Some jerk ate my sunflowers. I had 13 sunflower sprouts, and 12 of them got eaten all in one night. My zucchinis were coming up too, and I lost all but three. Whatever it is seems to only like sprouts, though, since the remaining one sunflower and three zucchinis have been doing fine since they got past the sprout stage.
Since my snow peas and tomatoes share one plot, and my sunflowers and zucchinis share another, there is a stark contrast between plot A and plot B. I wound up planting snow peas around the perimeter of the fence in plot B, since even though it's late in the season, whatever it is apparently doesn't like snow peas. I also went and got some transplants, since this pest seems to only eat sprouts. So now I've got red cabbage and summer squash growing alongside three zucchinis and one sunflower, and some latent-growing snow peas.
A little girl asked me if she could plant a sunflower in my garden, so now I'm really hoping that one will sprout and flourish despite it being late in the season, and with a sprout-loving pest in the area.
I learned how to grill. Remember how I said I had a grill-expert neighbour, and I was barbecuing in the dead of night so I could experiment with it uninterrupted? Well, he caught me, and it's a good thing he did. I'd gotten a fire started, and he came over to tell me I was overcooking my food. I was just happy that I'd managed to burn something, since the previous I hadn't been able to get a fire going at all. But he told me to stop feeding my flames, had me look at the glowing charcoal beneath and told me that was all I needed.
I totally would have thought the dim glow of the charcoal indicated only an insufficient and dying fire, incapable of cooking anything. But the next day, the two of us worked through it, and yeah, charcoal has a subtle and efficient glow, which cooked my dinner perfectly that night.
This past week I got to facilitate Safe Management courses for the Summer Program. It was our largest group yet, with two different summer camp teams and a few people taking the training for personal reasons. It was really gratifying to be able to take that leadership role with so many of my previous peers, but it also reminded me of how much I'll miss the Summer Program.
Everybody assumed I would be coming back for some reason. Come on people, it's seasonal work, I don't exactly wait nine months a year so that I can take back the only position that is relevant to your life.
Last week was draining though. For two days, I did a nine or ten-hour overnight shift, and then did six-hour training sessions during days. On both those days, I only got three hours of sleep. Plus I also had a direct support shift on Monday, and I rescheduled someone I had to cancel on because it fell into a Safe Management day to Friday, so I worked on my only day off. This Sunday, one of the people I support has a Summer Enhancement benefit, so after I do my regular four hour Sunday shift, I'll travel for an hour and a half, then support someone else for two and a half hours, than have three hours to waste which doesn't allow me to go home because of the Sunday bus schedule, and then I'll do a ten hour Sunday shift, since they ask me to do an extra hour on Sundays.
I knew a couple guys with two jobs, averaging three hours sleep a day, back when I worked factories. I always questioned what their motivation was for working that hard, since even if you make money, you've no time to spend it, and the average work day killed me bad enough already. But now I've turned into that kind of worker and I still can't tell you what the motivation is.
Friday, June 23, 2017
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Garden, Spice Rack, BBQ
My snow peas are coming in strong now. For a few days they were the only crop grown from seed that I was seeing progress with, which made me nervous. But because I had such a tough time prepping the soil and building the fences with my busy schedule, I wound up building the tomato and snow pea plot before the sunflower and zucchini plot, which got done a few days later. It makes sense then, that a few days later, my sunflowers have begun to sprout. Now just waiting on the zucchinis.
One of my tomato plants is not a tomato, though. I was reprimanding it for its slow growth and encouraging it to catch up with its siblings before I realized its leaf shape is different, as well as its growth pattern. So I have a mystery plant on hand.
Do you remember that spice rack I was weird about? The one where my tarragon bottle got broken? Well now somehow I've lost coriander. But it's kind of okay, because now I've got three on each level, so it balances, and if there were two spices I never used, it was tarragon and coriander, anyway. One of my original roommates said he could mount my spice rack to the wall, but I didn't believe him because that sounded way too incredible to be possible. But he never got around to it, moved out, and I've had my spice rack sitting on my kitchen counter as it always has since then, with it's tragically broken tarragon bottle on display.
