...Paving Work In Progress .....

…and the sign post ahead reads: “Good Intentions” ….

One cat got a nail trim, sort of sacrificed herself you might say by sounding the alarm so that the other cat could make good her escape. It is always more convienient to take the two cats at the same time, expensive but definitely less stressful. Saturday a swooped spook and it was abundantly clear that Precious was not going to partake so off we went, one at a time, meanwhile the carrier for the other sits and waits, empty, in the living room with treats thrown in from time to time. Said treats disappear on a regular basis so perhaps Ms. P will come to believe the carrier is not so bad after all?

Sunday I had my big sister and “fixer-of-all-things”, brother-in-law over for dinner as well as another friend to square things up. It was really a lot of fun and even I liked what I had cooked – usually not the case. It is probably the last time I will see the sister for a bit as she treks down south to assist “my-niece-the-librarian” with fractured ankle and soon to be “my-niece-the-librarian-with-the-post-surgical-ankle”.

Today I roused my lazy body out of bed at 5:00AM to go exercise but got caught up with some post dinner things like putting stuff away, post laundry stuff, putting stuff away, a little writing and thus … every intention of …. and of course we all know that “the road to Hell is paved with good intensions”. The benefit of all this is of course, an opportunity to blog a bit, organized and have some self-determined flexibility. Since I took the job at the AMO flexible time has been none existent and I have to say I resent that. No lunches, no dashing out to pick something up, no flexibility. Perhaps I am unable to make the adjustment to a more regimented style of work although I have to say, I love the job, I love the planes and most of the people are terrific. As an individual experienced in career development, employee relations, work stress, blah, blah, blah, let me tell you, the adage that people quit or change jobs not so much because of the work but because of work relationships, is TRUE. Everything can be pretty idyllic but if one perceives there are difficult people job change is more likely to occur.

Well, I dallied long enough, I think I can salvage some good of not going to exercise, perhaps a stiff walk around the block or maybe getting to work early to legitimize the time off I will be requesting around noon hour to work part-time at that which pays ….

It has been a busy summer with the “teachers from Singapore” and the “niece-the-librarian” having come and gone.

This morning I discussed with Spook, briefly, the possibility that she might like to get a nail trim at the Vet’s today and her response was to bite me. Perhaps it was the fact that I interrupted her nap on her favorite chair – which just happens to be MY chair, perhaps it was the subject matter. In any case, one cat is asleep in the computer room with me (the one that needs shots, too), the other sleeping elsewhere.

We continue to be very busy at work and on Thursday we learned that there will be an “audit” performed in October. Audits are extremely anxiety provoking as people are paid to find errors, I mean seriously that’s what the exercise is about. If errors are not found than clearly the audit or auditors have failed to perform.

“The Boss of bosses” – sounds like “the Mob” doesn’t it? Anyway, the “Chief Cook and Bottle Washer” and I were having a philosophical discussion one day about where “Parts” fit into the grand scheme of things. He compared “Parts” to that of being a Goalie for a Hockey team. Really, really important but not like the guys that get to skate up and down …. not really “part” of the team but part of the team. This description is truly appropriate in terms of the Audit. The other guys will probably fair quite well and it will be the Goalie that gets everyone into trouble with ultimately, a failed defense.

Onto my “niece-the-librarian” … she manage to fracture her ankle badly while vacationing with us. A nasty break referred to as a “Bimalleolar Fracture”, meaning both sides of the ankle are involved. The pissoff part of all this for me is the fact that the US health care system, HMO/PPO etc reared its ugly head in her mind at least, prevent effective and prompt care for the fracture. In fact, we sent her home on the plane with an ankle on a slab with fracture blisters. The story is thus … when the ankle was fractured a trip to the hospital ensued. For the purveyor of said fracture it was abundantly unclear whether or not the health provided would “provide” or go to great lengths to avoid providing. Having just watched “Sicko” by Michael Moore there was probably more trepidation than usual. Surgery was recommended but not carried out – who knows whether that would have prevented the blisters which surely complicate care once developed. Anywhoo, the point I am trying to make in my round about way is that a Canadian, from ANY Province, would have been assured health care once having arrived at hospital. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is sometimes difficult to get into specialists but I’ve noticed of late that there has been a reasonable response to health crises for both me and some friends and acquaintances. This is not to say there has been no wait, in fact, I need a tad of oral surgery and the Dentist was talking October with regard to an appointment with the specialist … turns out it will be late September.

Well such is life and I’m sure the outcome will be satisfactory – at least we were sending her back to a large city with excellent facilities and presumably THAT will make her HMO happy.

What it will look like “fixed”


For other cool pictures….