You don't notice the wires until you try to take a picture without wires in it. In some areas it's almost impossible.

Older homes in Britain have exposed pipes, I think because they built with stone instead of wood.

I've got the blues.

As I end this first week at my new job, I'm finding myself to be very out of sorts. This training has been hard, not because I don't understand the work but because I am trying to merge what I do know with their way of doing things, not go out on a limb yet on changes, not assume too much, and trying to understand the differences. (I know that was bad sentence structure but I'm in a hurry.)

I knew going into this that I was taking a "lesser" job for more pay, but I guess I kind of miss my stature in my old company, for what it was worth.

It's just hard being the new guy. Everyone is very nice...it's just different, and for some reason I have felt near tears all day (just on the inside, I don't think it shows.)

I'm probably just tired, and stressed because it is all new and a bit scary. I like it here and don't regret the move, but I'm just feeling some aftershock. I feel lonely, which is stupid...I am meeting my best ex cow orker after work. I feel different here in the Cellar even...like I don't belong.

I don't know. :sniff:

Thanks for the ears. :o

Awwwww...Shawnee, I've been there. Adjusting to a new job can be a very uncomfortable experience. Its temporary (and I know you know that), but still not fun to go through.

Shawnee, you belong here in the Cellar! Don't even think that.

The transition to a new job will be challenging at times, but that cool. It's what makes it refreshing. Soon you will find your place and how you fit in, and you can get comfortable there too. The cream rises to the top, and you will too.

Sounds like self imposed isolation. It's dumb when I do that....but I do it. I feel cut off from everything and everyone. And I'm not. It's just a feeling.

The real question is:

Aren't you going to look silly when I tickle you? :) heh.

Oh I'm going to look silly, like an old perverted lesbo? heh heh. It'll be worth it. Fuck it.

Consider yourself virtually tickled.

Shawnee, perhaps you have been taken over by the pods.

Oh wait, maybe you have been assimilated. Run Shawnee!!

I'm guessing you're just stressed. Wait for everything to mellow out and you'll be ok.

After a bit, they'll recognize the potential in you and you'll have the stature and recognition you deserve.

Starting somewhere new is hard. And feeling out of sorts at work will of course have a knock on effect in the rest of your life. I once had a job where I cried every day in the toilets for the first week and was unhappy for the first couple of months. I had nowhere else to go though and had to stick it out. I never actually forgot how miserable I was when I started, but I did look back and wonder what the heck was so bad. By the time I left I loved the place so much - I only went because there was no room to expand int he role and I was offered much better opportunities elsewhere.

I'm sure your period of adjustment will be nowhere near as long. But do give yourself permission to grieve your old job.

And we're here for you even if you're not feeling it at the moment.

Thanks guys. YOu made me laugh, smile, and feel better!

I just had a meeting with my boss too. I told her I was adjusting, but reiterated how great the people have been.

But SG is right, I am grieving my old job...though I didn't think I would, and it's very normal to do that. There's a reason job change is on the list of identified major life stressors.

:)

Question: was it polybutylene piping? Turns out there was an epidemic of poly-built houses in the sunbelt (and in MD, for some reason) in the 70s and 80s. Many of them have had to be completely re-plumbed.

We are trying to determine if the house we have a bid on still has poly in it.
:worried:

Sooo, you know how I'm dealing with broken pipes and not overly thrilled about it? OK, so today I'm waiting for a call from a contractor and the call doesn't come and it doesn't come and then finally I get pissed off enough to call them and bitch because I've taken another day out of the office for this... only to find my cell has been shut off. actually all four of them have been. (my personal and work, and Mrs L's personal and work) I call Sprint to find I have an outstanding $1800 phone bill because my automatic payment was rejected. uh, WTF?!?! rejected??? uh, WTF?!?! $1800???

Yeah, it turns out that when I transferred Mr's L's two phones over to my business plan a couple months ago they forgot to put in my unlimited text messages and they magically reduced my minutes. An hour later they've opened the investigation but I need phones working so I had to pay the effing bill and it'll get credited back.

