job hunter
January 13, 2014

Now that the holidays have passed, Spouse has been getting some more interviews. The first one was a no-go; one of those places that does the 12-hour days, 3 on/2 off, 2 on, 3 off schedule. Ummmm...OH HELL NO. But he had one at a local grocery store that was very good, and they called him in for a big employment dealy on Saturday--it was for shortlisted applicants and was a big, 4-hour weeding-out process. LST, over twenty at the beginning, 4 left at the end. One of whom was Spouse. At the end, they told him they were going to check his DMV record (job involves driving). And they called today him to say they want to see him tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed! He also had one this morning, for a maintenance job about 25 minutes away, and that one went well enough for him to get a callback only a few hours later to come in tomorrow and discuss a job offer. Things may be looking up.

Unfortunately, all the rights of discretion are with the employers. You have to invest so much time, and get so far along in the process, before you can question if the JOB is right for YOU,� as opposed to YOU being right for the JOB. It's time-intensive, and not profitable for the employers or the prospective employees, but they are so arrogant and intent on keeping the upper hand that things won't change anytime soon.

Since he's been diligently interviewing, I decided to make the Hubs happy by baking up a batch of sugar cookies while he was at his big...(interview? seminar? Re-Neducation? whatevs?) at the grocery store on Saturday. I still have massive amounts of the pre-made dough left from Christmas, so I thought I'd better bake some up & freeze the rest. But even then, he managed to nit-pick. I did a couple dozen with sugar sprinkles, and put them in the cookie jar, only to have him ask me why I didn't make any with the chocolate star in the middle, as I had talked about doing. So after dinner on Saturday, I baked another dozen. Three dozen cookies I baked this weekend. And he had them nearly gone by tonight. So I said I'd make more with the stars...but now he wanted M&Ms. So I'm pounding M&Ms into pre-made cookie dough at 7 pm on a weeknight. Sheesh. Spoiled. Well, the sugar cookie dough is all gone now, so that's that. Still have gingersnap dough, but he only likes those one way.

We just received our invitation for my nephew's wedding today, but since the accommodations in that area are so limited, we thought it best to go ahead and make hotel reservations last week--and the dog's reservation, as well.� Sigh. One thing I run into time and time again with small-town Iowans is their complete inability to understand that the rest of the world moves at a different pace. Even a bigger town like Ft. Madison or Burlington laps my hometown when it comes to that. Burlington has a casino, and that means that their relatively few hotels are going to be busy every weekend. Can't wait till the last minute to get booked. Not to mention the advance notice required for boarding the B!

Finally a facebook game I can enjoy--involving poetry and art. I've been playing a sort of art-go-round and poetry-go-round game with various Fb friends; we are assigning each other artists and poets with whom to familiarize ourselves. I have been assigned a painter with whom I was unfamiliar artist, which led to an interesting process of discovery. But for poetry, it was more a re-discovery: Oscar Wilde. Made for a very enjoyable weekend! In turn, I was able to turn other folks on to artists and poets I like. Nephew was most pleased to discover Peter Max!

Called pharmacy to refill� our various prescriptions, not thinking much about it. Turns out the Rx for my thyroid meds has run out. And it also turns out that I was supposed to go back to the Doctor for a follow-up back in October, and didn't realize it. (In my defense, they said that when I was there for my sprained back, and I was pretty out of it. Even before the meds kicked in. As for after...well, I was on anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants,� opiate painkillers--and my ass. Not necessarily in that order!) Apparently, he wanted to see me for a second depression follow-up, preferably when I wasn't a hot mess of muscle spasms and vicious pain.

So I made an appointment for Thursday, the 23rd. What the hell. I have a day off that day, and it's already shot to shit by the 2:30 root canal. Might as well add an 8:30 with the doctor. Also need to get my blood re-checked for the thyroid. Which, like an idiot, I forgot to ask if I could do BEFORE the appointment. Oh, well. I'll stop in after work one day this week and check. If the order is there, I'll get it out of the way.

I don't know what I'm going to tell him about the depression thing. Life is so utterly wretched that it is hard to tell if I am depressed, or just sad because life sucks so hard.

While I try to see W & T through the grief of losing their beloved dog, I also have another dear friend (V) who just got asked for a divorce by her husband of 15 years, and is understandably upset (this is more or less out of the blue--things weren't perfect, but V had no idea this was coming). Plus there's my mom's condition, my one uncle that's having a hell of a health crisis, the whole ongoing thing with Spouse's health, job situation, and distinct lack of income, having to figure out how we are going to afford the expense of all these weddings coming up, job stress, the long streak of hideous weather, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad absurdium.� I will be able to tell him that the meds sure seem to help anxiety, though. Of course, when your "normal" is obsessive, gnawing wory, lack thereof is nearly as troubling.

Weather has been much more congenial the last few days; in the 30s and even 40s. I was actually able to make the B's day yesterday with a nice walk. Sidewalks were wet in spots, but not icy. The temp was not bad, but the wind was a little bitey. I needed the fresh air, though. Spouse was having brandy & Coke yesterday afternoon, and I got a sudden urge for a Cosmo. Or three. Nice buzz, I must say!� Three Cosmopolitans will make you pay, though. Once the buzz wore off, I spent the rest of the day and evening in varying degrees of gastro-intestinal discomfort. Good thing I didn't make them sea-breezes--the only thing worse for my system than cranberry juice, vodka, and triple-sec is cranberry juice, vodka, and grapefruit juice!