Ho-hum

Spent the last couple of days cleaning various closets and nooks, rearranging a kitchen "pantry" closet (tiny little thing) and one cupboard, while putting away the booty from our recent grocery shopping mission. And it never seems to stop, does it?

Karl has had to be pushed and pulled into finishing the project for class, which is due at 6pm sharp. Because his understanding and current skillset in Photoshop exceeds where the instructor is currently taking the class, he is bored out of his mind, so getting him to complete (OK, let's be real...getting him to sit and START the assignment) was a freakin' chore.

Compound the whole mess with the CS4 we have at home v. the CS3 at school, and you have something akin to a Stephen King novel nightmare. There are enough little differences between them to make it a bit of a pain, and despite our incredibly mammoth editing suite, the CS4 has glitches that make using the tool a hassle. Something is gorped with the functionality/response time (which just frustrated and distracted Karl to no end), so I can imagine a long phone call with a help desk rep in my future.

I have the same jerky issues while using Premiere Pro, so it may be something with the monster, too. It may solely be the monster and not the software, or it could be a combo...either way, I do not relish the idea of having to take the damn thing to Troy for a look-see.

Still working on gathering the paperwork to satisfy the MI Works/No Worker Left Behind program requirements. What a crock! My meeting date has moved from the end of September to the end of July, which I am taking as a good sign. I figure if I get it together quickly, I may be ready when they call one day soon to tell me it's been moved again to the end of June. Wouldn't that be groovy?!

C'mon, cosmic stars...align!

Until then, though, I will cut out dresses and tops to make and wear for the summer of fat, work on my gift for Gram's 98th birthday, continue to send out resumes and please-hire-me-cover letters, shepherd Karl to and from class, edit together new demos and pray for a call from a hiring manager.

All I really want to do right now is weed the garden.

A little something for Maria and Gram

Maria shared her beautiful tulips with me via her blog, and I saw my own from afar after the surgery. Here, I am simply returning the favor. I hope you like these pictures.

The rain has knocked the life out of some of my lovely poppies - as it always does the minute they bloom - but I thought you might like to see the minor successes in my sad, untended garden. These photos are from the front flowerbed, I managed to sneak out there for a few moments on one sunny afternoon, in between recent thunderstorms.

Peonies and poppies are pretty well independent and self-sustaining once they get going; a little staking is all that's needed. Next year I will have to re-do the supports for these neighboring specimens.

I have been watching these lovely creatures all spring from the library window, waiting for the moment when the flower heads burst from their bulging pods.

Even the bees can't resist them.

Peonies are lovely things, with a beautifully delicate fragrance. After the rush of Hyacinth scent vanishes, these short-lived blossoms are a blessing.

Works of art, I tell ya.

Now you see why I have been bemoaning the fact that I haven't been able to work in the flowerbeds as much as I would like.

To anyone peeking in over Gram's and Maria's shoulders....welcome! If you copy these photos (you bunch of stinkers), please give credit where credit is due. Thank you.

Resume day

I spent the better part of yesterday online sending out resumes and cover letters (all electronic, of course), and received one fairly instantaneous reply. A good thing, no?

After an exchange of roughly 7 emails, I was called a number of hours later by the casting director for a project here in MI. I was buoyed, but apprehensive, as there are a number of caveats with this project.

The first (most notable) is that it isn't a film production, although it is being run by an Oscar winning editor and an award winning casting dir./producer.

The hours would be very long - 14 hours per day (4a.m. to 6p.m.) - every day! That means Sunday through Saturday for the duration of the project. "When?" you ask. Well, let me tell you. From July 12th through August 11th.

Now, there are a few light days - in the beginning - that will only be 'business hour long', but that will end on the 12th of July, when the project gets off the ground and the real "action" begins.

My first three days will be *July 9, *10 and *11, and will be pre-production work in casting, after that, I have the option to continue with the production and become a site PA - doing the grunt work.

Does not bother me. Bring it on!

Days *one, *two and *three pay $125 a day...so, all good. I will have to pay for my own room, however, so 'take home pay' not so good.

[See? For every good thing there is a minor drawback.]

Every day thereafter pays $150/day, including two meals, BUT there are no days off and the call time every day is 4a.m., and the end of my day would be roughly 6p.m.

