November 2, 2007

Dear Dad,

Halloween has come and gone and I have most of the Halloween decorations put away. We had a costume contest in the office and out of 12 people, 7 of us dressed in costumes. We had Marco, as the pirate from Pirates of the Caribbean, Mario was Caesar, Xochilts came as Cleopatra, Mauricio dressed up as the skeleton from Scary Movie and the new messenger Marco (we have 2 persons named Marco in the office now) dressed up as Bob Marley, the Reggie music king and I was a witch and David wore his Star Trek uniform.

We had fun.

I had a cake made and it had tiers and tiny monsters on it, all edible stuff.

After the office party, I rushed home with the son of a friend who is 10 and this was his first Halloween experience. His parents followed in their car. I didn’t want to drive alone dressed as a witch with long blood red fingernails and needed someone to help open doors because the long fingernails were awkward.

Gabriel had never been trick of treating and never cut a pumpkin into a Jack o Lantern. Both of these we did at our house.

When I got home, I quickly put up another spider web; put the black scary cats on the roof of my car (it is parked in the car port by the front door)and a big spider on the web. I also plugged in the giant pumpkin that lights up and placed the small plastic mat that screams like a banshee when you step on it. This took only a few minutes to do.

It was pouring rain when we got home, but I kept our guests busy carving the costly imported pumpkin – a first for Gabrielle and his dad. When it was finished, the door bell rang and we got our first and only trick or treaters, all 7 of then were dressed as witches. Gabrielle got very excited when he answered the door. He had wanted to take off his costume earlier, but I convinced him not to and to wait a little longer for the doorbell to ring. The witches left and he and his dad followed the group around our residential area and got goodies from the other 9 houses.

Gabriel left with a small bag of candy and the carved pumpkin and a big smile. Cecs, he said to me as he was leaving, can we do this next year too?

Yesterday we went to the new kitchen in Puntarenas. Yes, we are moved in; but it was a mess. I walked into the new kitchen and stopped cold when I saw the pile of carpenter mess on the floor. A temper tantrum on my part would have done no good so I got busy and cleaned up and moved tables around and got everything in order while Michael, who works in accounting and Tony our lawyer, fired all of the cooks from one company – or Calypso Tours S.A. and hired them back in a new company – Comidas Contemporaneas S.A.. Sounds confusing, but we want to have new rules – more strict.

Because all of the personal in the kitchen have worked for Calypso for years and have developed very bad habits I decided to outsmart them all by firing them, paying them all their rights - a sort of workman’s comp. and after giving them each a pile of cash, hire them to work for the other company. Now I can make the rules stick.

I was ready to fire one of them, but Michael in accounting says I am a softie. Maybe I am, but the two women who have been giving me problems have worked for Calypso for 15 years. I had to give them a chance. Besides it is not easy to fire someone. I will be there tomorrow and inspect the kitchen. It should be spotless and their storage closets in order.

Other interesting news is when I was gardening last week I found a Black Widow spider in my Jade plant. I was cleaning out s web and saw the little spider curled up and was careful not to harm it, when it flipped over and I saw the tiny red dot on the belly. OOOPPPS.

Bryan looked up Black Widow spiders on the Internet and read that their venom is 12 times stronger than a bite from a Rattle Snake. Yikes !!!!.

We put the spider in a jar and called around to the different museums to see if they needed one for a display. The tiny spider didn’t look very happy in the jar and after an hour or so I had Bryan let it go. He threw it over the back wall and I could visualize her throwing out a sticky web, like a Special Armed Forces soldier, break the fall and climb back over the wall and am sure by the end of the day the spider probably found her way back to my Jade plant.

We have a real villain at home; a black and white cat that has been terrorizing my two darling kitties, sending me and the cats to the vet three times now. I am not sure how to rid ourselves of this nasty beast. I have a spray bottle with a strong solution in it but have not been able to get close enough to the cat to spray it. I see the cat and the cat sees me and I run for the bottle, you get the picture, I run and the cat runs and before I can get close enough to spray the nasty cat, he is gone over the wall. Bryan kicked it, (sounds awful, but you should see what the cat does to our pets) but the cat keeps coming back.

Celiece is getting ready to go out on another tour tomorrow. She was off for 10 days and rested and now is going out again. We were able to have a few lunches at our favorite restaurants, catch up on news and then she was gone again.

David is in the bank standing in line to get his debit card that the ATM machine ate. It happens to him all the time. He forgets the pin number and after three tries his card disappears. It is a good thing he is not the person who has to remember all the pin numbers for the bank accounts. It is late and we have not had lunch yet and I still have to go to the grocery store.

Now that Halloween is over, it is time to think about Christmas. It sounds early, but I have to think about what to do for 60 employees and make it special.

It is very difficult to think about something new every year. I know they all want a party, but it is so difficult when we have employees in Puntarenas and San Jose. I will think of something great hopefully. Gift baskets are always welcome and last year I used a giant plastic planter and filled it with goodies. I just need to think of another container for this year.

It is time to go shopping.

Hope all is well with you.

Besitos, Cecs