Confessions

Last Friday night into Saturday morning Dog decided to come clean.

Ever since I moved to NM in November of 2005 he has had a "cave" -- the master bedroom -- where he escaped to from time to time and closed me out. For all I knew he was taking a smoke break -- he told me it was his way of keeping the cigarette smoke away from me.

Well, it seems he was hiding something else in addition. He started his confession by telling me that he did go to the dump recently -- not to bring the weeds that he had cut down from the yard, but for a whole slew of beer and other liquor bottles that he had had stashed in his cave. (The middle of the night can be a great time for big confessions coz the other person is only half-awake.)

He came to the realization that he would be having a good deal of free time on his hands what with the lay-off and all. And he could either wallow or get up and do things. He decided it would be better for him, for us, for the house if he got up and did things. And he has been. He has been keeping up on the dishes and the laundry. Also, he has cleaned out "the cave" so much so that there is now a usable bed in there and he also cleaned out the closet to be able to expand that space as well.

I am sorry that he felt he had to hide that from me. He told me that he had been terrified that I might find the evidence of his drinking. He feels a whole lot more relieved now. However, he does have bad days. Today at lunch he told me there is this voice in his head trying to tell him that he has been a good boy -- what would 1/2 pint hurt? He said he is NOT going to give into that voice -- until he is sure he has beaten it. He hope that he will be able to let himself celebrate a little on Halloween -- one of the most meaningful holidays of the year for him.

On the other hand, I am glad that he is now talking about it and is no longer hiding it. He told me last night that one of his fears about all this was becoming another CW who has nothing but time on his hands and not much gumption to do much of anything at all.

Moving right along

Well, I am almost done with the Pride discounts. This morning I was told he may have me start on either Invacare or Sunrise next -- because I seem to know what I am doing. Hah! Little does he know...

And then there were 6

Or 5 and a half, depending on what you count.

As you may know, Dog & I decided to keep fish. We started with a bowl and three small goldfish. Those we named for The Charmed Ones (Prudence, Piper & Phoebe). Then we graduated to a 10-gallon tank. There have been various permutations and combinations, but our population had held steady at 7 for quite a while: Prudence (she of the original 3), Albus, Forge (one of a pair of simlar fish whom we had named Fred & George), Ginny, Ron, Spike & Angel.

It has been our habit to unplug the filter(s) (we are using two now as the water deterioates so quickly) when we feed them because otherwise the food seems to be sucked into the filter intake all too quickly otherwise. Of course, then we have to remember to plug them back in in a timely fashion. Mostly we do. However, last night we forgot.

*sigh* And we lost Ginny.

Oh, the half comes in due to Ron. He was always a short fat thing that always seemed to have to exert a lot of effort to move. Well, he has not been moving much at all for a few days now. His gills are still working and his mouth opens & closes.

A Pride-Ful of Discounts

OK, a bit of background. It should be obvious enough that the company I work for (USM) does not pay retail for almost all the equipment it buys (I say almost because there are a very few vendors from which we receive no discounts and thus do pay retail). One of the vendors we deal with is Pride Mobility (you may have seen ads for their power chairs when Ed McMahon was their spokesman). Anyway, we recently received an updated discount schedule from them.

Yesterday, the new temp went through it an figured out the discounts for specific items (based on our price versus the retail). Today I am going through the individual order forms for the various power chairs (starting with their most complex ones) and marking the discounts for the line items affected. This involves not only the base prices that Julia figured yesterday, but various exceptions for specific models that were listed at the bottom of the main list.

Arrrgggghhhh!

My eyes are starting to cross. So, I took my lunch break a little early.

Oh, and after all this prep work, we get to actually enter the info into the computer. The temp will be doing it in the currently used system which involves entering the relevant info not once, but for each data base / office. We are in the process of gearing up a new system into which this information only has to be entered once.