tl;dr - in which things suck, suck harder, start to suck less, and then get fucking wonderful
Right, so, last post from me was when the townhouse next to ours caught on fire. I'd like to say that, if you wake up at 7:30 am because something you share a wall with is going up in flames, it kind of shakes you up. I also think that you have a right to assume that's going to be the worst thing that happens to you for a while. I mean, at least a week, right? You totally should get at least a week of grace period for "Sorry, wrong number; someone else can get fucked today."
The next day - next - Noah lost his job.
He was on contract-to-hire at this place - we'll call it Crapville Ltd. This is the place that spawned Team Irony, so you can smell the bureaucracy, right? We started to get bad vibes when he first started and talked with other contract-to-hire people, who had been there 2+ years and were still "contract" but no "hire."
The recruiting office Noah went through insisted that he'd be picked up in 6-8 months, everybody was, the "contract-to-hire" terminology was just a technicality. Odd, considering that nobody's been directly hired there in over a year. But then, this is also the place that insisted it was standard procedure for Noah to cover his own medical insurance, at $200/wk.
Now would be a good time to add that he wasn't getting sick time or holidays. Granted, he was a new employee, he was contract-to-hire, but I'm not talking about two weeks' vacation. I'm talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. If it's M-F, you're either here or we're not paying you for it.
Having said that: hey, it was a job. So even though it was depressing the fuck out of him, he stayed. That is, until two weeks ago, when they called us and said they didn't want his services any more.
He left work at 6 pm. They had the recruiter call him at 7:30 pm to tell him not to come in to work the next morning. That's, what, twelve hours' notice? Nice. He showed up the next afternoon to get his cubicle belongings, and they had already been boxed up and shipped home.
Ah, Crapville Ltd. Such a shining beacon of capitalism.
Now, N&I were kind of fucked money-wise after the holidays, because we had to take off to go see my family and his family and do a road trip and therefore, lose income, good times!, but we were just starting to come out of it, when - FOOM. No job. And our medical insurance ran out at the end of the week. (This being a Wednesday night, we were covered until I think the end of business Friday.)
So now I'm thinking, OK, building caught on fire, Noah lost job, what the fuck is next? Car crash? Outbreak of diptheria? One of the cats manages to snap their spine?
Fortunately Noah is the awesome-est awesome that ever awesomed. By 8:30 that night, he's got his resume updated and is posting it on every job website he can find - monster, workpittsburgh, careerbuilder - and calling all of the headhunters in the area and leaving voice mails. By the next morning the phone was ringing off the hook. I don't even know how many interviews he went on. Two or three a day for the next week and a half. I'm not exaggerating; he had at least two interviews and a phone screen every freaking day, and when he was on them, I was fielding calls from everybody else. Apparently, dotnet is growing fast in Pittsburgh. Who knew?
There are a few more crises in the next week that happened, but I'm skipping over them for now. It's a long story and kind of weird typing it out and this is already way too long. I'm fine, we're fine, it's just that there was a OH SHIT WE'RE FUCKED on top of all of this (see above in re: what next) and then there was the miracle "holy ... ohhhhkay, we're not fucked" and the feeling that, wow, sometimes miracles come in forms you wouldn't have expected. But there are bits to it that - feh. I'll fill in later, maybe under flock.
Which brings us to: Easter. We go home and see the family. Including: Kayleybug, who is coloring eggs and ZOMG PSYCHED about the Easter Bunny. Including: Chloe, who knows a number of words but prefers to call everything "Mmm-buh." Including: Mom and Dad, and Sis and Bro-in-law, all of whom were just - I don't know how to explain it. If you had told me ten years ago that I would look forward to weekends back home because I laughed and snuggled up and it recharged my batteries, I would have checked your temperature.
Easter: early morning church services, and I hadn't gone in far too long. The little ones looking for eggs and bouncing off walls. Aunt-of-way-coolness & her crew coming over after lunch to hang out and play games.
Oh, BTW! dasuberchin, on my flist, is my cousin, who's going to school down here down in Pittsboorgh, which means he comes over and we get pizza and he brings his game cube and his roommate and we play on the PS2 and get our geeks on. *waves* He is Spawn-o'-Aunt-of-way-coolness, but that's far too long to type out. Am tempted to shorten "dasuberchin" to "duck" just to be a twat. ;)
Monday? Monday, Noah gets a job. (Damn, I forget how to do sparklies, so I'll just include a *happy dance happy dance happy dance*.) One of the places he was really hoping to get, doing weird stuff I don't understand but that he totally geeks out with and grooves on. It's an actual job and not a contract-to-job-that-won't-happen, the money's good, the people are cool, and we are celebrating. He started today (er, yesterday, Wednesday, I'm just up way too late).
