AMERICA - The Right Way!! (WEEKEND EDITION: Days 1414 and 1415) [Remember the Trade Center!!]

Do not let the victims of the attacks on New York and Washington, nor the brave members of our Nation's military who have given their lives to protect our freedom, die in vain!!

Russian President claims America wants a new dictatorship in Iraq, saying Russia cannot see how a free and fair vote can be held next month with the violence in the country.

Speaking of Iraq, the Navy is investigating new photos, predating Abu Ghraib by several months. AP notes "the far more brutal practices photographed in Abu Ghraib prison occurred months later." AP writes these pictures of Navy Seals recall aspects of Abu Gharib insofar as the prisoners were being assaulted and humiliated.

The AP specifically called out the fact that there were "grinning men wearing U.S. flags on their uniforms."

Other than the one above where the Seal is sitting on the prisoner, and even that is extraordinarily borderline as no context is being given, where's the abuse? Must be the flag, since the AP is liberal, and liberals hate America.

Last week was a rough one for us ... my "average" time getting home from work was something like 10:00 PM ... *sigh*

We had invoices to get out as well as doing payroll ... and we had less time than usual to prepare paychecks because "pay day" is actually today so we had to get them ready two days early.

And then there was the day that my assistant got upset and started crying ... and since I'm not the kind of female that cries at the drop of a hat, I was at a loss as to how to handle it, especially since it was my "fault" that she was upset. She prepares our monthly newsletter and usually I have little to say about it except for giving her some info to include. But there were several things that I really wasn't happy with so I made several suggestions to her. I then left the office for a few minutes to tend to something else and when I returned, she was in tears. And then I felt like a heel. As we talked, I found out that she felt that she had to get the newsletter out early just because payroll was going out early and she couldn't deal with the pressure, especially in view of the changes I had asked her to make. Her son has been real sick this week with bronchitis and asthma and that compounded her emotional state. After I assured her that there was no magic date for getting out the newsletter and that if it didn't go out until mid-week this week it would be ok, she calmed down some. I left her note Thursday night when I left suggesting that she let the newsletter go for a day and work on concentrating on decorating the office (this is the lady who is my own personal Martha Stewart ... she's just wonderful at doing things like decorating). So Friday she had everything looking great but hadn't put the ornaments on the Christmas tree. She confessed that she was putting it off until last because she hates doing that and seemed on the verge of breaking out in hives at the prospect. So then I told her that I would gladly do that and just let her take care of everything else.

While she's getting bent out of shape about the newsletter, we're dealing with invoicing; payroll; trying to collect payment from a delinquent account or quit servicing it as of Dec. 1; working with the insurance company on getting our wrecked truck repaired and hoping they don't cancel the policy on us; training a substitute supervisor for the one who is out because of the critical injuries to her husband; starting up 2 new accounts (YAY!); getting very little sleep all week because 3 times hubby had to get up in the middle of the night and go to Charlotte to check out a building that had a defective motion sensor that kept triggering alarms (we knew that was the problem but he had to go check because the customer is very strict about security and just a couple of weeks ago our ops manager had left some doors unlocked and we're on the verge of losing the account); and various other situations that come up in the routine of running a business.

And then there was the employee who let us know that she couldn't work because she had wrecked her car and she didn't have transportation and she wondered if we would lend her a company van. Obviously we couldn't/wouldn't do that (especially in view of the 3 wrecks in company vehicles in the last 8 months and the precariousness of our coverage anyway). Her hubby's car is in the shop and he has a rental vehicle. After we got her to and from work one night, she started driving her hubby's rental car. So, on Friday, about half an hour after she picked up her paycheck, she called the office in tears, quite upset. She had had another wreck! Both times, she rear-ended the car in front of her. At the time she was still at the wreck scene, waiting on the police and her hubby to arrive. She got hit in the face by the air bag but was apparently ok otherwise. We don't know why she called us except that she needed to hear a friendly, sympathetic voice ... her hubby had already yelled at her. I can't imagine why. :^)

In the meantime, the news about Eric, the supervisor's husband, is not good at all. They removed one leg last Monday and were probably going to take the other one on Thursday (though we haven't heard from her since then). We talked to Paula's sister this week and she paints a very bleak picture. We gather that she doesn't think he's going to make it ... he's got a feeding tube and a tracheotomy and I gather he is still alive only because of machines. Even if he survives, it will probably be at least 6 months before he would be in any shape to even move from the hospital in NJ to one in NC. Paula is completely overwhelmed by the whole situation and is not dealing with it well. It breaks our hearts.

And that is just part of why I haven't been on FR much this week. Sorry to go on for so long but I'm using up all the bandwidth I've been saving all week.

There have been some good things happen but I'll mention them in another post.

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