i wanted to write about this yesterday but got completely derailed by that job crap again. once again, without warning, the the guidelines for the program i wanted to get into have changed . . . and a price tag has been added this time around. every time i get through the hoops they have, they manage to add more. now i have no idea if i'm even considered qualified any more. i think i am, but god knows. i sent an application via online for some openings at my level, but that way sucks since the online application makes me look like an even worse candidate than my resume -- i wouldn't have done it except i really need the job. i also registered for an upcoming job fair (yes, again!) that i have no idea if i even fit the criteria for. i think i do, but, at this point, i hardly even care. i need the freaking job. people have seen i can do the work; they've even asked why i'm not employed in a classroom. i told saxy today that i'm very tempted to give up and let him earn the $1200 we'd lose -- we'd certainly be no worse off than we are now. except we need the damn insurance.
the whole thing about the program i wanted irritates me too. first there's the fact that the county i'm in only works with a particular location within the program -- something never mentioned before. and when i checked up on it, that particular location's registration is already closed. then there's the money. $1700 up front. beg pardon? that's the first time that was ever mentioned! i know i probably would be a lot less irritated if the timing had been different. it seems like every time we're about to have an okay week, something else has to crash on in -- like we're some kind of bad luck magnet. in this case, if i had gotten the news about having to pay first, getting the consolidation news would look even better since it gives me an option to get the certificate in a more traditional manner. as it stands, all i can say at least i can still do something. i'll go even further in debt, but i can go back to school. it's the debt part that has me not so thrilled with this turn of events, but even that probably wouldn't be such a big deal if the loan fix had come after seeing the price tag on the program. maybe that makes no sense.
and maybe i should apply to the writing program and just say screw it to the teaching crap down here. for a county that claims to really need teachers, and that has alternative ways of certifying, they sure make it damn hard to do either one! hell, i called human resources today as well, and, as usual, not only were the people i needed to talk to not in, but i haven't gotten a return phone call either.
all of which isn't what this entry is NOT supposed to be about (but at least now some friends who may have been concerned know why i was unfit for human consumption yesterday).
thursday was my oldest's last day in georgia. as of yesterday sometime, she's supposed to be in cali for a month (she has yet to call me -- her mother who left a message for her to call and let me know she got there safely!) -- two weeks to work and two weeks to spend with her dad, friends, and other family. after that, she's off to hawaii, supposedly for 3 years. so we, in our rather typical haphazard fashion, actually, decided (the night before, even!) to go down and spend the day with her -- or as much of the day as we could manage considering it's a 3 hour drive just to get there.
except it took us over 5 hours to get there. first there was the money. the good news: mcat was more than willing to give saxy his check early and even pay him a small advance on his next check. the bad news: we had to go into atlanta and meet mcat to get it at 9 am instead of heading straight down to the fort at 7:30. then we had to find a bank. then we're finally on our way, except saxy and i hadn't had breakfast in the rush to get everyone out of the house (and, btw, also forgot the snag the kids' meds -- so they had their morning doses, which are the important ones, but they didn't get their afternoon boosters). first place we went to on the way was closed. it's after 10, but they didn't open until 10:30. second attempt must have been in the next county over because it was nowhere to be found near the freeway. third attempt was blocked by a train stopped on the tracks. we finally get something somewhere around 11 or so, and saxy is pretty cranky by this time because the one thing he really has trouble with is adjusting to changes or obstacles (it really is a part of his disability, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with him). the rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, except we overshot our exit. by now, kitten is calling us and asking where the heck are we. we managed to get turned around and arrived somewhere around 1pm.
then saxy starts to be an idiot. he's not fond of the military, having been forced into it right out of high school (he got a medical discharge), so he's really not happy about being on base at all and certainly does not want to stay on base, not even for this last visit with kitten. and he was really being an ass about it. i told him to just try to spend time with his family, and he couldn't do it. literally paced at about 15-20 feet away from us. i finally told him to take taz and go ahead and wait in the car so his bad attitude wouldn't distract the rest of us. kitten is finally released for the rest of the day and we get off base to go to the local mall and do a few things -- lunch first, then we needed to pick up a belt and watch for taz, were going to get us girls hair cuts, and then swing into a record store. only, kitten isn't quite sure where the mall is and we stumble around a bit until we hit the mother of all shopping centers. lunch was okay, sorta, saxy and jewel bickered a bit, but finally chilled down.
but saxy's by now entrenched bad attitude struck again after lunch. he didn't know what to do while we were getting hair cuts. kitten was paying for everything and told him he could have one too, but he turned it down even though he's been saying he needs one for months now. so i told him to go ahead and take care of the belt, etc and he bitches about that too. he had wanted me not to tell jewel about this trip because he knew she would be the little snot she has been (and, to a degree, he was right -- morning prep would have gone a lot better without her whining and bitching about everything), but i was starting to wish we'd left him behind. we pretty much held firm on the hair cuts and we girls had a great time together -- even became something of a comedian team for our hairdressers. it really was great fun.
when saxy came back, he just wanted to get out of the mall. why, i don't know. the mall was certainly cooler than outside. anyway, we went by the record store as planned first and left to go find the movie theater. only, we got way lost again, and this time we stopped at wal-mart (and, yes, saxy crabbed about doing that too!) and picked up a map. using that, i got us back on track (which really is a scary thing, trust me). saxy was so out of sorts by this time that it was interfering with even understanding the map (which he usually has no trouble with). we finally found the theater and were just in time to see "cars." it was a really cute movie -- even saxy, as irritated and cranky as we was, laughed and seemed to enjoy it. when it was over, we had hoped to have dinner with her, but it was too late. she only had about an hour and a half to get in for bed check and there was no way to make it if we had dinner.
so we head back, and get pulled to the side at the base because we don't have enough seat belts to cover everyone (kitten was holding froggy) and they needed to call the mp's. poor froggy thought this was all her fault and burst into tears and it took us awhile to calm her down, and saxy went right back into pissy mode. however, it ended up being a good thing: the kids got to see a real live wild deer and we all got to spend some extra time with kitten. when the mp's came, everything got worked out so we didn't get a ticket and kitten got back to barracks via a shuttle van sent to pick her up. lots of hugs, lots of tears. and incredibly long day, but one i would not have missed even knowing what a putz the husband was going to be and about all the problems in advance. i got to see my girl before she left, that's all that mattered to me. and even if he was out of sorts, we had fun.
the ride home wasn't nearly so melodramatic. we didn't actually feed the kids dinner until 10:30 or 11 pm because of the lack of fast food places on that particular section of freeway, and taz was having a very hard time keeping himself in control because he hadn't had his booster meds (but he did REALLY well in my opinion -- i did have to keep reminding saxy that there was no way he'd be able to keep the humming and talking and spinning under control since he hadn't had his meds, and that annoyed me to no end because at least taz was doing them quietly and trying, for god's sake), but things went much smoother than they had in the morning. the kids were generally quiet, it was cooler, and thee was very little traffic. so, all in all, the evening drive home was generally pretty nice. we even got home to find that the dog had not peed or anything after being in all day.
course, the day had to give us one last kick in the pants before it finally faded into friday: the book with my short story in it that i had ordered for my daughter with expedited shipping in the hopes of being able to actually physically hand it to her was waiting on our doorstep when we got home.
word of the moment: sentient
conscious, capable of feeling and perception, responding with feeling, capable of responding emotionally rather than intellectually
