*commence whine*

My job used to be handled by 5 separate people. Through downsizing, it’s up to two of us now. Normally I share these duties with my partner, with him taking about 2/5ths of the load and I handle the rest because it’s mostly management stuff.  With him out, a sales push on, and the COO making decisions that directly cause increased management from me I’ve been working 11 non-stop hours a day, never catching up, and it’s getting to me. Two more days and it’s the weekend. Partner is working from home next week, but at least he’s working, and Monday’s a holiday, so I have a chance to catch up a little over the weekend before handing his stuff back to him.  I can make it 2 more days. I think.

(Sorry Ken, another cat update) I also have this beautiful, fairly young, animal who is very sick. The Vet is concerned enough to want daily updates, and today we decided that I have to force feed her a bit.  Fortunately she took to it. This food is like Ensure for kitties, and she likes taking it from a syringe. She ate a couple of tablespoons of it when I got home tonight, on top of maybe 1/10th of a cup of dry food that was gone since this morning.  So, she’s eating a little on her own, and this high calorie stuff should help too.  She’s also on steroids, antibiotics, and something that’s supposed to help her intestines remember how to push food through.  If I can get her back to normal, she’s never getting another kitty treat again.  The Vet suspects Irritable Bowel Syndrome, so she’ll probably be on a restricted diet of just high quality cat food and things like plain, cooked meat forever. Cats are carnivores, they have no use at all for the carbs in the canned/dry cat food.  This diet will be good for my diabetic cat too, so I guess I’ll just deal with the expense. They’re worth it.

I miss Roomie too. He’s still here, but we’re both so busy working that we haven’t had any quality conversation in a couple of weeks. It sucks.  I haven’t been around enough or had enough brain left at the end of the day to make much effort to be with him, and he’s been working well into the evenings, so we’re both in our own worlds for now.

OK, enough of that. Good Lord, I need some cheese with that whine.

Even two years ago I would have let all that get to me.  I’ll admit there’s not a lot that I’m enjoying about life right now, but that’s short term. All I have to do is look around me to see how blessed I am.

First of all, I’m alive. Being a cancer survivor, even the minor, mostly non-fatal kind of cancer that I had, puts a perspective on things that I didn’t have before. I’m Alive. I have a new chance every morning to experience everything that life brings, good and bad. I can take the bad stuff a little easier now because I have seriously considered the alternative of not being able to experience it.

Secondly, I have everything that I need. I’m by no means wealthy, but my pantry is stocked, my car runs,  I have a roof over my head, and a job that I really am grateful for and enjoy most of the time. I have the best family I could ask for, and I have friends that love me for who I am.  Anything more than that is gravy.  I’ve worked hard for what I have, and for how far I’ve come in the last few years. I take nothing for granted. At least I try not to.

Third, I’ve really been missing having a serious relationship with a man lately, but I’m also aware that by not having a relationship I have learned a lot of good things about myself.  I’m not dependent , needy, whiny, or weak. I don’t NEED a man to have a fulfilling life. I miss having someone to share my days (and nights) with, but I refuse to sit around and feel sorry for myself or cry that my life is empty in any way.  I have a good life. I have so much to be thankful for.  Lesson learned. The right man will come along eventually. I believe that.

While I’ve been writing this, the cat has gotten up 3 times for more food.  She’s definitely more alert and a little active tonight. Not her normal self yet, but she was looking really bad Monday. I think we’re through that.

Tonight, I had to stop at the vets office to pick up a can of the Kitty Ensure. It’s been raining here today and I got out of my car and accidentally walked right into a big puddle on the way into the office. I picked up the food and on the way back to the car, this time I intentionally stomped my way through it.  SPLASH!SPLASH!SPLASH!

That felt kind of good.

Tomorrow is another day.

The stores hype the hell out of their day after thanksgiving sales.  People become animals in search of their 20% off prey. They show up hours early and push and shove for their place in line, crash the doors when they aren’t unlocked fast enough, and today, a 34 year old temporary worker that didn’t get out of the way when the doors were broken down died when a couple thousand stark raving animals trampled him in search of their sale item. A pregnant woman was also taken to the hospital, but her and her baby are OK.

Welcome to the most civilized nation on the planet, huh?

