December 16, 1988
Dear Everyone:
OK, everybody hold off on the rain (and snow in the mountains) until after the holidays. Too much traveling going on to have to deal with weather. (Snow at Lake Tahoe would be alright since none of us has plans to go up there, and the melting snow next spring will help to ease the drought which now seems inevitable.)
“Richard” will be with “Jeannie” beginning next Monday. Mother and Dad are coming down to my place on or about Wednesday. Santa Claus has copies of all itineraries.
Our trip out to TAB for a records storage seminar did not get off to an auspicious start. The elevators in my office building went on strike that morning. That meant that we had to take the stairs down to the first floor. However, for security reasons, you can’t exit the stairwells on the first floor unless there is a fire alarm in effect.
So we had to climb back up 3 floors to use the other bank of elevators. Because this building is so tall, it has two sets of elevators. One set services floors 1-21. The other is an express to 21, then it covers floors 21-40. However, because the vending machines and conference rooms are on the third floor, the express elevators also stop on 3. My initial suggestion that we stop at 3 and take the other elevators got lost in the general excitement of clambering down 13 flights of stairs.
None of us thought to use the freight elevator which is only two doors down the hall from my office.
The TAB people gave a very nice presentation and gave each of us a bright red 3-ring binder with the TAB logo (which I need like another hole in my head) and what looked like a Zippo lighter until you took it out of the case – a really nice metal tape measure, also with the TAB logo.
We also found out that the TAB people aren’t TAB people at all. They’re FACS people who also happen to sell TAB products. FACS stands for Filing And Computer Supplies, or Friendly And Competent Service, or anything else you can think of that starts with F A C S. Think of it as a game that you can play while driving/flying for the Holidays. Points will be awarded for the most clever and original idea.
“Jeannie” wants a church-key for Christmas. The kind that opens tomato juice cans and beer bottles. Make a good stocking-stuffer. Also a pillow for the bathtub.
We’ve just had a terrific storm – all wind and no rain. Enormous white-caps on the Bay. The wind actually blew spray up onto the Ferry Building. Our 15 passenger van had trouble staying in its lane crossing the Bridge.
And my patio was completely trashed. I’m not surprised that “Alice’s” date-palm blew over; that happens regularly. But the wind also knocked over the ficus tree which was up against the side of the building. When I looked out, my peonies were whipping around like demented bowling balls. The only things that stayed put were those sorry-looking daisies, possibly because there was some actual dirt in the pots.
Thank God it’s Friday.
Everyone have a good Christmas. I’m not sure if there will be a Letter next week since it doesn’t look like anyone will be home to receive it.
“Alice”, congratulations on the new job.
My $1400/year raise worked out to a net gain of $24.06 per paycheck. So much for percentages.
Love, as always,
Pete
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