Some bad stuff and some good

I had my final set of gum torture today in time to try and claim some of the huge expense as part of my tax return. I confess I am usually a slacker at tax return time, treating it as my windfall some time next year. This year, however, a tighter cash flow means I'll be racing to get my return in post haste to generate some money to pay for our trip to California and Hawaii in Sept. Since I seem unlikely to make much on my sales plan this year. Sigh. I heard today that an old colleague had passed away on the weekend. He was diagnosed with a brain tumour 18 months ago and finally retired last November. It seemed he would beat this but unfortunately he suffered a relapse last week. He had a rich and full life but I was sad that his gentle and polite way would no longer be around. The funeral is in Melbourne and I won't be able to get there at such short notice but I have thought about him a lot today. Another piece of sad news was that a senior woman I have been working with has accepted a job in Shanghai in another part of the business. It's a great testament to her skills and experience but very sad for those of us who feel like executive churn has hit our part of the business yet again. On the plus side, I left the office at 3:15 to collect my children as our babysitter has a big essay due this week and I told her to take the week off to concentrate on it. It was bitterly cold today and we went home and made cocoa and ate chocolate biscuits. Then I took part in a teleconference for 75 minutes while they did their homework like angels. The telecon was actually productive. We talked about a new (to us) software company that have a tool that will really help our client. They are based in Glasgow and as we talked I was looking at their web site and realised I knew where their offices are in West Regent St as my dad's office used to be there 25 years ago. Of course, I shared this as ground breaking news to my fascinated colleagues. It's close to where the ABC cinema complex was on Sauchiehall St where I worked 4 nights a week as a student showing patrons to their seats and flogging cornettos in the interval. I saw Apocalypse Now 27 times during my tenure there. I was reminded of the worst part of the job when I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie on the weekend (by the way, I thought the movie was great. It had a grainy romantic feel to it with lots of outdoor scenes with rain and mist.) On busy nights, we would have to get our torches out and persuade patrons to shift their seats around so we could fit another couple in here and there. We'd get moans and abuse from grumpy Glaswegians as we did. The cinema was mobbed at the HP movie and I found myself irritated at those people who would sit themselves down so there was one seat between them and the next set of people. Watch it or I'll get my torch out.