Surprise - Meeting the New Neighbor

The next morning Mike was off to work, and Misty was having another day of e-mails and checkin on the projects she was overseeing. Everything was on track, those that were ahead on their projects offered to work with those who were behind to make sure everything came in on time and with luck, on budget. As Misty worked her way through all her e-mails, answering questions and directing team member's to other team members who were experts in a specific area's. Double checking to make sure that all the project her group was responsible for were on time or as close to it as possible and that no one was too far behind, no matter what the reason.

Sitting in her office with the window open she heard a commotion outside, but nothing to unusual, assuming some kids were outside playing and yelling. She stood up to stretch her legs and looked out the window seeing nothing she went back to work. A while later as she reached the end of her e-mails, her stomach growled and Misty looked at the clock at the bottom of her screen and realized it was after lunch time. So she set her machine to 'Out of Office- Lunch' and headed downstairs to make herself a sandwich, coffee and some fruit. Which she took out onto the deck to enjoy the sunshine at the table beneath the umbrella for some shade.

As she was finishing her lunch, she heard the sound of a screen door opening and springing back closed with a 'Thuck' sound as a spring **** the screen door to spring closed. As she was taking her dishes into the kitchen to go back to work, she heard another commotion outside and assumed that it was just kids at play. After, that she heard sounds that assumed was some kids rough housing but thought nothing of it.

As Misty finished working and went to log out of her computer; she saw the new E-mail marked as urgent. Thinking she was about to get hot with a disaster, she opened the E-mail to discover it was from HR informing her that due to an error on their part, she had not been credited with all the time off she entitled to. In fact, she didn't have one day of excess leave to use, she had a total of seven days leave. They acknowledged that the error was on their part, but requested she take off all seven days and not just the one she had scheduled. She responded that she was happy to take off the full 7 days, but insisted on checking her e-mails and letting her team know that she was available for emergencies. She also agreed to only to only work if an emergency came up and she would take the leave hours at the end of the 7 days leave to make sure she didn't accumulate additional leave. Hr was more than happy to agree so Misty logged put she went sit onto the deck and was sipping a glass a wine when she head the door next door neighbor coming out into her yard and hanging up some clothes on the line too dry. When she the Auburn haired young woman hanging up clothing on the line turned and notice her, she smiled and waved and Misty and her struck up a conversation the Auburn haired girl introducing herself as Cassandra and welcoming her to the neighborhood and Misty introducing herself and thanking Cassandra. Misty shared that she and husband were both working, he being a technician and she being and Project Co-ordinator, who worked from home. Cassandra shared that her younger sister Kelly lived with her, and Misty didn't feel the need to ask why then the subject changed to the neighborhood, yards, their new Hot Tub and if their were rules prohibiting adding a pool in the future. Moments later, Misty offered Cassandra a glass of wine and Cassandra accepted as asked about the Hot Tub, and of the deck required additional bracing or electrical upgrades and they chatted out the heaters and the jets and how relaxing it was to get massaged by the pulsing jets of hot water and air.

Misty suggested that if she'd like to try it out, she was welcome to come over tomorrow as she had a day off as she reached her maximum vacation time and earned an additional day's vacation that she was now required to use, so tomorrow was a free day. Cassandra thanked her but said she hd to keep an eye on her younger sister, Kelly. Without thinking, Misty simply smiled and told her to bring her younger sister over to get the younger girls opinion of the hot tube.

The duo parted on good terms and Cassandra thanked her for the chance to check out the Hot Tub. An hour later, Mike came home with some news, he'd been called upon to fly to one of his employers bigegst customers who'd just bought a series of their machines and the installers had screwed the install and now their were threats of law suits so as a top technician he was asked to get the machines up and running ASAP, to save the contract and was offered, first class air fare, Hotel, Rental Car, Daily per diem for food and unlimited over time to get the job done as quickly as possible in addition to additional week of vacation to help him recover for this challenge. Packing a bag, Mike would be picked up by the airport shuttle the next morning at 6 am for a 9 am flight. Misty told Mike about meeting Cassandra and the said that she seemed nice enough and was coming over the next day, since she was off to check out the Hot Tub.

Life was still great...