Christmas is coming..

It's that time again. I have gift shopping pretty easy this year, thankfully, my brother is engaged, so he and his fiance are getting something off their registry, and he's usually the hardest to shop for. My parents are fairly simple and grandmothers are grandmothers, not too bad. I'm making it a pseudo tradition of going to my parents' for Thanksgiving, so I try to get all my shopping done by then, that way I can bring everything with me on the plane. So for the most part that's a done deal. I only have my husband and in laws to shop for now, and my husband actually requested something this year, AND showed me a picture of it so I can't get it wrong. The in laws I'm going to leave in his court. I have no idea what to get them.

Actually this is the first year they'll be spending all together with us. Usually my mother-in-law goes up to see her daughter and other relatives in Long Island and Nantucket, and in recent years she has been taking my father-in-law along with her. Unfortunately they are staying because they have to, not because they want to. My father-in-law's health is failing, he is 87 years young, and they had to cancel their trip so he can stay home for radiation treatment. My mother-in-law is 80, and she has cancer too.

It may be selfish of me, but I'm kind of glad they have to stay for my husband's sake. I think he will really appreciate spending the holiday together, like a real family for a change. He even put up our Christmas tree last night, which in itself is a Christmas miracle. In the seven years we've lived together, he has never, ever done anything to contribute to the Christmas preparations. Every other woman I know has been talking about their husbands fighting with the lights and the tree, and I finally put my foot down, two weeks before Christmas, and I told him that if he didn't put up the tree I just wasn't going to bother with it this year. Bah humbug. It's not really any fun to do it all by yourself.

At my parents house it's usually something we would do on a weekend day, go out and get a fresh tree, then come home and watch dad wrastle the tree in the house, then fight with the lights while me and mom wait to decorate it and listen to Christmas music. Good time had by all. But I guess everyone thinks their family's holiday traditions are the best. Ray doesn't talk much about his family holiday memories, makes me think he doesn't have any worth sharing, but that's another story and it's not mine so I won't get into it.

Let's see... how's work going? Oh, okay. The boss is still out of town. He took his wife, the baby and their yappy dog down to the Keys for the past two and a half weeks. I guess his intention was to have a bunch of family and friends come down over the weekends to spend time together, but every time I've talked to him he sounds more stressed out than usual. The first weekend, his parents and brother went down to stay, which worked out great for me because both he and his father were out of my hair for a brief period - fantastic. Apparently it worked out great for him too because this was the only time in their vacation they had a baby sitter - his mom - which as a first time grandmother, she just loved.

Let me preface this part by saying that I don't dislike my boss but that we have a very strange working relationship. We are pretty close in age, in fact he is only six years older than me, just like my own brother. Ironically he has a brother my age too. His wife is much younger, I may have mentioned that before, about the princess bride. We generally speak very candidly to each other, which in some ways is refreshing. I hate people that beat around the bush. It seems like our relationship has been strained ever since the baby came into the picture. However, since he's been away I have been re-examining this tension between us. I had previously told myself that it was because I was mad at him for not putting any effort into the business, my number one priority, but lately I've been thinking that I'm just plain old jealous. I mean they are a pretty young, good looking, successful couple, brand new healthy baby, frankly they are nauseating. His wife is five or six years younger than me and makes twice as much money with half the education and he treats her like a princess as does everyone she works with, literally. I'm sure I've already mentioned that she lost all of the baby weight immediately upon giving birth - barf. So, since he's been away I've been nicer to him over the phone, I admit the first couple of days I was just plain old curt, but I'm dealing with it. I just realized today that he maxed out the thirty thousand dollar credit card limit, and I'm purposely not making a payment until Monday - ha, that'll teach them.

Every time he's called me from vacation he's walking around town or whispering so his wife can't hear, I guess she doesn't want him talking business on vacation, but some situations are unavoidable. And it's not me calling him either, don't be mistaken, I'm totally self sufficient running this office. Sometimes he calls me or sends me an e-mail at the most unusual times, to share a special moment he had when he was kyaking at sunrise or going to get the most incredible Cuban coffee, he has his moments.

His first week away he called me and was upset because he and his wife couldn't do anything fun. He brought along all his scuba gear and jet skis, but they couldn't use them because the weather wasn't right. Then the next week it was that they couldn't do anything in between feeding and cleaning up shit - his words, not mine. He has gotten progressively grumpier throughout their vacation, the baby 'won't let him rest'. I'm not quite sure what he was expecting.

I'm pretty sure that they held the baby constantly the first two weeks after he was born and now he is getting weaned from that, as they feel he should be sleeping more and interfering with their yuppie-wanna-be lives. If you've ever had to 'wean' anything, it's not fun. We breed horses and eventually the babies have to be weaned from their mamas and it's not only very sad, but they usually make a fare amount of unbearable noise for a few days. I can imagine it really hasn't been that fun of a trip between the baby crying all night and the dog barking at the baby crying.

