1999 Archive

1999 Archive – 10,818 words. More to be added as soon as I transcribe the hand-written notes.

January 1 1999

I got my email account from The Company yesterday and was ready to start work with about eight to ten customer emails when it became apparent that I would need the computer set up differently. This is where WS came in. I’m still getting paid $10 an hour for reconfiguring this machine but it’s taken an hour and ½ already. I’ll have fifty or more emails when I’m able to get back to work and I had only planned on working until 7 p.m. so we could go over to FatHead and MsNoManagementSkills tonight.

January 2 1999

Too busy with work email to do anything else.

January 3 1999

Work, work, work. Didn’t get to bed until nearly 4 a.m.

January 4 1999

Work, work, work. Didn’t get to bed until after 2 a.m. WS didn’t either.

Over the weekend, I got tons of work email questions for me new job. I was swamped. It turned out that for every one of MsNoManagementSkills’ emails she was getting, I was getting two. Great way to start things off on my own. It’s only my third real day!

January 5 1999

Finally, for the first time since the 23rd of December, I have a break from my new job. I work for an Internet software company called (name withheld for legal reasons, herein after called The Company). I help answer customer questions via email about The Company’s software product. I work anywhere from ten hours a day to six hours a day, answering all kinds of questions regarding how people can get this software to work on their computer. It’s fun. It pushes my brain. It’s stressful and I work seven days a week. I also get paid ten bucks an hour to do this from my own home. All email must be answered within twelve hours and I never have to go to The Company’s headquarters, which is located in a fancy house on the shores of a lake a few miles from here. I never have to dress up or wear make-up and panty hose, and be on time everyday or have a boss watching over my shoulder.

I do, however, have to do my own taxes until I get hired on as a full-time employee which will be five months down the road. I work with MsNoManagementSkills, FatHead’s wife. He used to call our BBS (Bulletin Board System) before we took it down last week after five years of operation. He still calls our Internet chat room and message board and we visit them every few weeks. MsNoManagementSkills is full-time and works seven days a week, eight to ten hours everyday.

I got my first paycheck last night after sitting around at The Company’s CEO’s fancy house for an hour and a half, waiting for her to get home. She had totally forgotten that we had scheduled me to stop by at 5 p.m. with WS. Or maybe she didn’t forget, I don’t think she forgot. I think it was part of a test, just like when her husband took off about forty minutes after we got there and the rest of the employees left as well. WS and I sat there after being told to make ourselves at home by The Company’s founder, and we waited for another forty minutes until the CEO walked in. If it was a test, I think we might have passed. We just sat there on a couch and talked quietly. The CEO was very apologetic but it just seemed too strange.

January 6 1999

WS took me to “Sweet Tomatoes” – the salad restaurant tonight. He really liked it. I just got bloated and gassy. But afterward, he took me to QFC, a new grocery store here in town. They are big in areas here in the Pacific Northwest and in California. WS stopped by there last night and had nothing but praise for them. I could spend all my money there easily. They are better than Zupan’s better than Nature’s, better than any grocery store I’ve ever been in. And it’s the closest store to our new house! Tonight, we picked up a few things; nicety things and got an extra $20 for tomorrow night’s grand opening of this town’s first Jack-In-The-Box. Oh yes, QFC is going to get a lot of my business in the future.

January 7 1999

Another light and easy day of work. Only four hours worth. MsNoManagementSkills only worked five or six hours. This is definitely the calm before the mass emailing storm hits this weekend. 500,000 emails go out to people telling them of our new software version. About 100,000 emails will come back as bounced email or people screaming at us for spamming. Very unhappy people. On top of this, we have to be able to help people with problems with this new version. I’m going to enjoy the next calm, should there ever be one, whenever it comes. I probably won’t be this relaxed and under worked again for some time.

Still, I have sixty-one hours in so far in this pay period and it’s only seven days in. I had 39 ½ hours at the end of New Year’s weekend alone! A week from now, I’ll be turning in my hours and getting my paycheck the following week for nearly 800 or 900 dollars! Too cool! I’ll be able to afford to pay off our VISA’s, buy plumbing, and nice light fixtures as well as gather money for nice furnishings eventually.

WS told me that a female coworker of his was actually jealous over my getting a good paying job because now we’ll be able to afford our new house and to furnish it too. I want to go out to find our plumbing fixtures this weekend, but I should send the money to instead to my VISA card. Same for next paycheck and the ones after until my VISA is paid off. But that won’t be until the end of March and I’ll need to have plumbing and lighting shortly after that. Maybe not enough time to gather the money to buy them all. Still, if I bring home just $500 a paycheck, that’s $1000 a month, for 3 months, my VISA is completely paid down to zero. But the middle of March, then I buy plumbing with the next, lighting with all of April and May’s paychecks, it might be a squeeze, but I think I can do it. I’m also not counting all the savings we are still saving out of WS’s paycheck. $50 just yesterday to go into savings.

January 9 1999

Bought our first chandelier today at Lamp’s Plus. Big, wrought iron, black one for our master bedroom in the new house.

January 17 1999

WS was an ass last night. We played a game of Age of Empires and he was having difficulties and yelling about it. I nearly quit playing. If I didn’t enjoy the game so much and rarely get to play anymore due to work, I would have quit on the spot. Afterward, I mentioned his yelling and he just looked at me and said, “You really don’t hear yourself when you do it too, do you?”

I grew up learning that turning a comment around like this is one of the major things a couple is not supposed to do if they want to keep a marriage alive. I walked out of the room. I’ll never play Age of Empires again with him. Of course, he has no idea what he did or even that what he did was wrong. I have put up with enough of this crap from ten years. It is something I would expect to hear coming out of his mother’s mouth. I have never given him a reason to say this and have in the past asked him not to cloud the issue by saying this and turning the discussion away from his problem. But he continues. To date, now, he has done or said nearly all of the things counselors say a couple should never do:

1- Ran back to his mother when things were going rough between us (occurred early in marriage).
2- Laughed at me during sex.
3- Continued to keep lines of communication closed.
4- Turned a comment around by saying “You’re doing it too!”

