Archive of Marcia's Musings December 17-23, 2001
Sunday, December 23, 2001
10:39amNot Enough but for Different Reasons
Thanks to all who sent suggestions about Sally's "condition" of the previous two mornings-- the problem has been resolved. As I noted earlier, we got some Lipiderm and all was well with the world and we all slept through to 6:30am today. I know-- a horribly unreasonable hour to wake up on a Sunday morning but, my knee was killing me.
Yes, a month or so back, when my cousin was visiting, I had a problem with my knee. Suddenly, it took care of itself and then, I did something to it again on Thursday. This time, however, I know what I did: I knelt on it to pick something up off the floor and, voila, my knee hurt again. Not a good thing and it was killing me this morning sooooo, up I was at 6:30 drinking a bit of milk and ibuprophen. I waited a bit for the anti-inflammatories to take affect before I went back to bed but by that time, Brian was awake so he got up. Not liking being alone in bed, I got up a few minutes later followed by Miss Sally a bit later. After being let out, she wanted to be back in bed but stayed up with us to keep us company.
Anyway, I'm just about ready for a nap but I have stupidly got one more gift to buy and I want to get some of the hair straightener that was used on my hair yesterday (picture to come). I hope I can do it myself cuz it looked really nice but I have to have a smoothing elixir or balm to make it work. We'll be making a quick trip to the grocery store, too even though there isn't much to buy because of the weird work week. Brian will be "off", more or less, although working from home and going into the office cuz no one else is there to set up a new mail server or something. I have to go in and have fun all week though-- lucky me!
Posh, Posher, Poshest
Last night, I played around looking for the poshest restaurants in the South Bay and came up with thirty of them. Hmmm, this is going to be fun. I'm going to post some of the names of these restaurants later and, if possible because of familiarity throughout the readership, perhaps get a few opinions about which to go to for our Christmas present from the Southeast region. Should be fun to decide, eh?
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While doing laundry today, I've got some pictures for the Christmas page and for Sally's page to edit and post but Brian hasn't downloaded all of them yet. So, as time and energy permit, more to come.Have a nice rest of the day!
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I told you I'd be back!
As a preliminary, to more later on, I've updated Sally's Home Page. I've actually updated a bit in between the beginning and the end so you may want to read the whole thing. I'm making sure that she gets her say on everything that she wants to talk about-- even some of the sillier things in her life.
Anyway, enjoy and if other downloads happen, I'll add more later, too.
Have a good one!
Saturday, December 22, 2001Doing Fine . . . I think?
When we went to the vet, she suggested to help Sally with less dry skin that we have her take a fish oil supplement. She even suggested getting something from the vitamin aisle at Costco. So, the other day when Brian was at Costco, he picked up Cod Liver Pills which we have now fed to Sally for three nights. Last night was the second night in a row that we were rousted or barked out of bed for the purpose of letting her outside. This happened not just once but twice-- at about 5am, awaiting her return, I realized that Cod Liver Oil is given to children to loosen things up and get them moving. Thus, Poor Sally was having the same experiences!! Poor Sally, indeed!!
This morning, I happen to have a conversation with the Wise Woman of the Kanine World and she mentioned that The Boys get Lipiderm. Guess what I bought this morning? ;>) Yes, we'll be trying Sally on that and seeing if it helps the situation any. I sure hope it does-- its one thing to be in this kinda daze during the week when I'm over-working and expect it to set in at 9pm but dazed over at 2pm on a Saturday (and then, not being able to sleep-- yes, I tried to nap!) is not healthy. It just can't be!!
Finished and Ready-- NOW!!
After getting back from my pedicure and hair appointments, I finished up my Christmas wrapping. I have to admit that I'm a little surprised that it is this close to Christmas and I'm just finishing things. Usually, I'm done and ready to roll by the first of December-- this year, I'm obviously busier with everything than I've ever been before. I'm not so sure that's a good thing because I think it is going to ultimately reflect on what happens next year but, we'll see when next year rolls around.
Dinner Out . . .
. . . with Scott & Jan tonight. Besides getting together for Christmas, they wanted to come by to meet our Little Sally. I've got some pictures for her website that I hope to get to tomorrow-- sorry I've been a little lax in that update recently.
Thanks for coming by and until later or tomorrow, have a nice whatever, okay?
Friday, December 21, 2001Shoulda Known Better!!
