’t know I have.

I scoop it all up and head to the storefront where he said he’d be until noon.

The building is new and clean. The walls are covered in paintings for sale, and the cases full of jewelry. He comes out from the back. Tall, serious, no smiling, no nonsense. I introduce myself, but I sense that he doesn’t want to get to know me and he certainly doesn’t want to hear my story. I have to think that over the course of this career of his, he’s had to harden, wall off any emotions he might feel, all the hardship cases he’s seen…..

He quickly dispenses with the coins that I thought might’ve been worth something. $5 and change. The box of old jewelry turns out to be only costume. I brought my grandfather’s old Masonic ring. I get $50 for that; he tells me mostly because of what the gold is worth. An old gold wedding band brings $50 as well.

The Ebel watch is the saddest. I’ve had it for a long time, a gift from a long ago boyfriend. I liked that watch. He looks, goes back to talk to someone, comes back out. He says $70. I know I can’t afford to put a battery in it, so I’ll never be able to wear it. I hesitate, then say OK. The same watch you’d have to spend $2,000 to buy new. I hold off crying until I turn to leave.

I walk out with $182, feeling like I just sold part of my soul.

hope

I’ve lost hope, and that was all I had left to keep me going.

I keep thinking back, trying to figure out where I made the fatal error that brought me to this situation. Was it divorcing? Letting my (then) husband convince me to quit my last public accounting job before I could be hired away as a controller by one of their clients? Dropping my own clients, years later, because he threatened me? What have I done wrong? Which piece of the puzzle that is my life is misplaced? I’m wracking my brain, looking for the mistake, so I can fix it.

I graduated 18th out of a high school class of 402. I earned a full four year scholarship to college. I was a mostly straight-A student. I sent myself back to college nine years later for accounting while working both a full time and part time job. I tested out of most of the accounting classes and went directly to sit for the CPA exam. I took it back in the days when it was given in a large conference room with no computers or calculators, essay questions were part of the exam, and it spanned two and a half days. I passed it all the first time.

But somehow, I’ve failed.

For over a year I’ve tried to find challenging work at a company who needs me, where I can make a difference. I have always wanted to help a company grow by providing the best possible financial information, so that the owners could see the results of any decisions they made and do what they do best – manage their company – without having to worry about the recordkeeping and reporting that is part of business.

No one, it seems, wants me. My only offer? A part time clerical job. And right now, I’m not even sure I have that.

Meanwhile, I see people with half my experience, unable to string together a logical sentence or work an Excel spreadsheet without formula errors or prepare a budget or make a decision and stick to it…all of them employed, and not just in ordinary jobs, but good solid positions. Directors. Vice Presidents. CFO’s. I don’t know how they got there or how they manage stay where they are. When did mediocrity become the norm, acceptable, even an advantage?

If being good at what you do is not the way out of this mess, what is?

valentine's day

Valentine’s Day. Four syllables that strike fear, loathing, and depression in the hearts and minds of typically sane but single women.

No doubt about it, the world was meant to be experienced in pairs.

I decided to view this day as an opportunity to reflect on the joyous, few and far between dates I’ve experienced in the past four years. It’s the only way I know to mitigate the misery of being single on a day so fraught with expectations.

First up, a guy I met on line. He drove an ancient Range Rover, loved dogs, was well educated, lived in a good neighborhood, and wrote well. Recently separated, he assured me he was ready to date, and of course, he was “fit”. [Aren’t they all?] He sounded good on paper. We agreed to meet at Starbucks for coffee. Safe enough. I made sure to get there first, and found a prime table to watch him limp through the parking lot with a small beach ball under his shirt and no visible evidence of a rear end in his pants. If he’s fit, I’m the Queen of Sheba. The conversation wasn’t what I’d call inspiring. He had the sense to never write or call back.

There was another, from out of town, also well educated and the CEO of a chain of hospitals. We met for dinner. I would’ve drunk myself into a stupor when I got home but I was already nearly comatose - from boredom, not the one lousy glass of wine I’d had. The man didn’t even smile or shake my hand when I walked in and introduced myself. Wooden; nearly totem-pole like he was so stiff; monotone voice; non-expressive face; boring and exceedingly accounting-like; lacking one shred of personality; completely incapable of interesting conversation; and if he's intelligent enough to be the CEO of an organization that big, then I'm fricking Einstein. Maybe he’d just had his frontal lobotomy done right before he got in his car to drive down from the hill he lives on. If I'd have yelled 'boo' he probably would have peed his pants.

Yet another came to the door to pick me up in his best Jimmy Buffet outfit (shorts, Hawaiian shirt, flip flops), freshly bathed in cologne. I’ve never been so grateful for dining al fresco in my life. I made sure to sit upwind.

And still another assured me that he was a “young” 61. We also met for coffee. I could barely stand a fleeting look, he was such a cyber-toad. He’d described himself as attractive. I’d like to know where he buys his mirrors. He was Durant’s twin dressed in golf attire. About an hour after I got home, he wrote; he thought we had “chemistry.” Yep, chemistry. Like oil and water, I'm thinkin.' Chemistry, connection with whom? Was I channeling Ethel Merman? He wanted an answer right away. I thought I should tell him I'm not his type; about the time he heard Prince coming out of my iPod, he might freak.

Remind me, should I ever forget, and once again get the hair-brained notion that blind dates are a great idea, to just schedule a gynecological exam, root canal, and IRS audit on the same day instead. They would all be less painful.

Fine. Being single isn’t great; in fact it’s mostly all about eating beans out of a can over the kitchen sink, falling asleep in your clothes with half the lights in the house on, and finding your wine glass in odd places the next morning….but maybe it’s better than being with the wrong guy.

