SoCS; How….?

“How did I end up here?” I ask myself all the time. When I’m seriously thinking about it I can count back to the events that lead up to this point in time and say, “oh, yeah, that’s how I got here”

I’ll often get hit with that thought in a more spiritual way: it’s a shift in consciousness that my soul is suddenly noticing where I am in time and space thinking, “huh, look…. I’m here, now….. how strange”

Many (many, many) times at The Store I think; “How did I end up here?” I worked all through a sunny, holiday weekend dealing with disgruntled customers and a broken freezer to wipe and mop, wipe and mop, wipe and mop…….. fuckin’, eh…. c’mon already. How much more can I take?

Wednesday was another beautiful day and I had the flu so bad….. worst in years. At least I had some sun on the couch where I stayed all day.

Thursday was Howdy Doody Time!  I was covering this shift for my co-worker so there was no one to cover for me. That’s how I looked and felt at work….. like Howdy Doody.  Big fake smile and walking kind of shaky like I was going to collapse as soon as possible.

How do I end this post? How convenient its Stream of Consciousness……..

https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/24/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-2517/

My Cozy Hideout

Ah, I can breathe a sigh of relief I’m in my hideout today. It’s foggy outside but I’m OK with that. It insulates the sound making it feel even more peaceful, swaddled.

This was long weekend, Family Day,  with record-breaking temperatures and sun, sun, sun. Our store stays open on Family Day because we are in a tourist town and the great weather brought them out in droves.

Saturday started with the funeral, then into chaos at the bakery as it was so busy and the new girl didn’t show up. Sunday I was called in early because it was so busy again. Sunday night the freezer broke down so I was called in early Monday to help with that. That’s as short as I can tell it, I’m too tired to even write about. If you’ve ever had a freezer break down, imagine one room-sized with metal shelving.

All the while dealing with customers who aren’t satisfied. Yesterday I could hardly talk and yet had to explain over and over why I couldn’t get cake out of the freezer; the one in the display is a display. Or why we were out of bread again.

I still don’t want to talk at all. The furnace is off, the wood stove going….. time to move this ‘dead horse’ into the living room.

My boss already called this morning to come in tomorrow and catch up on cakes but I can stay home in my hideout today. It’s warm, cozy and quiet. The fog is comforting for my poor foggy brain.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/hideout/

Prompt; Blur

The photo gallery at June’s funeral was just a blur yesterday.

I hadn’t cried for June before that. I felt very sad that someone only 54 should pass away so quickly but it didn’t make me cry…. until yesterday.

As soon as I drove up to the funeral home my chest started clenching up, walking into the reception my throat starts constricting and by the time I make to the family and June’s casket I’m full out in tears.

I introduced myself to her kids and husband, as we had never met, and apologized to June. I was so sorry she died. So sorry she wasn’t enjoying this beautiful day with her kids and grandkids. Sorry for her kids who expected many more years with Grandma. The grief in that room was overpowering.

There was a gallery of photos laid out showing her life filled with family, friends and laughter, proudly holding new grandchildren. But the faces were just a blur because I couldn’t blink away the tears.

My family doesn’t do open casket so I haven’t seen that for a long time and find it shocking. However, she was dressed in a sparkly purple dress, had long purple nails and lots of bling on. She would have loved it. We had only seen each other in the same uniform….. black pants, white shirt, apron and baseball cap. I was glad I got to see June as she would like to seen. And it also brought closure to that feeling of disbelief that she was gone.

Later, back at work, I couldn’t help thinking of June as I was going in and out of the freezer, doing the job she was just doing not that long ago. Its really hard get in and out with boxes of frozen dough; the cake racks in there make it so narrow you have to turn the boxes on their side. I would often say, “How does June do this?” It was only a few weeks ago I said that. Now she’s gone.

I’m happy to say my co-worker and my boss went to visitation the night before. He was away for the weekend, had already booked off before June died and she was working the bakery alone, in a tizzy. I walked into chaos. But at least we could talk about June and how “she was just here!”

One day her memory will be a blur, just as the memory of working at Sobeys will become a blur…… time marches on.

 

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/blur/

SoCS; Shame

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “ham.” Use it any way you’d like.