I can only wonder what other nuggets of shit await me in this marriage.

More threatening, disgusted customer in work email again today. Coworkers are not including me in their email addresses, leaving me out of the loop and not understanding what is going on. MsNoManagementSkills keeps asking if I’m having a bad day.

On a happier note, my web page for a game parody won a big Internet award from Yahoo! Internet Life.

January 18 1999

WS may have found a solution to a major bug problem in older versions of the software The Company I work for sells to people. We are testing his solution out, here at home before we tell The Company bosses, who are all more interested in the new version release than any old version or version problem. But we hope that if his solution works, that it may be an “in” for WS and The Company may ask him to go to work for them. WS told me just the other day that he was jealous of my job because he is so bored with his own. The problem is The Company isn’t looking for anyone, engineer-wise, to work for them here in town. They only want those kinds of people from California for some reason. Our mission is to slowly prove to them that an engineer or two here in town would benefit their company and product.

Thursday night, we are going to have our first bought chandelier delivered here from Lamp’s Plus. I thought they would wait a month or two before delivering it. I guess not. Thus begins the madness of storing items, large items, for the new house. I’ll put it, boxed up, in the plant room and hope spiders don’t live in the box for the next six months.

I took WS to a place I found at the mall last night that specializes in home décor. I bought a huge plaster artichoke that was white washed. He bought a green-patina metal spear tip finial. We nearly have enough knick-knack things for our tables in the new house. Tomorrow, I’m going to order a column or two, a picture, a clock and a vase of silk flowers. That should do it for me until we get closer to moving in, simply because we don’t have room to store any large furniture items.

January 22 1999

About 4 this afternoon, I found an injured squirrel in our side front yard. He was bleeding from his nose and mouth and I figured he probably was hit by a car and was near death. With a little effort, I caught him in a towel, noticing that none of his legs or tail seemed broken and covered him with a dry towel and left him under a big cedar tree in our yard. When WS came home from work, he was a little upset about the squirrel and we started calling animal shelters and wild life departments. We found that we could take the squirrel to the Audoban society and leave him in a heated cage until someone arrived at work the next day to care for him. We decided then to bring him inside, in a small cat carrier cage and try to keep him warm. About three hours later, he was dry, warm, still bleeding, but more active than he was originally, but still oozing blood and breathing noisily. As soon as we left for the society, it immediately started snowing. We drove carefully up to the west hills area, in the snow and darkness, found the place and left the squirrel in a wire, heated cage with $10 and a filled out form. We felt good about helping it but I wanted to cry all the way home.

January 23 1999

This morning, WS called about the squirrel we rescued last night and drove to the Audubon society and it survived the night! The squirrel’s ID number is #51 and we can call to check it’s progress anytime. He was diagnosed with head trauma, probably hit by a car and they said the most important things we could have done was keep him warm and quiet. We were able to do both and perhaps saved it’s life. It’s not out of the woods yet, but he’s got the best chance in the world now.

Tonight, during work, I accidentally sent a customer an email meant for MsNoManagementSkills, about the customer’s stupid question. I didn’t say the word “stupid” but implied it. He was understandably upset. I apologized and offered him a reasonable excuse about being a trainee and not meaning any disrespect when he didn’t buy for one second. No doubt, he has called The Company’s phone number and demanded a refund and complained and no doubt I’ll be in trouble for it. Every time I drop my professional routine, I pay for it. I just might lose my job over this. WS knows about it and while we are concerned and worried, we can only offer my apologies to whomever else in The Company, who gets wind of this. What a fuck up I can be. I was never this bad years ago. I don’t know what is wrong with me anymore.

We received our new house address today. We are no longer a lot number and there are no bad feng shui numbers in it.

January 25 1999

I had a horrible day yesterday. Only worked two and a half hours. 2 hours later, WS took over and ended up working for me until 12:30 in the morning. We still didn’t get caught up and I had to carry about 15 to 20 emails over into Tuesday morning.

I had a meeting today at The Company CEO’s house to go over some new key and database stuff. Fairly easy stuff but time consuming and in the beginning, it will add to our workload instead of decrease it. I need to have the attitude that I need to tell customers whatever I can to pacify them until a new build of the software comes out and perhaps fixes their problem. There are so many variables with people’s computers and what ever they have chosen to run on them. Really, it’s a minor miracle that the software and many, many other pieces of software work at all on people’s computers. People have been sheltered from what it takes to get a computer to work correctly any more. It’s not making mud pies; it’s nearly rocket science!

Our rescued squirrel had to be put to sleep today. They had given him antibiotics and pain killers and thought he might pull through. This morning when the Audubon society workers came in, he had begun hemorrhaging during the night, showing that his injuries were worse than first thought and was having a very difficult time breathing. They thanked WS over the phone for bringing it in and giving it a chance. I didn’t cry but I see that squirrel, soaking wet, struggling to get out of the rain every where I walk. It allowed me to touch it and rub it’s head between it’s ears and I gave it warmth and shelter from the wet outside. I won’t forget it like I won’t forget any of the animals that came into my life. Goodbye, Rocky, our squirrel 51. Go in peace to hop around and eat peanuts with your family and friends. I’ll miss your presence from our neighborhood every time I look outside.

January 26 1999

A long day for work. Twelve hours at least is what I am expecting. I started at 11 a.m., took a ½ hour lunch break, an hour dinner break. It’s nearly 10 p.m. now with no end to my email list in sight.

