Kingfisher Cove

Damn. I Wanted It To Be MY Idea.

I was laid off from my job today.

I was assured (by Mr. Head Honcho, who was rather shaky while he and the HR lady and Micromngr Boss Bitch were "breaking the news to me") that it strictly had to do with a "company downturn" and that "some engineers would be laid off this week as well." 

There's a bit of a fishy feel to it.  A young woman was hired into our department just a couple of months ago, at a higher salary than me.  'Course, the company is non-union so seniority means nothing.  In fact, seniority tends to mean "you're too old."  Older people cause health insurance rates to be higher.  Older people tend to mean higher wages and the accrual of higher rates of vacation time.  Younger people tend to be cheaper.  (Except in this particular case, so it's rather head-scratching). 

And get this:  I can get an "enhanced" severance package if I sign on the dotted line that I will take no legal action against the company for discrimination.

Hmm.

I admit I'm reeling, because I wanted this to happen on my own terms.  No, I haven't been happy there -- except for the group of people I worked with directly (not including Micrmngr Boss Bitch, of course) -- what a great bunch of people.  I will truly miss them, and that makes me ache.  But that would have also been the case if I'd left on my own terms. 

So.  I've cancelled my housecleaning service.  (Oh joy.  I get to do that now).  And, I've filed for unemployment.  I came home early today (because they said I could -- and why not?), but I do need to go back in tomorrow afternoon and throw my "stuff" in a box, turn in my keys, etc. 

Bummer, I'll miss out on the Seahawks Spirit Day celebration Friday.

Oh well.

Forecast: Raining Buckets and Seahawks

Raining, raining, raining, raining.  And did I mention that it's raining?  All friggin' weekend long, pounding, bouncing, slamming rain.  This has got to be one of the wettest seasons on record.   And I'm damned sick of it.  No sign of any relief, either.

Throngs of folks braved the deluge at Qwest Field for the Seahawks send-off rally this morning.   (Nope, I wasn't one of them, but I waved bub-bye figuratively while I was working with figures).  JDub had to work all this weekend, and he saw the Seahawks plane take off there at Boeing Field!  Paul Allen happens to have a couple of 737s of his very own (can you imagine?) that he keeps in a hangar there at the Field, and one of them had Seahawks decals (or a paint job) on it.  He saw it roll out of there, taxi down the runway, and then take off.  How cool is that?  They've obviously since arrived in Detroit.  Let the hype begin!  I suspect I'll start getting all nervous and fretful as this week progresses. 

Gulp!

Oh Yeah, That's Right. Numbers. Eeewww.

LORD have mercy.  I've just spent the last (1,2,3...) seven hours catching up on JDub's side-business bookkeeping and his Business & Occupations (B&O) taxes. 

In between all that, I've also been keeping up with laundry.

I might write a little more later, but right now?

I need a nap.

Relaxing with Weenies on a Friday Night

Home alone on this Friday night, but it's OK.  It's quite peaceful and pleasant.  (And it's Friday night!)  I believe my kid is at work, and I know my husband is at work, so it's just me and the weenies.  I've never been one to be afraid of being home alone.   From the ages of 18 through 22, I lived alone and I remember my grandmother asking me once, "Doesn't it scare you?  Oh, I'd be scared to death!"  And I remember realizing that I'd never given it much thought.  Not that I wasn't careful and prudent about locking my doors and stuff, but I was also pretty much in denial that I would ever be in the cross-hairs of someone thinking to rape and/or murder.  Which was stupid when I think about it now, especially since I had three very frightening experiences during those five years of being very young and living alone.

