I Need a New Job

I am sick to death of litigating against obnoxious attorneys.

I am sick to death of clients who don't pay.

My worst case: a client who hasn't paid since September, with the obnoxious attorney with time issues (a.k.a. "O.A.") on the other side. I receive at least three things in the mail each week in connection with this case. Generally two or three "nasty grams" - i.e., snotty-toned letters from O.A. - plus a motion, subpoena, discovery request, or notice of some sort. And all in conjunction with at least a couple of nasty emails from her, or a reasonably nice email from her legal secretary. All of which requires me to take the time to respond - time for which I likely will never get paid.

I am sick to death of worrying about how to pay this month's round of bills in this crappy economy with clients who can't collect from their clients and therefore can't pay their bills either.... including mine.

(Really. Literally. I've been sick more often in the past year than I have in my entire 40+ other years of existence. And depressed, too. I can't take it any more.)

I need a new job, and I need it now. A job that does not require litigation. A job that pays a regular paycheck. Preferably a job that involves interacting with (reasonably polite) people, but not trying to collect past-due money from them.

Anybody hiring?

Friday Feature - Workforced

For a while, I was posting "Friday Features" every week, in which I spotlighted other blogs that I love. I gave it up because I wasn't getting many comments so I thought perhaps it wasn't a very popular feature and that no one really cared which blogs I love. Or maybe you all were already reading them and didn't need my recommendations.

Recently, I've posted some "Friday Funnies" - trying to amuse my readers.

This week, I'm posting a Friday Feature that's guaranteed to make you smile. Sort of a "Friday Featured Funny Blog" or something like that. You may already know this blog. But if you haven't already heard of it (or even if you have), pop on over and check out Workforced. You won't regret it.

Don't worry. I'll wait patiently for you to read awhile (seriously -- read through some older posts, as well as today's!) and then come back.

* * * * * * *

Oh, good, there you are! Thought I might not see you again once you discovered Don Joe's wonderfully hilarious blog . . .

Welcome back!

* * * * * * *

Every time I read Workforced, it makes me glad (again) that I left the world of working for others to start my own business.

Sadly, the economy is having an awful effect on the number of clients who pay me, and thus on my income. I may have to return to the world of working for others who can pay me a salary, rather than spending my days trying to get blood from turnips who won't or can't pay their legal bills. If I do return to the corporate working world, I hope I can approach it with the same humor that Don Joe over at Workforced displays. Otherwise, I'll surely go mad within a month!

Happy Friday, my bloggy friends, Happy Friday!

Happy Mother's Day From the Boys

Received this in my email inbox; thought you all might enjoy it, too:



HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

(If the "embed" feature is broken, you can find this awesome video at http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/388972/).

How To Be A Gracious Bitch

Received in my email inbox today:

Jenni's wedding day was fast approaching. Nothing could dampen her excitement - not even her parents' nasty divorce the prior year.

Jenni went shopping with her mother and found the PERFECT dress -- her mother would be the best-dressed mother-of-the-bride ever!

A week later, Jenni was horrified to learn that her father's new, young wife had bought the exact same dress as her mother! Jenni asked her father's new young wife to exchange it, but she refused: "Absolutely not! I look like a million bucks in this dress, and I'm wearing it," she replied.

Jenni told her mother who graciously said, "Never mind sweetheart. I'll get another dress. After all, it's your special day."

A few days later, they went shopping again, and did find another gorgeous dress for her mother.

When they stopped for lunch, Jenni asked her mother, "Aren't you going to return the other dress? You really don't have another occasion where you could wear it."

Her mother just smiled and replied, "Of course I do, dear. I'm wearing it to the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding."

Friday Funnies - Forwarded From Friends

Sorry about the title. I just couldn't resist the alliteration, given that today's post is all about word play.


Here are some useful new words, along with their definitions, which arrived in my email inbox this morning:

1. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an a-hole.

2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

3. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

4. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

5. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the Person who doesn't get it.

6. Decafalon: The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

7. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

8. Beelzebug: Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

9. Caterpallor: The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

10. Abdicate: To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

11. Esplanade: To attempt an explanation while drunk.

12. Willy-nilly: Impotent.

13. Negligent: Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

14. Balderdash: A rapidly receding hairline.

15. Rectitude: The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

16. Pokemon: A Rastafarian proctologist.

Whatever Happened to Jolt Cola?

