No vacation in sight....

It seems that everyone in my office is planning or has already gone on a vacation this summer. I, in the other hand, am not planning any time away from work. It's very heart wrenching to go to work day after day and realize that it will be a long time before you've racked up enough vacation hours to have a decent vacation.

I think it's harder for me because I used to have lots and lots of time away from the grind. After 20 years I had built up 4 weeks vacation, besides holidays and sick time, so it seemed I always had a surplus of days off to choose from. While I am not, I repeat NOT, complaining about my job the one drawback that I notice is that I never seem to have enough time off. Every week I turn in that 40 hours time card and the green on the vacation thermometer moves up just a hair.

It wouldn't be so bad if my co-workers weren't all taking off for places like Hawaii, the River, Bass Lake and Yosemite and coming back with wonderful stories to tell. And as I get older I realize there is a reason you get more vacation the longer you stay with a company...by the time you've worked up to 4 weeks you need it because you're old!

At this point I can only reiterate THANK GOD FOR BOOKS! It seems that my travels in imagination are the only ones I'll be having for awhile.

Hanging in there....

Birthday Bash

On Saturday I went to a marvelous birthday bash at the park. My son and his wife have birthdays a week apart so this year they decided to celebrate together with a big shindig at the park. They hired a taquero, a man who comes to the park with his grill and cooks amazing things to put into tacos as well as rice and beans. You could help yourself as much as you wanted for the three hours that he was there and we all ate more than we should have, I'm sure. There was also plenty of fresh fruit, watermelon and chips with salsa. It was wonderful! The theme of the party, other than the food, was luau-ish with huge Tiki mylars and a life size blow-up palm tree with an oasis at the bottom to hold ice and drinks. The cake was a pink luau pig baked by my son and decorated by his wife, yum! and very cute! The pinata was a 5' hula girl complete with grass skirt and long black streamers for hair. The children ejoyed running around with the hula girl head on after the pinata was broken. The goodie bags were filled with water pistols and silly string and there were water balloons to follow. Lots of family and friends attended and a great time was had by all. The weather was awesome...just cool enough to be enjoyable with a slight breeze...no mosquitos!...and as we were leaving at 9pm the sky was showing a lighting display as if to say Conratulations! and Happy Birthday! All in all, a huge success!

Ooohh Ahhhhh

Finally, hot water again! We never know the simple things we take for granted, like being able to take a hot shower, dry clothes in the gas dryer, cook on the gas stove and believe it or not....wash dishes! I was without hot water for almost a week and believe me I will be appreciating it for a while. There are ways to get around most of the problems you run into when there is no natural gas...clothes can be hung up to dry, cooking can be done in a toaster oven or microwave oven or even go out to eat, but showers...that's another story. And who wants to pack up and go to someone else's house just to take a shower?

It made me think how far we've come from the days when electricity and gas were not commonplace. When candles were precious and water had to be hauled up from a river or creek or well. When food was grown or bartered for instead of purchased at the nearest supermarket. It made me really glad I don't live in those days. I certainly enjoy my electricity, gas and running water right there in the house. So, as in all of life's hiccups, I have remembered to be thankful. And just think.....my gas bill will be so low this month! :)

A Wonderful 4th!

I enjoyed a wonderful July 4th this year. We started off with breakfast at Mimi's Cafe on a gift certificate that my son won in a fund raiser. Delish! Then after a restful afternoon (for me)I joined my son and his wife and her family for a barbecue in my son's backyard. Very nice. Since he lives within a mile of Angel Stadium and Disneyland we had our pick of firework displays to enjoy just by walking a few blocks out to the main boulevard. The weather was great and a good time was had by all. I came home to relax and still had my Saturday morning to look forward to. I really enjoyed myself.

I hope your holiday was wonderful too!

Gas Company Woes

I can't believe I'm feeling sorry for my landlord. Our relationship over the last nine years has not been the best. At times he has frustated me by his decisions and even violated my privacy by entering my home without permission. At one point he decided to repaint the exterior of the duplex and painted all our windows shut and splattered paint over all of our belongings outside the house merely because he didn't let us know they were coming to paint. He was verbally abusive when frustrated with his problems and I've seen him virtually throw a temper tantrum because he wasn't smart enough to be able to replace the hot water heater without help. This is a man in his 50's we're talking about. However, we eventually came to a satisfactory working relationship and these days we can even hold intelligent conversations and agree on some things. He has been a negligent landlord, but at least he doesn't hover, so I can live with that.

So, we come to yesterday. I had noticed my gas bill continually rising to astronimical proportions for the amount of gas I use so I contacted the Gas Co. to have a rep come out and check my appliances. No big deal, right? Wrong. The gruff, but civil, rep appeared and duly checked my appliances. After he shut them all off he said the meter was still running. Thus, a gas leak somewhere. He told me to contact my landlord to get a plumber to fix it and proceeded to turn off the gas and lock the valve. You'd think that would be an excellent plan. NOT!

My landlord was very quick to return my call that a plumber was on the way and he came quickly as promised. However, with the gas off and locked he was unable to locate the leak with a gadget he has called a "sniffer" which would take him 5 minutes. Instead he has a three hour job ahead of him under the house in 90 degree weather to test all the pipes at a cost to my landlord of over $1,000.00. The gas company will not return to turn the gas back on until the leak is repaired. It seems a law was passed February 1st of this year stating that the gas company is not required to do anything beyond the meter and they are allowed to turn off the gas until repairs are made irregardless to cost to little old ladies and drowning landlords. My landlord was of course very frustrated at the expense. He has grown a little, though, and spoke to me very graciously while berating the government and the gas company equally for the problem. To his statement "I wish you had called me first" I replied, " I don't normally call you when my bills are too high". and he acknowledged that, of course, that was true. No ranting at me! No shouting at me! We were actually commiserating with each other. I felt bad for him and his dilemma. I wish I had known before what I know now...but we can't turn back the clock. He said he could not get the repairs made late yesterday afternoon and I was happy to say "no problem, I can deal with it" and let him off the hook.

Now, grant you, I expect to see an increase in my rent in the next few months...what else....but at least for the moment I can understand how he feels. That, I believe, is progress....