Raccoon Resort

In the middle of the night, I hear a distant banging, like a shutter come loose on an old beach house, hitting the wall, back and forth, as rhythmic as the waves of the tide.
I struggle out of that half-sleep state to the realization that I’m not on a beach and my house doesn’t have detachable shutters.
Damn It.
I get up and listen for the direction of the noise. It’s louder in the bathroom and I get suspicious. Retrieving a flashlight from the nightstand, I go back to the bathroom window. A mask and two eyes shine back.

Oh Happy Day. My two month squatter, caught at last.

I let him sulk until daybreak.

The cage is too big, too muddy, too heavy to lift up through the window and cart through the house. The only thing to do is to shove him over the edge of the roof. Now how to do that without being bitten or scratched?

First try – a household broom. Rocky starts to snarl as soon as I poke at the trap. The broom isn’t long enough.

I trot downstairs, through the kitchen to the garage, and back upstairs with a janitor’s broom. I manage to finesse it out the window without taking off any paint in the process. This doesn’t work either. It’s only long enough to move the cage to the edge of the roof…where it gets stuck on the guttering. I push harder. The gutter bows. At this rate, I’m going to rip the gutter off, too, and just add to the damage already done. I need a hook.

I snatch a hanger out of the closet and try to attach it to the end of the broom. It promptly falls off in the middle of the roof, out of reach. I think about crawling out the window. Considering my propensity for broken bones, I promptly discard that idea. The hangar can just stay there.

Down I go, to the garage again, to survey all my garden tools. There has to be something longer, with a sharp edge. My eyes light on the Japanese hoe, and back up the stairs I go, looking like an off kilter pole-vaulter.

The corner of the hoe catches on the corner of the cage and I manage to move it. Another shove….and a crash.

I laugh. Victory is mine, you destructive SOB. I have lost my mind.

Down the stairs, out the back door, to the side of the house to look. The raccoon is fine, the trap only slightly dented.

I let Rocky settle down a bit, then load him into the wheelbarrow and deposit him in the middle of the driveway, with a sign attached to his trap. He looks like Hester wearing her scarlet letter. As if this raccoon feels any remorse! MK comes over and takes him to his new home.

I know where he lives. He’ll be getting my bill.

and now, to suit our great computer….

How did it come to pass that a computer now chooses who will be selected for an interview and who will not? These big companies with their boilerplate questionnaires and replies! Do any human life forms work there? They reduce your resume to catch phrases and snippets of data. Without the correct words, or combinations thereof, you are kicked to the curb by an inanimate object.

Where in their on-line forms can I insert that I have half a Master’s Degree? Or that I passed the CPA exam in one sitting? Or that I have managed personalities so diverse that Sybil would look normal by comparison? No place for gray with these Large Corporate HR Departments, it’s all black/white, yes/no, no fuzzy logic, no room for a good hunch that this one, this applicant might be a good fit.

You should’ve seen the questionnaire I had to fill out today. Do you like working in groups? Can you juggle more than one task at a time? Do you hate meetings? Do you use mustard or ketchup on your hot dog? Do you take showers or baths? Do you get impatient with questions like these? Seriously, it was about that idiotic.

Another irony….most have on line jobs boards where you can set up job searches based upon the resume you’ve just submitted. I can’t count the number of emails I’ve received….Here, apply for this one! It’s got your name written all over it! Your skills match! And when I do….another reject letter, three months later.

And the replies they send….not only months later, but boilerplate again…..

"Thank you for expressing interest in Corporation from Hell. Although we were impressed by your skills and experience, unfortunately we will not be taking your application any further…"

"While you display valuable skills, we have chosen to pursue other candidates…"

"While your credentials were impressive…."

Oh for Pete’s sake. Who are they kidding? And more to the point….would I really want to work for a company run by robots? I would love to see the applicants that make the first cut for a face to face interview. Are they robots too?

Must I become merely magnetic ink?

a true tale

There was a divorced woman who lived alone in a small red brick ranch house in a small Middle American city with her calico cat. She had recently retired from the city’s school system, where she’d worked since the mid – 1960’s. Retirement wasn’t what she’d thought it would be. She tried to fill her time with gardening and reading. She did have, as Norma would later write, a million friends. There was a small group of girlfriends she looked forward to seeing every Friday for early dinner and conversation. They didn’t meet at a fancy place, but somewhere that they could all afford on fixed incomes.

One Friday, she didn’t show up.

“Wonder where Bertie Jo is?”
“I don’t know. She said she was coming.”
“She always comes.”
“I just talked to her yesterday; she didn’t say anything.”
“I bet she went to see her daughters for the weekend.”
“That’s got to be it.”
“But she didn’t mention she was going…”
“I bet she just forgot to tell us.”
“You’re probably right.”

And the ladies went on with their conversations of children, grandchildren, and husbands, and forgot to worry about Bertie Jo.

Mary, the neighbor across the street, who’d also known Bertie Jo since 1960, wondered, too, why the package from UPS sat on the front step all weekend long.

Four days later, at the request of one of her daughters, the town police came and broke into her home and climbed through the dining room window to discover her, lying crumpled, next to her bed…gone….

After the autopsy, the coroner told her daughters that her girlfriends could probably not have helped her, even if they’d come looking for her that Friday night. The mortician had to tell her daughters that it was probably advisable that they not look….

Bertie Jo’s girlfriends made assumptions, which cost her daughters the opportunity to see their mother one last time before laying her to rest.

I know the story is true, because one of her daughters was me.