Kathy, Me, Nyshia, & Gucci
Kathy and I had returned from our short honeymoon out on the coast and had settled into a duplex in the Rosemont area. My office had relocated to a new building off Bradshaw just south of 50. Kathy had left her position with GBS in the Bay Area and started a new job with a small marketing firm in Old Sacramento.
We didn't know much of anyone in the Sacramento area other than our co-workers. As a consequence we spent our weekends exploring the Sacramento area. I liked exploring the American River and we went rafting down the South Fork one weekend. Kathy liked shopping at the malls. Our weekends were mostly quiet. We still sometimes met up with our old Bay Area GBS friends either down in San Francisco or joined in with a group heading up to Tahoe for the weekend. Kathy knew both Bob and Mike from my office and the little socializing we did in Sacramento tended to be with them and their spouses. I didn't socialize with any of my staff out of work and the only other person from the office I kinda knew was Bruce from the tech group. I knew him because he was part of the group that went out for drinks after work with Bob and Mike, a group I frequently joined prior to Kathy and I getting married. Bruce was dating Laurie who worked for me but Kathy was not a fan of Laurie so that pretty much nixed any social activities with them. A single guy lived on the other side of our duplex. He was pretty friendly. I never did know just what he did for a job but I would occasionally hangout with him in front of the garage area while we shared a joint and sipped a beer or two. Kathy was not much for smoking pot so it tended to be just him and me although sometimes his girlfriend joined us. Kathy was not too keen on our neighbor and maybe she was right as one day while we were driving by a local shopping center we saw the cops cuffing him in the parking lot. They took him away and I never saw him or heard from him again. I don't know what he was arrested for but I assumed it was drug related. That side of the duplex remained empty for quite awhile after that.
As I said, Kathy had no use for Laurie. It irritated Kathy to no end that Laurie would sometimes call me at home usually before but also after work about some problem at the office. Laurie usually got into the office before I did. I got calls from the office from others too but Laurie called the most frequently. Now I had previously worked with Laurie trying to improve her communication with the developers and I suspect a residue of that effort was her increased communication with me. While most of the time it was not anything that couldn't keep until I got in the office there were times when it was helpful to know what I was going to be walking into.
Bruce was one of my favorite co-workers. Bruce was the top computer hardware tech guy in the Sacramento office and as such he sort of the lead of the hardware division. Bruce was a cool guy. Bruce would be the first person to come to my aid later when I was desperate for help but that's a story for another day. However, one of my favorite memories of working at GBS involves Bruce. I had to go down to HQ in Burlingame for an afternoon meeting on a Friday. Bruce had been loaned to the Burlingame office for that week to help out with some issues they were having. Since I was going to be there Friday we planned to drive back to Sacramento together. I was not able to leave until well after 5 and so it was a little after 6:00 when we hit the Bay Bridge. I was driving and suddenly Bruce's beeper went off. This is before everyone carried cell phones. Anyway Bruce looked at the number on the beeper. I mean it's after 6, it's Friday and Bruce had just spent the whole week helping them out down there. I was driving and Bruce asked if I could pull into the right most lane. I asked him if we needed to stop somewhere or turn around. He said “No, don't even slow down just get into the right lane if you can.” So I did. Bruce then rolled down his window and tossed his beeper out the window over the bridge rail and into the San Francisco Bay. Bruce looked at me and said “I think I've lost my beeper. I guess I'll need to put in for a new one when we get back.” It was at that moment that I gained a whole new level of appreciation for Bruce. It's still today one of my all time favorite at work moments.
At the home front Kathy seemed to be bothered by my dog Nyshia, who was living with us of course. Nyshia was my dog who'd been with me for almost 5 years. Nyshia looked to me for everything and Kathy failed to make much of a connection with her. Kathy thought it would help if we got a second dog, a dog that could be both of ours. I was a little hesitant but agreed. We looked around and found a family who lived on a ranch and had working dogs. One of their dogs, a Queensland Heeler mix, recently had a litter and they were looking for homes for the pups. We checked it out and took one. He was mostly white with some brown and gray. He also had one brown eye and one blue. I was taken by the eyes and called him our designer dog and as a result we ended up naming him Gucci. We worked on training Gucci. Nyshia wasn't thrilled with Gucci getting so much attention. Nyshia wasn't that interested in playing, which being a puppy Gucci was constantly interested in so there was some negotiating there. But in the end, Nyshia put up with it and they generally got along fine.
Gucci followed Nyshia everywhere but soon learned to not get too much in her way. Gucci came from working dog stock and for awhile he constantly attempted to herd us when we walked him but we worked on it and eventually he calmed down. He was fun but quite different from Nyshia. Nyshia was so well behaved and Gucci was a puppy, a handful. I don't think Kathy realized what she was getting into. Even though it was something we could do together I ended up doing the bulk of the dog training. We lived close to my office so I could often come home at lunch to take care of the dogs, well Gucci anyway as Nyshia didn't require anything special. Nyshia always made sure she was the first one to greet me.
We now were a two dog family. Kathy's desire to get a second dog to be “ours” probably should have been a sign that Kathy needed me to separate from my former, pre-Kathy life and immerse myself more fully into our new life together. Unfortunately this was something I was not prepared to do, at least not to the degree Kathy would have liked. Looking back I realize this would be just the beginning of a conflict that I failed to take very seriously until it was too late....
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