MsNoManagementSkills knocked off work early. She’s struggling. I’ve known nothing different from this heavy load and stress. I may work long after WS has gone to bed, just to try to catch up. The Company’s mass email may go out tomorrow, then I’ll be more swamped than I could imagine and will take days, perhaps weeks, to catch up to this point where I only have 80 or so emails in the course of one day. I’ve averaged about 150 emails in the last three days, beginning Sunday when WS worked for me for 8 ½ hours.

January 27 1999

Today, The Company CEO told me that she will be hiring MsNoManagementSkills’ roommate, BikerDude, as The Company’s third employee on a temporary, part-time basis. He’ll do great, I think.

She also mentioned The Company was interested in WS as a Quality Assurance Engineer here in town. They weren’t able to get back to him tonight and will probably call during the day tomorrow when WS is at work and can’t call back until he gets home, whereas he’ll have to call California long distance.

Today, I had to call California twice to tell some customer about our NT version of the software and get information from him due to a partition deletion the guy experienced. More cost to me in long distance charges that I’ll have to get reimbursed. Too fun!

Anyway, WS will be able to call his own shots possibly with the job. They know he is more than capable of doing it. The problem is figuring out if WS’s REAL job won’t throw a fit with him working this job on top of his REAL job with them. Might be conflict of interest issues. Plus, he’ll have to do it in the evenings, seven days a week, for X number of hours a night. We both are tired quite often, not getting to bed until after midnight or later most nights. Tonight is no exception. It’s nearly 2 a.m. now.

No word on if evening hours are okay or what exactly will be expected from WS. He’s excited, which is probably what is keeping him up right now.

If this works, sure, we’ll be rolling in the dough, but we’ll be tired and burnt out from seven days a week, ten hour days in no time. If we can find the strength to do this until we get into the new house, this could be quite the windfall.

January 28 1999

I was having a good day until about 5:30 pm. When I started losing stream and feeling a little overwhelmed. No word from The Company CEO on whether WS or BikerDude will be hired officially. I also found out today that our paychecks are going to be changed from twice a month to once a month but we can do a draw on it for a thousand dollars if we need it twice a month. I’m not too fond of once a month. It sounds too close to “not getting paid” and “owed back pay” to me but I’m lucky to be working at all.

January 30 1999

WS was interviewed over the phone by The Company CEO today and hired. Actually, he wasn’t told he was hired. We heard about it from MsNoManagementSkills who is now my supervisor. Her roommate, BikerDude, got hired too although, it will take a while for him to catch on and start answering emails, unfortunately for us.

We found nearly all of our lighting for the new house today $700 for a three tier gold chandelier in the front foyer that WS picked out. It is gorgeous. The one he really wanted was $2600 and had white marble in it. The matching bathroom fixtures were nearly $800 each and we would have needed three of them. It would have been stunning but maybe a little over the top. Now we have both our lighting and plumbing picked out. We need to nail down our flooring and carpet in the billiard room. With WS working nights and weekends for The Company at $20 an hour and $5 an hour going into stock options, we will be rolling in the dough before long. If things continue at this pace for the next ten to twelve months, we will be in our house, slowly decorating it, having our backyard landscaped and hot tub with enclosure put in. This is what it means to be financially well-off. It’s not rich but there is money and we are working hard for it.

We need to come up with $3500 cash savings for the house, $2500 for lighting and plumbing and $4000 to play off the VISA cards before the end of May. If we buckle down just a little, we’ll be able to do this. Already, my paycheck for Monday or Tuesday ought to be around $9000 again, take home. I’ll put it all into savings and the paycheck after, use to pay down my VISA since WS will get a paycheck from The Company then too. I hope they don’t mind him working a lot. He wants to work a lot of hours already.

January 31 1999

It’s supposed to snow today. Tonight, actually. One week ago, our injured squirrel was suffering at the Autoban society and our hearts were there with him.

118 ½ hours reported for work tonight. WS helped with my email load all day and I told MsNoManagementSkills that this was part of his training. My paycheck will be $1185, which means $885 to us and the house with $300 going into tax savings. At the end of February when I get my next check, I’ll be sending half of my check to me VISA bill.

February 1 1999

No chance of snow. The weathermen are idiots.

Tonight is another long evening spent working. WS is still working on my emails through I only had about nine left, Most of them were bad ones that I couldn’t figure out.

Tomorrow, WS takes the car to the shop for a day or two to get windshield wiper arms and mirrors repainted before the first warranty runs out on Saturday. Three years we’ve had this car now and it still turns people’s heads.

WS is having he’s second bad day and is questioning working for The Company now. Things are a mess with little-to-no testing being done on the software before The Company releases it to the public. Then we, as technicians, get the backlash and are supposed to have fixes for it all. WS is our go-between from me and MsNoManagementSkills to the engineers who really don’t want to hear about the problems because they are all working on future releases. WS also helps us with the worst cases. I seem to get about fifty of these bad cases every day, with about fifteen to thirty as repeat emails and maybe a dozen who won’t be able to be helped. I need to nor worry about any of this and just take the money for the time I’m working and focus on the house its all going to pay for.

February 14 1999

WS and I went out to eat but could only find a restaurant on the river to eat at. The restaurant next door, told us we’d have to wait 2 ½ hours for a seat because we didn’t have Valentine’s Day reservations, in a snotty, shocked voice. How snotty! I don’t like this restaurant, even though we’ve never eaten there.

February 16 1999

Work, work, work. A pretty good day actually.

And then I was lulled to sleep by the sound of the rain on our rental house’s metal roof at 10:30 in the morning.

February 17 1999

Work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work

February 24 1999

I had 171.50 hours for the month. WS has 163 hours for The Company.

