Wool Gabardine Suit Seeks Place To Hang Other Than Closet

I'm in a rut.

I wake up. I read the want ads. I check e-mail. I check the on line want ads. I write cover letters. I e-mail resumes and cover letters out or snail mail them. I visit employment agencies.

Never let it be said that looking for a job isn't a full time job in and of itself. In fact, I've taken a modicum of pride in the fact that I'm far more disciplined than I thought I was. I do these things without fail, no matter how I feel, every week day and some weekends.

And don't get me wrong, there are benefits to working at home:

• No one stares at me like I'm a lunatic when I have long drawn out practice interviews with the dogs
  

• My computer reminds me what time it is, motivating me forward


• My cats really don't care that I'm working feverishly on resumes in my pajamas


• The coffee, made by me, is way better than what I can get at an office

Not to mention, my co-workers here at home, all being either feline or canine, don't complain much, rarely interrupt meetings and provide hours of entertainment in the doggie wrestling department.

But I am missing the office interaction and the beautiful wool gabardine suit my mother got me for Christmas is totally wasted hanging in my closet, its only been out on two interviews. I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but I miss wearing grown up clothes.

Attention Deficit Disorder and Sparkling Dinner Conversation

The Author would like to thank Stacy of Pizza House for 1. Causing me
to have this ridiculous memory (you probably just saved me several
thousand dollars in therapy) 2. Putting up with my antics every week.
You can ease her suffering by visiting the Pizza House, 1349 S.
Glenstone, and consuming the best pizza EVER. Seriously. I pinky
swear it is.

When it comes to my conversation skills, they can be characterized as highly scattered. There isn’t a tangent I won’t follow and I’m always tickled purple when I find someone else who is similarly inclined.

Perched precariously in my booth at Pizza House this evening, the conversation with Stacy (the poor soul stuck serving me sometimes twice weekly) started over the merits, or lack thereof, of iceberg lettuce and then meandered recklessly onto the topic of French Dressing.

Or rather, the French dressing we were served as children in Springfield Public Schools. As products of the Springfield School System, Stacy and I share that sort of institutional knowledge of our hometown that’s kind of like having the Jell-O jingle stuck in your head: utterly useless, but delightfully entertaining.

Stacy was waxing philosophical about the lovely paper cup said dressing was housed in for serving when a memory bubble burst for me. I have a near phobic reaction to French Dressing, and Stacy just reminded me why.

As wee one, I avoided all sauces, dressings and condiments except ketchup on principal. But poor French dressing, I had a serious loathing for it simply for its close resemblance (in my six year old brain)to Thousand Island Dressing, because, um, ew.

And for the life of me, I don’t know why I didn’t like French Dressing. Given my love of Chili Sauce, which is just ketchup with sweet and spicy goodness added in,I should be eating copious amounts of French Dressing.

Here’s the recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

* 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
* 1 1/2 cups olive oil
* 4 garlic cloves, halved
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 1/2 teaspoon pepper
* 1 teaspoon dry mustard
* dash ground cayenne
* 1/3 cup chili sauce
* 1 teaspoon paprika
* 2 or 3 teaspoons horseradish, if desired

PREPARATION:
Mix all ingredients in a large jar. Cover and shake until well blended. Store in refrigerator. Makes 2 cups of French dressing.

And really, the only true similarity is that Thousand Island has ketchup in it. Thousand Island’s biggest crime, in the twisted world I live in, is that it has sweet pickle relish in it and, again, ew. And the two dressings aren’t even really the same color, but still connected in my twisted little world.

So one day, in the first grade, I begged, wheedled and promised to clean my room “Like THREE times a week,” if Mom would just PUHLEEEASE let me buy lunch.

Yes, I avoided all condiments but, of course, ketchup. Because, seriously, what kid DOESN’T eat ketchup. Unfortunately for me, one of the lunch ladies got one of those lovely paper cups of French Dressing confused with a cup of ketchup and it wound up on my tray.

There was crying. There was rending of clothing. There was stomping of wee little feet. And that was from probably a micron of French dressing on one of my French fries.

So I went home, and wheedled, begged and pleaded, Mom don’t EVER let me buy lunch again. "I’ll clean my room four times a week for the love of Julia Child if you’d PUHLEEEASE go back to packing my lunch. I’ll even stop complaining that my thermos is stained from the iced tea you keep putting in it."

Semi-Romantic Schlub

It's okay. I won't be offended. You can call me a schlub. You'd be right. I've never been the most sentimental person. As such, Valentine's Day has never been that big of a deal to me.

