commander in chief.

i realize it has been a hot minute since my last post, but no i did not get taken in the rapture. i am still here, never fear. i will always be here. i currently am playing commander in chief at work. it is becoming pretty routine for me these days. one thing i will say that is beginning to drive me insane is when you ask someone to do something and it gets overlooked for whatever reason.

just to give you a bit of insight into my day: i have to handle most everything technical and darwin does more of the hands on. i as well do the hands on, but i have to make sure and keep the company legal, out of jail, etc. etc. etc. so some days i am on the phone with customer service explaining to them that no i am not the account holder, but they most certainly want to deal with me rather than the account holder...usually i can bully my way, but sometimes...

such as darwin's health insurance. they cancelled it, because they forgot to log a payment. and i was pissed, because there was no warning, just a letter stating it had been cancelled. SPECTACULAR. i call them and explain to the poor operator girl that she better straighten this out. she says and i quote "well, mrs. crawford, since you aren't on the account i cannot do anything further without speaking to mr. crawford..." a. i am not mrs. crawford. b. if i was mrs. crawford and i gave you all the necessary information to prove i was calling on behalf of mr. crawford, what on earth does it matter. c. i can promise you, you do not want me to go get "mr. crawford." she insisted on speaking to mr. crawford....didn't end well for her. led to talking to supervisors and darwin adding me to the account so that i call and "chew out the peons." (his words, not mine). fantastic...i love chewing people out.

another fun one that i have been dealing with is the bank. i can deposit money, write checks (and have darwin sign them), manage our money, pay our taxes, and so on, BUT i cannot do anything that involves taking money or talking to anyone about something that has gone wrong because i am not a signer on the account. totally fine by me, it's darwin's company. except when quickbooks decides to ruin my day. it has a nasty habit of ruining things for me. if it didn't tell me how to pay taxes, we would be a straight cash business with no quickbooks - that's how much i hate it. well it decided to electronically pay our federal taxes after i clicked it not to. apparently that just means it doesn't file the paperwork, but it doesn't inform you of that. i go on my merry way paying taxes and printing all the checks. then wham i get an email from quickbooks 2 days later saying the electronic payment has been processed. SAY WHAT! easiest way to ruin my thursday.

i call quickbooks. that poor man. i yelled at him and almost cried. i am not proud of the things i said, but he sent me over the edge when he said there was nothing quickbooks could do. here was my answer to that - so, you are telling me that you can take money away from me without my knowledge, but you have no way of returning it to me? that makes perfect sense. i really appreciate your absolute lack of help in this situation. it gives me great faith in quickbooks. really really does. - he apologized and this was my consolation prize - well when the check goes through and you've double paid i can help you sort that out when you pay your taxes for the next quarter. - oh gee that's just fanfuckingtastic.

i go to the bank to see how i can possibly repair this so darwin doesn't kill me. he tells me to do whatever i need to do, but he cannot and will not go down to the bank to straighten it out because it will not be a pretty sight...none of my usual bankers are there who know me and could help me out. so this woman tells me that i can't actually do anything because i am not a signer on the account....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. she gives me a number for darwin to call to get the whole mess straightened out. so he gets it straightened out finally. but the irs was not happy about receiving a check that had a stop payment put on it....ooops.

moral of the story. if you are in charge of running someone's life, make sure you are the signer on all things important...

ciao.

rapture is upon us folks...

whoever said the customer is always right clearly didn't own a small business or work for a small business....darwin has a tendency to push the "fuck it" button (excuse my english) and i have a tendency to root for the customer. then along comes that one customer to prove darwin right. some people should not be allowed to communicate. just straight up no more talking.

ordering something and then complaining about what you ordered is one of my pet peeves. i hate when people get something and then proceed to talk about how much they hate it. WHY DID YOU GET IT THEN??! i understand ordering something and it not being what you thought. BUT picking it out and learning the ins and outs of it and then paying for it...what on earth do you have to complain about? what do you mean it's not what we talked about? IT'S EXACTLY LIKE WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT. it's not what you had in mind? whhhhhy did you pick it then? you could have come to us and said, i want this, and we gladly would have recreated "this" for you. we do it all the time....

silly. absolutely silly.

when these things happen, darwin tends to explode and write a letter that i then have to read and re-write. he lets his anger get the best of him and out pops this letter that is fine to write to get your anger out, but you certainly don't ever, ever, ever, ever send it. that's where i step in and mark out what is inappropriate and edit it towards the diplomatic approach. the kill them with kindness if you will. he never likes my letters, but he does agree that they are much more diplomatic to send out. he would prefer his to go out and i tell him that is adorable and ain't happenin'.

