Intro ~ Finally, a very personal blog post for this very personal mundane blog; it's about time. Surprisingly, this post has turned out to be much more than simply a list of 10 people I need in my life; it's turned out to be a surprisingly intimate look at my life. Writing is like that sometimes, you never know where you're going until you arrive.
These are the people I need/want in my life to help my life and all it's machinery run smoothly. These are the people I need in my life to make things lighter, to move the universal energy more efficiently, to lighten my load, to leave my brain free to write and think of cool video ideas. These are the people I need/want in my life to handle all the fine details that come together to make one gigantic picture. These are the people I need in my life because, at almost 60 years old, I want to be a spoiled bitch for a while ~
1. Housekeeper ~ I'm not rich, sometimes I don't even feel moderately middle class, but I still have a big house (5 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths). Twenty years ago we needed every inch of this house, and there were still kids doubling up in bedrooms. Today, every room is still full, although I've confiscated one downstairs bedroom for a Witchy Room, and everyone has there own bedroom now (I still have kids at home). Yes, I've thought about downsizing, but after looking at the run down houses available, much smaller than this one, I'm thinking, "Where would I put everything?" (and the "everything" includes 3 kids, 3 dogs, and 9 cats). "Downsize" seems to be the mantra for people trying to give friendly advice, but it's easier said than done. I don't feel old yet (not really), and I'm not ready to get rid of most of my stuff-- I still have use for it!!!!
I am a hit and miss housekeeper and I seem to have passed this gene along to most of my kids, at least the ones that are still at home. And we ALL have jobs, everybody under this roof is working! It would be lovely, wonderful, unimaginable to come home from work and find a sparkling kitchen, sparkling bathrooms, and clean floors...dust-free bookshelves and kick-knack shelves would be an extra bonus. (Oh, Dust and Dirt, where art thou?) I need a housekeeper to wash the dishes that seem to breed beneath the kitchen sink. I need a housekeeper to discourage the army of spiders that take up camp in the downstairs family room each summer. I need a housekeeper to keep all the tables cleared of clutter. I need a housekeeper who will declare war on the bathtub ring with relish and fire in her heart.
2. Grounds Keeper ~ We have a large yard. One year, during our Home School foray and an awesome afternoon of Math, I gave the kiddos a unique math problem to solve...How big is our lot? After watching them sweating beneath the hot sun, wrestling with a carpenter's measuring tape, pencils and notebooks, while I sipped an ice-tea from the shade of the back porch, they came up with an accurate answer. Our lot is 1/4 of an acre.
It is unconventional by suburban standards. I don't use herbicides or pesticides; and my lawn has many types of green things growing in it besides just grass...ground ivy, dandelions, clover, plantain, and other cool looking nameless plants that all get mowed off at some point. I have several small, medium, and large flower gardens scattered around, which all need weeding and re-mulching this year, and there are (admittedly) a few trouble spots-- like the entire two foot wide strip along the neighbor's new fence. They were so kind *cough* as to move their new fence line over by two feet, leaving me their rocky, weedy, deep-holed mess, while they wound up with a nice new clean fence line (Bastards).
I need someone to do the incessant mowing, weeding, and watering during the growing months; and I need someone to handle big-ass snow removal on our huge driveway in the winter. If I never looked at another snow shovel again, I'd be just fine with that. ("Why not get a snow blower?" you say. Scroll down and ask my accountant; I'd like to know the answer to that myself.)
3. Cook ~ I use to cook. A lot. I was a stay-at-home mom for 20+ years, and before the hard-working long-suffering mind-controlling irritating bossy husband left for the plant, I dutifully made (every day of the week) a huge old-fashioned farm-style meal in the middle of the frickin' day. Which meant my mornings were spent cooking (while peeking over school workbooks and teacher's manuals), and my afternoons were spent cleaning up the gigantic god-damn mess making a big meal creates.
I don't cook no more. (I know, that's not grammatically correct, but that's how I want to say it.)
I told my kids that if I can't open a can, or pop it in a microwave, or pick it up at a drive-through line, I don't want it.
Yes, my girls can cook (somewhat). As for me, just the other day I tried (and failed) to make a pot of boxed macaroni and cheese. The kids claim that I ruined it on purpose. I told them that every brain cell I have related to cooking has either died off or morphed into some form of new dementia.
4. Laundry Person ~ I taught all my kids to do their own laundry when they turned 12. And then I stopped doing it for them. I know there are some people who would think this is harsh, but come on, give me a break-- you dump soap in the machine, push a couple buttons, and throw in your clothes. Hardly slave labor. They also have to remember to change it over to the dryer, and then they have to fold it and put it away. Laundry use to dominate my life...I always had a separate basket for the New Baby, because they go through a lot of stuff in one day; then I needed separate baskets for each one of the girls so that I didn't have to spend hours going through socks and underwear sorting out sizes and who's was who's. And then there was the husband's laundry. Eventually I stopped doing his too. What's with these men thinking their little wife is a laundry mistress? It's like having a gigantic god-damn child who never grows up, and you're expected to continue doing their laundry for decades. Bull shit. I stopped doing laundry for this husband, and for the two that came after him.
My laundry person would have a pretty easy work-load. My goal is to create as little laundry as possible; my goal is to wear every piece of clothing as long as I can before I have to reluctantly add it to the laundry pile. I figure if I can't smell anything, you can't either.
5. Pet Nanny ~ We are like a live-in petting zoo, even though we only have two species.
Cats...some are old and decrepit, prone to strange smells and infections, funky looking, and senile. Some are fat spoiled House-Cats who eat and sleep, and poop. Some are gangly teen-age House-Cats who tear around like horrible human children in the midst of their terrible two's. In-between raising hell, they eat and sleep, and poop. Litter boxes are an issue in our house. It's a contest to see who can put off doing them the longest.
