Author: V

Overly sentimental, heel-loathing introvert, problem solver and lover of the night.

Blogmas Day 3

This is my Christmas tree. The lights were pre-installed on it. The ornaments will be up before Christmas. Even still, without the ornaments, I think it looks amazing. The sad little top of the tree is my favourite part. It just looks so wonky. My first tree and it’s a little off, just like me.

How on earth is it December? As slow as this year as been, it’s also seemed to go by in the blink of an eye.

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a real estate license. I like the idea because I really like the prospect of being able to help people find their home, their office, or their land. Whatever makes their heart happy and fills their boots. I also understand the principles of marketing really well. I don’t say that to sound cocky, I say that because I work really hard to understand how people act, react and what makes them tick. When you understand people, you understand their purchasing motivations. When you understand their purchasing motivations, you can help them and as a result, you can sell. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

“Blogmas” Day 2

If you’re wondering what happened to Blogmas Day 1, so am I. Yesterday got away from me.

If you’re wondering what Blogmas is, I completely understand. Blogmas is a trendy tag that bloggers use to compete with the algorithm each Christmas season. You’re supposed to write a post every day leading up to Christmas. I’m not really trying to compete with any algorithm, and I can’t promise that I’ll even keep up with it. But, it does seem like an easy title to give my posts for the month of December.

What’s been going on lately? My mom’s had some health issues as of late and it has caused me a lot of worry. She’s spent my whole life telling me I’m too stubborn for my own good, but the truth is, I learned it from her. She is a very stubborn woman. I am just hoping that she gets through this soon and gets back to feeling like herself again.

COVID is still bad. For some reason they seem to believe that it’s going to miraculously disappear right before Christmas. I think they’re acting a little naive and a lot ridiculous being ten months into this and knowing how the general public acts, and reacts, to the pandemic at this point. But hey, what do I know?

Each morning at the start of the work day my sales team has a meeting to touch base before we do anything for the day. Our American crew (I’ve mentioned them before on here) are fighting as of late.

Kendra, who thinks COVID is a hoax, plans to go to Hawaii this weekend. Apparently Hawaii is doing this thing now where they don’t require a quarantine period as long as you can show a negative COVID test 72 hours before your flight. Kendra, not being the sharpest tool in the shed, has decided that she needs a holiday, so she’s headed to Hawaii. She’s angry that she has to get a COVID test at all, but, since she believes that Hawaii and Los Angeles are in the same time zone, it’ll all be worth it so she can pop off to Hawaii on Friday and pop back on Sunday.

Jason is mad at Kendra for not taking COVID serious. Jason has not taken COVID seriously since the beginning. But, last week Jason’s fiancee came down with COVID. Now, now… he cares. The past few months he’s been to California for a beach trip, Oregon for a fishing trip, Florida for a just because trip, and has continuously been out and about refusing to wear a mask because… why follow rules? Well, his fiancee now has COVID and I guess that’s what it took to actually make him give a damn. Jason now owns all the masks, all the sanitizer, all the things. He’s been tearing into Kendra since she announced her Hawaii plans because how dare she be so vapid and self-centered as to not take this pandemic seriously.

Sometimes I feel like the people I work with are characters in a Soap show.

I really need to start going to bed earlier. I always have good intentions of going to bed at a decent hour but then something good comes on television and I wind up awake to midnight, or even 1:00 am. It’s not good. I’m not a morning person and I definitely am not making things easy for myself by staying awake until 1:00 am and then having to get up for work. In my ideal world I could work from 12:00 – 8:00 pm and never have to wake up early again.

Okay, it’s time to get back to the real-world.

Happy Tuesday (that feels like a Monday).

Empty grocery stores :(

I went for a drive today, just to get out of the house. I didn’t go in anywhere. I just wanted to see the outside world. During my drive I passed four grocery stores, all of which had lineups outside of the store for people waiting to get in.

