03:25 - 19.02.08
Bolts from the Blue
My youngest just arrived home dear diary, so I'm a bit late getting to you tonight. I'm sorry. You see his crisis on Saturday was that he missed his scheduled flight. He had gone to Ohio to visit with his friend, being that it was her birthday and Valentine's Day all occurring last week. I had used my loyalty points to book the return trip. By the time he was able to contact me on Saturday, there was only 15 minutes left to get hold of the agency to try and reschedule - one has to do that the day of the original flight or one loses the return trip. That would have been disasterous on a number of fronts. For one thing, being a long weekend in the province where the agency is located, there were severely restricted hours of operation. I might not have even been able to get through until today, otherwise.
The agent that took my call seemed determined to obstruct my ability ro reschedule and also seemed to enjoy taunting me about it as well with her "power over". I finally terminated that call when it was obvious I was getting nowhere, called one of my other sons to ask if I could use his credit card to pay the extra fees attached and then called the loyalty agency back, with less than ten minutes left to closing time and ticking down. The next agent was considerably more pleasant. She said there were no seats left on the Sunday flights, so he would have to wait until Monday. I was good with that, because it meant my son would still be back on time for his first scheduled day back at work - a few hours from now. The arrival time was very late, but at least he'll get a few more hours sleep with "gaining" two extra hours by flying back west. Made him supper and ran a load of laundry so he would have clean clothes to go to work. Caught up on some of the news that has happened in the interim, then he crawled into bed with all five cats chivvying to cuddle up the closest with him. When I had told Ms Kitty that he was on his way home on the Saturday, she actually got angry and swiped me with her paw, just like someone might slap your hand if they caught you telling lies. Her eyes went yellow, which is a danger sign where her temper is concerned. Guess she already sensed that wasn't going to happen, even though it was before I got the call telling me about the Mr Mercury retrograde event. She apparently thought I was taunting her, I guess.
I don't think I slept very much at all in between then and now worrying, uselessly, about what other things might go wrong. The airline's bulletin board was announcing anticipated delays and cancellations on those flights, because of the severe weather expected in the city where he had to switch planes. There had already been one flight sliding off the runway in a nearby city yesterday, because of those conditions you see. Which was the worst case scenario? Cancellation or crash. Mercury went back to direct motion today about half an hour after his first departure time, so I took that as a positive sign.
This morning I had planned to just continue on with the family tree work, being that it was a holiday in this province too. I called my one brother-in-law guessing that he would be home as a result. He was and was quite happy to tell me his family's history as I entered it on-line. Some very interesting stories and twists to tales that made the work go very quickly. My call waiting beeped as he was letting me know he had 78 more names to go. I was wondering if it was my youngest calling with problems, so I took the call while my brother-in-law waited. Turned out to be my Dad. He and his neighbour were travelling over to my side of town to pick up a supply of the Chinese herbs I had introduced first to my Dad and then to her a few years back. Did I want to join them? His neighbour has introduced some of her work colleagues to the herbals as well, so the order was quite large by the time it was all added up together and therefore made the trip worthwhile, you see. Dad had offered to take me out both to have lunch, as well as to buy groceries after I explained that I didn't have the werewithal to do either myself. Don't like asking for or accepting help, but my youngest needs to be able to eat if he is going to go to work every day - right?
There is a really great dim sum restaurant in the mall where the herbalist's shop is located, but when we went to that section of the mall the line up - being it was the Family Day holiday - snaked through most of the concourse. Lots of families - large families - deciding to share a meal as their form of celebration. It looked as though we might be there for several hours if we waited, so it was decided to head off to the dim sum restaurant several communities south of there where my Dad's neighbour's sister works, instead. Fair enough. When I was volunteering, our parents council would hold our year-end meeting there because the food was so good, while the prices were very economical. In addition, the staff seemed to enjoy catering to large groups of women freed, for a few hours, from both children and spouses. We could get a bit giddy, even with no alcohol as part of our rules of engagement. The staff has changed but the service, the food and the prices were as good as ever, if not better. We sat and visited while we ate, with my Dad's neighbour's sister joining us on her break. About three hours passed very pleasantly as a result. Her sister was a very nice woman and that was a bonus to the day as well. A new friend.
Headed off to the grocery store in my community afterward to do our shopping. My Dad and his neighbour know that my store tends to stock foods from all over the world, because of the multicultural mix in my community. They wanted to try some of those goods out themselves. It's one of the real bonuses of living in the area. I can get really exotic food, that is almost impossible to find in any other part of the city, and that is reasonably priced too. When we finally finished up our business there, my Dad's neighbour said she really needed a cup of coffee before driving back crosstown in rush hour traffic.
We headed off to the local Tim Hortons for their excellent brew. Chatted about the financial issues that I am having. They both feel that taking the time to recuperate instead of rushing off to get a job after that infection last summer was the best choice I could have made for myself. They also enjoyed my stories about the adventures in babysitting I had, while looking after my granddaughter. That was fine, but I can't pay my bills with air. I think they finally realized today how well and truly broke I am. That degree of stress is not helping my health at all. As we talked, a large group of city police came in for their coffee break. A new program was instituted last week, whereby police officers now are on the public transit train cars as they head for downtown. I'm guessing they were all just having their team meeting there, because the new station that just opened in my community is about a block away. That triggered questions from my Dad and his neighbour about the routes and the amount of time it takes me to get to places like my son's home when I was looking after my granddaughter, the malls that I do the quality assurance work and also to their community. I pulled my city map out of my purse and there was another half hour of discussion about different routes and the problems or bonuses that each entails.
They dropped me off home, just as a loud crunch came from that one intersection where there always seem to be accidents. Police sirens and the sound of the fire trucks giving warning that they might want to take another route home, since accidents at that one set of lights create a bottleneck, so that no vehicle can get in or out of the community for an extended length of time, depending on the severity of the accident. That intersection is one of the ones our community association protested vigorously when it was first proposed. As the volunteer vice president responsible for traffic issues, I was the one who had to go head to head with the developers of the mall. They were more interested in forcing traffic through their commercial complex than they were about the safety of those of us walking, or driving, through that area. It was an election year and some very big donations to a particular candidate won out over our welfare. Grumble. "I told you so" isn't appropriate when residents are being injured and their vehicles damaged almost daily. And I think I had better not continue to express my thoughts on the issue, or I'm going to end up in a major rant again.
Once I had my groceries out of the car, they headed off and the cats greeted me at the door as though I had been gone for weeks. Hauled everything upstairs, then headed off for the drugstore to pick up my meds - I had held enough money back so I could cover both groceries and my health needs too, you see. The walk there was quite dangerous, because of the melting of the snow that had occurred that day. Warm chinook winds meant it was a balmy day. However, when the sun went down and the ambient air temperature plunged below freezing point, that lovely flowing runoff from the snow melt turned into sheer ice on the sidewalks and roadways. Practiced as I am in balancing along on such surfaces, I still took it very slow since it was hard to tell where the black ice was under those orangy sodium street lights of ours. That trip took another hour of time as a result, but still it means that from beginning the day wondering how I was going to meet any of my household's basic needs to where I found all the most pressing ones were covered, I gained a real sense of safety and comfort. Something that has been all too rare the past three months. Still doesn't pay my bills, but one day at a time and one step at a time. Time for bed now though. Good night dear diary.
�
�
