In which the CEO kicks Bridget out of her office and me into her office

The radio continued to play. I continued to wear earplugs and a headset and to listen to the sound of a B52 bomber and the rain and the waves crashing into the shore. By the end of the day, my temples hurt because of the pressure of the headset on my glasses and I was cranky.

A few people continued to mention that I should have an office. I hadn't said more about the radio. Well. Not to the other people in the open area. I had gone to Kyle, Tanya's boss, who is my peer, and asked him to find a solution for the radio. He shook his head and said, "That radio has been an issue since the day I started. The CEO doesn't like it to be too quiet. He wanted the radio."

"Oh man," I said. "So the radio is A Thing."

"It is," Kyle agreed.

May I note for the record that the CEO works in the headquarters office in Buenos Aires and cannot hear our radio - we are in North America - from there.

May I further note that the CEO is deadset against cubicles because he doesn't like people being separated from each other.

I have not seen the CEO's office, but could I get an "Amen!" to the idea that he is probably not in an open area with no walls.

I explained to Kyle what had happened with Tanya and that if I went to my boss, he would happily throw the radio away without consulting anyone. Kyle said he would do some looking around for a long antenna and we commiserated.

On my way out of Kyle's office, I looked at the org chart on his door. Bridget was in the office next to his. Bridget is lower on the org chart than I. I was the only person reporting to a director not in an office.

I sighed, looked longingly at Bridget's office, and returned to my little cube, which was only half the size of the cube I had had in the other division with only 1/4 of the storage space, including no place to to put my coat.

I longed for that office but I was not going to ask my boss about it. I was not going to displace someone else out of her space. I didn't know why someone at a lower reporting level than I would be in an office while I was in a cubicle, but I did not think I should make waves about it.

After I had been there a month, the CEO showed up from headquarters. At 7:50 a.m., after an overnight international flight, he appeared in the office. My boss was not there yet. I'm glad I was. The CEO - let's call him Sergio - walked over to my cubicle, introduced himself, and asked why I was in a cubicle rather than in an office. I told him this was where my boss had put me but I would eventually like walls and a door.

"I think everyone should have a door," I said.

"I'll take care of that," Sergio said.

I shrugged and said, "OK," thinking that he meant that if they ever did the office remodel, they would build me a space.

Then he sipped his coffee and made a face. "Thees coffee, eet is not very good," he noted.

"Let's go to the coffee shop across the street," I suggested. I agreed with him on the office coffee. How quickly I went from being excited that I was finally back in an office where they supplied coffee - the other division did not, which is the first time in my life I have worked someone where they didn't have coffee for employees - even when I was a Peace Corps volunteer, we had coffee - to being an ingrate unhappy that the free coffee - free coffee! - was bad.

We walked and chatted and he paid for my split shot latte' after laughing about it - "What ees these split shot?" -- and drank his cafe' American with two shots of espresso and he was quite charming. But I already had evidence from my job negotiations that he was not a man to be crossed, so I was careful.

Two hours later, I walked back from the ladies to see Sergio standing with Kyle and my boss. He looked at me. "You have an office now."

He turned to Kyle. "Tell Bridget that Goldie is getting that office and she needs to move out."

Sofia, Kyle's boss, who was also visiting from the BA office, smiled and said, "Now, you are one of us."

I looked at Kyle. My jaw dropped. He shook his head very slightly. I clamped my mouth shut. Didn't want to catch flies or any other kind of trouble. I had nothing to gain by protesting to the CEO that I should not have Bridget's office, as much as I thought the process was handled poorly. And if I have to have someone angry with me, it should be Bridget over the CEO.

Except the problem with Bridget being angry with me is that I see her every day. But Bridget can't fire me.

Quelle dilemma.

I walked back to my cube. I saw Kyle go into Bridget's office and close the door. A few minutes later, she walked out. She wouldn't look at me.

Oh great. Now I was going to have everyone hate me because of the radio and because I had gotten Bridget kicked out of her office. Joy joy joy.

I put my head down, put on my headset, and worked. I went to lunch, came back, and worked some more. I passed Bridget in the ladies.

"Bridget," I whispered. "I promise I did not say a word to Sergio about your office. Not a word!"

She said flatly, "OK," and walked away. She had always been friendly to me. Now she wouldn't even look at me.

Sofia came over to my desk. "I talked to Bridget."

My face reddened.

"I didn't ask Sergio to do that," I said.

"I know," she said. "And I talked to Bridget. She is not angry with you. But she was surprised. She needs some time to adjust."

I nodded. "OK," I said. "But I don't like the way this was done."

She shrugged slightly with the Latin shoulders. What is one to do? The CEO orders, we ask how high.

The next day, Bridget came over to my cube. "Do you have a minute?" she asked.

"Sure," I said. I followed her to her office and she closed the door behind her.

I took a deep breath. I was preparing myself for - for I don't know what. Nothing good.

"I just want you to know that I'm OK with this," she said. "I don't like the way it was handled, but I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at Sergio, but not at you."

I exhaled and bent over. I hate it when people are mad at me.

"Oh good!" I said. "I promise you I didn't say anything to Sergio. I mean, when he asked why I was in a cube, I told him this is where Mark put me and I would rather have walls, but I didn't say that I wanted him to kick you out."

She shook her head and smiled. "It's OK. I know."

"Because I like you and I want us to be friends," I confessed. "So I would never have had him kick you out."

She smiled again. "OK."

And then we hugged, because that is sometimes how women roll.

And then I talked to Kyle, who said he had suggested to Mark that they put me in Bridget's office before I ever started but Mark didn't want to do that, which made me cranky because all this could have been dealt with before I was ever involved but it wasn't and now it was just one more strike against me with the hoi polloi.

Next: Someone complains about how I identify the company on the phone and Tanya pitches a hissy fit about the radio and the radio disappears.

In which I have an altercation with a co-worker about the office radio

I moved to a new job within my company. New job, same company, different division. There has been drama since before Day 1, but I don't want to get into any of that while I am still working there. If, however, I get a new new job at a completely new company, I will tell all. Let's just say that I keep learning questions I should ask before I accept a job, like, "Is this group financially stable or are you way behind in revenues and will there be mass panic and thoughts of layoffs in the near future?" and "Will you be changing the job description dramatically once I start and be wanting me to make cold calls?" and "This promised trip to the company headquarters in Buenos Aires in January - will this actually happen?"