I went to the grocery store earlier last week to get some staples (before our Premier made his most disappointing speech yet) and I had mentioned that the store was quite empty when I went. Seeing so many lines outside of stores today had me wondering if it was still going to be the same.

I’ve been ordering groceries on Instacart since Canadian Thanksgiving. When I ordered my weekly groceries today I was sent a notification from the Instacart shopper that the line was so long outside of the store he wasn’t certain he’d be able to get shopping done and brought in the time slot selected.

I sent him a message saying that’s totally fine and that if the line up is taking that long, then to not wait. My groceries were only $40 and with a 15% tip, that’s certainly not worth him waiting in line for even an hour, honestly.

He assured me he was fine waiting in line.

When he got into the store he immediately started sending me notes about substitutions and refunds. Eggs – gone. Almond Milk – gone. Chicken – gone.

He’s still at the store shopping now.

His messages have said he was only able to find 4 of the 11 items.

For normal people who order on Instacart, I’m sure that substitutions are fine, but with all of the allergies I have, I have to be very specific about the food that I purchase.

Anyways, the Instacart shopper was only able to find four items, which makes me glad that I did go to the store before closing earlier last week. I feel bad though. With only the four items, it doesn’t even come close to the minimum $35 order requirement. He assured me in the messages that it was fine.

I’m not really sure what’s going on with all of the panic buying right now. I think people might be genuinely afraid because of the fact that we’re literally the only province in the country without any genuine restrictions. Maybe people are stocking up now, thinking the hammer is coming down in a few weeks because there’s still such a large portion of our population that doesn’t seem to believe Corona Virus exists?

The news is on for background noise as I type this. We broke 1,700 positive cases in 24 hours. I remember how dumbfounded and angry everyone was when we broke 1,000 cases for the first time. That was weeks ago (what feels like a year ago) now. Now we inch closer to 2,000 per 24 hours with each passing day and people just roll their eyes and move on. We continue to hold the most positive cases in the country now, by a considerable amount, despite being the fourth largest province from a population perspective.

The lack of food in grocery stores is giving me major flashbacks to this past spring when EVERYTHING was picked over. Somehow things are infinitely worse than then.

Black Friday Online Deals

Did anyone find any awesome online Black Friday deals today? Care to share with moi? I’ve been casually browsing throughout the day but I really haven’t found any sales that are worthy of purchasing, or sharing.

If you found something worth sharing, on the other hand, I want to know. I have one person left to buy a Christmas gift for. Someone who is seemingly impossible to shop for. haha!

Share those ONLINE Black Friday deals if you’re up for it.

Merci

‘Measures not restrictions’

Our Premier came out of hiding yesterday for an unprecedented showing of just how much of a fucking moron he is.

To the surprise of no one with a brain, the Premier stood in front of national television cameras (47 minutes late) to gaslight Canada into believing he’s taking adequate measures to control the spread of COVID in our province. Which, I would like to add, is still the province with the most positive, presently active cases in the country. The provinces ranking second and third for most active cases have three times, and double the population of our province, respectively.

Refusing to call them restrictions, because they’re not, the new ‘measures’ he’s ‘putting into place’ are effective Friday. The funny but not so funny story is, they’ve already been mandated at the municipal levels since July. And yet here we are.

Effective Friday both my city and the other major city in this province have a mask mandate for all indoor public spaces. Both my city and the other major city in this province mandated that at the municipal level in July.

Effective Friday social gatherings are no longer allowed… except in restaurants, pubs, bars, movie theatres, casinos, water parks, and the mall. A thinly veiled effort to keep people in public, spending money. You’re not allowed to meet your family at home, but if you want to go out for dinner, have-atter. Oh, and you might as well make a night of it and stop at the waterpark some good clean fun before you go home.

Effective Friday stores are required to operate at 25 percent capacity. Because nothing screams ‘I’m trying to help you keep your lights on’ like ‘I’m going to limit the customers you can see in a day, so just make them buy more when they’re in your store’.

