Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

After 20 years of working at the same company, I'm being laid off. They're sending my job to India. How annoyingly stereotypical.

By the end of the month, I'll be without a job.

I know finding a new job takes a long time (months and months), but I've only known for a short time and I'm already depressed as hell.

Plus side: I have savings, so I can live for a while without a problem.

Minus side: I've already applied for every technical writer job in the area (20-something open positions). What now? I mean, I know I have to follow up on them as time continues, but on average people in my position submit 10 applications to get a phone interview, need 10 phone interviews to get an in person interview, and need 10 in person interviews to get an offer. That's a hell of a lot more than 20-something applications... I'm in the heart of Silicon Valley, so I'm already in what should be a good area for this.

For a short time I was surprised that stats like that are kept, but I guess what else do out of work people have to do?

I'm willing to relocate to other areas of the country, but that increases the stress so much. Packing up and moving across country, likely quickly, into an area you don't even know?

Blah.

So the AirBnB place is nice. The outside isn't very good looking, but the apartment is a two bedroom one, all for me. I left my stuff and my cat there this morning.

First thing Ellie did: Tried to eat the fake tree. >< It had brown moss/straw stuff around the bottom, and she got a mouthful before I realized it. I hope she doesn't throw it back up...

I hid the tree in the second bedroom. Hopefully both it and Ellie will be safe that way.

I feel really bad leaving her alone there in the new place, but I had to get to work.

I have it booked until Friday (checkout time 11 AM), and I'm really, really worried my apartment won't be done by then. Or that it will be done at like 5 PM. I can't really keep my cat in the car for six hours.

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In more positive news, I transferred the one prescription I take to Costco, saving money. I also am going through them for my year's supply of contact lenses, which will save more money. Yay!

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The college class (Editing) I'm taking is still so very very hard. I keep thinking I should have dropped it, though it's too late now. It's really frustrating, because I can edit things! On that part, I get a near-perfect score, but on explaining why I make those changes, I flounder hard.

So turns out I will have to temporarily move out. Apartment complex is paying to put me into a pet-friendly hotel, starting Monday night. Unfortunately there are still tons of issues, like that I can't bring my desktop computer (I'm trying to make an old laptop work), and I guess I'll be eating out every meal? That's going to be hell on the budget and my weight.

My kitchen is full of person-sized dehumidifiers and giant fans -- it's so loud, I can't even use my phone or watch anything online, and they have to run 24/7.

I'm trying to empty the kitchen to make room. Ellie discovered where her feeder went (no fans/dehumidifier in place yet) :





Dehumidifier, fans are just as big:

Monday: We discover a massive problem at work. Every single one of our company's tools in customer hands stopped working. Customers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for our software licenses. I worked a 19 hour day.

Tuesday: Arrive to work five hours later, on next to no sleep, to find out all the work I did on Monday wasn't necessary... and that I had to do the same amount of work again, just in a different way.

Wednesday/today: Woke up to find my (personal) computer didn't work. EEEEK! When I wiggled the mouse to wake it from sleep, it made the right sounds as if it were waking up, but the monitors didn't come on. I cut the power, after a moment turned it back on, and it booted for a second, then died. Then, on its own, booted for a second, died. Booted for a second, died. Over and over on its own. My hardware knowledge is very limited, but opened it up and saw nothing bad that I could tell. Tried a different outlet. It wasn't dusty, but blew it out anyway. No difference.

Took it to a repair place. They checked the power source and other hardware, said it had no issues. He reset the BIOS and reset something else (and did something with some battery... but it's not a laptop) and it booted up after that. At first I thought "YAY!" but everyone I describe the issue to thinks that likely wasn't really the issue, so now I'm still worried. (That's especially a pain since my tower is so massive. It's a custom gaming machine, and it's really hard for me to carry around, it's so heavy. If I dropped it...)

But the place fixed it, and it was only $150. I thought it would be more, so yay. Hopefully yay.