Unfortunately, like the generals, I keep fighting the last war, so who knows what new drama I might encounter at a new new job?

On my first day of work, my boss showed me to my space: a desk in the middle of the office. A desk as part of a pod of desks. No walls. OK, a short wall between me and the other three desks that were clustered together, but no other walls.

I thought it was bad being in a cubicle. I didn't know it could get worse - that I would be demoted from an office (pretty much every job I've had) to a cubicle to - a desk.

My boss said, "We can build you a cubicle if you want, but you might like this."

I looked around me at all the space. At the way the desk was completely open to everything. Then I looked at him and wanted to say, "You have a window office in the corner. Do you think you would prefer to have this space?" Instead, I said just, "I expect I will prefer a cubicle so I can have some kind of walls."

"Well, we can't get maintenance to do anything for a few weeks," he said.

Note that I had accepted the job a month before I started. The long notice period was because of Drama that I will not divulge now, but there was Drama and there were Red Flags and it was too late to do anything about them because my former boss already knew I wanted to go and it's hard to stay working for someone who knows you want to not be working for him.

I was going to have to suck it up.

I sat down at my new desk. There was no nameplate. There was no computer. My phone had not been connected. I'm not sure what I was supposed to do without any tools to do the job.

They had known for a month.

But then - then I realized at least there was a distraction.

There was a radio playing not ten feet away from me. I was in the desk closest to the radio.

Some people may thrive in a noisy, crowded atmosphere.

I am not one of those people. Indeed, I do not know any one of those people. I will bet if you ask everyone you know, almost all of them would prefer an office to a cubicle and definitely to an open desk in a cluster.

Not only was I in an exposed area, I was in an exposed area next to the radio.

The women behind me in the old job used to chat all day - which actually didn't bug me - but also would eat noisy things, like carrot sticks and dry Cap'n Crunch, all day? Crunch, crunch, crunch, all day long.

Although to their credit, when I asked them to tone it down, they did, but only after apologizing for disturbing me.

See, the thing is, professional people, adults, who work in shared spaces get that we all have to make little sacrifices to make up for the cheapness of our employers, who refuse to provide people with the proper space and privacy to do a good job.

I do not want to listen to the radio at work. I want to work. I need to be able to concentrate. I need to be able to put together contracts and analyze pricing and speak to customers in Spanish and think about strategy and do things that require concentration. I can't do these things with a radio playing.

But it was my first day at work. I was not going to say a word.

Instead, after lunch, when my computer finally arrived and had been set up, I took it into the conference room so I could read all the training materials in peace.

After an hour, my boss, Mark, came in the conference room. "What are you doing in here?" he asked.

"The radio is distracting," I said. "I came in here for the quiet."

"Why don't you just turn the radio off?" he asked.

I sighed. "I am not going to be the person who comes into a place on her first day of work and tries to change everything. It would make everyone hate me."

Mark rolled his eyes, walked out of the conference room, and turned off the radio. Then he stuck his head back in the room and told me that the radio was off.

I took my computer back out to my desk and started working again.

One of my new co-workers, Jan, came over to me. "You don't like Christmas music?" she asked.

"What?" I answered.

"The radio. Mark said you didn't like the music."

"He did what?"

"When Mark turned off the radio, he said it was because you didn't like it."

Oh great. I shook my head. "It's not that I don't like Christmas music. It's that I have a hard time concentrating if there is music playing."

"Well," she said carefully. "We all like the music." (There are seven other women in the open work space, although most of them were gone for the holidays.) "It keeps us from going insane."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know what to tell you. I will try to work with it and we can see what happens once they build me a cubicle. Maybe the walls will baffle some of the sound and it won't be an issue."

She smiled. "We really like the radio."

I brought in a headset and listened to the sound of rain falling and the sound of waves crashing and the sound of a jet engine all day long. It still didn't drown out the radio. So then I put in earplugs underneath the headphones. Still didn't drown it out, but made it easier for me to tune it out. Still, I could hear Elton John and Billy Joel and Meatloaf and the Beatles all day long and if I didn't hate their greatest hits before the new job, I sure hated them now.

They built me a cubicle that was half the size of the cubicle I'd had in the old job. I looked longingly at the office occupied by a woman who was below me on the org chart. But I said nothing to Mark other than, "I will say this only once. I want a door. I want a door and walls. I cannot concentrate with all that noise out there."

He dismissed me. "We were supposed to do an office renovation this year, but now there is no money for it."

I moved into the cubicle. It was still noisy.

Finally, I went back to Jan. "I am really sorry," I said, "but I can't stand that radio. Is there any way you could have it closer to your desk?"

I had already checked into jango.com and pandora.com. Both were blocked. I had asked IT to make an exception, but they said the request had to come from Mark. I was not going to get my boss involved in this. I had carefully asked a few of my other new co-workers what they thought about the radio. Two of them took out their earbuds and said, "What?"

Jan said she would try. "The problem is that it's hard to get good reception in here," she explained.

"I have tried," I said. "I wear my headset and earplugs and I listen to white noise, but the headset bothers my ears after a few hours."

She moved the radio. She couldn't get a signal.

"Our work is so boring that we really need the music," she said. "I can't believe they don't have you in an office."

I just shrugged and smiled slightly. I was not going to get into the office issue with anyone.

OK. I lie. I did say, "Yes, it would be nice to have an office."

So I sucked it up. And I started looking for a new job.

But one day, after I had tried to have a conversation with a customer in Mexico over the phone and had to press one hand against my free ear so I could concentrate on what he was saying - it's hard to understand a foreign language over the phone because you don't see the person's face and body language, I went over to the radio and turned it off.

Tanya popped up from her desk.

Tanya had not been there when Mark turned off the radio. She is about 20. This is her first job.

She marched over to the radio, turned it back on, turned to me, and said, "You don't get to come in here and do whatever you want."

"Excuse me?" I said.

"This is how we do things here. We listen to the radio. You don't just get to come in and change things."

I sighed. "Look. It is really hard for me to concentrate with the radio on. I need to be able to work."

She pushed her hand out in the Hand of Stop Talking move. "Don't be talking to me like that!"

"Like what?" I asked, genuinely puzzled.

"All mad and moving your hands!"

I hadn't realized I was moving my hands and I didn't think I had raised my voice, but I took a deep breath and said, "Look. I'm sorry. But we need to be able to work something out. I cannot work with the radio playing."

