Valentines Day amd the End of Hibernation

I have always said that i'd like to hibernate from the day before thanksgiving until the day after valentines day! Mostly its because I don't come from a big family.

There is no festive Thanksgiving celebration with relatives who travel from near and far and you are excited to see, in fact for my family Thanksgiving usually exists of a trip to avoid the reality of the weekend!

Christmas and New Years come with the same set of facts, but coupled with working for a government agency means no big extravagant cocktail christmas celebrations. In fact in our office its a pot luck and I have a thing about eating food which is cooked in other people's homes, who I don't know! New Years is always a holiday when if i go out i want to be on the road at 12:01 a.m.. to avoid the drunks!

And then Valentines Day, so much hype over a hallmark holiday! My parents asked me to go out to dinner for Valentines Day, how horrifying is that? Although, I have to tell you that the older I get the less I care about Valentines Day. In fact, I was on the phone today and mentioned to a guy who i occasionally hook up with to call me over the weekend since he was sans children. His response was definitely not on Saturday, i'm staying home all day and not seeing anyone its Valentines Day! I started to laugh and said who cares about that!

I guess i'm sort of like the groundhog who comes out on Feb 2, except I come out on Feb 15th every year and don't worry if there is a shadow or not!

The State of Affairs!

I have been listening, reading, watching! What I gather is this, the first round of the bank bailout wasn't very successful, the banks put the money deep into their pockets and didn't use it to make loans super available, and the loans that they did make were only for people who could afford lots of money down and who had good credit! So now the Government is going to fund the next bailout to the banks, not so sure things will be different this time around!

From what I can tell, the new Administration wants to create 4 million jobs, how are those people going to get paid? And lots of pell grants for students, an extension of unemployment benefits, which in the State of Florida amounts to a maximum $265.00 a week! Luckily, I am not on unemployment but can't quite gather how if a family of 4 has only 1 working parent who gets laid off, how such little money will pay for their food, housing, electricity, clothing and basic needs! If you make under $70,000 (don't quote me on the exact #) you gate a tax rebate or if you are super rich you get a rebate!

Where is the stimulus for the majority of Americans? For the hardworking people, who aren't in foreclosure but every week and every month pay their bills but aren't getting ahead!

I read in today's paper that one of the Cabinet members finally realized that the problem is that salaries have never increased at the proper rate for people! I could have told them that!

Today's Paper also said that in Miami Dade County Florida, the school board has voted in favor of deferring part of teacher salaries until after the end of their fiscal year, which ends on June 30th, 2009. So teachers are going to work, and have some of their regular pay deferred, that of course is assuming that there will be money to give them their rightfully owed deferred compensation! How are the teachers supposed to pay their mortgage? Why would they do that to the very people who dedicate their lives to teaching kids in hopes of making successful and educated future generations! How about asking bankers and wallstreet suits and movie stars to defer their excessive salaries, as opposed to teachers!

I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel! I go to bed and hope every day that in the morning the light will be there!