The elements will be what they are - meaning I will be out in the sun, rain, mosquitoes, heat, cold, whatever, all the time - and shepherding the crowds of approximately 200 folks all day, every day! These things I can handle, even the grunt work portion...toting water, garbage, toilet paper (unused), and - I understand - picking up cigarette butts. [Repugnant thought, I must say with all honesty] The hard work doesn't bother me...it's exercise!

The cigarette butts thing is a little off-putting, though. I call it like I see it.

Pro/con.

Give/take.

Yea/nay.

I mean, it's six of one, half-dozen of the other. To be or not to be. You get where I'm goin'? Ya dig? Do you feel me?

Truly, the worst thoughts I have are of the boys being here alone for that month. I have been asked twice now to please consider remaining on as one of two PA's after the pre-prod work is done - really a cool thing to be asked by these folks. The biggest drawback is leaving the kids to their own devices for a month. Karl has class every Monday until mid-August, and I am his note taker/proctor. I am frightened by what may come of his chance to complete this course and do as well as he is able with Brian subbing for me. Will they be able to step up and work well together for the sake of the class and harmony at home, or would there be nothing but issues? I can't say for certain.

Will the grass get mowed, the trash taken out, the catbox cleaned DAILY and the cats fed without arguements? Dishes pile up and smells will take over, I fear.

The one giant piece standing in my way for the second portion - the longest stretch - is the whole where-to-stay issue. I would love to do this gig, as I can use the money and the possible networking opps (as well as the resume component), but I have to have a place to stay before I can accept the job.

So....... [trailing uncertainty]

I have already phoned the person working with the producer to give that much of an answer, and I am waiting to hear if they have a connection for me to call and look into for the chance of staying on base (as that was something mentioned in an email). At this time, however, I am treading water.

Stay tuned and I will keep you posted.

[Sadly, that was the only bite I had for all of the email I sent out this week - just thought you'd like to know.]

Oh, and I did have a bright bit of news regarding the camera position I had won right before the surgery - I finally got an answer from the producer (Brian K) as to whether I was still in the running because of the unfortunate timing et.al. He texted: "We are still counting on you being on the proj, and eager to have you work with us. Will be in touch soon, have been busy with editing." So you can see where accepting this other bit of work might throw a monkey wrench in things should work ever truly commence. ;^)

Finally! Somebody with some common green sense in Detroit

Green in between: Detroit alley to become earth-friendly experiment detnews.com The Detroit News . Place your cursor on the previous sentence and click the link to read the article.

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What an absolutely brilliant idea - and it's about time!

Just wondering

When was the last time you crossed your fingers?

Are you a pointer-over crosser...

...or a middle-over sort of person?

Hhmmmmm?

Of course, there's always the double crosser to put up with.

(Complete showoff!)

"FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!" -- Sir Wm. Wallace

Soooo many things to do, and so little time...and even smaller personal physical freedom to get 100% involved in my life and favorite pastimes. Like the gardening, just as one example. Due to the whole "recovery process," I am still being admonished about not bending at the waist, not applying pressure or stress to the abdominal area, and certainly not exercising it.

Well, when can I get more involved in my own life, and when can I start getting the ab area back into shape?

Hello!

This is all beginning to feel very counterproductive.

A major grocery expedition still needs doing, and all I get from the boys is guff and noise and excuses, compounded by stalling tactics. I remind them that they eat the groceries, they use the cleaning products and toilet paper, etc. Sometimes that seems to make a dent in their psyches. Sometimes.

I gave the boys a chore to do. Yes, and to compound the problem, I asked them to accomplish the task together. The inside of my car still looks like a teenagers floor! Ugh! And now, silly me, I need another set of cleaning tasks accomplished (quick, but dirty and very necessary - more moving items rather than cleaning, really), and even just asking this morning in anticipation of the coming disgruntled response, I was shocked at the new strategy employed.

The first to come was a definite pause and a stern head tilt and squint, followed by the verbal response: "Uh, when? I have to work. Can I do it when I get home tonight?"

Silly boy...you only work until 4pm, so no worries, and I need it completed before tomorrow at 1pm. So you see, plenty of time.

His next maneuver will be to remain gone long after his ending time, and well past mall closing time. I am on to his games.

This is why I want my freedom back. This is why I need my freedom...or at the very least, obedient unquestioning slaves.

Correction

It turns out my cousin hasn't posted a photo of her father on her Facebook site, and didn't describe him as being 74.

