11:40 PM - 24.08.04
Disruptions
It's been like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride on the transit system lately. Gone are the slow,lazy days of summer and it's time to gear up for the fall - always the most active part of the year in Calgary. Transit is gearing up by changing the schedules and "enhancing" service. One enhancement is new drivers on just about every route. All being monitored closely by qualty control experts. Fine, but give the poor drivers a chance to at least learn their route's little eccentricities and wobbles first. You know, like the hairpin turn just at the bottom of the steepest hill on their route. Take one of those too fast and the bus ends up on its side. In winter there are times when the whole of the routes down or up the escarpments are redesigned to work those hills like switchbacks - the only safe way to drive a bus on sheet ice. Right now the drivers are driving as though it's all flat and straight, meaning there are at least two or three times a day when anyone not anchored somehow goes flying, as corrections are made.
This morning I arrived at the station at the usual time. Debarked from the bus and saw - no trains. All summer there have been two - one just about to leave and one just arriving as we pulled up. Today just a very large crowd of people, each of them wondering as I was I suspect, if the system had broken down or if the hairpin turn on the bridge over the river had caused a derailment. Nope - just the variation in scheduling. Some enhancement. Got on the train and found a seat, good thing. Brand new driver who was very fond of stomping on the brakes. Then the doors wouldn't close properly and all of a sudden the power cut out between stations. Safety feature don't you know. Finally made it across that bridge into downtown and one of the pedestrians tried to beat the train. Driver literally stood on the brakes this time I think. Better than squished citizens though I guess.
Oddball weather as well today. Just around noon I looked outside and saw ......... nothing. Nearly 50 floors up and the windows were covered with cloud. Was it cold, snowing... what? At ground level it was clear and even sunny and warm. How can that be? Warm and cold air masses duking it out over downtown. Shades of things to come. Arrived home to a houseful - my youngest and the two grandbabies, as well as rolling riotous thunder and lightning. Pelting down rain for at least an hour - the light show never stoppping. It was wonderful. The cats and the babies weren't so sure.
At work. Oi. I should just be grateful I have a job - right? And I am, but....... Walking across the plaza this morning I saw one of the scientists I enjoyed working with at the last contract, one office tower away, just locking up his bicycle and preparing to start his day. He waved and all I wanted to do was to follow him back to that environment. The one where they actually tell you they value the work you do and give you work that one can feel proud of. Where all I have to do is put in a full day of effort. Instead I walked back into the snake pit with the hostile silences when one walks into a room and the constant disruption and changes in decisions about how and what one is going to do - and why isn't it all done. I am so bored already, even with the headphones, and so fussed because I can never count on being on task for more than an hour before I'm sent haring off in all sorts of useless directions that I've had to fight with myself just to stay in the building the past week. I know, suck it up princess. If I am really that bothered I should just get busy and find something else right? But I want the opportunity to go back to that other assignment - do I risk losing that? One of the scientists I worked with years ago rode home the last leg of today's journey. He was laughing at my circumstances - having to cope with such a dead head assignment. I tried to laugh too but I didn't have a lot of success with it.
Went to my chiropractor at lunch. That helped my frame of mind a lot. The swelling from the allergic reaction yesterday had doubled the size of the left side of my face and my left eye was nearly swollen shut by the time I arrived home last night. No wonder everyone stood aside for me on the way home on the transit routes. I probably looked infectious and scary both. Most of that was gone by the morning, but my breathing was still tight and laboured and the lymph glands on the left side of my throat - sublingual - were really sore, with shooting pains rolling through them - croaky voice too. When the chiropractor was finished, the muscles around the ribcage had released and the diaphragm - the muscle that divided the chest and abdominal cavities - wasn't vibrating like a drum an more. Air.
Walking into the house tonight was like being hit by a tidal wave. Between the storm brewing outside and the tempest created by 2 grandbabies and 13 cats all excited to have "their human" back, it was a bit like being inside a moving kaleidoscope. Fed everyone and that calmed things down a bit. I had to go finish filling in my e-timesheet, so that was a bit of a break too. Explaining that I don't get paid if I don't get it in on time is something even very little people can understand - especially when one adds "that means I won't be able to pay to go see the Spiderman movie". It's all in how you present an idea sometimes. It was obvious my youngest really missed home and was very reluctant to return to my oldest son's home. It isn't that he resents helping out, but looking after a 2 and 3 year old without a break for two weeks, during a time when the two usual adults in the children's lives are in crisis would be hard on any one. Not knowing from day to day whether it would be possible to come home would also be difficult. My daughter in law is still not discharged. Even when she is, I don't think she will be capable of looking after her children for at least another couple of weeks. I think my youngest knows that he may not be able to come home for at least that long. He really misses the cats and the quiet. Guess the good thing is he'll really value them when he returns. We already really miss and value him, me and the cats. Guess we'll have to make certain we tell him that a little more often - hey dear diary?
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