I hate you and your law, Mr Murphy.

Where is your house LO. more than half the homes in the south are on slabs. One thing they have done in the last 10 years or so is to pour all the slabs with fiber reinforced concrete. All the plumbing in them is PVC of some kind. But of course we don't have hard freezes here but a week out of a year.

Bloody Diz.

Don't try to practice your Halloween make-up with a Singapura in the room.
In fact don't try to do anything, ever, with a Singapura in the house.

I'm used to brush swiping, to pats on the arm when I'm doing liquid eyeliner, even to him trying to bat the mascara wand. What I am not used to is using cosmetic glitter. Oh you know the stuff, the really, really fine stuff. That comes in tiny pots because a little goes such a loooooong way. That transfers at the slightesr touch. You don't? Come round to my place, you'll know it intimately very soon.

I didn't take enough care where I put the lid. I had a scattering of glitter in it, rather than risk using the open pot (which was sensibly out of reach). Diz made a play for it and I wasn't quick enough. There's a dusting of red glitter on the bedclothes, the bottom sheet, me, my body, and all over Diz. I'll be finding it for weeks (although thankfully tomorrow was my day to change the sheets anyway). I could have strangled him.

We've made up now, but goodness knows what I'll do when I'm really getting ready. A couple more practices needed just so it doesn't stress me out if he intervenes again. Looks okay actually. I only did it on one eye and without foundation, but I took some pics. Just realised I left my USB cable at work though. Grrrr. Pics when I get the chance.

Shawnee - hang in there. I'm feeling a bit like a spare part at my new job as the woman I'm replacing is still there and the job is very bitty. She has assured me that she's going to draw up a comprehensive list of what her job entails, but I've not got any sense of what I should be doing when yet, and I'm not sure she's got the time to do it before she leaves next week. But it's early days, dearie, early days.

What's upsetting me today?

Not grumpy tired children who stayed up too late last night.
Not the fact that my tree ferns don't seem to be doing well.
Not the fact that I wanted to go for a swim today but it's low tide during the day.
Actually, nothing is upsetting me today. :)

This one's for Shawnee

:comfort: You'll be right. Think positive. Check your posture occasionally at work. Make sure you keep your physical posture good. A lot can flow from that, for me at least.

This is for Lookout

:comfort:

That does kinda suck. (a) 1800 goddam dollars???!!!! (b) they sent no warning or anything before cutting you off???!!! (c) now is NOT a good time for extra aggravation!! (d) how do they always manage to screw up in their favour every time they do anything??? HMMMM?????

I should stop ranting vicariously.

Say, aren't you two related?

This is for Sundae.
:lol2:

Sorry, but I thought that was funny. I hope you will too in a few days.

Upsetting? No, way beyond that.... but we don't need yet another thread of this genre, so this will do....for my rant.....


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhh.

my kids are swimmers. I am involved with the running of their team. Their usual pool s under construction. We have an alternative -5 miles further down the road. It's free because when their pool was under construction, we housed them whithout cost (except they just billed us, but that's a different rant0.

Anyway, their heater broke. so the pool was closed for a bit. Then they decided that rather than fixit asap, they'd fight the manufacturers.... so we had to swim at 70degrees or not at all (that's really effing cold) so we've been swimming in the cold. finally it's fixed (we hear) but we can't get in the pool topractice becaus all the teams swimming there are scheduling their meets that were cancelled due to the cold or the gas leak in the area a few weeks ago....


So I run my ass off -email, telephone and literally to get another pool for us to practice in tonight and tomorrow. it ain't cheap and it's tiny and we had to jump through all sorts of paperwork hoops to get it, I have to rope the prez of the club in to help me (I'm the treasurer). We do it. we get the insurance, the payment, the certifications and the booking in line and turm up tonight to find the athletic director of the school (middle school) cancelling our practice because their are medicals for sports teams tonight and they want to use the locker rooms for blood pressure measurements and they need quiet for that.