I didn't begin drinking coffee until I was in law school. I never drank coffee in college. I muddled through with just soda for my caffeine "fix." And I couldn't stand diet soda; it had to be the kind with actual sugar.

My third year in college, there were many ads on the radio for "Jolt" cola. I *loved* their ads. They got right to the point:

"Drink Jolt Cola, with real sugar, and twice the caffeine."

It sounded *great*!! I raced right out and bought a case.

Too bad it didn't taste very good....

I find this fascinating...

You know that bats use echolocation to navigate at night, in extreme darkness, right? They emit a sound and use the echoes from the sound to locate and avoid objects, or to locate and catch and eat bugs or other prey.

But did you know that humans can develop this ability, too?

A recent article in Psychology Today magazine tells of some blind mountain bikers who use echolocation to navigate the trails. Amazing.

The article describes the basic process of echolocation:

To get a sense of how echolocation works, try this. Hold your hand up about one foot in front of your face with your palm facing your mouth. Put your front teeth together, open your lips, and make a continuous shhhhhh sound. As you make this sound, slowly bring your hand toward your mouth. You will hear the shhhh sound change. What you’re hearing is the sound reflecting from your hand colliding with the sound leaving your mouth. This interference turns out to be one of the most important types of sound dimensions we use to echolocate objects at close distances.

But this demonstration is exaggerated. The interference patterns used for echolocation are usually too subtle to be consciously heard. This highlights one of the most amazing aspects of echolocation: It’s rarely experienced as sound. Try using your shhhh sounds to walk slowly toward a wall with your eyes closed. As you come close to the wall, you’ll experience its presence as more of a feeling than a change in sound. It may feel as if there are air pressure changes on your face, an experience also reported by the blind (echolocation was once called “facial vision”). Echolocation is truly one of your implicit perceptual skills: It allows you to detect aspects of your environment without even knowing which sensory system you’re using. And it could very well be that you’re constantly using the skill to recognize properties of the rooms you occupy.

Fascinating.

I Will No Longer Do Business With Chase Bank

So in 2008, I was traveling a lot and not doing a very good job of keeping up with paying bills on time. I made a few late payments on my Chase credit card, which also serves as the overdraft protection credit line for my business checking account. They raised my interest rate to 21.99 percent on the overdraft protection portion of the account, and 29.99 percent on the credit portion of the account.

Since September 2008, I have not made a single payment late. Not one. Not only that, but I've paid the balance down to just over $1000. Yet two months ago, they raised the interest rate to 29.99 percent on the overdraft protection portion of the account, for no apparent reason.

I called and asked why. They said they were "standardizing the interest rate."

I asked why they didn't "standardize" it at the lower rate. They said that's just not the way it works.

I asked them to lower the interest rate on both portions to something more reasonable than 30 percent. They refused.

Why, I asked? They said they simply "don't have a lower rate to offer."

I submit it's because they want to suck as much money as they can out of the people who actually pay their bills, to subsidize the mountain of bad loans and speculative deals they made over the past decade that are now biting them in the butt.

So I guess they leave me no other options: I'll simply have to pay it off and cancel it, and take my business elsewhere.

I will also have to move my business checking account (they charge $12 a month for that particular privilege), lawyer trust account, and business savings account to a different bank. Why would I want to do business with blood-sucking bastards?

This is a little sad, because I actually like the people at my local branch. They are friendly and professional.

But they work for blood-sucking bastards, so I won't be seeing them anymore.

One for the Women

My little girl is growing up.

Yes (as you may have guessed by the title and the first sentence), her first period started today, just over halfway through sixth grade.

There was awkwardness and tears (from her), and smiles and encouragement and a rather long-winded explanation of the function and proper deployment of various pads and tampons (from me), and some stocking of her bathroom and her backpack with the necessary items, and some excitement about my little girl growing up, becoming a woman, developing just as she should . . .

. . . and then a tinge of regret from both of us about a childhood so fleetingly gone. As she phrased it, "Whatever happened to second grade, when I had nothing to worry about? Nothing! Second grade . . . good times." And she shook her head slowly and wiped away tears. I hugged her.

Then we realized neither one of us could remember her second grade teacher's name, even though we both could rattle off the teachers' names from Kindergarten, first grade, third grade, fourth grade . . . . Funny how that works sometimes, for both kids and adults. You declare it the best year ever and then figure out it was only the best year because you don't really remember it; you've forgotten all the heartache.

