Summertime blues

Well. I'm just pretty darn disgusted. My staff person has another 'temporary' job, and gets up early to go wherever it is she has to go. Then she doesn't get home until late. The guy in the front room is somewhere else (I heard a nasty rumor he's taking care of a house out by a lake and looking after OTHER kitties. I mean, REALLY!) He stops by every so often, and, I have to admit I know he's been cheating on me....I can smell other kitty smells on him.

So I spend my days wandering forlornly around the house, meowing for someone to play with me. Well, not really. I usually just sleep the day away, but - shhhh - don't tell anyone I said that! But I do feel like I've got the ol' Summertime blues. Whatever they are. Blue's a cooling color, after all. And it is hot.

There's something going on this next week, some sort of holiday or something. Meh. I don't really care. If it means my staff person will be here to pay attention to me, I'm all for it. Oh, I just looked at her calendar book thingy. It's called 'Independence Day'. Well, I'm pretty independent. So maybe I'll enjoy the day as well. Happy Independence day!

Doin' what I do best...

Yawn....

Ah, the joys of having a 'four-footed' alarm clock! You get awakened by the tromp of feet walking across your stomach, the joy of having something furry draped across the top of your head, and the loud, jack-hammeresque sound/feeling of deep purrs drum down into your brain. And...you're awake! The alarm was set for 6am; however I've been up since just after 4am and have already slurped down a mug of tea and am thinking maybe I should make another. It's going to be a long day, I can tell.

I must reiterate my delight in the 'essence' drops my friend Jan in Oregon told me about. Ms. Jypsy, as you know, started having some problems again so off we went to the vet. He wanted to see her again in a month, and I started using the drops since she was starting her little paranoia thing again. We've been back to the vet and she's clear, but he asked me again about the drops and were they working. Unqualified "YES!" response on my part and he just nodded. I think I've made him a believer. Jypsy is like she was a couple of years ago - playful (which I like, except at 4am), loving, and, did I mention playful? She's like a kitten again, leaping out when you walk by to tap you on your leg (is that the cat form of 'tag - you're it!'?), rolling herself up in throw rugs, burying her beloved mouse underneath aforementioned throw rugs and then attacking said rug, barrooming from one end of the house to the other just daring you to chase her...it's wonderful. And you can see when she's laughing at you just by looking in her eyes. I've never had a pet that you could recognize humor in their eyes - but you can with Jypsy.

Anyway, she's fine, and hopefully will continue to be. My lack of sleep is a different question, however...

The Best Dreams

I had the most amazing dream the other night. Sure wish I could remember it to tell it to you. The dream actually came to a logical end just as I was beginning to climb up out of sleep; I stayed in bed with eyes tightly closed, willing myself to remember it in detail. But then my leg cramped and I had to jump out of bed to stand up to get the cramp to quit, and then Jypsy came in and rolled over on my feet so I could rub her belly, and *poof*, it was almost totally and completely gone. It would have made a fantastic movie from the itty bitty parts I can remember. All I remember is it involved an extremely handsome man who looked suspiciously like Nathan Fillion and was wildly in love with me. There was mystery and intrigue, dark ill-lit streets we were creeping along, colorful clothing...can't remember specifics or why or what though. And was there a parade?? I think maybe there was. Oh, well. As I was doing a kitty belly rub, I thought that my reality at that particular point in time was much, much better than a dream.

I've said before Jypsy makes me laugh every single day, even when she's not feeling well. She's much better however, and here's just one of today's laughs...

"You can't see me, 'cos I'm hidden!"

"I'm weary, oh so weary..."

I've started a new temp job with the state. It's a different division than where I was, but a further drive to get to. I can't give a qualifier yet on it, and several people have told me they want to try and get me on full time but, truthfully, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that a job opens with the last place I temped. I really enjoyed the people there, and while I've met a lot of nice people where I'm working now....you get it, right?

Mz. Jypsy had another little relapse, but I think she's mostly over it. It's amazing what those drops do. Tonight we were playing on the floor...she is so silly and goofy sometimes - just makes me crack up laughing all the time. Such a sweetie.

Short post tonight - the new job has worn me out and all I can think of is falling in that big ol' comfy bed in the next room. Gah - I'm getting so set in my ways, it's ridiculous. I used to love going out and dancing and partying until all hours....now all I can seem to think about is "when can I go to bed? Is 8pm too early?" I guess I'm okay, as it's currently almost 11pm and I can sleep in tomorrow. Suddenly I'm feelin' old. I kinda feel like this sometimes....

Sigh. Again???

Well, you know, things had been going pretty good lately, but then I started, um, not feeling so hot. Kinda like last year, if you remember. I didn't wanna move much, spent a lot of time sleeping (even more than I usually do...) and things started buggin' me again. Things like shoes. Anything black. Those bags Mom takes to the grocery store and hangs on the door knob so she can remember to put them back in her car. Those kinds of things. She caught on pretty quick this time and took me to that awful man with those metal tables and all those captured animals back in the back room in cages. She calls him a 'vet', I call him a scarey human person. He checked me out, you know, back there, did something I really don't want to describe in polite society, handed me back to Mom and we came home. I'm back on those drop things, too, but no medicine like before. Whew! The drops I can stand, but not having Mom put that stick in my mouth and shoot a pill down my throat! I feel better today, but am not quite up to my old self.

