Friday, July 5, 8:00 a.m.
Yesterday, Thursday, my spirits took a bit of a dive. I had to call my workplace in the afternoon, to let them know I had still not received my wages for the work I did on May 3, 2013. Some kind of monumental screwup there, which affected a few of the on-call workers, and benefited the part time workers who received the wages in error. I called the office and my coworker, who is usually very pleasant and friendly, was rude. I’ve no idea why, could have been anything, but it was impossible to tell what was behind the curt “OK, goodbye” and quick hang-up, which occurred while I was speaking. She cut me off and hung up. I was upset by this, and quite unexpectedly, it threw a pall over the rest of the afternoon. I tried to recover by keeping busy, but there it was, every time I took a break, the incident returned to mind. I will let this go, and I will always be aware that my coworker can unexpectedly become unpleasant.
It made me think about how important it is to be pleasant to people, all people, unless there is a good reason to be abrupt or unpleasant.
Attila and I chatted for quite a while last night, which helped me regain my perspective and my good spirits. He continues to work 12 and 13 hour days. His skin is improving right now, but any exposure to sunlight will result in fresh injury, as the hogweed will continue to affect his skin continually, until he can spend about two weeks out of the UV light. That cannot happen, so the hogweed burn could be a recurring problem for many years to come. Right now though, it has healed somewhat. Now, if we get a few weeks of cloudy weather, he may be able to get on top of this skin issue! Or perhaps in the winter, when he can cover his hands with gloves all day, he will experience some relief.
Today I am working on my web sites. While I was renovating, my inbox was collecting messages requesting information, and requiring quite a bit of work to update one of my websites. I worked on this while sipping my morning coffee, by the open kitchen window, overlooking the tree tops, listening to the Rock Doves coo, and the Robins call, and watching the Bluejays explore the eves trough on the house next door, where a collection of seeds have fallen from the trees. It was raining when I began, and now, just as I am finishing the task, there is blue sky to be seen in the eastern sky. It is still cool though, so the window remains open.
7 p.m.
After working on the site for a few hours, I indulged in a breakfast of raisin bran with fresh strawberries, the strawberries I picked last week. I checked the schedule for the local dump, oh dear! The hours of operation are today, for a few hour sin the afternoon, and tomorrow for a few hours in the morning. Those were my choices if I wanted to take the debris from the gutted bathroom to the dump during this visit to the little house in the city. I chose today.
I dressed in a long sleeved shirt, to protect the skin on my arms from further rips and tears, and running shoes. It was rather warm outside for such attire, but I needed to protect my arms and feet from injury, so it was necessary.
Next, I backed the car into the driveway, to significantly lessen the distance I would have to carry the debris. That done, I began to carry the tile board and dry wall, piece by piece, from the back porch, around the side of the garage and finally to the back of the car, where I lifted each piece into place.
It was hot. It was humid. I had to stop many times to rest, and to try and cool down. I found my head was throbbing, which alerted me that I would either have to slow down considerably, or find a solution. The cobber was soaked and ready to go, so I tied it around my neck and tried the next piece of drywall. Success! The cobber kept me cool headed during the rest of the operation.
After two hours of carrying and loading, I finally had all the debris in the back of the car. It had taken me two and half hours to do the job.
I was soaked to the skin with sweat, just as if I’d jumped into a lake. Sitting on the back porch, satisfied, I attempted to remove my running shoes. The left shoe disintegrated! The upper completely separated from the sole of the shoe. These shoes do not owe me anything, they were purchased while Terra was a teenager and still lived at home. Still, they were my working shoes.
The project was not complete. Appropriate footwear would be needed for the visit to the dump, to unload all of the debris. Attila’s work boots were sitting by the door. They were the perfect solution.
At noon the dump opened for business. Actually it is a transfer station, the dump is closed. After the car was weighed in, and a pleasant chat with the attendant determined the mode of payment, the car was ready to unload. Unloading into a nearby dumpster is a lot easier than loading into the back of a car. Thirty minutes later, the deed was done, the fee paid, and I was on my way home.
Hot and soaking wet, I removed every last bit of clothing. That is when Terra and Vaders and Isaac dropped by, returning the power washer and electrical cord Terra had borrowed. Luckily the doors were locked, so there was time to wriggle into a t-shirt and jeans, before answering the door. It was a short visit, and fun to see them.
The back porch was covered with bits of drywall and drywall dust. Sweeping up took a while, but the results were very satisfying.
Bathing was next on the priority list. Then a tall cold glass of orange juice and ice, and a rest. The resting took up most of what was left of the day.
