Archive of Marcia's Musings March 5-11, 2001
Sunday, March 11, 2001
Updated 6:50pmMore To Come!!
Just to throw you off, I've decided to post in the early morning of this apparently bright-n-sunny day. I say "apparently" because we haven't actually opened the blinds to see outside, we simply know that it was bright enough in our bedroom to wake us out of our sound sleeps!!
Today's activities include a trip to Costco-- we were going to try to avoid it but, it seems inevitable. Brian needs Coke, I need Selenium and bagels and, there you have it, another trip to weirdness for us. When we get home, I expect I'll dig into (pardon the pun) planting the herbs, flowers and lettuce. Its been awhile since I've worked any of that so it should be fun indeed.
I will update later, as well, but wanted to share just that bit of info for this morning.
Later . . .
I have to admit that Brian did most of the work but we did have another back-breaking day. We went to Costco as threatened and then I went on to the grocery store by myself after another stop at Orchard Supply. Brian set up the wooden boxes for my herbs as well as giving me the set-ups for the Impatience flowers and lettuces. I set that up while he made another run back to Orchard. When I finished that, he came back out from a short break at the computer (this time his break was the computer!) and set up a couple of other plants for himself-- he started some climbing peas and he set a new kind of tomato stake in the ground. Then he made another trip back to Orchard for another thing that was needed. Actually, I think I missed a trip to Orchard for him-- it seems like he went four times but I could be wrong.
I boxed up Alexandra's birthday present and got it ready for mailing and also boxed up a Canadian bound box; that one's not quite ready to go yet though. I rested my back for about a half hour while Brian set the new paper towel rack and new telephone up. That reminds me:
NOTE: If you call our phone number and, after four rings, do not get the message machine, its because we have a new message machine. The new one isn't on the line (read, PacBell) but an outer machine. Also, the outgoing message is the one that comes with the phone but Brian liked it so we're going to use it for awhile. (Its the voice of some unknown stranger, sounding a bit like a computer; perhaps more appropriate than originally thought.)
Next I made up two lunches and one breakfast for me for work this week; that's a good start on the week anyway. I bought some things I don't ordinarily buy for myself for breakfast so I'm hoping it'll work out this week. Variety is the spice of life or so they say at the meetings every week! Finally, I've been working on dinner for awhile now. Its a recipe that I don't have on my page and, because it is complicated and I only use the written recipe as a guideline, I may not put it on the page until I've got a day or four that I've got nothing to do. There's a lot of steps to it and its hard to write down but I'll get around to it eventually. Its one of Brian's favorites and, since he's been working so hard this weekend, I thought I'd make it up for him.
"Mission to Mars" was good last night-- not scary at all (its the preview with Don Cheadle's line that makes you think its a scary movie). In fact, we were left wanting more when it ended!! Tonight? I haven't got a clue and, in a way, that's a nice thing sometimes.
Have a nice evening!
Saturday, March 10, 2001And That's Just What We Did!
We slept until about 8:45am this morning after going to bed at the very decent hour of 10:30pm!! That's a long time for us to sleep-- obviously, we needed it. Wow!!!
Life After Sleep
My brother-in-law wrote me an email expressing concern over their website since there were a couple of things that they mailed to us that haven't been posted on their website. Hmm, I thought, "Brian usually gets those but hasn't forwarded them to me yet" so I mentioned that to him. "No," says he, "Now that you mention it, I haven't gotten them since-- hey, wait a minute! We haven't received those since our email addresses have changed!!" Ah-hah!! The culprit had been discovered!!! Bill had never changed over the addresses on his alias mailing for the Prayer Prompters in January, February and March from our EX-ISP addresses to the current email addresses!!! Well, now that we've got that figured out, things are running much smoother!! Their website journal was also updated-- they sent me last week's (3/4/01) entry but I wasn't awake enough to post it on Sunday night and, promptly forgot it for the rest of the week. So when Bill sent this week's journal update, he politely asked if there was something wrong with our computer-- nope, Bill. The computer is fine, its the operator that's messed up!!! SO, NOW, all of their stuff is up and current!! Yeesh, some webmasters can't be trusted with anything, can they???
