It's About the Haves, Not the Have Nots

Gobble, gobble!

Thanksgiving is the official kick-off of the holiday madness. For us sane people, it's a little difficult to steer clear of the doorbusters and early bird specials. However, I like my sleep, so getting up at 3 a.m. to go shopping does not really sound that appealing. Plus, believe it or not, I'm done shopping! Woot-woot!

So, today is a day to be thankful and appreciate all of the good things in life. I am very thankful for all that I have and even though this year has been a career bust, I still have plenty to be thankful for.

I'm especially thankful for the following things:

• I've only had to utter the phrase "Don't lick your sister" once.
• I get to eat deep fried turkey with people I love and cherish.
• I have a #1 fan who keeps me blogging! (That's you, Murph!)
• I get to see the Detroit Lions on TV for the first time this season. (Will most likely turn out to be a bad thing, but for now, I'm excited.)
• My husband is awesome and started our day out right with Starbucks and donuts.
• My kids will celebrate Thanksgiving with their best friends, O and C. (Bring on the Jello Jigglers!)
• I know to cook the green beans prior to making the green bean casserole. (That's a shout out to you, Lyons!)
• I won't be tripping over the dog, enroute to the table, with the turkey in hand. Yes, that actually happened when I was a kid. It won't happen today because the only pet in this house is a fish named Mimi!
• Mike is an honored guest at today's feast. I believe there are already 12 of the pomegranate variety chilling in the cooler. Is it too early to have one? What the hell, it's a holiday!
• I'm especially thankful that my parents live down the street and get to join us on holidays. Plus, my mom makes a mean apple pie!
• Our Thanksgiving eve tradition is to watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles. "You're going the wrong way!" "How would they know where we're going?"
• And, I'm especially thankful that I met the Husband for the very first time on Thanksgiving in 1998. We've been on a non-stop, fun-filled adventure ever since!

Happy Thanksgiving to all and remember that turkey isn't good medium rare and holidays are best when celebrated with the people you love. Bon Appétit!

So, What's Your Plan?

These days, I sure get asked the dreaded "what's your plan" question a lot. I'm not exactly sure how to answer that. I've kind of explored every option in the last year. I've sent out hundreds of resumes and networked with a zillion people. And here I am. Still sitting here. Still not working. And let me be the first to say that I'm really tired of looking for a job. It's exhausting. It's demanding. It's disappointing. It's just like a real job, only there's no paycheck for my efforts.

But there is no giving up, it's just not me. Plus, there are some pretty lofty goals on the board for 2011. And I keep thinking of a quote from my all-time favorite movie, The Silence of the Lambs: "All good things to those who wait." Granted, I shouldn't be taking life advice from Hannibal Lector, but it kind of fits, right?

Eventually, something will pan out; it just has to. In the meantime, it seems like I've encountered every flake in the business world and have endured disappointment after disappointment. Luckily, I see the big picture and I know that life is good and I'm very lucky.

While I'm waiting for something to pan out, I've been doing all sorts of things I couldn't do when I had a full-time job, like Christmas shopping in the middle of the day on a Tuesday and volunteering as a kindergarten room mom. It was kind of heartbreaking for me when one of the kindergarten boys said "What's your real job?" You're looking at it, kid! My new job is helping 5-year-olds tie their shoes and lifting the short kids (mine included) up to the monkey bars at recess.

Later this week, it will be the 1-year anniversary of the "phone call" and the day I first learned about India. I'm not sure how I'll celebrate on Thursday, but I can guarantee I won't be going to the Star of India for lunch. Funny how a lot of the people I know hate India a little bit more now than they did before the India Project. Case in point, my dad telling the Indian customer service rep to "put someone on the phone who speaks English!" My dad rocks. Or the Husband telling the credit card customer service rep to cancel his card. When the guy in India asked why, the Husband said "Because you're in freaking India." Love the Husband.

Also coming up in the near future is the expiration of my confidentiality agreement with Prison Media. I had to give them one year of silence. Come December 11, I'm officially free. Forever.

