(no subject)

Yeah, the local market kind of sucks, but apparently not as much as everywhere else.

As a region, Washington is emerging as among the country's strongest. No U.S. urban area added more jobs in October over last year than Washington, which gained 46,000, the Department of Labor reported. By comparison, hard-hit New York City lost 59,000 jobs, Detroit 38,000, Chicago 28,000 and formerly high-flying San Jose and Atlanta 27,000 each.

"The strongest area economy? Washington, D.C.," the Kiplinger Letter reported Nov. 16. "The dot-com blow-up took a smaller toll here than elsewhere, the federal government is on the rise."

(no subject)

We're the biggest idiots ever. Chris and I both could go do holiday shopping during the day during the week right now, but noooOOOOoooo...we decide to brave the maul on Sunday afternoon. We were looking for one present in particular, but we were told that that was their most popular item (which is kind of frightening) and they'd sold out and no, they couldn't give us one of the 10 sitting in the store window, but come back on Monday when a new shipment was coming in. So, thwarted in that attempt we decided to wander around and see what else could be purchased in our winter-induced consumer frenzy. That same store had a candelabra that I think M. would like, but at $395 that was a big ol' lose. Nobody is getting a $400 present this year, and even if they were it would not be a freakin' candelabra. We found a couple of small things for folks, remembered how much we hate screaming toddlers, and eventually fled the scene. The bright spots being that with one exception neither of us wanted to kill anyone and mostly had fun, and that I managed to find a parking space at Tyson's with no problem (because everyone has to block traffic looking for a spot on the first level when the third level is almost entirely empty). I have a few ideas for presents, one of which is going to require some investigating on my part. My sister informed me that my oldest nephew is still really into tool sets and that there's one in particular he had his eye on and that my oldest niece is really into Barbies right now, so that should make life much easier. I love being able to give people presents, it makes me happy. The holidays are a convenient excuse, although if I find something I know someone would like (say, an Eeyore backpack for example ;) ) at other times of the year I will get it. This lack of income thing has been really distressing me because I haven't been able to do that kind of thing.

I think tonight's big plans are to go dig out the tree and ornaments (and try to get the cat to NOT chew on the light strings this time), then settle in to have Chinese food and watch the "Ah! My Goddess" movie (mmm, Urd). Somewhere in there should be "finish filling out the Administaff paperwork" too. Joy.