The Week (From Wednesday) In Review

Taylor

No, I haven't started cleaning out her hidey-holes. I did get a card from the vets office, but threw it away. I sent an email to the guy at the North Shore Animal League Continuing Care program, letting him know that Taylor is no more and do not sent me anything about the Bridge. I wrote, "I already know my heart hurts without being reminded."


That *$Y%* Commercial

Of course I went looking for it. And found it. I watched five seconds of it, then zipped over to another web site and have resolved to never, ever looking at it again.


A Day With The Queen Bee

Because the Prince Consort is temporarily out of commission, QB asked if I would like to accompany her to a play at a local theater. This theater draws national attention, probably because it's the only Equity theater in New Jersey. They have graduates like Anne Hathaway. While it was lovely to be with QB, I was reminded again why I don't like crowds, don't like going out when everyone else is out and about.

It's because there are people out there.

Prepare to hate me now. I am not proud of this.

There was a group of about 20 developmentally delayed adults in the audience and I was crammed up against one of them, a woman in her late 30s, no Twiggy herself, who complained about how fat I am. Honestly, I tried to huddle into myself as much as I could, but there's just so much I can do with this much of me. Plus, the Queen Bee is on the plush side. At one point, one of the adults chaperoning the group asked the woman next to me if she would like to take her coat off. "I can't move!" the woman shrieked. Well, I couldn't either. I felt like the kid in "A Christmas Story", stuck to the flag pole.

And then she started to pick her nose and rub the boogers on her trousers.

QB didn't have it any easier. There was a 12 year old next to her who had tucked her foot under her and was juggling it against QB's thigh.

Yeah. I hate people. I really do. The public in general? Honestly, why are they drawing breath?

Most of what I saw of the play was the back of a guy's head until my boogery friend left during intermission.

Eesh.

We finished the day at Jersey's Best Hot Dog stand. I came home and fell into bed.


Money

I have returned:

- the lap desk from B&N, which was made for a right-handed person.
- the new and unopened heated mattress pad and sheets. I have enough blankets and make-dos until I save up for new stuff that I can afford.

I have a toffee tin that I've owned since childhood. This is where all my spare change goes. Once a year, I dump it out and get about $100 out of it. This year, I got $120. This is my mad money. This is for when the wall are closing in on me, I have to go someplace, I am being driven made by the cats, a new movie is out that I must see, etc.

I'm working on a budget for myself and this morning took the grocery budget out for a spin. I came back $10 over budget, but I'd been out of nearly everything. I'm still noticing what's missing from the fridge. At the moment, I'm not going to try going vegan again. I just want to get back into a familiar routine of cooking. I bought a lot of chicken, so anticipate stews, soups, and white chicken chili this week. I hope there'll be enough left over to freeze so I can start up my freezer inventory again.

Also have a lot of Indian pre-made dinners, so I just have to make the basmati rice, which is very easy. And very delicious.


Work

The Audit chick and I met and she said she loved the spreadsheet. And that one of our big clients said our documents should be the standard for our particular industry. How is that for validation?

Not Good News

1. Gus is severely anemic. With a normal range to this particular test starting at 34, Gus tests at a 19.

2. Gus's heart is enlarged. But only part of it.

3. Gus is in the early stages of renal failure. Medicine to help his heart will have adverse effects on his kidneys.

4. There are two masses in Gussy's liver. "Not terribly big and it's impossible to tell without doing a biopsy whether or not it's benign."

What can be causing all this?

The early stages of lymphoma. Maybe. Or it could be a perfectly horrible storm of stuff happening to my Gussy Guy at once.

This was delivered by a decidedly Not Hunky Vet.

I'm going in about an hour to pick him up. I wasn't able to get much of anything done at work today.

The estimate for this treatment ranged from $450 - $1,400. At some point, I have to say no. I spent my lunch time arranging a payment plan with the hospital that finally did something about my hurt leg in June. They were very nice. Wells Fargo should take lessons from them.

The vet's office wanted a $400 deposit. I must have turned pale because Donna the receptionist said, "Let me go see if we can make it less. Would, um, $200 be okay?"

I nodded.

Apparently the Big Vet (still so un-hunky) asked, "Is she a good client?" And Donna responded astringently that I'm an excellent customer.

But still. My Gussy is not going to live forever. And what will I do without his sweetness? His simple, loving goodness? Where will I be without my Gussygusgusgus?

I'll think about that tomorrow. When I go home to Tara.

There's Got to be a Morning After

Without the aid of clonazepam, alcohol, or anything more destructive than cream cheese, I managed to settle myself down last night.

