00:57 - 31.08.06
Seeing is Believing
Sometimes what tickles your funnybone reveals a lot about one's mental state and character. I'm not certain what those cartoons say about me, but maybe someone else can figure it out and get back to me. Ok, dear diary?
Yesterday was supposed to be a very dangerous day, according to that one astrology daily horoscope. What happened? There were problems, but I think the incidents of the two days previous may have defused the power of the square aspect somewhat. First my sister's sister-in-law called to say that her airline tickets still hadn't arrived. It has been three weeks since I ordered them using my loyalty points. I know they were processed, because my total points dropped by exactly the correct amount. Called the agency that looks after such things. After about ten menus to choose from, I actually got to speak with a human. Very friendly to begin with, but increasingly rude as the conversation continued. What was irritating was that the company had sent out those tickets to another province and a locale that doesn't exist in Canada. Did the person on the other end apologize for that error and the inconvenience it has caused. No. That is actually when the rudeness began, even though he did acknowledge that the agent who had processed the original order had made several very strange clerical errors. Now it is true that my sister's sister-in-law has some "unusual" details about her address, but not ones that are so hard to figure out. Besides that, Canada Post is supposed to sort mail by postal code and that piece of information was correct. So where are those missing tickets? "No matter" was the agent's response when I queried him on that. Next up. Mid-afternoon a backhoe pierced the gas line about half a mile from my home. A potentially explosive situation for certain. Homes were evacuated, but we lived just outside the crater zone so we weren't even informed there was a problem. We just happened to catch that little tidbit when we watched the evening news.
Finally was the letter from Elections Canada to all Returning Officers. It was the explanation for why we weren't being paid in full for the hours we worked, even when they weren't over the allotted limits. Now bear in mind that we are halfway through this current assignment, while the letter dealt with the March changes or variations to previous assignment payments. That assignment we were directed to hire several other people to do some of the work with us. Maximum hours were assigned for each position. Same for this current assignment. The memo today explained - although I had already figured it out - that if we hired any of those other people, their wages were deducted from our wages for the work that we did on the assignment. The closing line read something to the effect that: if after the other workers had been paid out of the Returning Officers' invoiced hours for their own work on the assignment, then if there was any money left then that would be the payment to the Returning Officer for their work. Uh huh. How many other businesses are you aware of, dear diary, where your wage is used by one's employer to pay those who are supervised by you or support your work in some way. Can you imagine the outrage if workers were only paid what was left over from that?
Today, one of the women I volunteered with for many years in this part of the city and I agreed that we would visit the museum together. She's the one who had the holiday to Egypt and Greece in the spring. I left the house at 9:30 in the am and did my banking before hopping on the bus. It was just pulling up to the stop as I emerged from that first little errand. My bank balance was not what I expected, but to my benefit not otherwise. Decided that I would worry about that when I returned home. Arrived at the train station just before my friend and just people watched. She had called to touch base this morning and had made certain to tell me what to wear. "Casual only". Fine, whatever, but where that comment was generated from I don't know. I wasn't about to wear heels, given I knew we were going to be walking most of the day. One the way downtown she showed me the one album of photos she had from her trip. She said she would show me the rest later. Good enough. Arrived at the station across from Olympic Plaza and walked through one of the prettier parts of the pedestrian mall. It contains our city's version of a live theatre district, although it is quite humble compared to many other cities. However, most of those theatres are there because of very generous donations by some of the city's wealthier families. They saw it as their duty to return something to the communities where they made their wealth. It is very generous of them and deeply appreciated. We scoped out a little Greek restaurant in the main theatre complex as a good option for lunch, then headed across the street to the Glenbow Museum.
The reason for our visit was a new exhibit on loan from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World - Egypt, Greece and Rome. See that theme in-forming my reality again, dear diary? We wandered through about one third of the exhibit, then nipped out for lunch before the lunchtime office crowds converged outside. The food was wonderful and very reasonably priced. All the theatre types busy going about their work made it great for people watching too. Back again within about 45 minutes to the exhibit, as we realized how large it actually was. To make certain we saw all of it meant we had to be disciplined about our time, you see. We saw about three quarters of the Egyptian artefacts when it was time for the first of two tours we wanted to take. The docent was very knowledgable about all of the material she had to cover, interacted well with the group of about 25 of all ages, backgrounds and interests and managed a thorough overview of the high points of the collection all within half an hour. She kept us moving quite quickly to say the least. We learned in the second tour that she is an actor/director and has had a play produced in one of our theatres too. Way cool. Her last gig was at the Fringe Festival and I believe it was one of the more popular acts. When she was done we spent the time between the two tours going back to examine the Greek and Roman art more closely, as well as finish up with looking at the last bit of the Egyptian display - the tomb room. Finished up just in time to take a bio break then head out to the pedestrian mall for the walking tour of our city's example's of classical architecture. Truth be told, I have been on the long program of that tour several times as a parent chaperone on my sons' field trips to study the history of our city's development. The neat thing is that no matter how many times I've taken it, there are always some new tidbits of information that make the time spent worthwhile. Our docent was again very knowledgable about art and architectural techniques. This was the first adult-centered presentation I had heard, so it added another dimension of knowledge to that which I'd already acquired. The temperature had cooled down considerably. It began to rain just as we finished examining the last two buildings. We ran for the train platform half a block away, while our guide headed back into the museum complex. A very satisfying way to spend an afternoon. All told we had done about five hours worth of walking too. That is probably one of the best ways to get a little exercise without too much extra stress.
All that fresh air - hah - and exercise has made me sleepy though dear diary, so I think I'll leave the clues that arose in the Egyptian exhibit tour to the horcrux part of the story in the Harry Potter series until tomorrow. Good night dear diary.
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