The Jas Says. . .

Bonus points if you know where the title comes from.

I’m feeling a tad brain dead right now.  I’ve been training a class here at work for the past two weeks, and consequently when I get home all I want to do is collapse into a footsore heap of tired and watch mindless television.  But today is the last day of class and maybe after a week of recovery I’ll feel like thinking about my life again.

Here’s a little snippet for you:  My dad came and went this past weekend.  He jet-setted in from sunny Florida to go to a party and see my grandparents, and then he was gone again, not to return until November when the wedding happens.  Me and The Man went to the party as well, and I danced with my dad.  We were the only two people on the floor, and all of the friends of our family who we have known for years were taking pictures of us.  It all sounds very sweet until I throw in the facts that A) Both my dad and I were buzzed, if not drunk and B) The song we were dancing to was “Wild, Wild West” by the Escape Club.

Daniel-san asked in the last entry’s comments section what I plan on doing with myself once I am “terminated”.  I thought that was a good question, so I started to type a reply, and then I realized that it was getting to be SO LONG I might as well just turn it into an entry.  So, without further ado:

WHAT I PLAN TO DO WITH MYSELF AFTER MY ASS IS FIRED

I may collect unemployment for awhile.  I don’t know how long.  It depends on whether I can get hired at any of the jobs I want.  See, theoretically, by this time I should be able to sit on my ass for awhile without working, because we’ll be doing all right in the money area.  I won’t need to run right out and apply everywhere that I don’t want to work.  I should be able to wait for the right job.

And what is the right job?  Well, PetsMart has openings right now for a “Professional Bather”, which is their entry-level grooming job.  And I still want to be an animal groomer.  I want to at least try it out and find out if I’d be good at it or if I’d like it.  But I don’t want to quit my (hated but) well paying job right now to try it out.  I’d rather stay at my (hated but) well paying job for awhile until we pay off a few more bills.  Plus if I quit instead of waiting around to be “terminated”, I don’t get unemployment, and that would suck for us, because we’d have to hustle a lot more frantically that we currently are hustling.  We’re already on a budget race against our November deadline.  I don’t want to up the pace if I don’t have to.

If the PetsMart thingy is not available by the time I’m terminated, I should be able to get a job at Barnes and Noble or another bookseller, seeing as how they’ll be into the Christmas rush and probably needing seasonal help.

I want to finish school, but that is not going to be the big focus with me.  I do want to get a degree, any kind of degree, because I owe it to myself and my family to be some kind of educated.  But the older I get, the less I give a crap about having a career like I used to.  I wanted to be some kind of big-shot whatever, living the crazy life and making the cash, or at least getting recognition for something.  I don’t really care about that anymore.  I want to enjoy my life, and I want to have a child.  I talked to The Man about this briefly (real briefly) a couple of days ago, and I told him that I didn’t want to wait until I was thirty to have a kid.  He’ll be 29 at the end of this month, I’ll be 27 in April, time is creeping up on us both.  I’m not afraid of being the oldest parents at my kid’s high school graduation, but I do want to be able to enjoy his/her life for a good long time without worrying about keeling over before they are all growed up (not that I couldn’t keel over at any moment, but you know what I mean).

To be real honest, I don’t like to work.  I might just not have found what I want to do yet, and maybe the grooming thing will be it.  I might fall in love with doing that job and finally find something that makes me want to leave my house and my family for hours every day.  I’m not sure, but I’m willing to give it a try.  I’m getting less willing to do something that I hate just for money.  I mean, I will if I need to; if it comes down to me working at McDonalds or us losing the house and declaring bankruptcy, I will totally be spouting “Would you like fries with that?” as cheerily as anyone else.  I do not, however, feel the need to get more money just for the sheer fact that more money=better.  If our bills are paid, and we are eating, and we have a bit of extra cash to get little presents now and then and to handle any emergencies that happen, why do we need more money? (Retirement, right?  That’s what you’re going to say.  Stop that!  Our retirement plan is none of your business!)  I guess what it comes down to is that I am not as cash-obsessed as some people are, and having mucho dinero is not a big flippin deal to me.  I want to be happy; I’m not right now (career wise that is) and I know what I want to do:  create a happy home, raise a well-adjusted child, make The Man happy, be happy myself.

So that’s my story.  I may or may not stick to it.

OH SHIT, THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

As a closing note of interest, there is a gaggle of people in the empty lot next door, eyeing it up.  It appears as though they are considering buying it.  Bah.  I don’t want more neighbors.  I forsee a large row of pine trees or perhaps a big fence in our future.  Nothing says “welcome to the neighborhood” like a big fence.  Maybe I’ll put some razor-wire on the top of it, just to give it that extra homey touch.

I’m your new crazy-ass neighbor!  Like my fence?  Try to climb it, I dare you!!!  Sissy pants!

I had one of those wonderful interludes this morning where I woke up out of a dead sleep at 4:00 AM and felt completely sick to my stomach.  I seriously thought I was going to die, or at the very least, throw up all over myself and The Man.  I gingerly climbed out of bed and rushed downstairs to the bathroom (trailed by the cats who thought I was getting up to feed them), but as soon as I was in the bathroom, the incredible stomach pain and nausea vanished.  Buh?  I was very confused, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.  I went back upstairs (trailed by the cats who were wondering if I forgot to feed them), got back into bed as silently as I could, and tried to go back to sleep.

Of course, as soon as I was back in bed and laying down, the horrible pain and nausea came back.