I watched two episodes of "Lost" on Netflix, but before I did that I came to a very obvious realization.

I need to find a better-paying job. I know. Duh.

Although I agreed to stay at this job for six months - and who knows, I may have to - I just have to get back into job search mode and keep on looking.

And find other ways to increase my income and reduce my expenses. The latter should be interesting, since I feel pretty much to the bone these days.

And one day, have the enormous satisfaction of telling Wells Fargo to go screw themselves.

Because honestly, I did a calculation on how much house I could afford on my current salary. It turns out to be a whopping $391 / month. A house that costs $80,000, which are scarce in New Jersey and scary when you find them.

This situation cannot hold for long, so must be changed.

On thinking about it, I'm surprised there haven't been more meltdowns over the past year. I count maybe three and think my quota could easily be one a month.

So. Up. Moving. Going. And pay a call to the nice folks on Dice.com.

Thar She Blows

Dr. Yeow has frequently warned me to look out for manic episodes. I think he thought I was having one.

I don't want to say he's right, but at the moment, I'm feeling pretty low.

I got another love letter from Wells Fargo. This one said that I could put off paying my mortgage payment until Jan 10, 2010. Then everything would be due - three months of back mortgage payments PLUS late fees.

What f*ing saints.

And someone kept telling me they don't want my house?

And it turns out - it really does turn out - that I was making more money on unemployment than I am now.

I have been pushed and pushed and pushed and now I can't be pushed any further. Not unless someone comes and takes me where I've fallen down in a heap and bodily throws me off the precipice.

I've been crying and crying. The stupid cow at Wells Fargo kept saying, "You have to make more money and reduce your expenses to get into another program." And I kept saying, "How much more and how much less?" And she kept saying, "But that doesn't give us a true picture of your situation."

And finally, sobbing, I hung up.

I'm going to take some clonazepam. And maybe when I wake up, things won't feel so f*ing horrible.

In Which the New York Times Prints News That Isn't News

Yesterday, the Times ran a story about people who had been laid off and never managed to get back to the place they were before the layoff.

Guess what? Most people who have been laid off never make it back to where they were.

I know this. I feel this acutely.

Hop in the Wayback Machine.

1989 - I am working for Mighty Citadel and work my way up to a salary of 3x. I've saved money and decide that now is the time to try writing full time.
1990 - Income: $0.
1991 - Income: $0.
1992 - Income: $240. I sold two short stories to Alfred Hitchock and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines.
1993 - Income: $350. Alfred and Ellery to the rescue again.
1994 - Income: $0. Xman and I moved back to Jersey.
1995 - I go back to Mighty Citadel as a contractor. Income: 2x.
1997 - Evil Empire hires me. Income: 3x.
1999 - Xman and I go our separate ways.
2002 - At Evil Empire, I work second and third shifts and overtime. Income: 4x.
2002 - Evil Empire lays me off.
2003 - Income: $0, not including unemployment.
2004 - I temp at Big Insurance Co and Mighty Citadel. My first gig is for $9 / hr. Eventually I work my way up to 1x.
2004 - I get a job at Fezziwig Co. Income: 2x.
2005 - Laid off by Fezziwig Co. Go back to contracting at Mighty Citadel. I start at $18 / hr and work myself up to 2 1/2 x.
2006 - I get hired by Unnamed Co. Income: 3x.
2008 - I get laid off by Unnamed Co after reaching an income of 3 1/2 x.
2009 - Income: $0.

Now I see, too late no doubt, the cost of this. It's taken some time to realize the impact. Not only did I lose salary, but I decimated my savings not once but three times, wasn't able to build on a pension and wasn't able to contribute to 401Ks in most of that time. Whenever I could, I did.

Will I ever be able to hit 4x again? One hopes but one has one's doubts.

The Times got comments on the story. One commenter said he was now making less than half of his salary but "we learned to live differently. No cable tv, no week long vacations to exotic places." And he continued along in this vein and everything he said was familiar to me.

I'm still working on finding a job, of course. I heard from a temp agency that might have something for me - at 1 1/2 x. On my way up at Mighty Citadel in the 1980s, my starting salary was 1 1/2 x. In 1983.

Of course, I can't give up. But I know I have a lot less energy compared to 1983. Or even 2004. Hope has turned to wistfulness. I know better now.

In which I accept my fate to struggle on...

The payroll lady hand-delivered the W-2s today (or, you know, whatever you need to file your income taxes).

I did a quick, surreptitious calculation of my taxes online.

At one point, I nearly fainted. The total was me owing Los Federales more than $3K. I choked, then tried it again. Oh, gee, only $800. And the last time, I owed them $6. Okay. I can pay the Feds six bucks.

