Category: Sporadic AF Thoughts

True Story

This morning I spent nearly an hour searching google for where to buy rocks. Why do I need rocks? That’s a good question. Where can you buy rocks? Equally a great question. If I still lived on the coast, I’d walk outside and pick some up off the beach. I don’t live on the coast anymore. Since the mountains are federally protected lands (National Park), I’m not technically allowed to just go and take them. I probably could and get away with it… but my mom raised me better than that.

Protected ecosystems are protected for a reason. Those bugs that would inevitably be living under the rocks don’t need me wandering in there and stripping them of their home.

How ridiculous do I sound right now?

I need rocks, people.

Rocks.

Real rocks. Not the fake rocks from Etsy or Michaels.

You know what comes up when you google rocks? Not where to buy them.

Okay, update – as I was writing this post, I was googling where to buy rocks on my phone and I can buy landscaping stones at Home Depot. I’m not a huge fan of them, though. They’re all shaved down to be symmetrical in shape/size. I want a real rock as is, all of its imprecations and all.

Okay, update part two – this post is ridiculous. The reason I’d feel better taking them from a beach is because 1) Beaches aren’t federally protected lands and 2) When they wash ashore, they often are stacked on top of one another. So I could remove the rocks from the top and not disrupt creatures living underneath. Even as I explain this, though, it is just so ridiculous.

Peace of mind

I went to the grocery store today and just wandered. It was so nice to just walk up and down every aisle and glance at what’s the same, what’s new, what looks good and what doesn’t. I didn’t get scared. I didn’t have an anxiety attack. I just shopped for groceries like a normal person.

It has been months since I’ve been in a grocery store.

Now that I’ve had my second vaccination, I feel much safer in doing such. That peace of mind, I can’t even begin to explain how much that helps me, how much that means to me.

It’s the small things in life.

For whomever needs to hear this

Seeking open lines of communication is not too much to ask for.

Seeking honesty and transparency is not too much to ask for.

Seeking fair treatment is not too much to ask for.

Seeking kindness is not too much to ask for.

Seeking time is not too much to ask for.

Know who you are, what you desire and what you deserve. Expect what you deserve from people. Don’t hope for it. Expect it. Be surprised by those who don’t give you what you deserve, not those who do.

Alexa, are you having a stroke?

When I left the pharmacy after my first Pfizer vaccination, the Pharmacist told me that the Province wasn’t allowing second shots to be sooner than 4 months from that point in time, so he would phone me in when the time came that I was eligible for my second shot.

Well, the magic of science and a lot of people working a lot of hours have resulted in more vaccines shipping into this country faster, and in larger batches. As a result, the Province has begun administering second doses… early.

The Pharmacist called me on Wednesday and asked if I could come in for Friday to get my second vaccination.

Hell yes. Nothing was going to keep me from that appointment.

So, I went yesterday and got my second vaccination. I cannot even begin to explain to you what a relief that was, and how excited and happy I was to have my second vaccination. The second dose also made me feel VERY tired. I started feeling very tired not long after the vaccination and that feeling has stuck with me since.

On the bright side, I haven’t been feeling sick at all. I’ve seen a lot of people online reporting flu-like symptoms after the second dose. Me, I haven’t felt that yet. Perhaps I got lucky.

Last night, as I was napping, my Amazon Alexa device decided to have some sort of a technological stroke, or a heart attack. I’m not really sure. I was awoken to beeping. A lot of really loud beeping. And it just kept beeping. I was so tired I felt like I couldn’t move. It was more my not wanting to move, but this damn Alexa device just kept beeping.

“Alexa, turn off,” I said.

“ALEXA, I’M AWAKE,” I yelled.

“ALEXA, STFU.”

Nothing happened. It just kept beeping.

Finally I managed to muster up the energy to and unplug Alexa. I left it unplugged.

This morning when I awoke from my slumber, I walked passed Alexa to go and brush my teeth and I realized she was still unplugged from last night. Thinking it was a momentary lapse in Alexa’s judgement, I decided to plug her back in.

THE BEEPING CONTINUED.

I don’t know what is happening. Alexa is broken? Or sick?

Every time I plug it in the device just beeps and beeps and beeps.

Has anyone had these issues before? If you did, how did you fix it? I googled Alexa issues and I didn’t find anything similar.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, also, if you made it this far, please get vaccinated when you get the chance.

True Story (something about my mom ahead of Mother’s Day)

Never, in my life, have I ever witnessed, or experienced, my mother hanging up the phone.

She just doesn’t hang up a phone call.

I remember when we were kids, she always ensured that we had a (what was dubbed at the time) walk-around phone. She had so many kids running around her house, if she was on the phone she was often doing multiple things at the same time as talking on the phone.

Why I’m thinking about this now is because her and my dad actually got extra money from my Uncle’s Estate today and she was calling to share how dumbfounded she is that there’s “extra money” in an estate. Anyways, she says ‘Okay, bye’ and then she just sets the phone down on the table. I can hear her doing it, and I know it’s exactly what she’s doing it because I’ve seen her do it 10,000 times in my life.

She just doesn’t/won’t/can’t hang up a phone call.

I don’t know.

She never has.

She went from having a walk around phone that she would just set down and walk away from, to having a cell phone that she would turn over and put face down on the table. She never clicks to end a call though.

I remember asking her about it once when I was in university. She said she didn’t realize that she did that. Since she never stopped, she must still not realize.

