Hey Jakey,

Here is the sum total of all our hard work this spring and summer: five underripe mystery squashes, three "Red Cheese" sweet peppers, and two "Green Zebra" tomatoes. Quite a harvest, no? Considering that we started in March with a garage-ful of carefully tended seedlings, committed them to the ground in June, watered every single, stinkin' day... the digging, the weeding, the Home Depot sprees... and this is all we have to show for it. Freak frosts killed everything in June, and everything that didn't die then, struggled through to September, only to die in sub-freezing temps a couple of weeks ago.

I give up, I really do. I can't take the heart-ache. When I was pregnant with you a couple of years ago, I wrote a column for the paper comparing the tending of my burgeoning womb to the tending of my prolific hills of squash in the back yard. It was sappy, really, but apt. And then they died in a frost, and my thoughts naturally turned to worrisome thoughts of you and my failures to make living things thrive. Apparently I'm better at growin' babies than I am at growin' pumpkins.

Horrible meeting today. I was supposed to meet with X and X at 9am. I drive down to the Carson office and arrive by 8:58 and wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, at 10:36 X shows up. I've had this very same problem with her in the past, and it makes me LIVID. Finally the other X show up, at least with a legitimate excuse involving his 13-year-old son getting a concussion and going to the emergency room. He shows up, apologizes, then takes off again.

So it was just me and X for the rest of the day.

Sweetie, life lesson here, so pay attention. There's only one thing worse than being overworked and underpaid: listening to someone else bitch and complain about being overworked and underpaid. X moaned and groaned all day about how busy she is, how late she worked the night before, how she's almost had a breakdown. Uh-huh. Get over it, honeybunch, we're all right there with you, especially working for this company. Whenever anyone complains about how overworked they are, there's usually an undertone of "you couldn't possibly understand..."

So if you ever do find yourself wanting to bitch about how horrible your job is, sweetie, then get yourself a blog and whine about it there, cuz your co-workers will have zero sympathy for you.

But I don't think you ever will be in that situation, darling, because filthy rich rock stars usually have nothing to complain about. Love you, and take care of your daddy tomorrow, cuz I'm takin' a break and going to the Wine Walk & Shop with C for a few hours. I deserve it, cuz I'm terribly overworked and underpaid.