The Great, The Bleah, and The 'Meh, Whatever..'

A small sampling of vignettes from an overall good last week:
1. Report card time. In other words, 'the Man' gets to assess what our superhero CTO has been doing this past year outside of Binkomonster. Good? For the bottom line yes. The overall process? Not so much. Left a 'hollow' feeling on the palate. Working through it, and the rock is easing off slowly but surely. Nothing like having 365 days worth of efforts compressed into less than a paragraph. Though perhaps there should be a feeling of being grateful. After all, it could have been '10 words or less people'.
2. Back to the fencing grind. Oh, deja-vu. How we missed you. After 2 trips in one night to the same fencing club (CEO forgot his sneakers, and then his knickers), a feeling of 'wow, back again, thought we left this just yesterday' that our CTO is still working through. The 'meeaaleeon' dollar question: will she go back or won't she? Remaining mum on the subject for now. All that will be admitted is that coaching sources and classes are being scoped for our new incoming VP.
3. House is back in shape after the initial plumbing job, and the RIGHT tiles finally came in. 4x8, ocean mist, glossy and undulated. What a relief. Two boxes ready to go, and the tile guy lined up for this week. We may actually have a completed bathroom with new and snazzy fixtures by the weekend!
4. No more wire hangers! Well, actually, no more paper shades at the Binkomonster castle. Anywhere. The CEO spent the better part of Sunday installing the new roller shade for the front entrance (you know, on the moat side). Subtly sparkly, elegant, and totally in keeping with the revamped entry-way color scheme  (matches the custom storage solution). Hard to believe this is the same space we've been living with for the past few years.
5. Paperwork? Labeled, filed, organized and put away. The ability to find something in less than 2 minutes is a wonderful thing. Now all that remains is to get through the tax filing and we cross that last nagging item off of our list.
6. Celebrations. A big four-oh for an extended staff member, a new job for another, and a visit by yet others that we don't see very often. The result? An impromptu celebration on Thursday evening complete with cake, candles, champagne, and most importantly? Petrus '83. We were not only lucky enough to be able to share a bottle with close friends/family, we were even luckier to make a lifelong ambition for someone (or to-do list item) complete. Very satisfying when things work out this way.
7. Getting to the gym. Hitting the upper band of frequency with 4 visits last week. Getting tougher for the CTO to get through some of the workouts, but swimming always seems to hit the spot. Hopefully with warmer weather, there will be more opportunities to convert practices to being hydro-only.
8. More Pratesi! Oh Bloomingdales, how we love you so! Especially your private sale that we've been waiting for the past few months. 20% + some $25 coupons AND $15 back for each hundred you spend on a planned (large) purchase? Yes please. Which then of course led to...
9. Linen culling and cleaning. End result? An armoire that fits ONLY the very nice linens we use, along with towels, quilts and comfy blankets. Everything nice, neat and orderly. And a second set of deliciously comfy, puffy, snuggly Egyptian cotton.
10. The laptop flu. For some unknown reason, the CTO's laptop stopped working Friday. Startup screen? Check. Cycling little thingy in the middle of the screen? Check. Desktop and files? Nope. Into the Genius Bar.  1 day later = new install of Leopard, no missing files, and everything back to normal apart from a couple of reinstalls that were needed. The problem? "Some random file system corruption". Um. Yea. That inspires a high level of confidence. This week = new BIG shiny hard drive,  and rigorous backup protocols going into effect.
Plans and goals? The hope is that the unionization by the tribe and subsequent food boycott is finally nearing an end. Long story short: the tribe had the fortune of feasting on tuna for 2 days. Which then apparently set some gears working in the wrong direction believing that by spurning the regular and tasty foods provided, this would see a change to a consistent diet of tuna. Bottom line? Fat chance.
On other fronts, there are the usual meltdowns and battles to be coping with at the domain of 'the Man (for the CTO anyway). There is the bathroom job that will be finished, and there are the taxes looming. But the hope is that by Sunday, all of these items are crossed off, and we start on our new fun project which is preparing the Castle for the new VP. (Yes, we're starting a list already......)
Happy Monday Internets.