And then... bees. Yes bees. BEES. In my apartment. They came in through my fireplace. At first one, then three, then a hell of a lot more. I grabbed my cat and got out of my apartment. Unfortunately I was not at all dressed to go out in public. (Sweat pants and a sweater, both I used to wear when I was 170 pounds heavier, so my pants were basically falling off me and I was swimming in the top.) Went to the leasing office and they sent a man to deal with the bees. I suppose he killed them? I waited outside.

He said he closed the fireplace vent (WHY do apartments have fireplaces anyway? And why wasn't the vent closed already?). Then either another bee got in or it was one that escaped the killing spree. I ended up taking a black garbage bag and taping it over the fireplace. It's not like I was ever going to use it for a fire anyway, and I keep stuff in front of it so I can't hardly see the bag.

Ugh. What will tomorrow bring? A plague of frogs?

My back isn't broken yet, but I'd really appreciate it if the world would stop piling straw onto me.

[Rereading this post, I decided to add something positive to each point -- the other side of the coin. I'll add it in brackets.]

Weight: Two months ago I had hit my lowest number ever (200.2 SO CLOSE to being under 200!) and I never was able to get below it. I've gained seven pounds as of this morning (though this morning is unofficial, five pounds gained from official weighing date). It's just so amazingly frustrating as I'm not cheating, I'm not eating badly. [On the plus side, I'm off my high cholesterol medication, which means I'm down to one single prescription. As I used to be on four different diabetes meds and two other ones, that's a wonderful thing.]

Exercise: With my toe still not healed (seriously, I've had an open wound on my toe for months now, and I've been on antibiotics just as long) I can't do my usual exercises. There are still hand weights and pushups, but that's not the same as aerobic exercise. Which of course adds into the weight problem... [The good part is I'd be ready to do knee-high pushups if only I were willing to try. I worry that the position might put too much stress on my healing toe though. SOON! And then next will be doing pushups on the floor!]

Running: I decided there's no use waiting. Once my toe heals (if it ever does...) I'm going to try to start running. I wanted to use that "couch to 5K" app... but apparently my phone is too old to run it. An iPhone 4 is NOT that much older than an iPhone 6! It's utter BS that I cannot run what appears to be a simple app on my current phone! [All my life, I've wanted to be able to run. It was the one thing I felt like I was missing out on when I was heavier. I'm not sure if it will work for me, it might kill my knees, but I'm excited to try. SOON! As soon as my toe heals!]

Money: Adding into all that, money is still really rough. As in I'm living on my savings even though I have a full time job in the tech industry. This adds into the other issues, as in constant doctor bills for my toe ($250 per visit, weekly visits, even with insurance) and being unable to splurge and upgrade my apparently-ancient phone... [Hard to see a positive one on this point. At least I'm not homeless?]

Toe: I'm really so sick of dealing with it. My toenail was removed over a year ago, and it's never healed up since then. It reopened/re-got infected a couple months ago, and the infection is resistant to all antibiotics other than one. The pills cost $250 per pill, and I have to take them twice a day, and I'm on my third 10 day renewal of them, so the insurance company is being an ass about it. It's a constant fight with them to get my renewals, and they won't even cover a full renewal at once. I have to pick up 5 days, then the other 5 days on the day I run out of them, and the insurance has to approve it every time. It's nonstop calling, stress, and worry that I'll run out before the renewal is approved. [At least I do have insurance, so it's not all out of pocket?]

Vacation: I had the "good" idea to get a mileage credit card so I could fly home to visit my mother for free. I spent enough on it (and paid it off) to get the miles I need, but apparently it takes EIGHT WEEKS to credit the miles to you. Add to that the EXTREMELY limited number of seat options, and I doubt I'll be able to go home in June. (Seriously, a month ago, when I checked what was available in June, there were six seats for the whole month.) [Blah.]

