DR is an 80 year old woman that has been friends with RO for years. She was strong and indepenant. She volunteered for many things; the police, the Seattle Men's Choir, organizing farmers markets. She frequently helped out at our store.

But, in the last six months something has changed. She has problems remembering what she's been doing. She is frequently confused.

She has no children. Her nephew and her brother recently took her out of her apartment and put her in an old age home. She hates it. She's almost completely lost her Independence and has vowed to escape.

I'm don't see how this will end happily.

Mom and I drove along the Green River. This winter, the Green river may flood. The Howard Hanson dam, which controls the Green River water levels, is weak. To prevent the dam from bursting, they are letting out water as fast as they can. If we have too much rain this year (Army Corps of Engineers says a 1 or 4 chance) then the river will over flow its banks. Miles of sand bags are being setup along the river to contain the water.

There are *many* houses along the Green river.

I looked at some of the flood plain maps. For even a small flood, the old store would have been under about a foot of water.

Mom is in town for a week. This time around she get's to see RO and I as we really are. Usually when mom flies to town, we clean up. RO will do a great job decorating her room. This time with are so swamped with work that we washed her sheets and made her bed, but that was about it.

We want to open the new store on November 2.

While there is still much work to be done, the new store is starting to look like a real store. RO is working very hard to put everything together.

Today is the old store's last day. Tomorrow we close our doors to the public, pack things up and move them to the new store. Business has been steady but not overwhelming although we are having a small cocktail party in the evening. I'm sure things will pick up then.

I'm relaxing this weekend. It's the first weekend I've done so in over a month. The extra work time has been affecting my productivity-- even though I went to work last weekend, I spent much time goofing off.

At my day job, we are in the middle of a large re-org. And then the store-- it's in the middle of moving to new location. So much to do. So little time to do it.

I worry about RO. He is working even harder than I am. Every night he comes home exhausted and with a sore back. I try to make sure that he has a good dinner ready and that I rub his back at bed time. He's holding together well considering all the work he's doing.

At the store, I destroyed a china display cabinet. RO was looking help getting the cabinet off the back of the truck. I went ahead and unbuckled the strapping that was holding the cabinet up. It was windy. The cabinet blew over and fell out of the truck. It scratched a car parked next to the truck on the way down.

I feel like crap and RO is angry with me.

RO is back from the Vegas Market. The poor guy is exhausted. I know it may sound funny, but shopping for a store is exhausting.

I'll try and cooking him a nice dinner tonight, and rub his back. I'm sure it will put him right to sleep.

RO is away shopping for the store for a week at the Vegas World Market. I miss him already.

We are moving our store. The "Move Sale" signs went up on Saturday. Of course we got a huge influx of customers. This is good to know. We probably won't have a cash flow problem for the next couple of months.

RO and I took a day trip to Olympia. RO's neice is opening a consignment store down there and RO wanted to take a look.

The space is big and they've done a good job setting it up. RO and his neice had a good chat. RO gave her much good advice about running a store. Retail is a lot of work and RO has much experience in this.

Afterwards we had dinner at an oyster house along the waterfront. The raw oysters were wonderful, but the fish was overcooked.

We headed back home, had a drink and then hit the sack.

Sandy is not handling he and Matt's breakup very well. As Matt moves out, reality is starting to set in. Matt is also heart broken, but he is handling it better. I think moving out has allowed him to move on a bit easier.

RO has been trying to help, but reconciliation attempts haven't panned out.

Every now and then I get a good-byte-email from someone who is leaving to spend more time with the family and isn't sure of their future plans just yet. I've wondered why someone would leave a decent job without a plan.

Yesterday, was the last day for the first guy I ever fired. Well, he turned it around and resigned before the firing came into effect, so technically he quit.

He sent around a good-bye-email saying that we as going to spend more time with his family and the he doesn't have future plans just yet. No I'm wondering about all the other unplanned goodbyes.

Matt hast started paying rent and has set up a home office at our place. I guess he's going to be staying for a while.

His breakup with Sandy is transitioning from 'amicable' to 'sour.' For example, Matt has his eye on a new dog, a small toy-dog from a rescue shelter. While they were together Sandy prevented Matt from getting this new dog. This choice was not unreasonable as they already have two dogs and four cats.

Now that they are appart, Sandy sees Matt's decision to get a new dog as proof that Matt is not serious about getting together. He may be right.

Sandy thinks that RO and I support Matt's decsion to act in bad faith towards their relationship. This creats much bickering, texting, debating and speculation between Matt and Sandy. I'm trying to stay out of it, but RO gives his opinion, even though he is tired of doing so.

Every time Sandy texts me, I feel like I'm walking in a mine field. I have to answer his questions in very neutral Zen Koan's.

I got a promotion at my day job. It's a fairly important promotion. My title will change and new doors open to me.

I already see some of the changes. Even though my promotion has not been announced, the partners in the business are walking into my office and offering me career counseling.

The first lesson I've learned is that I have to become a "Puppet Master." and set up situations so that people make the choices that I want them to make.

RO now has a perscription for Xanax-- the store has been stressing him out and he needs help sleeping. Xanax strongly affects him, I guess it's a popular drug for a reason, by Sunday evening, he completly forgot about the day. He thought it was only Saturday evening and couldn't remember a thing we did on Sunday.

The store is facing new challenges. Our lease expired last March and we have been living on a month to month contract. We have a signed letter of intent to have a new lease, but have not yet received the lease from the land lord. Then, a representative from a leaseing company showed up and told us that he would soon put up "For Lease" banners. I suspect the landlords think they can get more money from another tenat and are hoping the letter-of-intent is dropped.

RO has a new suspician about our roadside pooper. Clem & Bates are having sceptic problems right now and when RO mentioned the bag of shit to Clem, he very quickly changed the subject.

Poop.

We have our groceries delivered. The grocer has the groceries on our door step by 6am.

Monday morning was a bit different. When RO was leaving for work, he noticed a grocery bag from our grocer. It was full of something. He thought that perhaps the grocer made a mistake and forgot to bring one bag of our groceries to our door step.

He looked in the bag. It was full of shit and napkins.

We are not sure who or why someone would do this. We suspect that the Grocer's truck driver really had to go to the bathroom, so he used a grocery bag and then left it behind.

Matt is moving in with us for a few days. He and Sandy have split up, supposedly for good. He's moving out of the city, but needs a few days to collect his stuff.

We visited the bank this morning. There was very little they could do. Then they found I am a permanent resident and not a U.S. citizen. Suddenly there was nothing they could do.

I know RO will fight tooth and nail for more money. But, when I do the numbers, I don't see how that will happen. Even with a generously low interested rate, our monthly payments will be much larger than we can afford. To survive for more than six months, the store's sales need to triple. In the short term we can pull a few tricks that leave us deeper in debt and deplete our inventory. But fundamentally the store is running deep in the red and my paycheck is no longer enough to cover the difference.

I'm actually looking forward to bankruptcy. I could get my weekends back and RO could get a paying job. With a chapter 13 bankruptcy, I'd could keep the house (and the mortgages) as well as my 401K. We'd lose the business and everything I've put into it, but that's a big hole right now, a hole that's going to take years to fill in. Seven years of bankruptcy on my credit rating is starting to look mighty attractive.

RO's brother in-law has cancer. Last January a cyst developed in his nose and kept growing. The doctor removed the cyst last week. Subsequent testing showed it was cancerous.

The brother-in-law will soon undergo chemo and radition treatment. I hope all goes well.