In the interest of holiday spirit, I'm putting my jealousy behind me - which is easier to do when you call it what it is. Aside from that, jealousy is ugly and I don't need any of that.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

This isn't the first nightmare I've had about work...

This week before the boss' three week vacation to the Keys has been particularly tense. He, himself has been overly stressed, and has been projecting it onto the rest of us lackeys. I'm pretty sure he had his dad in to be reprimanded on more than one occasion (I guess that's one of the perks of having your own business). He just keeps asking me if there's 'anything I need to get off my chest' before he goes on vacation. I broke down after we came back from Arkansas and told them (his dad, because my boss is too busy to listen to anything having to do with my personal life, and if his dad deems it important, he will relay the message to the boss) that we had made an offer on a place and we are very excited. Of course I did say that we'll be using it for a vacation home, at least until we come to a turning point with my in-laws - which who knows when that will be, tomorrow, three years, it's anybody's guess. Before the baby was born I was getting a sense of cold shoulder, and had considered that the boss' wife may decide to come and take my place, rather than go back to work at her job. Now that the baby is here, I think the boss is realizing how much easier having me here to 'do him favors' is making his and her lives. That's not to say that he really appreciates it though.

One of the other secretaries was in my office Monday, asking about Thanksgiving and exchanging the usual polite banter when the boss came in. Instead of saying 'Good morning' or 'Hi' to her, he just stood there holding the piece of paper he wanted to give me waiting for her to leave. Noticing how rude his behavior was I went to her later and apologized, of course it wasn't the first time he has completely snubbed her. She said she just couldn't understand why he was never friendly to her, and I agreed, although he treats me the same way. Never 'Good morning, how was your weekend' just straight to the commands or demands, usually followed by a request for me to update my 'to do list'. In fact, her boss and his wife are way friendlier to me than my own. I could make a business out of apologizing for him, I swear. He did the same thing to her mid-week, for which, again I apologized to her and tried to assure her that it wasn't her, it's definitely him.

As his departures nears, his behavior worsens. I don't know if you have ever witnessed an adult temper tantrum, but it's definitely something to be seen at least once.

Last night around five (that's when I leave, five), he calls me and asks 'for a favor'. What am I supposed to say to that?

Not to get sidetracked, but my last job I worked for a Jewish fellow (not that his religious denomination has anything to do with it, merely an observation) who, when I told him I needed time off or to leave early he would say 'sure, that's fine, but you'll owe me one.' Finally one day I got so sick of him saying it that I burst out in anger and told him 'NO, there's no owing you one! Either you give me the paid time off (because I was salary) or you make the adjustment to my check!' Yes, that's right, I had cut off my nose to spite my face and told them not to pay me for time off and, as requested, they didn't.

So, of course I said I'd be happy to do him a favor. Then he proceeds to break into a rant about how he went to the jet ski place to pick up his jet skis to take to the Keys and they weren't ready, and he knew he shouldn't have gone there, that people had warned him about this place, and they charged him for parts and they shouldn't have, etc. A real live rant. Bottom line, can I call the place and smooth things over so that he can go back and pick up the jet skis tonight because they are planning to leave for vacation in the middle of the night. Apparently, he didn't hold back when he found out that the jet skis weren't ready - to the extent that he didn't want to have to see anyone who worked there. His request was that I get them to leave the jet skis on the trailer outside of their gate, so he could come by later and not have to talk to anyone or sign anything. I called their office, my first attempt I got hung up on, I'm not saying it was on purpose, just a coincidence... and eventually get hold of the girl he had been 'dealing' with. I explained to her that I worked for Mr. So-And-So, who was just there and what did we have to do to get him out of her hair? Basically, she was more than happy to have the technicians finish their repairs and get the jet skis on the trailer, it would only take another half hour. She said they wouldn't leave them outside of the gate, but that Mr. So-And-So wouldn't have to come in to sign anything, he could just hook up to the trailer and go. FINE. I called her back, just in case he did talk to her and asked her to fax me the receipts, and told her that if Mr. So-And-So should ask her, that I was going to get back with her in the morning to discuss the bill, then reassured her that she would never hear from either of us again.

Last night I had a nightmare that I came into work this morning to find out that the jet skis weren't ready and that I had to go and pick them up myself and drive them nine hours down to where they are staying in the keys.

He checked in with me this morning, and said that I sounded like I was in a better mood - he did get the jet skis, no problem.

