I received the following in an e mail from my sister in law the other day, and thought I would share it with everyone:

This is dedicated to
Those Born 1930-1979!

TO ALL THE
KIDS
WHO SURVIVED the
1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolaid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because:

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day.
And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound, CD's or Ipods, WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside
and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,
made up games with sticks and tennis balls We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.

They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them . CONGRATULATIONS!

I couldn't have said it better myself!

I woke up this morning to cloudy skies, drizzle, and 65 degrees. The weatherchick on tv says that this is the warmest winter we've had here in North Carolina in the last 15 years and the 5th warmest EVER. Every year for the last 3 or 4 winters, I find myself bitching and moaning because we don't have a REAL winter here anymore, and I find myself taking it out on the weathernerds, but I've come to realize my anger has been directed at the wrong people.

It was about 15 years ago that North Carolina started seeing an influx of people moving down here from up north. That in itself is fine for the most part, even though folks from anywhere above Virgina talk funny! I don't blame people for moving down here..it's much nicer here than up there in many different ways, but I'm sure everyone knows that already! Coincidence that the weather started getting warmer at the same time as the invasion of the northerners?? I think NOT!

Up north, people live in neighborhoods with houses only 5 feet apart from each other. They do this because there isn't enough land to go around. I don't blame them for that because up north is where the Pilgrims landed when they first came from England, and there were a lot of folks that came over on the boats and they didn't have a whole lot of places to build houses since they hadn't stolen all the land from the Indians yet. Also, in an effort to preserve our country's history, many of the buildings up north are well over 300 years old and are still being used today (mostly to house bagel shops!)...again, nothing wrong with that. Once the north filled up, though, people up there were starting to get on each other's nerves because they lived so close to each other, so they decided to start migrating south. We in the south welcomed our funny speaking neighbors because that's just the way that we are down here. Besides, northerners brought us many gifts, such as Chicago deep dish pizza and Macy's department stores.

Now by this point, you're probably asking yourself "what does any of this have to do with the hot winter weather in North Carolina?" I'm getting to that. You see, when all the northerners moved down here, they had lived so close to each other for so long, they didn't know any better once they got down here. Even though there was plenty of land to go around down here, the northerners couldn't break from tradition, so they bought up all of the tobacco fields, and built subdivisions with houses that are only 5 feet apart from each other. With all of the northerners still being so close to each other, that created friction because they are still getting on each other's nerves, which causes arguing (something northerners love to do, especially with each other)..multiply all the hot air being generated from all the arguing northerners living too close to each other in over priced houses in subdivisions with stupid names (Paddington on Fiddler's Bluff in the Meadows of Havenhurst on the Green) and you get what's called global warming. That is what has caused the disappearance of winter here in the south.

Now, I'm not saying that all the northerners need to pack up and go back where they came from. Well, not ALL of them anyway. They can stay, but they need to spread out and stop generating all that heat that's driving the snow away every year!! It would take a few years to get winter back because there's been a LOT of hot air generated by these folks in the last decade and a half, but at least by the time I hit my mid-40s I could see a real WINTER again!

"Bitter..party of one, your table is ready"......hey, that's me..gotta run!

Well….2006 has definitely been an eventful one to say the least! So much has happened that it almost doesn’t seem like it all happened in the course of 12 months! The year started off with the arrival of my first nephew, Eli! I was so happy I could barely stand it…I’ve waited a long time to be an uncle and was wondering if my brother or sister would ever make me one! Of course, much as I had been for the last couple of years, I was disappointed that the year didn’t start off with a good ice or snow storm!

As Spring approached, the birds began to sing…the flowers began to bloom…the pollen started to screw with my allergies…and then came a dark, hideous, evil black cloud of doom: BLONDEZILLA. The story that we at the office were told was that she was a new “supervisor”…in reality, she was a minion of Satan sent to damn us all to the depths of Hell! I survived her wrath for more than 4 months before I finally found an escape route out of the dark tunnel she was holding us all captive in! I tried to rescue as many as I could on my way out, including my dear friend Nightbug, but alas, as I was clawing my way out, I poor ol’ Nighty lost her grip and went plummeting back into the dark pit…I have seen her since I made my escape…she looks well, although a bit disheveled because of the tick she’s developed in her right eye! She tries to be brave. God bless her poor soul!

Fall and Winter proved to be quite challenging to say the least. I started it off with my new job, which turned out to be a bust. And then another. And then I had finally arrived at my roots…restaurant management at a pizza joint. All looked as though it was going well until the middle of December, when I began to notice quite a few red flags about some things that were going on at a store I’d been assigned to work at on a temporary basis. It was my integrity and my desire to “do the right thing” that caused me to be involuntarily and unceremoniously drop kicked out the door. I’m still reeling from that one, but not for the reason that you’d think. Losing a job is just something that happens in one’s life, and while I didn’t shed any tears over it, I find myself questioning whether or not having any sort of integrity is the way to go in today’s workplace. It is that....the probability of a complete overhaul in my professional personality that I’m having a hard time with. We’ll see how it all plays out though….

