Suzanne Calling

We went to see Cars today. Pixar is a refreshing company, in that each movie they do, they challenge themselves to break down another wall in animation. This time, they animated landscapes that looked like they had been filmed. It was easy to lose oneself in the notion that it'd been filmed in the buttes out west (a la Dinosaur, the Disney CG/film blend movie from 2000). Nope. Storyline was similar to another movie in the 80's, but done with a fresh spin. There was plenty of humor for adults and kids, too. If you're a pixar fan, keep your eyes open for lots of visuals that harken to previous films. The credits succeeded in making me tear up. The movie was dedicated to Joe Ranft, one of the innovators of Pixar who died in a car wreck last year. Apropos, as this was their best movie yet.

The foot hurts again. Bad. It must be the granite floors at work, easily the hardest substance I've spent time standing on. I'm finally picking up the orthotics that I was fitted for the beginning of March. I'll say one thing for the Crocs, they definitely worked. However in the war of flooring, the score now stands Granite 1, Crocs 0.

So, father's day I called my stepdad. We had a nice, but brief phone conversation. It's always a trip to talk to him-we have very different views on life, yet we find a lot of common ground. Monday morning, my phone rings. It's my stepdad. "Did you call me?" Yeah, last night. "Oh, I was outside and when I came back in, the caller id was blinking". We ended up talking for a half an hour, mainly about the new job (me) and the house cleaning and preparations to eventually move (him). It hit me today that this seems to happen every time I call him-I get a call the next day and then we have the *real* conversations that go beyond the pleasantries. We moved down here, with the thought that we didn't want to live so close to Mom and Bill, to give all of us space. Now I feel bad that he's by himself and we're 45 minutes away. It's just a little too far out of his comfort zone to drive and our hectic schedule always interferes in getting ...

I know, you're expecting an update of the busy week that has passed. Instead, we consider the Electoral College. What can I say, a phone conversation last night made me think that we should send the Electoral College to Iraq. Do you think the wonks in Washington might take what's happening over there seriously if their butts were on the line? Then we wondered what the admission policies were? How do you get in? Is it a party school? What kind of degree do you get? I ventured Stupidity (since the college has no real correllation to the popular vote). Ed says one gets a Vestigial degree. How many years does it take to get a degree from the Electoral College if you only convene once every four years? (Yes, I am officially out of the loop here....Florida is not a bastion of political awareness, folks)

The first named storm of the season was greeted in the Suzanne household with relief. We haven't had much rain since early February (I think a total of .75 inches total accumulation). The state has been hammered with forest fires. It had been just too damn dry. My elation at rain (if you could call it that) has turned to annoyance. The refrigeration guys were to work on the fridge and freezer at the store today. Our compressors are on the roof. The roof that is getting a good, steady rain. So much for the refrigeration guys working on the units today or tomorrow! So yay rain, boo rain!

The recap of my busy week: Monday: finish calling all the people on our waiting lists. Play with website by placing the June and July sessions on our calendar. Tuesday: Go to the local job development office to place an order for dishwashers. God, I wish it were that easy! We now appear on their website and hope for the best. Tomorrow's to do list includes scouring the local restaurants to see if they've got anyone looking for more hours that they can't provide. Wednesday: FIOS! Fielded lots of calls for work, and felt like reservations east. So it wasn't a day at work, but I did work throughout the day. Kinda removed the guilt that I was taking a day during crunch time! Thursday: We assembled shelving units at the store and did a lot of cleaning. By the end of the day, things started to look like something resembling our other location. Friday: A very looooooong day. cleaned, cleaned and cleaned some more. At the end of the (12 hour) day, we looked like a bu...

Today's jam packed with stuff, though the majority is not work related. Haverty's was to make their third attempt on the table. The first two were damaged, and the third time was the charm. We now have a closed table in the dining room, rather than the 6x6 fully opened table. It arrived at 7:40 (window was 8:15-11:15) Verizon called yesterday to bump up their window. I only got it as a message, so they called again this morning at 8:30. Could they come early? Heck, yeah! Tech got here around 9:30. I made the decision to make the guy's life easier. The original plan called for cable in son's room, I decided that instead we'd use the coax jack in the master bedroom. I'm not one for TV in the bedroom-but this prevents older son from sneaking into his brother's room at 4am for some cartoons. He wouldn't dare do that in our room, and we can hear anything going on in the living room from our room. Shut down that possibility. Now that we've d...

I spent most of today scheduling my store calendar for June and July. It's something of a rush to go check out the website and see people have made reservations. Tomorrow is the calm before the storm, unless our shelving has shown up. Then I'll have the task of assembling shelves, retail units, the reception desk. It'll be just like working at Monkey Wards and putting all the computer desks together. I spoke with the client that scheduled the very first private party on opening day. We joked that we need to have some champagne. I agreed, so damn it, I'm bringing champagne! :D I'm thinking a nice Mimosa or Bellini cocktail for the first people! Adrenaline is my friend right now.

I'm in the beginning of a very time consuming task. My company email is currently web based. Call me crazy, but I prefer the web based accounts and abhor MS Outlook (great way to get viruses, imho). The new website has email integrated, so we're dumping the other email provider (we like them, but the developers for the new site include hosting and email). Well, that means I need to port the mail over and sort through all the stuff I was too lazy to file appropriately as soon as they'd been read. Plus with the store opening just around the corner, I need to email all those people who emailed us with "when are you opening?" questions. I've been on the system since April 3rd and I have a scary amount of emails already. The current web host for the email is pretty good-I can toggle the whole page of messages and then get a digest form of all the mail. Saves me sifting through 325 emails, one by one. It'd be nice to sit on the lanai and do this on the laptop, b...

Okay, so you don't get any phone calls, the next few weeks, if I don't get you while I'm driving in my car, I won't talk to you. Don't take it personally. Well, if you want to take it personally, go ahead. (Heck, I've done a lot of that the past week myself) We open in two weeks. Staffing is moving along nicely, I've been extremely fortunate that some incredible people have applied. We'll have a very good blend-students, retirees, a teacher. My challenge is to find dishwashers. One thing in our favor is that we pay much better than many other businesses in our area. Then you add in the employee perks and it makes for some very happy people. (I love staffing and scheduling, so I'm in my glory right now) I want to post a picture of my 'executive desk' and may do so tomorrow. I'm using a 5 gallon paint bucket for the laptop, another for my planner and sitting in a seat taken out of the boss's Toyota minivan. Nothing but the be...