A lifetime ago, I took two Disney cruises. The cruise ship had a spa which included such amazing indulgences as scented showers and heated ceramic-tile loungers. I cannot impress upon you how amazing it is sit in a steam room, then take a minty shower and lie on a heated chair to dry off, surrounded by peaceful music and warm towels.

While I sat in my lounge chair and reveled in my pre-divorce, pre-recession lucky ducky life, I sipped upon water that had oranges in it. It was refreshing and seemed so decadent in its simplicity. But how often do you really cut orange slices and put it into a pitcher? Me? Never.

Until last week.

I bought an infuser pitcher off of QVC (I know, I know) and the day it came in, I was off to the grocery store to buy oranges.

And while I can’t replicate a ceramic tile lounger and peppermint extract in my shower leaves much to be desired, I can sit here and sip on ice cold orange-water and smile.

***
So I’ve spent the last 3 days roleplaying in my mind exactly how I’d act if I was let go. Some may say that I’ll bring the negativity to me by doing that, but these exercises prevent me from sobbing like an orphan or going all William Wallace on the office. Sometimes I need a script.

I don’t have the money saved up that I should and I don’t know on which day this week the axe will fall. But I have a great guy, a great family, awesome friends and a pitcher of orange water.

Bring it.

My face: I had a very nice Proactiv/Hope in a Jar regimen going twice a day. Now my zits and rosacea have come back with a vengeance. Must nip that in the bud.

My diet: Wawa sandwiches for breakfast? Sure! Frosting as a side dish? Totally! Pizza? Make that pizzas, plural.

Christmas: I should have lights and the tree up by now. We did get a new addition to our Christmas village, though. I’ll show you that later.

Baking: I need to find easy cookie recipes, where I can refrigerate dough in advance and bake over the weekends or two.

Fun plans for the future: I went the whole of 2009 without traveling (sans BlogHer). WM wants to go to Disney in spring. Mom wants to take a cruise in summer. And I still haven’t been down to see Dad’s place in FL.

Car: On 2 occasions now, about 10 days apart, it didn’t start. I tried again, and it didn’t start. I tried again and it almost started. I let it rest for 5 minutes, tried again, and it started just fine. It last did this Black Friday. It’s been running fine since. Any ideas on this?

Today’s word:
Pyrrhic: adj \ achieved at excessive cost; also: costly to the point of negating or outweighing expected benefits.

Example sentence: My keeping my job was a pyrrhic victory, because Coworker S lost hers in my place.

When the dust finally settled today I still had my job. Sadly, and I totally mean that, Coworker S was among the 30+ talented people who lost hers. It’s like they made a list of all of the awesome, hard workers and laid half of them off. (And added one complete buffoon to the mix just so we’d have something to cheer, but that victory belongs to another department.)

I hired her years ago when I was a hotshot manager. She’s funny, creative, talented and helped me pick up the pieces when BvP and I split up. We took walks to the 7-11 across the street, had numerous pizza lunches, and even more happy hour drinks together. She was my work best friend. We sat next to each other for years. And now that seat is empty. And although she’ll always be my friend (we’re going to see Twilight sometime this weekend) it’s going to be damn lonely.

I’m not even processing the fact that I have to do 2x the work yet. I don’t care. What gets done, gets done. I could rage about the “Hey…I thought Online was our future?” issue, but the powers that be are sitting in an ostentatious building in Virginia, and out of the range of my voice. And, you know…whatever. It’s not my company to run, thank God. I just can’t get past the fact that when push came to shove, they sacked the single mom and let the higher-paid one stay. It makes no sense, not morally, and not fiscally.

I have a raging headache and feel sick to my stomach. So I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I’ll load up my iPod with crap and try to forget that 99% of the people I loved working with are gone.

I know I was to finish up the Black Friday wrap up tonight, but this coming week is layoff week at work. It may happen tomorrow. It may happen Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or if I’m lucky, not at all this time. I’m out of my mind with worry and just can’t think straight.

I took all of my personal effects from my workspace on Wednesday night so if they let me go, I don’t have to put up with any packing. Just say my goodbyes and head out. Updates as necessary through my twitter.

So if you have a chance this week, send a good thought to me and Coworker S.

On a happier note, tomorrow is my brother’s birthday, and if I still have my job, I’m off on Friday. So there.

I begin work at 9am. Most of the rest of the non-news folks start at 8:30am. I’m not even sure why I’m a 9:00 start, but I cherish the extra sleep. Take a look at the map below, which compares where I had to park at 9am 4 years ago, versus today.

Depressing, isn’t it?

In late October we were informed that Gannett would be culling 10% of payroll (or positions, still not completely sure yet) the first week of December. With three weeks behind us and two weeks ahead of us, morale is quickly fading. Do you blame us?