So I start off the year 2007 with some challenges ahead of me, but I at least have the knowledge that I have been through much worse and that one way or another, things will work out in the long run. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and that life is just a continuing “lesson learned” that helps us grow and evolve as people. I know that this past year, as in other years passed, I’ve learned a lot and grown an awful lot.

To everyone out there in Blogstream land that has responded to my sometimes silly, sometimes pretty depressing posts, thank you for your comments this year! It is very nice to know that there are some nice folks in this world after all! So to everyone…HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

No one is going to believe me when I relate this story, so I'm fully prepared for that. However, I swear it's true! I went on a job interview today and it was by far one of the MOST bizarre, intrusive, and downright DISTURBING job interviews I've ever been on in my life. Strangely enough, it was only after I'd gotten home and really THOUGHT about it that I realized how violated I feel after the experience!

The beginning of the interview went as most job interviews do..."so tell me about yourself"...one of the questions that I absolutely DESPISE...what the hell are you supposed to say?? "Well, I'm a 37 year old knuckle-dragging, cousin-dating, wife-beating, child-hating redneck from the back woods who really needs a job to make his child support payments and keep the parole officer off of his back"...????? So I made up the usual crap...."blah blah blah blah".....

After a half hour of explaining every detail of my previous jobs, the guy doing the interview began to ask me some of the most bizarre questions I've ever heard at a job interview....

"So tell me about your family" ..........HUH?? I've NEVER been asked about my family during a job interview! After I get over the initial shock of the question, I reply that I've got one brother, one sister, and that both of my parents died when I was in my early 20s. Now, when folks ask me about my parents and I explain that they are both dead, usually the subject very quickly changes. I guess most people figure it's somewhat of a touchy subject (it sometimes IS!) for me. It's not that I necessarily MIND being asked about them, but I just don't think it's an appropriate subject to approach during a job interview. Clearly, this knucklehead didn't see it that way because his next question was........

"So how did your parents die?"

I SHOULD have answered, "well, you see, they were disagreeing with me on a rather touchy political subject, so I had to kill them both...." just to teach him a lesson....but I didn't. Rather, I explained to him that they were both very ill and they died as a result of their respective illnesses. That changed the subject...temporarily.

After a bit more small talk, he asked me what my personal references would say about me...of course I told him that they would all give glowing reviews of me (or face the unspeakable wrath that is BryM scorned!)....and then he dropped the bomb:

"If I could call your parents, what would they say about you?"

I smiled politely as I stumbled through explaining to him once more that both of my parents are DEAD and that they have been DEAD since before I turned 25 and therefore it would be impossible for them to say much of anything about me.

Ok, so after I'm finally starting to see signs that this man is getting ready to conclude this interview, he explains to me that he is really interested in pursuing the interview process with me because I've been so open and honest with him (what choice did I HAVE??!!) and that he would contact me next week to set up the next phase....he also complimented me on how "comfortable" I appeared to be during my interview and how thorough I was in explaining everything I'd done at my past jobs...but that at times made him a bit nervous because when someone appears to be "comfortable and thorough" there is generally something decidedly shady about them.

I can only IMAGINE what part two will be like if I choose to go!!!

When you're unemployed, there are two things that the working folk CAN'T do that you CAN:

1. Stay up until 2 a.m. posting to Blogstream.
2. Surf the ENTIRE internet!

However, that is not the reason for my rare, yet always popular SECOND post of the day/night/whatever! I found the following ad on craigslist this afternoon:
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***** ****** ***** is seeking operators to join our team. We are a 24 hour operation, serving an array of businesses, and dispatch their calls per their individual needs.

We are seeking applicants who are articulate, with an emphasys on attention to detailand excecptional spelling and grammar, and a professional phone manner. Typing of 35-40 wpm is necessary.

We currently have positions available on our 2nd shift. Weekend and holiday availability are a must.

For further information, or to schedual an interview, please call our job hotline at 000-000-0000.

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Now let me get this straight. These folks are looking for articulate, detail oriented folks who pay close attention to detail and have excellent spelling and grammatical skills.

Yes, Nightbug. I did it.

I responded to the ad...but not to apply for the job posted. I applied for the job currently held by the person who wrote the above ad. I also copied & pasted the above into my cover letter, and for their convenience, pointed out the errors.

Nightbug, please stop rolling on the ground like that. People are beginning to stare and point!

I haven't gotten a response...YET. I have a feeling I won't get the job though.