I also get an amazingly cool care package in the mail from a good friend, which made me feel loved and get all sniffly, and I haven't seen her online to say anything, so THANK YOU for listening to me rant and freak and spaz and for being the bomb, because? You so are. I hope things are better with you, as I know you've been feeling kind of blah lately. ***hugs***
There's one last phone call on Monday, and that's the recruiting office again. Apparently, they have season tickets to the Penguins, and nobody's claimed the tickets for tonight's, and do we want them? ZOMG YES. Yes indeedy.
It was only the second hockey game I've ever been to in my life, and I think I'm hooked. Partly because it was an amazing game, the Pens won, Crosby set an NHL record, but more importantly, when you've seen a sport where the action stops so that people can beat the crap out of each other, other sports just pale in comparison. I'm a huge Pirates fan, but, uh, nobody's ever taken the bat with them to first base and used it to smash someone's kneecaps. And let's face it, that would make for a hell of a more interesting game.
Last but absolutely not least, Cousin Duck, and I am seriously considering calling you that, dasuberchin, unless you can think of a more fun nick, came over for a few hours last night to chill out on his way to a DnD game downtown, and he has apparently lost his fucking mind, because he dropped off an early birthday present that I know he shouldn't have spent the money on, because I know how expensive it was, because I kept going in to EB Games and petting the boxes and mewing.
Which is my long-winded way of saying that the ubercool uberchin got me Kingdom Hearts 2 for my bday. I'm still a little in shock. I am trying not to lick the box. "You shouldn't have" doesn't cover it, dude. But ohhhhhh, I am so full of squee that you did. Thank you ^n, where n = some degree where that actually covers this. Oooh, maybe I just call you Uber instead? Makes you sound all weird and German. Er - seriously. You rock.
So. Uh. If you're skimming, and you probably are, because damn, this is long, here are the highlights:
1 - Two weeks ago: idiot in adjacent townhouse caught building on fire, freaked the shit out of me & N
2 - Next day: N loses job, which was shitty job, but is still panic-inducing
3 - Things get worse, parents save ass, long story
4 - N = worked it like a mofo shopping his mad skillz round town
5 - Holidays + nieces + extended fam + candy = so very very good
6 - Monday: Noah gets new job! Non-shitty job!
7 - Monday: happy mail things that make me feel all woobly
8 - Monday: Violence + professional athletes = hockey for the win!
9 - Tuesday: UberDuck loses mind, gets me KH2, wins @ life
10 - That reminds me, I need to do a tl;dr ramble about the awesomeness of KH and how it is taking over my life in a good way, and thank someone else on my flist that I haven't seen online in ages for getting me hooked, because new addictions are love
11 - Today: is my bday, and N's first day at the New Job of Awesomeness
12 - I should sleep, I haven't slept yet
13 - I think I'm getting a little sick, but maybe I can head it off at the pass with some meds and sleep
14 - Totally should sleep now
15 - OK, now I'm just rambling
How are all of you? I send you all my love and thoughts and best wishes and all that other stuff that sounds corny and stupid when I type it out but feels warm and fuzzy and Zen anyway, so, laugh if you must. I'm cool with it. :)
Random Final Fantasy-based question as a PS: I wrote a weird little dark noncon Aerith/Sephiroth ficlet musing sort of piece, which is a horrible idea since I know nothing of either of them except the bits I got from KH, as I've never played FF7 (or any of them, for that matter). Also, I'm not sure it's Aerith's voice; it was something to do with her that started me on the idea, but it doesn't fit into the storyline of FF7 - kind of AUish - so I left it up in the air whether it's actually her or not. (The POV char narrates, but because of what's going on, we don't know much about her other than a) her voice and b) the fact that bad shit is happening to her.)
Considering all these weird-ass complications, I decided "fuck it" and wrote it off as a stupid fic that I shouldn't have attempted in the first place. But it was a dark little bunny that wouldn't go away, and I kind of like how it turned out. Should I post it to my LJ? And if so, how do I find out if it's non-canon-ass-raping enough to post to some Square/FF fic comm?