And I’m getting paranoid. I’m reading into things I shouldn’t. Like…

Two major projects that I have a part in. One has to be done now now now! And the other has to be done by December 1. And even though I can tell you that December 1 is the first day of the month on Gannett’s fiscal calendar, I can’t help but think it’s because I’ll be gone by the end of the week.

Or the big department move to a much quieter corner of the room. (Yes, I am still coding in the middle of a noisy sales floor with phones constantly ringing and sales reps yelling over my head.) It was going to be a month ago. Then the project was suddenly stopped in favor of another project. My stuff has been in boxes since before Halloween. When will our move be complete? I’m told mid-December.

And objectively, it’s November. In November, projects are likely to be done in December. The impending layoffs are finally starting to get to me.

Everyone tells me that I’ll be fine because I’m online and online’s the future. But I have to disagree. Salespeople will always be cherished most of all because they bring in money. My position is support staff, I produce things, I don’t sell them or bill them. What I do can be done by someone right out of college for far less money than what I’m making now. The creative stuff can be easily outsourced, too.

I don’t think anyone is safe this time around. Either way, I just want it to be over.

Oh, this Friday Five was tailor-made for me! It’s called: Stupidity

1. What’s something really, really stupid you’ve done that could easily have resulted in your own death?
I’ve left candles burning in my apartment overnight and while I’m at work. I’ve also met numerous online people in person – nothing turned out badly (I vet people pretty well) but I’ve heard that sometimes online encounters go bad.

2. What makes you feel stupid?
When I don’t get the whole story about something, either personal or work-related, then my lack of knowledge is put on full display when everyone around me knows everything.

3. What’s something that’s stupid in a very smart way?
Pari!s H!lt0n. She makes money being a stupid heiress.

4. What’s an example of a stupid idea working out in a way that solved a problem?
“Let’s just duct tape it back together!” Who’d have thunk that you could tape things like furniture, cars, appliances, etc, and they’d actually stay together?

5. There is apparently a brand of packaged popcorn called Smartfood. What might be found in the package labeled Stupidfood?
Cheese puffs. They’re radioactive orange, mostly air, and just a skosh of cheese. They’re addictive, so you can eat an entire bag at one sitting and get absolutely no value out of them whatsoever.

***
What a freaking nutty week. I’m still so very thankful the layoffs passed over me. Must have been the lamb’s blood I painted on my cube wall. Of course, the rumor mill has started up already saying there will be more in December. Whatevs.

***
Wanna sneaky-peeky of my redesign?:

I’m writing this 99% from scratch, just lifting the WordPress tags from past templates and the Codex. It’s a hell of a challenge, especially continuously checking it in Firefox, IE, and Safari. My goal is to have it launch on September 1. Major challenges include: 1) How to get my sidebars to extend all the way down to the footer? 2) What to do with my HUGE list of links? 2) Re-re-recoding the hostess picture page, and 3) turning “Pets” into “Cast of Characters” page – because seriously, if you’re new to this site, how the heck will you know who WM, Coworker S, and BvP are? I’m proud of the little date block, which I saw on quite a few blogs but coded all by myself!

By the power of Suze, I swear I’m going to work hard to beef up my savings to get at least 6 months’ worth of expenses in there. Because I think this is only the beginning of things.

I’m so sleepy. I haven’t slept well since the memo came out last Thursday.

WM and I like to peruse garage sales Saturday mornings. We mostly look for old books, old Disney stuff, and chickens.

WM’s mother collects chickens. Rather, she hates chickens and because of that he buys her the ugliest ones he can find. They are all over her house. On one of our jaunts, we found the above beauty, and he snatched it up for $3.00. It was meant to be sent off to Michigan.

It’s been 2 months now, and it’s still sitting on top of our printer, pointed toward whoever deserves to be stared at by a Judgmental Chicken of DOOM. (Right now, it’s WM. Don’t ask.) With each passing day, the hope that JCoD will soon leave my humble abode fades even more.

And still…it just stares…judgmentally.

***
So remember when I swore off reading that blog that does nothing but scare me about layoffs? It was right. Gannett’s laying off 600 employees companywide. And the Courier-Post will be laying off 35 of its workforce early next week. We got the memo today, and now we wait until next week to see who’ll be shown the door. Will it be me? Conventional wisdom says no, because online is growing and online employees are valuable. But in the grand scheme of things, we’re no more valuable than anyone else there. The C-P has been a part of how I identify myself for so long now – I’d miss it.

Obviously, I could go on for pages about this. Won’t do any good.

Ironically, this morning I added headlines from my C-P World of Warcraft blog to my sidebar.

The C-P wasn’t affected. I live to code another day.

I’m not very concerned. I’m rolling out a biggie project at work, so I have job security ’til at least next Thursday.