So I am now working full time. 8 to 4 Monday to Friday. First time since 1987 that I've done this. And I'm seriously wondering how I'm going to manage it. I feel tired all the time, behind the 8 ball all the time, heck I'm even paying someone else to walk my dog.

fuck.

A.

We did it!

Greg and I spent the weekend painting our front room. Red (a deep dark Etruscan, muddy earthy red, ummmm gorgeous) and charcoal (silvery grey, dark but not). It is a luscious colour combination and definitely not for the faint of heart. But we love it!!!

Next up ... baseboards! And then a party in the new year to show off our home.

New Job less stress

Coming back to life as a regular working joe is making me re-discover something of who I was many years ago. I remember my boyfriend in University used to tease me because I was (as he said) a 'jack-in-the-box'. What he was referring to was that as soon as the alarm went I bounced up and off I went, usually not to stop for the next 12 hours or so ...

I have often remembered that comment with bemusement. Where did that jack-in-the-box go? For years I have struggled with mornings, not wanting to get up, having trouble waking up, etc. And yet, now that I have this new job, I find when my alarm goes off ... I get up! I guess part of it is that I know I have NO CHOICE but get up and go if I want to get all I must do, done before leaving for work. Having a dog makes all that even more critical, since Amos simply won't tolerate not being walked before my leaving, nor could I live with the guilt (or messes) that that would inspire. 

During my morning shower (another new/old habit), I started rolling over in my mind the luxury of knowing all the things I know about today. I know where I am going! I know where I need to park, how long it takes me to walk from my car to where I will work. I know who will be there, and (roughly) what will be expected of me. I know that people will be happy to see me, and that I have a real contribution to make to the environment around me. I know that my day won't consist of meeting after meeting, but that instead I will have time to do my own work, think my own thoughts and even (gasp) NOT think sometimes. What else do I know? No one will yell at me if I am late. People will learn that I am generally on time and dependable. I can be trusted. I won't have to help people communicate, but instead can use my well-honed skills in this area to enhance the environment around me.

Life is, in the main, good. Ahhh.


Ebbe

Monday afternoon

Beginning the second week of my new job at Carleton. It is going well, although I find the day dragging today. Not enough to do!

I have a migraine today - right side - Someone told me once that as I approached/went through menopause they would go away but I haven't seen any hint that that might be the case in my situation. I HATE them.

I want to be under the sea in an octapuses garden in the shade ... ahhh yes. Or actually, maybe I'd rather be curled up on the sofa with my dog watching dumb taped tv.

I am a girl with simple tastes.

E.

Dumb words

The English language is full of dumb words. I’m sure people have put time and thought into this already but I am going to do it again from my perspective. What makes a word dumb? Well there are the obvious ones to start with, words like Shoppe and Ye Olde. Words that try (too hard) to evoke a sentiment, that might have even worked when it was first used, but has since been so grimly overused as to slide into the “oh my GOD” category, as my almost-teen might say. Say that brings up another word, “tween”, a word that makes my teeth hurt when I hear it. In fact, when I start to think about it, many of the so-called ‘dumb words’ have come into being because of the needs of mass media/advertising to have a quick and easy way to describe or evoke something.

I remember when I was a girl in Toronto one of my classmates' father came up with an invention, it was something in which to put ones drink while on the boat, that would hang off a table and keep the drink secure. He called his invention - ever so wittily - a hangover. Ha, one might say. I often wondered what happened to those much-vaunted 'hangovers'? Were they a success? It was such a north Toronto sort of thing.

I digress. But as someone who subscribes to the Visual Thesaurus, and goes and puts words into their word map just for fun; who gets the OED out to find a word and finds 20 other ones along the way I think this dumbing down of the English Language must STOP. We have so many wonderful words and wonderful ways of saying things. We should all aspire to being sprachgefühl people, or those who enjoy the way language feels. That way Dunkin Donuts would be out of business, or Krispy Kreme's would be illegal!

Join me in my quest for wonderful inventive creative inspiring language, that makes my day light up.

one minute musing

unemployed perk - sleeping on the couch with the dog in the middle of the day

unemployed con - feeling guilty

sigh

down time

Sunday afternoon. I took the boys and the dog, we went to a local park where Amos can run off leash and the boys could skate on what was essentially a very large puddle. It must have frozen very fast because the bubbles were frozen into the ice which was clear and solid. Beautiful really.