I really didn’t want to get up again, especially if I was going to feel fine once I got downstairs.  But then again, I didn’t want to vomit in bed if this wasn’t another false alarm.  So, about 10 minutes later, I hauled myself out of bed again, went downstairs (trailed by the cats, who thought I had realized my error and was coming back to feed them) and felt better again once I reached the bathroom.  But this time I stayed in there for about 10 minutes, laying on the floor, seeing if I would feel sick again.  I didn’t.  So I took a few sips of water and went back to bed (trailed by the cats, who were giving me dirty looks and trying to trip me as I climbed the stairs).

And then I immediately felt like shit again, but this time I just grit my teeth and got through it.  I imagine I must have passed back out at some point, because the next time I woke up it was 7:30 AM.

I wanted to call into work today, but I have to print and bind books for my new hire class starting on Monday.  It takes about an hour to print one of these books.  They are BEHEMOTH.  They are actually quite intimidating.  I know if I hired into a company and the first thing they did was drop a 10 pound book on my lap, I would want to turn back around and walk out the door.

Anyway, new hire class for the next two weeks.  I don’t know when I’m going to find the time to go out to college and take my last test for my management class.  I have to have it done by next Wednesday.  Oooh, never mind, I just looked online and the testing center is open until 8 PM Monday through Thursday.  Hallelujah!  I won’t have to skulk out of work and have someone else cover my class for two hours while I get my learn on!

I never thought I’d be so excited about taking a test.

The Man and I went to talk to our Friendly Neighborhood HR Rep today about what happens when we get married.  And what happens is that they fire one of us.  Actually, she says that they “terminate” one of us, as if that’s a nicer word.  “Getting fired” means losing your job.  “Being terminated” means that Arnold Schwarzenegger kills your ass dead.  Uh, anyway, since I’m the one who doesn’t want to work in this field anymore, I will be putting my head on the chopping block.  So, that’s the plan as of now:  Get married, get fired, collect unemployment for a wee, get another job, carry on.  In preparation for my impending “termination”, The Man and I have put ourselves on a strict budget so we can pay off as much outstanding debt as possible before we lose the cushy income.  We don’t have all that much outstanding debt anymore. . . well, it’s not all that much to US.  Basically a consolidation loan and a 401(k) loan that we took out to pay for the wedding.  But the 401(k) comes right out of The Man’s check anyway, and the consolidation loan absorbed our remaining credit card debt.  Someday we’ll be “debt free and proud”, and as soon as that happens I am buying a new car.

I ordered the wedding invitations yesterday.  They’re ecru.  That’s about all I can say about them.  We’re going to the bakery today to see what we have to do to get a cake.  And how much it will cost.  Because if it’s hella expensive maybe we won’t have a cake.  Maybe the metric ton of bite-sized desserts we are already going to have will have to do.  We’ll see.

Here’s some stuff about my time in Drummond Island.  Stories, observations, what have you:

• Chevy Cavaliers were not meant to tow anything.  The kayak trailer is so light you can pull it around by hand, but the car was not happy with us.  At a certain point during the trip, you could watch the gas gauge fall as fuel was burned at an alarming rate.
• Coppertone sport sun-spray is worthless.  Well, not really, but if you spray yourself down you are bound to miss more skin than you hit.  I got very burned on my back because the spray did not hit all the way down.  Little spots are white, the rest is red.  It looks weird, kind of like I’m in the process of melting in 2-D.
• I discovered that if I am out in the sun too long, freckles appear on my nose.
• No one likes water snakes.
• Regardless of the fact that there is Not Much Happening on Drummond Island, it’s very easy to spend a lot of money there.  I bought a new ring, new necklace, new fleece, and a knitted throw.  I also bought an eight dollar loaf of bread.  You heard that right, $8.00 US for one loaf of bread.  It was Italian.  The Man asked me to bring him back bread from the bakery.  I didn’t know how much it cost until I was rung up.  No wonder they didn’t put a price tag on it.
• My sister has the best dog in the whole world.  Any dog that will hop into a kayak with you and sit calmly while you paddle around is a very good dog.
• My stepsister is leading a very repressed life as a nurse.  She really should be a photographer for National Geographic.  Maybe my brother-in-law and The Man and her husband can be her support people.  They seemed to have no problem aiming a floodlight at a big black bear so that my stepsister could snap pictures.  She discovered the bear when she left the false safety of a screened-in grilling area to get more beer.  Everyone wanted to see the bear, but me and my sister and my other stepsister only wanted to peek.  Everyone else thought the bear deserved a full-scale lighting project.  From the false safety of the screened in deck, we heard the maniacs outside CALLING TO THE BEAR, trying to get it to look at them so nurse-stepsister could get a better shot.  Meanwhile, I was looking for things I could use as weapons if we all got charged.  Things I might have used included:  pencils from the game we were playing, the propane tank on the grill, a chair, a small table, two dogs, and a lit cigarette.  Nothing too terribly damage-inflicting.  We would have all died if that bear got pissed off.  Although given a little time I could have MacGyvered a bomb out of the propane and a lit cigarette.  I probably would have killed myself doing it, but it would still be a bomb.
• No matter how many blankets we put on the bed at night, I still woke up freezing every morning.  Even when it wasn’t particularly cold out, I still woke up freezing.
• I really, really, want to buy a kayak.  But that is one of the most impractical purchases I can make right now.  For if I had a kayak, I would also need a car rack, a paddle, a life jacket, and any other number of accessories so that I could use it.  And then I probably wouldn’t use it that much.
• I like to play Cranium.  Although “hormone” is a very hard word to use in charades.