I spent a lot of time outside today while Mom was doing stuff out in the back yard. I supervised to make sure she did it right, even though I have no idea what she was doing. I have to admit I fell asleep in a chair I was using to observe her work, and then later fell asleep on the deck. Does it look like I'm pretty comfortable here? Huh. Well, I hope you said yes.

Time and its imperceptible movement on

Man, time flies doesn't it?

My temp job is over, but I made some very good contacts there, including the CEO through my friend John. (Remember him? I blogged about him on here when he left the long term temp job we were working, thinking I'd never hear from him again. He's managed to stay in touch, and I'm delighted about that)

So, here I am with nothing to do except apply for more jobs, go on interviews and practically finish my second book. It's really close to being done, I just need to flesh out a few scenes (ugh, and then edit it) but all in all I'm pretty pleased with it. Book one is not doing so hot; my nephew sent me an email with a bunch of suggestions on doing some P.R., but I had to send him back a note and let him know it's almost impossible for me to do any of the things he suggested.

There's only one I'm even faintly comfortable with and that's lowering the price a bit. It's set at 2.99, and that's only because I've been working on it for about 4 years; really hate to lower it even more. He suggested other things like starting a book blog, but I have enough trouble even keeping up with THIS one, much less another, and also going on Science Fiction and Fantasy sites and making some comments and then after people get used to me on the sites, mentioning the book to try and drum up some traffic. Well. See. I don't really consider this book to be either Science Fiction or Fantasy. Yes, it does take place in a non-designated time in the future, and yes, it does have some pretty, um, fantastical elements to it, but it's basically a story about two best friends who run a delivery service and all the trouble and problems they run into.

On the aggressive marketing part - I grew up with a Southern Belle for a mother. We wore white gloves to church, and those little hats that wouldn't stay on my head unless there was some sort of elastic restraint digging into my throat. She drummed it into me there are just some things, as a lady, you do NOT do. 1) You never ask anyone how much money they make or what they paid for anything. 2) You never, ever call a boy. (I managed to get over this one, but only if we were dating.) 3) If someone takes you out to eat, eat before you leave the house so you won't make a pig of yourself at the restaurant and 4) You never push yourself on anyone for any reason, or beg on bended knee for anyone to buy your book you just put online. Okay, she didn't actually say that last one quite that way, but she did always tell me to never be pushy about anything; it was just plain rude and a lady didn't do it. So I'm kinda stuck being not-pushy and so not aggressive. I mentioned it to my brother over Easter steaks and he just nodded - he's not very aggressive either. Of course, the really funny thing about my mother is my friends used to be very intimidated by her; she really was a tough lady, but she was always a 'Lady' first, sort of on a Julia Sugarbaker aspect.

I've mentioned the book on here a couple of times and put the website url up, I've mentioned it several times on Facebook, but got no response from that either. Several of my close friends downloaded it to help me check the payment process - love you guys! The best response I've gotten was when I mentioned my first 'review' by my friend Jan up in Oregon. As a matter of fact, I'm going to mention it here, just because it makes me feel good that the book made her feel good.

"I finished reading ‘Dude’ last night and it put me in the best mood I’ve been in for awhile. I’m a mostly non-fiction reader, so getting into fiction is always a bit of a challenge for me. I really liked it. I liked the main characters and I think your character development is a real strength along with strong humor and subtle points. It sort of reminds me of good fiction I’ve read in ‘Yankee Magazine’ and ‘The New Yorker’."

So, if you stumble across this blog while looking for something else, please, I'm on bended knee, begging, please go to www.spacedude.co (yes, co., not com.) and read the first two chapters for free and buy the book for 3 bucks if you like it. I know there's some typos; they've been corrected but we haven't put the corrected version online yet. Wait a week or so if you want the non-typo'ed one, but even with typos it's not bad. At least Jan in Oregon didn't think so. Oh, and if you're on Facebook, check out 'Space Dude - the Novel'. Thanks folks, I appreciate it. Tell your friends and neighbors too! There, that's as aggressive as I can be, looks like.

Whoa. This is long. Well, I do have a photo of the Jypster and her absolute favorite toy...a stick.

Those quickie temp jobs

I got a call a couple of weeks ago for a short term temp job. I've been helping a non-profit by entering data into their system for the people they've been helping with income taxes. It's very monotonous, but it's money. We started with 6 temps, but we're down to only 3. The project manager told us Friday we're so good, he expects us to be done by the middle of next week. That's a almost two weeks early. It's in a beautiful building and the people have been really amazing. I'm going to keep checking their web site in case something there pops up.

Just as this temp position was starting, I had an interview for a state job. Reading the job description, it sounded like they had written it by looking at my resume. I thought the interview went very well, but then I think most of my interviews go well. I haven't heard a word from them, not even the standard email or letter saying "We have chosen to go in another direction with someone who more closely meets our qualifications..." (translation: we don't want someone quite so old as you) so have already written it off. I guess I will continue to work what temp jobs I can muster up, and learn to be satisfied with that. I think it's sort of funny though - I see people in positions similar to what I've applied for, and they are pretty much incompetent, and, to my mind an even worse sin, absolutely unprofessional. All I can do is just wonder. It really does seem to me a company would want someone who could do the job and age shouldn't matter. Apparently I'm wrong.