Amos found a big stick to chew on, and we had fun throwing it onto the ice so he'd have to run across the ice to get it. He doesn't run on ice very well!! : )

Now we are all home, lunch has been had and a "peaceful" time is being had by all (but me) in front of the big screen tv and a game of Halo. Such is a boys life!

"Sleeping Dragons All Around"

I love this book by Sheree Fitch. I loved it so much my 3 year old would groan when I brought it out. It resonates with the child in me that is so aware of so much that is scary all around her, and yet when brought out into the light of day (or reason) turned out to be like so many bogey men, much smaller, uglier and less scary then they were purported to be.  

Sometimes I still go "fast, past" whatever it is that is spooking me, but mostly I can look and see that it is just Fagan the dragon, who smells, or Glump, who snores or the old wrinkly one whose name escapes me, but who sings in his sleep.

: ) Life is a funny thing ...

Life marches on ...

Just put in an application for a position with Starbucks. Can't go back, must go forward.

E.

Lost in the 'burbs!

It was the spring of 1991. I had spent two years in Washington DC as a grad student immersed in the Deaf world of Gallaudet University. I was looking forward to finishing my studies and starting work as a sign language interpreter. The last hurdle was to find myself a 3-month internship.  After a number of false starts I managed to line up an possibilty with an agency that worked in Philadelphia. They were keen to have me come work for them, all they wanted was a chance to meet me and cement the deal. So on a sunny Friday I took the train from D.C. to Philly. Having never been there before, I decided to splurge and stay at (where else) but the famous Hershey Hotel!

Saturday morning dawned, a beautiful sunny day. This was before the days of Google map, and I  only had the address to the agency's office – somewhere out in the 'burbs of Philly. So down to the concierge I went. After a somewhat protracted discussion with him I set off for the subway, to take a train and then a bus; eventually I was dumped out on a sidewalk to make my way to the office. It was lunchtime.

After the interview was over, I set off again to catch the bus-train-subway back to downtown Philly.  I got to the road and hit my first major snag. I couldn’t remember what side of the street I had disembarked onto, and hence, didn't know which side I should wait on to catch the bus. Did I mention I am directionally impaired? I made my best guess, however, and waited. Eventually a bus came along and on it I got.

The bus wandered all over hells half acre before I decided it maybe wasn’t going the way I needed it to go. I got up and asked the driver (not, as it happened, for the first time during this trip) and he confirmed my suspicions, I was not going the right way. So next stop, out I got and crossed the street to wait. Time passed.  Eventually I got on another bus. By this time I was getting fairly stressed. I had no idea where I was, no idea whether I was even on the original bus route I had taken to get out and no idea how to get back to the hotel. I sat down on a seat near the front. The bus was full of commuters, and no one looked particularly friendly. Eventually I got up my nerve, and turned to the gentleman sitting next to me. “Excuse me, I was wondering if you know how to get back downtown?” However, what was a bad trip quickly became worse. It seemed the young man I had addressed was developmentally delayed, and my talking to him threw him into a complete tizzy. As I stammered out my apologies, the man was moved into another seat by the person with him and I was left with people eyeing me out of the corners of their eyes.  What was worse, I still didn't know how I was going to get home! 

The bus continued to jolt along, people came and went and still no hint of a highrise or even a city anywhere. Miles upon miles of nothing but houses. I had to do something. So I got up and squeezed my way to the front. Surely the bus driver was used to people asking him questions?! “Excuse me, sir but can you tell me how to get back to downtown Philadelphia?” I asked. The answer though was a stunner: “muhmmh mu n L” was what it sounded like. “Excuse me?” I repeated, and he did, exactly as he had the first time. I thought about asking again and decided it was hopeless. I’d just go sit down and see where I ended up. On and on we went. The houses changed to shop fronts and slightly larger streets, but still no indication that we were anywhere NEAR the city. Suddenly the bus turned into a roundabout, and everyone around me was making preparatory to getting off motions. This was the end of the ride. I sat there feeling more and more panicked, when one of the people getting off – a well dressed business man - turned to me and said two words “follow me”. So I did. Off the bus, across a median through some doors and towards a turnstile. It would seem we were going down into a subway system. The man asked if I had what I needed for the fare, I said yes, so we continued on and down the stairs. The last thing he said to me as he disappeared down the platform was “you want to get onto that train”. I looked to my left, and indeed sitting at the station with all its doors open, and NO ONE on it was - a train. So. I popped myself on, and sat down expectantly, waiting for the doors to close. But no. It was not to be that easy. The train sat, and I sat, and the train sat … and … well the only thing that kept me there was the full and certain knowledge that I didn’t have anywhere else to go or anyone else to ask. After what seemed like hours but probably wasn’t, people started to trickle in. Finally I wasn’t the only person sitting on the train!  Even later, the doors chimed a warning, closed, and we were off!!!

