It's The Little Things

Alrighty then.

Yesterday coming home I was behind two cars, the first looked like maybe an older VW Golf and going no more than the speed limit, which was apparently too slow for the PT Cruiser directly in front of me. I was listening to the Faith Middleton show (more on that) and happily drinking my traveling cup of tea and smoking, so was in no particular hurry. We reached a point in the road which allowed passing, and the PT Cruiser took off. It passed the Golf and took off on a faster speed. Unfortunately for them, a state policeman had apparently just pulled into his driveway and saw the PT Cruiser racing past. The officer jumped into his cruiser just as I was approaching, forcing me to stop to let him out. He crunched the chasis of his car pulling over the curb and there up ahead a bit was the PT Cruiser already pulled over to the side, and the Cruiser pulled up behind.

That scenario is like my dream come true. But not in this case. It is what I hope for when I'm on the highway and some jerk is all up on my ass in the passing lane, when I have nowhere to go, and when I finally find a space to pull into in the right lane they race on by. What I always hope to see is them on the side of the highway with a trooper behind them, getting a ticket.

Anyway, I frequently go faster than I should on that road. There is rarely any speed limit enforcement, so it is generally a safe risk if one is familiar with the curves. I'm just wicked glad it wasn't me that got caught this time around.
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Sean's car is fixed. *whew*. At one point of driving hours in the middle of the night or early in the morning to get him to his jobs, I found myself crying. Probably because I was tired, but mostly because I was scared. If Sean doesn't get it somewhat right this time, there won't be much left of me to help him again. We've spend lots of money and lots of ourselves in supporting him. I kept my hope up though, because he was doing it. He was working as hard as I have ever worked in my life, and he was impressing me. Cool stuff.
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Paul is traveling next week. He leaves early Monday morning and will return Thursday...the day X & I hop on a plane to Florida. I won't see him until the following Monday - and that will probably only be to say "Good Morning, I miss you and love you, have a good day at work". I will most likely be asleep when he gets home Monday night, we'll say hellos on Tuesday morning, and finally be able to enjoy some time together on Tuesday night. Isn't that crazy? Sometimes our schedules get so hectic we call each other up and ask, "What state are you in?"
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Since last weekend we have been exploring the possibility of buying the house next door with X & Mel, so they could transplant themselves there. It was sort of one of those roller coaster rides.

• First we asked the neighbors if they would be selling the house, since it was vacant. They said "most likely"- Nice.
• Then we asked X & Mel if they were interested in living there, and talked in depth about what that would mean to get there and live there. They were quite open to it- Excellent.
• Then we checked out the values of our mutual properties which we were planning on selling to get the down payment for the house next door- Bummer.

The informal appraisal on our apartment house came in lower than we'd hoped, which meant that even if we could move it in today's market, we wouldn't come out of the sale with as much as we'd need. Together with the sale of X & Mel's place, the down payment would have to be enough to keep the monthly payments to a point that they could comfortably assume. We weren't there. The possibility is still not closed, however. If the neighbors come down in price, which unfortunately for them might have to happen to sell their home in the time frame they need, we still might be able to pick it up.

That would be pure bliss to me, to have X & Mel living right next door. I have this vision of relaxing on the deck on a balmy summer evening, drinking our ice tea's and playing dominoes. Or swimming and hanging out together at the beach, or hiking on a Saturday morning, or the four of us out there shoveling the driveways after a storm. There are many more scenarios I can picture in my mind's eye. I'd love it.

If I haven't learned anything, though, in fifty one years, it is that you can't force Fate. All we can do is have the pieces in place for things to happen. And wait. Meanwhile I'm grateful that at least the we and the girls live in the same (small) state.

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Work has been keeping me distracted in any event. It's not bad, but lately there seem to be enough incidences that find me with my jaw on the ground. Some of the practices are mind blowing and make me wonder about things. I enjoy just staying under the radar and observing, but sometimes it is too much for me to keep my opinion silent. I just always know, though, that my opinion in any matter rarely means anything. Thats okay. It is going to be a busy summer, we are gearing up to finish 30 plus major renovations in Groton, 20 roofs in Newport along with the continuing renovations to the historical Flagship home in Newport and other historical renovations there. We have several historical homes in the pipeline in Kittery which will be coming to us starting in mid-May and the rebuilding of about four fire damaged units there as well. Along with that we are installing gas meters on all our bases. Thats a lot of work for only two superintendents to oversee.

There are five of us on the team. We are all salaried employees except for our admin assistant. The company set up a new method of tracking time at the beginning of the year...online. Hourly employees must "punch" in and out by going to their calendars online. Salaried employees only have to document their time benefits used - we go into our 'account' and on our calendars we click on the days we are sick, on vacation or taking a personal day. That is how our time benefits are recorded and calculated.

Our Project Administrator's immediate supervisor is in Philadelphia, where the corporate offices are, even though she physically works out of the Groton office. Her time benefits are checked and approved by her immediate supervisor, who has no real idea of when she comes and goes. It also falls into her realm of responsibility to submit payroll, which means that she approves or disapproves the times we enter into our calendars. She takes an unbelievable amount of time away from work - to the point that she actually only works part-time hours, from 20 to 32 hours @ week. I happened to see her pay stub on her desk one day, and noticed (by accident) that she is getting paid for 80 hours regular time, when in fact I know she took at least two days off. Never mind the fact that she is the only person in the office who somehow gets paid for an hour lunch.

Okay, you say. What business is it of mine? Well I'll tell you. I took a sick day early on in the pay period but made up the time over the week. Wouldn't you know it that bitch went into my calendar and DOCKED me for a sick day!!!!!!!!!!!

The nerve.

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Back to the Faith Middleton thing. Paul had downloaded some Faith Middleton shows along with some All Things Considered and burned it to a disc for me. It's been nice listening to it during all my driving and weird, too. At one point, the show declared it was 4:00. I looked at my car clock and sure enough, it was 4:00. Which made my brain forget that I wasn't listening to the radio, so when they said there was a chance of snow, I was totally thrown off.

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And that about sums up what is on my mind and plate these days. I think of you all, frequently. I know that V & X are off hiking Sleeping Giant this morning. With luck they won't get lost again, but maybe with the company of Vince that won't happen? Have fun guys! I know that Foo is in a planting mode and gearing up for summer, which, there, is a blink of an eye away. I haven't read any blogs yet today so haven't caught up with anyone else, but I so hope all is well. It's a beautiful day today, and I intend to stay home and enjoy it, even if it is only to throw open the windows and get the winter funk out of the house.

Peace, my friends