:eek:

Our prez, who is an RN goes town with them about that, they agree we can still use pool but our swimmers may not walk through the halls and must change in the bathrooms.

but when i arrive, there are notices posted on all doors cancelling our practice tonight and tomorrow... apparently she (the athletic director) decided that -after our 4-8 yo beginners had swum- our swimmers were too disruptive to her potential medicals (did I say potentiel there? read on) that we couldn't use the pool at all, so she posted two notices on each door, one cancelling practice for tonight and one for tomorrow.

well hello, you can't actually cancel our practice, we're booked and we paid for it and you're not..... and tomorrow? there aren't even medicals tomorrow..... she said "ooops! *giggle* that was an accident!" She apparently meant it to be today's date... but why would you need two notices side by side in each location cancelling the same practice?

just to add the cherry to the cake, hardly anyone showed up for the medicals and they did not use the locker rooms at all.

I feel like I'm in a super-slow game of chicken and it's driving me insane and I just want it to stop.

April left her job last month...unfortunately, I cannot go into the specifics of the situation, as there may be litigation on the horizon due to what led to her departure. In short, she did nothing wrong. We originally made the decision to move in with her mom next month, as our lease is up, and moving in with her would prevent us from blowing through our savings and/or racking up debt.

Then two weeks ago, she started an interview process with Washington University, St. Louis' most prestigious college. She was one of 34 candidates for this job...by last Thursday, she was one of 2. They want to get someone in to do this job ASAP, so a decision was to be made by yesterday.

No call yesterday...but they lagged on the second interview process as well.

If April gets this job, it is a nice pay increase over her last job and would allow us to stay in our apartment--something that we want, her mom wants and our landlord wants. Talk about a beast...our landlord offered to defer our rent if we signed a new lease.

Anyway, we just want an obvious sign--a phone call, an e-mail, a letter. Something tangible that says, "You're our new director" or "Sorry, we've gone in a different direction." If she doesn't hear anything by the end of today, she's going to call tomorrow to find out the status of the position.

I just want to know so that we can move on with our life. April is already beating herself up because she feels like she's fucked our life up due to quitting her job. I've tried to tell her that that's just not true--you should have seen her just before she left her job...what a mess that was. If we have to move in with her mom for 6 months to a year, I can deal with that. Her mom is the one that offered in the first place. She drives me nuts sometimes, but she's cool...cooler than my own mom.

So in short, if you all could pray/chant/will a sign to us today, that would be splendiferous. Thank you.

One of our artists has just told me that HM turned up here last night and asked if we wanted to adopt Hely as she obviously prefers it here to there.

I'm still trying to put my finger on exactly why that's upset me - but it has. I feel really sad about it, and a little angry, although I suspect I am being unfair.

I think it's because she's such a lovely cat and I feel as if she's been rejected. I think also it's because I feel he never made an effort with her when I lived there, and I suspect he didn't after I left, although of course I can't be sure of that. I think also it's because it shows a lack of care - he spoke to an artist who is rarely here, and although he doesn't know that, apparently he didn't even ask. The artists who spoke to him was really puzzled as to why this random man had turned up and was trying to get rid of his cat.

Anyway, I should just take a deep breath and clear the butterflies. This does not have to be a confrontation. I'll get Deb to go and speak to him - there'll be no personal aspect to it then. She's spoken before about adopting Hely formally. All it would take would be a litter tray in here, so that she didn't have to be kicked out overnight. And I'd have to make sure I got some dried food in to supplement her diet and put some water down too.

After all, I already groom her, give her flea treatments and check her health. And if she'd ever gone missing or appeared i'll I'd have taken responsibility for that too. Her collar is round here somewhere - I'll put it back on her so people know she's not a stray. I might even get a tag for it, so it's all official.

Thank you, I'm feeling a bit better now.