Nope. It was a photo of her 74 year old father-in-law! Just a tidge different

If you saw the photo I saw, you would swear it was her old man, and not her new old man's old man! LOL

I stand corrected. (Good thing she was laughing over it, too.)

Random silliness

Has it really been two days since my last spew? Well, let me spew on, McDuff.

I joined Facebook last month (maybe closer to two months ago), in addition to already having a spot in Myspace. Let me tell you, (last year) after about two weeks of user confusion and baffling site navigation, I pretty well gave up on the Myspace thing (plus, I can't remember my password or user name any longer, so going in and updating is impossible). So, I am just 'out there', in the Myspace realm, with my little gingerbread head photo marking my ID, aimlessly existing.

I am however, still trying to peek in on the Facebook place from time to time and keep up with the chatter and the silliness, and the tests, and the random "become a fan of [this]" pass-along's - and on and on and on. Oh my gosh, there's so much garbage! What happened to simply chatting and saying hello and sharing news and being communal? That site is just so much extemporaneous BS, what's the point? All the extra garbage they send and almost demand you pass along to 8 other friends...takes the need for truly writing a message out of the mix. Questions and real information seem to get lost in the barrage of quiz scores and 'what star am I most likely to bond with on Pluto?' photos. And you can't simply take a fun little questionnaire and post the final answer or score on your own space...nooooo. You MUST send it to 4, or 12, or 18 of your favorite people, and grant access to all of your contact info, etc.

I took one "I.Q." test that everyone else seems to have taken and posted, and at the end of it, it made you enter all sorts of personal (UNNECESSARY) information before your score would post. Well, I used fake info...and would you believe the silly thing kept kicking back to certain input spaces for "real" info? Aaarrgh! How did it know the data I gave wasn't my data? So I wouldn't give my real phone number or my birth date or my street address. It wasn't pertinent to posting my score, it only puts me on a mailing list, or makes it easy for a scammer to use me and mine some how.

When I opted to cancel the whole thing and back out of the test site, it said I was stupid, and that I didn't get any of the answers correct. Well, that's laughable...it was all old joke-type questions, like: "How many months have 28 days?"

We all know the answer is 12, right? Just stuff like that, which I have heard a million times, so I knew I had a darned good score. I am simply flabbergasted by the lengths these people will go to in order to elicit [our] information.

Bah!! Humbug, I say. Humbug!!

On another equally random subject - one of my many uncles turned 62 in May. I know this because he is seven years younger than my mother. Born in 1947, he is a young baby boomer (or an old baby boomer - depending upon your point of view). Maybe I should say he is an early baby boomer. Hmmm.

At any rate, his daughter posted a photo of her father blowing out his birthday candles and captioned it "My dad turning 74," or something very similar. The point is, she labeled him 74! How can you not know how old your father is? Seriously?! I almost fell off my chair - she aged him twelve years in a heartbeat. Even if she had the correct decade, he would still be 2 years older by her count.

Ah, my cousins are funny. Like the fact I still need to correct some of them who insist on calling me "aunt" Beth when I am a cousin. Just because I am the second eldest of the lot of us doesn't arbitrarily make me an aunt!

For crying out loud. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzI'm just saying. :^P

See? Random silliness. Enjoy your day, people. Hugs all 'round.

Today is beautiful

It started off calm and cool, and sunny, sunny, sunny, although it looks as though we had sprinkles overnight.

As I was sitting in the library going through my email, looking for work and performing some general internet perusing, it became suddenly breezy. On the whole a breeze doesn't bother me, but it was noticeably cooler than it needed to be, and because I had opened windows all around the house for the fresh air, it affected the thermostat and turned the heat on!

Now that's a cool breeze!

So, for the time being, I have turned off the furnace and closed the windows (most of them) until the air temperature warms up enough to allow for that lil' spring breeze to rifle through the house.

Ah, springtime in MI...snows when it's 50*F, rains when it's sunny and wrecks anything crunchy with its humidity. :^)

My "to-do" list is relatively long as I am still trying to talk down the additional bills from the emergency surgery, Good heavens, did you know that everybody gets paid twice?!? Sure - the radiologist is asking for money outside of the hospital bill. As is the anesthesiologist, the tech who took the x-rays, the doctor who assisted the surgeon, the CT tech, and the ER doc who saw me from 6pm on Thursday until he left somewhere early the next day. There are more, but why should you suffer an anxiety attack? Are you telling me that these folks don't get an hourly wage from the hospital for being there from 7am to 7pm (or, whatever their shift is)? What if nobody comes through the doors during their shift? Are you telling me that they work for free?