The first bad experience was in 1975.  I was 19, and my friend Helen (whom I just visited in Oregon over New Years) was attending Washington State University in Pullman, located close to the Idaho border.  This would have been her sophomore year, and I took an extra day off from work to make a long weekend and drive the 360 miles to go visit her.  I set out before the butt crack of dawn, and on Snoqualmie Pass -- the freeway that crosses the Cascades (in the middle of nowhere) -- I was paced by a Volkswagen beetle.  It was very deliberate:  I'd be going 70 mph and the car would be right alongside me for a while, and then it would dart in front of me and slow down significantly.  So I'd pass, and it would speed up and keep pace, then slip in front of me in my lane and slow way down again, so I'd pass on the other side.  This went on over and over and over again, sort of a weird leap frog.  Out of the corner of my eye I noted that it was a man nicely dressed with a tie.  I refused to make eye contact, and I did feel quite nervous, but part of me thought I was imagining things.  Why would somebody do that?  It wasn't a "kid" around my age or anything -- this looked like a business man.  I figured he was trying to flirt and I wasn't giving him the time of day, but he wasn't taking the hint.  After over 2 hours of this, I took the exit to Vantage, a tiny burg on the Columbia River to fill up my gas tank, and he followed me into the gas station and parked a couple of islands over.  Again, I refused to acknowledge his existence, but in my peripheral vision I could tell that he was not filling up his VW beetle -- he was just standing there staring at me.  I felt the hairs on my arms raise up and make me shiver.  But then I did a stupid thing:  When I went inside to pay for my gas, I didn't say anything about it to the clerk.  I was afraid of coming across as being paranoid or worse, "dumb".  So I climbed back into my car and took the ramp that points you in the direction of Pullman as opposed to Spokane, and I noticed in my rear view mirror that the VW beetle opted to head toward Spokane.  I remember the incredible relief I felt about that.  What I didn't think of at that time but I am 99.9% certain of now, is that on that day, Ted Bundy decided at that gas station that I wasn't his "type".  My hair was too short and too light.  I'd always lamented not having long straight hair that I could part in the middle and swing around my waist -- it was too curly and fine.  But the vast majority of his victims did have exactly that.  And I was definitely right in the midst of his "playground". (And it came out later that he drove a VW beetle).

The two other bad experiences I had were a couple-to-three years after that, and these were neighbors in the four-plex where I lived.  One guy was just totally creepy -- he was slight and greasy-looking and would hang out at his door in a eerie way, waiting for me to come home from work and then he'd talk and talk.  About nothing much, except that he was "trying to get his kids back", and he made a mean pork chop, and Do You Believe in Jesus?  The thing is, I've always been NICE.  I've never been the type of person to get rude, get into people's faces, say snotty and/or demeaning things.  At times I wish I could, even still!  Because nice people tend to be walked on or not taken seriously.  This guy was creepy to me, and he kept trying to "hit" on me and I would politely turn him down, time and time again.  He would never get the hint!  I'M NOT INTERESTED.  He kept trying to get me to go to church with him.  Uhm, no thank you.  He really wanted me to come over and have pork chops with him.  Uhm, no thank you again.  One night I was driving home from my parents' house very late, and I noticed a truck parked at a gas station at the corner where I would turn to get to my apartment, and I recognized it as this creepy guy's truck.  No headlights on or anything, which I thought fleetingly was odd.  And then suddenly there were headlights in my rear view mirror -- the creep right behind me.  Knowing where I lived -- right next door.  Stalking me! I knew I had to get home very quickly and run to the door and unlock it before he did, because there was just something extremely alarming about this.  (What I should have done, if I hadn't been so young and naive, was to NOT go home.  Bypass my apartment and find a fire station or something.  But I remember being so very tired and really wanting desperately to BE HOME, damn this asshole).  It was obvious that I was in a hurry, and I parked quickly in my driveway and flew up to my door, my keys shaking in my hand.  And he hurried, too.  He made it to his step at just about the same time.  He didn't say anything, but he glared at me with this hatred that shook me to the core.  I slipped inside my apartment, slammed the door, and locked myself in good and tight, my heart trying really hard to fly out of my chest and collapse all twitchy on the floor.  The next morning, I found the most raunchy and disgusting porno magazine pages draped all over my car.  We are not talking Playboy or even Hustler -- these were absolutely depraved.   I reported this to the landlords, an elderly couple who happened to really like me, and the next thing I knew the weirdo was evicted.  I worried for a while about repercussions, but they never happened.