Humans are weird.

What a funny quirk to have… unable to hang up a phone call.

Anyways, that’s my pointless story for the evening.

A mish-mash of thoughts

Firstly, I had a post up last night about my nephew finally getting to go home. That’s right, Baby Harry is going home. I posted a photo of him in that post, and upon seeing it, my brother asked that I take it down. That’s why it disappeared. The important point is, Baby Harry finally gets to go home.

Switching gears, I am more disappointed then ever with the headhunter. I was told that I was one of three candidates and that I would be contacted last Friday (April 23) with their final decision. Guess who didn’t contact me last week? The headhunter. Guess who didn’t contact me today? The headhunter.

If they didn’t pick me, after seeking me out and asking me to declare interest in the role, interviewing me twice and telling me how great their company and position was, why couldn’t they tell me? If they didn’t pick me, how hard would it be to pick up the phone, or send an email, and say ‘Thanks, but no thanks’. If for some reason they didn’t decide last week (they probably did, but if for some reason they didn’t) why couldn’t they pick up the phone, or send an email, and say ‘We’re delayed. We’ll keep you posted’. Why couldn’t they just… update me? They sought me out. I didn’t go looking for the job. They got my hopes up.

It’s just disappointing…

Meanwhile, at my day job, the Texas crew is headed to California this week. For work? No. For fun? Yeah, I guess. I don’t fully understand what kind of fun people are getting into right now. I also don’t understand what kind of fun two pregnant women are going to have with their boss in California, even if it is California. Apparently it’s team bonding and it’s necessary. They joked that they’re ‘Going to test out the effectiveness of vaccines’. So…1/2 my sales team is gone for the rest of the week. Good for them? Personally, getting on an airplane sounds absolutely awful right now. But, as I am aware, not everyone thinks the same as I.

Other news? COVID is still bad here. The government still doesn’t really care. Today they’ve taken to blaming Indigenous people for the current severity of the situation. Don’t even get me started with how disgusting I find that comment to be. Every single time shit hits the fan, the government finds a BIPOC community to point blame towards.

Other, other news: my parents are vaccinated with their first dose. They both have said they handled it very well. They got their shots yesterday, so my mom’s been texting me every few hours with what she deems important updates. Earlier today she said ‘My right hand is itchy, do you think that’s a side effect?’ No mom, I don’t. You got your shot in your left arm…

Lastly, I think the snow has finally stopped. (Knock on wood) It’s actually quite sunny out today, which was a nice change. If it could stay like this, I think it would help my mood tremendously. We’ll see what mother nature has in store for us.

It’s still snowing.

I went for a drive during my lunch break because, you know, that’s what you do these days.

Alberta has double the cases per-capita of provincial counterpart, Ontario, a province with more then 10 million more people in it.

I also saw on the news last night a Virologist saying that Alberta has more cases per capita right now than in a lot of the US States. Now, I haven’t seen an actual stat for that, and I can’t find one online, but if he was telling the truth and not making a generalization, that sucks….

It’s so bad here other provinces are starting to restrict people from our province because we carry a risk of basically exponentially worsening the entire country if we province hop.

There are more cases in this city, presently, than in the entire province that my parents live in. So… I really don’t blame other provinces for wanting to tell us to just fucking stay home. (Yes, language is necessary because I’m in that kind of a mood)

Basically, we’re going to be here a long time to come.

So I went for a drive. In the snow. I saw the mountains, I saw a couple moose, some very confused geese, a pretty lake. It was… I guess as good as it could be.

I wore shorts and flip-flops in protest of the current weather. I didn’t go inside anywhere because… why bother.

Blonde moments on Sunday

At 10:00 pm Sunday night I decided it was the perfect time to wash and peel grapes.

After washing and peeling said grapes, I wanted to put them in the freezer, wash the sink out and then head to bed.

I washed my sink with dish soap because… why not? It’s soap. It’s right there.

This morning I came downstairs to make my morning coffee and the grapes were still on my counter, not in the freezer. Confused, I opened the freezer door and saw my dish soap in the freezer, not on the counter.

I washed out the sink and then put my dish soap in the freezer.

Yea, that’s how I started my week.

Feels like a Monday.

Kids say the darndest things

I have a brother, sister-in-law and niece who live in Denmark. They’re having a baby in August and they just found out it’s going to be a girl! Anyways, this morning we were chatting via face time and my brother was showing me how his toddler is already comfortable riding a horse.

She started yelling “Go Vee, Go Vee” and then kicking in the motion people do when they’re trying to get horses to take off running.

I laughed because I thought she was confused. Three year old’s, they can get confused from time to time.

Anyways, she wasn’t confused.

She named her horse after me.

Isn’t that cute?

My brother said she named it after me because it has long blonde hair like me, so she says it looks like me.

Apparently I look like a horse.

I’m sure in her mind that’s a compliment. Me… well, let’s just say I don’t love the idea of looking like a horse. haha!

I’m so thankful for technology that allows me to connect with them on the other side of the world. Looking forward to it one day being safe for me to go there, see my niece, likely meet my new niece (as I don’t think I’ll be going before August) and my namesake… the horse with the long blonde hair.

Oh, also, when we were chatting on face time I noticed there was snow. In Denmark. In April. To the Danes who read this blog, I hope you’re enjoying your snow day. Mother nature must be confused!