Once I got all of that straightened out, I decided to try to use my hot rollers to curl my hair. It didn't work (and that's all we're going to say). I took my shower and, after Brian finished his shower, we headed out. He had shopping on his mind for a change!! We picked up a belt since I'd managed not to see his other belt when packing to leave San Diego--go ahead, everybody wave at his belt, sitting in the closet at the Wyndham Hotel in San Diego!! Then we picked up an Alexandra birthday present . . . Brian's niece is having her fifth birthday next week so we have found something that we know she will just love!! The next stop was the creme de la creme of Brian's springtime: the Orchard Supply Hardware stop to pick up tomato plants!! He has thirteen (13) plants started on the patio and there are herbs and flowers to put in tomorrow but we ran out of potting mix. He has already managed to go through four cubic feet of potting mix so we're going to need more. The herbs and flowers are my thing along with once again trying the lettuce. My mother-in-law's lettuce came up beautifully last year so I figure one of these days I'll get the hang of it, too!!
After the Orchard stop, we brought everything home and then went to lunch at the Mexican restaurant our neighbors took us to around the corner from where we live. Excellent eats all around again!! Having thought we were finished, we came home only to discover that, as Brian started to pull things out and put things in, he didn't buy the one thing he really, reallyREALLY needed to have: a staplegun!! This time, we were off to Home Depot because we wanted to look at lumber for a gadget that "we" are going to build to put our pans on in the kitchen. So we've now got our official idea for that but, decided to wait on it until next weekend. Yeesh!!!
Home again but this time I caved: I had to lay down-- I'm sure its because of last weekend and the stressful week but I was soooo tired!!! I slept for an hour and a half or so and since that time, have been staring at stuff not able to focus, or wake-up or whatever.
That's Not Entertainment!
Last night, I started to watch "The Talented Mr. Ripley" but, I really don't like Gwynneth Paltrow-- she reminds me of a blonde dishrag somehow. Matt Damon isn't a huge improvement as far as I'm concerned, either. YMMV. I didn't get all the way through it out of sheer boredom. Tonight I'm going to try "Mission to Mars"; it looks good but also a little scary so we'll see how far I get on that one.
Have a nice evening!!
Friday, March 9, 2001Much Nicer!
Today was a much nicer, less stressful day than yesterday. I needed that. I figured out what the problem has been this past week (yes, I know-- it took me until FRIDAY to figure it out!!): I more easily react to stressful situations when I'm tired and, because of traveling last weekend and not getting much restful sleep (NOBS), I am . . . very, very tired!!!
Yesterday, however, I had a negotiation call that went well and that was followed up by emails with the same customer where we played the "She won't take my language and I can't take her language" game. Not my idea of a good time-- I called the sales rep and told him the deal was dead. You see, because of the fact that the customer is going to write their own scripts, we can't warrant that our software will work with those scripts. We also can't indemnify the customer from infringement of third party proprietary information when they write the scripts. The attorney on the other side wanted us to warrant the software to work with their scripts and indemnify them. The sales rep and I got the customer's end user on the phone and I pointedly asked the question: "Does Gina (the attorney) know that you intend to write your own scripts? If she did, I think she would understand why we can't warrant or indemnify you for that." His reply: "Oh, you know, she may not know that." THEN TELL HER!!!!!!!!!! I can chuckle at it now but I was frustrated yesterday!
Today, we had another call with a customer that we haven't dealt with in two months. "Mary" was a pain-- she works for a "big" bank in a country north of here. <g> She's very impressed with her bank but I'm not-- she thinks that she can pay a mere $50,000 (US) and get to do anything she wants with the software. Every now and then in our conversation with the AVP for her area today, she would try to say things that would open up the negotiation on a topic, i.e., the term of the agreement is for one year but she wants it for a longer period of time. She tried to complain to the AVP about it and I interrupted and filled him in on what had already been agreed to by the bank. Much to her chagrin, he (of course) agreed with me and told her that she was getting a good deal with an auto-renew clause that had to be in writing. That way, as I had explained to her a gazillion times before, if there were new terms and conditions, they could be brought into the agreement. That was the end of the discussion about the term and, frankly, there were a lot of topics like that that she tried to bring up and change but, the sales rep and I double-teamed her so she couldn't re-negotiate the parts where we'd already reached agreement. There were other things too but she's getting to sound like an old record to me and nothing was resolved today which is the worst part of the whole thing-- we still have to deal with her next quarter, too!!
Weekend Plans??
SLEEP!!!!!
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Have a nice evening!
Thursday, March 8, 2001Happy Birthday, Mickey Dolenz!!!
