Time . . .

Now that I'm laid off, the days all seem the same. My son was going to a bonfire last night (Friday) and I told him to be home by 10pm. I thought it was Wednesday night! So today is Saturday and it's no different than Tuesday. This must be what it's like to be a cat. Do they know what day it is? I don't think so. But they do know what time it is. Have you cat lovers ever noticed that they know what time their dinner should be served? My Sam sits in the kitchen, or wherever I am at the moment, and meows until they all get fed. He starts meowing at 6pm and their usual dinner time is 6:30pm. Sam must be the offical kitty time-keeper.

Cold Cider - Hot Donuts

It's Autumn in Michigan. My favorite time of the year! There are a lot of cider mills in our area and they're really a big thing around here. When my son was little we used to go through the haunted houses and the corn mazes, Sometimes we'd pick a bushel of apples. Some of the cider mills around where we live have hayrides out into the orchards. My favorite time to go on the hayrides is on a cold, cloudy, dismal day when the trees are all bare and gnarled. It's a real spooky Halloween feeling. You can almost expect a headless horseman to come galloping out of the woods. After that it's time to head to the mill and get a bottle of ice cold, fresh cider and a bag of hot donuts. Bliss!! My hometown is in upstate NY near the Vermont border and the fall leaves are spectacular up there. The colors are more brilliant than here in Michigan and all the leaves seem to turn at the same time. They don't have cider mills up there though!

Cats are lovin' it!

My three cats love having their mom at home with them. After breakfast, Sam and Heather find a cozy spot and go to sleep, and Jack gets in my lap as soon as I sit down at the computer. Jack is a lot younger than Sam and Heather and he likes to play all the time. He has a favorite ball that he brings to me so I can throw it. He chases it and brings it back and drops it at my feet. and if I don't pick it up right away he meows until I do. I wonder what he did when I was working? When the others wake up they want a lot of attention too. Keeps me busy.

Black Tuesday

Yesterday was one of those days that you have a gut feeling that it will happen sooner or later, but you're stunned when it really does happen. About a half-hour after lunch was over our group manager at work called us all together to announce that our program had ended and most of us would be laid-off immediately and the ones that were left would finish a project and then they too would be laid-off. That meant that 16 of us were out the door (literally) and there were 6 left. We were all escorted out the door with whatever personal items we could carry, the rest would be boxed up and we could come in to pick up our box at a later date. So life goes on. Tomorrow will be "apply for unemployment day" and then the job search begins. It feels so strange to not have to get out the door in the morning and rush to work. I'll miss my co-workers. Some of us will keep in touch, some we'll never see again. Nobody even got to say goodbye to each other because they took us out one-by-one in alphabetical order. So surreal.

More Work Woes

Our whole group here at work is worried about all the rumors going around about lay-offs and plant closings. All of our work is for Chrysler so we are all directly affected by whatever happens at Chrysler. The mood here is not good. About 2 years ago we were moved from a nice building that our company sold to one of their old buildings. They put us in the 2nd floor area (we called it the attic) that had been a storage area. Two flights of stairs, no elevator, no bathrooms, no water, no windows. So our work area is depressing to begin with. We all hate it up there. The bathrooms are all on the first floor so us ladies have to plan ahead so we don't get caught having to go in a hurry!! LOL.

Cat Lover

As I mentioned before, I have three cats. Sam and Heather Rose are siblings that we adopted 9 years ago. Sam is a big gray tabby and Heather is a petite, feminine brown tabby. They both have the same exact markings but in different colors, and they both have white tips on their tails. Our third cat is Jack. My son worked at a firewood place last year and there were a bunch of cats living in the wood piles that the owner and his wife fed. One of the litters was born shortly after my son started working there and he got to see them shortly after being born. He fell in love with this one little kitten and kept talking about it all the time. The whole litter soon became sick with feline URI's and the owner of the wood lot told my son he could take his favorite one home and try to save his life. So he came home on a Saturday night after work and opened up his lunch cooler and said "hey, Mom, look what I brought home".  Here was this tiny, little kitten - about 4 weeks old - so sick, with a runny nose and and gooey eyes. I kept him as far away from Sam and Heather as I could because the URI's are contageous. I got him to the vet on Monday and they started him on antibiotics right away. I spent the first month he was with us taking care of him, giving him his medicine, and washing out his eyes. Sam and Heather eventually caught the infection but we took them to the vet as soon as the symptoms were noticed and they recoved just fine. Jack is now big and healthy and happy. He plays and hangs out with Sam. Heather thinks he's annoying and she'll hiss at him for no reason, but then I'll find Jack and Heather sleeping on the bed together. She secretly likes him. The three of them are a joy!

School Daze

It's hard to believe that summer is over and school starts tomorrow. My son is a senior this year. He's not completely sure what he wants to do but it will either be something in the machine trades or an electrician. So we will be looking for trade schools in the area for next fall. At some time he also wants to take some finance classes at our local community college so he'll know how to handle his money, especially if he eventually starts his own business, which is what he'd like to do. It seems like yesterday when I took him for his first day of kindergarten, now he hops into his van and drives off. His van is something else, a 1988 GMC Safari that was purchased by a friend of his at a police auction. It was a surveilance van with blacked-out windows, thick steel bumper on the front, no seats in the back, and a lot of wires hanging from the roof and toggle switches all over the place. He and his friends have the inside painted grafitti-style.