But now coriander is gone, and since my roommate moved out, I've been reorganizing the kitchen. I noticed my counter wall space was crowded by appliances, and I hit a stroke of genius. I managed to open up space by discovering the method to mount my spice rack to the wall!
...It was pretty easy... The spice rack has hooks in the back. I put a couple nails in the wall and placed it against them.
I've got a little barbecue now. Seriously, just a little travel-sized, $20 grill. This is a really unmanly thing to admit, but I've only ever barbecued once. It was during the Summer Program, and through the duration of the overnight program, when staff are required to provide food preparation services, the girls would simply not let me take a lead in making meals... until a barbecue was involved. I was then forced in front of the grill and assumed an expert in the craft. Gender expectations, much?
But it was a grand success. Everyone was complimenting my technique. The process was... exhilarating. Just me, fire, metal, and meat. It felt so natural.
But when I did that, the fire was already lit and pretty much all I did was flip meat, to be honest. Along with barely knowing how to bbq, I also barely know how to make a fire (that also came up during Summer Program, I got asked to make a fire with no tools when I'd never made one before. I managed it, but retelling the story, I was told I'd gone through "every evolution stage of man")
So I was attempting to light the fire yesterday, but I couldn't make anything long-lasting enough to make food with. I did it in the dead of night, one part because my internal clock is reversed and I'm used to being up during that time, and the other part because I don't want my grill-expert neighbour to catch me struggling to make fire. Serious blows to my man-cred if that happens.
I missed the I Choose Dign!ty rally this year. This is Extend-a-Family's march to City Hall, where everyone who feels short-changed on their due respect from community can join together to choose dignity. After the march, at City Hall there are speeches from those on the topic of dignity, there are the Dignity Dancers, and there is a Fo' Cheesy van that give out free grilled cheese sandwiches.
The past few years I have really hammed it up and thrown down to get in every bit of promotional material I can at this rally. People mention to me all the time that they've seen in this ad or that, but this year I couldn't muscle my way in. RIP my fame.
My clock's broken. Actually kind of gloomy about it. 4 years ago I bought it at Dollarama and it has since given me only accurate time. Recently however, it has developed a sticking spot where it goes backward in time one second per minute before progressing naturally. Before stopping it today, this collective loss in time set it back a full 45 minutes.
One of my tomato plants is not a tomato, though. I was reprimanding it for its slow growth and encouraging it to catch up with its siblings before I realized its leaf shape is different, as well as its growth pattern. So I have a mystery plant on hand.
Do you remember that spice rack I was weird about? The one where my tarragon bottle got broken? Well now somehow I've lost coriander. But it's kind of okay, because now I've got three on each level, so it balances, and if there were two spices I never used, it was tarragon and coriander, anyway. One of my original roommates said he could mount my spice rack to the wall, but I didn't believe him because that sounded way too incredible to be possible. But he never got around to it, moved out, and I've had my spice rack sitting on my kitchen counter as it always has since then, with it's tragically broken tarragon bottle on display.
But now coriander is gone, and since my roommate moved out, I've been reorganizing the kitchen. I noticed my counter wall space was crowded by appliances, and I hit a stroke of genius. I managed to open up space by discovering the method to mount my spice rack to the wall!
...It was pretty easy... The spice rack has hooks in the back. I put a couple nails in the wall and placed it against them.
I've got a little barbecue now. Seriously, just a little travel-sized, $20 grill. This is a really unmanly thing to admit, but I've only ever barbecued once. It was during the Summer Program, and through the duration of the overnight program, when staff are required to provide food preparation services, the girls would simply not let me take a lead in making meals... until a barbecue was involved. I was then forced in front of the grill and assumed an expert in the craft. Gender expectations, much?
