I've always suspected that my cat was laughing at me behind my back.



I think most of them do, simply because without any knowledge of what is actually going on in their minds, we think they love us.



We feed them, shelter them, and spend serious money on making them happy. We believe that they are grateful for all our attention.



We just adore all the silly little things they do.



Oh, I'm definitely going to get a dog.

I read Mo Rocca's AOL Blog pretty much everyday. Yesterday he had a fantasy blog which included having his readers choose various employees for his fantasy estate from the choices he gave. His fantasy involved owning an estate, while for the purpose of this blog, mine involves owning an employment agency and having the absolute best choice of employee for some pretty high profile positions. You just can't let cat lovers loose on the internet.

For instance:

Homeland Security needs a Bomb Inspector. And I have this particular applicant who isn't going to let anything get past him.



Martha Stewart Inc. needs a Housekeeper, one that is diligent in locating all those dust bunnies that seem to creep in everywhere.



The Federal Bureau of Investigations needs someone knowledgeable in internet applications for a new program they're instituting. They're looking for terrorist cells that have blogs online. (This one may not be as far fetched as we think, I hope they aren't reading me today.)



Milton Bradley is coming out with a new line of jigsaw puzzles sometime in the future. And here's another candidate. Well, maybe some on the job training is in order here.



Random House Publishers is upsizing it's editorial staff in the hopes of having at least one employee that knows how to spell. Isn't it just amazing that I have a spell checker looking for employment?



After all this work trying to match prospective employees to the right job I need a rest. Or a little something to pick me up.

Yesterday I decided that to avoid Mr. Chipper first thing in the morning, I would stay in bed until he left. That's not really possible in my house. Bashful has to be fed at a certain time in order for her shot to happen on schedule. So, I decided that Plan B would include nothing more than smiling at him and helping him to be ready to go regardless of what it entailed. In order for that to work, I also made sure I knew exactly where his glasses, cell phone and keys were located before we retired last night. This week so far he's "lost" his glasses on top of his head, his cell phone in his hand, and his keys in the ignition switch of his vehicle. Everything I thought he might need was rounded up and placed on my desk in plain view including his schedule of jobs for today.



He got up at 6, went and turned the coffee pot on and instead of doing his normal morning thing decided to read his schedule for today. This meant he picked up his glasses and his schedule, moved to the couch and sat down. I heard the phone ring at 6:20 am, decided to get up and of course first stop is the bathroom. By the time I arrived in the living room he'd lost his glasses and his schedule. He had gone to the kitchen for his coffee and other than that had been seated on the couch. Basic commonsense is going to tell you that these things can't have gone that far. The schedule was under the newspaper he had laying on the couch directly next to him and his glasses were on the counter in the kitchen in front of the coffee maker. Oh, but they were "lost".



I think it's stress. He doesn't show much concern when the major setbacks happen, he just falls apart over the little things. He's used to concentrating on the big problems which have more complicated solutions, so he's focused on that and misses the simple solutions to the small problems. Which of course makes me irritated because he nags first thing in the morning. I spent this morning doing the "Yes Dear" with a smile. Of course, I have very little recollection of what he actually asked me or "suggested" that I accomplish today. Which leaves me with a perfectly serene attitude this morning. Hopefully I will remember all of my "orders" for the day before he asks whether or not I've done them. I did manage to make him a thermos of coffee, and to call the daily paper to renew his business ad.



I think I will suggest something that just occured to me. He's really big on making "lists" of things he needs and of things he wants to look into. They don't really work too well for him because he usually forgets to take the lists with him. However, maybe if he made me a list, put it on my desk and left me alone until I had my coffee he would manage to avoid kissing a skillet. Of course, there's always the possibility that he just likes living dangerously. He did tell me this morning that he won't be complaining about me to the cat anymore. He's discovered that she doesn't listen to him any better than I do. She's a cat for heavens sake, what did he expect?

It's safe to say that I am not at my best first thing in the morning. Although I'm an early riser, I like to ease in to my morning with a cup of coffee and some silence. I have been married to the same man for a long enough time that he should know that by now. Unfortunately, if he does know it, he doesn't understand it.

He's the variety of human (I think he's human) that hits the ground running. Bustling and full of energy and needing to have this done, needing to know where something is. Am I going to do this or that today? Do I plan on getting something done with...whatever? No, I plan on hitting you in the head with a frying pan, that's what I plan.
If I could muster up enough energy at 6:30 in the morning to swing something at him, I might be tempted. Very tempted.

This morning, the crisis is that he's lost a set of keys. Here in the house. He had them when he brought the van home yesterday, he used them when he ran an errand in my car. He had them again when he put something into the back of the van last night. This morning they're gone. This morning he needs to know what did I do with his keys? Close, very close.

