An answer to prayer. Sort of.

I looked at the screen on my cell phone as it rang and groaned silently. L. calling me after work hours was never a good thing, but calling me while I'm out of town visiting my mom meant that something catastrophic must have happened at work.

"Hello," I said in an apprehensive tone.

"You picked a hell of a time to go on vacation," the voice on the other end said.

"Oh, Lord. What happened now?" I asked.

"They fired Brian, Andrew, and Jonathan today."

My heart sank.

I was most upset over Brian's firing. He was our Executive Vice-President, a position just under The Big Kahuna, and I considered him to be our "Saviour." I had hoped that once the investors dropped kicked The Big Kahuna and The Controller to the curb, that Brian would be able to step in and run this company with an integrity and a professionalism that had been missing. I had no idea that once the investors discovered that financial misdealings had been going on that they would back out altogether, essentially drop kicking the whole lot of us instead of the people responsible for this mess.

Having no one to turn to for financial support, The Big Kahuna was forced to cut payroll, and he started with the three biggest salaries in the company, outside of The Controller and himself.

It has become clear to me that I can no longer work for this company. The idea of working for unscrupulous people with no redemption in sight does not appeal to me, to say the least. Besides, with no investors, I don't expect the papers to be around in 12 months. Why wait for the apocalypse when I can get out now?

This is the beginning of the end for The Big Kahuna. He may be able to keep it together for a while, but things are rapidly deteriorating. The house of wickedness and deception that he has built is starting to crumble around him.

I suppose this may be a sort of answer to my prayer, only I had hoped that it would end with me sticking around to see the return of virtuous leadership. At this point, I would be satisfied with God orchestrating for me an exit out of this hell hole, then He and I can call it even.

The power of roses

On our first Valentine's Day as a couple, The Boyfriend got me purple tulips from 1-800-flowers.com. They were gorgeous flowers, beautifully arranged in an attractive red vase. I loved them.

The best part was that The Stripper also received tulips from 1-800-flowers.com that day, but mine looked better than hers. It was as if the gods had decided that it wasn't fair that she should have a better body AND a better Valentine's gift than me.

I received flowers from The Boyfriend again today, but this time they were roses. ROSES! And as much as I loved those tulips, these roses seem much more romantic, sexier even. They make me want to throw The Boyfriend down on the bed, rip his clothes off and do dirty, nasty, porn star things to him. Too bad he lives 500 miles away.

It's a shame to spend all that money on a Valentine's gift and not get to reap the benefits of your girlfriend's gratitude.

Concubines and the Bible

Last night, for some unknown reason, I got the urge to study concubines in the Bible. My findings created more questions than answers, so I thought I would air them out here.

In the Old Testament, concubines were women who slept with and had a long-term, committed relationship with a man they were not married to. I thought this was an interesting concept that deserved further study so I pulled out my concordance. A concordance is a book that contains a list of every word in the Bible. I can look up a word and see every occurrence of it in scriptures. I looked up the word "concubine" and found that nowhere in the Bible does God speak against concubines. Nowhere. Apparently, it was an accepted form of behavior to Him. At least at that time.

It's important to note that the Old Testament view of adultery is very different from our modern (or even New Testament) view. Adultery in the Old Testament was defined by a man sleeping with a married woman or a married woman sleeping with a man who is not her husband. Back in the day, women were considered property. Taking someone else's property is considered unlawful and immoral. It appears that there was nothing unlawful or immoral about a man sleeping with a single woman, as in the case of concubines. Men were allowed to have many sexual partners (multiple wives and concubines) but a woman could only sleep with one person -- her husband or her Sugar Daddy.

A very misogynistic practice. God has some splainin' to do.

It's also interesting to note that in the New Testament, it states that a husband is to have one wife and a wife is to have one husband.* This begs an observation and then a question. The God that was God in the Old Testament is , presumably, the same God that is God in the New Testament. If that's the case, then why was polygamy and multiple sex partners allowed in the Old Testament but not in the New? Did God change (I find this hard to believe) or did the culture (and what was considered right and just) change? Did God create laws based on the cultural mores of that particular time? Or is this Bible business all a bunch of hooey made up by man?

I don't have an answer. I just felt this whole issue of concubines made great food for thought.

(* Although the male-female marriage model is up for debate)

Like a Mary Kay party. For blogs.

Fringes and Q (the second most adorable couple in blogland behind The Boyfriend and myself) are hosting a Blog Makeover Challenge. The rules are simple: Just make a comment on one of their insanely funny posts and nominate someone (and by "someone", I mean me!) to receive a FREE blog makeover. When you nominate my another person's blog, you also enter your own blog in the contest. The more blogs you nominate, the more chances you have to win. On February 29, two lucky winners will receive a FREE blog makeover. Did I mention the blog makeovers were FREE?

So get yourself over to Where are the naked pictures? and start commenting!