She folded her arms, shook her head, and said, "You need to talk to your manager about this."

This left me dumbfounded. I have never in my entire life gone to my boss about an interpersonal problem. Never. Speechless, I walked slowly back to my desk.

I sat there, fuming. Then thought, No! I need to deal with this!

I returned to the radio, where Tanya still stood.

"Look," I said. "We are both adults. We should be able to resolve this ourselves without going to out bosses." What I did not mention to her, although I was sorely tempted to, was that if I went to my boss, he would take the radio and throw it through the window.

She just shook her head. "You need to talk to your manager."

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and walked away, shaking my head.

Next: I talk to Tanya's boss about the radio, someone complains to Kyle about how I talk on the phone, and the CEO kicks Bridget out of her office

In which Isabel still reaches from beyond the grave to complicate things blessherheart

First, I have to tell you guys what a nice thing my friend Marsha said - she said I was so creative with the stories I wrote here: And, you are creative, making up all those stories on your "other" blog. 

She was referring to this blog of course, which is my double secret probation blog that my mom cannot know about not because I want to keep secrets from my mother, whom I love, but because I do want to keep secrets from her about some things and because Primo asked me never to tell her about it because he is so mortified by his parents.

(Not mortified enough for me not to write about them - I think he gets some second-hand catharsis by my writing about their crazy - a confirmation that they are nuts and that he is not and that he is justifiably upset by some of the things they say and do.)

Anyhow, I had to tell Marsha that I make up nothing on this blog - that all I do is report the truth. I wish I had enough imagination to make this stuff up. But it is all true.

Now. On to the main story.

Isabel died. She didn't leave a will. She left no end of life instructions. She made no funeral plans. She did nothing.

And it gets worse.

Primo went to her memorial party last week. He helped the girls organize things. The party was held at Isabel's house. There was a ton of food and a lot of relatives and friends that Primo had not seen in years. He got to see his ex mother in law, who thinks Primo hung the moon, and his stepdaughters and their cousins and aunts and uncles, all of whom have been very nice to Primo, even since the divorce, since most of them know that Isabel had her own flaws.

We all have our flaws. Isn't the trick to find someone whose good parts balance your bad parts? Isabel was not a bad person. She did not deserve to die the way she did. But she was selfish and inconsiderate in the way she left her life, refusing to do anything to make things easier for Laura and Kate.

Laura was going through some of Isabel's papers and found information on the time share that Primo and Isabel had bought years ago. In the divorce, Isabel got the entire time share. She also got all the wine in the storage unit for which Primo had been paying. (He also bought the wine.)

Primo had the wine unit on auto-pay on his credit card and had forgotten about it. It wasn't until a year after the divorce was final that he realized he had been paying the storage fees. He had to fax a notarized statement to the storage people to get his name off the contract. He asked Isabel to take care of the wine - maybe move it out of the unit and into the new house she bought after the divorce. After all, why pay to store wine when you now have a house that is twice as big as your old one and there is room for wine? Plus wouldn't it be nice to be able to have easy access to said wine?

1. The time share. Isabel never took Primo's name off the account. She paid the monthly or quarterly or whatever fees. (Me: "She had money to pay her timeshare fees but didn't have money for her 2012 taxes and we had to help her out?" Primo: "Yes.")  She borrowed $6,000 against the value of the time share. Primo did not co-sign on the loan because you know, he is not an owner any more.

But now we have discovered that Isabel never took his name off the account and Primo is worried that the time-share people will come after him for the $6,000 plus the fees that are in arrears.

I maintain that the divorce decree trumps all and all he has to do is fax the time share people a copy of it. Undoubtedly, they already know about it as they lent money to Isabel all by herself, but Primo is all "Woooo!" about it.

2. The wine. Laura asked Primo to get some wine for the party from the storage unit. Yes, the storage unit. Isabel had never moved the wine from storage to her house. When Primo got to the unit, he discovered that she had not even taken any of the wine from it. The divorce was final in 2007. You can do the math. Isabel was paying the storage fees for years and then didn't even drink any of the wine.

Primo hopes that Laura and Kate won't mind if he ships some of the wine here. "They shouldn't," I told him. "You paid for it."

3. The cake. Primo brought home a big tupperware container with chocolate cake in it. "It was left over from the party," he said.

"It's a nice tupperware," I said. "I guess it's ours now."

"But it belonged to Isabel . I took it from her kitchen. Doesn't that bother you?"

I shrugged. "I have shared more with Isabel than tupperware," I said. "The only thing I don't like is that this tupperware cost us $189,500."

In which we discover that Isabel did not leave a will

This is the part that bothers me: I am speaking ill of the dead. Yes, Isabel died a few days after I wrote the post about her being in a non-responsive state. Primo didn't get to talk to her, but he talked to the girls and we had visited them just the month before Isabel died. He is going to the memorial service next week.

Isabel did not deserve a long, painful illness that ended in death. She was not a bad person. She was, however, a disorganized one. Is it bad to talk about something that a dead person did or did not do? I wished no ill for Isabel , for her own sake and that of Primo's stepdaughters. And I would never want to hurt them.

But I want to talk about leaving a will.

It is wrong to leave an estate and not have a will. It is wrong to leave a mess for your children to clean.

There.

Primo thinks I am nuts because I have had a will since I was 25. Maybe I am a little worst case scenario-y, but I have never been harmed by planning for the worst case scenario. I would rather be overprepared than underprepared.

The wife of a co-worker died years ago. My entire office went to the funeral. After the funeral, my boss mused that his father had shown him his will and his funeral arrangements. My boss thought it was macabre, but I thought it was one of the best things a parent could do for his adult children.

"Do you know how much stress and hassle he has saved you?" I asked.

When my former boyfriend's mother died, he was shocked to find that not only had she arranged her funeral, she had bid it out. She had purchased the plot, arranged the funeral, and left cash to pay for death certificates.

My mom has had a will for years. I have a copy of it. I am a signator on her safe-deposit box and I have a key. I am also a joint account holder on her checking and savings - if she dies, I will have immediate access to her money for funeral expenses, etc. She already has a plot - got it when my dad died.

I have watched my friends settle their parents' estates. Even with a will, it's a huge pain in the neck.

Apparently, Isabel's friends had encouraged her - repeatedly and with very strong language - to get her affairs in order. She refused. Primo says that's just how she was - if she didn't acknowledge something, it didn't exist.

