Colds & Cookies

Currently, I am battling a cold. On top of which, I have to work this afternoon and evening, so that should really help. I had a friend ask recently how I stay positive through the unemployment. The answer is that you don't, not really. You make the best of a difficult situation and hope that somewhere down the line a job is waiting for you. I have picked-up a part-time job to pass the time and to make some side money and am currently chasing down my unemployment benefits. I'm on the dole! I have to laugh at that one. Two college degrees later and I'm collecting unemployment, unsuccessfully I might add.

My roommate and some friends put up our Christmas tree this Sunday. It is glorious and enormous! Pictures will be coming shortly. I have to find the roommates camera, as mine needs a new battery and that is not on the top of my must do list for the moment. It cheered me to have some normalcy in my life as we struggled to carry the tree home while caroling. Well, my roommate sang, I mostly cursed the rotten thing to hell and back. Then we hung our ornaments and made some cookies. Sugar and spice! I will post those recipes late this week. I highly recommend the sugar cookie recipe; it came out well. It was all very lovely as we stretched out to watch Love Actually. How can you not enjoy that movie? There are so many amazing lines, such as my favorite, "Eight is a lot of legs David."

Today, I'm trying to hold onto that cheer as the bills pile up, my cold sets in and I head to work. There are so many things about this situation that have changed my views on government aid and health care. I am the face of reform in this country; it is needed so that people such as me, who work hard, pay their taxes and contribute, do not suffer when they loose their jobs. It should not be so difficult to receive unemployment. My mom told me the saddest story about the UPS Depot nearby. The longest line was not to send presents, but to pick-up applications for seasonal work. Men in business suits were waiting for their turn. It puts your life in rather harsh perspective when you hear those stories, but it also shows that there are people out there who will work at anything in order to provide for their loved one and themselves.

On that note, cough, cough, I will eat my soup and be off! 

Starting Fresh

I am unemployed. To quote my mother, I never thought this would happen. Now, like others, I am a statistic, part of the 8.8% of Americans without a steady job. Great. I think my dad is off in New Jersey crying with pride, as my student loan interest gains momentum and I continue to pursue a career in performing arts administration. Lucrative business that it is, I am of course precariously ready for this situation and am now contemplating retail employment. The question remains if I list my professional contacts for a reference, or if perhaps I should have them call my old boss from The Limited where I worked back in college. If she's still there . . . I think the store might be closed. Dammit. Well, there is always my aunt in FL. She has a different last name.

In the meantime, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a full-time job and have started contacting temp agencies. Where, I'm sure, I will be subjected to typing tests, a Power Point presentation quiz and other various skills that should really be covered in higher education. The amount of interns I've had to sit down and review Excel with is mind-boggling. It's not that hard. They have an Ivy League degree. And yet . . . alphabetical order seems a foreign concept. My mother is a librarian, so perhaps I'm more organizationally inclined than others (some would suggest obsessed), yet soon I will compete with others for temporary positions based on my categorization skills in a basic database program. No wonder I'm turning to food for sanity.

I decided today that I would bake a pumpkin maple pie. This is a test run for Thanksgiving dessert. We are going to my aunt's in New Jersey and I will bring the pie (I should probably tell her, as this was a unanimous decision made with myself). I've made pumpkin, but never with maple syrup and I'm feeling slightly dubious. What will happen? Will there be enough flavor? Will my father frown at the blasphemy brought upon a Thanksgiving staple? Last year, I made a cranberry tart and you would think that I set down a dish of scorpion pie from the manner in which my family artfully avoided it. My mom tried some. And my sister. But my brother, master of pushing his food around and yet somehow seeming to eat it, surreptitiously feed pieces to the dog and even he rejected the dessert. This year: standard is the road I will follow. My roommate is my guinea pig and my boyfriend will receive the blow-by-blow report. But you, dear readers, if all goes well, will receive the recipe from the November issue of "Real Simple." The best magazine for the younger generation of up and coming 30-somethings with an interest in the everyday, but a fear of "McCalls", or "Woman's Monthly."

Of course, this is all in preparation for tomorrow morning when I wake up and have no job. What will I do?  I'm desperately trying to keep myself busy and positive.  This cannot last for long.  But, what if it does?  What if I have several months looming ahead of no job and no prospects?  All I have then is my kitchen and my sanity.  My boyfriend, friends and family help, but in situations such as these you really can only rely on yourself to pull through and maintain some form of dignity.  So, pie it is!  And lots of dinners.  A lack of funds, means a lack of socializing, unless I have friends over to my apartment and rely not on the kindness of strangers, but the rumor of my amazing chicken pot pie to coax my friends across the river, or onto the subway, in pursuit of good conversation, a delicious meal and me!