Blogging, Work, and Long Weekend

Given my typical traffic tally of a dozen or so visitors daily, at some point today my sitemeter will register 1500 visits to my blog. That’s roughly 6.5 months, 68 (including this one) posts, and one happy little blogger. Mostly it’s friends who visit. Sometimes it’s people who have googled dental work or the dollar store. However you got here, thanks for dropping by. It means a great deal to me that you did. Mwah!

~~~~~

Two other things on horizon…

First, today may be my last day at Job1. Again. I can’t begin to express how completely frustrated I am with continual short term contracts that wait until practically the moment of departure before providing a document that stays stay for another month or two. Don’t get me wrong… I am delighted that I do get extended… I just constantly feel on edge not knowing for sure that I have a pay cheque in my relatively immediate future.

Second, this is a long weekend here in Canada, and living in the cradle of Confederation is a lovely place to be this time of year. Mind you, Rainbow believes “Canada” is that place on the waterfront where they have rides and fireworks on the dog’s birthday (which is also, coincidentally, July 1st as well), but for my girls it is the mark of summer’s real beginning and something they look forward to all year long. I’ll post some pictures to share after Canada Day.

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Speedy

Today was Rainbow’s last day of kindergarten (Dolittle still has two more school days). My last baby’s last day of her first school. There are many things that I will miss about the experience of this particular kindergarten… which gave both my sweet girls their first academic start… but do you know what I will miss most about the place?

Knowing that I was leaving my child in the hands of exemplary early childhood educators, you might guess? No… although I was… that is not what I will miss most.

Re-exploring the world and sense of pride that comes through show-and-tell? No… though I did that right along with them…. that is also not what I will miss the most.

Watching my kids master new social and academic skills? No… though they both did that there too.

What I will miss the most of my daily kindergarten drop off experience this year is someone I don’t even know. We call her Speedy…

Almost each morning, just at the time the kindergarten arrivals start showing up, Speedy uses her cane and every so slowly, and ever so carefully, walks the short distance from her residence to a little park bench at the front of the building. Her head is always covered. The only place she passes in her journey from the senior’s home to the bench is the kindergarten. No matter how cold the day, or how wet the weather, Speedy inches her way on the well worn path from Point A to Point B and home again. And that, my friends, is dang admirable. Despite the fact that the kindergarten is beside a senior’s residence, I have never seen another senior that lives there.

I like to watch her and ponder her life. Does she take her little walk each day to see the children, to watch the world go by, to tend to her health, to get some fresh air, or to escape home for a little while? How long does she stay and does she journey farther? Who loves her? I expect someone does… I love when she wears her dark blue velvet jacket because I like to imagine that she may have gotten it from a child of her own and perhaps feels close to them when she wears it.

Perhaps it seems odd to be so entranced with a perfect stranger, but she has become a part of my weekly routine, five days a week, since last September. Sometimes I waved. Sometimes I smiled. Sometimes I said hello. Rarely did she acknowledge me. Eventually I stopped trying. But I still always looked for her, and worried if she wasn’t there.

And now that kindergarten has ended, I may have seen Speedy for the last time. Yes, of all the tings about our weekly morning routine, I may just miss Speedy most of all.

Good bye Speedy. G*d bless. And happy trails.

Fashion Show

So I took the afternoon off to do some garden work. The weather was in my favour. I even arranged a playdate to keep Rainbow occupied after kindergarten. And the day started much like any other… with me asking one million times to get out of jammies and get dressed already. Finally, after much nagging, Rainbow chose white capris and a turquoise t-shirt. Fine.

I pick Rainbow and her friend up at noon and proceed to get them fed and settled into the tent in the yard where I intend to garden just a yell away. I had barely pulled my first handful of weeds when Rainbow had grass stains on her pants. How a child can get a grass stain from inside a tent with a floor escapes me, but apparently it can be done. Outfit #2 was jeans and yet another t-shirt.