When I came in the office this morning, I knew I had one possible conference call this morning but, that's nothing too serious and I had promised Sally she could come to work with me today. Five minutes after I arrived, I had two additional agreements and two more conference calls. John's comment was "Are you busy enough, Marcia?" I laughed and told him I had virtually nothing to do when I came in so I was glad to get his call. Yes, he knows I'm a sick puppy, too!!
So, as I write this part of my post for tonight, I'm at my desk, awaiting the first of three conference calls and Sally is fast asleep in her bed. So far, Auntie Laura, Auntie Julie, Auntie Nina, Jennifer and Corrine and Julie and Jason and some guy I don't even know have come by to bid her a "Good Morning". She is a popular gal around here, let me tell ya!
And then . . .
Oh, yes, it got very much worse. The good news is that the first call didn't happen and Sally slept through the two-hour phone call. The third call didn't happen as planned but a second phone call with the people from the second phone call happened later. What a day!! We closed another two agreements for a grand total of about $5 MILLION dollars going through my desk this week. Yes, I have been a very busy girl this week!!
As he was leaving, John called me and said that, he had been lax in his Christmas shopping but, he wanted me to know that I was at the TOP of everyone's list in his office-- actually the entire Southeast region!!! He told me that, after the first of the year, Brian and I are to make reservations at the most expensive restaurant that we want to go to and give him the phone number-- he's going to call and give his credit card numbers to them and tell them that there is no limit on what we are to order!! Pretty cool, huh? It would be even cooler if we both drank so that we could run up the tab with a bottle or two of wine BUT, that's okay-- Brian can order more than one desert to make up for it!! ;>)
Wow!! That is the first time that the region, as a whole, has gifted me with anything-- yes, I've received stuff from individuals in the region before but never the ENTIRE region and, yes, that is impressive. It also looks really good to my co-workers and, of course, management is listening and aware.
Lunch with Sally
At one point this afternoon, after the two hour conference call, I was on the phone with John working the details of a new document and, after I heated my lunch (a Healthy Choice dinner) I was eating fork-fulls in between sentences. As we were talking and doing the back-n-forthing that goes along with it, Sally barked!!! I was utterly embarrassed!! She doesn't bark except when she wants in the house after doing her business!! She barked because she wanted my food and I wasn't sharing!!! I couldn't believe it!! Sally has never done that before-- yes, I was utterly shocked!!!
Thankfully John didn't hear her or, if he did, he didn't acknowlege it and we kept moving through the document! Shortly after that, I called Brian to come and get her-- it was going to be a long day and she was obviously, not up for it! Oh, well, it seems that her limit is about 7 hours of being petted by "strangers" and Auntie Nina. She likes being with Auntie Nina though which is a good thing since Auntie Nina likes taking her for walks and petting her and giving her cookies and... Yes, you've got it-- Auntie Nina is almost worse than I am!!
Gotta get back to my wrapping-- I'm actually almost finished!!
Thanks for coming by-- its a pleasure to have you visit! Have a nice evening!
Thursday, December 20, 2001More of the Same
Exceedingly busy day at work today. I had to push through to huge deals and was strongly requested by the sales rep to get it signed then as opposed to an hour or two later. That's the problem with being on the West coast-- deals have to be signed now because its three hours later somewhere else. So I was a little late going to lunch.
When I got back from lunch, it was just plain interesting. There's a deal on the table where the customer is making demands for increasing their "acceptance period" and wanting to move their software around. The agreement that they want to reference is bad enough-- its from the "Bad Ol' Days" from before my company had contracts people. I contacted the sales rep after I read the agreement and told him about the acceptance period, the lack of a termination clause, and a couple of the other bad things about the agreement. His reaction: "Create an amendment-- if the customer doesn't like it, we walk." Unusually strong words for a sales rep these days but I think he's tired of the customer threatening to replace our software. If a company has a $1M plus in software of one company's on their systems, they aren't likely to throw it out for our competition for a $50K order. Should be interesting to see how that one turns out tomorrow.
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As a result of that contract, however, I ended up working late and as a result, we had a weird dinner night. I wrapped more presents and finally crashed at 9pm to watch CSI: Crime Scene. While this is an incredibly short post, I have to admit that I'm exhausted and extremely grateful that tomorrow is Friday.Thanks for coming by, as always! Have a nice evening!!
Wednesday, December 19, 2001Bad Sign
I woke up this morning and trudged out to the coffee pot. The first thought that crossed my mind was: "Ah, Friday" and, of course, the second thought that crossed my mind was: "Wait a minute-- is it? No. NOOOoooooo!" Man, I need a Friday-- bad!!
