I was surfing the internet just now, trying to get an idea of what to do about a Halloween costume for my baby girl when I stumbled across THIS:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/01/14/make-a-sweater-out-of-your-pets-fur-at-inhabitots/

Yes. Your dream has been realized. You can now own a sweater made out of your pets fur.

Is this a joke?

Laid off. Two weeks sev pay. All that sick time I was saving for my maternity leave? Gone.

Looking on the bright side -- now I'll have lots of time to get ready for Stella.

Edited & am updating the story at some point this weekend.

__________________

Skinny drank hot tea with his cinnamon roll on the corner of Adams and 1st nearly every morning and watched the briefcased people hustle to clean offices everywhere with their cups of overpriced caffeinated sludge. Skinny marveled at the neatness of them: hair styled and sprayed, fingernails buffed or acrylic coated, shoes polished and gleaming like teeth. How time consuming.

Some didn’t really belong in such a sterile environment, he could tell--like the girl with the black chunky boots paired with a navy suit. He caught a glimpse of ink at the base of her neck when she brushed back her dark locks one day, and he wondered how far down it stretched (to her spine, he decided). She didn’t move as hurriedly as the rest and always smiled at him on the way out. But not today.

Today, she seated herself across from him.

“Star,” she stated.

“Skinny,” he said.

“You're not so much, you know.”

He gazed at his perfectly round belly. “I used to be.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” She took a sip of her coffee. “I just got fired.”

“From?”

“There.” Star tilted her head toward the building across the street and lowered her voice. “I’m robbing it tomorrow.”

Skinny contemplated robbery.

He’d slaved away at steady jobs for years before deciding that they didn't suit him. One day after being canned for firing off a laundry list of obscenities to a pimply faced punk at the check-out station who commented on his girth, he reviewed his resume. Six years at McDonald's, five at Walgreen's, and three at Walmart. Service America simply lacked the excitement he craved.

Then, for a year and a half, he made his living as a cat burglar. Skinny gave that dream up when he startled a little old lady who in turn suffered a heart attack. "I'm Francis, she’s my mother," he told the paramedics who arrived on the scene after he'd dialed 9-1-1. Skinny would have stayed with her all night, but the plump nurse with the frizzy red hair kept asking him questions about her medical history and so he split.

"What do you do for a living, anyway?" asked Star, jolting him back to the present.

He thought about his latest gig and decided that she might appreciate it. "Got plans tonight?" he asked.

"Not yet, but it sounds like I might soon," she said.

"Meet me outside the Dubliner at 7:00 P.M. and I'll show you."

updated girl_obscured with a story bit. I have too many journals, don't I?

DBA executive_asst. Boring work blog.

Started a new job today. Customer Service Rep at Wild West Lighting. Go me.

Friends only.