What Next?

What an awful week. At work we installed the computer upgrade from hell. Some of the big boys were threatened with their jobs so they rammed this upgrade down our throats. They then proceeded to send e-mails out congratulating everyone on the successful go-live. None of the adminstrators could access their accounts on the first day, most of the end-users in the labs couldn't log on...turns out they reset all the passwords and didn't tell anyone. Then in the conversion, some of the accounts that people should have had access to were lost. How does that happen??? And the congratulatory e-mails kept coming. Never being one to keep my mouth shut...my family will attest to that...I take after my mother...I e-mail one of the big boys to tell him the upgrade was less than successful. I didn't hear back from him. He knows me too well...he's ignoring me. If it weren't for the wonderful Gretchen and Lila...I wouldn't have survived the week. They are consultants from the software company and came to my rescue all week long. They are amazing, beautiful, and do it all on 3-4" heels. These two were born on heels. They even went to a baseball game in heels. I guess I am too old...my feet won't tolerate anything more than a kitten heel anymore.

Then...on Thursday...Lou calls to tell me he is at home and the gas company has shut the gas off. Seems someone in the neighborhood smelled gas and they narrowed it down to our house. They shut off the gas. So I can't cook...no big deal...I don't cook that much and I can use the grill and microwave to get us through. I have to wash dishes and clothes in cold water... that's OK too. But I can't dry the clothes cause I have a gas dryer. My living room has become a makeshift laundry line. I have shirts and pants hanging anywhere I can drape them...underwear hanging from the chandelier...hope company doesn't stop by...it will look like Lou and I have been having an orgy. But that's not the worst of it...we have to shower in cold water...oh my god....you can hear my screams down the block. So I am heating up water in the microwave and putting it into a kettle and using that in the shower to lessen the sting of the cold water. Good news is we have some type of insurance that we pay for in our monthly gas bill....Lou thinks I am brilliant for doing this...I didn't know that we were paying for it...don't tell him...I like it when he thinks I'm brilliant. So the plumbing company that holds the insurance sends a "kid" out on Saturday to measure the pressure He confirmed that we have a leak..NSS..he tells us that normally they fix this by puttng some type of sleeve down the line to seal the leak...fairly easy. But...because our pipe is 1.5"...he doesn't know if the gas company will approve it being sleeved and we might have to have the gas line dug up and replaced. Not so bad except it is on the property line where we have a nice wooden fence, a beautiful moss rock wall and all types of wonderful flowers. If this is the route we have to go...all that will be ripped up...as well as a patio that we have on the side of the house. They will be ripping up not only our landscaping...but our neighbors as well. And...there is a question of whether the gas line is on our property or the neighbors...and the "kid" tells us he may not be able to replace the gas line because it might be on our neighbors property. OK...so what the hell are we suppose to do???? Go without gas??? THANKFULLY...our neighbor is so wonderful. She was outside and we called her over to discuss this...she said we should do what we have to do. If this is what it comes to...I am just going to hire a landscaper to rebuild the rock wall and redo the landscaping on both sides of the fence.

So it's back to work on Monday..today since it's 1 AM... where I have to meet a moving truck from California that is delivering the contents of lab that is transferring here, deal with the on-going upgrade from hell, get my budget package for 2008 which is due in 3 weeks and integrate a new center into our department.

There is light at the end of the tunnel and I am running towards it no matter what.....that light..no it's not an on-coming train...it's 45 days until we leave for PARIS.