Taxes: My mother's tax guy offered to look at my taxes and see if he could do better than the $1,000 TurboTax says I owe, but it's been about three weeks and I haven't heard back from him, even though I've emailed him multiple times since then. It's less than ten days until I have to file... [Well, I'm prepared for the worst. If he can't do any better, I was already mentally prepared to pay that $1,000...]

Life isn't supposed to be like this, you know? I work a full time "good" job. I have health insurance. I live about as far from an extravagant lifestyle as you can get. I have no children and no debt. [Hopefully things will get better soon... Money is unlikely, not until my lease is up and I can move to a smaller/cheaper place, but hopefully my toe will heal up soon and I can get back to exercising, which will help with the weight issue...]

This post was like talking to myself! :P

Monday last week, my heat died. Took them two days to get a temporary fix working (somehow they rigged the AC to blow heat instead, so I could only have heat in the daytime, I had to turn it off at night since it didn't click on and off on its own -- I had to turn it on and off by hand). They said it would take 2-3 WEEKS to order a new unit, but until then they'd put a used compressor in.

That was Friday. Today, Monday, the damned thing is dead again. And it's after hours, so I'm going to have to go all night without heat. Again.

I'm so damned sick of being cold. I pay a lot of money to live in this apartment, heat is a basic thing that should work.

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Since someone else asked, I uploaded that Go Down, Aaron book to my webspace. Though I don't recommend it, feel free to read it if you like. (Reminder: It's NWS/porn.)

I know I'm generally preaching to the choir in my LJ, but this was just so horrible I had to write about it anyway.

I was watching the news when a story came on. Mitt Romney apologized for bullying gay people while in college. My first thought was "A horrible thing to do, but at least he's apologizing", but then the story went on. This only came out because FIVE people came forward about his acts of bullying gay people.

Here's a story on one case, Romney followed a classmate most thought was gay, and when the kid was alone, knocked him down and cut off his long hair. The school photo of Romney at the time make him look at least 20.

Good job, man. Apologize now, only after it comes out in the media. He claims he doesn't remember this happening at all. (Abuse so many gay folks that it all blurs together, huh?)

I wish I didn't know who I would vote for, so I could say this decided it for me, but I can't. This makes me so angry. It makes me sick to my stomach that this will make some people like him more.

Okay, okay, I was willing to laugh at this whole 'world ends on Saturday' crap, until a news story today. One of the insane people who actually believes that is having his pets put to sleep today. Because, you know, the world is ending tomorrow.

D: D: D:

At least the guy says "that he intends to wait until the earthquakes hit Denver before he starts killing his pets" so maybe, maybe he actually means that.

This guy has serious mental problems, someone should be looking into getting him some help.

Every year I put off doing my taxes longer and longer. It's annoying enough to do them when you get money back, but when you have to pay hundreds...

This year was no different. I got $50 back from state, had to pay $500 to federal. And the $50 back is knocked further down by paying $30 to e-file...

Ugh. Well how about some cat pictures! It's so very odd having a young cat. How she jumps! From standing on the floor onto my desk (or kitchen table or counter...) with ease! It's amazing, it's so high compared to how small she is!

And the positions she can sleep in! (Yeah, she's really asleep there even though her eye is cracked open.)

I caught a shot of her that I should add into the porn section of my hot-hot-hot-catlove.com site (100% work safe). Miss Ellie! Proper young ladies Do Not touch themselves there! Stunning shot of all the cat hair, huh? The chair is a really cat bed, that's why. It's kept next to my desk chair for easy kitty-patting access.

I wonder if I was wrong to start so early to try to get her used to being picked up. She's still sometimes skittish around me, if I move too fast, hover over her, or bring two hands in as if about to pick her up. I've paused the effort for now. It'll be easier once she's fully comfortable around me, and she'll become comfortable faster if I stop picking her up (even though it's just for a second and then I set her right back down).

Edit: And wow, veloxe finds the bestest videos. I think the guy in white is the western cousin of that Christmas Condom Fairy. He shows up about a minute in...