Can you sing along??
(To the tune of "Its Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas"...)
Its Beginning to Feel a Lot Like End-o-Year!!
(You can hear the tune, can't you? Okay, so the beat is a little rough at the end but, you get the gist of it!)
Absolute madness rang out today-- in the last two days, I've turned over about 10 agreements. It is to the point where we are now losing track of who has what document and what stage of execution it is in. This is not a good stage to be in, I should point out.
One rep gave me two agreements yesterday-- I had a conference call with one of the customers and the other one hasn't said a word. Not a good sign. It wouldn't be so bad except I get phone calls every hour from the rep asking if I've heard from the customer! ARGH!! I can't make him dial the phone!!
I did make both the sales rep and John happy by concluding the negotiation with the customer that I had a conference call with-- he wasn't much of a negotiator. He is easily conceded on my arguments as to why we could or couldn't do what he was asking for in his requested changes. As an example, he wanted to change the warranty from 90 days to 1 year. I explained that we don't do that because, the purpose of the warranty is to make the software work to the documentation-- it wouldn't take a year for that to be determined. Almost immediately, he agreed with me. Cool! John was happy that it got closed today so that helps our numbers for the quarter, indeed!
Its going to be a wild week next week, I can tell!!
Nope, the Baby's Still Here!!
Brian did not throw Sally out with the bathwater today!! Whew!! I was a little worried about that one, let me tell you! Sally has a dry skin problem that became very obvious to us during the night. She was scratching and scratching and scratching to the point where I thought I was going to go crazy!! Since the people that fostered her gave her a bath, we didn't think we'd have to rush into it until the doctor mentioned that oatmeal baths would relieve her dry skin itchiness. Last night was the kicker though so Brian gave her a bath, including cleaning her ears, after they got home from work today.
Well, as you can imagine, Sally took awhile to warm up to Brian after their little adventure. She was not happy with one bit of what he had to do: put cleaning solution in her ears, squish her ears to work through the solution, mop out her ears, bathe her all over (wash and rinse) and then FrontLine worked through afterward!! WOW!! What a lot of work and, if her dry skin persists, we may have to do this once a week or so!! ARGH!! I would've liked to have been here-- I'd've taken pictures of that event for Sally's Home Page. Ah, well, there's always next time!!
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Well, I've got one Christmas gift to finish up on and then I've gotta start the wrapping the rest of them tomorrow so I'd better get to it.Have a nice evening!
Tuesday, December 18, 2001Wildly Busy!!
Today was a wildly busy day at my office indeed!! First, I had the call at 7 that lasted for over 2 hours. John handled most of it-- as I told my director, he sometimes a terribly interesting man to listen to when he gets talking about what is and is something that we can do. We really do try to accommodate all of our customers' needs in an agreement; he has his limits however and will not be pushed beyond that limit. It was interesting to listen to him today talking with the customer: one minute schmoozing and the next minute telling them that there was no way he could give them what they were asking for because it was past the point of "too much".
From there, everything hit the fan: there were two new agreements generated; a customer's purchase order faxed in with terms and conditions on it in addition to our agreement; customer calls and sales rep calls and I, frankly, did not have a minute's peace!!
The good news is that I didn't have a minute's peace. The reason that it is good news is that because I didn't have any time to think about it, I ignored, fairly successfully, the fact that I was fighting a fever and sneezing all over the place!! Thankfully, I didn't sneeze on any calls with customers-- it just sounds weird on the phone-- but I was sneezing significantly!! There was a potluck lunch of Cajun food (that I'm not that crazy about to begin with) today but I opted out of it because I didn't think it would be good for me to have spicy, rich food. Probably pretty smart. I ate a salad that was brought to me and a gingerbread cookie made by a fellow Weight Watcher (contained only 1 point) in addition to my 5-point frozen lunch.
At one point, the MIS guy that fixed my computer called and said he wanted to run through some things with me about what he fixed on my computer. I told him to come over whenever he was able to do so not thinking about my cold. When it finally occurred to me, I called him back and left him a message; he returned my call and said that he would opt to come by tomorrow, not really wanting to be sick for the holiday! I could not blame him!!
I finally left work about 3:45 and came home to sleep-- that didn't work right away because Sally couldn't settle down. I eventually went back to the bedroom to lie down so I could get some peace. Brian woke me up around 5:30 or so and gave me a message to call a co-worker for some input on an agreement I was working on at one point.
Wow!!! Wild day!!
