The Faces of Unemployment

Although I'm not quite sure I can match this fellow, facial hair for hair, despite the fact that the older I get it seems there is always something to pluck, pick or shave, I believe after four months of unemployment I may be taking on a strong resemblance to his physique. I try to convince myself that the mirror in all of its brilliant bevelment doesn't necessarily give an accurate reflection of self, but confusion vanishes and truth becomes self-evident when the scale reflects its wicked numerical renderings back at me and I am forced to admit the mirror is as honest as it is reflective.

Always slight of build at 18 years old I was 5'2 and weighed 85 lbs. Happily I consumed large bowls of Mint Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Marshmallow and Rum Raisin ice cream and Tastycakes, the chocolate ones, with the cream in the middle and the vanilla icing with the chocolate stripe down the middle. But twenty years have passed, and a few glasses of red wine, margaritas, a few chips and hundreds of tomato salsa products later the 85 lbs. have multiplied to 110 lbs.

So what's 25 pounds in 20 years you may say; but if we continue to follow the same mathematical sequence, by the time I am 60 I will be 5'2 140 lbs and will not only resemble this fine fellow, but may be mistaken for his sister. The powers that be will take me to slaughter, possibly at a time when political correctness may no longer be revered and there will be no green groups or politicians left to save the older pigs for an elderly pig farm retirement community. All my years of paying into the system will have been for naught. There will be no Social Security or Medicare, only a space for me on an oiled and industrialized slab waiting to be packaged by my new caretaker Oscar Mayer!

No I must keep my lips sealed. I must not reach for those potato chips or that chocolate chip cookie. I must stop convincing myself that one more glass of red wine will lower my cholesterol to that enviable number, whatever it may be. As I continue to look for that job, wherever it may be, I must stop having lunch after each interview. I must drink black tea or coffee rather than a Starbucks Carmel Macchiato at each Internet cafe I visit; and I must skip that cocktail after the ending of each vacuous interview. Yes I will vow to keep control and composure over what enters my lips, but while I do this .....I will most likely post a recipe for Split Pea with Pistachio soup in one of my next posts.

So in closing always remember Bon Appetite and keep those lips sealed! :o)

Missing You!

It has been so long since my last post I didn't know if Google would allow me to log on; but when I put in my user name and password and hit enter up came my blog; my blog that is always there, always there for me no matter what, and what a comfort that is, a small sense of comfort in my current otherwise unstable life. It seems a very long time now that things have been uncertain. I closed a business in 2006 that I had owned and operated for over fourteen years, got a job that I lost due to downsizing, was forced to leave my house due to changes in economic conditions and an inability to sell in a challenging real estate market, moved, lost many friends along the way due to logistics of the situation and now am forced with the daunting task of finding a new job, which seems nothing less than an impossibility in this deteriorated job market.

As has always been my motto, when the going gets tough just dig in an work harder; there never seemed to me there wasn't another path to go, or another road to travel and always I just knew with blinding certainty that there was something so magical and wonderful along that new
road. Things seem a little more challenging now though. Could be I'm not 21 any longer, could be I'm missing my business, my life's' challenge, the entity that I jumped out of bed each day to greet like a new lover, could be I'm missing my friends of old, those from the business, those from college, those that have moved away; but whatever it is I simply must continue to find challenge and excitement along this new road or run the risk of being run over on life's highway.

So after feeling blue and uninspired and ignoring the written word for so long, inspiration set in. The same inspiration that blows from the crispness of a fall breeze, a breeze that accompanies the comfort yet trepidation that sneaks in when you realise yet another season has ended, and a new is beginning; and time passes quickly, and you wonder will you ever catch up. After a long slumber my inspiration stirred after a friend took me to see the movie Julie and Julia.

I'm sure the reason I was so inspired and captivated by Julie and Julia was because the movie centered on cooking, which was the basis of my business, having owned a food retail establishment, and as I mentioned earlier was my life's passion; but more than that it forced me to look at other talents, not necessarily those that I have ignored, nor did not know existed, but those that perhaps need like the soil and the flower to be cultivated, watered and fed. It also reinforced the old adage try, try and try again and you will never succeed unless you stick to it ...
So here I am, putting to the written word, as Julie did, my dedication. I do solemnly swear and promise to my readers, whoever you may be and if there are any of you out there that I will write at least something, long or short, fiction or fact and that I will have a focus at some point in the very near future, and I will finish the short story written earlier in the blog and dear God I will find some sort of creative way to earn a living whether it comes from my creative being or from some future employer. These things I do solemnly swear!!!