But it was a grand success. Everyone was complimenting my technique. The process was... exhilarating. Just me, fire, metal, and meat. It felt so natural.
But when I did that, the fire was already lit and pretty much all I did was flip meat, to be honest. Along with barely knowing how to bbq, I also barely know how to make a fire (that also came up during Summer Program, I got asked to make a fire with no tools when I'd never made one before. I managed it, but retelling the story, I was told I'd gone through "every evolution stage of man")
So I was attempting to light the fire yesterday, but I couldn't make anything long-lasting enough to make food with. I did it in the dead of night, one part because my internal clock is reversed and I'm used to being up during that time, and the other part because I don't want my grill-expert neighbour to catch me struggling to make fire. Serious blows to my man-cred if that happens.
I missed the I Choose Dign!ty rally this year. This is Extend-a-Family's march to City Hall, where everyone who feels short-changed on their due respect from community can join together to choose dignity. After the march, at City Hall there are speeches from those on the topic of dignity, there are the Dignity Dancers, and there is a Fo' Cheesy van that give out free grilled cheese sandwiches.
The past few years I have really hammed it up and thrown down to get in every bit of promotional material I can at this rally. People mention to me all the time that they've seen in this ad or that, but this year I couldn't muscle my way in. RIP my fame.
My clock's broken. Actually kind of gloomy about it. 4 years ago I bought it at Dollarama and it has since given me only accurate time. Recently however, it has developed a sticking spot where it goes backward in time one second per minute before progressing naturally. Before stopping it today, this collective loss in time set it back a full 45 minutes.
Saturday, June 3, 2017
New Cell Phone, Laptop, Garden, and 1rst Aid Certificate
BLARG! It's been over half a month since I've updated! I was averaging 4 posts a month, and I only met half my average last month. Alright! I'll tell you what's going on.
Last year, I lost my position as an Independant Facilitator and retook my Summer Program Leader position in late April. This left me with only my Direct Support contracts to stall my sinking savings until June when they would pick up again. I called it the "Miserable Month of May". It was all about financial loss and surviving until things picked up again in June. This year, with my more-than-full-time job as an overnight staff at the grouphome, my four Direct Support Contracts, which I recently got a raise in, and my Safe Management instructor position, which has taken more hours than was originally estimated, this May has been all about financial gain.
...Or at least it was supposed to. Both my cell phone and laptop recently broke at nearly the same time. I already explained that my cell phone had developed problems with its charge port, and I was using a pen and some rubber bands to create pressure on it while charging to prolong its life. Well, eventually, no number of rubber bands could apply enough pressure and the phone simply refused to charge.
And you know my laptop had its own unique charger issue. The first charger stopped working and because of its unique build I had to special order a new charger. This one worked for half a year, but then the charger randomly exploded. I was able to piece together opposite parts of the new and old charger to create something that worked. I estimated it would work for about another six months before needing to be replaced, but one day I powered off my computer and it just wouldn't turn back on.
It's funny, my new cell phone needed a micro SD card. I had all my contacts saved to my old non-micro SD card, so I figured I'd lost them all. For about a day, I had no contacts, and then randomly, most of them appeared on my new cell phone. Since my old cell phone had long since lost charge and its SD card was incompatible, I've no idea how this happened.
I hate going shopping for laptops because some salesperson inevitably talks me out of my intended purchase and gets me to buy some high-tech piece of equipment that turns out to have a short lifespan. This time however, I went to the store, stared at the selection for a good 15-20 minutes uninterrupted. Then I went up to one of the employees, told them what I wanted, and they got it
without question. Much prefer that sales style.
New laptop is an Acer. I know I've had issues with this brand before, but it fell right in my comfort zone of functionality and affordability. It wasn't the cheapest, and it had the most memory for a relatively frugal price. I feel like I'll regret this. Acer laptops and Deskjet printers are brands that have in the past offered consistently poor products, but because they fall into my comfort zone, they have brought me back repeatedly.