So, you want to hear the third ordeal?  God, reliving these makes me feel a wee bit jumpy on this dark and stormy night.  'Course, I don't have to worry about being pillaged and plundered now because I'm old.  And chubby.  (Denial is my middle name, didja know that?)

OK, here goes.  Another neighbor "guy" moved into this four-plex after a good friend of mine had moved out to get married.  (It was really fun for the short time that this friend lived there -- we'd get together for meals and stuff, and visit with each other after work.  It was great!)  Anyway, one night about 11:00 (on a worknight) there was this pounding on my door.  I was smart -- I didn't open it.  I said, "Who is it?"  "It's Buddy, and I need to borrow a coat hanger because I locked my keys in my car."  Being nice I said, "Oh, OK.  Just a sec."  So I get a coat hanger and then I opened the door a little ways (I had my jammies on) and handed it to him.  His eyes were all glittery and slippery and I realized he was drunk.  He stumbled forward and I closed the door.  And then I went to bed.  About an hour or so later I awoke to pounding on my door again!  I got up and shouted, "What?"  A slurry Buddy said, "Here's your hanger back."  I said, "Jesus, it's late, just set it down on the step."  He said, "I SAID here's your hanger back!"  I responded, "I SAID lay it on the step!"  Then he kicked my door, called me a bitch, and then a moment later I heard him absolutely trashing his apartment.  And THEN I heard him masturbating outside my bedroom window!  AND THEN I heard this horrific, splintering, glass-breaking explosion, and I just knew he'd bashed in the windshield on my car.  I called the police, and waited for over an hour for them to get there, and during that hour, this guy continued to trash his apartment and break windows!  I kept calling the police back and I kept being told they were on "shift change."  I was just absolutely livid when they finally arrived, and of course by then Buddy was long gone.   I'm "nice", but I let these cops know under no uncertain terms how angry and frustrated I was.  "If you'd come promptly, you would have caught him!  Plus now he's out driving drunk!"  Not that THAT mattered all that much back then.  Not only that, but "domestic incidences" weren't considered important then, either.  I remember saying to this cop, "I could have been attacked or even killed!"  He looked at me (in my jammies) and said, "But you weren't." 

And hell yes, my windshield was smashed to smithereens.

And so.  (Breathe).  This was all a long time ago, and I do (and did) realize after the fact that I was lucky. 

But no, Grandma, I still don't get scared being alone.  I refuse to live in fear.  Besides, I have weenie dogs to protect me.

Nothing Much

I don't have much of anything to write about tonight.  Work is boring and tedious.  Nothing's on TV (well, CSI in a couple of hours).  Tomorrow's Friday, which is a good thing, but I have bookkeeping for JDub's side business to take care of all this weekend (along with laundry and then state B&O taxes).  And I'm desperate for payday, which isn't until next Tuesday.  God. 

Still haven't heard anything about the job I've applied for at Da Airplane Company, but my "status" remains "under consideration".  In the meantime, I'm keeping my eyes open for other possibilities.   We'll see where this journey takes me -- I'm determined, but I'm also taking the cautious road.  I don't want to knee-jerk into something equally as miserable.  (How does one ensure that, exactly?   You just don't know what you're in for until you've experienced the PEOPLE.  It's that aspect that makes a job miserable or tolerable, and it' really not a savvy question to be asking at the job interview:  "Are you guys here all assholes or pretty decent folks?") (And like they'd be honest).