I can't imagine how scary it must have been knowing you had a disease that was probably going to kill you. I can understand why she wouldn't want to do the hard things. It's hard enough to do these things without death staring at your face. But I am angry that now, Laura and Kate are going to have to go through even more work than they would otherwise have had to do to settle the estate. It's not fair to them. I wish Isabel had thought of her daughters more than she worried about her own discomfort.

PS She also would not make any decisions about her end of life care, telling the doctors that her daughters could decide. And the day after she died, the hospital called the girls to ask where they should send the body. "What do you mean?" they asked.

"Did your mom make any arrangements with a funeral home?"

Well of course she hadn't. So Laura and Kate had to scramble to find a funeral home.

Do not do this to your family. We are all going to die. It's just a matter of timing.

In which Doris had a chance for more grandchildren but blew it

I asked Primo if Doris was close to his stepdaughters. Let's call them Laura and Kate - I cannot remember the names I gave them earlier in the story. So Laura and Kate it is.

No, he told me. "She tried, when they were teenagers, but told me they were too listless and so she stopped trying to have a relationship with them."

"But isn't that what teenagers are like sometimes? And isn't that the same complaint she makes about Michael and Maria?" I asked.

"Yes," he admitted.

"So even though she was the adult and she should have known that kids can be like that, she decided to write them off."

"Yes," he said.

I don't get this attitude that you just throw people out of your family. Sure, I don't go out of my way to see Licking Pat, but I do keep in touch with my other cousins and with my aunts and uncles.

My sister got married last month to a man with three children, one of them an adult, one a teenager, and one a four year old. The adult didn't come to the wedding - I do not know the story on that but I have to get it - wouldn't you be dying to know? - but the teenager and the little boy did. My mom was thrilled. She kept introducing them to everyone - "Have you met my grandchildren?" she asked. She is so happy to have those kids in our family. They are nice kids. Laura and Kate were nice kids. Who wouldn't be glad to have them?

At the big family lunch at my aunt Mary's house the day after the wedding, I finally met my uncle Hugh's ex wife, CC. Hugh and CC have been divorced for over 30 years. They have two daughters - my step-cousins, if you want to be pedantic - together. CC and her husband are friends with my aunt and uncle. They invited them to the big family party. Why not? They are family.

Why wouldn't you want to enlarge your family with nice people? If they are crummy people, I can understand why you might not want them around, but my relatives have all married nice people with nice kids.

Doris' current complaint (you may noticed I have not mentioned Sly - I have no expectations that Sly might ever try to develop a relationship with anyone but a bottle) is that Michael and Maria are not doing it right. Maria visited them over Christmas break, but Michael is too busy working. He works at some fast food place and has been putting in the hours.

Sly and Doris are sure he's working so much so he can buy pot.

Maybe. Or maybe he wants to have money for school. Or maybe he likes a young woman and wants to take her out somewhere nice.

Or maybe it's for pot. I don't care. I don't care if someone smokes pot. I know too many people who are successful in their careers who smoke pot to think it destroys lives. Although I do not think it is wise to be caught with marijuana, which has already happened to Michael.

But I digress. Doris, she of the Perpetually Aggrieved, has found one more thing to complain about that is someone else's fault - nothing to do with her. She could have had two lovely young women as granddaughters and then have also had their husbands and their three adorable children as great-grandchildren.

But she would rather complain.

In which I spill my life story - including an ugly truth - to a complete stranger

Scene: A little bakery near our house that makes amazing brownies. The brownies cost $3 apiece, which seems high to me, but if you use good ingredients - butter, not cheap fat, the good chocolate - then a brownie is not cheap to make.

I walk in. I am fashionably dressed in gym pants, a sweatshirt, and a fleece vest that has managed to remain cat-hair free, although how I managed that in our house, I have no idea. I am also wearing my snow boots because it is cold and snowy and icy and now there is a layer of rain on top of the ice and every step carries with it the risk of death or a broken ankle, both of which would be really expensive. And if I broke my ankle, I wouldn't be able to exercise, not that I like exercising, but I like eating, so I would continue to eat but wouldn't get any exercise and then the only clothes I could wear would be those nasty polyester pants with the elastic waist, the likes of which I thought I had said goodbye to when I was in 9th grade and started wearing jeans.

So. I look crummy but it is Sunday morning and I haven't showered because 1. It is Sunday and 2. I had to return the carpet water sucker to the hardware store before noon. Why do I need a carpet water sucker in the winter, you ask?

Because even though we have had bitterly cold temperatures, we have also had rain and the rain didn't soak into the ground. Instead, it seeped into our basement into the 20% of the basement that is carpeted and not into the 80% that is not.

So Friday night, Primo walked downstairs while I was sitting on the sofa watching "The Mindy Project"  (love her, although I am not so sure that the Lutherans are pleased that one of their ministers is being portrayed as someone who jumps into bed before marriage). He was in bare feet, for some reason. Bare feet, even though it is freezing cold. We don't keep the temperature very high in our house because most of the heat goes out the walls anyhow. Old houses are cool in many ways - wait! I didn't even intend that! They are neat and they are cold. No insulation.

When you are wearing Fluffy Socks and slippers, you don't feel cold, wet carpet. But when your feet are bare, you do. Primo noticed the carpet was wet. Surprisingly, there was almost no drama, which made me want to ask, "Who are you and what have you done to my husband?" But I didn't. I was just grateful that he noticed the carpet was wet, diagnosed the problem, came up with the solution (I went to the hardware store yesterday morning to get the carpet sucker thing), and went on about his business.

I got the carpet sucker, Primo sucked the water out of the carpet, and I returned the carpet sucker this morning. On the way home from the hardware store, I passed the bakery. It was open, which was a clear Sign from Above that I was meant to stop in for a brownie.

Scene continued: There is only one brownie left in the display case. There is a man carrying a baby ahead of me and a little girl. I assume the little girl is with the man, but after he pays and steps away from the counter, the little girl stays. A woman walks up behind me.

Woman [to little girl]: What do you want, sweetie?

Me: Oh! Are you next?

Woman: Well...

Me: Was she holding your place? I guess you're next.

Woman: Well ---

Me: Technically, you're next.

Woman: I don't know--

Me: Did you want the brownie?

Woman: No.

