Here Suzie, Suzie, Suzie

I'm still here, in spirit, at least.  I forgot I had a blog going!  Can you imagine?  I am still writing, but in emails...I will work at remembering this blog, and add to it on a regular basis.  This is a learning year for me...learning my iPad, learning more tax info to help Mike in our CPA business, and maybe thinking of becoming an "enrolled agent" so I can sign tax returns...this Mike's idea.  He thinks I can do anything.  I am also planning on taking a course in Excel.  Lots and lots to do.   Hugs

Out of the house, what fun!

Tonite, Mike and I went out to dinner with friends/business associates.
Mike has worked with her at least 15 years.  Before she worked for Mike's
old CPA firm, she worked with a brokerage firm.  It was during that time
that she met her husband.

With the background set, I met her after we moved to Vegas.  She has
worked with Mike before, and now does some bookkeeping for some
of his clients, and he does tax review and planning for some of hers.  She
and her husband had lived here in Vegas for a few years, went back to California,
and relocated her in October of last year.  She is Filipino and he is Persian.
Theirs is a true and dedicated marriage.

About 10 years ago, her husband got sick.  After extensive testing, he was diagnosed
with MD.  At first, it was weakness of the muscles, then canes, and now a
wheelchair.  She told me that it can take up to 4 hours to get him ready to go out
like it did tonite.  It made me think about being a care-giver.

I was Mike's care-giver after his kidney cancer surgery.  I had it easy.  I
was out on FMLA for 5 or 6 weeks, driving him to appointments, helping
him get in and out of bed, feeding him, the usual.  She is more than I ever was.
I didn't have to help Mike in those first weeks to the extent that she does on a daily
basis.  I didn't have to test the depth of our love and devotion, or feel resentment
at having to help him the little that I did.  Would I be able to care for him to the
extent she helps him, I would like to think so, hope so, believe so.

Tonite we had dinner at a Persian restaurant.  The second time we have been
to Habib's, the first time in their new location.  The food was great, but the company
and conversation was the cream on the top of the dessert.  We determined that it had
been about 2 years since the last time we got together, and decided we need to get
together every month or two.  The idea of getting Mike out of the house is
SO appealing to me, I just might have to force him out of the house more often!

Hi!

Will do this until I get it right!

Many thanks to Peggy, my
coach and teacher.  I promise
to follow her advice and make
this work!

Later tonite, my dinner tale of a
special couple.

Hugs

Well, this is it. My first attempt at blogging! I decided to start with something
easy, one of my passions. I love to gift wrap. My friend, Jaye, taught me when
we worked at large retail department store here in Las Vegas. I didn't start out to
be a gift-wrapper, it just happened.


I started off as a loss prevention officer. Yes, I really did. I had moved here from
the San Fernando Valley, north of LA, when my husband decided to retire. Mike
had decided it was time to leave the pressure cooker of public accounting in Sherman
Oaks, and move to state income tax free Las Vegas. We also moved here to be near
his mom, 3 sisters, brother-in-law, 3 nephews, and my mom and dad. (If I forgot someone,
please forgive me!)


Mom and daddy were awesome, telling us what area to choose, to buy the smallest house
on the block so it will have the highest appreciation, provided us with the suppliers
for the blinds, tile flooring, paint colors...then sat in the house when the work was done and gave
me a map of the city, with the utility companies highlighted, so I could start service. They
were here while I was still in LA packing the house and when we moved our things. They
also helped me line drawers and unpack. They made things so easy!


Mike came home most weekends until he finally moved here in October, and I flew to LA a
few times too, in the beginning, but it only took two weeks for me to get bored and find the
job at "the store. But, before that happened, I had to contend with the "builder's surprise".
The workman, probably mad at the builder, filled the pipes with rocks. How do I know this?
By Sunday nite, after our Friday move-in, the kitchen sink and both tubs and showers backed
up...from the toilet, no less. And after a day with no response from "good old Nick", the builder, I
drove down to the model home, locked myself in the bathroom and showered and
washed my hair. Made a few pit stops there during the day too.  By Tues, a plumber,
paid by Nick, Roto-rooted the pipes. That is how I learned about the rocks, and
also that one needs to take action to get results.


So, within 2 weeks, I landed the job at "the store". I began at the Home Store, a beautiful
innovation that the company began, by moving all the home items to one store and leaving the
clothing and such, in the "main store". What really sold me on the Home Store was
the atmosphere there, highlighted by the visual "effects". Our home store was the
most beautiful store to walk around, and our visual master was the best. I still
remember his windows and bed displays in their glory, before corporate cutbacks
in the late 90's. I am sure he is the one that taught the first gift-wrapper, who passed the
skill to each of us in turn.


I was in loss prevention for the first 4 to 5 years at the home store. It was very different
from the credit card processing loss prevention I did while in merchant credit card
processing in California. I liked that a lot, catching bad transactions before the com-
pleted transactions were finalized. I made lots of friends in big and little banks thru
out the US. Some of the banks gave us the name and phone number of the card
holders to verify charges instead of having to wait for them to check and call us back.


A few stand out...huge charges at one merchant that were celebrities "donating" huge
amounts of money that would equal to the cost of a car! Once, one of the names
I got was a VERY famous comedian living in the Bay Area of Northern
California, and when I asked the contact if that was the REAL comedian, I was asked
to forget the info given, and wait for a callback. SIGH. I would have LOVED to
talk to the comedian. Another time I got a "manager", who offered an autographed
picture of the "Sex Kitten" star. I still have it.


And, there was the time one of our investigators got an account that had an over-abundance
of charges. Several came back bad, so we ended up taking bets on the total of fraud charges.
Ended up being over $80,000 that she stopped! And, once I verified 2 or 3 charges at a
jewelry store that came back valid, but it still felt very wrong. We sent the sales rep that brought
in that merchant to do an in-store visit. He said they were ok, but I didn't like it. So, that weekend,
Mike and I were in the area of the store, and I talked him into going by it. We stopped, and "window
shopped", then went in looking for more. I KNEW the junk they sold could not support
the charges they had, and sure enough, that Monday, they came back as bad. Daddy taught
me well in all the time I spent in his antique and jewelry store.


But, I lost my place, didn't I? After a series of hand operations, 4 in 4 years, I was phased
out of loss prevention, and worked my way to the customer service desk and the gift
wrapping. I loved it. I kept track of the managers, phones, and gift wrapped. I did
catalog sales and acquired credit card applications. It was wonderful! Then the company
did away with gift wrapping and then the service desk...and I was out on the floor. I enjoyed the
bedding and bath area, but then came the kiosks and the lack of personal customer
attention. Then the disappearance of company health care, and the start of my next
career...if you call it that. I spent almost 11 years there, and still email some of my
friends from there.