UPDATE - I'm getting two different stories. Ben and Anya say Steve came looking for her and Ben explained that hs ekept getting locked in, So Steve said he would come by every evening to pick her up and take her home. He did so, but when Ben went into the yard later she was there and followed him back in. I have a feeling that he spoke to Sid after this, but the only way I'll know is if he turns up tonight. I'm going to leave on time. I'm such a coward but I don't want to see him.

For the record I did leave him a card when I moved the last of my stuff out, to thank him for everything he's done. And yet since I've moved I've become really wary of seeing him, as if I've done something really awful to him. I don't know why.

You feel that way because a friendship became rocky and when you left it was not on good terms. And because you know, from your last visit to the house, that he is on a massive downswing and not actually taking care of himself.

This isn't your fault honey. The only blame you could possibly take on is your share of the anger/frustration that characterised your last few weeks there and that might be where the residual guilt is coming from. That and the fact that when you hit rock bottom he helped you out, yet now he's at rock bottom, you aren't in a position to - and the nature of the friendship has changed such that - you cannot do the same for him: so now you are feeling (correct me if I am wrong) a little like you've abandoned him to his fate?

Ain't your fault hon. Not his either. It's just one of those things. Friends living with friends is about as fraught a situation as exists on this planet :P I've lived with friends, it's never worked. Living two doors from my bro and sharing a yard with his family for 8 years was fraught enough lol (though that had rather more to do with my partner and his partner not really liking each other).

The thing with Hely sounds to me like he might actually be feeling a little hurt that the cat doesn't want to stay with him. Taking it personally that she prefers to hang out at your workplace? I don't know.

Hope it works out in the end, babe, and hopefully you can rescue the friendship at some point as well. When the dust settles and time passes.

I think you might be right. Which was why I dreamed about him and his new housemate the other night. I am actually a bit worried about him and the fact that I've let him down quite horribly.

You haven't let him down.

The two of you were not temperamentally suited to house sharing.

I had an HM situation like that. We still don't speak. I did make an effort to be cordial after I left, but my HM was jealous of my new place after she was invited over. So she couldn't keep her trap shut about how I managed to pull it off, after the short period of time she gave me to move out. Part of her wanted to see me couch surf. That did not happen, and the new place ended up being small but very cool. I quit talking to her after years of friendship because she made me uncomfortable after I saw her true colors, and her character was not that, of a friend. Jealous, spiteful, really attention mongering, and maybe she carried all this the whole time. Maybe she was helping me so she could tell others how good she was for it, and silently enjoyed my temporary imbalance. In any case, we never made amends though I made several attempts. Once I gave her some money because she seemed like she needed it. She took it, but seemed bent about that too. In retrospect, I believe she never was a friend and I might have been a little naive about the nature of our relations. Not that that would have changed anything. When I moved in with her, I needed to. Her attitude showing, at that point, wouldn't have changed anything about my need for shelter. I did what I had to do and repayed some of it. I feel ok about it. But if she is still anything like she used to be, she feels worse because she always did. And most of it has very little to do with me. I was briefly there for the show.

She did mention that she quit feeding the kitty that used to come over every day. As if it were my kitty and she was going to punish it. I doubt your ex HM is anything like mine, Sundae. But we never should have talked or made friends in the first place. If I had known she was oil and I was water from the first time we met, it might be different. I regret mostly, that I wasn't a better person at the time, and let myself go deeper into financial ruin. It's too bad there was someone there to watch it, and love it.

We will never make amends. And I do not mind. My long-winded point? These things take time, after the fact, to get a handle sometimes. Don't feel weird, it might be someone else trying to make you feel that way out of some strange satisfaction, wait and see.

Kind of like what Dana said. We were never suited to being friends, muchless any type of living arrangement.....She's just low and mean. God was she mean. It's taken me a long time to say that.

I am unhappy because I am home sick again today...a week after being home sick. TF's respiratory illness has now spread through our entire household, in fact, proving that the surest vector for disease is your own extended family.