I’m going to extend that word to ‘shame’ so I can talk about how I’m feeling today.

A little shame but I would be feeling a lot more shame if I didn’t go to June’s funeral.

One of my co-workers passed away earlier this week. It was a real shock. She had to quit in August to get chemo for uterine cancer. These days we expect someone to get chemo and get better but she didn’t. Perhaps she had left it too long.

I do feel shame for the times I rolled my eyeballs at her groaning and complaining which she did constantly. There was always something hurting or wrong with her plus she was extremely overweight and ate the worst food. She would say, “I don’t like vegetables” and laugh. I would think, “How long can a body last without real food?”  I feel shame at how smug I was about my good health.

I haven’t heard from any of my other co-workers about going to the funeral. My boss says he has to work. I think its shameful if they don’t make the effort.

And I feel some shame at how selfish I’m feeling; how mad I am about my crappy weekend. What a shame this funeral is today.  It’s going to be warm and sunny all weekend and it’s a long weekend, Family Day on Monday. This morning the funeral is at 11:00 then I’ll get home in just enough time to change into my uniform and go to work 2:00 until 7:00.  And I am working 2:00 until 7:00 Sunday and Monday. What a shame I have to work all weekend!

Then I think of June. She’s dead and I’m complaining about my life. Shame on me.

https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-1817/

“I used to be with it…. but then they changed what it was.”

 

https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/15/one-liner-wednesday-a-momentary-lapse-of-reason/

SoSC: so/sow/sew

So I can sow and sew; that’s why I want to retire.

Since I’ve been working at the grocery store I’ve done very little gardening. It’s all I can do to work there four or five days a week and keep myself going. I have no energy to go out after work and look after a garden. On my days off I clean my house, do laundry, mow my lawn and try to get some rest.  Some days off I have to lie in a dark, quiet room nursing a head ache from the stress of that job. I miss beach days with the kids and my place gets messy, inside and out. Summers are a bummer but I need that work to save enough money to get through the winter.

One more summer, I only have one more summer to go, then I turn 65. So next summer, 2018, I will be sowing seeds and growing flowers and vegetables again. I can work in the garden and that’s my job for the day. I’ll have a nap and make myself a good meal. Oh yeah, that’s a good life!

In the winter my hours are cut back and I could sew but I still keep busy enough maintaining my home and myself. If I had everyday off I would probably get back to crafting and sewing but so far I haven’t been bored enough. It’s nice having the time to keep my place clean and relax, too, not spend my days off ‘catching up’ for more work.

I want to retire so I can be an old sow and sew!

 

 

https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-1117/

Have You Heard?

 

Have you heard? Even here in Canada Trump trumps everything else in the news so maybe those in other countries haven’t heard; Canada has its own Donald Trump.

You may be familiar with Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank. He’s the heartless investor that shoots down people’s dreams sneering, ‘Show me the money, all I care about is monneeey’

Before Shark Tank there was Dragon’s Den.  The reality TV show about five Canadian investors investing in small business became so popular it spun off down south and Kevin went with it.

Now he needs to be even bigger and with the success of Donald Trump he can see Himself seated at the top up here.

He thinks Trudeau is driving the country into ruin and he’s going to fix it as if it’s a big money-making corporation where the weak are trampled underfoot by the strong and ‘successful’. He has no sympathy for someone who has lost all their money chasing a dream. He has disdain for the ‘tree-huggers’ who care for the environment more than the economy.

He was a little late announcing his candidacy to avoid the debate in Quebec because he doesn’t speak French; he’s now taking a crash course. After all, he’s been living and working in the USA for years. Canada is ‘the cottage’ for him.

Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail,  says this;

“Kevin O’Leary is appalling. He’s a Trump-lite bully with no political experience and no qualifications to lead a major political party. A reality-TV star who’s long on swagger and short on substance. A braggart with an iffy business record. Besides, he’s basically a carpetbagger. Most of the time he lives in Boston!”

Sound familiar? For more scathing and thoroughly enjoyable critiques; read her article; http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-great-temptation-of-kevin-oleary/article33916053/?click=sf_globefb

 

I have a feeling, a sinking ‘it can’t be true’ feeling, that you are looking at our next Prime Minister.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/heard/

“Have you ever thought abo……?”