But what happened to the days of the lush refunds? The refunds that put a cushion between me and the sucky, sucky world?

Those days, I think are gone.

In fact, I think they have been gone for a long, long, long time. I just choose to pretend every now and then that they haven't gone.

And from there, I started thinking about how this weekend, I had done what I had always sworn I would not do: I put groceries on the Visa. This in and of itself was a wake-up call.

I can't go playing games with myself anymore. I can't believe what my online checking tells me, because there's always something else coming up.

This month, it's the big long scratch I got on the Bullet at GiGi's funeral. And the other day, I looked at the car and thought, when did I lose the wheel cover on my left rear wheel?

Tuition cost $400 more than I had planned. Yeah, I'll be reimbursed for it - sometime in April, no doubt.

There's the deductible for the car repair - $1,000. I'll get it back eventually, but for now, it, too goes on the Visa.

The $6K I got rid of in the spring has crept its way back onto my Visa card and I'm the one who did it. $60 here. $100 there. Me. I did it.

I am busy trying to come to grips with a very grim fact. I don't like it. That's why it's so hard.

I will most likely spend the rest of my life scrabbling like this. The trip to Paris in 2005 was the last hurrah, and what a hurrah that was. I have realized I can't even really afford to go hang out with the nuns.

Until I have paid off the $3,500 on my Visa and built up six months expenses in my savings (whatever form that might take), there will be no movies, no Starbucks, no Coffee Heaven, no diner, no Kohl's, no Target, no Kwik-e-Mart. There will be no trips that require me to go out of my normal and ever-narrowing routine route.

There will be no electronic piano, no music lessons (who has the time, anyway?), no voice lessons (I had hoped...), any of the many, many things that have been on the list for the last ten years.

I cannot foresee a vacation for myself...ever, really.

There will have to be a bathroom renovation, a new roof, and a new driveway on Ma Maisonette, along with some smaller internal improvements, like replacing the ceiling tiles in the basement where the cats come crashing through.

In the face of all this "no, no, no", I realize I still have an incredible wealth of resources around me.

I have drawing pads, pencils, and instruction books. I have books I keep meaning to read. I have books I keep meaning to write. I have the cats to attend to, to play with, to love. I have the house to keep clean and bright and comforting. Okay, so there won't be any roses this year, but I can divide the irises and the daffodils and try my hand at growing annuals from seed. Who on earth can't grow a marigold? And the honeysuckle I crave grows wild along the roadside. I just have to hop out, cut a bunch, and bring it back home to root.

I have yarn. Maybe I can learn to crochet something that isn't flat. Maybe I can learn to knit. Actually, I have a lot of yarn. A lot.

I have watercolors. I have my little keyboard and an acoustic guitar. (Surely I can scrape together the $6 for strings...maybe for my birthday? Poor little match girl.)

I have a sewing machine and a couple of quilting projects I'd always meant to get to.

Nonetheless, I've been here before. I know this dark territory. This is pretty close to where I was when I first moved into Ma Maisonette, except at the time I only had one payment left on the Faithful Camry and $500 on the Visa. I brought no money, not one penny, in to work with me. I kept my wallet in the glove compartment of the car. I took my lunch with me everyday, ate lunch at home, had E and Annushka over to my house and would provide brownies or apples and cheese and the vital pot of tea.

Those days still haven't gone. They've just been waiting for me to come back to them.

Here I am.

A Curious Thing to be Grateful For

I've been avoiding my bills. I've been expecting horrors.

Honestly? I thought I was going to have to use the Visa to pay the PSE&G bill.

But I have gone through the dreadful and dreaded stack of mail and found the pittance in my checking account will likely cover all but maybe $50 of what I paid, and that will be automatically withdrawn from my savings.

Yes, yes, yes, I've learned my lesson, truly I have. And what a hard one to learn, so close to Christmas. Really, no Herschel, not for a long time unless my financial situation changes drastically. Really, a tight clamp on the grocery money.

It was too damn scary to think I would have to put my electric bill on the Visa. If anything signals the slippery slope to me, that does.

What Goes Up...

I looked at my online banking. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. Still, in the last couple of days, I had myself some pretty swell dinners, with the leftovers for lunch.

Also, Yentl is in town and spent the afternoon in meetings about The Yentl Project...without the project manager.

I have run out of my anti-Yentl drugs and the pharmacy is awaiting the okay from my dr to do the refill thing. I have one left in reserve and I'm saving that for after my annual review with Fireman Fred because I suspect it ain't gonna be pretty.

