I'm a freelancer, and my husband (bless him) just finished the taxes. Next year, we are going to a real accountant who, as Catherine says, chose this as his profession.

Nice to know there are other freelancers out there.

I just turned down a job today, at a well-known cube farm with great benefits. Just can't bring myself to do it again. It wouldn't be fair to them if I go completely postal in the first two weeks, would it? Two hours later, my email pinged, and another job came in my queue. Sometimes, when I read the financial papers, I think I must be nuts to be a freelancer. But my dread of fluorescent lights, beige carpet, and cubicle mazes keeps me here. And I get to hang out with my dog all day long.

And I even showered before 1:00 today!

I would agree that Katie Couric was miscast in her role as news anchor, and that the network did some woefully stupid things (leg shots? Honestly. How come Dan Rather never had butt shots?)

However we deal out the blame, it doesn't change the fundamental problem that the network cast the wrong PERSON for the job, not the wrong gender.

Katie Couric was perfect in the morning--informal, upbeat, full of human interest shows about whatever was happening. The evening news is an entirely different format. There are plenty of women newscasters who could have pulled it off, but the network was trying to "spice up" its failing evening news show with adding Katie, and the attempt failed. People don't want spiced up evening news... they want serious, sober reporting. Plenty of women can do that job, and do it well. Unfortunately not Katie, or at least not with the zillions of different instructions the poor woman must have been getting every day as the ratings fell further.

"Be more upbeat! No, more serious! Be softer, we need more women viewers! Be funny, we need more laughs! Show your legs, maybe we'll get some men! Oh forget that, we need Walter Cronkite! Can you be him?"

I don't see this as a gender issue. I see it as an issue with a network that doesn't know what it wants. One woman cannot resurrect a dying format. If they'd gotten a serious, staid, calming presence, (male or female) they would have complained that he/she wasn't warm enough. They got their warm, human person, but she wasn't sober enough. Whatever.

and they can't remember life without her. Now that they're in elementary school, and the dog is just as much part of the family as one of the kids, I've had to explain that she'll only live about 4 more years, maybe 6, and that's pushing it for a big dog.

I know what's coming, I've been through the deaths of pets before, and it doesn't make it any easier. But the kids haven't. I wish I could spare them what will come about middle school or so.

She's 8, and big... still a puppy who loves to wrestle and fetch and greet people at the door. She does sleep a lot more now during the day when the house is quiet, and her muzzle has gone white. It makes me sad.

It's no surprise to anyone with a checkbook that Starbuck's is not a necessity. When times get tight, you cut the frills. Coffee itself may not be a frill, but Starbuck's is.

I love my cuppa joe as much as the next caffeine-jived person, but mine comes from my coffee pot at home. $4 a pound at Costco, brewed in a pot at home, goes right in the thermos. Voila. Hot coffee all day when I need to go out.

I'd bet that restaurants of all kinds are in the same bind. When money is tight, people brown-bag their lunches. Starbuck's, at the end of the day, is a restaurant like any other. And unless you're traveling for work, restaurants are not a necessity.

Our local science museum puts on fabulous science camps all summer long, for all ages. Dinosaur camps. Archaeology camps. Volcano camps. Camps to look at tidepools and seawater under microscopes. Travel camps to places out of state. Astronomy camps. All great stuff, reasonably priced, no second mortgage on the house needed. If you live anywhere near a decent science museum, it's worth some research.

I'm with the "send 'em to another camp" camp. Camp is great. The camping part... making friends, having fun, hiking, being outdoors, singing songs, etc. The judgemental, anti-intellectual part I can give a pass to.

My dad worked his whole career for Ma Bell. AKA blue collar union job that mostly doesn't exist any more. When he was young (late 50s), the old-timers told him stories about the depression.

What Ma Bell did, during the depression, was cut everyone's hours equally, and they didn't lay off anyone. The phone guys knew they had the loyalty of each other, their union, and their company, and they all survived. No one starved. They got down to where they worked 10 hours a week or less, but no one starved. In the 50s, they reminisced about how those were the best years--they had all the time in the world to camp, to fish, to work on their houses with scrounged materials, to play with their kids.

It's another relic that will unfortunately never come again, that concept of loyalty to and loyalty from a company. I've been laid off, I've been left behind when my friends got the axe. All of it sucks. I'd like to hear about just one company that weathers this economic storm by keeping their workers instead of dumping them like rotten fish.