Sunday, March 30, 2008

From famine to feast apparently!


So... yay me! I am pleased to announce that thanks entirely to the hard sell "please-employ-her-because-we're-sick-of-listening-to-her-whine!" testimonials put in by my wonderful references, I have re-joined the ranks of the mostly employed!! And whom, I hear you asking, is my lucky employer-nouveau? Well, technically the nice shoe peeps own the majority of my time but I've also by some feat of gymnastics managed to retain the other offer as a potential client as well! i know! Not super sure how this all came together but the Birken-peeps decided they wanted me as a "consultant" with a "long term contract" instead of a regular employee so I'm free to set my own damn schedule (plus they're offering to pay me a hell of whole lot more as a consultant and while I'm not sure I understand the financials of that transaction but I'm not arguing either!) and as such am free to also entertain part-time consultant work for other clients who may or may not feel slightly devastated that they simply cannot afford me but whom I wish to remain in contact with as there may or may not be another opening that is alot closer to my desired "pay range" that might be opening up within the year! {sigh} Honestly, it's all still sort of foggy but I'm signing papers with the one on Tuesday and having further conversations with the other on Thursday so, for all intents and purposes, it all seems to be working out just spiffily. Now... about that paper i'm supposed to have done....

Thursday, March 27, 2008

All better...



Well, mostly. Had a long talk with the Best-est fiancee on the planet and got some stuff figured out; heard back from one of my poentials and have put the other "on alert" so I should know by tomorrow whether or not i will be working with at least one of them; had some very sweet check-ins from some very talented friends who were/are concerned about my mental health -- et viola...! things are not so silly seeming as they appeared in the previous post. Amazing what contact from the outside world can do for ya!

in other news, I am going to my little big girl's new school to register her today!!!! I am jsut so excited I can't even stand it. I'm planning on bring cookies in order to better sweet talk the front desk lady into letting me have a peek into the Kindergarten classrooms!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Blah.


I am depressed and annoyed right this second. I have no money, no job, one flat tire, bills/rent/kidcare about to come due and it feels like there's not a single freaking thing I can do to fix any of it! {sigh} Anyway. There are folks in the world (on this block, even!) who have it worse and at least I'm healthy, (relatively) happy, surrounded by quality peeps and this close to being tied-forever to the world's best Galpal. Honestly, nothing to sneeze at. Plus, it's not like i don't have stuff I could/should be doing. Writing the rough draft of my entire dissertation (due 4/7) for example. Or finding the hole in the backyard where the dog keeps escaping. Or cleaning out the car. See. tons of stuff. All of which I should be doing right this second instead of belly-aching. Or.... I could take my coffee outside so I can sit on the porch and continue feeling sorry for myself as I gaze at the majesy that are some very pretty red flowers that decided to bloom pretty much seconds after a certain lovely Bee spent most of her Saurday tending to them. Seriously. There might be something to this "pay attention to your plants and they will flourish" thing I've heard so much about!

Monday, March 24, 2008

Fickle much...???



So, I am smack dab in the middle of TWO, that's right two interview opportunities -- One with the Shoe folks in Novato and the other with the good people at JCCSF that are taking all my time and energy and kicking my butt in terms of preparing for presentations and making pro and con lists and setting up additional interviews to meet with still more people in the company and I JUST have to say, I am having a very ridiculously hard time deciding which one to be more enthusiastic about (mostly because neither of them has actually OFFERED me anything yet!!!!! harumph. anyway...)so first i talk to the shoe folks and get all excited about them then i hear from JCC and decide they're hands-down the better opportunity then I'll talk to yet another shoe person about the position in Novato and switch right back to thinking they, actually are the better deal... It's crazy really. nice crazy in that either place will be fabulous to work for but still... The flip side of this also, I guess being that the world is REALLY going to suck if both of them decide to pass! Ah well, there's always my interview with these guys to look forward to on Friday!

In other news, I was all fancy pants today when i went to pick up the Spark and i think I got firted with!