This will be about $3700 for us for the month of February. We’ll be paying for a new computer we need for The Company job at $2000 and I’ll be paying $1100 toward my VISA card. The remainder goes toward savings. We’ll need to move $5000 into our checking account at the end of this month from the house money. They should be getting close to cashing that check soon. All money we make after this paycheck goes to pay for house stuff, backyard landscaping, extra skylight, plumbing, hot tub, interior decorating, new office furniture. We found a beautiful leather chair at Renovator’s last weekend that is on sale for the entire month of March. If we have no problems with the start of the building of our house, we’re going to buy two of these leather chairs and rent a small storage shed for a few months to store the chairs and maybe a few other things until the house is built and we are ready to move in. The chairs are normally $1700 each, on sale for $1300 each. And they are the best ones we’ve ever found since we began looking last year. WS loves the chairs. They will look beautiful in the library.

February 25 1999

I order a Roman stone column pedestal today. I had been wanting ones for years and I could finally afford one now. It will be 42 inches tall and have a carrara stone finish (light gray-ish white). I hope to have it hear in a couple of weeks. In March, I hope to start getting rid of some of our stuff that we’re not going to keep. Like the cat houses and my old stereo and WS’s big speakers, the Pachinko machine, old dishes, bedroom end tables and plant room stuff. At the end of March, I hope we can have the first of our yard sales so we won’t be stuck with a bunch of junk when we should be moving into a new house and spending time with more important things.

I need to go through closets and the garage again for more junk to throw out. When moving time comes, I just know we are going to end up thinking that we had more stuff that we should have gotten rid of earlier. And our trashcans are going to be overflowing. I should go through each room systematically and go through everything there. I can start with our room, which is already fairly sparse.

I need to go through my plant stuff. Half of everything could stand to be tossed out probably. A last pass on my baskets and pottery. I should put the Pee Wee Herman doll away and peek in the plant room closet for any extra junk to toss out. Then there are some books that could go. The computer room closet is just full of junk. In April, I’ll get rid of my old stereo and WS’s big speakers. I’ll insist that FatHead come and get his machine and we’re start working on the closets in the hall and kitchen stuff like cooking pans and utensils. I would prefer not to take any junky or bent up, worn, baked-on cooking or baking items but I could go broke trying to replace everything. I’m already replacing glasses this week and I have more to throw out.

March 1 1999

I got paid today. $1715 into checking along with WS’s first Company paycheck of $2437.50 and a week ago, his REAL job check of $1400. We need to focus on nothing but working now and paying down bills. We are waiting on our mortgage guy, Eric, to find us the best mortgage available that we can quality for and then prepare the paperwork so we can get going on our house construction.

The house to the east side of us and the one kitty-corner across the street has their footings poured as of Saturday afternoon.

We are pretty sure we’ll be using a house decorator once we get into the house. I figure two months worth of pay will pay for painting, window treatments, kitchen accessories and wood work plus a piece of two from a home décor stop. I’d like us to have our official house warming party two months after we move in. It will be tight making sure we have enough decorator items so we look like we are on our way to achieving the look we want. I also need to make sure I am able to get the computer/office room set up quickly so it doesn’t interfere with my work. Perhaps three months would be a better timeline for our house warming party. If I keep this in mind, I’ll have no problem working and not spending.

As soon as we find out on the house mortgage, I’ll start getting rid of stuff we know we are not going take with us. Couch, chair, cat houses, refrigerator, Pachinko machine, bedroom end tables, lawn mower, benches, microwave (?), my stereo and tons of other junky stuff. I need to start watching for dry weekends so we can schedule a couple of yard sales. Also to go, grandma’s old table and printer table.

This coming weekend, if it is dry, I should go out and dig up some roses to get rid of as well as some perennials that we aren’t going to take.

March 8 1999

WS’s new computer came today. Unfortunately, after being up until nearly 6 a.m. from the night before with work issues, I slept right through FedEx’s delivery attempt and WS had to go after work at his REAL job to pick it up. He didn’t sleep at all last night and after he finished with The Company’s job stuff, he went into his REAL job at 6 a.m. We are both exhausted now but it will get our sleep/week schedules back on track.

March 9 1999

I ordered a plaster Roman column about a week and a half ago and it arrived today. In multiple pieces. So I had to call and let them know that I was not happy. They’re sending another one. I’m not too thrilled about thinking that the second one probably won’t make it here in one piece either. So I have one Roman column ruin. If it were solid all the way through, it wouldn’t look bad broken in half. WS things we should find a way to fill the end so it looks solid but either of us have time to do this. I may end up getting my $169 back and two broken columns. Oh well.

March 15 1999

We’ve been approved for a home mortgage of 200K. We’ll be able to have our house built as we want it and be able to have laminate wood flooring throughout. No cat barf stains on carpet to clean up. Tomorrow night, we go for our first pre-construction meeting. I just hope they say we can do everything we have planned for. A library loft, double French doors in the billiard room and in our master bedroom. Our gas fireplace centered on the far living room wall surrounded by glass. Vaulted ceilings upstairs, wood flooring in the kitchen and all bathrooms.

I’ve been working every day for nearly three months now. I can’t believe how much weight I’ve put on. My now-inactive life style of sitting in front of the computer for eleven to thirteen hours a day and not allowing me time to continue to work out to be active is really taking it’s toll. If only I hadn’t spent the last $1500 in the last three months, I could have bought the treadmill I want and my body needs. Now I’ll have to wait until we have moved.

March 27 1999

It hailed on and off all day today. At one point when we were out driving around, we saw a wall of hail right in front of us and then drove through it. Strange.

We picked up our ordinary lighting fixtures today. My office, the laundry room and the bedroom closet ceiling lights. All paid for too. We need to pay for all our other lighting on Tuesday, March 30th.