Is the economy so bad that we stop caring about each other because we can get something for $5 off if we can just get in the doors and grab it first before they’re gone? Or is it that human beings have degraded to such an extent that a human life isn’t important as long as it’s some lowly guy that makes $6 an hour at Walmart?

Those people, the ones that killed that poor man, I sincerely hope they understand what they did today. It’s not in me to wish vengeance on anyone, but dang, it’s hard not to at least hope that as many people as trampled him are charged with manslaughter.

When I was a kid, Christmas was about music, and gatherings, and midnight service at church, and a present or two somewhere along the way.  Now that I’m divorced and on my own, I’m much more in that mode than I was when I was married to a man that turned it into a greed fest.  You won’t ever see me participating in the day after thanksgiving sales. I did it once with my daughter and it was just stupid.  I have most of my Christmas shopping done for the six people that I need to shop for this year, and the few things that I have left to pick up will be done after work.

I realize that the stores hype the sales because they need to make money, and I realize that the customers need to save money too, but when there’s a mob situation like there was this morning it might be a good time for the marketers to step back and evaluate the situation. At the very least there should be enough security to protect the lives of the employees and the shoppers.  The mob mentality that these sales generates calls for that. Hopefully lessons were learned from this tragedy. I’ll be watching what they do next year.

In my every day life I enjoy the company of many diverse friends. I enjoy the diversity that they bring to my life. I learn from them. I laugh with them. We help each other through things. I have some awesome friends.

I purposely have refrained from any commentary on the election or our new president in this blog. Politics, quite frankly, bores me. My hope is that somehow, someway, our new president delivers even a little part of what he’s talked about and this country unifies again. We need that. The grass roots groundswell of energy nationwide that went into the election yesterday says a lot about how much regular every day people want to change the world. I hope they hang on to that energy, claim it as their own and facilitate a change from within, because one man at the top can’t do it without help.

It starts at home, not at the White House. If people don’t care, then our leadership doesn’t matter.

I do have one thing to say about some of the issues that a few states addressed in this election though.

I am deeply disappointed, again, at the acceptance of legal discrimination in every state that had things like gay marriage, and unmarried adoption, gay or straight, on their ballots.  Proposition 8 in California passed. People in power now have reinforced their “right” to pass judgment on their constituents based on who they sleep with.  Like it’s any of their business.  Like it matters in the day to day world outside of people’s private homes in ANY way.

I have friends and family members that are gay.  I’ve been close enough friends with a couple of them to discuss relationships, and families, and every day stuff, and guess what?  They are just as human, and fragile, and loving, and spiritual, and brave, and scared, and funny, and every other adjective that you could think of, as anyone else in my life.

No ridiculous law is going to stop people from loving each other, straight, gay, whatever. The only thing their laws accomplish is to create a climate where if something happens to one half of a gay couple, then the other half isn’t allowed, by law, to make decisions, or God forbid, inherit the property that they might have shared together for the better parts of their adult lives.  These are the same laws that prevent adoption of a child if the couple is unmarried. Like they won’t raise children that will be good citizens, or heaven forbid, the child that they raise is different somehow. I brought a child into the world by myself. Does that make her somehow better or more deserving than a child that is raised by two people that happen to be the same gender, just because I’m straight? Honestly, she would probably have been better off being raised by a loving gay couple than she was in the house being raised by me and the mentally ill asshole that I married and divorced. That’s a whole other story though.

This country has come a long way in the last century.  I have an aunt that was born before women could vote, when segregation was the norm, disabled people were institutionalized, and the last war was between the US Cavalry and Native Americans.  We have come a very long way since then, but there are still some tragic excuses for discrimination.  Basing laws on something as personal as sexuality is just ridiculous and petty, and driven by small minds that can’t accept that every person on this planet isn’t like them.

Namaste – we are all equal, and different, and that’s very cool. Respecting those differences is not what happened yesterday, and that bothers me. A lot.

For those people out there that think that being gay is just wrong or disgusting or whatever, I have two suggestions for you. The first is: Don’t do it. It’s that easy. Personal choice. No one will force you to make love to someone that’s the same sex as you.  Isn’t it great living in a free country? You have made your decision to lead “straight” lives.  Please respect the fact that other people make their own choices, and who they love has absolutely no bearing on your life.