Me: hey
Other Kid's Dad: Hey! You look nice!
Me: Heh. It's the shoes.
OKD: More like everything above!
Me: [distant nod. moving off to get aforementioned child]Uh. heh. yeah. k. see ya.

Cute!

OH! and Happy B-Day to the IHOEL! Thanks for feeding us pizza/being born! My life would be mostly worthless without you and your brood so... please don't ever stop thinking we're useful/cute/entertaining. please.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Super quick update just because....


Hey all,
so i re-read my last post and was struck by the fact that SO much has happened in the last few days that I should really update some stuff so here goes!

1) DID hear back from the shoe-folks in Navato -- they would like me to put together a presentation-style proposal of what i intend to do with their website during my first few months and present it to the bunch of them on Tuesday! (eek!) so that's promising. [supposed to be working on it right now actually....]

2) Also have an in person-interview with the JCCSF on Monday which should be nice (we're already discussing my salary requirements and they've not actually met me yet!)

3) AND just to make things a little more intense, I have an initial phone interview with WestEd (also Monday) which is a kick-a** education organization that exists to serve K-12 in underrepresented populations and which is nation-wide (and pays within "my range" as opposed to JCCSF's "below-but-look-at-all-our-benefits!!" offer) but which would be more of "spending some time in the ranks of education initiatives" instead of being a big ole freaking "shoe-selling rock-star" at the other place so.... it fits with what I'm supposedly graduating in order to do.... I just don't' know. At this point I'm just entertaining all offers and trusting that I'll get handed what i need to complete the next phase of the life. I tend to be lucky like that. (a side bonus of the shoe place is that i think it would give me the mental flexibility to continue focusing on the independent business gig me and the IHOEL are trying to get going.)

THEN in a completely OTHER area, the lovely and beautiful Wedding Planner to the stars TRSM (aka: The Rock Star's Mom) has signed on to help with/pretty much do the planning/budgeting/detail-wrangling for the Big Event and She. Is. Awesome! I heart her. she is soooo focused and smart and detail-oriented it's crazy. Really. I need to get her something REALLY nice when this is all said and done because she and she alone is going to be responsible for this thing coming off in the amazing manner It no doubt will!

Lastly, meeting with the diss. committee (yup. on Monday -- didn't think there was enough going on that day) to review my initial narrative with an eye toward graduation in May.... scary. but still possible. and meaning i'm looking at TONS of writing over the next few weeks that has nothing to do with cover letters. ;-)

k. that's it for now. Hope everyone is having a lovely life. I'll actually call folks when I get a second to breath again --- think mid-to-late November.......

Thursday, March 13, 2008

"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance or gross incompetence."


This post really has nothing to do with malice and/or gross incompetence; I just LOVE that quote. I first read it a million years ago on a button someone was wearing (ah, the halcyon days of wearing your identity/thoughts/sexual desires literally on your sleeve) and just happened upon it again whilst attempting to find this Beatles song that i am now convinced MUST be played at our wedding...! eh hem. sorry. No more wedding digressions today. I'm trying to focus on other stuff.