Me: Oh good. Because my husband's ex-wife is dying and he really needs a brownie. But I was so torn - you were next but what if you wanted the brownie? There's only one. Technically, it should have been yours. But I really need that brownie.

Woman: I don't want the brownie.

Me: And all I can think of is, "If she was going to die anyhow, why didn't she die before the alimony was done?" Which I know makes me a horrible person.

Woman: What?

Me: My husband is really upset because he is very close to his stepdaughters and of course they are really sad right now. And he doesn't know if he can go to the funeral because it would be a lot of travel to arrange in a really short time and he has to go out of town for work next week anyhow.

[Primo's stepdaughters, Laura and Kate, are lovely and I don't want anything to happen to make them said, which adds even more to my guilt about thinking what I thought about the alimony and Isabel's death. Really what I wanted was for Isabel to remarry. That would have ended the alimony and she would - one hopes - have been happy. That was what I really wanted. Really! I didn't want her to die. If I am going to wish people to death, there are others way ahead - waaaaaaay ahead of Isabel - on the list. She is not on the list at all. She did nothing to bother me other than uninvite Primo to Kate's wedding. As far as ex-wives go, she could have been a lot worse. All she did was cost Primo money - but she made almost no emotional demands on him, unlike you know who.]

[Primo loves those girls. On a facebook thread about Isabel, Isabel's first ex-husband, the father of Laura and Kate, thanked Primo for being such a good stepfather to the girls. The chain started out with the first ex saying, "Even though Isabel and I went our separate ways, we shared being parents to 2 wonderful daughters Lara and Kate. Love you all."

Primo responded, "First ex, the same things you mentioned are true for me. Isabel and I had some great years together, and it was a pleasure and a privilege to share the responsibility  of raising her daughters. Laura and Kate, I love you! (And you know that I love your grandma, too.)"

"Primo you were very instrumental in Laura and Kate's upbringing. Really give YOU a lot of credit for how they turned out as mature adults. THANK YOU BROTHER. Take care and God bless." ]

Woman: Um OK.

Me: And then our basement flooded on the carpeted part so I had to get the carpet water thingy from the hardware store.

Woman: Uh--

Me: I'm sorry. I am a total stranger telling you all this. But I can't tell anyone else about the alimony thing because it's so awful. I can't say it out loud anywhere else.

Woman: OK.

Me: Bye.

In which we wonder what to do about Isabel

You guys know that Isabel has had cancer for years, right?

And now, because of the chemo, which has not cured her cancer, she also has acute leukemia.

And because the chemo has so battered her, she keeps getting other sicknesses - pneumonia, whatever.

She has been very, very sick recently. A friend of Primo's who has been helping Isabel called Primo the other night to tell him that Isabel was in the ICU.

Now Primo doesn't know what to do.

"She only calls me when she needs something," he said.

Which is true. She needed money to pay her taxes last year and we helped her. She needed money for the cat's medication and we helped her. When she needs work on her computer, Primo helped.

But she only calls when she wants something.

When Primo wants something, like to walk his stepdaughter down the aisle, he doesn't get it. Isabel kept him from going to the wedding, which I still think was really, really mean.

"You loved her for a long time," I said. "Maybe you should call her. She's a good person."

Primo snorted. "You've never had anything nice to say about her before."

I paused. "I am not happy with many of the things that she has done, but I don't think she deserves to die like this. I don't think she deserves to have cancer. All I wanted was for her not to be a factor in our lives."

"I don't know if I should call her," he said. "She has never wanted to hear anything about my life. She doesn't even want to hear about our cats. All I wanted was for her to move on and be happy - maybe meet someone who was a better match. I stayed with her longer than I should have, but I wanted to wait until I got the girls out of college. Maybe I'll just call the girls."

Which he does.

And then, a few days later, he gets an email that Isabel's condition has worsened - she is in a non-responsive state - and that it is not going to be long now.

"I didn't even call her!" he says.

I don't know what to say. I didn't like Isabel just because of the way she treated Primo, but I can understand why she would be upset that he didn't want to be married to her any more and wouldn't want to hear about his new life without her. I would be bothered by anyone wanting to divorce me, but Primo is a really good guy. He's a good person with a big heart and it had to have been a big blow to Isabel to lose him. (For those of you new to this blog, I did not meet Primo until after he filed for divorce, so I am not the proximate cause of that breakup.)

So now he feels guilty but he's still a little bit angry that she wouldn't let him come to M's wedding. And that she only calls when she wants money.

And we are just waiting for the call that she has died.

In which Doris finally doesn't send us a Christmas present

You knew the gift drama wouldn't end that easily, right? So Doris commented that I had not really thanked her for the green glass pear - that I just thanked her for the gift but did not even mention it by name.

Tell me, dear reader, what should I have done? If I had lied and raved that I loooooved the green glass pear, I would have gotten more green glass pears. That is not what I want for my life.

But I do want to acknowledge that she made an effort on my behalf and sent me something that she - and here is where we remember that one of the tricks to writing well is that even the villain has a good reason for doing what he does - that you have to look at it from the antagonist's POV because for the bad guy, it all makes perfect sense - that she thinks is nice.

Blessherheart, Doris loves kitschy things like green glass pears and that's OK. Everyone is allowed to have her own taste. Lord knows there are undoubtedly people who look at how I dress and wonder to themselves if I ever look at a mirror. There are people like my sister who want to get their hands on me just to do some hair and makeup and when my sister does get her hands on me, I look sooooo much better. But I am lazy and don't want to spend all that time primping and I am working in a dead-end job and I already have a husband and it's so darn cold here that I think why even bother to try to look fabulous, I'm just going to cover everything up with layers and layers and layers of clothes.

Where was I?

Oh. Christmas. Presents.

And again, this is what I feel guilty writing because nobody is obligated to give anyone a present.

And I am trying to figure out why this bothers me so much. I have written about gift giving so many times on this blog that there could be an entire book. What is the deep trauma related to the Doris gift drama? Why can't I let this go? Why don't I let this go? This should not be such a big deal.

Except it is. There are rules and rituals in all societies about things. One of my grad school professors said there were three constants across cultures - something about hospitality, incest, and reciprocity.

I think he much have been wrong or else I am not remembering it properly, although when you hear a professor mention incest in business school - I was not in a psych or criminal justice program - it sticks with you. I don't think there is a taboo against incest in all cultures. Didn't the ancient Egyptians marry their siblings?

