Wasps, Work and Wednesdays

An even shorter version of the blog this week: half in haiku and link-free!

Aug 2 - Happy BC Day, Canada!

Being busy can be painful.

Sometimes it seems you move backwards slowly.

Dealing with it is artful.

Today was BC Day here in British Columbia, a holiday not shared by all the other provinces. Usually it means people get outside to enjoy themselves, but today I put myself on the schedule so I could give my staff each a 3-day weekend. Silly me. It was a busy day, like Friday, Saturday and Sunday were as well so I got little done aside from the usual daily operations tasks. Nothing like falling behind by inches to make you wonder about the order of things. However, my nausea seems to be under control, thanks to my Tecta once a day; the prescription costs about a dollar a day, which is manageable given that I don't worry overmuch about feeling sick of a sudden now. though I still have moments that I have to talk to the doc about, it's about 90 percent licked.

Aug 3 - Visitors

If Tuesday is like Monday,

How well does that bode for Wednesday?

The week can be confusing.

Yesterday was busy, and today was as well. I had a visitor from head office here for the entire day to better “get a feel” about how the retail end of things work, and boy did she get an eyeful. Most of my afternoon and evening was spent at the counter serving customers, doing my ready best to provide top-level service perfection to show how things should be done in every transaction. By the end, I was quite tired and my throat was hoarse, but I felt I had given a good accounting for my visitor.

Aug 4 - Calling Friends

Days off are very precious.

They should be spent like precious gems,

To be treasured, like friends.

My one day off, and I still had enough left to catch up on at work that I had to go in for 4 hours at noon. Thankfully, I managed to dodge enough phone calls and emails to get what I needed to done, which was somewhat of a surprise at the end. I made it out after 4pm in time for a 5pm doctor's appointment in Victoria, after which I went down to the beach at Beacon Hill Park on Dallas Rd and spent a little time watching the waves at work. The walking paths extend all along the south shore of Victoria and are a haven for joggers, dog walkers and other nature-lovers. There are quite a few places along the walk to relax, on benches or down stairs leading to various scenic spots. It was quite relaxing, and the evening was capped off by a surprise call from Lucas, which was over an hour of great topical chat. S'what friends are all about, really – thanks, Lucas!

Aug 5 - Ouch? It's all gone hazy...

Today, nature hurt me some.

A wasp stung my finger; it swelled.

It just made work harder.

The day started out fairly well; I went over to the Mountain Bean for a bit to relax before work. It was nice, given that it's been hazy all week due to the more than 400 forest fires burning on the mainland here in BC – there was a rare air quality warning today on Vancouver Island, as the wind had blown huge drafts of smoke our way, making the sunset last night a strange orange-red colour. At work, I went out to lock the garbage bin with our new lock... and was stung on my left index finger by a wasp for my trouble, for no reason I can tell. It swelled up hugely and was quite painful, so I called BC Telehealth for advice; they told me what to watch for in case of an allergic reaction to the sting, as I couldn't recall the last time it had happened to me. Some antihistimines brought the swelling under control within a few hours, so I soldiered on for the rest of my shift quite annoyed at the randomness of life. At least I had another blazing red hazy sunset at the end to make things seem rosy when I went home.

Aug 6 - Working yet again...

eBay came through for me.

My adaptor arrived today, making me happy.

The laptop thanked me too.

Six days of seven I've worked this week, which seems to be all the blog is turning out to be – considering that as of day's end today I had worked some 47 hours already, it's truer than you think. All that time was well-spent though, as I felt fairly caught up by today, with only a few hours of manager tasks awaiting me next week – including another visit from the higher-ups at head office that is always stressful if you're not prepared enough. On the bright side, both of the stores I am managing are doing very well, with some of the best numbers of all the stores in the district and some of the best staff too. So I'm hopeful that the tide is turning and that the remaining months of the year will see less stress for me and more positive results for the stores.

Aug 7 - Saturday Sliding Away...

After work, I was tired.

But still, the police needed my memories.

After that, my arm hurt.

It wasn't a bad day at work, all in all – I managed to wrap most of my work up today before leaving a little early, well before 4pm. I didn't go home though; I had an appointment at the RCMP to do a photo lineup to identify a suspect in a stolen cheque case from a few weeks ago. I was happy to oblige, as it would likely mean more serious jail time for the suspect, given their already large police file. Another stop for a tetanus shot( recommended by the BC TeleHealth for the wasp bite and I needed the update anyway )then it was home for a relaxing evening... but without my laptop. The AC adaptor felt FAR too hot, and refused to charge my laptop even with intense fan cooling – so much for surfing the 'net or other tasks. I consoled myself by watching TRON, which was a lot better than I had expected – I'd not seen it in almost 25 years or more and it held up very well overall, despite some differences in what 'cutting edge' meant then and now.

Aug 8 - Blast it!

Skags are hungry and vicious,

But still pale next to real people.

Battlefield and Borderlands all day.

After giving up on charging my older laptop, I decided today was a wash for getting anything done on my various projects since I didn't have access to any of the files on either of my laptops. So instead, I hopped onto Xbox Live and didn't look back – it was late afternoon by the time I had played through 20 levels of character development on Borderlands with Lucas, which was damn good fun. Later on I joined Dave, Bill and a few others in blasting bad guys on Battlefield 2: Bad Company where I held my own for most of the games, making it to level 5 and unlocking a few more weapons, gadgets etc.

Since my Compaq's replacement AC adaptor failed yesterday, the blog was back to basic notes for this week. I hope, I hope, that the adaptor for my newer Gateway arrives early this week, as that laptop's been gathering dust for 2 weeks now. Very frustrating, I have to say, being denied easy internet use as well as all the other PC functions that we're used to.