23:24 - 12.05.06
loose ends
Woke up this morning to hear that a sinkhole had opened up on our bus routes that take us to the train station. There wasn't an accurate description of how big it was at that time. Told my youngest as he was going out the door so he could adjust his travel plans and expectations accordingly.
I spent a good part of the day on the phone or on email, sometimes talking with the same person simultaneously on both. Why? Well sometimes jpegs of office space or such things or sometimes just a cluster of data that they wanted to keep in some folder on their desktop. Add in a couple of faxes and a lot of information rolled back and forth over electrons and fiber optic cable.
In the early afternoon I had an appointment with our landlord from the last election at the building itself. We needed to look at solutions for that one person who is still complaining about handicap access. The landlord has one suite on the main floor that will hold a couple of desks and there is a disconnected doorbell to our regular office that can be reactivated. With appropriate signage we can explain to smeone who is disabled how to summon help right from the front door. It will mean assigning one staff member on each shift exclusively to monitor and respond to that buzzer and I hope that will be enough. I can't change the world and I can't roll back the time for someone who has a degenerative disease, but maybe this will make things a bit easier for them.
Next up, we took a stroll around the space we had last election. The management company want to gut all the inner offices. That will actually work better for me in the long run. It will mean I can supervise staff more directly and almost everyone and most resources will be visible in a way so the unauthorized use of anything will be quite noticeable. I was telling the landlord the story of my encounter with his ghost. He actually seemed quite fascinated. He also had his own story too. He asked me about the cameras their staff had found when they were decommissioning the suite after we moved out in February. Had we been using them? Well no, not exactly, but I couldn't say whether the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ( the previous tenants) might have reactivated them after that first break-in. Their call and I would have been fine with it if that was so. To Catch a Thief.
All that business was dealt with in about an hour and I think we both went away happy. The only moment where I had some concern was when I raised the right of first refusal agreement at the end of our negotiations. It was obvious if I insisted on it, then I would likely lose the space. Backed off quickly feeling very thankful that my contact in Ottawa had ok'd it not being mandatory - sent her a thank you note as soon as I got home. Kiss of death in this city as one of the other Returning Officers had noted this morning when we talked. Yes well.
It was a fine sunny day around 21 C/70 F so I decided to walk at least part of my route. Headed off to the bus stop about four blocks away thinking I would get past the two freeways I would have to cross before disembarking. Being that it was early rush hour by then it is simply a matter of safety. When the bus arrived, there were two of us waiting to board. Lucky neither of us was very big or carrying extra baggage. I think all the university/college students in our community had packed on for their return trip. There were even three petite young things curled up in the luggage rack. The only good thing was that it was impossible to fall down when the bus lurched in traffic, because there was no place to go. I was groped at one point, but I couldn't tell which of several males surrounding me was the culprit. Can't do much about it, but it bugged me all the same. As a result I was very glad to get off at the train station. The walk from there to home usually takes about half an hour. That was what my lungs were telling me was their capacity to cope.
Started off toward north and realized that that sinkhole was a rather big deal after all. It had happened just north of the station and appeared to have swallowed up all the northbound lanes for a long distance as well as the sidewalk and also some poor homeowners lawns. That explained the potable water trucks I had seen on the way to my appointment alright. The morning announcement of the problem had implied that it wasn't all that serious and would be fixed quickly, but the actual site was another matter. No way to take my usual route; not with bulldozers and cats running amok along the length of that trench. I don't know what had made me do it, but as I left the house to go to the appointment I had grabbed the map that is my bible during elections. I didn't need it as far as I knew at that time, but obviously some part of my brain was aware of its need later in the day. It made it easy to decide how to proceed anyway. The community I had to detour through is made up mostly of rambling curvaceous, hilly streets that hug parks and school yards as they wind back and forth on themselves. That is actually a rather nice design for a community if one is driving or if one is only going a short distance on foot. However, I was looking for the straight route today. All of our communities are one mile square. I needed to travel through three. I don't mind walking - my exercise for the day - and I often really enjoy the slower, more leisurely pace. However, my lungs were grumbling a bit even with the vitamin C lozenges I was feeding them. The half hour was sort of a maximum exposure to the car emissions today. Made it home in about 45 minutes, so that wasn't too bad adding in the extra steps.
Got home just before my youngest and started up on the correspondence and emails as if I'd never left home. We were given a total of 10 hours for this assignment - that milestone blew past some time ago. I sent the local rep her data as she had requested, talked with a couple of realtors and the one Returning Officer too. After that my oldest son popped in to pick some things with his two children and one of their friends in tow. They were in a hurry - "going to the circus Nana and a sleep over too". First time for both I think. Talked with my Dad and number two son, as well as with my cousin in Australia and his niece. The one whose hubby is back on duty in Afghanistan. Third rotation I think. She is livid with our government's refusal to lower the flag when any of our troops are killed or to allow media coverage during the repatriation of their bodies. As she pointed out in a letter to the editor that she had written, that flag is lowered for dead politicians, so why not for dead peacekeepers. Her feeling is that they serve our country just as much, if not more, than the elected folk. I promised to share her letter with the rest of the family tomorrow. Yep - finally found a day when we could all get together for Easter Brunch. A month late but whatever. I need to go prepare my contributions to the buffet, so I guess I'll talk with you later dear diary. Good night.
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