I refuse to be ashamed ...

either of being out of "work" as of five o'clock today, or of needing to go find other "work" in a couple weeks.

When I reflect on all the years I have been employed, fifty five to be approximate, and what I have to show for it, I could be discouraged. I could consider myself an outright failure. However, I do not.

Admittedly, the loot doesn't even fill a medium sized storage facility. And every time there was a windfall, pension plan closing, 401k dispersed, it went to pay indebtedness not to my retirement plan.

So, I'm not a great money manager. I did manage to get four children grown and educated mostly while acceptably attired for the place and times. (Now there are some photographs that might contradict me, but there was abject complicity on the part of the children.)

Most of my income producing years were spent at jobs I enjoyed or endured, selling because it paid, writing and producing commercials because I loved doing it. If I had a demo reel of the radio and tv spots, the speeches, the letters and the programs, I would be proud for you to see them. I do not have one.

But, if you'd like to see the photographs of the places we went, the meals and birthday parties we had, and the many friends we made and still have, it was a pretty good life. You have never heard the whiny "single mom strugglin'" song issue from my lips. In retrospect I have a hard time pinpointing where I went wrong, which choices and decisions turned out " bad" and what I would have done differently.

"Single adventurer with a PhD in Anthropology writes major work on an previously undocumented family in a mountain tree house" would have been a more exciting life but I won't know it.

Now I will spend a week or two visiting with family, children and grandchildren; eating out with friends, maybe even a trip to the Alabama coast for white sand, blue water, great seafood and fun with family there. I will clean out my closet and give the things I haven't worn in a couple of moves to people who have even less. I will volunteer at a couple of places where I should have been doing so already. And then I will set out to find another "job" ... they are no longer "career choices" ... they are jobs. I will need to have a job because, much as I love that chunk of change that shows up in my bank account on the second Wednesday of every month, it is not enough to "pay the bills." My monthly Social Security check is the most money ever contributed to my regular upkeep. Yes, I know I paid some of it, but it is still the most "support" I've ever had. Someday I will have to learn to live on it but not this year. This year I must find a job.

So, if you hear of anyone looking for an adequate administrative assistant or something, have them give me a call ... but not this week!