Does anyone else remember who he is? Wow!! He's 56 years old today-- it seems like Mark Lindsay, of Paul Revere & The Raiders, is having a birthday around this date, too. Wow!! That's a walk down memory lane, isn't it? ;>) Ah, our lost youth . . .
Nowadays life is completely different from "back then". We (my sisters and I) used to have to figure out how to watch "Where the Action Is" on our "coffee breaks" from working in the strawberry fields. Now? I'm just trying to figure out how to make it to the end of a day without a raging headache or screaming for a cigarette!!! Yesterday, it was screaming for a cigarette and a raging headache-- today, I just rode my bike when I got home from work. I rode for 5.24 miles tonight-- at 2.96 miles, I was still screaming at drivers on the road so I knew I wasn't ready to come home yet!! It felt good to ride my bike and when I got home, I did my back-stretch/tummy crunchies just like I'm supposed to do. I feel a lot better and I'm not screaming at anyone.
Inquiring Minds
Didja ever wonder why I use exclamation points in posts and correspondence? I do that because of the fact that, if you've ever spoken to me on the phone, you'll know that that is how I talk. Actually, that's how I live life, too-- excited!! Life is meant to be enjoyed and laughed at through each day. I'm lucky to be married to Brian cuz he has a tendancy to either bring out my laughter or make me a little left of center in my thinking, which also makes me be in a good mood.
At one point, when I first started writing a diary in late 1999, Dr. Keyboard mentioned that he found it difficult to read around my exclamation points. As you can see, that had a huge effect on my diary, eh?
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Its early yet and Brian's doing laundry so I'm going to start dinner-- chicken/vegetable stir fry I think.
More later if I have time and inclination.
If not, have a nice evening anyway!!
Wednesday, March 7, 2001Where to Start?
That question is not based so much on how much I have to say but how much is left to say. You see, Brian is off to the local Linux users meeting and I've spent the last nearly two hours on the phone with my sister, Karen, or Leah. I had to call Karen because her dial-up connection was a bit iffy tonight so we thought it would be easier to talk live rather than to try to keep her connection up and make ICQ work. After I got off the phone with Karen, I called Leah to get an update on Landon since he had an orthopedic appointment. (She'll update you on that tomorrow in her post-- too tired for one tonight from what she tells me.)
Its like I did a mind-dump when I was on those conversations and whatever I was going to "report" to you here has, unfortunately, left the building (somewhat like Elvis). Karen has been rehearsing her play production for this year every day after school so she hasn't had time to read my website lately (boo-hoo for me!), let alone read the trip report from San Diego so I found myself essentially relaying to her the whole trip report, short of actually reading it. Admittedly, she got a bit more of the details of the dash through the airport than what is actually mentioned in the trip report but, considering that's her only means of hearing of our trip for the time being, I took a little dramatic license with it. You have to have some sympathy for her-- she's not working with a REAL play this year but one written by someone other than me!! That means she has to work harder, of course-- poor thing!!
Miscellany
As has been mentioned here several times over the last month, after months and years of struggling at being hypothyroid, I'm now hyperthyroid and, from the weight loss noted last night at Weight Watchers, maybe I really am getting to space that's more normal for weight loss. I lost 2.9 pounds which I will take, any day of the week!!
This morning, when I arrived at work, I realized that all of my work was caught up so, I went in search of more-- I picked up two agreements from the Central region. They are of course, challenging to say the least-- the sales rep on one of them keeps playing ostrich with the document that he's using for customers. I think he figures that if he uses the old form often enough and causes a lot of problems with his customers as a result of it, we'll eventually go back to the old format JUST FOR HIM!!! (Can you say-- NO WAY!!) It'll be an interesting negotiation, to say the least.
Of course, as Murphy's law will always remind you, if you get two from one area, then my own area is going to throw one at me, too, right? Yep, well, I got a document in this afternoon from my own region that is not expected to close before the end of the quarter but the sales rep wanted me to acknowledge the receipt of the document to the customer at least. So, at her request, I called the customer and let them know that I was looking at their document. He sounded thrilled, let me tell ya!! Yeesh!!
Moving Along
I'll be moving along now . . . nothing much to report . . . I've still got approximately 30 minutes before Brian comes home-- I've got plenty of time to find a way to get in trouble, huh? ;>)
Have a nice evening!
Tuesday, March 6, 2001BIG News!!!