Most of the time he loses things in plain sight. The missing keys are not one of those times. If I can't find them here in the house today, I will have to go and look in the car or on the lawn. Last time they were laying in plain sight on the back seat of the car. The time before that on the front porch railing, again in plain sight. If they are in either of those two places this time, he better pray that I'm too tired to swing something when he gets home tonight. I haven't gone to look. He's gone and I plan on enjoying my coffee. It's safer that way, really.

Using round figures, Hubby's business in 2003 grossed close to $100,000. In 2006, 3 years later it grossed $60,000. That's a decline of 40% in lost revenue. There are a number of factors that affected this decline, but largely it has to do with the economy.

Too many manufacturing jobs left the area between 2000 and 2005. The real estate market was on the rise, new construction, rehabilitation of old properties, new state regulations concerning septic systems all made the market look as if it was the place to be. So, the unemployed availed themselves of the free training offered by the state and with grants they were allowed, due to their unemployed status, started their own construction businesses. Start up businesses acquire customers by being cheaper than established businesses. At first, we didn't see any loss. It wasn't until our customers began to feel the pinch of the higher mortgage interest rates that we started to lose. At first it wasn't a big loss, but then Katrina happened.

You don't stop to think that catastrophic weather occurances and their attendant damage would have any affect on a business located in central NYS, but it did. Gas went from $1.96 per gallon to well over $3. When your business runs on gas, and you average 4 miles per gallon, this gets serious. On top of what we charge for our services, you add 9%. That is New York State Sales Tax, and that 9% can mean the difference between our keeping a job or having it go to someone who is hungry enough to cut his price back to keep the business. We've lost jobs to others who charge as little as $5 less, or who has said "Pay me cash and I won't charge sales tax". It happens, and if caught, the penalties aren't worth it. Our material suppliers have raised their prices because of their increased gas costs, so a concrete septic tank which used to cost us $400 is now $700. We've lost too many installations this year to this problem, so our income may decline more this year.

New York State considers septage a hazardous waste. In order to haul and dump septage we must have a permit. That permit costs $1000 annually. We also must comply with a minimum amount of liability insurance designated by the state in order to be granted that permit. The minimum is $1,000,000 which costs us $6000 annually then we also have the vehicle insurance which runs another $3000. The sales tax that we collect and hand over to NYS is considered part of our gross income. I don't feel it should be because we can't use it. Just those 3 items, sales tax, permits and insurance amounts to $15,000 deducted from our gross income. Then NYS grabs us for registration of the vehicle and because we're a business we must pay Highway Use Tax, and the county charges us another $500 for a permit to use their sewage facilities. The newer contractors didn't get in to this part of the business, so they don't have the mandatory insurance minimums, plus they don't have the permits. Our gross following these deductions is now $42,000. The newer contractors just have the registration of their vehicles and most of them got around the highway tax by using lighter vehicles. Some of them don't carry liability insurance at all except on their vehicles. So there's $15,000 in deductions that they don't have. They do have to pay commercial vehicle insurance.

From that you start deducting, advertising, gas and dumpage because in addition to the permits we pay by the gallon to offload the septage into an approved manhole. Material costs, office supplies, telephone, utilitites, and upkeep of the equipment all must be deducted. Once they are all out we then must deduct Social Security, Medicare, federal income and state income taxes from whats left. We then become a family of 2 living on less than $20,000 annually. That is the reality of small businesses in New York State. More than half of them don't survive. We've managed to stay in business for 20 years, we've just never managed to make the kind of profit we'd like to make.

We disbanded the corporation in 2002 because in addition to all these other deductions we also had to pay Corporate income tax, and unemployment tax on Hubby who could not collect it unless he got rid of the business because he was the sole stockholder and President of the corporation. As far as we were concerned, paying a corporate income tax based on the income of the corporation and then paying personal income tax on money we've all ready paid taxes on just felt like the federal government and the state had their fingers too deeply into our pockets. We turned in the business certificate and the State tried to grab us for unpaid taxes on the Corporation for the first year we were in business under another name and with a different business certificate. I spent a full year disputing their claims and I finally won.

If the economy were as strong as Bushwhackers Incorporated are trying to tell us it is, these kinds of losses would not be happening. Our middle class would be stronger, there would be a real estate market with homes increasing in value and adequate new construction. It wouldn't be so hard to make a living, even with all the new businesses because there would be enough to go around. Eventually there will be an upshift for Hubby and myself, we just have to survive the downtrend and hang on to what we have as best we can.