You mean there was supposed to be a calm before this storm!? I've been robbed!
So, the holidays have come and gone, and are a distant memory... and in general that is a good thing, for with the holidays went a lot of stress! Now I don't really pay a whole lot of attention to traditional holidays, so they are not the source of the stress. However, the working at a very large, international manufacturing company, means that the holidays are also... Inventory time! And that my dear readers... is a huge source of stress.
Yup, it's that time of the year when the Govt. sends people into the warehouses, checks our computer inventory, and then matches it with our actual inventory... and smacks us with multimillion dollar fines if the match between the two is not exact.
Well, the warehouse I work in covers some 5 acres, and we have injection moulders creating new parts and doodads at the rate of several hundred, if not thousand, per hour; we receive in many tractor trailer loads and shipping containers full of parts and material every day, and ship out a dozen or so 18 wheelers filled with stuff every day... so, keeping a running inventory that has to be exact when the feds walk in and say “Ok, stop everything, we will now count all the parts you have.” is, to say the least, difficult.
And to make matters worse, a week or so before the Feds arrive... some of the managers go through the warehouse, look at parts and such that we may not have used in a while and have conversations like...
Manager: “These green doodads here, have we used any of them this year?”
Assistant: after looking at the computer.. “nope.”
Manager: “ok, well then, we probably don't want them in our inventory. So, they look like something Connecticut would use, yes? Or perhaps Georgia... yeah, ship all of these green doodads to the Georgia plant.”
And of course, all the plants and warehouses in Connecticut, San Jose, Rhode Island, Georgia etc. etc are having similar conversations, with the end result that just before the actual inventory, all the plants and warehouses get truckloads of parts and schmutz that the other plants and warehouses don't want in their inventories. And the closer it gets to Inventory Day, the crankier all the managers and bosses become, not to mention the employees, who have been working tons of overtime and such. So, to say it is not pretty, would be an understatement!
The actual holidays themselves ( Christmas, New years etc. etc.) were very small, mellow and nice. Jaye and Dave were over, and we exchanged gifts. There was clothing given and received, so we are all safe from the Yule Cat again this year.
Then, after the holidaze.. came, the Dog!
You see,after Finn's passing we did not want Maddie to be pretty much completely deaf, mostly blind, ( she is a very old dog) and the only dog in a houseful of cats, so we started looking at local shelters and such. Well, we quickly found a dog which looked he would be a good fit with our household. He is a mixed breed, dachshund and pug we think, but there may be some beagle and or chihuahua in there as well. Anyway, he was found as a stray, and turned into the Monadnock Humane Society , who nursed him back to health, tried to find his owners, and when that failed, put him up for adoption. And so, we ended up adopting him! The shelter had named him Chico, and we have not come up with a better name for him, so it looks like Chico will be his name.
Pic of Chico and Maddie... Chico is the black one.
Now, when we brought Chico home, we of course made the introduction slowly, and everything was going swimmingly! That is, until our cat Fuzz entered the picture. You see, Fuzz dislikes dogs, a lot! One of the reasons he gets on so well in our house, is that neither Maddie, or the recently passed Finn are/were very “dog-like”, due to their early upbringings and lack of socialization when they were puppies. ( which is before we got them), and also, Fuzz has bonded with our other very large feral cat, Tux; so much so that I have taken to calling then the Bromance Cats. The Bromance cats
Well, fuzz was very put out by Chico's arrival, because Chico is a very 'dog-like' dog; and so was in a very bad mood, and Maddie got too close to him ( being blind of course, she had no clue). So, Fuzz lashed out at her. And Fuzz does not pull his punches, and he always aims for the eyes. Fortunately, maddie moved her head at the last second, so Fuzz only scored a hit on her ear. But fuzz has all his claws, and made a pretty large cash in Maddie's ear... which bled profusely as she was running around the house howling and shaking her head. When we finally got her under control, and the bleeding stopped, our house looked like it had been the scene of an after-party at a blood-splatter analysts convention! We were wiping blood off the walls, ceiling, and furniture.. and Marti looked like an ax murderer, what with large stripes of blood across her face. It was indeed, an eventful evening. And of course, Chico, being a very smart dog, had by then figured out that Maddie needed to be helped and protected, and had taken it upon himself to be her protector. So, when Fuzz hurt Maddie... well, Fuzz became the Incarnation of All That Was Evil to Chico.