Two hours later he calls back from his wife's cell phone. 'I LOST MY *&%$-ING PHONE!' Ready for a real tantrum? You know those people who rely on their cell phones as a way of life? My boss is one of them, he doesn't go anywhere without it, that includes the bathroom (I called him there once by accident). 'I lost a bunch of numbers, I'm not going to be able to get my calls, you'll have to forward my calls to my wife's phone, I'm not going to be able to get another phone right away...' It went on for a few minutes, until I interrupted and assured him that I could get him another phone overnighted (I wasn't really sure, but I would say just about anything to pacify him at this point, especially after the jet ski saga last night) to where he was staying, and that I would also send him his cable to sync to his laptop, which has all of his important numbers. He settled down for a minute and was able to tell me how he lost the phone... Apparently, he was adjusting the jet skis in the parking lot of a rest stop and accidentally called someone, so he took the phone out of his pocket to hang it up and left it on top of the jet skis and drove off. He went right back and it was gone. Then he decided that he didn't want the same phone, he wanted me to instead get him a better one anyways, fine.
I hang up with him and get on the phone with the cell phone company for what I am anticipating to be a long, drawn out call. Just as I'm having his phone deactivated, he calls on the other line. Someone picked up the phone and called his mother with it and she called his wife and they were going to meet him and get it back. SO, I real quick put him on hold and scream at the cell phone lady to stop what she's doing - he found the phone! Thank god for modern technology. No offense, but I hope both their batteries go dead so I don't hear from him again today. I always come to work on Friday thinking it's going to be a great day to slack off, but it doesn't seem to be working out for me.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Tonight I'm on my way home to celebrate with my family. I feel a little guilty leaving Ray and his parents though. Originally his parents were supposed to go up to Long Island to visit his sister and their other relatives, but had to post pone their trip due to medical issues. I didn't feel bad leaving Ray at the farm alone - I like to give him a little reality check once in a while of what it's like to take care of all the animals alone, but now I feel little bad about leaving his parents.

Oh well, I'm on the road again. Of course not with out the usual strife at work.

Yesterday was particularly stressful. My boss has hardly been in the office since about two weeks before his son was born and is going on vacation again to Key West the beginning of December, so it's not like he'll be back any time soon.
In a half assed effort to still keep new business coming in, he crammed in a bunch of appointments this week. He even has his wife helping him with the estimating, the only part of his job he has left since passing off every other responsibility to me and his dad.
Last night, just before I was leaving he had and appointment with his favorite decorator - some chunky broad, who in my opinion, judging by the work I have seen that she has done for him previously, I am not impressed. I don't know what it is about the 'South', but they seem to be a little behind the times, if you know what I mean. So he was meeting with her and a new client, to go over changes she wanted to make to the house design. Before the meeting I just happenned into the conference room and noticed that the blueprints were on the table - how convenient. When the boss showed up ten minutes before the meeting, he was already in 'a mood.' That means half-way to tizzy town. He made a big stink because the client was two minutes late (that's literal) and the decorator was five minutes late, even though he himself - in the next room - was ten minutes late because he was on the phone. .
So far, not so good.
When he sits down at the conference table he realized that the plans on the table are the originals, and there had been changes made to them that were not shown. I don't handle the blueprints. I don't know how to read them and basically they don't have anything to do with my part of the job, so I really don't pay any attention to them. However, since I was the only punching bag around, I had to bear the wrath for not having the new prints on the table. I actually felt a little embarrassed for him, and the clients, from the way he was acting. He insisted that I get his dad and the superintendant on the phone immediately and they produce the new prints - pronto - no matter where they were or what they were doing. It was ten minutes til five o'clock, before I picked up the phone I knew where they were and what they were doing, they were on the way home, like I should have been. After several minutes of ranting, and LOTS of expletives, they decided to make due with the old prints for the time being.
When I came in this morning, I told 'dad' about the night's events, since the blueprints were his responsibility. And he said that he had spoken to the 'boss' that night. Apparently the revised prints were in the boss' office, unbeknowst to him and I. Now, he insists that someone put them there, I guess either last night or this morning. Lucky for us, he has 'things' to do today and won't be back in. Things being a cut and color from his favorite stylist down town. He gets his hair highlighted more than I do, according to his mother he's been graying prematurely for quite some time. Just before leaving, he asked me for a check, his favorite salon is only accepting cash and checks now, not credit cards, but quickly changed his mind. He decided it'd be better if I call the salon and make arrangements to bill the company, since he thinks it's a write off anyways. He also thinks his dry cleaning, groceries and many trips to the liquor store are write offs too. So he had to run out to his hair appointment and I'm pretty sure he and his wife are having massages today also - must be stressful with both of them out on maternity leave, but he did send me an e-mail saying 'Happy Thanksgiving' - back at ya.

Everything comes at a price...

We all know that in life nothing is for free and usually there is some type of price to pay for what we're looking for. I have paid that price. Been to the mountain and back as one could say. Except I mean that literaly. Last weekend we went to the mountains, now we're back.

