March 9, 1989
Dear Everyone:
A letter from “Frankie”! Copy enclosed. No new address yet.
[No, there's no copy of "Frankie's" letter here.]
“Jeannie” left on Sunday. At 5:45 in the morning I could hear her bumping about in the kitchen. She was trying to fool the cat into swallowing her sedative by hiding it in some cat food. No deal. Cats don’t wolf down their food the way a dog will. So there I was, sitting on the kitchen floor in my Christopher Hayes night shirt, with the cat in my lap, trying to pry her mouth open to get the pill down her throat. She spit it out on the first try; but I got it in the second time.
We had pretty much loaded the car up Saturday night, so it was just a matter of fitting the last minute articles into whatever spaces we could find.
By the time we’d finished with that, about an hour had passed and we started wondering if the pill was having any effect. At this point, the cat got up to walk across the dining room. She looked like Dudley Moore doing his drunk act only with four legs instead of just two. Then I noticed that her eyes were completely dilated.
One stoned-out little kitty.
We stuffed her into her carrier. Then I had to go in and turn her around inside the carrier so she could look out the front. This cat was definitely out of this world.
Then we put the very last things into the car and “Jeannie” drove off on her Great Adventure. Gone, but not forgotten.
Definitely not forgotten. Every time I reach for my kitchen scissors I will remember “Jeannie”. That’s because she “borrowed” them to prepare for the move – despite the fact that she’d bought two pairs of Fiscar-type scissors expressly for this – and, when last seen, my kitchen scissors were in a box on their way to Canby by way of Seattle.
They’re either in Box 143 or 144. Contents: “Last minute miscellaneous”.
On the other hand, “Jeannie” left a lot of things with me. Things like a spray can (the movers won’t take aerosol cans) of oven cleaner. Of course, with a self-cleaning oven, I’m not sure what I’ll do with the oven cleaner. She also left me her plunger. Can’t have too many of those, can we?
After “Jeannie” (and her cat) had left, I decided to do some cleaning. I ran 5 loads of wash (my usual is 2 per week), each producing a fur ball in the filter. And I decided to scrub out the bath tub, which is when I discovered that ALL of my bathroom cleaning stuff had vanished.
Everything. Cleanser, tile cleaner, scrubby sponge. Everything.
We know where they went, don’t we? They went to “Jeannie’s” apartment so she could clean it up after she moved out and get her cleaning deposit back. Then she either left my stuff there, or threw it out.
I know she gave me a lot of things, but is it equitable? How do you scrub a bath tub with oven cleaner and a plunger?
One thing she DID do for me was to get me a one-year’s membership at Costco. I went to Costco Sunday afternoon to get my picture taken for my ID card and only spent $55.53, which is pretty good considering I wasn’t shopping for anything. You gotta spend money to save money, right?
I also went to Sunvalley and bought two new Monet prints and two new Christopher Hayes shirts. The shirts were marked down, so I got two for the price of one. Plus gift boxes. One of the advantages of shopping in the Men’s Shop at Macy’s is that the sales clerk always assumes that you’re not shopping for yourself. So they always ask if you need gift boxes. And I always say yes, because this is a nifty way to acquire free boxes.
Sunday night I ate the two ice cream drumsticks that “Jeannie” had left in my freezer (after she PROMISED to eat them before she left).
Monday night I went back to Costco and bought two framed prints and a real honest-to-God painting. I know I had no business spending money on such a thing; but I like it, and I refuse to regret it.
Tuesday night I hung the painting and the prints and re-hung all the prints that were displaced by the new ones. The Monets are in the bedroom and Wyeth’s Helga is in the dining room. The other Helga is in the closet. So much for Helga.
Last night I took my car down to Honda to have the new cargo cover put in. The old one was broken when “Jeannie” used my car to get her things out of the storage box.
And that’s how I’ve been spending my nights.
As for days…
I finally had my Performance Management Planning meeting with “Alma” last week. This is the meeting where you and your boss decide what you’re going to do for the rest of the year. Logically, you should have this meeting somewhere near the beginning of the year, rather than just before the end of the first quarter; but it is evident that, supervisor-wise, “Alma” is in way over her head. She’s never been a supervisor before and it shows.
We were each supposed to come to the meeting with a list of goals and responsibilities to compare and come to an agreement over which ones I would do this year. “Alma”, typically, had done no preparation, so we just went over my list. And she pretty much agreed to everything I had proposed. Talk about being able to define your own job to your own specifications.
One of the things on my list was using the Learning Center next door. A sort of company-operated Continuing Education facility. She just shrugged and said: “I don’t have a problem with y’all using work time to take any courses you want.”
You realize what this means. I’ve been give carte blanche to run rampant through the Learning Center to my heart’s content. Any time things get slow around here, I can just pop next door and study whatever I want as much as I want.
Right now I’m taking a 10-part course on How to Negotiate to see it if will help us in our work. I don’t know that it will be applicable to Records Management; but if I ever have to arbitrate a union grievance, I’ll be all set.
Love, as always,
Pete
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