Love, As Always, Pete

The Weekly Letters, by A. Pedersen Wood

April 6, 2006

Dear Everyone:

Did anyone happen to notice that last week’s Letter said “Thursday” when it was dated Wednesday?  I didn’t until Thursday morning when I was signing the four that actually still get printed on actual paper, two of which actually get US Postage stamps placed on the envelopes.  (“Jeannie” gets a hard copy the following weekend, but I don’t bother to sign it.  She just can’t handle the way her email provider “interprets” things like quotation marks.)

So that’s a sign of how tired I was last week.  I’m feeling much more rested this week because I’ve been on vacation since Monday.  Last month, when “Jeannie” bought airline tickets to New York, to visit “Alice”, she had the airline computer email me a copy of her itinerary.  Her flight was scheduled to leave Oakland International at 6:30 in the morning.

I thought, “Oh, Lord!  How early am I going to have to get up to get ready for work and take her to the airport by 5:00 AM?”  Then I thought, “Wait a minute.  If I take it as a vacation day, I won’t have to get up so early.  I won’t need to be presentable, I’ll just need to be conscious enough to drive to the airport and back.”  And, as long as I would be taking Thursday off, it only made sense to take Friday off as well, for a nice, long weekend.  Then I thought, “Heck!  Take the whole week off.  You get 30 days paid vacation; you have to take it sometime.”

So I’m off this week.  However, there was a very important international conference call yesterday for which I said I would come in to the office.  The plan was to go up to “Jeannie’s” place at around 2:00 in the afternoon and collect her, and her luggage, and her two cats, and the cats’ luggage, and bring them all to my place.  The conference call wouldn’t start until 4:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time.

Naturally, things didn’t go according to plan.  “Jeannie” wasn’t ready.  The cats weren’t ready.  The very good friend of “Jeannie’s” who has been painting her condo and replacing her downstairs toilet, wasn’t ready.  I finally dragged everyone out to the car and drove directly to the office.  Fortunately, at 3:55 in the afternoon, there are plenty of parking spaces available.

Unfortunately, the Indonesians apparently got the time wrong and didn’t call in to the conference bridge.  So the project manager is rescheduling the call for later and “Jeannie” and the cats didn’t have to spend an hour waiting in my car.

So now “Jeannie” is on the second leg of her flight to New York and I have two very fluffy, little houseguests for the next week-and-a-half.  I also got my own toilet fixed (it no longer makes that annoying gurgling noise) and completed my income taxes.  So the week’s not a total loss.  I may even put in some time reading my Records and Information Management textbook before next week’s meeting.

In any case, I’m getting lots of rest and that’s the most important thing.  I might even take in a movie this weekend, since I’ll be flying solo.

Love, as always,

 

Pete

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