I was awake at 3 this morning, too warm, needed to go to the bathroom and knew there was no point in trying to go back to bed.

There was a little publishing industry dance in NYC today. I woke up and heard the rain, felt the throbbing in my left ankle and doubted I could make it up to the platform at my local station. As for even making it to the street from the platform in Penn Station, fuhgedaboudit. And finding a taxi on a rainy, chilly day in New York? Ha!

I taped up my ankle, eased my foot into a sneaker, and went to work in jeans. No dancing today.

Maybe I'll go to bed now. Yeah. Bed. That sounds like a good idea.

Spartacus Goes to the Movies

I've noticed I'm feeling a little, um, rebellious lately about the issues of money and budgeting.

Since autumn of 2002 when I learned Evil Empire would be laying me off on the last day of the year, I have been scrimping, saving, finding clever new ways to Get By, alternating with rare moments of rebellion. Like cheating on a diet, I guess.

Honestly, I feel like I've done just about everything I can. I've had two, three, and four jobs. I've had a roommate. I've gotten by on $12 / week for groceries. I've gone to the food bank and figured out what to do with a box of food containing pancake mix, a bag of rolls, minute rice, vegetable soup, and pork and beans. I've kept a "price book", noting the difference in price between peanut butter at Target vs. A&P vs. Costco. You name the economizing tip, I've done it.

My wardrobe comes largely from the Salvation Army Store, the Big Rummage sale, with occasional dollops of Kohl's, Target, and Wal-Mart for certain necessities. The furniture I have that didn't come from IKEA came from curbside shopping.

I've had it. Right now? I'm done.

Watch me go wild! Watch me:
- Go to Herschel for a cut and color!
- Actually get the Bullet's gas tank filled!
- Get the Bullet's oil changed and tires rotated!
- Take Gus to the vet!
- Buy a ticket to a Bruce Hornsby concert!
- Buy a 'harvest salad' at Panera!

I'm a wild woman. What can stop me from my reckless extravagance? Nothing! Nothing!

So today, I'm taking Gus to the vet.

And tomorrow (gather closely as I whisper into your shell-like ear), I am going to the $5 movies. Am I crazy, or what?

No. I'm just sick and tired of this. Sick and tired and pissed off.

No doubt I will come to my senses soon, but just watch me go to Target or Kohl's and buy a new purse to replace the two year old one with the disintegrating shoulder strap. Just watch and see if I don't.

I Was Wondering Where I'd Put That

Doing a quick online banking glance, I was relieved to finally see a surplus. A float. This even after accounting for Gussy's imminent dental work and possible plastic surgery. This even after a new coat and a pair of shoes.

I know why I hate opening my mail. I know why I stick it in a big wire catch-all bin by the back door. Because inevitably, I stumble across something like this:

"We at Mighty Mortgage Co. just wanted to let you know that your escrow has been depleted by about five hundred smackers. Now we can incorporate that into your mortgage and you can end up paying $150,000 on a $500 debt. Or you can cough up the bucks now. Ever so sincerely, we love you, xxx, hugs and kisses, Mighty Mortgage Co. And PS, we'll probably continue to be just as bad at estimating your escrow in the future. Oh! But you paid FIVE CENTS in principal on your mortgage last month. Cool, huh? Mwaaa haaa haaa."

So I will dutifully write out the check tomorrow. I can't face it tonight.

Tomorrow I'll pull all the papers from the evil bin and will sort through them.

The weather this weekend has been bleak, grim, grey, and depressing beyond words. I don't care if it's 20F outside, if the sun is shining, there's a song in my heart. Three days of this just makes me want to stick my head in the oven.

Somehow, I have to rally by nine tonight. In preparation for Gussy's big visit with the vet, I have to take up all the food. I'm making everyone suffer while Gussy suffers. Tomorrow morning, I'll load him in a cat carrier and take him to Hunky Vet's office. There, Gussy will be treated sweetly but no doubt will be absolutely terrified until they get around to anesthetizing him and cleaning his teeth. I'll lay out the money but probably won't even get one glance at Hunky Vet.

We're having an outbreak of Itchy-Ear-itis at Ma Maisonette. Gussy shook and scratched his head until a blood vessel in one ear burst. It now looks like a tiny, heavy balloon attached to the side of his head.

The last time we had an incident like this here, the cat in question (Polly, dear Polly) had sutures put in to keep her ear from crumpling, but it didn't do that much good. $200 and not that much good. Hm. My handsome De Gustibus may have to go for a tougher look now that he's a mature cat of 13.

Add to this an increasing and virulent addiction to WEBoggle.

So much for the daily whine. Tomorrow is another day.