Friday morning we got up before the butt crack of dawn, more like the middle of the night, 3:00am to depart for our journey. We actually got off without a hitch, and even considering my husbands cronic tardiness, we were only fifteen minutes late (I run on a very strict schedule). We took my car and I drove us out of Florida and thru Georgia. I let Ray take over when we hit Alabama, and boy was I glad. I wasn't too tired from driving - apparently, unbeknownst to me, Alabama's highway passes thru a series of mountains. I may as well interject now that I have an really bad fear of heights. Even looking up at mountains gets me a little nervous. We made it thru (I looked at my feet ALOT), of course thanks to my expert timing we missed out on rush hour in all the major cities, and we went thru a few, Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis. Just as we're getting into Little Rock, we start to hit some weather, what we thought was a thunderstorm (when we got to our hotel and saw the tornado warnings I shit). So we called it quits for the night, we had wanted to get another hour past but were tired and pulled into the next biggest town, Conway. Much to our suprise, Conway had a decent sized mall and was pretty bustling. I'm not sure what we were expecting, scarecrows and hillbillys I guess (the hillbillies come later). We set up camp at some overpriced dump Best Western (because of it's proximity to what looked like a really good home-style restaurant). It was still resonably early in the evening, six or seven, so we lined up the realtors for the next day, to tired to eat and passed out.

Saturday morning the adventure began, but not before the best breakfast I ever ate. We figured we had better eat a good breakfast since we didn't know when the next time we'd get to stop would be (we were on a very tight schedlue, with what seemed like a million miles to drive in between appointments). I have to throw this in, I ordered the 'Louisianna Purchase' - to die for - big pile of hash browns with cheese, sausage, ham, eggs and bacon on top, all piled up - a chunky girl's mountain of glory. Raymond, a notorious diner lover, had to get a short stack with his already huge plate of food, quite possibly both the biggest and the best pancakes either of us have ever had - he, who doesn't cook except for pancakes - actually asked them for their secret recipe.

We head down the road, with our bellies full and our minds racing with excitement of what we're about to see.
We were meeting with two realtors on Saturday and seeing three properties, then Sunday one realtor was showing us three properties in a different part of the state.

Realtor #1 (I call him that only because he was first, not best), Jim, from Clinton (my 2nd favorite president). Well, to start out, thanks to Jim's awful directions, we drove plumb past Jim's office by about ten miles before we decided to stop and call him back and question his directions to his office (he said his office was accross the street from a dinosaur - I was driving and that left Ray to navigate, Ray was looking for a tyranasaurus and it was a stegalosaurus that Jim was referring to - duh). We all caught up and he picked us up (in his smelly man-jeep). Jim probably should have eaten less garlic the night before and maybe want to consider washing up a little better before meeting with clients. Now, Jim was aware that we were meeting someone else that afternoon and we were on a fairly tight schedule (he was only showing us one property). However, he insisted on driving us around the town where the listing was, which, was practicaly abandoned. You know its a small town when they have one school for K thru 12. He was kind enought to drive us out of the way to take us over some barely-there hundred year old railroad bridge, which I didn't really appreciate. And we were finally on our way up to the house, 45 minutes after his 'tour' began. When Jim had described the property on the phone he had said that it was a mile or so down a gravel road that was maintained by the county - I asked several times about the road. The gravel road was more like a clay path, complete with hairpin turns and plenty of cliff views and steep inclines only passable with four wheel drive. The houses, custom built (by the looks of it, by hand and not very well) were right on a cliff - not near, like fall off the balcony down the cliff - on the cliff. In the kitchens Jim pointed out that there were no drawers, only cabinets - where do you put the silverware?? In Jim's description of the houses he said that the foundation beams were telephone poles, and how sturdy they were. In reality, the 'foundation' was sitting on top of the rock cliff, not secured into the ground in any way. Now just how long do you think it will take for the whole thing to slide down the mountain? Needless to say, we won't be in it when it does. We vetoed this place, hands down and were trying to get Jim to get us out of there as fast, and safely as humanly possible after Jim had consumed most of our morning. Thanks Jim, but no thanks.

Our next appointment was with a sweet cowgirl named Kim. Kim took us up the mountain to see one property - that was inhabited by a tenant - who she said we should be 'on the look out for' - this set off my hillbilly radar immediately, but we avoided any confrontation, the tenant wasn't home - but Kim does carry a gun in her car just in case (Ray told me that part later, apparently you always have to be prepared for whatever). Again, up the mountain was a bit too much for me. Any time you look out the window of the car and see straight down, it's never good in my book.
Down the mountain we went, to the next listing. This place was almost ours. The people who had bought it were from California and had done a bunch of fixing up to the land, but hadn't gotten to the house yet. They had put in really nice landscaping around the ponds and the most expensive fencing I think you can buy, fruit trees with irrigation already programmed on timers. The house was neat, fix-up-able, sizable and the land was really nice. OH, did I mention that she was offering the miniatures horses that lived there for sale with the property - I love minis - and he'll never admit to it, but Ray does too. The homeowner was there, which was a little sad because the reason they hadn't gotten to fixing up the house was that her husband had died shortly after they puchased the property. Kim was nice, a definate Arkansas afficianado. She dropped us back at the hotel we had met at and we traded e-mails and parted ways.