Yeah, I don't think so. [sgnort!]

I am going to open the window in here again. I need that stiff breeze to keep me from crying.

As Fred Rogers was fond of saying: "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood."

Ahh, June 1st

In years past, I would have sent a birthday card to my stepmother (first stepmom), but since Bev passed on earlier this year I am sending cosmic thoughts and wishes to her.

The new recipient of the June first b-day card is Barb J, my eldest sons former girlfriend.

Happy Birthday, Barbra Melba-toast Yule-log Maybelline Janiski!

Her mom and I became friends before the kids' first breakup, and we have remained friends ever since.

It's been a fairly symbiotic relationship over the last two years or so, with Jean needing answers to divorce questions and her providing a sounding board for me during the early months of my work separation and on through to the present. When staying at her family home was next to impossible during the divorce proceedings (with her ex-dolt there), she would periodically make our home a place to come - she has several friends who afforded this sort of refuge.

If I had had that sort of option, I would have done the same thing way back when.

While I was attending Specs, she would routinely stay in Clarkston and helped with getting Karl here and there, getting pizza or Chinese food and critiquing my assignments, and keeping Brian on task. (Kids will often talk to adults who aren't their parents...go figure.)

What does all of this have to do with June first?

Nothing, really, except she has been the first real friend I have had since before my own divorce, and it took me years to achieve that. Since then I have made other friendships, but I do so sparingly, and with great trepidation.

Over my lifetime I have found that friendships do not last, no matter how much I put into keeping them going. I can have all sorts of good intentions, but the effort has to be mutual, and I have never had a good friendship last past a move out of town, a graduation, lives and business interfering, etc. So my recourse over time has simply been to refrain from becoming attached to anyone so as to avoid the painful part of losing that friendship.

I do not like goodbyes, so in order to avoid them, I have learned to avoid the hello portion, too. I know this means missing out on some really good opportunities from time to time, and at first glance this may seem like a strange way to conduct one's life, I have found it to save the larger portions of my heart that remain from breaking and being ground to dust.

Self-preservation and the first of June are a bitch.

Holy smokes! Last day of May, already!

Time flies when you're having fun. That's what they say, anyway.

Of course, for the last month and one half, I have not been having so much fun as so much boredom...wrapped in recuperation...sprinkled with lost job possibilities...fortified with arriving (un-payable) non-insured hospitalization bills.

So why should it seem like May has gone up in smoke? Vanished without so much as a how-do-you-do?

I had plans for this month; an ambiguously paying camera gig, a chance to stay with Gram and make some badly needed pocket mullah, events around "the D" to tape and use as a new demo, and some excellent seminars and learning opps. Oh yes, and the planting of seeds and growing plants. The subsequent gardening and enjoyment of the end results.

Gone! All gone. Pfft!

Well, I have been good of late, and am feeling quite a bit improved over a month ago - to say the least. Even in the last 2 weeks moving around and accomplishing simple things - like putting on socks and pulling on pants without too much effort - has gotten easier. Still not picking up items of any size, or doing much bending (per surgeon's instructions), but simple chores are more doable, with end results being more attainable. Cooking a meal, for example. Sitting at the PC for more than 10 minutes at a stretch - this has been grand.

I still get pooped (what seems) all too quickly, but not as before. I can even practice holding my abdomen in without pain - and this is a great thing! Between Harvey and the tear he snuck out from, I have been unknowingly doing myself huge amounts of harm, and so now, I find myself doing everything with caution (maybe too much, but who knows?). Though, I see nothing wrong with caution where it is warranted. So here I am, ready to pick my torch back up and begin that race to the next hurdle. Although, go ahead and pass me if you need to, I have never been much of a runner. I do walk quite well - and for miles if I have to.

So here I go, crossing into a whole new month, with the chance to improve my state of physical being (with caution). Goodbye, May. See ya, Harvey. S'long inactivity and holding patterns.

Come to mama, June.

Cowabunga!

Du-u-u-u-u-de!

Sometimes, it just needs to be said.