09:47 - 18.02.07
catch 22
Sunrise now officially arrives about the time my train arrives in the downtown. 10 hours of daylight - yee haw. Lately it has come with intensely pink clouds, the result of the chinook winds that blew in last Wednesday. The city's Valentines Day gift maybe. I had a "seeing stars" migraine to herald it the day before, but it was worth it to be able to shed a layer of travel clothes.
The gift to commuters Valentines Day morning was the presence of the comedy team that I used to have the pleasure of travelling home with in the assignment I had three years ago. They haven't lost their edge. A lot of them originally came from Eastern Canada - where there was a huge storm system pounding all of that side of North America that morning. Those ladies were having a great time topping each others' stories about "when they were a child", when it was that cold and snowy all the winter months in Ontario. Stories of snow tunnels and forts - and what one could do when no one's parents were watching. The one woman talking about going up to the second floor bathroom - which was lockable and had a big window that opened. She stated that she would jump into the snow drifts below from that window then have to beg her brother to come dig her out. Well it was funny in the telling anyway. Kept the surrounding fellow travellers in stitches - all laughing along with memories of their own stirred up by the tall tales being offered. That story-telling segued into a lot of snickers about their family back home, as they recounted the phone calls from said relatives when we had our really cold weather just before Christmas where the family "back home" rubbed in the fact that they were going golfing for the day. They're not calling now, but these ladies were plotting the stories they would be calling into those relatives today - barbeques and beach volleyball - just as a bit of payback you know.
The day at my son's home was very long and a bit frustrating. My youngest, as you know, had left for his trip to Ohio. So far his luggage had been lost, then returned to him by a midnight delivery to his door. The credit card saga began on Sunday and still isn't resolved. My bank had helped by transferring funds between our credit cards but still no response from the original bank. On Wednesday his cell phone went dead. I spent part of Valentine's Day trying to find a way to add funds to his phone plan, assuming that he hadn't been able to put any more money on it in time - his paycheque not being due until Thursday. That was what I did during my grand-daughter's naptimes - cell/telephone tag. Tried calling the place where he was staying to let him know he had phone minutes again, only to find that number "temporarily unavailable for service" too. Called the work number of one of the people he was visiting to ask if they would pass on the information should my son and his friend arrive for a visit. Turned out that the cell phone towers were down, as well as other services, where he was staying due to the weather and that was what was causing most of the problems, but I had no information to that effect and was beginning to become a bit worried, you see.
In between naps, my grand-daughter and I had a good play day. My daughter-in-law called around the time she usually is walking in the door at the end of the day, stating that she was held up at work and would be at least another hour. I offered to start supper - something I have regularly offered since the beginning - and she agreed that I could, just this once. I think, because of a difference in cultures, she felt that my cooking might not agree with her. I think she might have based that on the cooking skills of my son who is great with lasagna and similar dishes, but whose repertoire of culinary creations is rather limited to hearty dishes most appealing to young men with heavy work duties, outside shifts in freezing weather and big appetites to go with that. Fattening is the word she would choose, I think. Anyway I pulled out chicken - seared and broiled it with a mustard/honey glaze - and made a pasta/vegetable dish using a chicken stock base. Not that bad for the figure. It was a good thing that I had no plans for Valentine's Day though, because it was 8:30 in the pm before she called to say she was done. My son zipped downtown to pick her up - busses being very unpredictable and slow. He then drove me home. I walked in the house at about 9:45 pm, I guess, which meant the banking and shopping I had hoped to get done were out of the question. Not a really big deal, but I had promised myself some chocolate treats and I was feeling a bit deprived. Boo hoo - saved me gaining some weight back and that is a gift I guess.
Thursday's morning commute had an entirely different tone. Sunrise was still a unique joy, but as I was coming down the stairs into the train station two police officers popped out of the secure stairway at the bottom of the steps. I don't wear my contact lenses for travelling on transit, but they were close enough to me that I could see them clearly. I think they were the two officers who reported to investigate that last security breach at the election office just over a year ago. They were staring at someone at the top of the stairs - although they turned and looked as I passed them too - then swiveled back to the person of interest right away. Given the murder of the one co-worker's son just recently, I wondered if they were expecting some retaliatory activities among the rival gang members during their commutes to school. It's difficult to think of school children as part of that lifestyle, let alone have to worry about that type of violence spilling onto the early morning train. Bleagh. Those officers boarded the car I was on and were checking for someone, it seemed to me, under the guise of checking for paid fares. They never did look at some people's bus passes, while others were given a great deal more attention, you see. I can't remember the last time there was a fare check on a rush hour train - they're usually too crowded for any movement. After the officers got off, a group of rowdy individuals got on who was intimidating to a lot of the other travellers. It was the smell of alcohol at 7 in the am that put people off I think. Being in a tight, crowded enclosed space with someone whose mood can be unpredictable because of the alcohol was the issue. I think it was only one person in the group, but it wasn't something I intended to explore further. Downtown there were police everywhere on the corners for some reason. I was happy to get on the connector bus for certain. No real evidence of any problems, just a stringing together of circumstancial evidence I think.