It's so, so cold, and so, so dry. Because I have eczema and sensitive, dry skin, I feel like my entire surface area is in pain. Yuck.

Well, we lost the house. We made an offer of $X95k, and instead of coming back with $(X+1)10K or somesuch, they took it off the market. What the hell? So, we're stuck in apartment hell till past the holidays, at best.
:confused::mecry:

I hear ya honey. Eczema is a funny thing. On the one hand it's 'a rash', on the other hand it's our biggest organ, and when that organ isn't working properly, it makes you feel like shit. Do you have stuff to keep it under control? Don't do what I did recently and let it all get out of control and not go to the doctors...

Which reminds me: update on my gripe from other day -

My feet and ankles are normal sized again! yey! I slept like a log last night. I am getting better by the day. The anti-biotics, water tablets and sedatives between them are making me feel a bit rank, but I can live with the nausea for a week I'm sure.

Yey. Feeling myself again. I even found myself automatically answering the phone the last couple of days, instead of letting the ans phone get it.

Oh crap. Sorry to hear that Pie. That's some shitty timing.

Oh and Els, hope you're feelin better mate *hugs*

Well, unless it was listed at like $(X+3)95k or something, where your offer just totally crushed all their hopes and dreams, I'd guess that taking it off the market had nothing to do with your offer, Pie. Maybe somebody lost a job, or found a job, or one of the kids suddenly has to move back home...

But anyway, why do you think you won't find another suitable place for over 2 months? Around here you can't throw a dead cat without hitting a house for sale... and people needing to sell during the holidays are usually of the more-motivated variety too.

crazy. You would think that if they were serious about selling, they would negotiate a little. Especially if they knew they had a serious offer.

It was listed at $(X+1)30k. We did shave $35k off their asking price, but they hadn't had a price reduction since July. And the market's been pretty shitty recently.

Oddly enough, there isn't much on the market that's any good. Most people seem to be waiting it out till spring for the new listings; what's out here is mostly left-overs that didn't sell for specific reason.

I'll now stop my whining. There's not much wrong with my life that a good, swift kick in the pants wouldn't cure.

It's quite possible that your offer would take them into short sale territory. A) They aren't mentally prepared for that, B) They are but haven't done the legwork to prepare for a shortsale, which takes 90-180 days.

Yabbut, wouldn't they (sanely) make a counter-offer that puts them in the black? Who walks away from a cash offer without even negotiating??

I don't know what is happening there, just offering a possibility. To start a shortsale process they have to have an offer of some sort. The person who actually makes that initial offer is rarely the one who buys the house later because the process is so long. They may be taking the offer to the bank saying, "see this is what we can sell it for" and then their negotiations begin.

Just a possibility. of course, they could just be stupid, too.

Sorry about the house, Pie.

Dana, thankfully my eczema isn't that bad and is limited mostly to my hands. Every now and again I get a bad breakout and put off going to the dermatologist, but I think I'll have to follow your example and go in to get some medication or else I won't make it through the winter. Glad to hear you're feeling better!

Yeah, you don't often know what people are doing behind their back as they represent something else to you. Years ago, I was trying to rent an awesome house with a bunch of guys. It was going to be a great place for a bunch of single guys right out of college to live. Almost a mansion. Not cheap, but we could swing it. The agent was all excited with our application and that we all had good credit, jobs and could pay the rent, and the day after we signed the application, they decided not to rent the house but to sell it instead.

I think they were using us as some sort of bargaining chip to get a reluctant buyer to commit.

The breast exam did not go well. At all. Plbbbt. In fact, it went worse than I thought possible.

It's probably nothing - ya know just like monsters kid with the murmor... just cautious butt-covering. Hang tight.

It's just rich that someone scared the hell out of me on Halloween. Awesome. That's the spirit! Quite! lol! JFC.

so.....what happened?

Bump. Cic, what's going on?

Layoffs yesterday. Some good people gone.