I'd run out of reading material at Harstine a few weeks ago so JDub and I trekked to Wally World and I picked up a couple of books.  One was a hardback for (get this) $3.94.  It was Patricia Cornwell's "Blowfly" and I've been reading it this week during lunch.  I tend to really enjoy the Kay Scarpetta books, but no damned wonder this one was only $3.94.  Gah!  It sucks.  Of course I'm finishing it.  I (almost) always do, regardless how bad.  And the last two books I read which were mystery who-dunnits, I figured out well in advance WHO DUNNIT.  I hate when that happens.  I'm ready for a super good book.  Suggestions?

It's stormin' outside!  Sideways rain and howling wind. 

Isn't that jelly fish something else?  Lord.  Can screams be heard under water?

WTF?

Even local media have been bad-mouthing the way us Washingtonians are handling "going to the Super Bowl."  Huh?  They're saying we're too laid back.  They're saying we're not "passionate enough."  They're even saying "WE'RE TOO POLITE."

What would they have us do?  Riot in the streets?  Moon each other on the freeways?  Engage in a two-week-long drunken frenzy?  (And then, wouldn't we be criticized for that?)

What these media types don't understand is that it's not over.  There's another Really Big Game to be played.  And who ever remembers the loser of the Super Bowl?    We're not accustomed to being in this "place" -- and we're feeling a little bit in limbo -- what do we do with ourselves during this two-week period leading up to the Big Event?  Well, we go to work.  And our employers aren't allowing us to languish by the water cooler and wax philosophical about football day in and day out for those two weeks.  The thing is, we are excited.  Everybody I talk to, encounter, overhear -- we're definitely caught up in this thing, and we're amazed and bewildered and....excited!!   And many of us have our name on the 100-square-grid (at $10 per square), with the possibility of winning big bucks on Game Day.  I'll just betcha that's prevelant just about everywhere.

The thing is, the vast majority of us can't go to the game.  Besides being cost-prohibitive, even the season ticket holders had to go by a lottery -- 17.5% of ALL tickets were allotted to Seahawks season ticket holders.  The 12th Man will not be a factor at this game.  Only the very rich or very lucky may attend.   And since Qwest Field is apparently not opening up to allow fans to watch the game on the Big Screen (and thereby make money with concessions, beer, parking, etc.), people's noses are a bit out of joint.  OK, fine.  We'll just watch the game at home on our TVs.  Can't smoke in the bars anymore -- we'll just hang out at home.

After the fact, if we win, you may well see lots of mooning taking place.  But not until then. 

We're ultimately a classy bunch.

Music and Musings

My kid thinks I’m pretty cool because I like Death Cab for Cutie. (Conversely, I’m always thrilled when he likes something other than rap). We actually do like a fair amount of the same kind of music, and it tickles me when I hear him listening to Led Zeppelin or Al Stewart blasting in the shower. His preference is rap, though, and I just can’t go there. But he’s introduced me to a few artists that I really like, such as the Shins, Howie Day, Three Doors Down, Ben Harper. Ever heard KT Tunstall? (“Black Horse and a Cherry Tree”) – man I just LOVE her! And the new John Mayer/Herbie Hancock tune – “Stitched Up.” Also highly recommend Carbon Leaf – love this song: “Let Your Troubles Roll By.” Of course I love Cold Play. I guess you could call me your Approaching-50-Year-Old-Alternative-Music-Fan. Is that a good thing? I’m thinking so.

Nate told me today that he’s concerned about turning 20 (in June. Four days after I turn 50). I wanted to slap him. Concerned about turning 20? God, I loved turning 20. I loved turning 21. After that, not so much. Because the fact is, all of a sudden you’re facing turning 50 – in a (hot) flash/heartbeat. Sometimes I can hardly remember what all happened in between. (Good thing I kept journals).