I should probably have formatted this to break it up into chunks or something, but SoFreakinTired went one-on-one with EditorNazi, and it was SFT with the knockout in the third round.
Also, Bella says hi.
The next day - next - Noah lost his job.
He was on contract-to-hire at this place - we'll call it Crapville Ltd. This is the place that spawned Team Irony, so you can smell the bureaucracy, right? We started to get bad vibes when he first started and talked with other contract-to-hire people, who had been there 2+ years and were still "contract" but no "hire."
The recruiting office Noah went through insisted that he'd be picked up in 6-8 months, everybody was, the "contract-to-hire" terminology was just a technicality. Odd, considering that nobody's been directly hired there in over a year. But then, this is also the place that insisted it was standard procedure for Noah to cover his own medical insurance, at $200/wk.
Now would be a good time to add that he wasn't getting sick time or holidays. Granted, he was a new employee, he was contract-to-hire, but I'm not talking about two weeks' vacation. I'm talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. If it's M-F, you're either here or we're not paying you for it.
Having said that: hey, it was a job. So even though it was depressing the fuck out of him, he stayed. That is, until two weeks ago, when they called us and said they didn't want his services any more.
He left work at 6 pm. They had the recruiter call him at 7:30 pm to tell him not to come in to work the next morning. That's, what, twelve hours' notice? Nice. He showed up the next afternoon to get his cubicle belongings, and they had already been boxed up and shipped home.
Ah, Crapville Ltd. Such a shining beacon of capitalism.
Now, N&I were kind of fucked money-wise after the holidays, because we had to take off to go see my family and his family and do a road trip and therefore, lose income, good times!, but we were just starting to come out of it, when - FOOM. No job. And our medical insurance ran out at the end of the week. (This being a Wednesday night, we were covered until I think the end of business Friday.)
So now I'm thinking, OK, building caught on fire, Noah lost job, what the fuck is next? Car crash? Outbreak of diptheria? One of the cats manages to snap their spine?
Fortunately Noah is the awesome-est awesome that ever awesomed. By 8:30 that night, he's got his resume updated and is posting it on every job website he can find - monster, workpittsburgh, careerbuilder - and calling all of the headhunters in the area and leaving voice mails. By the next morning the phone was ringing off the hook. I don't even know how many interviews he went on. Two or three a day for the next week and a half. I'm not exaggerating; he had at least two interviews and a phone screen every freaking day, and when he was on them, I was fielding calls from everybody else. Apparently, dotnet is growing fast in Pittsburgh. Who knew?
There are a few more crises in the next week that happened, but I'm skipping over them for now. It's a long story and kind of weird typing it out and this is already way too long. I'm fine, we're fine, it's just that there was a OH SHIT WE'RE FUCKED on top of all of this (see above in re: what next) and then there was the miracle "holy ... ohhhhkay, we're not fucked" and the feeling that, wow, sometimes miracles come in forms you wouldn't have expected. But there are bits to it that - feh. I'll fill in later, maybe under flock.
Which brings us to: Easter. We go home and see the family. Including: Kayleybug, who is coloring eggs and ZOMG PSYCHED about the Easter Bunny. Including: Chloe, who knows a number of words but prefers to call everything "Mmm-buh." Including: Mom and Dad, and Sis and Bro-in-law, all of whom were just - I don't know how to explain it. If you had told me ten years ago that I would look forward to weekends back home because I laughed and snuggled up and it recharged my batteries, I would have checked your temperature.
Easter: early morning church services, and I hadn't gone in far too long. The little ones looking for eggs and bouncing off walls. Aunt-of-way-coolness & her crew coming over after lunch to hang out and play games.
Oh, BTW! dasuberchin, on my flist, is my cousin, who's going to school down here down in Pittsboorgh, which means he comes over and we get pizza and he brings his game cube and his roommate and we play on the PS2 and get our geeks on. *waves* He is Spawn-o'-Aunt-of-way-coolness, but that's far too long to type out. Am tempted to shorten "dasuberchin" to "duck" just to be a twat. ;)
Monday? Monday, Noah gets a job. (Damn, I forget how to do sparklies, so I'll just include a *happy dance happy dance happy dance*.) One of the places he was really hoping to get, doing weird stuff I don't understand but that he totally geeks out with and grooves on. It's an actual job and not a contract-to-job-that-won't-happen, the money's good, the people are cool, and we are celebrating. He started today (er, yesterday, Wednesday, I'm just up way too late).