Effective Friday hotels are required to only see guests by appointment only. I’m honestly not sure what planet he’s living on but I’m pretty sure the hotel industry has been operating with reservations since the beginning of time.

Also, to go with the ‘appointment only’ measure… all hair, nail, waxing salons, barbers, etc… are required to operate by appointment only. Because, you know, they haven’t been. Up until now you’ve been able to casually walk into any salon in this city and ask for a four hour colour, cut and perm appointment and they sat you right down to get started.

Churches are no longer allowed to operate at 30 percent capacity, they’re required to operate at 1/3 capacity and there are zero exceptions to this.

Oh and fitness classes are cancelled until further notice. If you want to workout, you cannot go to a class, you’re going to have to go into the gym and share the weight and cardio equipment with every other Tom, Dick and Harry who refuses to wipe down equipment like the gym was meant to be used for.

Perhaps his biggest measure of the announcement, the one he’s most proud of, effective Friday all concert venues and conference centres are closed, indefinitely. Because, you know, concerts and conferences have been going on as though it’s business and normal and that needs to be stopped. Concerts can absolutely not happen any longer.

The economic and mental health impacts of staying at home are far too restrictive for the people of this province to be able to live freely. People need to be able to go out and infect each other if they so please. The premier hopes, though, that with these measures, he’ll slow the earth-shattering depletion of our health care system minute by minute.

Oh, and if you’re someone like me who suffers from anxiety and being in public right now, just stay home, he says. The mental health implications of stay-at-home measures are far more important than the mental health implications of the deadly virus currently running rampant (un)checked throughout the province.

He finished by once again reminding us that if we just all ‘work together’ and do the right thing, the spread of COVID will slow. He’s been spewing that line since September when he had 700 cases. Perhaps he just doesn’t watch the news and isn’t aware of the 15,000 presently positive cases (and climbing by the thousands daily).

It seems like we’re in for a world of further hurt in this province with this moron at the helm. What’s really sad is that the way our law is written in this province, the chief medical officer has absolute power to overwrite his ‘measures’ and actually put restrictions in place to slow the spread. She won’t though.

My biggest takeaway… if you want to see someone who doesn’t live in your home, just go to the casino. Or maybe the mall. Actually, the mall is a really good idea because then you’re inclined to also shop local, right? Right?

Lucky us

Nov 23, 2020 – Empty Aisles all over again

We officially have the highest positive COVID case count in Canada. We also have the second highest percentage of infections per capita in Canada.

We also have a premier that hasn’t made a public appearance since November 9th. I wonder if he really believed the words he was saying when he said that ‘People will do the right thing for everyone’, or if he was just spewing his regular bullshit. I reckon he was just spewing his regular bullshit. Either way he’s been in hiding. Maybe he was getting plastic surgery and needed to recover. Maybe he lacks the necessary leadership skills required to see the general public through a pandemic. Maybe he just doesn’t care that hospitals are at 135% capacity and he has been at home playing animal farm because he gets paid whether or not he shows up for work.

Rumour has it he’ll make a public appearance today. People are saying restrictions are coming. I will believe that when I see it…

In the mean time, people are panic buying already. I went to the grocery store right before it closed last night, thinking if there was any sort of a chance any restrictions did come today, I wanted my Pepsi and a couple of staples before the restrictions were announced and people went crazy. I was met with empty aisles all over the place.

More COVID, le sigh.

The only time I’ve left my house in the past several weeks is to just drive. I don’t get out of my car. I don’t really do anything other than drive… to see sights that aren’t my house, even if it’s just ten minutes.

The truth is, my anxiety is keeping me from doing much of anything these days. One of my guilty pleasures in life is Pepsi (it’s 100% better than Coke so don’t even try to argue with me on that one) and I can’t even get up the nerve to walk into a gas station to get some. I won’t go into the grocery store, and since you have to order $35 dollars worth of stuff on Instacart before they can process your order, I’ve been going without until it’s time to get groceries.

Yeah, I know… no Pepsi. Boo-freaking-who, what a horrible problem.