Arrived at my son's home. He was really tired from the long commute the evening before, so he handed my grand-daughter and her bottle to me and said he was going to sleep for a while longer. Good with me, since my grand-daughter was really happy and playful. A good diversion from the earlier part of the morning. Sat down in our regular rocking chair to feed her and found that the back of the chair collapsed when I leant back on it. Luckily the two of us aren't that heavy and that I hadn't fully pushed back or we would have been flying head over heels, since the rocker has a bit of a torque to it at the best of times. Got my grand-daughter, fed then tipped the chair over to see what had happened. One bolt on the bottom had come loose, but that didn't explain the back of the chair collapsing as it did. When my son checked not long after, another bolt and nut system that held the one side together came off completely. Bleagh - not even April Fool's day.
My grand-daughter and I had a good day all the same. We finished "The Goblet of Fire" and then started in on "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". That is the book whose movie will be out this July 13. It is supposed to be the book with a lot of clues embedded in it about book seven's plot. I'm still really curious about the bit in the "Goblet of Fire" where, even though Professor Snape is a skilled legilimens (mind reader, sort of) and it states early on that he "was oddly wary" of the imposter Mad Eye Moody (who is in fact one of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters in disguise intent on kidnapping Harry), that Snape doesn't blow that imposter's cover. Yet at the same time, it appears that Dumbledore also is aware something is amiss - by Snape advising him about the disguise? - but allows the plan to be played out. Perhaps they wanted to let the imposter feel secure enough in being undetected in their plot so that they would become careless and reveal enough details to be fully entrapped in that deception. The murder of Cedric seems not to be anticipated, but then most non-criminals don't think in terms of casually killing someone because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe that stood out for me because of the police presence so evident on my morning commute.
As my daughter-in-law was arriving at the end of the day, my cell phone rang. It was my youngest checking in for the first time since I'd paid some of his cell phone fees. I thought I would hear a "thank you". Instead he was quite agitated and asked why I had called his friend's workplace "threatening to call the state police to retrieve him from the clutches of his e-friend". Well because I hadn't done so. He insisted I recount the very brief conversation I had had with the co-worker I had talked with. He calmed down a bit after I had explained what I had said. He knows me well enough to know that if I really thought he - or any of my sons - was at risk, I wouldn't waste my time calling the perpetrators' work, for what purpose? The state authorities would have heard from me first and a lot sooner than halfway through his visit. I don't know what is going on in that workplace, but it fits in with this survey from Stats Canada about reported harassment in the Canadian workplace. Emphasis on the "reported" aspect. As you know from earlier posts, dear diary, a lot of assaults and threats are never reported. Remember that last assignment just before the last election? I was the one who was punished, not the ones who made the threats. Uh huh. Anyway it seems his friend is being subjected to a very nasty form of it where they work, for certain. Once that issue was dealt with, my son explained about the outages of the phone system in that state because of the winter storms.
That phone call is what really took the wind out of my sails - that and the Valentine's Day thing - when I posted to you early Friday morning. I just wasn't ready to wrestle the words to the page.
My daughter-in-law was still really tired as a result of the extra late work night the evening before so she and my son decided to order in for dinner. They tried a new-to-them authentic Mexican restaurant. It was freshly made food and delicious. The price was very nice too. Arrived home later than usual, but waited up for number one son to arrive around 1 in the am. He seems to drop in regularly on Thursdays now just to check in and to have a quiet night to work on paperwork and such. We chatted for a while, which is why I didn't write that and needing to process the events of the two days before saying something that needed reflection and time before being expressed.
Anyway it's nearly lunchtime and I want to feed my youngest. He arrived at around 3 in the am after another adventurous time travelling back from Ohio to home. I'll tell tales of Friday and Saturday once I have the foot loose Sagittarian settled.
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