Wearing down the weeks.

Received an email from Daughter Number One a few days ago indicating her flight was booked for August 24th.   She’s coming over with a cousin,  and cousin’s Mom.   Cousin’s Mom would be Travelling Companion’s sister.  Well one of them.  She has five.  Four of them have come for a visit.  The one brother is looking at a trip in the fall.  Everyone has been given fair warning.  

Of course,  this is not to be confused with the arrival of Daughter Number Two on Monday.  Just saying.

TCTCBN (The Company that Cannot be Named)  has somehow wangled (that’s a word,  right?)  an extension for T.C.’s  visa until the end of the year.   Apparently, I’ll be in contact with the lawyers in a month or so to extend my legal status.   Swell.

I can live with the end of the year program.  Home for Christmas.   Where, by the way,  I have gobs of Christmas music other than the stuff I was going on about yesterday.  Even though some of it might involve crooners.  If applied in measured doses,  it can be acceptable.

Note.  *measured doses*

 

Last Christmas was the first ever that we spent outside of Canada.  Thought we’d try it.  Didn’t care for it much.  Some day maybe we’ll take another shot at it.  I have no issues being say,  somewhere warm over Christmas?,  but just need a few more folks around in the relations/friends department.  Didn’t know we’d miss them that much.

Well,  I think the other thing too is,  we haven’t been home since last August.   Yes kids,  we’re coming up on a year.  That’s sort of the other side of the coin.  So if we didn’t go home for Christmas,  maybe we could have gone home for Easter?  Summer Solstice?  I’m open.

 

So that’s the brief synopsis of the future as we know it.  If The Company that Cannot be Named manages to come up with a replacement for T.C.,  there’s an extremely good chance that,  not only will she be once again involved in this thing called “Profit Plan”,   (AKA the “Dreaded Profit Plan” to some)  but will also quite likely be obliged to take the newbie around to all the locations. 

Denmark, UK, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia,  and Spain.  I think that’s it.  She does go up to Bonn from time to time as well,  but that one is kind of out in left field.   I think that’s mostly just a meeting thing.  Same as Switzerland.  Just meetings.

 

Anyway,  enough of that. 

It’s a reasonably normal Friday here in Wienerland.  We’re taking a little break from Summer for a few days,  with the temperatures in the teens for the most part (Celsius,  hello?)  and I’m OK with that.  It tries to rain from time to time,  so best not to go too far without an umbrella.   Summer will resume in a few days I’m sure.  Well,  let’s hope.

I finally got around to a little job that I had been dreading,  which turned out to be not worth the dread. 

How does that work anyway?   The “little jobs” that you think will be a piece of cake take twice as long as expected,  and dreaded ones sometimes are nothing at all.  Sometimes.

I thought we had somehow buggered up one of the receptacles in the hallway,  but it turns out it’s just well,  poorly engineered.  We have our share of poorly engineered electrical stuff back home,  so it’s not like it’s anything new.

Of course,  it never occurred to me to take a picture until I had already taken the thing apart.

Have to remember,  it’s ALL ABOUT the blog. 

OK, not really.

So the stupid thing is,  the only reason it was loose,  was because it had popped out of the screws holding the top and bottom in place.  Here I thought it was busted.

Then of course to make them hold,  the whole thing needs to be slightly off kilter.  Swell.

That explains why some of the receptacles look like their crooked. It’s because they are.  If they were put in straight,  they’d just pop out again.  Well isn’t that special?

 

So it bugs me ever so slightly that it’s off kilter,  but I can live with it.  Just have to look away.

I’ve never really bothered to look and see if there are a couple different levels of quality when it comes to these things,  since it’s never been something to think about.  We do have “heavy duty” receptacles in North America for places like the kitchen,  where you know appliances are going to be plugged in and removed over and over again.  They’re usually about 5 times the price you pay for the regular ones.  I somehow suspect that all of them in this place are of the same (lower) quality.   Just a guess.

 

Travelling Companion just called to say she was on her way,  but sitting in traffic.  Pretty much par for the course.  She wants to get in to the “Friseur” for a little touch up.  Other details of T.C. and her hair will not be forthcoming.  Sorry.

There have been no Elvis sightings today. 

Just wanted let you know.

 

Thanks for coming ‘round.

 

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