That night we were pooped again, seeing those three properties took us all day, so we just stayed at the hotel that we met up with Kim at since we were already there. Ray had wanted to drive accross the state to the West and try to see one property (that we couldn't afford) at 7 am. Vetoed. The best part about the hotel was that it had a restaurant and a bar, something for each of us. After all this time on the road and negotiating (arguing without curse words) with Ray, I was ready for a martini, a strong one. We dumped our stuff in the room - which was getting easier each day because Ray saw a piece on TV about bed bugs the day before we left, and was sorting things by clean - things we brought that hadn't touched anything but the inside of the suitcase and possibly contaminated - things that touched any part of the hotel room, so the suitcase was getting lighter every night although we were running out of plastic bags for the contaminents. We hit the bar for cocktails before we dined, which we didn't realize was a private 'smoking' club - in Arkansas I guess that means bar - because in order to get a drink, I had to join the club - of course they had membership dues and got me for an extra five bucks just to get served. From the waitress I learned that we were in a dry county, I would soon find out one of many in Arkansas. We tried to blend and route for the razorbacks like everyone else. Eventually we crawled to the restaurant, then back to our rooms for another night of coma-like slumber. It really was exhausting doing all that traveling.

Sunday morning we claimed our complimentary breakfast and took our complimentary cups of coffee on the road for our last realtor appointment. Angie, from Pocahontas. En route to meet up with Angie, we nixed one of the four properties we had initially requested to see, the highest priced one that we really couldn't afford, we were getting pretty tired.
It was a two to three hour drive to Angie's office in Pocahontas, and on the way we almost cancelled completely. The roads to Pocahontas were flat, easy driving, even plesant, but we were getting concerned about being in 'tornado alley'. But we pressed onward and made it to her office without even getting lost - and were early!
Angie proceeds to take us to our first stop, a gorgeous remodeled home on a hillside - not mountain, with lots of wooded acreage - that's what Ray likes, wooded. The best part about this property is that it was the least expensive one that we saw! Ok, that wasn't the best part, the best part was the house that didn't need any fixing up.

The second property we went to see that day was at Ray's request only. After I saw the pictures of this one on the internet I told him already that I wasn't interested. When they don't show any photos of the inside of the home, you know you're due to be disappointed, and I am not interested in building or fixing up. This one had the most land, 220 acres, and the worst house, a brick, three bedroom, one bath, that had a gravel pit (a big one) right behind the house. When we showed up the wife was suprised to see us, apparently Mr. Gravel Pit forgot to tell her that we were coming. She said that she didn't even have time to make the beds! It was like two o'clock, so I didn't really think that she intended to. When we walked in, the husband was just crawling out of his recliner, buckling his pants (they had been watching football and were in a very relaxed state). So, being the trooper that I am, we proceeded to tour the tiny home. I noticed that there was a washer and drier hook up in the one bathroom, very convenient - if you had a washer and dryer, unlike the current inhabitants. It was a cool day, so they had the wood burning stove going, which under other circumstances may have added to the ambiance, however in this house it just made the already horrid odor smell like baked horrible odor. We poked our heads into each of the three bedrooms, each messier and smellier than the last. If you've ever been in a really, I mean really messy teenager's bedroom, this is what all of the bedrooms were like, of course with the dry heat from the wood stove, they smelled like baked funk, not a great selling point. Ray and I wandered into the dining room, where we both happened to peek out the window and see the son (we assumed, he was youngest of the three), zipping up his camoflage pants. I didn't realize at the time that Ray had seen this too, until we were on our way home and I asked him if he noticed, he did, and we had a good laugh about it. Ray, being the hard ass he is, wasn't content to leave the property after seeing the house, so he made Angie drive us down the easement road (there's an easement road to the graveyard that is on the property, nice). Where the Gravel Pit's had parked their tractor to block the road from hunters coming in and getting the big buck they spotted on the property. Mr. Gravel Pit and son came down to move the tractor, but couldn't get it started. They tried for several moments to jump it with their pick up but to no avail. Angie, being a real trooper herself, offered to walk the mushy property with Ray if he still wanted to see it, and he finally conceeded to leave and go on to the next place. The only thing we could agree on about this property was that they should use that big tractor to push the house into the gravel pit and start all over.

The last property was nice, a definate horse farm, had a house with an in-ground pool and a barn and a workshop too. Two ponds and plenty of electric fence to torture horses with. This place though, the house needed work, and the pool was all closed up for the winter, something I hadn't contemplated having to do - close the pool, I've lived in Florida too long and had thought that the pool was a great idea - from the photos taken in the summer, but being there seeing it all closed up reminded me of what a chore it was. Like I said, the big house needed work, a big turn off. Having worked most of this last year for a general contractor, I don't have much of a desire to do any constructing or remodeling - since that usually takes longer than building a new house. Ray loved the property, rolling hills, plenty of land to ride horses, but as I pointed out to him, he doesn't ride recreationally anyways. He, and Angie thought that this was going to be my favorite by far, but they were wrong.