Our foundation has been poured on our new house. We are still waiting to see how much extra money we are going to need in order to finish the house and our mortgage person told WS that he would need to keep his overtime hours up at his REAL job. We’re both working as much as we can for The Company and hopefully, we won’t have to touch our retirement account money to help pay the rest because we’ll have to pay that money back before we can move in. Everything seems to be coming up too close together. I’m just glad we were picking out colors and additions way before we really needed to. We’d have too much on our hands if we had waited.

April 19 1999

We’ve been playing a computer game called “Half-Life” on the Internet. It’s a killing opponent game. WS gets very mad at it and had another temper tantrum tonight. It sounded like he was breaking the computer behind me when he was quitting playing. It scared me and I quit playing as well. No, neither one of us are very good at this game and at times, it is frustrating but I don’t see the point in getting so mad. He has no idea how his outbursts make me feel and I can’t explain it to him in words he understands. I don’t think we’ll be playing much longer. Even he said that buying the game over the weekend was a waste of $50. This did not last long at all. The thing is, I’m much worse at playing than he is, yet he’s the one throwing fits and banging on the new computer keyboard. He just has no clue.

Wednesday evening, we are supposed to meet with some wiring guy about getting wiring done on our new house. His company was recommended to us but we were led to believe that what we wanted would only cost about a thousand dollars. Today, on the phone, he told WS that he was looking at well over a thousand; upwards around four thousand to $7500. I think he’s bending us over a barrel and I don’t have a very good feeling about him now. I think we’re going to get screwed because he is the only person we know of who can do this for us. We’re not too happy about this to say the least.

After this wiring thing is done, I’m wondering what the next expense on the new house is going to be. We already went to buy insulation for the walls, which is going to cost up around $400 or so, doing all the work ourselves. I just wish there was a way to do the wiring ourselves as easily as well. Fencing. That’s what will cost us more. We don’t have enough money for all this. I’m getting very scared about all this expense coming up.

May 20 1999

I have not written here for a long time. It is partly due to laziness and partly due to extreme business in my life. Our house is half-way built. I’m working eight to ten hours per day and trying to play a game called “Half-Life” online daily plus maintain the house cleaning and the remaining cats.

Arie, the cat, was put to sleep at the end of last month. He stopped eating, slept all the time and started losing weight. I took him to the vet and he was tested and left overnight. In the morning, when the tests came back, it showed liver disease. No way emotionally or financially could we go through that again after last year’s bout with this in D.K. and another cat. The house is much quieter without him and it feels incomplete. He had enough personality for ten cats. We took his t-shirt he used to wear occasionally and put hi name on it and hung it in the rafters of the house, in retirement, and took a picture which is now on a web site in tribute to assent friends. Sure, not as much stuff is being wrecked and ruined by him, but we still miss him.

WS just talked to one of The Company CEO’s and he is flying WS to Company headquarters Saturday night through Sunday night. I’ve decided to go along. The Company will pay for it. I’ll get my first plane ride ever. We’ll stay at a motel, rent a car, do some work, see The Company offices and coworkers and come home all within twenty four hours. Take and money and run. That is what this job is all about.

I’ll need to get my allergy shot tomorrow and pick up cat food as well.

May 21 1999

So, we’re going to Company headquarters together tomorrow night. I didn’t tell my coworkers, MsNoManagementSkills or BikerDude tonight at our bi-monthly meeting that I was going. I’ll tell them later, after the fact to reduce the stress level. I don’t want them worrying about my workload.

WS is going to talk to The Company people Sunday about not working for them any longer. He doesn’t have enough time to work effectively for them anymore, nor does he like the way things are run and is having a hard time liking his job there. He is very depressed about it and is close to teas all the time. He wouldn’t be anywhere near this stressed if he hadn’t gotten us into this house-building thing. I do admit, I will deeply miss the money he was making with them. That extra $2500 a month was nice over the last four months. I really want him to stick it out until the house is built and w have all the extras we wanted with the house but it is very selfish for me to think that way. I don’t think he realizes how much an impact the loss of his extra paycheck is going to have on getting the hot tub and backyard landscaping and debt reduction and interior decorating that he wanted. It’s basically all gone now. I just hope we can save enough for our tax money payment now.

May 22 1999

Sat at the airport for nearly two hours before finally leaving for Company Headquarters. Stress had me a little nervous and during the last hour, my head felt whoozy. I kept a cool moist cloth to pat my face and neck with handy. The flight wasn’t as loud as I thought it would be. Also during the last hour the air in the plane got very dry and static-y.

Oh, and the best part! Just before our flight, WS upgraded our coach tickets to first class. $40 extra each. The Company had already bought the rest. And it was so cool. We were waited on hand and foot. We got fruit and cheese on leather seats. Nearly anything we wanted to drink, wide seats in the first row. There was only one other person in first class. It was just too cool for words. WS says we’ll do this from now on.

May 23 1999

9:25 a.m. Company headquarters office. No one is hear but WS and I. Meetings are supposed to start in five minutes. Obviously, people here are on WS’s REAL job time, which is usually ½ hour later than real time.

Last night, after midnight, we found both a Del Taco and a Wienerschnitzel restaurant about twenty minutes from here. We’re definitely hitting the hot dog joint before we leave. I hope they have antenna weenies for car antennas. I’ll need to pick up about ten of them if they do.

There are several churches located in this office complex. I can hear music from somewhere outside. This is a big complex with heavily influenced Spanish styling. Mexican tile, heavy wood doors, wrought iron everything, a center courtyard with fountain. I expect the Barkley family from “The Big Valley” TV show to walk down one of the staircases and welcome them to their home. I’m told all the older complexes here look like this.

