bunt sign

Friday, November 8, 2002

Surprises throw me off, but when I know going in that it's going to be a rough day, it's not so bad. I knew I'd have to go out in the weather at least twice today, and I thought it might turn out to be three or four times as I chased down money and tried to get people paid. When the carousel stopped after only a couple of revolutions, I was happy.

We're still short of cash. I still have bills I've promised (that is, the Boss has promised) to pay next week, even though the money is trickling in much more slowly than it's pouring out. I've even come to terms with the fact that the bank won't let me use the money I deposit until five to eleven days after it's too late to do me any good.

All of the checks I was expecting to arrive in today's mail failed to show. The Boss was surprised they didn't come yesterday. "I'm sure they'll be there tomorrow," he told me then. He said exactly the same thing today. I hope he's right, because with Sunday and the Veterans Day holiday coming up, the next day both the bank and the post office will be open is Tuesday.

It might come down to my not answering the phone. I've never considered it part of my job to tell people they have to wait for us to pay them. The Boss told me when I started working for him that he would handle things like that. I think he actually likes giving people unpleasant news, although I'm not sure what it does for him. Some kind of perverse character defect, I suspect, although a minor one that doesn't stand out amid all the other peculiarities.

Without new money coming in, I had to borrow from the credit line again. This time I kept the borrowing under the threshold where the bank shrieks in horror and runs off with its eyes a-buggin' out. I went through that once this week already, and all I wanted to do today was cover the workers comp payment.

It'll already be a day late, and the insurance company will send out cancellation notices to everyone we do business with, and then a day later they'll have to rescind them all. Can't be helped. I do my best, but you can't squeeze oil out of a cactus. (Or can you? I have no idea; I just made that up.)

At least the rain tapered off and the winds were less destructive today. It's a good thing I delayed resetting the clocks last night, because there was another power outage at 11:30 pm that lasted for twenty minutes or so. I had to have faith that would be the last time, because by then I just wanted to set the time and go to bed. It still turned into another long night with less sleep than I needed, but that's what weekends are for. Don't look for me before noon tomorrow.




bare branches

One windy day cleared the leaves out of the walnut tree.



Tonight I watched two very different movies in two different languages. One was a charming story of a young brother and sister who share one pair of sneakers, by the Iranian director Majid Majidi. That was Children of Heaven, and it was in Farsi. Then I watched Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También, also charming, but just about the sexiest movie I've seen in a long time, including everything on Cinemax for the last year put together. Still, it was quirky and a lot of fun. That one was from Mexico and in Spanish.




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Recent recommendations can always be found on the links page.


One year ago: False Front
"What I mean is that by sheer nervous energy, I would have had a kind of force field around me, and nothing as wobbly as one of those gold-knobbed posts would stand a chance."

Two years ago: Close the Exit Polls
"The only 'mandate' we need is the general agreement that whoever occupies the White House was elected fairly."


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