The evening consisted of talking with Attila via Skype, and slicing the remaining strawberries, freezing some and storing the rest in the refrigerator for immediate enjoyment.
Saturday, July 6, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
The morning the weather was beautiful, sunny, mild, breezy. The garden needed a bit of attention, it was a perfect day for gardening.
The eves trough fell off the house the first year of ownership. It has been sitting along the fence in the back yard ever since. With every rainfall it filled with water, providing a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. A hammer and nail took care of that little problem, and it only took a few minutes. Four holes were nailed through the bottom of the metal, and when checked an hour later, the water was gone and it was perfectly dry.
Wild grape invades the mugo pine in the back yard. It took hours of twisting and reaching and pulling to remove it all. There is also a small tree growing through the center area of the pine, but after sawing half way through it the project was abandoned. The temperature had risen sharply, and it was just too hot to work in the small space at the center of the pine; where, surrounded by branches, it was relatively airless.
The tomatoes needed stakes, but only two were pounded into place, as only two stakes were found. The weeds needed pulling around the tomatoes, and in the whole garden. The bindweed makes significant advances in just one week, and is temporarily under control, after a lot of bending and tugging.
By the time all of these tasks were completed, the temperature had risen again, and the humidity made moving uncomfortable. Again, I was soaked to the skin, sweating from seemingly every pore in my body. It was time to move indoors, leaving the cleanup until I had cooled down a bit.
While bringing in the tools, later in the day, I had a chat with the neighbours, who were out in their garden pulling a few weeds. They are getting married next month, and are very happy about the upcoming occasion. She offered me some lettuce from her garden, it looked delicious and was not to be resisted. It was handed over the fence with a green onion. They made a tasty salad.
It is so very hot and humid, that moving around is just not a practical option. The computer and the internet are wonderful to have under such conditions, allowing motionless entertainment.
It was a day of small accomplishments, the tomatoes, the pine, the eves trough; quite acceptable considering the heat.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
Friday, July 5, 2013
20°C
Condition: Mist
Pressure: 101.9 kPa
Visibility: 5 km
Temperature: 19.6°C
Dewpoint: 18.8°C
Humidity: 95%
Wind: calm
Saturday, July 6, 2013
30°C
Condition: Mainly Sunny
Pressure: 101.7 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: 25.9°C
Dewpoint: 18.2°C
Humidity: 62%
Wind: SW 16 km/h
Humidex: 34
Quote
“I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.”
John D. Rockefeller
1839 – 1937
“eaves trough” took me a moment to parse. We call it a rain gutter. Either way, it’s nice to have something that directs the rain off the roof and into a rain barrel (for later irrigating) or onto some part of the garden or flower bed, rather than having it sluice straight onto one’s neck.
When a person has been a coworker and you think you know them well enough to have a friendly personal relationship, it is truly a slap in the fact when they turn abrupt and dismissive. It’s worse, in my opinion, than a stranger doing something similar.
It happened when I retired. One of my coworkers, with whom I had been quite friendly, doing things together after work and on the weekend, on the last day just closed the door to her cubicle and absented herself. I departed, saying good by and good luck, to everyone else. Her absence hurt my feelings, especially since she never acknowedged it or explained. We have been mostly estranged ever since, except for the occasional email.
I’m sorry that happened to you; I understand how it can bring a dark cloud and uneasy feeling.
I am truly impressed with your tenacious success removing the debris. What a job!
Thanks for sharing your story Sarah, what a hurtful experience! I agree that it is much easier to shrug off rudeness from strangers, since there is no trust there to begin with. There are times when I do not understand people, are they being thoughtless or deliberate when they behave in hurtful ways? I can not imagine what they think they are doing, what motivates such behaviour, and what justification a person could conjure up to rest easy with it. Life is a mystery!
Wendy, I am so glad that job is done! LOL I think growing up on a farm influenced my approach to challenges, as I often heard, “get er’ done”.
Attila did say leave it, but I have other plans for Attila’s time and energy!
You positively wear me out just reading about your days. Once all this rehab work is done, will you sell the city house? or just enjoy it for yourselves. I can’t imagine keeping two houses going. I can’t keep up with this one house here…
Bex, I hope we do not have to sell this house, but only time will tell. We certainly can’t sell it in its current condition. We still want to move here, so we are just putting one foot in front of the other, doing what needs doing, and hoping for the best. Although I cannot imagine how this can work out well for us, there have been many times in my life when despite all evidence to the contrary, positive change occurred. Sometimes the universe works in mysterious ways, beyond logic, and certainly beyond human control.