Wowee. What a whirlwind the past week has been.

I spent Christmas Eve at my folks� house, along with the rest of my family (aside from brother Larry who didn�t show up until 12/26). Over-all, we had a lovely time. Aside from family, Amy brought a friend who hails from Russia and has only lived here for two years and yet seems to speak better English than I do. Her name is Oxsana. Lovely girl.

I got off work at noon and headed over to my folks� place. They live about 45 miles away from me, so on a holiday on the freeways of Southern California, it makes for a long trip. Actually though, the drive wasn�t too bad, all things considered. The family trickled in and we were all packed tight into the small house by around 5-ish. Everyone was having fun and all was well until we started opening presents.

Mark brought his three boys and they were fine. In fact, they are growing up to be polite and well-behaved youngsters (OK, two of them are on drugs because of supposed ADHD, but still � great kids...and don�t even get me started on that f�d-up diagnosis, although I may have mentioned it before). But here's the however....However...I think I mentioned that Sondra and Lou came and of course brought their son Jeremy. Now, you all may think I am just some bitch when I whine about my sister and my her kid, but...boy, oh boy you shoulda been there! Jeremy was a perfect doll until Mark�s boys showed up. As I said, Mark has three boys � 9 (Mark Allen), 7 (Noah) and pert-near 3 (Cameron). The problem is that when Cameron shows up, Jeremy lowers himself to Cameron�s maturity level � only much, much worse.

It was the boys� jobs to play "Santa" and hand out the gifts. Jeremy proceeded to throw a fit, screaming and crying and then he started throwing presents on the floor. It was very disturbing. Jeremy is nine years old. Finally, Lou literally dragged him, kicking and screaming, in to the other room. After about half an hour, during which he was in the other room acting like Satan�s spawn, they had to go home. I walked Sondra (who had my name in the gift exchange) out to her car and she was very upset, crying. I felt so bad for her.

I called Sondra the next day and she was fine. She also sent me an e-mail to that effect. We didn�t talk about what happened or just what the fuck was up with Jeremy, but then we still aren�t talking all that much.

The really unfortunate thing is that the kid obviously needs some help and he can�t get it. His parents are...well, to be kind they aren�t the most ambitious people on the planet. Which is fine, they don�t have to be. Except that their lack of drive has led them both to jobs that don�t pay well and neither has insurance. Plus, their lack of drive has led them to be really bad parents.

Man, this is a depressing entry...

OK, so after they left we continued to have a great time. We played games and laughed and ate dessert and I went home pooped. John got to my house at around the same time I did. He got off at noon on Christmas Eve and didn't have to be back to work until Friday. :)

Aside from the fact that John and I are treating each other to a trip to Palm Springs, he got me a beautiful little redwood box which I adore (and a new pipe � gee, how romantic, eh?). I got him sweats. Yeah, I�m evidently a romantic, too. :)

Christmas day I actually spent at home, doing not much of anything. John went to his family get-together at about 2:00pm and I vegged and watched t.v. I was very, very tired so it was good to just lay around all day.

Saturday the 28th I had the family over to my pad, which was a complete blast. Family members pitched in with food, but I still ran myself ragged preparing my portion of the eats and cleaning and the like. Even Linda, who doesn�t celebrate Christmas, came over and Larry and his clan were in town by then and were there. We had a lot of time to play around in between eating and the gondola tour we took through Naples and ended up playing Charades. Of course, who got to act out Winnie the Pooh? Karen. So there I was, acting like I was taking a pooh in front of my entire family. Charming. And my team still didn�t get what I was doing.

The gondola tour was an event.

Rain had been threatened for Saturday, but A) Generally when rain is threatened around these parts, it fails to show up. B) It was very clear and lovely out all day and we were hoping that if the rain showed it would do so after we were all snuggled up and warm in our beds.