So, it has taken more than a few weeks, but Chico now gets along with all our cats, except of course for Fuzz. But Fuzz and Chico have developed a sort of “understanding” of the “I don't get too close to you, and you don't get too close to me” sort. So now instead of charging across the room to get at each other, they just kind of eye each other with suspicion when they are in the same room. Hopefully, they will mellow out even more with time.
And then of course, it was time to start prepping stuff for my trip to Birka ! So, I spent many of my spare hours working on the lining of my drinking horns, costuming and such-like. I was to be attending Birka with my friends Kim and Darcy, so, there was guaranteed to be fun and hilarity. And indeed their was! Kim and Darcy were competing in the fashion show, and their particular challenge was to combine medieval attire, with a modern sports theme... and so of course, they chose polo.
So, I wandered around Birka, ran into lots and lots of folks I hardly ever see, and compared prices, styles and qualities of drinking horns, in order to get a better of idea of what to charge for my “washable” drinking horns, and when I was not doing that, or talking to various craftsmen and women about bone or horn or copper, I was photographing Kim and Darcy, as they had complained to me that they had a lack of photographs from the 2012 Birka. And so, I got them in various amusing poses like This as they were getting their garb/costumes all in order. Serves them right for asking someone like me to take photos! But in the end, all the late night sewing, drinking and schmoozing was well worth it, as Kim and Darcy gave a stellar performance on the runway as The Wetwang Brothers. Groin-cobblers extraordinaire'! .
And so, after surviving the Holiday season, Surviving the arrival of Chico, in addition to dealing with all the other little stressers that life throws my way, like locking my keys in my car ( BTW, a snake hook is an awesome tool for breaking into a Subaru)... I needed a break!
And so, that's what this weekend was... nice, mellow, relaxing, and nothing special was done at all! Oh, yeah, there is a football game on, but I probably wont watch it... or even the commercials.
Yup, it's that time of the year when the Govt. sends people into the warehouses, checks our computer inventory, and then matches it with our actual inventory... and smacks us with multimillion dollar fines if the match between the two is not exact.
Well, the warehouse I work in covers some 5 acres, and we have injection moulders creating new parts and doodads at the rate of several hundred, if not thousand, per hour; we receive in many tractor trailer loads and shipping containers full of parts and material every day, and ship out a dozen or so 18 wheelers filled with stuff every day... so, keeping a running inventory that has to be exact when the feds walk in and say “Ok, stop everything, we will now count all the parts you have.” is, to say the least, difficult.
And to make matters worse, a week or so before the Feds arrive... some of the managers go through the warehouse, look at parts and such that we may not have used in a while and have conversations like...
Manager: “These green doodads here, have we used any of them this year?”
Assistant: after looking at the computer.. “nope.”
Manager: “ok, well then, we probably don't want them in our inventory. So, they look like something Connecticut would use, yes? Or perhaps Georgia... yeah, ship all of these green doodads to the Georgia plant.”
And of course, all the plants and warehouses in Connecticut, San Jose, Rhode Island, Georgia etc. etc are having similar conversations, with the end result that just before the actual inventory, all the plants and warehouses get truckloads of parts and schmutz that the other plants and warehouses don't want in their inventories. And the closer it gets to Inventory Day, the crankier all the managers and bosses become, not to mention the employees, who have been working tons of overtime and such. So, to say it is not pretty, would be an understatement!
The actual holidays themselves ( Christmas, New years etc. etc.) were very small, mellow and nice. Jaye and Dave were over, and we exchanged gifts. There was clothing given and received, so we are all safe from the Yule Cat again this year.
Then, after the holidaze.. came, the Dog!
