well, time seems to be slipping away from me at the moment. Most of that is just (finally) getting busy at work - now that we've officially taken over the production facilities from our customer, there's actually some things that need doing (and a few, I'm discovering, that are woefully overdue in fact). It's fairly weird, working in one city, on a contract where all the clients are in another city (another state in fact), while the rest of my team are in that state, and my bosses are in yet another state. Not exactly designed for close supervision, but I'm doing my best dedicated worker bit.
Cat has given up smoking again, thank god - but because of that, her temper has been a bit frayed, unsurprisingly. She was prescribed Chantix by the doctor, to help this, but one of it's side-effects was warned as depression, and this really hit her hard, so I got her to stop it after a week: nothing is worth that level of depression and suffering, not even stopping smoking. Fortunately, the pills don't seem to have been helping that much, as their absence hasn't made it any harder, apparently.
Mind you, her temper has had some reason to fray - we bought a dining table & chair at a place called Hanks Fine Furniture (a chain of stores): and paid $75 (!) for delivery on Wednesday, a scant halfmile down the road. The arrangement was that they would phone us the previous day to confirm the time of delivery, then phone on the day, an hour before arrival, to make sure we were home. However, the only phone call we got the day before, consisted of some guy bellowing requests to speak to a Matilda, and not being willing to talk or entertain the idea he might have the wrong name: then on Wednesday, I phoned the store, and was told we were 7th on the list and should get delivery mid-afternoon.
Of course, they didn't actually turn up 'til 6 p.m. - when we were already at the bridge club for our weekly game - and instead of phoning an hour ahead, we got a call when they were 5 minutes away from home, plus another when they arrived & we weren't there: followed by a threat that they would just drive away & we'd have to pay another $75 to get our stuff. Well, we couldn't make it back in time anyway, not that we were inclined to, at that point, so Cat tried to discuss the problem with the store manager, three times, only to find that he was another of these idiotic bullies who is completely unwilling to listen, and insists on overriding anything you might try to say with his own opinions and worthless bombast.
We gave up on any redress, so I called the store manager, to find out how we could pick the items up ourself, and when: of course, he gave me a wrong address for the warehouse, but we eventually found it (along with the guy who cuts our lawns, who was willing to rent out his truck to carry the furniture), only to find the store manager had tacked on a second $75 delivery charge to the account. Fortunately, the warehouse manager was willing to be reasonable, and cancelled this charge, and handed over the furniture.
So that's another store we won't be going back to - a shame, they have some quite nice pieces, but with staff like that, who would want to repeat that experience. I do have to thank Robert, the lawnmower man (so to speak), for his help, and his navigational skills in getting us there!
Well, another week, another gripe: doesn't sound that positive, really, but it's not really like that: just easier to write about the most vivid, and worst, bits. There have also been some good bits, of course - bridge is going well, although playing twice a week was a bit much for both of us, so we've cut back to once a week for a while.
Mostly just, we're still adjusting, finding our way around & trying to work out how everything works. We did go out to dinner with a couple - Cindy, who works at SAIC with me, and is a keen quilter and gardener, and her husband John - which went really well, and we're planning to repeat that shortly: and gradually making friends at the bridge club.
Have to remember, we've only been here 3 months, it's not surprising we're still finding it alien.
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