16:45 - 09/14/2011
Here there be dragons
I'm not deceased dear diary. The month just after posting to you at the beginning of June was taken up with house-sitting for my father. I didn't want any information about my home being mostly unoccupied, except for my cats, posted anywhere. Most nights I would head home to ensure they were properly watered and fed, meaning four hours spent in transit each day as well. My Dad's computer was top of the line in the early 1990's - still has a floppy disk drive. While I was at his home I was indexing his schematics - just needed the laptop A+ loaned me, so no connectivity required. Good thing, since my Dad has no internet service other than dial-up. It just was too difficult to try to write anything, although there was a lot to talk about.
The biggest stress for me was that my son's wife in Ohio gave birth almost two months before her due date. I don't have a passport, nor did I have any funds for anything other than basic bills -roof over my head and water. My Dad had left his home larder very well stocked, encouraging me to help myself to whatever, fortunately, so I was able to eat too. The baby arrived on number two son's and my brother's shared birthday three quarters of the way through June, but it was touch and go for the next month for her. She is ok now, but her breathing is still something of an issue. She had to have a breathing monitor for a while once she was released from hospital, because she kept forgetting to breathe on her own.
My Dad was back beginning of July, but then my computer crashed. I was able to keep it running with the electronic version of bubble gum and string. Seven burned out capacitors appeared to be the problem. The hardware could be replaced - one of my sons offered to pick up that - but finding someone with the soldering skills to replace the parts was something else again. At the end of July, my oldest son set me up on his laptop, because I couldn't even get the old beast to boot up any more. Sigh. Good thing I come from a long line of technophiles. I was also doing some quality assurance work - filing the reports on A+'s computer before my son stepped in.
A+ and I were also at street festivals or community parks every weekend taking photos of summer life in this winter city. Again, I was mostly editing at A+s home as a result. The oddest thing was the loss of a whole file of photos from the second weekend of July. Turkish festival, which featured a Sufi Dervish. Oddest was that I had uploaded the photos of the events just before and after the Turkish event at the same time, but only the Turkish festival photos went missing, even though the labelled folder I had set up was still there. Now it just contains a few photos from the previous event, even though the folder from the previous event still contains all the original photos too. The Sufi did say his spiritual mentor was present, so maybe it deemed some of those photos not acceptable for presentation. Makes as much sense as any other explanation I can come up with.
A+ and I went to see the second part of The Deathly Hallows with a couple that he has been good friends with since childhood. I still am uncomfortable with the entire last book in the Harry Potter series and we discussed that later after the viewing. I have gone back in your electrons, dear diary, and extracted my comments and analysis so that I could explain my discomfort with the the seventh book, but there are more than 200 pages of text - no pictures - written in your backpages. When I get all the egregious material edited out, I'll post my thoughts along with that text.
There was almost no work for the womens' shelter throughout the summer, but things are picking up a bit. A big gala Christmas concert needs sponsors, so I have been asked to find them. Maybe another silent auction and requests for funding for a residence for homeless pregnant teens, as well as funds for program operation and team building of the staff. The residents of the shelter are very high needs and their chaotic behaviour makes the work of the specialists very difficult. The specialists sometimes need care themselves after interacting with the residents.
Guess I'll risk the jinx factor to mention that I had a job interview last week. The agency took all my financial data, so there is a strong possibility of placement, but then again I've thought that before. I sprained the muscles in my back a couple of weeks ago dear diary and my sit time has come to an end. I will try to be more communicative now after Mr Pluto grinds off my north node - the Dragon's Head for those of an astrological persuasion. Maybe freeing the Dragon will free me too.
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