You see,after Finn's passing we did not want Maddie to be pretty much completely deaf, mostly blind, ( she is a very old dog) and the only dog in a houseful of cats, so we started looking at local shelters and such. Well, we quickly found a dog which looked he would be a good fit with our household. He is a mixed breed, dachshund and pug we think, but there may be some beagle and or chihuahua in there as well. Anyway, he was found as a stray, and turned into the Monadnock Humane Society , who nursed him back to health, tried to find his owners, and when that failed, put him up for adoption. And so, we ended up adopting him! The shelter had named him Chico, and we have not come up with a better name for him, so it looks like Chico will be his name.
Pic of Chico and Maddie... Chico is the black one.
Now, when we brought Chico home, we of course made the introduction slowly, and everything was going swimmingly! That is, until our cat Fuzz entered the picture. You see, Fuzz dislikes dogs, a lot! One of the reasons he gets on so well in our house, is that neither Maddie, or the recently passed Finn are/were very “dog-like”, due to their early upbringings and lack of socialization when they were puppies. ( which is before we got them), and also, Fuzz has bonded with our other very large feral cat, Tux; so much so that I have taken to calling then the Bromance Cats. The Bromance cats
Well, fuzz was very put out by Chico's arrival, because Chico is a very 'dog-like' dog; and so was in a very bad mood, and Maddie got too close to him ( being blind of course, she had no clue). So, Fuzz lashed out at her. And Fuzz does not pull his punches, and he always aims for the eyes. Fortunately, maddie moved her head at the last second, so Fuzz only scored a hit on her ear. But fuzz has all his claws, and made a pretty large cash in Maddie's ear... which bled profusely as she was running around the house howling and shaking her head. When we finally got her under control, and the bleeding stopped, our house looked like it had been the scene of an after-party at a blood-splatter analysts convention! We were wiping blood off the walls, ceiling, and furniture.. and Marti looked like an ax murderer, what with large stripes of blood across her face. It was indeed, an eventful evening. And of course, Chico, being a very smart dog, had by then figured out that Maddie needed to be helped and protected, and had taken it upon himself to be her protector. So, when Fuzz hurt Maddie... well, Fuzz became the Incarnation of All That Was Evil to Chico.
So, it has taken more than a few weeks, but Chico now gets along with all our cats, except of course for Fuzz. But Fuzz and Chico have developed a sort of “understanding” of the “I don't get too close to you, and you don't get too close to me” sort. So now instead of charging across the room to get at each other, they just kind of eye each other with suspicion when they are in the same room. Hopefully, they will mellow out even more with time.
And then of course, it was time to start prepping stuff for my trip to Birka ! So, I spent many of my spare hours working on the lining of my drinking horns, costuming and such-like. I was to be attending Birka with my friends Kim and Darcy, so, there was guaranteed to be fun and hilarity. And indeed their was! Kim and Darcy were competing in the fashion show, and their particular challenge was to combine medieval attire, with a modern sports theme... and so of course, they chose polo.
So, I wandered around Birka, ran into lots and lots of folks I hardly ever see, and compared prices, styles and qualities of drinking horns, in order to get a better of idea of what to charge for my “washable” drinking horns, and when I was not doing that, or talking to various craftsmen and women about bone or horn or copper, I was photographing Kim and Darcy, as they had complained to me that they had a lack of photographs from the 2012 Birka. And so, I got them in various amusing poses like This as they were getting their garb/costumes all in order. Serves them right for asking someone like me to take photos! But in the end, all the late night sewing, drinking and schmoozing was well worth it, as Kim and Darcy gave a stellar performance on the runway as The Wetwang Brothers. Groin-cobblers extraordinaire'! .
And so, after surviving the Holiday season, Surviving the arrival of Chico, in addition to dealing with all the other little stressers that life throws my way, like locking my keys in my car ( BTW, a snake hook is an awesome tool for breaking into a Subaru)... I needed a break!
And so, that's what this weekend was... nice, mellow, relaxing, and nothing special was done at all! Oh, yeah, there is a football game on, but I probably wont watch it... or even the commercials.