I also get an amazingly cool care package in the mail from a good friend, which made me feel loved and get all sniffly, and I haven't seen her online to say anything, so THANK YOU for listening to me rant and freak and spaz and for being the bomb, because? You so are. I hope things are better with you, as I know you've been feeling kind of blah lately. ***hugs***
There's one last phone call on Monday, and that's the recruiting office again. Apparently, they have season tickets to the Penguins, and nobody's claimed the tickets for tonight's, and do we want them? ZOMG YES. Yes indeedy.
It was only the second hockey game I've ever been to in my life, and I think I'm hooked. Partly because it was an amazing game, the Pens won, Crosby set an NHL record, but more importantly, when you've seen a sport where the action stops so that people can beat the crap out of each other, other sports just pale in comparison. I'm a huge Pirates fan, but, uh, nobody's ever taken the bat with them to first base and used it to smash someone's kneecaps. And let's face it, that would make for a hell of a more interesting game.
Last but absolutely not least, Cousin Duck, and I am seriously considering calling you that, dasuberchin, unless you can think of a more fun nick, came over for a few hours last night to chill out on his way to a DnD game downtown, and he has apparently lost his fucking mind, because he dropped off an early birthday present that I know he shouldn't have spent the money on, because I know how expensive it was, because I kept going in to EB Games and petting the boxes and mewing.
Which is my long-winded way of saying that the ubercool uberchin got me Kingdom Hearts 2 for my bday. I'm still a little in shock. I am trying not to lick the box. "You shouldn't have" doesn't cover it, dude. But ohhhhhh, I am so full of squee that you did. Thank you ^n, where n = some degree where that actually covers this. Oooh, maybe I just call you Uber instead? Makes you sound all weird and German. Er - seriously. You rock.
So. Uh. If you're skimming, and you probably are, because damn, this is long, here are the highlights:
1 - Two weeks ago: idiot in adjacent townhouse caught building on fire, freaked the shit out of me & N
2 - Next day: N loses job, which was shitty job, but is still panic-inducing
3 - Things get worse, parents save ass, long story
4 - N = worked it like a mofo shopping his mad skillz round town
5 - Holidays + nieces + extended fam + candy = so very very good
6 - Monday: Noah gets new job! Non-shitty job!
7 - Monday: happy mail things that make me feel all woobly
8 - Monday: Violence + professional athletes = hockey for the win!
9 - Tuesday: UberDuck loses mind, gets me KH2, wins @ life
10 - That reminds me, I need to do a tl;dr ramble about the awesomeness of KH and how it is taking over my life in a good way, and thank someone else on my flist that I haven't seen online in ages for getting me hooked, because new addictions are love
11 - Today: is my bday, and N's first day at the New Job of Awesomeness
12 - I should sleep, I haven't slept yet
13 - I think I'm getting a little sick, but maybe I can head it off at the pass with some meds and sleep
14 - Totally should sleep now
15 - OK, now I'm just rambling
How are all of you? I send you all my love and thoughts and best wishes and all that other stuff that sounds corny and stupid when I type it out but feels warm and fuzzy and Zen anyway, so, laugh if you must. I'm cool with it. :)
Random Final Fantasy-based question as a PS: I wrote a weird little dark noncon Aerith/Sephiroth ficlet musing sort of piece, which is a horrible idea since I know nothing of either of them except the bits I got from KH, as I've never played FF7 (or any of them, for that matter). Also, I'm not sure it's Aerith's voice; it was something to do with her that started me on the idea, but it doesn't fit into the storyline of FF7 - kind of AUish - so I left it up in the air whether it's actually her or not. (The POV char narrates, but because of what's going on, we don't know much about her other than a) her voice and b) the fact that bad shit is happening to her.)
Considering all these weird-ass complications, I decided "fuck it" and wrote it off as a stupid fic that I shouldn't have attempted in the first place. But it was a dark little bunny that wouldn't go away, and I kind of like how it turned out. Should I post it to my LJ? And if so, how do I find out if it's non-canon-ass-raping enough to post to some Square/FF fic comm?
I should probably have formatted this to break it up into chunks or something, but SoFreakinTired went one-on-one with EditorNazi, and it was SFT with the knockout in the third round.
Also, Bella says hi.