01:35 - 02.11.06
babel
After the alarm rang this morning I lay listening to Copperhead Road - it's one of my favorite songs. Good thing. The news was next and offered up the information that the major road near my son's home was closed due to a serious accident the evening before. The bus route I take was closed as a result. Thought about staying home very briefly but starting a new job is tough enough without having to constantly deal with fires at home. Decided that the wisest thing might be to get myself downtown then take a cab from there. They can dodge around such things a little easier. That turned out well in that it didn't cost that much, I wasn't left standing for hours on a corner wondering when the next bus might show up or trying to figure out how to get to my son's home from a detour that might take any number of hours to navigate. I hopped off at the one stop by the plaza then crossed over to the hotel across the street that always has cabs standing except in the most dire weather. Nice young guy on his third day on the job was waiting there. We negotiated an alternate route to miss the gridlock. The on-coming traffic on our way to my son's was backed up onto the freeway and well down it. We arrived about half an hour earlier than I would have done even on a regular morning where there were no disruptions in traffic. Bonus.My son grabbed his lunch and hurried off having a deadline to meet negotiated by someone else who doesn't have the knowledge of the work required. One of those anything goes to get thte sale behaviours. Unfortunately it is my son who has to deal with the fall out from the salesperson's deception. I've mentioned that as one of the issues I often had to deal with in my assignments. The client then seems to assume one is padding the hours so as to make more money when the fact is they are still getting considerably more value than they pay for.
That Mercury retrograde theme informed the rest of the morning with every task needing significant adjustment to achieve what should be straight forward ends. Next half hour was spent trying to rouse my youngest out of bed so he would be on time for work. First up he had forgotten that today was the beginning of a new month. Hadn't paid his cell phone bill so no connectivity there. The landline is upstairs. With his bedroom door shut downstairs he doesn't hear it ringing at the best of times. Not being a morning person it is difficult enough to rouse him with the phone he sleeps with. He needed bus tickets because he hadn't remembered to buy a new monthly bus pass either. Sigh. My granddaughter was still teething and cranky, but she tried hard to be playful. Around 10 am though things got a bit strange. Over the period of years my body has gone into shock on a number of occasions, a few of which were life threatening. That feeling overtook me. Even though my vital signs were all normal the mind began to dissociate from the body in the same way that it does when shock sets in. My granddaughter seemed to experience the same feeling as we both sat silent and still for a period of time. I was wondering if we were feeling the reaction of the young person who had been critically injured in that crash. The later news reports had stated that they had become hypothermic because it took the emergency crews over an hour to cut them out of the wreckage of their vehicle in -20 C or thereabouts weather. It seemed that thought snapped us both out of whatever it was. My granddaughter's pain seemed to double at that point so I gave her the minimum amount of pain killer that would take the edge off so she could sleep. Tucked her in and went to check my email. Next up fired up my son's computer so I could check for any urgent email. Oi. The first news report said a non-confidence vote in parliament might be introduced within hours. Great. What was I going to do if an election became inevitable. I had delierately not brought my cell phone with me because I didn't want to be available to headquarters while I was looking after my granddaughter. Decided that even if there was a vote that I wasn't about to worry about the outcomes until the next day. The governor general could decide to ask the current government to continue after all. That is her perogative. Just after lunch the news came that the dispute that had caused that game of "chicken" had been negotiated to a committee. No worries for the next few months on that one.
When my granddaughter and I woke up from our naps she was much more comfortable. I decided that maybe it was time to try out my yoga routine with her. Popped the tape in the VCR and we had a great time rolling around on the floor together. She loved the sound of the finger cymbals and similar percussion instruments. We only tried the asanas that both of us could do together which was a good thing. My ankles had swollen up the day before because of all the stair climbing and pacing I had done trying to keep her distracted from her sore little mouth. The felt fine by the time we started our workout but I didn't want to risk triggering a second reaction. Toward dinner time we went up to the kitchen for her last round of pablum. The news reader came on to note another major accident - between a transit bus and a regular cross country train had shut down traffic in the area of town just south and east of my son's home. My son arrived home not that long after six but my daughter in law didn't walk in the door until almost 7 pm. Meant I got home much later than I had hoped. On the way home, my son and I discussed the stock market crash that had been triggered by that other bill tabled in parliament today. It's effects were so startling that the brinksmanship around a non-confidence vote almost went unnoticed by the televsionn and radio reporters. Ecliptic one might say. We both agreed that it was a good move. I worked on several assignments in one of the earliest trust companies here. Not only did they not pay taxes, but the lack of the subsequent federal oversight of their capital assets through taxation meant no accountability with respect to other aspects of their managements of those properties. You see taxation is sometimes one of the few monitoring mechanisms there is in the industry. Maybe now some of what was hidden can be revealed. The other bill that almost caused the election will need to be called into action to address that lack of accountability from the first bill, you see. I think I'm starting to babble so good night dear diary.
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