In the end I dropped like, $500 on the laptop and $200 on the phone, putting me back $700 when I was finally getting ahead financially. That's a gloomy way to think, though. Instead of thinking "My tech malfunctioned at just the right time to keep me from saving" I should think "Both those pieces of tech were going down and I knew that, but they held on until I could afford to replace them".
I started my garden. Last year, I had to take a plot in a community garden because my roommates owned a young, not-so-expertly trained dog that would inevitably dig it up if I grew it in the backyard. This year though, there's no dog and so my plot is on my property.
People have told me the land is no good for growing, but I really think that's because they didn't bother to prep the soil. If the community garden right next to the complex is fertile, our land should be fertile too, it just hasn't been worked over. I dug up two plots in the backyard, pulled out all the roots, mixed in planting soil, and built a couple of chicken wire fences around them. I'm keeping it pretty basic this year, only growing cherry tomatoes, zucchinis, snow peas, and sunflowers. All hardy plants that have yielded strong crops in the past. I'm growing everything from seed except the cherry tomatoes, which were transplants. Still too early to say how the seeds are doing, but the cherry tomatoes are showing positive, fanning their leaves toward the sun, showing a zest for life after overcoming the shock of being transplanted.
My roommate moved out. No bad blood. I could have obligated him to stay based on the sublet agreement, but forcing someone to live with you who doesn't want to sounds miserable, and since I'm working as much as I am, I really don't need the financial support of a roommate.
I recently did my First Aid recertification. Because of my association with Extend-a-Family, I got to attend this training for free. Eight hours total, two days, four hours a session. By coincidence, I happened to attend the same sessions as a girl that I did them with three years previous when I got my last certificate. During that session, I panicked and botched a roleplay where I was supposed to save her from bleeding out after she severed one of her fingers. This was in front of the class, and the
instructor basically had to talk me through it. Afterwards, I apologized to her.
Me: I-I'm sorry
Her: For what?
Me: I... killed you
Her: Oh my goodness Gryphon, if that actually happened, I would help you!
Me: No, you just lost a finger! You're in shock! You can't do anything! You rely on me! I can't gain composure, and you die, and it's my fault!
So about a year later, in another province, she chainsaws her leg. She's bleeding out, and apparently her last thought before losing consciousness is me attempting to bandage her hand and failing, "Gryphon would be no help right now!"
She tells me this after we become reacquainted. "You were right, I wasn't about to help myself"
So this time around, I'm keen to heal her proper and make up for my past failure. My compressions are on point, I do mouth-to-mouth like a boss, I handle the AED like a champ. When it come to scenarios, I get the severed finger again, but this time I have to do it on some random guy I don't know. Still determined, but in the previous session I had been panicking enough that I didn't retain any information. This time around, I managed to step through it while retaining information, but I didn't get to be the flawless hero that I'd been hoping to be.
Last year, I lost my position as an Independant Facilitator and retook my Summer Program Leader position in late April. This left me with only my Direct Support contracts to stall my sinking savings until June when they would pick up again. I called it the "Miserable Month of May". It was all about financial loss and surviving until things picked up again in June. This year, with my more-than-full-time job as an overnight staff at the grouphome, my four Direct Support Contracts, which I recently got a raise in, and my Safe Management instructor position, which has taken more hours than was originally estimated, this May has been all about financial gain.
...Or at least it was supposed to. Both my cell phone and laptop recently broke at nearly the same time. I already explained that my cell phone had developed problems with its charge port, and I was using a pen and some rubber bands to create pressure on it while charging to prolong its life. Well, eventually, no number of rubber bands could apply enough pressure and the phone simply refused to charge.
And you know my laptop had its own unique charger issue. The first charger stopped working and because of its unique build I had to special order a new charger. This one worked for half a year, but then the charger randomly exploded. I was able to piece together opposite parts of the new and old charger to create something that worked. I estimated it would work for about another six months before needing to be replaced, but one day I powered off my computer and it just wouldn't turn back on.
