15:35 - 09/18/2009
in the flow
Oh dear, it's been so long since I last posted to you dear diary. First it took a few days to recover from nursing Mr. Mel back to health. It's been a while since I did several day and night-long shifts in a row with various ailing babies. Out of practice I am. All my sons survived and so has Mel, but the stress that builds in one takes at least as long to disperse. Mr. Mel continues to display cat-titude, but is now getting competition from his peers. Oh yeah! Means he's out of danger for now if his sibs aren't de-furring to him anymore. At least they are all healthy though and that is all that matters. That theme of health care seems to be continuing, too, although in a less pressing manner, as I have been researching various topics for both family and friends who need to make decisions about their own wellness.
The quality assurance work also demands a lot of time now that I am working on contract for three companies. I am guessing that the economic recovery, jobless as it may be, is truly underway, given that available assignments have skyrocketed the past two weeks. Travelling all around the city to those assignments by transit eats up a lot of time, but also gives me a lot of opportunity to take photos for my newly acquired grand-daughter's enjoyment. Editing those and posting them on Facebook for her has also consumed hours of my time. Entertaining though - the reactions from other friends and family, that is, as they view the results of my efforts. Better than the discussion some of the younger friends were having on their "walls" about the Mayan prophecy anyhow.
The recent assignments have been quite different. Auditing in an industry that I am not that familiar with means a bit of a steep learning curve. Have to be able to know what questions to ask, after all. Spent one day at the airport and had to pass through three different customs areas. All of them had different security procedures, although I thought, upon arriving, that they should all be the same. First gate the attitude was "manana". I wasn't comforted by that, being that it wasn't that many days until September 11. Memories of it were surfacing in my mind as I walked through. Next up an international gate. "Take your shoes off, honey, while we wand you". What was scary with that area was that I was told by one official that once I was allowed in, I wouldn't be allowed back out into the main airport. If I had been a passenger I could have understood that, but I was on a worker's pass. Finally found one gentleman who, seeing the look of panic on my face kindly arranged for me to return to Canadian soil, so to speak. Final gate was a Canadian airline, surprisingly, with the most rigid security requirements. "Take off your shoes while we wand you" and "we are going to pat you down too, because the buttons on your shirt are setting off our sensors". They even reached up under my shirt to check the waistband on my jeans. I had allowed myself nearly three hours to do five short assignments, but that was just enough time given all the formalities that were necessary to move through those passenger areas. However, when travelling back on transit going past one of the runways, I saw two firetrucks rush up beside one airliner taxiing into the airport. Heard and saw several other emergency vehicles all heading that way too, as the bus left the airport area. Remembered 9/11 again and decided that a little inconvenience wasn't such a bad thing after all. Later A+ and I watched the movie "Diverted" about all the aircraft and passengers who were forced to land in Canada that day eight years ago and decided that my experience had actually been a good thing all told. It's all in how you look at something, eh?
I've spent a couple more days travelling back and forth from my Dad's home too. Two hours each way on transit. Thank goodness for ipods, eh? Set up a spreadsheet to capture all that inventorying he needed done. His original estimate of 6000 items? Well, yes, closer to 25,000, once everything is tallied. Right now about a fifth of the tubes are accounted for. I also set up an email account for him while I was visiting, so we could communicate with less travel for both of us. A little bit of tutoring necessary so he could get the hang of using e-mail. His computer is still on dial-up and only has a floppy disk drive, so I also called my one son who works in telecommunications to see what we could do to get my Dad more engaged with current communications. At least that way I can send the spreadsheet back to him for comments or revisions as needed rather than the long bus gig, you see. My Dad was actually more fascinated with the work I had done on-line with the family history. Over 520 souls accounted for in the lineage now. He really wanted some missing information on his Mom tracked down, so I also spent several hours at home on that site tracing the trail of information until finally I found what he wanted. Bonus. He might not want all the trappings of the computer age, but the family history is really important to him, you see.
A+ and I spent some time at his home fixing the damage from a windstorm that blew in all the sudden one evening. Blew down his back gate as well as some boards in the front of the fence. Blew a number of small branches off my sun dance tree too, but that might be a good thing. Better now than in the dead of winter when everything is brittle and much more breakable as a result. Each time we worked on a section of his fence, the neighbours nearest came out of their homes to check what was going on - neighbourhood watch at it's most basic level. It was encouraging to see that level of care for each other being exhibited. I came home from that task laden with crab apples from his tree. The past month while nursing our sickly feline I found a lot of solace in cooking and baking from scratch. It was what my Mom and Grandmother did for comfort when things were tough for them and they transferred that habit on to me. Not that there is much food in the house right now, but I still have the basic materials like rice and flour - enough to fill our tummies. Got busy when I got home and made apple sauce that day. The smells of the spices - cinnamon and nutmeg, cloves and allspice - wafting through the house made the endorphins flow freely. Yummm.
This past week has also required some on-line tutorials. Got a call from one placement agency asking if I was willing to take on some office temp work. Certainment! However, the skill sets required are ones I developed years ago, but also haven't used for several years. A little bit of stress there but still all to the good, right? A couple of days later another placement agency calling to ask if I would be interested in a permanent, but part-time job. I would love to work just part-time since having developed all these new hobbies and interests the past couple of years not to mention that giving me play time for grandbabies and friends. The barrier, of course, has always been that small issue of being able to pay my bills. I explained that and was given a wage rate that would be just enough to pay bills even at part-time. What's not to like. The work is all things I've done before only with maybe just a bit of up-dating to go with it. I can deal with that too since the updates would be in areas where I wanted to expand my knowledge anyway. The temp work is next week and so is the interview for that one job. Wish me luck, dear diary. Although I think the economy is on the upswing, the job boards I have been visiting a couple of times each day still have very few or no postings in this city. Not even those businesses that are anchored here. Not certain how to read those signs.
My youngest is really enjoying parts of his new work, although he says that the members of the public he has to deal with are really cranky. Makes him cranky too some days; sick as well because of the volume of people he has to deal with each day. He just got his uniform and he looks very handsome in it. Yes I know I'm his Mom but it's true even so. A+ is very busy with his business to right now, but has found time to spend with me as well. Walking is always a great part of our time together. He bought me some new shoes just for that purpose just because my mocassins have holes in them. I love my mocassins, but I guess he's right that for longer jouneys I need all my soles. We watched "National Treasure" the other day and it was quite entertaining. Because of my interest in things to do with herbal and spiritual forms of healing he also found a movie called "The Good Witch" that was also quite up-lifting. I had wondered where Chris Potter had gone to after "Kung Fu, the Legend Continues" ended. I always liked his acting. There has been a flurry of communication from people I haven't seen or heard from in quite a while, some of it surprising. Some calls from a couple of media outlets were puzzling, until it came out that one of the people named in a particular news story had the same last name as ours. Not listed in that family tree anywhere so not related directly, I guess. Must be that Mercury retrograde thang.
Anyway, I needed to go do some more practicing in those tutorials dear diary. I promise not to neglect your fine self for as long as this month. I am sorry for the lapse, but I hope you understand that it wasn't you - it was my own life taking on a life of it's own for a spell.
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