We headed back to the office where we had left our car and came in to use the facilities. In the next three minutes we decided to make an offer on the first property we saw with Angie, the gorgeous remodeled house on 56 acres, mostly wooded. Ray was so excited and suprised that I actually liked the least expensive one the best that we signed the contract, gave her some cash and were on our way home. Our intention was to make it to Memphis by dark and find someplace to crash. We got past Memphis, then remember that there wasn't much selection on our route thru Mississippi. The next largest town was Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis. After driving up and down the access road three times, I finally asked for directions to any hotel. Apparently it was tucked back from the highway, and lucky for us, it was brand new, nearly vacant, and we got a discount because of it! We had a lovely room (at the Wingate Hotel) and in the morning we hit our favorite, the continental breakfast bar. This one was special though, it had everything; eggs, sausage, more and they even had a waffle iron to make your own waffles - which I did and they were fabulous. After gorging we were on the road again and made it home just after dark.

Overall, an extraordinary trip. I had forgotten how much fun Ray and I used to have when we traveled with the horses, race track to race track, exploring new towns and places. I guess something about being stranded together in unfamiliar surroundings somehow brings us together and really makes us work as a team - this is so cliche - but us against the world, just a little reminder that we still have eachother.

On the road again...

We are planning a road trip to Arkansas this weekend. - Please note that even though tomorrow is our departure date, I still use the verb 'planning'. This is because my husband and I plan lots of things, just never do much. Usually he insights some petty argument and I tell him to forget it. I'd rather spend the weekend in bed watching TV than torturing other innocent bystanders by being hateful to each other in public. We're planning to drive to Arkansas Friday (15-18 hour drive) and look at real estate Saturday and Sunday, then drive back Monday (another 15-18 hours), so I can be back at work on Tuesday. Sounds like fun, right. One of the realtors I spoke to told me that Saturday is the start of gun hunting season for dear, so be sure to wear red or orange since we'll be doing a lot of hiking in the woods. Given that we both survive, and I don't mean from the hunters, I mean the four days in close proximity to each other, it should at the very least be an exciting trip.
I'm not sure why we're still married, could be the torture factor, maybe neither of us would be happy without someone else to torture, or it could be that one of us filing for divorce would be like conceding victory to the other. Who knows, but we are.

Today being my last day of work for the week, my boss and his dad have dumped a bunch of crap work on me that neither of them feel like doing, but hey, that's my job - crap that nobody wants to do. It's just so considerate of them to make sure that I don't miss out on any work that I could have done.

The other day, the father tells me that he's going out to collect the rent from one of our habitually late tenants down the street. (He tells me every time he steps away from his desk in case anyone ever is looking for him, which hasn't happened yet, including when he'll be in the john, which can be for extended periods). Ok, no problem, boss comes in, we're both getting work done (probably since dad's gone and not barging into my office, rifling thru my desk drawers while I'm sitting at it), when dad calls in;
'I guess you're wondering why I've been gone so long,'
- It had been two hours since he left, but I can't say that I was wondering, so I humor him...
'I picked up the rent check, and I was backing out of the driveway and hit a parked car across the street, can you come down and bring the insurance information?'
Sure, the rental is only like six city blocks away, no big deal.
When I get there I ask him, why don't you just write them a note and leave it on the windshield? - stupid question #1
(I once saw a sitcom or something where the guy hit a car in a parking lot, and he wrote a note that said 'I'm writing this note because people are watching me' and put it under the windshield wiper and drove away.)
'Well,' (and please try to imagine him speaking with a slow, southern draw, which, incidentally is like venom being injected into my eardrums, probably because to him I'm a born 'Yankee' - who still says that?)
'Well, I'm waiting for the police to come.'
Why? - stupid question #2
because it's a felony to hit and run.'
Who called the police? - stupid question #3
'I did.'
Apparently, he had been banging on random doors in the apartment complex where the car was parked for the past two hours trying to find the owner. I'm a little surprised that the tenants didn't call the police too. Now, I understand that he was trying to do the right thing, but how long was he going to hang around? What if they were on vacation or something?
So, in the interest of preserving my sanity, I hand him the post-it with the policy number on it, wish him luck and head back to headquarters, where I proceed to tell the boss what has occurred with his father. 'What the - F - is he thinking!?!?' he exclaimed - loud.
I need to briefly explain that my boss has not yet learned to control his foul mouth and I spend a lot of embarrassing time making excuses for why he was triple X cursing in front of old ladies. Now, I just tell people that he has a mild form of turrets and that he's off his meds.
Needless to say, he runs out of the building to go to the rental to do damage control, since his father's not covered on the company truck.
Eventually the owner of the car shows up and gets the insurance information. Then the police show up and write him a ticket for impropper backing for $120.00.
How's that for being an upstanding citizen? Not only did he call the police on himself, but he sat around waiting for them to come give him a ticket! I'd say he had a very productive morning, he committed a crime, and caught the criminal all in one act.
I would have written a free note.

Empathy's for suckers.