But second grade was a good year; I know it was because I remember most of it. It was back in the days when the boys could still be, simply, her friends; when the kids still had in-class birthday parties with cupcakes and little hats all 'round; when recess was still a time to hang upside down from the monkey bars and skip rope and play in the sand instead of a time (as it was by fourth grade) to stand around looking awkwardly at the boys who, suddenly, inexplicably, acted like they didn't want to know you anymore.

We pulled up digital photos of her from second grade. We found a photo of my little girl in her second grade classroom, wide eyed and happy and standing with her teacher, who was telling the whole class to wish her "Happy Birthday." Her teacher was wearing a name tag. Aha! We zoomed in to read the tag. No luck - just a fuzzy-looking smear where the letters should have been. I guess my digital camera wasn't the best back then.

We laughed a little about how we could remember all the other teachers' names, about how her first grade teacher had pulled out her first loose tooth at school one day ... and how her second grade teacher, Mrs. ..... ? who? ... had also pulled one for her...

It suddenly seemed the most important thing in the world to know this teacher's name, this kind and young and beautiful woman who now stood for everything that was innocent and carefree and wonderful about childhood. I dug through my files of old progress reports.

And then, laughter again. My beautiful baby girl - the one who, at birth, weighed just barely over five pounds and was so utterly dependent on me; the one who, when she was a few years old, looked at me with such sweet, loving, admiring eyes; the one who, up until fourth grade or so, thought I was smart and kind and pretty and the best mom ever, and wanted me to come visit her classroom - yes that beautiful baby girl - she had the gall to laugh at me for being such a pack rat. "Why do you even keep all that stuff, mom?" she asked, a little too self-righteously I thought, for a girl whose room looks like a tornado hit it.

But I keep these little mementos - the random progress reports, the school event programs, the science fair ribbons and soccer team participation certificates - for just these moments, when we need, right now, to remember a name, a place, a moment in time....

Wouldn't you know it? I had various mementos from kindergarten, first grade, and third grade, but nothing from second grade in my little girl's school file.

Tears welled in her eyes again, as she thought of the beautiful and kind teacher from second grade whose name was now lost forever from our fickle stupid memories.

And then, just when it all seemed hopeless, finally, success! I pulled the second grade teacher's name from the dark recesses of my brain: Mrs. Slattery!! And my baby was happy again. And I was, for one more shining moment, the smart and wonderful mom that she used to know. And we both smiled and laughed. And she went to bed content, if a little nervous about what tomorrow will bring, at school, with this new problem to handle.

And I am left here, sleepless, with my memories and with my tears for her vanished childhood ...

and, if I am honest, for mine.

I'm So Proud of Her!

My daughter won third place in her class at the Science Fair today. I'm so very proud of her!

I had taken my son to karate class while my husband went to attend the award ceremony at her school science fair.

He brought her by the class to tell me that she won third place! I hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head and told her I was so proud of her!

Meanwhile, my husband made jokes like, "When they announced that she won third place, I felt this really strange sensation, almost like an emotion or feeling or some kind, I'm not sure what that was... do you know?" "Pride!" she said, smiling. "Hmmm," he said, "yeah, maybe so.... or indigestion, maybe. It was strange, anyway." Or, later, "Well, that's ok, kiddo, maybe next year you can win first place."

* * *

Then later, my daughter came to me crying and said she was sad because when she told me about winning third prize at the science fair, I didn't tell her I was proud of her.

What? How do I get blamed for being the one who didn't say "I'm proud of you," when it's my doofus husband who is the constant joke machine and can never simply say, "I'm proud," or "I'm happy," or "Wow, great job!" Does it need the jokes and humor to even be heard? Am I going about this all wrong? Or were my direct and honest words simply drowned out in the sea of sarcastic jokes?

Save that for later analysis; it just doesn't matter when your kid is crying. I hugged her and told her I'm very proud of her. I told her that I did tell her before that I was proud of her but that I could understand if she didn't hear me - maybe I had hugged her too tight and blocked her ears or something, but anyway even if she didn't hear it or even if I didn't say it loud enough, I felt it, I'll say it again and again until she has heard it enough times, and I still mean it. I am proud of her.

She worked hard on that project. She did it all herself, and it was an actual experiment, and she worked hard to calculate and graph the results properly. I am proud of the effort she put in, proud of the fact that the final project looked great and was well-written, and yes, proud of the fact that she won a prize.

I hope she knows that now. I hope it sunk in. I hope she remembers it.

Next time, I'll have to say it louder, and more often.

Or maybe just more sarcastically?