In fact, in college I generally celebrated the day by dressing in black and ordering Chinese food...but then, I did that on any given day in college.

Further, cosmic forces generally conspire against me every Valentine's Day to keep me from doing anything even remotely romantic. The first year the hub and I were married, I had entertained all sorts of thoughts about what we were going to do for the holiday. But, as it turned out, our condo sold on Valentines Day and we had to spend the entire evening shopping for a house so we wouldn't wind up homeless (because real estate is insane like that in Northern VA).

Suffice to say, the meal I'd planned for that night got ruined. All I'd managed to do was get a lame card.

Going back into ancient history, one of my serious relationships ended on Valentine's Day. I wound up at a girlfriend's house drinking wine and eating Chinese food. And if my foggy memory serves, it was not as horrible as I thought, but certainly not your typical Valentine's Day.

To be honest, I struggle with this holiday. No, I'm not one of those people who is down on Valentine's Day because it's a "greeting card" holiday. Frankly, that's about the only part of Valentine's Day I usually DO get right, I manage to get a card.

And I don't know what's wrong with me. I plan out birthdays, Christmas and Anniversaries just fine. But, for whatever reason, this is always a day that some how doesn't come onto my radar screen...until it's almost too late.

I sat bolt up in bed this morning at 6:45 a.m. Our lives have both been rather chaotic of late, so we'd gotten stuff for one another and already exchanged it last night. Today is a horrifically busy day for both of us and I doubt I'll see the hub until dinner.

But I know the hub. He always keeps something in reserve for the actual day and I always either find a nice restaurant for us to go to or cook something. So front of mind when I sat up in bed in a cold sweat this morning was the fact I'd never gotten around to getting a card, much less made plans for dinner.

Well, hell.

I dashed out of bed. Threw food at the cats and dogs and went flying out of the house to buy a card. On the way home from Summer Fresh, it occurred to me that I probably should have bought something for dinner while at the store given a reservation at this point is out of the picture.

The News-Leader came to the rescue with a recipe for Filet Mignon and Harter House provided the Filet as well as some ENORMOUS baking potatoes and a lovely bottle of wine. But, true to form, I forgot one item I need for the recipe, so I guess I'll be making a third trip to the grocery store today. Sigh.

Happy Valentine's Day Y'all!

Dead Eye Dick

The Vice President shot a man on Saturday. Interestingly enough, we didn't hear squat about it until Sunday. Ron, over at Chatter, makes a number of good points about what's really troubling about my pervious statement.

Questions: Were police called? Did Cheney talk to police? Did the veep have needed license/permit to hunt? And, of course: Why did it take nearly a day for the information to be released by the administration? Forget partisan politics; any time the country's No. 2 shoots a man, it's news.

In fact, it was one of the ranch's owners who decided to alert the media, instead of Cheney's staff. From the Washington Post:

It was Katharine Armstrong's decision to alert the news media. Cheney's office made no public announcement, deciding to defer to Armstrong because the incident had taken place on her property. Armstrong called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and when a reporter from the paper called the White House, the vice president's office confirmed the account.

In fact, the Post reports that Cheney's office referred reporters to Ms. Armstrong for an "eyewitness" account of the story and then stopped taking phone calls yesterday afternoon.

The vicitm, Harry Whittington, a "prominent" lawyer in Austin, TX, is in stable condition and said to be in good spirits. The Post quotes Cheney adviser Mary Matalin as saying:

"The vice president was concerned," said Mary Matalin, a Cheney adviser who spoke with him yesterday morning. "He felt badly, obviously. On the other hand, he was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do."

If he didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do, why hush it up from the media? If he's so above board, why is his office letting someone else do the talking for them? Once again, a Bush administration official is acting as if he is above the law. Sadly, it's hard to find that surprising.

Sunday Flotsam and Jetsam

Sunday has long been one of my favorite days. I'm not overtly religious, although I'd like to think I'm spiritual in my own way. No, Sunday for me is about sleeping in, a big breakfast, reading the paper over strong coffee and then transitioning over to a book. Oh, and work in some sort of slow cooker thing I throw together for the evening meal.

Put simply, Sunday is a day I take it kind of slow. After the usual stuff this morning, we ran out and got a nice big roast to toss in the crock pot. I found a recipe for a "hickory smoked" roast, so I made some of my barbeque sauce to go with it and the hub made some potato salad. Mmmm. Potato salad.

We then wandered off in search of lunch while we let supper cook. We wound up at the Churchill Cafe over on Republic Road. What a pleasant surprise! The food was good. The iced tea rocked and I already love their coffee. It's a neat place too, with couches and little nooks for folks to hang out and drink their coffee and surf the web. Totally the kind of place a bookish geek like me gets geeked about.

