21:45 - 22.07.05
Travels
Mercury retrograde. Officially started tonight, but, as usual, kicked in early for me. After work yesterday the trip home was less than stellar. About a half hour delay while the broken down train ahead of ours was hauled off to a side line. Long stays at each of five other stations waiting for other trains ahead of us to disgorge their passengers. Finally got to my station just in time to see all the feeder busses leaving. Great. Then I remembered part of the disucssion from the morning commute. You see, a new flyover and train station is being added to the line. Means in the short term, that all the feeder busses have to take a long circuitous detour to get back to their regular route. One of the women I travelled with yesterday morning was telling her tale of commuter disruption the day before. Like me she had watched all the busses depart just as she reached the staging area. She walked to the bus stop that was at the end of the detours and managed to out hoof the busses. Fine I could do that. I was earing those sandals I bought at the community garage sale for .50 cents last fall. Those rockports. Best investment I ever made, felt like I was walking on air. In no time I was at that bus stop waiting. No sign of the busses, so since I was halfway to home by then I decided to see if it was worth my while to wait or continue going shanksmare (on foot). Called the transit commuter line on the Elections Canada cellphone. There were times given for each of four busses but as I was turning the unit off it became obvious that those times were wrong. The next bus was still nearly 10 minutes away according to them yet I was looking at 2 buses pulling up to my stop. Good enough for me though. Hopped off at the grocery store since the cupboards were really bare. Got to the pet supplies aisle and was loading up. A very nice man started talking to me asking me about all my cats. His comment about it being obvious I must have a lot was his opener. I didn't realize how stressed I was about my huge feline family until that point. I responded briefly then tucked my chin down and sort of curled up into myself. I just didn't want to talk about it with a complete stranger. I've been getting a lot of empathy about my dilemma, but absolutely no help. I just don't want to deal with that anymore. The cats were all happy to see me and that counts for something - somedays I prefer them to humans anyway. Much kinder than some of the people I deal with I think.
This morning chaos reigned as I tried to be certain i got to the bus stop on time. Nothing major happened, but each small task seemed to go slightly awry, taking more time than expected. I could feel the minutes adding up. Finally got my youngest out of bed to help with some of the details so I did make that first connection after all. Carried on the conversation of the day before with the one woman relating my trials from the day before with repect to the train. There were still problems when she left work an hour later but no one had told those passengers why. When I was on the train there were muffled announcements about every five minutes. Between myself and my two seat mates we managed to decipher the gist of the story. It had been funny because the conversation started when the one woman pointed to the other and said "India?" with a few more words in Hindi. The other woman nodded and asked in Hindi where the other woman was from. Bangladesh. They started trading information about how they got here and with what part of their families - obviously hungry to find someone else experiencing the same challenges. The cool thing was that they made certain that I was included in their conversation, slipping in between Hindi and English. I felt really honored in a way, I can hear the howling now, because they were so respectful of the fact that I was also like them being a working mother just trying to keep food on the table. Despite all the pressure and stress they were experiencing, they still could keep the broader perspective of community foremost in their minds. Not many homegrown people can claim that degree of sensitivity, let alone new Canadians.
Work was also really positive today. My supervisor is off on holidays for a couple of weeks and I think I will be ready to start phase two of the project about the time she returns. The nature of the next phase is very complex so I wanted to flesh out a plan of attack that she could approve beofre I began. What I needed was to convey some of the issues that were already starting to concern me to her first and to find out what her priorities were. The volume of work is significant and could be configured many ways. Once started it would be very difficult to change processes evolving as I work it out. I had asked for a half hour meeting with her and her second in command today so she could ruminate about my information while she was off and so that I could start preparing a more concrete proposal for her when she returns. The discussion lasted just over an hour and was quite fruitful. When the two had first come in to the conference room I could see that "oh no do we have to listen to the same things again look on their faces". Since they receive my reports each week that is a reasonable attitude I suppose, but I hadn't included any of my thoughts on the next phase in them - needing to focus on making certain the foundation work in this phase is as rock solid as possible. They both seemed very pleased with the outcomes and concrete steps we had devised by the end of that time. My supervisor said she had projected in her budgetting that my project would last in to early 2007 and that it would likely generate seeral spin off projects. something that I confirmed in the report I offered today after speaking with one of the other supervisors about her area of responsibility trying to confirm that what I was seeing was correct. It was. My supervisor mentioned very briefly the idea of me becoming a permanent employee although I think she might have been just tossing it out to see how I responded to the idea. I've made it clear many times that I choose to work as a consultant because I like it that way so maybe she was wanting to know if I could or would make a commitment to just one employer. Hard to know.
She was about to leave for the folk festival so the three of us chatted about the different acts for a bit. It was odd but it seemed as though she and her second in command wanted to be certain I knew who Steve Earle really was and what he was like. The second in command said "you know he has been accused of domestic violence and is a recovering addict". Well yes that is not a happy thing to hear but since I don't believe I will get the chance to meet him and wsn't even thinking along the lines of anything other than listening to him sing I'm not certain I got their point. There are a lot of performers who have less than stellar personal histories, very similar to what goes on in the livs of the people I work with every day. I'm just going to hear him sing. My response was that I really liked his lyrics and his stand on issues. The look of discomfort at that point might have had more to do with the "warning" I was receiving. The company we wrok for is US based. Maybe they take offense to one of their countrymen expressing an opinion they might not support. But that was the whole reason their country was founded wasn't it? Freedom of faith was the issue that brought the pilgrims there and freedom from oppression is what the driving energy was to establish that country. Has the nation become now what their forefathers fught so hard to free themselves from? Maybe I'm reading way too much into the comment. Just strange that's all.
The commute home was quiet. Picked up voice messages when i walked in the door. One from Elections Canada. Urgent that I call about the cell phone. Well yes. I caught my youngest playing some sort of game on the minibrowser a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't been aware that such a thing was possible anymore than I really understand how to use it so I can text message someone. There had been a contest at the rodeo where if I had known I could have entered a draw right then and there too. Just no motivation for me to figure out the other featues even at that. I didn't know whether there would be a fee attached to those other options but the sound of the Elections Canada staffer indicates there probably is. Emailed him and apologized for not being aware of how my son was using it and mentioned that I had just sent in the invoice for my last bit of work. If there are telephone fees to pay then that is where that payment can go. Not much else I can do, Mercury retrograde. Think I'll go read to my youngest - remind him there are better things in life than pushing a bunch of tiny buttons while staring at an equally tiny screen. Right?
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