A little after 10 a.m., the main engineer showed up. He isn’t a geeky-looking toad like he sounds over the phone. He’s a geeky-looking Chinese toad, but he is less annoying in person and actually has a sense of humor. A female engineer is very nice and very friendly. She is also pregnant, just barely. Another couple of male engineers are petite in stature.

Meetings from 12:30 to 3:20 p.m. went well. Not too boring and I felt a valuable part of the team. People listened to me. We accidentally stayed longer than we wanted to and had to seriously rush to get back to the rental car place and airport on time. We did not get to upgrade our tickets to first class and the plane was stuffed full of people. It was hot and stuffy. The dinner served to the regular people was pretty crappy but at least no one barfed or farted around me and the woman sitting next to me didn’t say a word the entire trip.

After getting home, we checked our new house, grabbed the mail from the P.O. Box, some Jack-In-The-Box food and headed home for a few more hours of work.

We’re exhausted.

No entries for June 1999

July 18 1999

A lot has happened in the last month. Our house was finished being built on July 2nd. We officially moved in on July 7th. During July 4th weekend (three day), we moved nearly our entire selves to the new house garage. On July 8th, we moved our bed and bought a new mattress, which came with a big gouge in the side of it and has to be replaced sometime next week. We still haven’t gotten over to Linens & Things or the mattress shop to pick up a percent off coupon or a mattress cover. We need a cover badly.

I am on my last day of a four-day mini-vacation, even though I check and receive about fifty emails a day from my job at The Company. Sometime yesterday, my computer that I work on had a problem and lost all information and for some reason, can’t get it loaded back. Therefore. I have no work PC. WS has been working on it since 11 p.m. last night with no luck. Meanwhile, I’m trying to finish, or work toward a finish to moving into our house. This coupled with a nasty-looking skin infection on his leg last week has rendered WS incapable of helping too much with our move in. He has been working hard while on his own vacation from his REAL job, but he is not up to the amount of work that is required and I feel that I’m left to not only organizing everything, but cleaning as well, with no time to myself.

August 20 1999

Finally in my own office room. We’re moved into our first-ever house. WS bought me office furniture last week and we’re moved it into my own private office room tonight. I still need the computer hooked up in here, a lamp, a fan, chair rail moldings, a shelf and pictures framed and hung, but the walls are painted, the rug is down, my desk and chair are correctly positioned. The closet is painted and organized and the filing cabinets are filled. We both agree that I need to replace the door with a glass French door. That would help this room feel more open. This room, while it will be hot in the summer, is going to be perfect for an office. This is perfect for me. Time go get WS’s birthday cards ready for Sunday. I might as well get them ready now.

August 21 1999

Found Hollywood Aquarium today. Nothing to write home about. We probably won’t be back. Also went to a bagel shop. WS bought $20 worth of bagels. We’ll be eating bagels for the next month.

Today was an easy workload than I figured it would be. I did have an email argument with MsNoManagementSkills on how few hours FatHead is working as technical support for The Company, now that she’s got him hired on. She has no idea that he’s been getting hardly any email all week and says that he is behind. Behind on what?? He only has thirty-eight emails, all of which were supposed to be answered within twenty-four hours. He’s not answering his email and is taking advantage of the system. MsNoManagementSkills either doesn’t know or doesn’t think so. I no longer care. Just as long as I get my days off, which we just started getting this weekend. MsNoManagementSkills was off today, but because she has do discipline, she had over 100 emails she didn’t finish up from yesterday and Thursday that she had to finish today, to have them answered within twenty-four hours. At the end of the night, she still had fifty-plus emails. Why she doesn’t just sit there and get them all done, I don’t know. Probably so she will have something to bitch about later. BikerDude is still 200 emails behind. I don’t think another coworker is behind at all and I finish all my email every single night. If I don’t, I can’t sleep. I’m lucky I have WS who understands this. MsNoManagementSkills just stops work anywhere from 7 to 10 p.m. every night and is never technically caught up.

August 30 1999

Our cat knocked the Bookworm picture off the top of the library bookshelves and the glass shattered in millions of pieces, dented and cracked our floor, scraped up the frame and the picture itself, and didn’t make either WS or I too happy. I let the cat know that I was very disappointed in her and it was evening before she would come near us or not get scared and shaken. It was incredibly loud and took me over a half an hour to clean up. We are very lucky that no one was cut or hurt. The picture is ruined. We haven’t decided whether to try to fix it and replace the glass or replace the whole thing for #125. Replacing the glass alone will probably be over $50. I don’t want to think about it today.

August 31 1999

Today is my fourth day off ever from my job at The Company, an Internet-based company that creates software. I have worked for this company for just over eight months and am second in seniority. We never got days off before a new work system was set up to give us just that: days off. Real days off. We used to work seven days a week, every one of us. I get Saturdays and Tuesdays off, a nice split in off days so the work days aren’t so long in between.

Last Saturday, I went shopping for silk plants from our new house, mainly my office bedroom and took a neighbor with me. She is a neighbor that we like here at the new house but she’s strange form time to time. I suspect that she’s a manic-depressive personality. WS and I had dinner at their home Saturday night and we over stayed our welcome. Sunday, she and her husband were fairly cold-shouldered to WS. We’re learning. We need to stay away from people. WS says he hates people and doesn’t need them but he really liked the husband and I feel that he’s grasped on tightly to this friendship. I think he wants to believe that he doesn’t need people when in fact, he does.

Today is the second anniversary of Princess Diana’s death. Small news blurb. People are getting on with their lives for the most part.

Finished reading “Airframe” by Michael Creighton. What a piece of crap. I thought I was reading a Danelle Steel novel for a while there. Mr. Creighton has no business writing books with strong women characters as the lead. My intelligence was insulted and I have lost respect for that man. Obviously written for the stupid masses. Chu-ching! Another million or so for the creator of the E.R. TV series.