My train was moving, I was presumably headed in the right direction and maybe at some point I was going to get home? I started watching the stops and reading the subway map and eventually figured out where I was and that, by deduction, I knew where I needed to be! For the first time in hours my stomach unknotted itself somewhat and I relaxed. Commuters came and went and then, finally, it was my station. I got off, only to be, yet again, completely disoriented. I still didn’t recognize anything! And yet I knew that I was at the right station – 15th Street Station. And firmly fixed in my head was the intersection I needed to get to – JFK and Broad. People washed around me as I stood, an agony of indecision. There were any number of exits I could take, but which one would take me the right way?  Ah ha! I spotted a policeman, and to a damsel in distress such as I, he looked a mighty fine sight. “Excuse me, sir but can you tell me how to get to the corner of JFK and Broad?” I asked in my best Canadian girl accent. He gave me an odd, longish look and then (without saying a word) simply turned and, as he looked, I looked up and there, written on the wall in letters at least six feet high were the words “JFK and Broad Street, exit to right” with (even) an arrow! Heh.

So off I went, and after wandering through a dingy tunnel I emerged blinking, feeling mole-like, into the dim and rapidly dimmer light of the early evening. So there I was. But where was there? I was on a sidewalk of two huge streets with cars and people streaming past in every direction. And which direction was I to go? My hotel was not visible and I didn’t have a clue (again) which way to go. So off I wandered, down a street that was first a boulevard then an avenue and gradually became just a street. It was getting really dark now, and cold and to top it all off it had started to rain. Finally I saw a store that was lit up – and again I plunged in to get directions. This time though, the patrons and owner of the pharmacy were thoroughly helpful, told me (at length) how I was going the wrong way, got me turned around and finally on the right road to the hotel.

I got home well after 8, starving, drenched and tired to the bone. The final straw to the day was the discovery that there was no hot water and that warm bath I was promising myself just wasn't going to happen. 

Later on, the agency that hired me for my internship told me that the mere fact that I got there on just their address alone was enough to qualify me for the job! However, I never did tell them about the struggles I had had getting back!

What did I do this weekend?

My dog - a boxer - and I endured the rain together. He with his stub of a tail tucked down between his hip bones and me, shoulders hunched, chin down. We echo each-others cold damp November misery.

Life on the farm ...

All I had ever known was the big city until the year I turned 13. That was the year our family moved from downtown Toronto to a farm in NB with only cold running water in the kitchen. Well the water could be warm – or even hot – but only if the wood stove had been burning for a while, long enough to heat up the water.

That first winter on the farm was an eye opening experience in many ways. We bought wood but it was green, and we didn’t get it early enough to let it dry even if we had known how to split and stack it. Cutting the logs involved using a two man crosscut saw, no easy feat with frozen wet logs. The farm house had been what they call a century farm before we moved in – that meant the family who had owned it had lived in it and worked it for 100 years or more. That also meant the walls of the farmhouse had no insulation and we didn’t yet know about the practice of banking the walls on the outside with bales of hay to keep the drafts down. I used to go to bed with the clothes I’d wear the next day in bed with me so they’d be warm to put on in the morning.

There was a lot we didn’t know. But I remember one particularly cold and snowy night in the winter when I learned a critical and highly personal lesson. I had to go to the washroom. Now for most city folk that is simply part of life, but on our farm, at that time of year, it was something to consider … mull over, and not to hurry! I didn’t want to have to get all bundled up and trudge across the yard to the outhouse! And so of course, I put it off. And off … and well, finally I couldn’t any longer. I already had a nice big sweater on, so all that remained was the outdoor layers. On came the scarf, toque, then the big heavy coat and finally my boots. I was ready.

I got to the outhouse, my face stinging from the cold, and as I stamped my feet in that cold little room I came to a dreadful realization. My stomach clenched, and the hair stood up on my arms. I realized that underneath everything, including that big fuzzy sweater I was wearing I had on overalls. Yup, overalls with straps over the arms and all.

It was a bitter lesson and one I never forgot through the intervening 30 odd years of my life. Life on the farm got better after that first year, but one thing didn’t change - I never ever went to the outhouse without checking what I was wearing first!

Abigail