The day turned out to be gorgeous, and within 20 minutes or so of Outfit #2 come the cries that it is, in fact, too hot to be wearing jeans. That meant Outfit #3. For this ensemble she chose a coral flowy blouse, mauve skort, and purple & black striped tights from an old witch Halloween costume. Apparently, despite the heat, bruised legs meant leg coverings of some kind and tights weigh less than jeans. Fine.

So I weed, and I plant, and I pride myself in being smart enough to arrange for another child to entertain my own.

Then they found the hose.

Outfit #4 was a pink & purple long flowey shirt and a silky pink shirt. Soaking wet friend changed too (into Rainbow’s shorts & t-shirt).

Did I mention the hose? And perhaps the fact that you can race Crocks across a glass table with a hose?

Outfit #5 was purple capris with the same silky pink shirt (which apparently either dries fast or is too perfect to change even if it is soaking wet).

I’m so glad I took the day off to garden…. I wonder if I should take tommorrow off to do laundry?

Lupine Time

While I’m on the topic of weeds, I would be remiss to mention that it is now what I refer to as Lupine Time in Prince Edward Island. I’m not entirely sure whether they are weeds or wild flowers, but I can tell you that lupins are prolific plants that take our little province by storm this time of year, painting our roadsides with a wave of purple.

If you live here you either love this or you hate this, it seems. Personally, I love this (yet am grateful that I do not have lupines to deal with in my own garden or roadside). To me, just as eyelashes frame beautiful eyes, lupines are a fringe that frames beautiful scenery. They also they mark the time when the weather is still pleasant but those who live here still outnumber the tourists. While it only lasts a couple of weeks, I do adore Lupine Time.

There is not much else to say on the topic, except to share with you a few images of a drive I took after work this evening.

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The Rain Stopped

After days and days and days of rain, the sun finally came out today… and my weeds are down right scarey! Jungle-like.

Despite not knowing the weeds from the real plants, this weekend, I’m going in…

If you don’t hear from me by Monday, send reinforcements.

Nonresponsive

People who don’t respond to email make me insane. I’m not talking about a recent joke making the rounds or stuff that really requires no response. I’m talking about having an issue, or question, or problem, or *something* that needs attention and is completely ignored. And it happens to me all the time. Is it too much to ask that they at least say, “I don’t know,” or “I’ll get back to you,” or “I can’t find out until next week,” or “take a flying leap and bug somebody else.” It would seem common courtesy to do so. If there is such a thing as *common* courtesy these days. (I’ll have to ponder that one).

Or folks who use their call display to screen office calls. OFFICE calls. If you’re getting office calls from people in the office, it could actually be about… oh, I dunno… WORK.

Now, if I met the person on the street, and posed the question, would they ignore me and pretend it didn’t happen? It would seem rude to do so… so why is it done so often in communication which is not in person? Hey… Maybe I really am invisible?? I’ve certainly thought so when trying to make my kids cleanup after themselves. They don’t see me. They don’t hear me. Being invisible sure would make for an interesting day! I wonder how I’ll test it out

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More Hamster Tricks

You may recall that Oreo the hamster died. Well, I’ve never actually mentioned that he has been replaced by Smokey.

Well, Thursday started much like any other weekday, except that I was actually on schedule and it seemed that getting everyone where they wanted to be on time was an actual possibility. And then it happened. Again. I notice Smokey was not in his cage. Oreo had been replaced by yet another Houdini hamster.

Needless to say, nobody got where they needed to be on time, because nobody was going anywhere until the little fur ball was rounded up. Fortunately, he was found within 30 minutes, squeezed between my desk and the baseboard, calmly chewing on the phone cord.

The varmint was scooped up in a plastic cup and unceremoniously dumped into his cage, whereupon he stuffed food in his jowls… and more food… and more food… and more food…and when he couldn’t do it fast enough he actually seated himself in the food dish to get a little more speed in the task… until the food dish was almost empty, and his head was bigger than his butt. This is Smokey in mid-meal…

So now there are two possible explanations for behaviour like this…

Either 1) he was stressed and humans are not the only creatures who turn to food for comfort…

Or 2) he’s packing for his next trip.

I really hope it’s not #2.