One more thing that will be easier this year: Finding the perfect turkey! I won't be digging through the bin of frozen turkeys, after work, with the rest of the working stiffs, searching for the elusive 16-pound turkey. No, I can go to the store on a weekday morning and casually select my bird. In fact, I think I'll do that tomorrow. Gobble, gobble!

It All Starts Here.

In case anyone was wondering, I've always hated corporate America. By always, I mean the majority of my 37 years. What kind of kid hates corporate America? Simple. One whose father gets transferred all over the country and makes her childhood a blur of moving vans, for sale signs, new schools and new friends. I vowed pretty early on that I would never work in corporate America. Alas, my dream finally came true late last year!

I won't turn Kate Off the Clock into Kate's Memoirs, but I will give the nutshell version. By the time I was 13, I'd lived in 6 states. And my family didn't make simple moves, like L.A. to San Diego or Detroit to Chicago. No, we made cross country treks. Multiple times. As a kid, the most dreaded question anyone could ask me was "Where are you from?" What 9-year-old kid answers a question like that with "All over, really." That answer immediately implied my parents were carnival workers, right?

When I was 7, my family moved to Alabama a few days before the start of the school year. On the day before my first day of school, my brother accidentally stabbed me in the arm with a utility knife. Supposedly it was an accident. Thirty years later and I'm still not so sure. Neither is my scar. Anyway, I had to go to the hospital and I was given a tetanus shot. Well, surprise, a tetanus shot in the ass when you're 7 is really not so fun. It hurt like hell and it totally affected my ability to walk. On the first day of school. IN A NEW STATE!

I limped into the school, a rickety old Catholic school that must have been built pre-Civil War, and was promptly introduced to the worst second grade teacher in the history of school: Ms. Pitts. I swear on my kids lives, that was her name.

She was this skinny, oily, short woman with a haircut like Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria. She was dressed in an ill-fitting pants suit with flats. And the southern drawl was straight out of Deliverance. And I'm pretty sure I was smarter than her. At age 7. I remember the day like it happened last week and it was 30 freaking years ago! That's how traumatic the experience was. And to top it all off, I was all alone at the new school, as my brother had been sent to a different school due to the 4th grade being full because of a post-Vietnam baby boom. I dunno, that's just what I heard with my 7-year-old ears. Plus, the Brother had just stabbed me, so I don't know if I would have been thrilled to see him anyway.

As luck would have it, the cafeteria was in the basement of this God-awful school. Basement=stairs. Stairs=pain and embarrassment for my sore, aching body. I think everyone thought I was handicapped after catching a glimpse of me negotiating the stairs. I can't remember who was nice enough to sit with me at lunch, but I'm sure someone must have been, because I don't remember sitting all alone. Growing up, my recurring dream the night before the first day at a new school was this: It's lunchtime, I'm all alone and every time I attempt to sit down at a table, I get pushed out or told to go away. This was a legitimate fear, but thank God, it never actually became reality.

I don't doubt that I came home in tears after a full day with Ms. Pitts. I swear she wasn't speaking English and the throbbing in my butt made it impossible for me to focus anyway. To top it all off, my family had moved to Alabama from San Francisco, so the immediate rumor on the street was that my parents were swingers. Really? Yes. Most people in Alabama only knew California from the movies, so imagine their concern when a family from over yonder moved in.

What's the point? I swear I had one. Oh yes, the point is that these experiences from my youth are what fueled my lifelong hatred of corporate America. If it wasn't for my dad's corporate job, I could go to the same school every year, grow up with the same friends, have a place to be "from." I know it sounds a little dramatic, but it all made sense when I was 7.

When I was 13, my dad told corporate America to shove it, moved our family to Michigan and embarked on a self-employed adventure. I always say I'm from Michigan, as I lived there all through junior high and high school, and until recently, it was the state I'd lived in the longest.

I'll end with this story: At the same school in Alabama, during a social studies lesson on seasonal farming and migrant workers, a classmate raised his hand and asked the teacher "Is Kate's dad a migrant worker?"