So, my boss finally came back to work after having their first baby last week. To hear it from him, he was the one in labor, I'll probably be telling people he's too busy to talk next week because he's breast feeding.
Just when I was giving up hope that he would make his way to the office today - because the office is five blocks from his house, a trying commute, he strolled in, baby in tow. Apparently, his (trophy)wife, (in her twenties), is doing something right - as far as training men goes - because he brought the baby with him, so that she could sleep late and get a shower. I'm not sure who did more work, him or the baby.
The baby had a much more welcome reception, I can tell you that much.

Enough of them for a while.

FYI, on a personal note, I don't have kids, don't plan to, so I don't see the big hub-bub about two people procreating. I especially don't see the necessity for the man to be off work for a whole week - soon to be more... but that's me.
I also am notoriously known as not being the most empathetic person alive, unlike the bleeding heart suckers I am surrounded by who love to throw money and sympathy all over the place. And, I have a pet peeve about being manipulated by guilt, can't stand it, in fact it incurs the opposite reaction in me than other people. Guilt trips are totally obvious to me and extremely repugnant, I have no time for them. I have a mother who is anti-guilt as well, which explains why my father and brother have never helped around the house, since we know that guilt is the only true way to get men to do things for you.

Lets go back to work for a minute... this reminded me of a situation a few months ago...

My boss and his wife own a couple of rental properties, which, I have been granted the pleasure of managing for them, along with the parent company - the one I was hired to run. A few months ago, one of the properties became unexpectedly vacated, meaning that the tenant called up two days before the rent was due and said he'd be moving out, breaking his one year lease after only about four months. No problem - at least he called - right.
We immediately started advertising the apartment for rent and got a lot of lookers. However, there were a few unforeseen problems. The previous tenant had a dog. A really stinky dog. Because even after I had the carpets, vinyl and tile steam cleaned and deodorized, it still stunk like wet dog - which I have to say, people did notice. We also had the apartment re-painted, which the painter had to go back FOUR times to re-do. Each of the first three times he had just tried to 'patch' the paint, and only did the parts that were damaged, then when the paint dried it revealed that the color didn't match, finally on the fourth visit, he just painted the entire thing. Ok, problem under control, just a little stinky.
So, these people called me from a motel one day, saying that they wanted to see the apartment and asked the basic questions, how much is the rent, security, etc. I make an appointment with them and go over so meet them and show the place. At which time they began to explain to me that they are living in a motel and wanted to move in like the next day or something so they didn't have to pay another week at the motel. About now is when I started to get a hinky feeling about this couple, because they are not living in the motel because they're from out of town or anything. And believe me, I can understand going thru hard times and I'd never fault anybody because of it. I'm all about equal opportunity, etc. etc. Until the couple started to ask me whether or not we'd be pulling a credit report or not, and they told me the rest without me even asking, the 'wife' didn't have any credit whatsoever, uh huh, and the 'husband' had 'bad' credit due to breaking his foot and being out of work a few years prior. I probably would have gone along with any other excuse besides bodily injury. Having broken several toes (from horses stepping on my feet) and one hand (punching a school bus, that's another story) and tearing every ligament in one of my shoulders, and working thru (often before seeking medical treatment if treated at all) these injuries, I determined that it was almost impossible to absolutely destroy one's credit solely from a broken foot. So I asked the so-and-so's to come by the office and fill out a credit application, which I had no intention of using, it was for the sole purpose of letting the boss and his dad have a look at them, so that they could help in the decision of whether to rent to them or not. This is a family business after all. Also, having rented our own properties, I know from experience that it is always harder to get people OUT than it is to get them IN. The family took a look and they too veto-ed the couples' rental application hands down, so now it is unanimous - not just me - remember that. The woman calls the next day and I tell her straight out that it's not going to work out and (in my mind) we have parted company.
Until the following Monday... when I am ambushed by a very aggressive (pushy) elderly (old) lady in my office asking my boss a bunch of questions about the apartment. Apparently, and I'm telling you this in retro-spect of course, this elderly woman is one of my boss' neighbors and Mrs. so-and-so cleans her house for her. She approached my boss while he was out in his yard over the weekend, saying that so-and-so wanted to rent his apartment and that she would vouch for them, but could he lower the rent and have the driveway repaired, which he agreed to all, not knowing that so-and-so was the couple that he himself had veto-ed the week before. We agree to her terms - maybe since she was pounding on my desk and I called the so-and-so's and let them know that we had reconsidered due to this woman's offer to guarantee that they pay their rent - I'm not sure how she planned to facilitate this. I said that I would call back when the apartment was ready (at this point we were only on the 2nd painting) and when I had the rental agreement written up. This was around noon. At two o'clock, my boss', his dad and I were all meeting in his office when the phone rang and he answered on speaker phone (possibly the deadliest invention of the 21st century), it's the old lady, and she wants to know why I haven't had the people in to sign the lease agreement yet. It gets better, and she just wanted to let my boss know that 'his secretary' - that's me (it makes my skin curl when people call me that, I have two business degrees and multiple other certifications - possibly more education and experience than anyone in the building) 'I just wanted to let you know, your secretary (that's me), was very rude to me today and to Mrs. so-and-so (I guess yes ma'am-ing someone is considered rude here) and that if she worked for me I would fire that girl right away.' She went on for another minute or two, and I'm sure if you can imagine my face, you can imagine the look on my face. Needless to say, I'm still living with the nightmares(sarcasm). You might be surprised to hear that it wasn't the first time I had someone say that about me, of course before they said it to me, this old lady thought she was going around my back. I think that my boss and his dad were more embarrassed for me than I myself was embarrassed, but I fought off the urge to yell obscenities at the telephone in front of them.
We didn't rent to them in the end, fortunately, leaving the so-and-so's high and dry - I never thought I'd say it but amen for nepotism.
Just another day in the life!