The house next door is having the wood-burning fireplace built. It is very noisy, but interesting sitting here in my office writing this. It could be a distraction if I was working in here every day, but the computer I use isn’t in here yet.

September 1 1999

I get the distinct feeling that WS is avoiding me at work. He has a pager now and is never at his desk. Two signs that he is cheating on me. The car seat continues to be changed, passenger side only. That makes three signs of the top four. He’s also coming home later and later. All signs there. Do I really think he is cheating. NO. But I do think our marriage is on the rocks and he has no clue that all these things have affected it. I’ll be guessing that he is going to find out in a screaming fit from me. Things are way too out of control.

So we had a small discussion. He knows that I am upset. I think he has no clue what is happening to us. He says he loves me and that it hurts him to know that he is causing me pain, yet I know that he doesn’t know what he is doing to our relationship, nor how to stop, nor how to start things anew. He never keeps things in mind, letting everything fall back the way they were after a few days. After last week’s big shouting match over the lack of housework he was doing, he’s been good to keep it up for nearly a week, but a friend of his was over tonight, stayed until nearly nine p.m.. WS’s got over thirty different emails to answer, it’s after 11 p.m. now and he still has twenty emails to go. Something tells me no housework will do done tonight, yet he could take time, plus extra time to have the friend over for his weekly watch of a TV show. He doesn’t get it. Fun comes AFTER work. Always. If things around here were at least caught up, then it’s okay to have friends over and take a two-hour break. For this reason, he’ll never understand. He’ll never follow-through, and he’ll never get ahead. No disciple. None. The coming weeks will not be fun in the least.

The house being built kitty-corner across the street from us is about 1/3 of the way done and we had met the woman who was buying it. Her financing fell through. The first one of this to happen. Now there will be a house for sale in the new subdivision, a first for the house builders.

Met another family in the neighborhood with the same last name as us, actually just him today, when some of our postal mail got delivered to his mailbox.

September 5 1999

Finally finished the chair rail in my office. What a pain in the butt! We’ve learned that all the walls corners and the wall studs are completely crooked. But the map is finally hung now too and looks beautiful. WS is getting the computer taken apart to move into here. We’re not sure it will fit correctly but we’re going to try everything possible. I moved my old phonograph in here a while ago and played nearly all of the old 78 speed records just to initialize the feel of the room. Next week, after the holiday weekend, we’ll pick up the lumber for the wall shelves and brackets and work on that. After that, I’ll be looking for a side chair and I’ll be done in here. Then it’s time for a brief break before starting on another room in the house. Other than the problems with the chair rail, this room will be success!

September 6 1999

I really enjoyed my office today but I felt pains of regret of not working with WS in his office anymore. I wish he missed me as much but I think he enjoys being alone in there. He still has no clue as to what to do with his office, decorating-wise. He just has lots of plants and that is all. I gave him some of my ideas today but I’ll have to let him think about them for about a month before touching on it again.

I’m looking forward to the pace of things slowing down in the coming weeks. WS is even more so looking forward to this. He said today that he isn’t enjoying being a homeowner. It’s a lot of hard work and I don’t think he realized it.

September 7 1999

I finally got my paycheck stub today and The Company I work for paid me twice! That means I won’t get a paycheck next month at all! Last month, they forgot to take my taxes out and had to deduct that from this month’s pay.

September 9 1999

Lots of constructions activity here today. House next door is getting concrete and a sidewalk. This completes the sidewalk from SportsOrNothing on the east side of us to the west corner. People northeast of SportsOrNothing are having their fence installed. OurParentsDoEverythingForUs to the south of us and across the street are having their backyard landscaped professionally and the houses down the hill, the daylight basements, are preparing to have cement poured. Drywalling is continuing across the street at the house that isn’t sold any longer, since the financing fell through for the buyers (this became The Baseball Team’s home and later The Howler Monkey house.)

September 14 1999

What a dull day. I want to go spend money but the other half of me doesn’t. I didn’t have the car but could get it if I whined to WS about it. I could find things to clean but I don’t really want to. I should go to a nursery and pick up about 35 white pansy plants for the fall color out found. But WS’s not at his desk at his REAL job for me to get the car. I feel tired probably because I didn’t make coffee or maybe I’m really tired. This is no time to start taking naps in the afternoon. I hate days like today.

September 17 1999

The tax figures are in. We will owe between $8500 and $11,700 next April 15th in taxes AFTER tax credit for buying a house. WS realized just last night that both of our tax exemptions were set too high and now we are going to pay for it dearly. We have to clamp off everything, shut down everything and put everything else on hold. I’m very angry about this because I feel like I was lied to about the stuff we were going to get with the house when WS was also working for The Company in addition to his REAL job and now, we aren’t getting even the basic items like a fence or a dining room table or bar stools even. I feel like I’m working for nothing but to pay for a huge bill that WS caused. I’m also angry because I feel like once again, I’m cleaning up WS’s financial mess. First, back ten years ago, when I helped pay for his late rent, then to clean up his credit, now to fix a tax bill.

I’m trying to talk myself into a discipline, frugal person I know I can be. But this takes weeks upon weeks of mental conditioning. I need to sit back and enjoy what we now have with this beautiful, empty house and not think about what we could have bought and shopped for. Fall and winter is coming and it’s is time to hunker down, stay home and work our way until next spring. This is the perfect time to get house organizing done.

September 19 1999

Today went too fast. Amazing since we did nothing but sit home and work, WS on his REAL job stuff and me on The Company email. Still, I want us to try to get the rest of the house stuff done from my Saturday list of things to do but it wasn’t meant to be. WS worked from hours on his stuff that I thought he had finished yesterday. Mental Note: When WS says he will need to work on REAL job stuff over the weekend but it should only take a few hours, he’ll immediately forget that he said, “A few hours” and he’ll stretch it out to mean ALL weekend. Don’t plan ANYTHING! Except for non-participation and lots of frustration and lonliness.