But I do remember him talking about reciprocity and perhaps that's the value I feel Doris is violating - that Primo gives so much more than he gets.

I deserve nothing from Doris. I give her nothing. But Primo gives his time and a lot of money. She is his mother and he loves her, but he takes care of her other than the other way around. Maybe that's what bugs me so much - she has forced a role reversal that I think is unfair, as Sly and Doris are capable of taking care of themselves - they have the resources - but they refuse to do so. Instead, they lean on Primo but don't even make an effort to understand what he might like in his life.

And then there is the absolute violation of reciprocity. Gift giving is fraught with symbolism. I was horrified at a work conference last year when my customer from Singapore presented me with a lovely Hermes scarf - wait, not Hermes but the next best fancy scarf he could get - and I had nothing to give in return. It hadn't even occurred to me that I should be giving gifts. This was a business meeting, not a family holiday!

But his giving me a gift imposed on me a reciprocal obligation that I frantically sought to fulfill.

Fortunately, our admin had brought gifts just for this occasion, so I gave him something - I don't remember what - but it surely was not as good as the scarf, which I wear at least once a week if not more. I love the scarf. It's one of the best presents I have ever gotten and it was from someone who had never even met me in person.

Whereas Doris has not only met me but she has been in my house and she has asked Primo what I want. Despite all of that, she has never gotten me anything I liked. (Except for the re-usable cloth grocery bags that roll up and fit in my purse. Those, I love. But besides that.) Maybe I get so bothered by this because I feel like she isn't even trying to figure out what I would like - that she shows her dislike of me by getting me presents I would never want. And this should not bother me, because I don't like her either, so we are even. But the presents she gets from me are Primo's visits - those come from his vacation time and from our earnings, both of which are zero-sum options - the more she gets, the less I get.

So I feel like I give her something she treasures and she looks around for the crappiest thing she can find to send me in return. Does that make sense? Or am I just a big fat whiner?

Anyhow. Primo finally convinced Doris not to send us any more crap.

So she just didn't send anything.

Even though when Doris has asked Primo what we would like, he has told her that we would love play tickets or football tickets or a restaurant certificate.

Doris' response is that she doesn't want to give us cash equivalents because

1. that's tacky
2. we can buy those things for ourselves

But that's not true. I mean sure we can buy those things for ourselves but the point is that we don't because we try not to be spendthrifts and we've already bought a new roof this year and I need major oral surgery and we have to save for our Old Age, when we will have no children to visit us twice a year and clean the mildew from our refrigerator and listen to us whine on the phone.

So in theory, yes, we could spend lots of money on ephemeral things but we do not because we - or at least I - fear poverty in my old age.

Primo tried to point out to his mom that my mom just sends us a check for $100 at Christmas and we use it to go out for a nice meal that we wouldn't otherwise have.

Which of course was the kiss of death - for Primo to cite my mother as an authority. Sly and Doris do not think much of my family. The family that "isn't close," even though Primo and I stay with my aunts and uncles every summer, which sure, is not as close as Primo's family, where he went to the funeral of an uncle he had not seen for 20 years.

So this Christmas. No green glass pears. No framed photos of themselves. No cast-iron cats.

Which is a victory of sorts. Less work returning stuff.

But just a note from Doris - a Christmas card - that I choose to interpret as snide but you all know I am completely unobjective when it comes to all this. Maybe there was no snideness at all in it. After all, unlike previous Christmas cards, this one did not lament that our country was being ruined by old white men and did not close with, "Everything sucks and I get despondent."

She wrote,

Dear GD and Primo,

I finally got the message loud and clear - NO STUFF! So you'll have nothing under your tree. We don't need any stuff either as we have far too much.

And I was thinking to my nasty, greedy self. "I wouldn't have minded a check under the tree to help pay for Primo's next flight there."

In which I go from the frying pan into the fire

Did I tell you guys that I got a new job? I can't remember and I am too lazy to review old posts. But I did. I moved within my company to a new division that does not get the week between Christmas and New Years' off and I started there two days before Christmas, which is surely the worst timing ever.

My old boss was cranky that I resigned and asked if I would take a raise to stay. I said no, mostly because he still couldn't offer me what the new job is paying (which is still way less than I used to make but now at least I am not completely mortified to say the number out loud) but also because

1. if he thought I was so great, why didn't he raise my pay before? and
2. I didn't want to work for him. Nice guy but not a good boss for me.

And the irony of it all is that he announced his resignation the day before I started my new job.

So I walked into the new office the first day - it is a few blocks from my old office - and discovered that not only would I still be in a cubicle, even though all of my peers and one of the people at a lower level than me have an office, but I would be in a cubicle that has no walls.

That's right. A wall-less cubicle. Oh sure, there is a small wall between me and the person next to me, but not high enough to block anything. And there are no walls other than the one separating my desk from the one next to it. I am in the middle of the room, far away from the offices and the windows, and I am the closest person in the room to the radio.

Which was blaring.

Have I mentioned how I like it to be quiet when I work? No smacking chewing gum, no dry granola, no carrot sticks. Quiet. As in, no radio.

How can people work with noise? Do they have jobs that require no thought? Even if your job requires no thought, how can you stand nine hours of radio a day?

I tried putting in the earbuds from my mp3 player, but that didn't block the noise. I tried my skype headset. Nope.

Then I just took my computer and went into the conference room, which was actually a fine solution. Then my new boss found me there and asked me what was going on. I told him. He was completely unaware of the radio because he has the corner office and has the new BMW, i.e., a door, so does not have to hear noise.

He went outside and turned the radio off.

I returned to my desk only to have the woman next to me ask, "You don't like Christmas music?"

Subtext was, "What kind of monster are you?"

My answer of, "I don't really like any kind of music at work" did not do anything to improve her opinion of me.

She said, "The rest of us really like the radio. It's a nice distraction."

So what do you do? Be the office bitch on Day One? Or suck it up?

I have to find another new job.

In which Sly, the smartest man in the room, cannot figure out how to return a gift that Primo sent him

Recently, Primo sent a watch to Sly. He bought it on woot.com, which is a site that offers flash sales. Woot shipped the watch to Sly. The watch didn't work.

Sly did not try to deal directly with woot. Instead, he asked Primo to deal with it.

Note that when I return a gift that Doris has bought me - which is almost every single time she has bought me a gift - I deal directly with the vendor to return the item.

