Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

Night of 1000 dramas, I mean dilemmas

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Well, not actually 1000 dramas, dilemmas.

More like one really…

Anyway, it was a baby sitting situation, Mum and Dad and kids x2 are staying in temporary digs while their house is having renos done. I arrive to babysit and am introduced by Mum to Hostess (I think s-i-l) who will be relieving me later in the evening as Mum and Dad are planning to have a big night.

The money is left on the counter and Mum, Dad and Hostess leap into cab and toddle off while I settle in to watch Bruce Almighty on the telly

All is quiet on the Western front…

… Still quiet…

… yawn…

Time passes…

12.00am. Sounds of door slamming, car doiong a u-turn and keys fumbling into the keyhole…

Door opens…

Hostess stumbles in… very much the worse for wear…

Slurs a hello, responds rather negatively to the question “How was your evening?” and flops down on the sofa.

Falls asleep immediately.

Snores…

Time passes…

… still snoring.

I look over, Hostess and dog called Archie are both snoring…

and drooling on the pillow…

I decided to watch the conclusion of Bruce.

Hostess is still snoring.

Crash heard from upstairs… baby screams… fallen out of bed…

Drop everything and run upstairs to cuddle Baby and snuggle her back to bed… Return downstairs… Hostess and Archie still snoring on the sofa…

Bruce concludes… I remain…

Question: Should I leave kids in care of comatose Hostess?

Hover…

Tis 12.30am… need sleep… Mum and Dad can’t be too far surely?

Shake Hostess to tell her goodbye and officially hand over responsibility…

Shake her again…

Shake and shout “see you later”…

Still comatose…

Decide to leave.

Guilt leads me to SMS Mum and Dad from the car… “Have left home, owe you $30.00 will return tomorrow. Am concerned as Hostess in bit of a state… Are you far from home?”

Skip forward to today…

Arrive to drop off $30.00 and Hostess opens the door… Is on the phone.

I hand her the envelope and she tells me sorry about last night… special circumstances… would have woken up if anything happend…

I didn’t think I could tell her… “Baby fell, Baby screamed, tried 3x to say goodbye, while you slept on”… without looking like a b*tch.

So I nodded and smiled and didn’t feel guilty at all for the SOS SMS*…

(SMS is Australian for text message)

Integrity as a Means of Getting Dosh

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Integrity is a bit of an old fashioned word isn’t it? I mean, you don’t hear it that often, yet when someone doesn’t have it you really tread carefully with them, right?

You may remember that a girl bailed on moving in with me before the Count moved in… I thought she was all keen to be my new flatty but she was really just keeping me as an option. Actually, I think she had initially really planned to move in but as the time drew out while Bliss stayed around, the idea began to pale.

Anyway, clearly in my view her integrity was shot given that she upped stakes so close to desperate Dee day. So, when she offered to pay me 2 weeks rent in lieu I accepted her offer yet didn’t actually expect to see the dollars. A couple of weeks passed and I decided to take the bull by the horns and mention it.

I sent a simple email just indicating I would be happy to supply my bank account details. No pressure and no strong demands, just a note by way of gentle reminder. I heard nothing… I shrugged.

Another couple of weeks and still nothing so was feeling as though my lack of faith in her producing the dough was justified. However, I got a reply eventually saying she hadn’t actually budgeted for the money at that point and wasnt getting paid till December. but would see what she could do. I nodded and smiled but kept my expectations low.

Imagine my surprise yesterday to receive an email with a receipt attached for close to the amount in question.

Faith restored.

The thing is, it was never about the money though it will be useful. I had felt prompted to contact her because having given her word, if she had never paid, or if she hadn’t rung and reneged it would always be ‘out there’ when we met at church. I wasn’t prepared to live with the awkwardness of having me expecting the money and her feeling guilty over our heads.

I would have been happy with either the money or by her backing out of the deal and apologising because it indicated she had the integrity to do one or the other. (Pardon me Dee, but your judging (ISTJ -Myers/Briggs) streak is showing.)

As it is, I am happy because I got the money AND I can sleep at night, having the rent up to date, and she can rest for having kept her word.

A Win/win I think.

Worth it

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I heard a story today that made the learning curve I mentioned yesterday seem totally bearable.

A couple of weeks ago on our site we started streaming a bible study programme that is recorded by a couple of our pastors in our tv studio. Apparently, one of the “stars” was approached by a grateful congregation member who had invited a group of friends to watch it with her. It went down very well with her friends and raised some questions with one in particular which resulted in her chosing to believe in God, which she had never done, in spite of years in church. That’s when the website becomes more than a notice board.

That’s when struggling with CSS and PHP becomes redundant…

Don’t Panic

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I had a couple of weeks there in my new role as IT girl when the gloss had worn of and the clouds had parted displaying for all and sundry just how steep my current learning curve is. Not pretty people… not pretty at all.

Everest has nothing on this…

Actually, I started to get a bit anxious about it…

Which is separate from the anxiety about being away from my dearests at Christmas.
And the anxiety about being more comfortably upholstered than I was before winter.
And the anxiety about my family and their comings and goings and doings that I have issues with.
And the anxiety about the Count (which is much diminished, by the way).

I have been doing my best to squash all those other anxieties and trying to conquer the learning curve by reading really fat technical tomes. You know, the ones which have cds neatly tucked into their covers (to compound the already vast screeds of information therein) in the hope I could fill my brain with all one needs to be an IT girl.

It wasn’t working so I threw my hands up in the air and actually said

“God… this is ridiculous… I can’t do this”

To which he replied (in his most Australian of accents)

“too bloody right luv… what were you thinking?”

Sigh…

So… I asked him about CSS and ASP and PHP and CGI and Perl and C++ and XHTML etc…

and he said

“one thing at a time ok?”

I replied “Ok… about CSS..”

“Chuck out the books and try making some … You’re one of those learn better by doing type chicks…”

So the fires out front are burning the books and cds and I’m tweaking templates and fiddling with code from here to eternity.

And bingo

I finally get it…

I have made inline and external css that works… (most of the time)

So I say “Thanks God… You must be a bit of an IT guru yourself I suppose…”

And he said “yeah, the world wide web is just my footstool …” (Acts 7:49)

“Makes everything else seem a bit smaller really… thanks, God”

“You’re totally welcome… tis the way it should be.”