It's funny, my new cell phone needed a micro SD card. I had all my contacts saved to my old non-micro SD card, so I figured I'd lost them all. For about a day, I had no contacts, and then randomly, most of them appeared on my new cell phone. Since my old cell phone had long since lost charge and its SD card was incompatible, I've no idea how this happened.
I hate going shopping for laptops because some salesperson inevitably talks me out of my intended purchase and gets me to buy some high-tech piece of equipment that turns out to have a short lifespan. This time however, I went to the store, stared at the selection for a good 15-20 minutes uninterrupted. Then I went up to one of the employees, told them what I wanted, and they got it
without question. Much prefer that sales style.
New laptop is an Acer. I know I've had issues with this brand before, but it fell right in my comfort zone of functionality and affordability. It wasn't the cheapest, and it had the most memory for a relatively frugal price. I feel like I'll regret this. Acer laptops and Deskjet printers are brands that have in the past offered consistently poor products, but because they fall into my comfort zone, they have brought me back repeatedly.
In the end I dropped like, $500 on the laptop and $200 on the phone, putting me back $700 when I was finally getting ahead financially. That's a gloomy way to think, though. Instead of thinking "My tech malfunctioned at just the right time to keep me from saving" I should think "Both those pieces of tech were going down and I knew that, but they held on until I could afford to replace them".
I started my garden. Last year, I had to take a plot in a community garden because my roommates owned a young, not-so-expertly trained dog that would inevitably dig it up if I grew it in the backyard. This year though, there's no dog and so my plot is on my property.
People have told me the land is no good for growing, but I really think that's because they didn't bother to prep the soil. If the community garden right next to the complex is fertile, our land should be fertile too, it just hasn't been worked over. I dug up two plots in the backyard, pulled out all the roots, mixed in planting soil, and built a couple of chicken wire fences around them. I'm keeping it pretty basic this year, only growing cherry tomatoes, zucchinis, snow peas, and sunflowers. All hardy plants that have yielded strong crops in the past. I'm growing everything from seed except the cherry tomatoes, which were transplants. Still too early to say how the seeds are doing, but the cherry tomatoes are showing positive, fanning their leaves toward the sun, showing a zest for life after overcoming the shock of being transplanted.
My roommate moved out. No bad blood. I could have obligated him to stay based on the sublet agreement, but forcing someone to live with you who doesn't want to sounds miserable, and since I'm working as much as I am, I really don't need the financial support of a roommate.
I recently did my First Aid recertification. Because of my association with Extend-a-Family, I got to attend this training for free. Eight hours total, two days, four hours a session. By coincidence, I happened to attend the same sessions as a girl that I did them with three years previous when I got my last certificate. During that session, I panicked and botched a roleplay where I was supposed to save her from bleeding out after she severed one of her fingers. This was in front of the class, and the
instructor basically had to talk me through it. Afterwards, I apologized to her.
Me: I-I'm sorry
Her: For what?
Me: I... killed you
Her: Oh my goodness Gryphon, if that actually happened, I would help you!
Me: No, you just lost a finger! You're in shock! You can't do anything! You rely on me! I can't gain composure, and you die, and it's my fault!
So about a year later, in another province, she chainsaws her leg. She's bleeding out, and apparently her last thought before losing consciousness is me attempting to bandage her hand and failing, "Gryphon would be no help right now!"
She tells me this after we become reacquainted. "You were right, I wasn't about to help myself"
So this time around, I'm keen to heal her proper and make up for my past failure. My compressions are on point, I do mouth-to-mouth like a boss, I handle the AED like a champ. When it come to scenarios, I get the severed finger again, but this time I have to do it on some random guy I don't know. Still determined, but in the previous session I had been panicking enough that I didn't retain any information. This time around, I managed to step through it while retaining information, but I didn't get to be the flawless hero that I'd been hoping to be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)