Unfortunately, I can't name any names BUT, this morning I received a call from an author of a book that I'd like to adapt to a 3-act play for my sister, the teacher (Karen). The author's agent had informed me earlier that I would not be granted the rights. The author told me that he couldn't officially grant me the rights to the book because that may jeopardize a movie deal that he has going. He could, however, unofficially tell me that I could write a play for my sister's use ONLY. Of course, he can't put anything in writing to me for fear of jeopardizing the movie deal but, I made notes from the conversation and the date so that if there were any questions in the future, the questions would be eliminated by recalling this conversation.
I'm excited-- BIG TIME!! I called Brian and my sister, too, getting her out of class which startled her a bit since I never call her during the day. (She's a teacher and usually can't be interrupted!) I explained why I was calling and she was excited for both of us since she could be producing another of my plays next year! The author had also said for her to review all of his titles (Karen has, at one time or another, read almost all of his books) and go back to his agent to get official rights to adapt several of those titles to a play at some point in the future.
YIPPEEEEEE!!!!! I am happy!!!!!
I do need to speak with Karen's principal-- someone has to make sure that the play happens in April of 2002!! I can't travel in March and, since I would like to see a play that I've written, I'm going to beg to have it moved to the first week of April!! I've got his email address . . . maybe we can strike a deal, eh, Preston?
Heads-Up
I went to the dentist tonight after work-- its the first of two appointments this month and one big appointment will be next month. Much to my chagrin, I'll be incapacitated for at least a few days at the beginning of April by a new oral surgery that I have to have-- Yuck!!! I won't go into the gory details but, suffice it to say: it will not be pleasant, I will not be happy, I will be in pain, I will be out of work for a week and, then all the bad stuff will be over for me. In other words, in the long run, I'll be better off for finally getting it done and I'll be all caught up on my dental stuff. My teeth will look and act like I've never smoked a day in my life-- it will be nice to get to that stage after all of this work!!
From My Director
I received an email chocked full of little things like this from my director. Here's one I can share with you:
If I could only tell you the number of times that I've looked for those choices on Word!!! (Well, all except that last one-- mine is over in the other room!)
Details of the Evening
Thrill of thrills, I get to clean off my desk. Somehow, even though its only been a week or so, it managed to get exceedingly messed up in this past two weeks. I don't know why it got so bad but, it did and now I have to clean it up. Oh, well, there's
begging. . . er, I mean pledging happening on PBS so it gives me something to do.Have a nice evening!
Monday, March 5, 2001Nothing New
Okay, so there's a little bit new . . . like the Trip Report for our San Diego adventure (in flying) over the weekend. Brian's will be up soon, I'm sure; as usual, he's used all of the pictures but, I didn't-- again-- but its okay. That's why he takes the pictures, not me!
Nothing Missed
I didn't miss anything at work-- there were a couple of calls from the likes of John, my AVP who missed me by 30 seconds on Friday afternoon. I called him first thing this morning and he didn't remember what it is that he wanted from me on Friday. I had the same affliction-- all day about everything. "I asked for that?" was a typical response to "You needed this?"
I was tired!! All day!! I would periodically get up and walk around just to keep myself from nodding off at my desk. Thankfully, there weren't any negotiations today-- the one that was to be conducted was cancelled by the customer at the last minute. I had an hour's power nap when we got home from the grocery store-- yes, when you go away for the weekend, you end up behind on day-to-day chores!! That seems to have helped to give me some energy. We also followed Barbara Thompson's advice . . . to a degree: Barbara suggested take-out but, that was even more work than I was willing to do. Since we were at the store anyway and had to buy deli meats for lunches this week, we bought a little extra and I had a sandwich for dinner. Brian is having a can of chili-- YUCK!!! But, I'm not cooking and neither is he. The closest thing that we have to work is that I do have to cut up my celery for the week which is a typical Monday night ritual for me.
Finishing Up . . .
Tonight we have to finish up unpacking the suitcase and putting it and everything else away. I have a tendancy to keep every scrap of paper that we touch along the way from a trip and then, I dump them all on the table when we get home. At that point, I go through the stack and see if there's anything that needs to be kept-- you never know, there could be a $1000 bill stuck in a receipt by mistake from a clerk in a hurry! (Well, it could happen-- no it won't happen but it could!) The housekeeper is coming tomorrow so I'd better go get organized.
Have a nice evening!!
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