So, I guess most of us start out working for peanuts, but I wound up working for coconuts, to put it nicely.I should have known better than to think it was actually possible that I had landed my dream job on my thirtieth birthday. Huge office, no wheeling and dealing over salary, in a new field that I found so interesting. Too good to be true, right. Right. This is turning into the job from hell. I read someone else's blog that said the hated their job and that they thought most other people did too. I don't hate my job, I hate my boss, and all the other idiots that have authority over me 45 hours a week, oh and don't forget all the stupid mundane tasks that I have to perform.

If I had known in high school, or even college that my two college degrees wouldn't be able to save me from scrounging the bowels of the job market I probably would have wound up one of those eternal students, still finishing up their masters' at thirty-five, working part-time and living at home. But here I am, living in Florida, working for a bunch of nuts, at least the weather is nice.

I spent a number of years here not trying to find a job that was worthy of the many skills I have to offer, and taking advantage of the jobs I've had lately training horses. You see, horses never, ever talk, and I find the silence rewarding - don't forget, the weather is great too. There have been many mornings that I spent mucking out stalls and thinking how lucky I was to be doing it. There's a certain freedom to working outdoors, seeing the sunrise, getting an early start to your day. Unfortunately, the pay ain't great, so I guess that's what motivated me to look for a career, instead of a job, and eventually landed me here.

Maybe I realized that my job assignment was slowly mutating around the 3 month mark. By now, the nine month mark, I feel more like personal secretary to my boss's entire family. Which, is not that huge of an exageration since his father works for him too, and is technically my boss. Although that doesn't explain why I find myself doing 'favors' for everyone in his immediate, and not so immediate family.Hmmm.. where to begin.. last week... I'm at work, as usual, and my boss, the owner of the company, and his mother come into my office, where he proceded to ask me if I could go out and take his wife's watch to have the battery replaced. His mother happily volunteered, and said that she was going to the same place for the same thing, (the mother is always happy to volunteer her services, it's just that she seems to have trouble actually performing whatever service it is that she has volunteered for, i.e. she is supposed to be working on our employee manual, but since it's been seven months, I'm starting to lose hope) his response was that this was something that he actually wanted to get done, so I should be the one to do it. Which she didn't take very well. I don't know if you've ever actually seen a fifty year old woman pout, but it's not cute, and frankly, makes me uncomfortable. However, this was not my first experience with the pouting, so I just ignored it.

SO, around lunch time, I venture out and go to the jewelry (pawn) shop that he told me to, 20 miles across town. I get to the door, and they buzz me in and I explained to the gentleman that I needed a new battery for said watch and that I'd return shortly. He takes the watch, I go across the street to get lunch. After ordering my lunch, I went back to pick up the watch and pay for the repair, where the gentleman at the counter starts to explain to me that this watch, that he assumed is my watch, is solar powered, and that it will never need a new battery. He still charged me for taking it apart and cleaning it, and of course, they wouldn't accept the company credit card that's not in my name, so I paid with the last cash that I had in my pocket and had to abandon my lunch order in shame. Very proud of how quickly I had accomplished my mission, I returned the watch to his desk with a note about the solar, and have never heard about it again.

That was a mild case of run around, it gets worse.

How about this week.. My boss' wife was due to give birth to their first child, and they took her to the hospital to induce at the beginning of the week. Meanwhile, customers are calling, irate that the owner has not returned their calls for who knows how long, wanting to kill the messenger, that's me. So when he finally made his first debut in the office as a new father this morning, I had assumed that he would make the two calls that were obviously most urgent. You know what they say about assuming... anyways, before I even got the chance to ask him if he was going to call these people back, he told me to do it! And, it gets better, to make sure that I told them that he had a baby boy this week, and, here's the best part, and tell them that his wife had complications so he wouldn't be able to get back to them until sometime next week. Lie. She's fine, the baby is fine, he's been camped out in the hospital with them, etc. I swear some day I'm just going to answer the phone 'excuse department, how may I bullshit you today?' - In the mean time, he's asking me if I've updated my To Do List lately. aargh.