Honestly, stay at home isn’t awful. And it hasn’t been awful. The problem is the fear.

The government in this province has just decided that if they ask people nicely to stay home then restrictions aren’t necessary. As such, we’re the only province in the country without a mask-mandate. We’re also consistently breaking our COVID positivity rates each day. Tonight on the news they said that there have been more confirmed cases of COVID in the past three days in this province then there were in the first three months after the pandemic was officially declared by the WHO.

I mean… I guess we’re winning at something right? Testing positive?

I’m too anxious to go anywhere. I’m too anxious to do anything.

Every time our Premier opens his mouth I’m reminded of the saying ‘it’s better to have someone think you’re an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt in their mind’. He’s an idiot. He is. He won’t mandate masks, the simplest, easiest fucking thing to do during this pandemic, because he believes it infringes on people’s basic human rights to live freely. While the rest of the country is in various stages of lockdowns and closures to try and slow the spread and not put such a strain on their health care system, he’s advocating for the laying off of 11,000 health care workers and to putting portable buildings in hospital parking lots for overflow. Some hospitals in this province are at 135 percent capacity and his response is ‘They went into health care to help people, so now’s the time for them to step up’.

No. You fucking moron. No.

You wouldn’t tell everyone to set fire to their homes because firefighters go into fire fighting to put out fires.

We’re consistently pushing over 1,000 cases per day, and that’s with the ‘voluntary measures’ they trust the public will follow. They have so many positive cases at the moment that they cannot even contact-trace. They’ve said they’re going to hire 400 people to do contact tracing to get a better hold on where spread is coming. Because, you know, he did promise ‘JOBS, JOBS, JOBS’ when he was running for election. At least he’s holding true to one of his fucking promises.

I can live without manicures and hair cuts. I can live without window shopping. I can live without the gym. I can even live without seeing family at Christmas. But, we’ve reached a 6.9 percent infection rate. Why do we have a play a game of how many people can we infect?

I’m worried people are letting their guards down with all of this news about a vaccine. The truth is, while a vaccine may come in early 2020, it’ll be months and months before regular folk are able to get it. Health care workers will get it first, as they should. Seniors and high-risk professions will get it next. Then politicians. Then, you know the most privileged of society. It could be July or August before the majority of the population is able to get it. Hearing a press release that a vaccine is coming doesn’t mean that we get to let our guards down now.

The bottom line is that I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere soon.

Hopefully in three years when the next election rolls around people will remember how thousands of health care workers, and specifically emergency room doctors, begged and pleaded with the government to put some restrictions in place that would stop people from getting sick and the government turned to the television and said ‘People have a right to live freely and get sick if they so choose’ and ‘That’s why you went into health care so stop complaining’. Okay, I’m paraphrasing on that ‘get sick if they so choose’ part, but it pretty much was a giant kick in the teeth to anyone who’s a health care worker in this province.

If you can’t tell, this stuff makes me really angry.

Doctors are saying they’re nearing a point where they’re going to have to choose which people to save and where to divert their resources because they’re stretch so thin. The government is like ‘Meh. I don’t have it so I don’t care’ and the general public is just like ‘Meh. Let’s go to a party’.

Okay, I’m done ranting now.

If anyone knows how to talk some sense into the human race, please let me know. Also, and this is so dumb, if anyone knows how to get Pepsi without going into a store, without needing the $35 order minimum, please share your wisdom with me.

Okay, one more thing.

I realize my ability to stay home comes from a place of privilege. I realize that a lot of people in this world work jobs that don’t allow them to stay at home. I just also know that we have had large subsidies to help people get through this pandemic in Canada and that the option is there for more, if the government were to decide to enact on it. The federal government offered $2,000 per person per month. The provincial government offered $1,000 on top of that. They imposed rent freezes. They imposed regulations stopped any landlord from being able to evict someone from a rental property during lockdown. The banks postponed mortgage payments and credit card payments for clients. I guess, I just… I think if they really wanted to look out for everyone, if they really wanted to act like the elected leadership they are, they’d do more than tell health care workers they’re complaining and it’s not that bad.