What's the rest of the story, Cic?

CICERO!! Story, PLEASE!!! lol

Oh I have to get off my ass to get this breast ex-rayed and there was a blood test done to see what is wrong with my glands, if there is something wrong with my glands. There is a minute chance that I have a tumor in my head, but I don't think I do. That has to be ruled out for the time being, and I have to go see what's up with the lump in my breast. Plbbbt.

Why can't they just run me through a machine, or check all of it out at once, like on star trek with that wand? I don't like all of this appointment here, appointment there stuff. And I had to pay for blood work out of pocket yesterday, to check on a brain tumor I don't have....

Now I know I have a little cyst in my breast. I don't think it's a big deal, but they are talking crazy. And I know after all of this testing and money it's taking, I'll be fine and have a clean bill of health. This is a reminder that I need to actually call and make my x-ray appointments...*sigh*

I call bullshit.

This is dumb.....I just want them to extract the little cyst with a needle and get it over with. This is wasting my time.

Yuck. And further, ick. I hate doctors, for just that reason: piecemeal examinations. For crying out loud, just get it all done in one fell swoop, eh?

Well, however you need to get it done, get it done so WE can stop worrying, k?

:)

What's upsetting me today...

...is that the office I work in will be closed as of 02JAN09.

I've been too long out of the job search mode.

I have a 3yr-old daughter.

We just refinanced our house.

I'm trying to stay positive.

Shit, ferret, that's some bloody awful timing *frowns* sorry to hear it.

Good that you're trying to stay positive. I know you've been out of job search mode a long time, but trust me it's like riding a bike; you'll be running off CVs and wowing interviewers before you know it.[*]

Good luck with it, and anytime you need to vent, you know where we are *smiles*


[*eta] Britspeak to Merkin translation: 'running off CVs' = 'printing out/emailing resumes'

You're sweet Shawnee, it did have me all shook up for a couple of hours when they told me what the tests were for. My knees were like jelly, knocked a little, and I was a little shaky,then I realized that I do not have a brain tumor and probably don't have any cancer at all. So I'm over it. Now they (the medics)need to get over it and we will all be happy.

Even my husband is skeptical, he's like..."yea, cicero, there's nothing wrong with you". And I'm like. "hmmm, yea, good point!" Thanks.

They are testing to make sure I don't have something, rather than to make sure I do. Big difference there.

Of course, my body did not understand the logic at first, and did what it wanted to do. My body said: Uhhh what? *shake and disassociate*


Ok so they tapped into my fear, and my imaginings were trumped by the reality. It will be over soon, and my imagination can go back to normal, and so can theirs. My husband thinks it's all pretty stupid, and he's right. This is dumb.

It's stupid, but it is necessary.
Like when I had to have my liver tested. There were absolutely no signs that there was a problem, it was "just in case" but it scared the bejesus out of me til the results came through (I'm with LJ on being all bejesusless now).

You win either way. You're either as fit as a butcher's dog and get to sneer and tut and say, "Well I knew that anyway!" And even if a worst case scenario you will have identified something and be able to take some action.

ETA - just finished typing and only then appreciated the financial aspect, sorry. Still, like having a full survey on a house you don't end up buying, it's surely better to spend some money now just to be certain.

Ferret I'm sorry to hear about your job. On the plus side, at least you have some notice and can start planning. My thoughts are with you.

Oh hey Cic, glad you've got a handle on it *smiles* and Sundae's right, better to spend some money now to be certain.

holy crap---is everybody getting sick or what? keep us informed, cic!

Sorry to hear it, ferret. Best wishes on pulling a decent plan together.

Ditto what everyone else said, Cicero. I hope you're right.

I noticed some black mold growing over there behind the furnace. Maybe we need to get this Cellar cleaned up.

Hmmph. Is the birthday list broken? Hmmph. :(

But I really appreciate y'all getting me a new president for my birthday. ;)

It's my dad's birthday too. Happy birthday dad!