My second suggestion: Don’t hate. Live and let live.  This country was built by people that were hated, and banished, or made so miserable they had to leave their homelands. The constitution here was purposely written in a way that made clear the intent of all people being equal, and that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is up to each individual.

Legislating marriage is a slippery slope.  Those laws are inherently unconstitutional, and morally wrong.

If you want to call me a bleeding heart liberal, go ahead, I’ve been called worse. Just know that when we meet, I will respect and honor you as a human being, and as a person that is another receptacle of the same divinity, the same spirit, the same oneness that rules us all. If we can relate to each other on that level, then there is nothing to judge.

Namaste.

Or

I could write about how the end of the half at work didn’t nearly kill me as bad as last half, but there were a few tense moments.  It’s over, today was the end of it. Now there’s just clean up work to do.

Or

I could write about how my best friend on the planet spent yet another day with me doing exciting things like moving furniture, and organizing.  At least this time we got some Dr Mario in, and we talked a lot. It’s good to have her back in my life on a more regular basis. We need each other. It’s a sanity thing.

Or

I could write about how much I’m jonesing to get out, drive somewhere, take pics, and just get filled up with some peacefulness before the winter.  My friend Rusty just spent a weekend riding a bunch of scenic byways on his bike, and I can think of nothing more renewing than to do something like that. He’s almost got me talked into a bike too.  I’m thinking once I loose 2/3 of the weight I need to lose, I’ll start looking around.

Or

I could write about the scientifically proven theory that cats only puke on new carpeting. EW.

Or

I could write about a friend in Australia who brightens my day frequently, today was no exception. One day I’ll make it down there to meet him and his wife. This will be followed by the three of us getting lost in some 12 hour long academic discussion about how there’s no such thing as a two dimensional piece of paper, followed by watching the sunrise, and just being.  It’s a zen thing.

Or

I could write about how I’ve been working on this totally cool presentation for my aunts 90th birthday (she never reads here, it’s OK) for the last 2 weeks and it’s consuming all my writing time. The party is Saturday, I’ll be back after that.

Yesterday was insane, but I got about 3/4 of the biggest project done.  I got to work this morning and buckled down. I finished that one and the 2 others that took about half the time.   Go me. Got it done.

I also helped someone else with another issue, for which she promptly chewed me out. Apparently because I helped too good, and the other person involved stole her thunder, but somehow that turned into my fault, for helping.  Then she asked for another favor, and didn’t like how I handled that either.  Damn, people are still grumpy.

Grumble

My job is helping. I’m support staff. I love it. I’m the best wingman (wingwoman?) that anyone at my company ever had. I don’t have an ego about it, as much as that last sentence sounds like I do. I learn my way through everything that I do and apply that cumulative knowledge to everything that I do next. If I don’t know how to proceed, I have no problem asking for advice and learning something. I have 14 years of history doing that. The previous CEO put me in my position because he trusted me not to fuck it up after someone else took control of my proverbial train and proceeded to run it off the track in a most spectacular way. They keep me around because I’m competent.

It’s tense at work, but we’re still a team.  Most of the time.  There’s a lot to cope with right now. People are stretched to the limit, and a couple have popped off at each other. I try to stay out of that.  I’m trying to brush this one off as stress, because it is, but dang, don’t get pissed when I pull off a minor miracle to do something helpful. There is so much other stuff to be justifiably grumpy about.

Sigh.

Oh well.

I came home from work and took a nap, I needed that. We had a nice supper and I watched Idol on TiVo.

This week’s show was awesome. Andrew Lloyd Webber was the coach and I love musical theater. He’s the king of it. What an amazing composer.  The Idols handled it pretty well. 4/6 of them were excellent.  Anyone can sing pop music. It takes a musician to sing the hell out of a song from the theater.  I’m slightly biased, I have a bit of theater and music in my background, and I spent a lot of time singing Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes backstage while preparing for our little productions of other shows.  Those are some good memories.  As far as Idol goes, being able to handle musical theater shows skill and flexibility.  Two weeks ago the crowd took on Dolly Parton songs. That was a train wreck. This week redeemed them. There were some really good performances.   I’ve got $10 on David Cook in the office pool. It’s going to come down to him vs. David Archileta.  That will be interesting.

Idol also got me out of work grumpiness.  I needed that jolt. Andrew Lloyd Webber is very cool.

Tomorrow’s another day.

It will be better than today.