Part of this is because if I told Doris I wanted to return a gift, she would be grossly insulted, which frankly, I don't care about, but it's just not worth it for Primo because they pile on him.

Yes. I, too, think he needs to hang up the phone when they do this. I think he should cut them off. But I cannot make him do it. Trust me I have tried.

Last night, Primo and I were on a plane back from my sister's wedding, which I must say was a total blast. I had been a little cranky at the short notice and the timing - she told us in early October she was getting married in mid December. We already were planning a trip to San Francisco for Primo's work and my vacation, so we had to juggle a few things, but it worked out great and it was a really fun weekend with my sister's friends, many of whom I had not seen for 30 years, and my aunts and uncles - all six of my mom's siblings and their spouses attended. Primo and I were standing in my aunt Mary's kitchen talking to four of my aunts and then my uncles pulled Primo away because they never get to talk to him and everyone likes him and thinks he's fab, which he is.

"Too bad your family isn't close," he said.

"Yep," I answered. "We hate each others' guts." Then I asked him, "Would you rather spend time with my family or yours?"

"I know I'm not supposed to say this," he said, "but yours. They are all so nice."

Which they are. I suspect most people have nice families, which makes it very hard for us to imagine life in a not-nice family, which is why when we encounter a not-nice family, we are so disbelieving and horrified. I read Carolyn Hax in the Washington Post and any time someone writes to complain about her in-laws, there are commenters who doubt the letter writer. They think she is exaggerating or that she is the real problem. Perhaps that is sometimes the case, but I can guarantee you that there are Bad In-Laws with nice daughters in law or sons in law. But until you live it yourself, you really don't know.

So we were on the plane and Primo opened his hotmail to find a note from his dad.

Primo had arranged for Sly to return the watch to woot. He had contacted woot and gotten a shipping label and forwarded it to Sly.

Sly prepared the package and mailed it.

It was returned with a note from the PO: The bar code had been wrinkled and unreadable; the link from woot with the shipping label had expired. Sly explained this to Primo and wrote, "Please advise."

1. Is there really no process at the PO to have someone process such a package manually? Would they really rather return a package to sender than read the address? I am not pleased with the USPS.

2. Is Sly, who is the Smartest Man in the World, truly incapable of solving this problem by himself? Does he really have to delegate it to Primo?

If it were me, I would have tried these things:

1. Ask my postman if I can re-send and have the PO have a human being read the address label.
2. Ask my postman if I can re-send with a new label without a bar code.
3. Email woot myself and ask what to do.

I would not have asked Primo to solve the problem for me. I would think to myself, "I have a PhD from Michigan. I am super super smart. Doesn't everyone know that? I tell them that all the time. I am so smart that I can figure this out by myself. I am not going to ask my son, who has only a BS, to solve this problem for me because he is probably not smart enough."

What I suspect Sly thought was, "Why should I do this work? I will see if I can get Primo to do it for me, even though I don't do anything all day but read stuff online and drink."

Primo emailed woot last night. I will suggest that he forward the response from woot to his dad with the note, "Please handle this yourself. The customer service email and the order number are included in this note." He was pretty cranky about Sly, so I think he might be open to the idea.

In which there is more griping about the green glass pear

The griping is not from me - it is from Doris.

She is unhappy with the thank you note that I wrote to her.

She does have a point: her complaint is that I didn't actually mention the pear.

What I very carefully did - because I do not want to encourage more presents in the class of Green Glass Pears - was not mention the pear.

Instead, I thanked her for her thoughtfulness in remembering my birthday and I thanked her for sending a gift. Then I segued rather cleverly into talking about Primo, her favorite subject, thinking she wouldn't notice.

But she did.

And she asked Primo why I didn't mention the pear. Primo knew why, of course, but also knew if he told her that I didn't like it that there would be Drama, so he just shrugged and said he didn't know.

What do you do in a situation like that? If I had raved about the pear, she would have thought, "Finally! I found something she likes!" And then my house would fill with glass fruits of various colors.

I had to stop the madness.

I remember an episode of Car Talk where the caller said that when his friend had bought a Saab, he had raved about it because he didn't know what to say and he thought it was the ugliest car he had ever seen.

But it's kind of like praising someone's baby - what possible repercussions could there be? Nobody is ever harmed by saying, "What a beautiful baby!" even though most new babies look a lot like monkeys and are beautiful only to their parents. The parents beam when they hear the words because to them, it is a beautiful baby. You don't need to worry that the mother will thrust the baby into your arms and say, "You take her! You love her more than I do!" You can praise a baby and all your little white lie and following of a social convention do is make someone happy.

This guy had raved about his friend's car. I don't know what possessed him to do it - maybe the friend was so proud and asked the caller what he thought about his amazing new gorgeous car and the caller shrugged and thought, "Eh. What harm can come of this? I'll tell my friend his car is gorgeous." Which he did.

And so when the friend wanted to sell the car a few years later, the caller's wife bought it for him. Because she thought he loved it so much.

That's the reason you never lie about liking cars or green glass pears. It is safe to lie about babies, but it is not safe to lie about gifts or cars. It will come back to haunt you. Which is why I did not lie. But Doris isn't strong enough for the truth.

In which the green glass pear drama just doesn't quit

I told you about the birthday present that Doris sent me - a green glass pear.

First, full disclosure: Primo is partly responsible. He was at Sly and Doris' when Doris was looking at presents and he just got tired of saying "no" to everything. Doris found the pear and pointed out that Primo and I have a pear tree in our back yard and wouldn't a green glass pear be cute and he surrendered and said yes.

I have advised him that he should never ever again agree to any present that is purely decorative. I went so far as to say if Doris likes it, I probably will not, partly because I don't want to like anything she would like but mostly because we truly do not share the same taste.

Not to say that I am Miss Fancy to whom everyone turns for taste advice - I have been known to go out in public in gym clothes without bathing when I am not going to the gym -  but nobody who looks at any part of my house (except Primo's office, which is its own thing) would ever think, "I can tell this is someone who would love trinkets, curios, and tchotchkes."

Anyhow. I took the pear to the post office, told my tale of woe to the postal clerk, who told me to be nice to my mother in law but when I explained that she and my husband's dad had threatened to boycott the wedding two weeks before the wedding, he became more sympathetic. He was wearing a cross around his neck - when I noticed that, I explained further that one of the reasons she and Sly had not wanted me to marry Primo was because I was one of those stupid people who believe in God.