So, I’m thinking. Should I have a Super Bowl party? Maybe just a few folks. After all, we have that brand new 50” plasma TV. And we could play the “Quarter Game.” (Oh, it’s fun – even if you’re not much of a gambler). You’ve got this jar, and before the game everyone anties a quarter in the jar. Then, for each and every play of the game, the jar moves from person-to-person (in a prearranged order that remains the same throughout the game), and each time the jar moves to the next person, everyone anties another quarter. If you happen to be holding the jar when somebody gets a touchdown (doesn’t matter which team), you get all the quarters in the jar. Then you start over with antying up again, and moving that jar from person-to-person during each play. It’s fun because it makes each play important, keeps everyone into the game, and it’s exciting! ‘Course, the more participants the better because the bigger the quarter jackpots.

Parties are a lot of work, though. Maybe a potluck party. And not too big – parking is limited at our house. Hmm. Could be a lot of fun…

Here's Proof (Eeewww...) (Remember, He's Worth Gazillions)

All's Pretty Darned Good in the Pacific Northwest

Everyone's pretty much walking on air around here these days.   Those two unimaginable words:  Super Bowl -- keep ricocheting inside our heads and we have to do the head-shake thing to come back down to Earth.  Not that coming back down to Earth is particularly appealing, but for two weeks it'll have to be necessary now and then.  (If we want to make a living and pay our bills and raise our kids and keep gas in the car and such like).  This feeling is so alien.  Dreams have been dashed with our sports teams for decades -- and for these two weeks we can anticipate and hope and hold on to that dream.  I'm not a huge football fan, but I've followed the Seahawks this year and have cautiously allowed myself to get pretty worked up over them.   Naturally, ever since they made it into the playoffs, my antenna have been on high alert.  Yeah, I admit it:  I'm a "fair weather fan."  Team does lousy, I'm not so interested.  But they start doin' sumthin' stellar, and I'm all about it.  Die-hard fans would peer down their noses at me (as they did when I was all about the Mariners when they were so fabulous), but I can't make any apologies.  Doing poorly is depressing.  Doing well is exciting as all get-out.  Plus, if I'm going to want to spend the HUGE, OBSCENE, HIGHWAY ROBBERY, TAKE-MY-FIRST-BORN BUCKS to go to see a game in person once in a blue moon, they'd best be doing good and have a decent chance of winning! 

At any rate, my point is that it's exciting out around here!  After all this rain and dreariness, it's very cool to have something like this to feel good about.  I'm not especially looking forward to the Super Bowl game itself -- either our dreams will be dashed, and/or I'll go through my nervous-wreck-bite-my-nails angst all over again.   I've always gagged over the pre-game hype (for two whole weeks) in the past, but it will sure feel different this time!  We're part of that hype!  First time ever!

OK, here's an observation.  You know who Paul Allen is, right?  Bill Gates' cohort, went out on his own with his gazillions, and even though he's a true geek, he's done a lot of interesting and unique things for our community (including the Experience Music Project in Seattle with that Very Odd multi-colored melted-metal looking museum near the Space Needle), as well as many other philanthropic deeds.  Well, he saved the Seahawks.  I remember clearly (they say it was 10 years ago, but it doesn't seem like that long) when the former Evil Owner Whom I Won't Name decided  to up and take the team to California (or somewhere).  The news footage showed these semis packed with all the Seahawks gear and equipment and stuff, and people trying to block their escape departure.   And then, Paul Allen stepped in, bought the team, and soon after the Kingdome was imploded and the new Mariners stadium was built, a new Seahawks stadium started to emerge from the rubble nearby.  (More to it than that, of course, as well as irritated taxpayers being saddled with the cost of two huge stadiums....)  But I'd venture to guess people aren't thinking much about that right now.

Anyway, Paul Allen raised the "12th Man Flag" at the game yesterday (12th man = fans), which was very fitting, and then during the awarding of the NFC trophy after the game, he spoke a few words (on national TV) and this is what struck me:  He has very yellow teeth. 

Here's a man with gazillions of bucks, and he has yellow teeth?  Last I heard it only costs about $350 to get them bleached. 

I'm thinking he ought to take care of that before the Super Bowl game.

GET THIS PARTY STARTED!!