“Have you ever thought about making a little business from a craft you like?”

This is the question my young, naïve neighbour asked me. He often asks me things starting with…. “Have you ever thought of…..” and they are always things that are so elementary I want to say, “What do you think; I’m stupid?”

For instance my husband and I kept bees for 25 years and this young man asked me, “Have you ever thought about keeping a beehive on your property?”

Or how about; “Have you ever thought about buying a snow-blower?” We share a driveway. My driveway is a right-of-way through theirs.

This was a good one: “Have you ever thought of putting a flagstone walk-way through your front yard?”

Oh yes, of all the many needed renovations I would love to do if I had a the money, a flagstone walk-way might be #20 on the list, or lower.

So back to “Have you ever thought of making a small business from a craft?”

Come and see my collection of old lamps I was going to re-furbish. The skeletons of lamp shades I was going to paper mache. The boxes of lamp parts I collected and mail ordered. At least I can make a tour around the house of the fabulous lamps I made.

Come and see the cured gourds I have for gourd craft. They are in baskets and nets hanging in my storage room. Lots and lots of gourds. There are some half-finished gourd projects around.

I could see after a year or so there was no money in making lamps if I couldn’t make one quickly. Or even sell one for that matter. It would have to be a work of art to get enough money.

Then I hit upon idea of making aprons. Would you like to see my giant pile of fabric I still have from that venture? I found it would be impossible to make enough aprons, and sell them to pay bills. Finding fabric nice enough to sell cheap was hard. If it was cheap, it was ugly. I would have to be at my sewing machine 10 hours a day but then I still had to sell that many which I couldn’t because they would cost more than anyone wanted to pay.

How about the spring rolls? Salad in a rice paper wrap. Would you like some napkins, little plastic bags or little dip containers with lids? I have a large carton of each in storage.

Making spring rolls is lots and lots of work and what doesn’t sell is garbage. Barely enough profit to make the work worthwhile. Not only that, this is chip wagon country, they don’t want no damn salads.

So, young man, that is why I’m off to Sobeys today for a seven hour shift. Because I can work there and be assured my bills are paid. I work a lot in the summer and save as much money as I can for my cut-back hours in the winter. It works. And I get worry-free days off.

Next year, when I retire,  I can get back to my crafts…… at my leisure.

And now I have a question for you, young man; “Have you ever thought about getting a job?”

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/craft/

SoCS: Hair

Today’s prompt is a reminder of the thing that’s nagging at me the last few weeks: the need for a hair cut. It’s jagged and uneven so every time I look in the mirror I think “I have to get hair cut”. You’d think it was some horrible ordeal like going to the dentist.

I had a tooth pulled a month ago; now that’s an ordeal! It’s taken this long to get over it and the hole still bothers me along with the memories of her breaking the tooth in half and pulling it. Is it possible to have PTSD from an extraction? The memory of it kept playing over and over in my head. When I stick my tongue in the hole my knees go rubbery but I can’t help sticking my tongue in the hole.

Getting a haircut is easy by comparison and the results are far more pleasant. I was going to a hairdresser just down the road from me. She has her own little place at her home. Its nice and cosy and she plays my kind of music. She’s a little younger than me but not much, loves my grey streaks and doesn’t bug me to dye my hair. I like her; we connected.

However, last summer I was getting my car serviced and did a ‘walk-in’ hair cut in town while I was waiting. It was so much better! At work people (women) were commenting on how much they loved my hair (that is in the lunchroom before it goes into a hair net) whereas they never noticed when I got it cut before.

The next time I went back to my regular hairdresser and was so disappointed. It was just not a good cut. That is the last cut I had and now it looks awful. Haggish. My hair net pulls it up and moves it around my head so I look like a scrag. OK, maybe only to me but it’s making me feel that way.

Why do I have to feel loyal to a hairdresser? Am I worried she might remember me and wonder where I’ve been, for Pete’s sake? I’m going to make an appointment with the other hairdresser.

 

Next week. That’s the other problem: I like staying home so much that getting my hair cut just isn’t important enough.

Until I look in the mirror.

It’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday and the prompt is ‘hair’.
That’s my excuse for this totally boring post.

 

 

https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-417/