A word on atheists - I have several atheist friends. Belief or lack of belief has never been an issue in our friendship. I do not tell my atheist friends that I am worried for their eternal souls and they do not tell me that I am stupid for believing in God. I don't know if they think that - if they do, they are polite enough not to say it out loud.

And I am polite enough not to say that I don't want them to burn in hell (which of course I do not want to happen - I wouldn't even want that for Sly and Doris), mostly because that would be tacky but also because I do not know what happens when we die and I have enough to worry about with my own soul, much less the souls of others. However, let it be said that if there is a God and an afterlife, I do hope that my friends and I are all together in the Good Place and nobody goes to hell unless they are really, really bad and I am talking about Hitler level bad. (If Sly and Doris are there, perhaps they could stay on one side of heaven and I could be on the other.)

But I don't know. It's not something we talk about. Except I do sometimes talk about it with Jessica, my high school biology lab partner who is an atheist UU minister, just because I am so fascinated that an atheist would choose a career path in religion.

So for Sly and Doris to be that contemptuous of believers is a bit off putting. As soon as I explained that part to the postal worker, he was completely on my side.

Where was I?

Oh. I returned the glass pear. I had to call the store to find out if they had gotten it because they didn't mail me anything to inform me.

Yay. They had gotten it, unshattered - a shame, actually, as I would have gotten a payment from the PO - and now I had a credit at the shop.

Primo and I looked at the website, desperate to find a way to use the credit. Did we want a $59 towel? No we did not. We did not want anything else on the site - wait. Back up. Is that a pillow? A pillow made in the USA? On sale for $59?

Primo needed a new pillow.

We are not ones to spend $59 on a pillow, but we needed a way to launder this cash and turn it into something useful.

And it was made in the USA. Always nice to support our friends and neighbors.

I ordered the pillow.

It arrived.

We opened it.

The tag said, "Made in Sri Lanka."

Sri Lanka <> USA.

To complicate matters, Primo didn't like it.

Back to the store, along with the repeated plea not to notify the purchaser of the original order, ie, Doris.

Again, no mail or email notification that the store had gotten the return. Instead, I got a phone call.

A phone call.

Who notifies customers of a return by phone?

I had to explain to the customer service agent that no, I could not write down the return number because I was in the chair at the dentist* and it was not exactly convenient.

Now I have another credit at a store I do not like. I have suggested to Primo that he choose a Christmas present for Doris from the store, as she seems to like this sort of thing.





* Where the dental assistant had told me she was going to "higher" my chair. Which she did.

In which a Thanksgiving passes without too much drama

Have you been wondering how Thanksgiving chez Doris and Sly was this year? I have. So I asked Primo, who had spent his Thanksgiving with me, grilling a steak and watching "Brokeback Mountain," and then putting the snow tires on the car and vacuuming and all the fun things that adults get to do with their time and money.

But he was home and not with Sly and Doris so it was a good weekend.

He spoke on the phone with Sly and Doris on Thanksgiving and then again on that Sunday because of course they expect a call on a holiday and then there is the regular Sunday call.

Am I the abnormal one for not calling my mother every week and talking to her for an hour about whatever? For not listening to her complain about how awful the entire world is and how I am her Only Joy (only she would never say that because I am not - my mom has many hobbies that keep her too busy to chat)? Am I a Bad Daughter for not calling my mom every week?

Or do Sly and Doris expect too much and should Primo put his foot down and tell them to leave him alone? (How I wish he would. I have tried to convince him but thus far have not been successful.)

Anyhow. He spoke to them about their Thanksgiving, which they spent with Stephanie, who is my ex sister in law - she was married to Primo's half brother Jack until a few years ago. Sly and Doris almost never have anything nice to say to her or about her yet she is a saint, going over to help them with household repairs and inviting them over for holidays.

Primo spoke to Sly and Doris on Sunday. Doris was telling him that Thanksgiving was nice. As she was speaking, Sly was in the background telling Doris "not to tell Primo about that thing because I don't want it to get back to Stephanie."

So of course Primo reported that odd conversation to me.

"Did they not say anything negative about Stephanie?" I asked.

"My dad said the turkey was dry. He said he could tell the second he walked into the house."

Which I didn't understand - how can you tell if the turkey is dry before you even see it or taste it?  But Sly is a man of many talents and his power is legion.

"Is that what's not supposed to get back to Stephanie?"

"I don't think so," Primo said.

We mused. What could it be? Now we wanted to know.

I texted Stephanie.

• Me

  What happened at t giving that S didn't want D to tell P about bc it might get back to you?
• 9:00am

  Stephanie

  I have no clue other than the fact that I was exhausted, why what r they saying?
• 9:03am

  Me

  Nothing! D said dinner was nice and S said something to her about not saying anything

  So I was wondering
• 9:03am

  Stephanie

  Why do they always make issues
• 9:03am

  Me

  But maybe it's some stupid R thing

  
  
• 9:04am

  Stephanie

  I know he refused to help cut the turkey

  I was so tired n regret inviting them
• 9:18am

  Me

  Because they are whiners

  and you are a saint to invite them!

  He refused to cut the turkey? Why?

  If you had told him he couldn't do it, he would have pitched a fit!
• 9:19am

  Stephanie

  D asked him to cut it n he said no Stephanie is capable of cutting it herself
• 9:19am

  Me

  Oh Lord.

  Whatever.

  You deserve a medal!
• 9:21am

  Stephanie

  I am never inviting them again, they have a son here who doesn't give a crap about them...... I am done!!! Oh n they were upset that I made a cheesecake too
• 9:22am

  Me

  What?

  Who doesn't like cheesecake?

  And even if they don't like cheesecake, all they have to do is NOT EAT IT
• 9:23am

  Stephanie

  I don't want or need drama in my life oh n I think they were upset bc the kids were home all week n didn't go n c them

  It wasn't that they didn't want to eat it they said that they didn't know I was making a pie or they wouldn't have bought 2

  Now I'm twisted! !!
• 9:59am

  Me

  I guess the obvious question of why don't the kids want to see them has never crossed their minds

  Twisted person
• 10:09am

  Stephanie

  Lol should b twisted sister. Lol
• 10:11am

  Me

  Yes! You are my twisted sister!
• 10:14am

  Stephanie

  Yes, i just dont get them at all!!!