My own worst enemy....

On Thursday I was driving to meet my friend, Joanna, for lunch and passed one of the very well organized homeless people here in Central Texas. (Seriously, I think I may have mentioned this before, but they seen to always have the major intersections covered at busy traffic times and I'm never seen more than one person per area ~ it's like they have some master schedule that they work from!) Anyway, as I drove by this poor soul, I couldn't help but think, I'm one sister and two parents away from his life.

It is, of course, an entirely untrue statement... There are some uncles and an aunt; various friends of the family; a bank account; a few college degrees ~ but I could wind up there.

I won the decision with the unemployment commission. They stated in their decision that my employer had "laid me off at his or her convenience" and that my termination had "nothing to do with my job performance." But it was a rather hollow victory, as I also got my first unemployment check. Apparently, I qualify for the maximum, which is a very sad statement for the generosity of the state of Texas.

When I first graduated from I college, I was selected for this fellowship at this really cool media relations firm in Washington, DC. I was paid a stipend, too piddly little to even pretend it was a salary. It more or less covered my commuting costs since I was still living in Baltimore at the time. That was 1994. My Texas unemployment is even less than that stipend.

With my new influx of cash, I can now pay for my COBRA health coverage and either my car payment or the rent on my storage space where all my worldly belongings reside. Lucky for me, I was saving up money for my new house ~ you know, a refridgerator, washer, dryer and such. I got rid of my couch before I moved, so I need another one of those and I need to pay movers to move my stuff to my house from the storage facility. Now, I'll be lucky to not burn through it with car payments or storage facility rental fees or drug co-pays.

I am seriously desperate to get out of my sister's house, but I'm not sure how I'm going to afford it without a paycheck. I've been applying for jobs and I'm just not hearing back from them. The state system is incredibly slow and even more slow in summer. It's painfully frustrating.

And now there are issues with the house. For some reason, they don't seem to be following the design center plans (i.e. my selections for plumbing fixtures and such) I had to email the builder (after checking my paperwork from the design center to verify) that all the plumbing fixtures were wrong ~ how it didn't strike anyone on site as they installed the matching towel rods and toilet paper holder in a brushed nickel and while the plumbing fixtures were chrome and all of the metal hardware (on doors and light fixtures, etc is brushed nickel), that something was amiss is beyond me!) So that's 4 sinks, a free standing shower, a bathtub, a bath/shower combo and a kitchen sink that need to be changed out. And while I was going over the paperwork, I also verified my suspicion that I wasn't supposed to have the same ceiling fan in every room ~ that's three fans that need to be changed out. So help me god, if this pushes back the closing date, I may need to hurt someone....

And have I mentioned the ornamental grass in the front yard? This would be different from the dying sod. This would be the stuff that grows up in fan formation like big old living pom poms? Tick habitat, anyone???

Yeah, not in a particularly good mood right now...