00:12 - 09.03.06
what was that
Lying down meant not being able to breathe last night. Still with the stupid cold. Decided to get some work done at the computer instead. You see, I had done some election related research yesterday - really. One of those 9 in the am phone calls from Ottawa. "Could you please clarify...". Of course, avec plaisir. Took about half an hour after I dug through all those boxes I had to pack home from the office - those 50 or more boxes. Other little bits of flotsam and jetsam kept popping up on the way to the paperwork I actually needed to answer the original question. One such piece threw me for a loop though and that was one of the emails I decided needed to be sent right away. Remember the one person who had said they had worked polling day, but the recruiter, the Supervisor and the finance officer all stated categorically they hadn't? Yes well. There was an evaluation of that set of the staff hidden in the bottom of one of the boxes I was digging through. One that I hadn't been aware had been done. Glanced at it in passing and whose name should appear. That one person whom everyone said hadn't worked. Oi. I have to take the word of the people I've hired to take on supervisory roles. I especially have to take their word when two or three independently give me the same story when I ask a question. However, how do I reconcile those statements with a physical piece of evidence that contradicts their story. Well in a court "reasonable doubt" is when conviction and sentencing seem unduly weak to the hang 'em high citizens of our fair nations. Sometimes I agree with them fully, but I also know how many Canadians have been convicted and jailed in the past few decades who were eventually proved innocent. They have usually lost everything by then, including a significant chunk of their life. Some things just can't be fixed either. I can't imagine the pain and shock of having to deal with such an injustice, often with no restitution either.
This wasn't anything so major, but I felt I had to write Ottawa to ask them to pay that person after all. Reasonable doubt. I know how frustrated I've been with Elections Canada when they have chosen not to pay me until long after I've submitted my bloodied sheet and yet here I almost became one of them. Even though in the scheme of things for most people a cheque for a day's worth of work isn't that big a deal, I can still recall times when the withholding of funds by Elections Canada caused major crises for me. You see six hungry boys can't wait for some accountant thousands of miles away to clean up some messy paperwork. They need to eat when they are hungry, not a month or two later. I don't know what this person's financial status is, but what if it caused their power to be turned off because the money they had earned and budgetted to pay that overdue bill was that one paycheck. What if their landlord wouldn't agree to wait for the money to come through and evicted them. What if, what if. Kind of made me sick to my stomach. If one has never been in that situation it wouldn't even occur to one, but I've been there and I know better. I didn't mind staying up late for that.
The other bit was the little matter of that letter from the tax lady. I had finally received the printouts from the bank that I needed to confirm that my information was correct and had been properly conveyed to them three years ago. I had and it was. I emailed one of the accounting people in Ottawa to ask them to write a letter on my behalf confirming the information about my direct deposits of pay from them, now that I had the physical proof in my hands. I still resent that the woman I spoke with in tax wouldn't accept the bank statements as proof nor was that what is stated in the letter either. There is no request in the tax letter for a letter from the employer. Their letter asks the person being reassessed to provide their own proof. I had it, but it wasn't acceptable to the woman who will make the ultimate determination about that reassessment. She doesn't technically have the right to reject my information, but she had already made it clear that that was exactly what she planned to do. I can appeal and also go to an ombudsman, but in the interim I can also find my income garnished to pay for fines that are wrongly being levied. Eventually I would get them back - if there is any justice - but see paragraph one above about that. The system isn't always right, nor is it necessarily fair. Sometimes one has to play the game by the rules made up out of thin air by a player who appears to hold all the cards - at least until it is your turn to call their bluff. Anyway begged for assistance from the woman who the tax lady said had originally supplied the information. The deadline set for a response is next week so I am already in a bind, even though I don't have control over the timing of the person in Ottawa. One can always hope that things will work out, but it was one of the other reasons I couldn't sleep. I hate being poor - not because I care much about money - but because it makes one such a vulnerable target for people who have a mean streak in them.
Finally got the last of the emails off about 4:30 in the am. I felt that I could probably breathe well enough to sleep, so crawled into bed after turning out some of the interior lights. Was just drifting off when I heard someone wandering around in the backyard near my balcony doors. Oi again. I knew it wasn't the garbage patrol even though it was our day for pick up; first because they never enter anyone's yard and secondly because it was an hour too early for that. I opened the curtains near my bed just to verify that there was really someone there. I was hoping it was just a bad dream. Not. The sound of the crunch of snow under foot is fairly distinctive. It continued until a few seconds after I opened the curtain and then stopped. It was still dark and I didn't have my contacts in, so I couldn't see with the porchlight shining in my eyes. Headed for my youngest's bedroom hoping that maybe he had woken up early and decided to go outside for some air. Highly unlikely, but young adults are famous for doing weird, unexpected and unexplainable things. Maybe they're collectively Aquarian in some sense. Anyway he was deeply asleep - at least until I hit one of those accupressure points on the bottom of his feet. Having raised six teen males means knowing those pressure points right to the centimeter - just for self defense of course, and for rousing said young men from sleep. Mr Mel had accompanied me to my youngest's room and was expressing his great pleasure that my son was ready to start the day. As if. However, when I explained why I was bugging him, he confirmed he had not been wandering around outside at all last night. He checked outside from his window too. Nothing there now. No one visible from any vantage point in the house - with lights fully blazing now - so I gave up and went back to bed. When I woke next, it was full daylight and I could see my neighbours acroos the alley out in their garage as well as the fact that the back fence gate was wide open. It has to be unlatched and pushed inward - against the resistance of snow at this point in time. I threw on my ankle-length winter coat and my knee-length snow boots and headed outside thinking I'd check to see if I could identify footprints that weren't ours. However a very warm spring day meant melting was rapid and any clear indications of intruders just didn't exist. Maybe I should have been more aggressive about dealing with it, but I hadn't slept in nearly 24 hours, it was very dark and I really didn't want to have to try and deal with an unknown person at that time. Maybe it was just someone cutting through the yard on their way to the bus stop. That really doesn't make sense since the first bus nearby doesn't come for at least another hour after the time I heard the intruder. Maybe they were on their way to see friends or family. Must have very strong ties for someone to put up with visitors arriving at their door at that time of day. This isn't fishing or hunting season, so one can't say it was someone on the way to their rendezvous with nature either. Don't know. Maybe I was just dreaming.
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