23:34 - 14.05.06
Moms and such
For Mothers Day I did my taxes and filled out the census form. Remember I mentioned that some of my tax slips had gone missing from an envelope in my documents drawer? Well the replacements were sent out by my one employer and arrived last week. I needed to finish the election work first because of that deadline, but the taxes are important too. I get a refund you see, so it is a bit more money to live on while I try to find more steady work. The census form was the "short" one, so it ws just easier to get the government paperwork all polished off at once. One of my sons got the long one - 20% of households are required to fill that one out - and it is very invasive. Besides does the government really need to know how much toilet paper we purchased in one year or how many pairs of underwear were bought for each person in the house - along with size?! Unless they are volunteering to make such purchases on our behalf for the rest of our lives, I think not! It also asks questions where none of the responses fit, but one isn't allowed to provde the correct information either. So much for the statistical analysis being accurate. You can't provide meaningful studies when you ignore whole segments of society now can you? With the census form there is all this reassurance about privacy, but, as you know dear diary, I work for the federal government intermittently and I know people who work in all our other levels of government. They aren't supposed to share information, but the truth is that a segment of that group do it all the time. Your very private data is not secure, because there are human beings involved. Some really don't care about your privacy and some actively exploit their access. I've discussed that one at length. Anyway both are done and it's time to move on to other things - right?
I heard from all of my guys either today or within the last couple of days anyway. Three of them were working today - two in the food services industries. They were pretty busy with other people's mothers. Fair enough. One was home sick; fighting off the flu that is spreading like wildfire right now. He said he would get up and then find he had to go back to bed within an hour. Given that is how I felt for nearly two months I can empathize. Told him about the med that we found that helped me so much. He said he'd try it if he couldn't fight the virus off by tomorrow. Good enough.
My youngest took me out to the Pho House later this evening. He hadn't been feeling well during the day and nor had I. The newspapers and media keep talking about how bad an allergy season this has been. They have no idea. I think my sinuses have been swollen shut for weeks now and even my youngest was really struggling today. It took quite a lot of antihistamine before we could get much air in our lungs today. Causes headaches too. When we arrived at the restaurant it was just a few minutes before closing. We had thought that they were open an hour later, but forgot that it was Sunday hours. Realized our mistake just after we walked in and turned to leave. The family that runs the business hurried forward and asked us to stay. They were very gracious about it and that was very kind. A young couple arrived just after we did and then three young men wandered in about ten minutes later. My son and I tried to hurry up a bit so the staff wouldn't have to stay too long, but it was nice to feel that they valued our regular business that much that they would stay for us. A half hour later we were heading off for the grocery store. Another half hour and we were back home agin much to the pleasure of our cats.
As I was sitting and resting after our excursion I read the article in our weekend magazine about the death of Billy Cowsill. Yeah that one. He had made Calgary home sometime in the 80's and was a regular on the western circuit, fronting a number of bands including Blue Northern. He died last week after years of fighting ill health and addictions as well. His wake is at the United Church downtown on Thursday. Hmmmmmmmm. I think though that it's time to crawl into bed now. Good night dear diary. Hopefully that pollution too shall pass soon.
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