Also, I didn’t start this job I’m at now until the end of May (just a few days before June) so I went through three months of lockdown using these government subsidies to get by. So I’m well aware of what it’s like.

Okay, I’m really done now.

Sorry for all of the complaining.

Various updates all in one place

I got my package. It was misdelivered to Smith Court and the woman who found it on her doorstep brought it to my house.

I got a raise. And… a promotion? Not really a promotion. Just more responsibilities and will get more money for it. I understand that’s kind of the definition of a promotion… it’s a weird grey area. It’s not a promotion. I think my boss realized that I might have been looking for something new and they wanted to add a little something extra to try and keep me around.

I bought a Christmas tree and I’m going to decorate it. This is a big deal for me because (with the exception of the time spent at my parents house in 2019, the first few months of 2020) I’ve lived on my own since I was 16 and I never bothered to invest in a Christmas tree before. I’m going to this year. This pandemic ain’t going to stop me from celebrating the holiday in the simplest, most special way… exactly how I want.

I’m considering adding a four legged fluff-ball to my life. I’m on the hunt for a small dog. My place just isn’t large enough for a large dog, it wouldn’t be fair to keep them here. But a small dog, I think they could fit in well in this house.

I have a meeting tomorrow with someone who’s looking for someone to design work done for their website. I genuinely don’t know if I have the time too. But, I think that’s a nice problem to have. I’m too ‘in demand’, I can’t help everyone. Okay, that sounds a little too cocky and I didn’t mean it to be that way. I just think it’s a good problem to be too busy. It’s nice when people come to you.

Now if only I could get paid money to just watch movies. That would be an ideal life. I used to say I wanted to paid to travel the world, but at the moment I don’t think that would be too fruitful.

Anyways…

I think I spent too much money on Christmas presents. I need to stay home for the next 10 days and not spend money. Whoops. Good thing it’s -20 outside and snowy. I don’t feel like going anywhere. And, I guess it’s a good thing my Christmas shopping is done. Mad props to companies offering free delivery this year because of the pandemic. That is forward thinking business.

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay sane.

City planning, why do you do this?

One of the packages that I ordered for myself for birthday (arguably the package I deem most important) is lost.

FedEx had been sending me tracking updates and this morning sent me an update saying the package was on the truck and out for delivery. At 10:30 am I got a text message saying that the package had been delivered and was left on my doorstep.

Only it was never left on my doorstep.

No FedEx truck, van or vehicle came down my street today.

My theory is that the Fedex Driver likely went down the wrong road. Probably because my neighbourhood is stupidly planned.

To point out how stupidly planned in it… I’ll explain it in hypothetical terms. Let’s say I live at 432 Smith Street (I don’t, I’m making up an example as to not give out my address on the internet). All of the streets in this neighbourhood are Smith Street, Smith Place, Smith Court, Smith Boulevard, Smith Lane, Smith Circle, etc… There’s about 15 streets around here with the same street name.

Each and every one of those has a 432. So there’s a 432 Smith Street and a 432 Smith Place and a 432 Smith Court, etc… etc…

Who plans neighbourhoods like this?

Honestly.

I’d like to talk to the people in the city planning department who approved this. All of the ‘S’ options in the world and they have to use the same one for every single road/street in the neighbourhood.

No wonder my package is lost.

Now that I’ve discovered there’s a 432 on every street, it makes me wonder if I’ve had any other mail lost in the past few months.

Nevertheless, FedEx has assured me they delivered it to my front door and that I just must not be looking in the right place. Maybe I’m not looking in the right place. Maybe I need to be looking at 432 Smith Place and 432 Smith Court, etc… to find my package.

I’m going to start a petition that says all streets need to have original names. Or, at the very least, streets in the same neighbourhood can’t all be named the same. (I’m really not, I’m just bitter my birthday present isn’t here)