Tomorrow, I call from bark dust. I planted spring bulbs yesterday and I am feeling it today. We need to get this spread before the rains start but it is too hot to think about working on it this week. It was 92 degrees yesterday, 91 degrees today, supposed to be between 90 and 95 tomorrow. This is ridiculous. This is the end of September. It’s getting darker earlier, 7:30 p.m. and cooler in the morning. The leaves are starting to turn color. It’s supposed to be 80 degrees at the most. The only reason why it is this hot is because I planted heat-sensitive pansies last week, I’m sure.

Talked to neighbors today that we used to talk a lot to. Hadn’t talked to his wife in weeks. Probably won’t again for weeks. It’s best this way.

WS didn’t wake up snappy today. This is his direct quote.

The neighbors we used to talk to got their motorcycle put back together today and stopped by this morning. Looks nice again. He crashed three weeks ago trying to avoid hitting a cat, he says. $3500 in damage. Fixed it himself with new parts and pocketed the rest of the money. The American way, I guess.

September 20 1999

This morning, after getting up, greeting the pets and starting work, one of our pets who was acting normal started howling horribly and having a hard time breathing. His tongue was blue and we rushed him to the vet. They were ready and waiting for him with oxygen and after some x-rays, his lungs were found to be filling with fluid and his heart was giving out. Our sweet, fluffy, blue-eyed boy was dying of heart disease and we had to have him put to sleep. We’re down to 5 pets now, having lost Arie in April and D.K. and Jeffrey last year. At this rate, we’ll be down to one or two pets within sixteen months. I feel bad that WS did not allow him to lay on his chest more often in the last year but this house buying thing combined with having no furniture has shortened WS’s tolerance for most anything lately. Good bye, Vince, our puff ball. I love you.

September 26 1999

WS accidentally dropped a huge, heavy rock on my hand while we were trying to build our retaining wall in the backyard. I had to go to the emergency room at 8 p.m. and I have a broken index finger. Six to eight weeks in a splint. Typing ought to be a ball now.

October 11 1999

I’ve had my finger splint off nearly all day and my index finger’s skin is all peeling off. It hurts but I think I’ll be able to straighten it out fully once it’s healed in four to six weeks. I took out my stitches on Friday and the cut looks good. I still think I’m going to lose my finger nail though.

WS let me know tonight that his back is acting up, with his feet totally numb and his hands tingly. He had a difficult time driving home. I’ll be taking him to work from now on. I think I am destined to live my mother’s life, complete with an invalid husband for fifteen years. WS gets all depressed when he feels I’m becoming too independent and obviously don’t need him to help do things. This is the exact reason why I’m independent. I don’t think we’ll be around long for each other. If disease doesn’t claim us and tear us apart, then some stupid driver will on the city streets.

Our retaining wall is done. Our neighbor to the west, DrunkTank Willie, who told us he was going to build the same kind of wall, isn’t. He’s putting up a fence instead this week. The neighbor to the east, SportsOrNothing, still believe that our home builders will build their retaining wall and are waiting. It’s not going to happen and they’ll end up putting up a fence as well. I get so tired of being led around by the nose and feeling like I’m being lied to. They have a bigger slope then we do, yet they don’t want to do the work. We told each other that either we’d both do the wall, or neither of us will build the wall so we’ll all look the same. Then they pulled out at the last minute. Liars.

October 12 1999

WS home from work because of his back.

October 13 1999

WS home from work again because of his back.

He wanted to play a game tonight at 10 p.m. after I was done with work. I said we would need to go to bed because he needs all the rest he can get due to his back/spine flare-up. Yet not more than 5 minutes after we get into bed, he was snoring. Of course, I woke him up so he would finish his st. John’s Wort tea that he needs to keep his mind sharp. The numbness in his legs is still bad and he says his knees feel like buckling often. I’m not having him do anything strenuous but he pushes himself to do the stupidest things and won’t listen to me naturally.

Tonight, as I was sitting outside on our front bench alone, I heard several flocks of geese fly overhead. I read that most birds migrate at night and out here, it certainly looks like this is true. I hear geese and ducks quite often as well as some kind of smaller birds sometimes. It was very cool outside with a mild breeze blowing. I was glad to be wearing a big, long sleeved fleece shirt that I could tuck my hands up into . Almost nippy. In less than a month, it should be down to freezing or below every night with highs in the mid 50’s. The true test of the construction of this house will be then. I think it will be solid and cozy.

October 16 1999

Today is a beautiful clear fall day. Nearly cloudless sky and the temperature is about 68 degrees with a breeze occasionally. It froze last night as it did the night before. I have all the plants sunk into bark dust planters and I am ready for winter. WS is helping put our west side neighbor’s fence up. They are working on our side now and it will really help define our yard as really our yard. WS didn’t want to help, but once he got into it engineering experience came into play and now he says he is having fun.

I’ve had my finger splint off for four days now and it feels better having it off. I’ve slept with it off for two nights as well and have slept a bit more comfortably.

October 18 1999

WS drove himself to work today. He is not back to normal but he said he was okay. I don’t think it was a good idea and I’ll be talking to him about it tonight. If he gets into an accident because he can’t feel his feet or legs, he’ll be responsible for that accident. He could be taking our financial life in his hands.

I ate an entire bag of potato chips today and I’m not feeling too proud of it. The only good thing about it is that it’s all gone. None for tomorrow. I did great during the day until 3:30 p.m. and I sat down to watch TV. I’m finding that I always eat when I’m watching TV and hardly ever when I’m not.

No entries for November 1999

No entries for December 1999