June, 2011:

I’m job hunting. There are very few things I loathe more than job hunting. Some of the ads I come across amaze me. They want multiple degrees and decades of experience, but they want to pay $10 an hour. I can’t live on $10 an hour. I don’t know many people who could. Perhaps if they didn’t want the Masters Degree and 15 years of experience, $10 an hour could be warranted. I mean, if it were an entry level position for someone with no experience, I can almost see the validity in that paltry hourly sum. I didn’t go to college to earn a degree to work for $10 an hour.

As I weed through the various job ads, I find myself applying for positions in which I am extremely over qualified. If the salary is anywhere near what I’m making now, I’ll apply. Those jobs are few and far between. I hate the ads that don’t list at least a salary range. Time is a commodity. My time is valuable. The interviewer’s time is valuable. If the salary isn’t anywhere near what I would consider accepting, it’s better to know that up front so as to not waste anyone’s time. A note to job ad writers – put a salary range in your job listings.

Every now and then I come across a job listing that is so poorly written, I want to send them a note with corrections. Take this ad, for example:

Now, I realize that this is a job ad on Craigslist, and as with everything on Craigslist, must be taken with a grain of salt. There are very few legitimate job ads on CL. Unfortunately, poor ad writing isn’t limited to CL. I didn’t save it, but I came across an ad on a major job ad site that also wanted someone with impeccable attention to detail and they also had many grammatical and spelling errors in their ad. Proofreading isn’t hard people!

I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the pertinent parts. They want someone with impeccable attention to detail. Apparently that wasn’t a requirement for whomever they hired that writes their job listings. The grammar whore in me desperately wants to send them an email pointing out the errors. I won’t. You never know where that email may land, and let’s face it, as of June 30th I’m no longer employed. I can’t afford to take a chance that my sarcastic correction could cost me a job somewhere down the line. Of course, I’m probably already screwed if potential employers ever find this blog.

My son is smart. Sometimes too smart for his own damn good. However, sometimes we come across a subject that he just can’t quite grasp. In trying to make him understand, the conversations sometimes get strange and funny. This is one of those times.

I have an iPhone 4. Prior to this, I had an iPhone 3G. As any parent with an iPhone knows, half the games you buy are for your children. These are great time fillers when waiting for something that bores your child to death. Never mind that he has a DS. No, he must play with my phone. Out to dinner? He plays with it while we wait for our food and after he’s finished eating his food. Long car ride? He’s ready to fling some pissed off birds into some dopey looking green pigs. Long wait at the doctor’s office? He’s doing something with the pygmies in Pocket God. I think you get the idea.

I told him I was upgrading my phone and that he could use my old one so he would always have it to play with, and I could keep my own phone and maybe be able to have the battery last more than an hour. He was thrilled! I was even more thrilled when I realized that I could still update his phone with any things I downloaded on the new phone. Basically, my old iPhone now works like an iPod Touch for him. It does everything except make phone calls and text (I think I could download an app that would make it text, but he’s 8. He doesn’t need to text). He loves watching youtube videos on the phone as well. At home, this is not a problem because we have a wireless network. I still don’t understand why he doesn’t just use his laptop at home, but he’s 8. Eight year old boys are weird. It’s not a problem with any place that has free wifi either. It is, however, a problem when we’re somewhere that doesn’t have wifi.

Herein lies the problem. He doesn’t understand why he can’t use the internet on the phone when we’re out and about, and he doesn’t understand why he can’t make phone calls on the phone. I was trying to explain that it wasn’t really a phone anymore. It was more a game playing device now. He just wasn’t grasping the concept since it HAD been a phone before. This is where The Man stepped in to explain. He explained to Aidan that our phones have souls. This is why we can make phone calls, text and access the internet whenever we want wherever we want. His phone has no soul, so it can’t do those things. Only phones with souls have special abilities. I’m still not sure he gets it, but at least he’s stopped asking about why he can’t call anyone. I’m wondering just who he would call anyway.

I think he should be happy that I’ve graciously given him my old phone. We’re talking about an 8 year old with a Wii, a DS, a laptop and a soulless iPhone. He really doesn’t have anything to complain about.

Saturday morning I put my baby on a plane by himself and sent him to my mom’s for the summer. This is not the first time he’s flown by himself. In fact, he’s quite the seasoned little solo traveler. Every summer he spends some time with my mom and his paternal grandmother. It’s convenient that they only live 45 minutes from each other. The first summer they lived in different states so it was 2 weeks with my mom, home for 2 weeks, then 2 weeks with his other grandmother. That wasn’t so bad. Last summer my mom moved back up to NC so it was 2 weeks with each grandparent, but no home in between. That month he was gone was a very long month for me. This summer, it’s 2 entire months up there. I put him on a plane on June 4th, and I won’t see him again until we drive up there the first week of August.

I usually enjoy the first couple of kid-free days, and then the missing him sets in. This time I wasn’t even back to my car at the airport before the pangs of the reality of not seeing him for two.whole.months. set in.

I have no doubt that he will have the time of his life. What kid wouldn’t want to spend his summer in the mountains of North Carolina hiking, swimming and camping? I think I’m taking it harder this year because as of June 30th, I will be unemployed. My summer session of school ends June 24th and fall classes don’t start until the end of August. I’ll have all of this free time and no kiddo here. I seriously don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. I am applying for jobs and hopefully I won’t be unemployed for too long, but in this economy, you just never know. I am looking forward to driving up there with The Man and his daughter and spending a week or so in the mountains of North Carolina myself and bringing Aidan home with us.

I spent just about every summer with my grandparents when I was growing up. Some of my fondest memories are from those summers. I want Aidan to have that same experience, so I’ll suck it up and let him go. I can’t promise there won’t be weekly phone calls though. I resist the urge to call daily! Because this face? is too cute not to miss.