So, that being said, let's see where we are shall we? Have not heard back from the "really stellar" interview I had last week. Possibly the buckets of blood freaked them out but more likely the HR lady is still on vacation. Have heard from the JCCSF (Jewish Community Center in San Francisco) via phone last night and will be checking in with them this afternoon so there is still a glimmer of hope in the land of the unemployed. And yes, I do realize i am not Jewish but some of my best friends are! I also spoke with the nice unemployment folks yesterday (get that? I SPOKE with an EDD person on the phone. I dunno how that happened either. Possibly through a miniscule tear in the space/time continuum.) who informed me that I did get approved for unemployment insurance payments (yay!) but since i had failed to file a claim by the cut-off date (2/27/2008) I was "dropped from the rolls." (boo!) Now, what exactly "rolls" means in this context notwithstanding, I never actually recall being told I'd been approved. I mentioned this to the nice person on the phone and was told "we only send you something if you're denied so you can appeal if you want." To which I replied, so, then how do i know i'm approved? to which he answered (again in a REALLY nice way) "if you don't get anything in the mail." Hm. Still a little confused by the whole thing i mentioned that the website said that there could be a waiting period of "up to 6 weeks" before you're claim went through so I'd assumed that i needed to wait "up to 6 weeks" to check with them. He chuckled (that's right ladies and gentlemen, the nice man chuckled and said "well yes, but all of our correspondence is time based so you generally don't want to wait more than two weeks before contacting us." At that point i pretty much gave up but the good news is that he ended up "making a note" on my record (prolly to the tune of "this idiot thought she was supposed to wait 6 weeks just because the website told her to!") and is re-scheduling my phone interview so i can theoretically get paid for the 6 weeks i've been out of work instead of starting right now. Maybe. If they don't deny the claim this time around. I was told there is a chance. {sigh}

Lastly, work on the dissertation goes slow. I'm continuing to type but I'm having trouble getting my committee chair to talk to me/to everyone else so I'm not sure if what I'm typing is any good. Luckily, I got to see my lovely Professor-God yesterday at a talk she gave on "Ficionalizing Narrative and its potential uses in Ethnographic Surveys" -- {sigh} does that kind of talk make anyone else hot??!(And by "hot" I, of course, mean intellectually -- Sweetie-Baby-QB, hon, if you're reading this... heh heh. eh hem. anyway...) so she got all mad about the situation and went Gallant Knight on me: "That's it! I am officially taking this over. You are graduating in May!" Harrumph! Yeah! So, that's cool. (Sort of makes up for the fact that I got all jealous because there were other students of hers at this little talk and when it came time for questions/comments they were all "Well, as a student of Diane's I found her approach to be not just novel but actually stimulating to my creativity as well as really helping me to define and clarify my work....!" Whatev.

Friday, March 07, 2008

My interview yesterday...


So, my morning started with the normal rush to get everyone to their various schools then back to the house to get ready for THE INTERVIEW (this is significant because it's been too damn long since I've had ANY interest at all from the resume-sucking ether into which I am flinging my finely crafted cover letters plus it's a nice company)

At first things were going o.k. did the mapquest thing to figure out how long it would take to get there, pulled out every suitable item of clothing in my closet (three things -- all dusty but serviceable, labeled with names like "Jones New York"), pulled up the latest e-mail from the HR gal to figure out who I'd be meeting and noticed, for the first time, the last line "Please print and fill out these documents prior to our interview." Crap. FIVE attachments! And me with a laptop that doesn't play well with the lone printer in the house.

I did manage to figure out how to highjack the QB's Mac (and how to work the stupid "delete" key -- Really? do we really need to have only the ONE way to erase a url Mac people?? I'm just asking...) got to my e-mail and printed out the docs. (couldn't figure out how to close the windows though so... at some point I'm probably going to have to take the words "proficient on both Windows and MAC" off my resume!)

After which, i spent a WHOLE BUNCH of time filling the damn things out. Sheesh. What with the authorizing background checks and copying the resume info onto the application and the listing of the "clubs, activities,trade organizations" I belong to (o.k. that part was really short) the next time i glanced at the clock I was already about to be late AND not yet dressed! So, threw on the clothes, quick "did something" with the hair, pulled on the stockings in an effort to cover the hippy-hairy leg-action, ran out the door and.... tripped on the concrete outside. inches from the truck. creating a HUGE run in my only pair of cream-colored, opaque stockings. No time to get a new pair so I took them off, threw them away, jumped in the truck and sped off. Luckily there was very little traffic, so I actually pulled into the parking lot of the interview place only about 5 minutes late. I turned off the truck. breathed a sigh of relief, felt a "tickling" on my leg and glancing down, discovered A RIVER OF BLOOD running from my knee down to my ankle and pooling on the top of my new Jones New York cream colored slingback heels! {sigh}

Other than that, though, i think it went really well. :-)