Finally!!!
As noted in the header on this page, my "trip report" of Sue & Bill's 3-Day Weekend is finally finished. I have to admit that I cheated a bit by taking the narrative of what I wrote on Sunday and combined it with the photos that were taken over the weekend but, that really is the best description of the weekend.
I wish they could've stayed longer but, alas, next time? Or maybe Karen and Ron on their next visit???
I'm going to go rest up a bit-- I'm trying to get over this cold as quickly as I can. Thanks for stopping by and have a great evening!
Monday, December 17, 2001Hurry up and WAIT!!
(I'm writing this part at work.)
ARGH!! I hate these kind of days!! I've got a conference call in 40 minutes for which I have yet to give the customer the document for their review, consideration or discussion. The sales rep keeps tweaking bits of the business deal which changes the language which is why its still sitting in Atlanta instead of in the customer's office in North Carolina.
And this will be the third conference call that I've been on today. Oh, joy of Joys. As I type this bit of my post, I know he is talking to the end user and trying to work out details with regard to the support. He doesn't realize the constraints that I'm under with trying to get a document to the customer for the call that we've got at Noon!!!
ARGH!!!
Sally's First Adventure to the Vet's Office
As part of the adoption fee that we paid for Sally, we're supposed to get her medical history so that we can get the proper licensure for her. Furry Friends Rescue weren't able to track down Sally's history or medical records, so they ended up paying the bill on this visit and referred us to the Adobe Animal Hospital in Los Altos. Coincidentally, this is one of several animal hospital/clinics that came highly recommended to me last week from some of the people in my office so we will have all of her care done there in the future as well. They looked like really nice people and were very affectionate with Sally and the other animals in the lobby.
Yes, I am digressing again--sorry . . . Immediately following getting home from work, Brian and I brought Sally to the veterinarian's office for the first time. As usual, she wasn't crazy about the car ride but she appears to be getting used to it-- I have to admit though that she is always very ready to get out of the car when its stopped!! Out of concern that she'll figure out the door handles, I make sure we lock the car doors-- just in case!!
Anyway, once inside she was fine on the leash and, even with cats and other dogs around, she didn't bark or try to run at them or away. A little girl came up to her at one point and started having a conversation with Brian about Sally-- cute little girl-- and she petted Sally as they talked.
After weighing our 30-Pound (Hah!!!) Cocker Spaniel Mix, Mandy, the technician came in the room and she, with Brian's assistance, took Sally's temperature and got what little "history" that we have about her from us. Then Dr. Kerri came into the room and immediately went to the floor to check her over. Dr. Kerri was literally, on the floor, crawling around and cajoling Sally into "helping" with the physical exam. After swabbing her ears and ordering the tests on that, Sally got her shots and her ears cleaned. It turns out that she has a really bad bacterial infection in her ears and a lot of waxy build-up-- this could explain why she doesn't hear us.
Of course, the most interesting and not entirely surprising reason for why Sally may not hear us very well, if at all is that she may very well be a great deal older than 5 or 6. That's okay-- I'm not complaining. I'm not going to "return her" for the model that was promised. I seriously doubt that the rescue people knew anything differently. It really doesn't matter, just like the fact that she may be partially deaf doesn't matter-- we'll make adjustments like not letting her off the leash in public places since she won't hear us when we call her back. We'll chuckle that she sleeps 20 out of 24 hours a day because she's old-- who cares? I'm too attached to this dog-- I have been ever since I saw her picture on the web!! We'll have whatever good years we get with her and that will be what we have with her. No amount of time will ever be "Enough Time" with her but, we'll have her until that time is up.
After the vet's office, we went to Petco to pick up some new "adult diet food" for her. We also picked up FrontLine and some oatmeal shampoo for her sensitive skin. Of course, a couple of balls managed to find their way into the cart but that's because Daddy threw the other one over the fence already!!
So Sally survived her first adventure to the vet's office-- it'll be repeated in a few weeks as a follow-up on the bacterial infection in her ears (they gave us a prescription). Nah, don't worry about her-- she gets tons of treats before, during and after!! Happy Sally!!
Much To Do
I've still got to pay the bills for the month tonight as well as work on the "report" of this past weekend with Sue & Bill's visit. Then, of course, there's the fact that I've got a cold-- just started but I've got it and I have a 7am conference call. Yes, I'm so happy its the end-o-quarter time of the end-o-fiscal-year!! NOTTTTTT!!!!!
Have a nice evening and, again, thanks for coming by!!
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