Work, Storms, Garden, Books

Well, I've had two four day work weeks followed by my first five day this summer, and I'm finally pulling a profit financially instead of just breaking even.  After the Toronto flooding and the decrease in orders, I got put back into the box factory for two days. While I was there, I met someone who managed to get hired on at my order picking place. After my two days were done, I went back to being an order picker for a full week and I got to drop the name of the guy I'd met to my supervisor, saying that he'd said hi. Next Monday I'm back at the box factory for one day due to a drop in orders, and then I'll either keep going to the box factory or return to order picking depending on demand.

Technically I can't take credit for a full five day work week. We got let out an hour early one day because of a powerout, and we got let out an hour and a half early another day because we completed our orders.

I chose a place to live next year. It's right across the street from the campus, even closer than the Residence. It's somewhere between $500 and $550 a month, although I can't remember the exact price, which is a good cry better than the Residence. High speed Internet included, hydro and electricity included, washing and drying machine, stove and microwave included. I got to talk to the guy who's moving out because he graduated, and he gave me a picture of the community living there. Should be an okay place to live.

My sunflower gave me a serious scare. It was looking real stable, so I cut the string I'd tied around it to keep it balanced after I'd broken it's stem. It was standing fine, so I pulled out the stake that the string was tied to. This caused it to shift balance so I returned the stake to the ground and retied it. Next day, the sunflower's totally wilted. I can only guess that even if it was strong enough to stand, I might have torn it's root system when I pulled out the stake. It looked dead, but the next day it was standing right back up again. Then we got hit by that hail storm and I think that delayed my flower from getting back to it's original self, but it was back to full health in three days or so.

During the hailstorm I was inside a bank. I'd read an article about this storm that had all these tornadoes, and some people ran for shelter in a bank. But the bank people locked them out, even though there was a tornado closing in, because of legal reasons.  Yeah, well, it turns out that they do do that. I was in the area with the bank machines and the power got knocked out. As soon as that happened, someone ran over and locked us out of the main section. There was a customer on the inside of the main section, and they didn't kick him out, though.

We had another huge storm, and I got caught in it when I was walking home from the bus stop, about fifteen minutes either way to shelter.  Mom and my brother make fun of me for avoiding going outside in the rain, so they thought it was funny that I got caught in the storm. However, I don't think it was that funny since tree branches were being ripped from their stalk and while I was plowing through, falling branches were literally barricading streets. If I was in a car, I would not have made it. I was soaked to the bone by the time I got home. My cell phone was fine, though. I guess those are built to be pretty water resistant.

My mother's garden has some incredible zucchinis. Other than my sunflower, they're the only plant to really flourish. My neighbour's sunflowers are all coming up to, and the new neighbours planted some tomato plants, but I'm worried that they planted late enough in the season that we might not see a harvest. Our poor-looking cherry tomato plants, three of our Jalepenos, and even an eggplant have flowered and are now developing vegetables. They will all likely be small harvests, but at least it's something. Our only good harvest will be the zucchinis.

At the order picking place, we have a "Take a book, give a book" system. I checke dout what they had, and there were a couple that I thought were interesting. One was Things Fall Apart, a story of the people of a Nigerian village and the transition from Tribalism to a Cristian system, and another one was a collaboration between Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet. I took those two and gave four books in return, two of mine and Mom donated two as well. Mom gave a Steven King book which was taken and replaced with a book by the guy who wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Oh, that reminds me. Neil Gaiman did a public interview and the question was posed to him what his favourite and least favourite works were of the stuff that he'd written. He said that Neverwhere was his favourite and his least favourite was American Gods. I haven't read all his stuff, but this was my opinion as well. I did a comparison review on those two books specifically, although it's on my old blog I think. I used to debate with people who had the reverse opinion. Anyway, it's gratifying to hear the author agrees with me.

This summer I read a Dean Koontz book, I've read Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and now I'm about two thirds through Things Fall Apart. About a book per month.