I burn a lot of incense.
Dogs...Sophie (yellow lab/chow) has what's called Black Skin Disease. It's like Godzilla with eczema, only worse. She looks like something out of Stephen King's Pet Semetery. Sophie needs her meds; she's constantly scratching herself; she sheds hair in large handfuls and gray dead skin cells as well. She smells really funky; anything she lays on smells really funky.
I burn a lot of incense.
Then there are The Chins, two little boys who are dandy's. They're spoiled, neurotic, easily upset, barky, suspicious of strangers, jealous of each other, prone to poop on something just to prove a point if you ignore them too long, and are full of other personal disturbingly human-like quirks. They're like Don Rickels with OCD. They follow me from room to room as I move through the house, always keeping one eye on me lest I get out of my chair and move from their sight.
6. Accountant ~ I don't have a lot of money. I almost had a lot of money once (but that's another blog post). Even though I don't have a lot of money now, I still want an accountant. I want someone who will take care of money coming in and money going out; someone who will pay bills; juggle expenses; deal with foreign-to-me concepts like IRAs, CDs, Social Security, all of those Insurances the modern world thinks we need, as well as all the tax stuff at the end of the year, and the property taxes that go along with this Big Old House. I basically want someone who will literally remove from my brain the need to think about dollar signs, banks, and business stuff all together.
This would be another easy job. The only real challenge would be to see how far they could actually make the Almighty Dollar stretch...without breaking it.
7. Publicist ~ Not many people realize how much time and effort, and time, and persistence, and time, and ingenuity, and time goes into Promoting Your Shit. It's a Full Time exhausting thankless job. (If you have a publicist, get down on your knees right now and kiss their feet.) I write books, I blog, I make videos, I have a website with an online business, I give public psychic readings, I have lots of crap that I have to keep in front of people, at the top of social sites, in my blogs, on my website, etc. etc. etc...If I don't keep this stuff out in the front trenches of the World, I will disappear somewhere within the filmy gray internet realm. (Which sometimes I feel like I do anyway.)
I need someone willing to do Lots of Stuff on an almost daily basis-- promote my books; post reviews; post links; advertise my readings to hook me up with casinos, book stores, new-age shops, (billed as entertainment). I need someone to photograph merchandise for my website and post the beautiful pictures, and fix the prices, and create PayPal widgets for each individual item. I need someone to man the cameras and equipment for my videos; I need someone to masterfully and beautifully edit them; I need someone to post the damn things all over Tarnation and back. I need someone to keep track of the tarot reading requests coming in. I need someone to set up radio interviews and post more links. I need someone to sell me, because I'm getting frickin' exhausted and frustrated trying to sell myself.
8. Secretary ~ I need a secretary to handle all the email coming in. I need a secretary to handle all the serious requests and questions from desperate people; and I need a secretary to handle emails coming in with stupid questions, or emails from weirdoes and stalkers. (And yes, contrary to popular opinion, there is such a thing as a stupid question.) I need a secretary to answer the phone and field calls, even the oddball calls that come in during the middle of the night from people who want to find out what magick I can do for them, or someone expecting an instant tarot reading at 3am. I need a secretary to organize papers, to take care of invoices from my online business. I need a secretary to shoot emails out to customers letting them know that their merchandise is coming, or their tarot reading has been completed.
I need a secretary with a sympathetic ear who will understand bad days and good days, a secretary who will be indulgent enough to let me moan and groan and complain once in a while about the whole process of writing, or the difficult people encountered during public forays into the world of psychic readings, knowing that this is just a brief moment of unrest, or the result of a sleepless night and a tired mind.
9. Mechanic ~ My car has 185,000 miles on it. It needs new break pads; it needs new tires; and during the past week, it's been acting all funky, not idling on the RPMs that it should be, slow to take off, sluggish, with a funny cough and an intermittent hiccup.
I don't want to buy another car. This car is paid for. This car is comfortable. This car has personality. This car has a name..."Scarlett". This car was chosen for me by my late husband, Joe. I want THIS car; and I want this car to run so that I feel safe when I have to drive into Omaha, or when I'm picking kids up from work at all hours, or when I'm leaving home in the morning headed to work.
I want someone I can trust to work on this car, someone who finds Scarlett and how she runs just as important as I do. I want someone who's going to do what needs to be done at a fair price, or even better. I want someone who will handle her with kid gloves, knowing that she's more than just a car, she's like a faithful old horse, a part of the family.
10. Handy Man ~ OMG, this is going to be a daunting task for the most stalwart handyman on the face of the Earth. I have the mother of all "Honey-Do" lists, and since I have no Honey to hand it to, the handyman who finds himself before me is the targeted victim. This old house is a checkerboard of things that need doing...doors don't close right; doors don't open right; floors need refinishing; the kitchen needs updating; wiring needs fixing; rooms need repainting; areas need remodeling; leaky things need to stop leaking; sinks need to drain; washers need to wash, and dryers need to dry.
Most important of all, when something breaks, I want to know that I have someone standing at the front lines who can fix it.
I don't want to have to deal with hammers and screwdrivers, electric tools, nuts and bolts and nails. I don't want to have to try and figure out the intricacies of the modern toilet system. I don't want to have try to figure out how I'm going to wrestle something heavy and seemingly impossible to move up a flight of stairs, or down a flight of stairs, or into the next room. I don't want to have to look at a fuse box in wonderment and total fascination, wondering how many volts go through it and what happens if I touch the wrong thing. I want to know that in my realm there exists a wizard able to fix all the things that go wrong in my physical world. Someone able to maintain my space with confidence and robust enthusiasm...My Handyman.