Then it was off to the library. You have to understand that where I'm from in Virginia the libraries sucked big time. Unfortunately, the state just didn't put the kind of money into the libraries that they do here in Greene County. Good grief, the Borders I went to in Virginia wasn't as nice as the library I go to here on South Campbell.

And I couldn't think of a more perfect day to be curled up on the couch, in front of the fire, reading a book smelling my roast working away in the kitchen. Gads, I feel a good mood coming on!

Boehner: We will be punished

House Majority Leader John Boehner, (R) Ohio, stirred the pot a bit when he went on the talk circuit Sunday. From the Washington Post:

In his Sunday morning debut as majority leader on the talk-show circuit, Boehner also voiced some concern that troubles in Iraq could hurt Republicans at the polls in November, and he said he would not necessarily surrender his new post if DeLay were cleared of charges against him in a Texas money-laundering case.

On the War in Iraq:

"I think we will" be punished in November's midterm elections if the situation in Iraq does not improve by Election Day. But he also said that if "the amount of violence continues to go down, I think we'll be able to see some reductions in troops next year."

And on his views on how to handle scandals like the one that put him in his new position:

"In the past, when these scandals have erupted, what's happened is Congress has overreacted, and two days later nobody knew what happened," he said on "Fox News Sunday." He said he would favor more disclosure of dealings with lobbyists but would not seek complete bans on travel or "earmark" provisions. "Bringing more transparency to this relationship, I think, is the best way to control it. But taking actions to ban this and ban that, when there's no appearance of a problem, there's no foundation of a problem, I think, in fact, does not serve the institution well."

Dems were quick to point out that Boehner's views pointed to the fact that Repubs just don't care about ethics.

Perhaps they should start. By Boehner's admission, the polls will suffer if the situation in Iraq continues to worsen, he's tacitly admitting his party is in trouble. And boy are they.

Hearings began today on the legality of the President's domestic spying program. Alberto Gonzales pinky swears the whole affair was legal. But Senator Arlen Specter said he thinks the President violated a 1978 law requiring a secret court to green light such actions. Bush kind of skipped that step.

Meanwhile, on the front page of the News-Leader today, the NSA secured the cooperation of AT&T, MCI and Sprint to monitor calls. And they did so without any court order:

Technicians work with phone company officials to intercept communications pegged to a particular person or phone number. Telecommunications executives say MCI, AT&T and Sprint grant the access to their systems without warrants or court orders. Instead, they are cooperating on the basis of oral requests from senior government officials.

Boehner may be onto something, because we sure as hell ought to be punishing the Republican party come election time:

• For screwing up the economy
• For getting us into a war we not cannot get out of
• For having the ethics and morals of Satan himself
• And for spying on us without so much as a warrant

For shame.

In Which Words Really Do Fail Me

This story makes feel a number of things including nauseous.

A 15 year old boy married to a 37 year old woman and they're about to have a baby. Except, well he's missing and she says she knows nothing about it. Uh huh.

From CNN:

The wife, Lisa Clark, who is due to give birth February 20, did not play a role in the boy's disappearance last Friday, said her attorney, Daniel Sammons.

The wife was "surprised and concerned," Sammons said. "She has no knowledge of his whereabouts."

But Grandma isn't buying it:

The boy's grandmother, Judy Hayles, believes the wife was involved. "I think she's got him hidden out someplace," she said, adding that the boy told his roommate that someone was picking him up and he left without shoes, a jacket or money.

"That was his goal, to get with her," Hayles said. "They were just obsessed with having him there when the baby is born."

Okay, someone please tell me what in Hades is going on? There have been numerous news reports about female teachers having sex with pre-teen or barely teen boys. I'm not so naive to think that child sex abuse doesn't happen on both sides of the fence. What's really disturbing is some of these women want long-term relationships with these boys.

Mary Kay Letourneau, after serving her sentence, has said she wants to remain with the young man she went to jail for having sex with. What makes these women think they can have a normal relationship with someone who is 24 years their junior?

And back to our Georgia couple, they're MARRIED? I shudder to think what Georgia law allowed THAT to happen.

I'm not trying to be cruel, but fifteen year old boys are, for lack of a better term, icky. They're gangly. They're awkward. Their testicles have just dropped. They have ENOUGH going on without fathering a child or getting themselves embroiled in the drama of some woman who isn't emotionally mature enough to have a normal relationship with a man who is closer to her age.