We arrived at the dock about fifteen minutes ahead of time and the sky was pretty clear. There were a few clouds, but by all appearances it seemed we�d be just fine and dandy. We split in to three groups and boarded three separate gondolas. All was well for about half an hour. Then by some miracle (or curse)the clouds appeared and it started sprinkling...then the winds started up. I mean winds, baby. Like hurricane-winds. All three gondolas got stuck in the middle of our tour and we had to have a little speed boat come out and rescue us.

Actually, it was a rather fun adventure and we ended up getting a refund of all of our money so we got half of the regular tour and at no cost (aside from the gondolier�s tips).

Afterward, the younger members of the family came back to my pad for more games and hot cocoa. John was there by that time, too. One funny thing: Arnett�s son Joe was visiting from Seattle and had rented a convertible. He drove to the gondola tour with the top down, which was insane enough since it was freezing out. Then he left the top down while we were on the gondolas! So his rental car was soaked by the time we got back. Tee-hee. :)

New Year�s Eve, I actually stayed home and did nothing. I got off work again at around noon, ran some errands and went home where I proceeded to take a nap. Then I watched a Sex and the City marathon. I�m not a big fan of this holiday, frankly. Too many crazy people on the roads, plus there are cops everywhere and so I�m afraid to even have like one drink. They did have fireworks over the Queen Mary (I live about a mile down the beach from where she�s docked and get a great view when they have fireworks there) but I didn�t even go watch them. Frankly, walking down to the beach at midnight by myself didn�t seem the safest of ways to celebrate a new year. John only had one day off for this holiday, so didn't come down.

Work has been rather frustrating. I have periodic problems with one of my employees � Rob. He was out "sick" on Monday (in quotations because the guy calls in sick more than...well, almost anyone I�ve ever known). Month-end is a hectic time for us in general and this month it was of course year-end as well, which makes the stress-level worse. Anyway, long story short, I sent him an e-mail asking him some questions about some of his accounts, which I was reviewing in his absence. His response when he got back to the office was not what I would have liked to hear/read. And it was the last straw. His responses are never what I would like to hear/read and I�m fed up. I basically let him have it. So he then went to talk to the Little Big Man; then I went to talk to the Little Big Man. And of course I still have the same questions I had before.

The thing with Rob is that he�s been here forever. He is not at all used to anyone looking at his work or questioning him. Therefore, every time I do he gets defensive and adopts a major 'tude about it, rather than simply answering my questions. Thus far, I have been incredibly patient with it all. Well, my patience has run thin, my friends. And I just went up to his area a few minutes ago (his desk is upstairs from the rest of the department) and asked him how he was feeling since he was supposedly sick. He was extremely cold toward me. Whatever, a-hole.

Plus, I feel there are still residual bad feelings in the department as a whole from when Hilda left (she blamed me for her leaving, as you may recall). Sometimes I just feel uneasy with about half the people here because of it all. They�re all good friends with her and regardless of how I may have been slandered and of the fact that none of them have ever had a problem with me, they believe everything she�s ever said about me. In a way, it�s kind of good to be isolated from the friendships around here, because I can�t really be friends in the fullest sense with people who work under me. But it also kind of hurts my feelings.

Anyway, on top of that stuff I�ve just been incredibly busy over the past two months or so and LBM had the nerve to ask me a few days ago why I "dropped the ball" on a certain account (actually someone else�s account, but it�s my job to make sure everyone else is doing their jobs so ultimately I am responsible). I got a bit peeved, especially since a large part of the reason I have been so busy is because of him being out so much lately (as he is again today and tomorrow, I might add). We resolved it, though. And I did, in fact, drop the ball so I will be making a more concerted effort in regard to reviewing everyone�s work from here on out.

I like to stay busy, but these kinds of run-ins wear on me.

In good work-related news, the new gal (Alanna) is working out well and she�s a sweetie.

Lots more has happened in the past ten days or so, but as this entry is already God-awful long, I will close for now. I hope all of my Diaryland friends had a wonderful holiday season. Here�s to a peaceful 2003.

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~~~~~~~~~~~peace, love and smooches~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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