oh on a side note...why does the government send letters that clearly show them in the wrong? i just have to print out a bunch of paperwork to fill out and show them that they clearly are in the wrong. now that is just wasteful AND annoying. i really like the late payment letter. the back of it says when payment is due and then when payment is received...ours is usually a good 5 days before payment is due, and they proceed to tell us it's late...malarkey. based on their own paperwork we aren't late. BUT it does mean that i get to use the word 'ergo' in a sentence, and i really enjoy that word. that and genesis...that one i don't get to use as often.

happy friday and day before the rapture or something...oh and the picture, 2 reasons: bruce willis and armageddon is fantastic (rapture and all...)

ciao.

wishing and hoping.

tim robbins once said: "...hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." that quote is from his character andy dufresne in shawshank redemption for those of you living in a hole. perhaps a crater. i'm not entirely positive how you would not know this quote in some shape or fashion, unless you lived in a crater or on the moon. oh, yes on the moon, in a crater. that must be it.

my last post was about faith being a bluebird and believing in something and holding on tight. because if you don't believe in something then what exactly is your purpose? believe in whatever you want, cheese, chocolate, diet coke, puppies, naps, grammar, math, rainbows, unicorns, zombies, god, literature...whatever, just pick something. i have many things that i believe in, for better or for worse, i will always believe in them. even if someone tells you it is silly, keep on believing; prove them wrong. so there in lies the holding on tight. one thing i personally like to believe in is childhood. when you were a kid you believed you could do anything. you were out to prove to the world that you could in fact be WHATEVER you wanted. nothing was too preposterous to be when you grew up. i'm just having a hard time grappling with that whole growing up part. i've gotten older and i've stepped up to my responsibilities, but i'm still a little kid searching.

my entire life i've never known what i wanted to be when i grew up; mainly because i never actually wanted grow up. kind of like peter pan. but then again, i always knew that i wanted to do something with my life. i wanted to make my mark in some way. i didn't know what that would be, but i was sure as shit going to try and find out. i'm still trying to find out and one of these days i'll figure something out and let you know, but for the moment here's to hoping.

i've got a lot of faith in hope. and i've always been a very hopeful person. so i guess i've got that going for me. a lot of faith and even more hope. and dreams. so. many. dreams. and hey, if andy dufresne says that hope is a good thing and no good thing ever dies and morgan freeman believed him, then why on earth should i doubt him? that just would be silly and illogical.

at this exact moment, i am believing and have faith and hope in one thing in particular, aside from childhood, and that's a great company that is destined to do big (read: huge) things. and for right now, that's enough for me. maybe it won't always be, but it is for now, and i am okay with that. nothing is better than participating in something you believe in and seeing it grow to it's full potential. mark my words: nothing. absolutely nothing.

bluebirds.

so last year was not such a great year for us. it wasn't a particularly great year for anyone truthfully, but it was reallllll (pronounced ruhl) bad for us. we toyed with the idea of shutting down, cutting back hours, finding other things to do, move to tahiti...all the scenarios came through. (i still personally like the tahiti one...a girl can dream right?).

we made it though. we've got a few battle scars and we will never forget what we saw and experienced, but we are still here fighting the good fight. most days...we have learned that it is okay to take a day or week off. the company isn't going to fall apart. if you need a break, take the break. it does no one any good to sit around in a horrid stressed out mood...unless of course there is diet coke and i can annoy the ever living shit out of you...that i am reallllll GOOD at...realllll good.

there were a few highlights from last year despite all the terrible:

-believe in something, anything. just believe and hold on tight
-dream the impossible. dreams keep you sane.
-friends love you no matter your dollar amount net worth
-if they don't then they weren't true friends and karma will catch up...
-it's okay to ask for help (still working on that one...)
-big changes are scary, but exciting. just take the plunge.
-live without regrets. they require entirely too much energy to maintain.
-trust fully. without it, all you get are doubts.
-always trust yourself. you can do more than you think
-sometimes beer and ice cream do solve all of life's problems
-if you don't know the answer. fake it. most people just want an answer.
-faith is a blue bird

those are just some of the things that i have come to learn from 2010. oh i've also learned to take what darwin says with a grain of salt. normally he is correct and i listen to him. but i have also learned that we are really gung-ho to do something for about 2 weeks. then it fizzles. or that when he says he wants to wait to do something, he actually means he wants to do it right then. and that he wants to talk something out, but he's already made up his mind.

silly boys.

ciao.

"Faith is a blue bird, we see from far. It's for real and as sure as the first evening star, you can't touch it or buy it or wrap it up tight but it's there just the same, making things turn out right." - The Rescuers