You call that tech support?

Survived my days off even though they included a trip to the city. Managed to catch a few z z z s after a night shift and then on the drive down play secretary for some government applications. Arrived in time for the shore captain to catch the bureaucrats then a parking lot meeting with the hunting buddy to drop off fish, another drop off to the son-in-law as the teacher daughter was working late on report cards and then grabbed supper at Aroma Cafe Latino and pretended we were in Central America not frigid Nova Scotia for a few moments. Headed down to watch the Mooseheads (play and actually win) while we visited a bit with the daughter and son-in-law in the stands.

Saturday brought a trip to the Seaport Farmers Market, Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council Christmas Market and a stop at the Brewery Farmers Market. This meant yummy treats in the form of a pastries, sausage roll, mango lassi and more. I picked up a beautiful blown glass hummingbird for a co-worker who provided great support during some recent professional issues and a cute cedar 'fish' for my closet. So a great wander to get into the holiday spirit. Took in a second Mooseheads game on Saturday and headed out to Q for supper. It was a great, reasonably priced, casual meal as always:

http://www.qmeats.ca/

Aside from a 1:06 a.m. ? prank call to the shore captain's cell phone a very restful weekend. Sunday morning was breakfast at Cora's and then home. Had a nice visit with the baby daughter who had requested "if I don't take anything can I stay here?" for the weekend. This of course as a follow up to the shore captain having purchased one pillow as she had scoffed a pair of pillows I used for the guest bed from the hall closet. It turns out that he'd only bought one because....he says "you don't want to know how much this cost" and when I DID ask he answers "$36" so that was the obvious cause for the solo purchase - he didn't have $72 on him. Had a nice supper before the daughter headed back at 6 p.m. Fredericton bound after her brother put air in her flattish tire and a call looking for her debit card which apparently must be in her car somewhere. 

By the time the alarm clock rang at 5:20 a.m. on Monday I had not fully recovered from all my shenanigans of the weekend, especially as my shift had been moved back a day but what can you do? Headed out to work a LD and hitched a ride from the 103 meeting spot. It was in actual terms a manageable day - one of the very few we've had in months - so although it was steady we were able to feel as if we were keeping up at least. Lots of domestic duties on the home front and an early night for another LD.

Tuesday was not to be the gift of the day before. By 1 p.m. my co-worker said "that's it! today we ARE getting lunch!" and calls to the inpatient floor for an RN to come relief us for the meal break. By 2 p.m. the relief nurse had been there an hour and none of us have had lunch when the phone rang....Nurse manager for me - "can you go home right now and come back for a 12 hr. night shift as someone called in sick for tonight and I've called everyone?" After explaining that I picked up my co-worker a few km. up the road and we traveled together, thus making her an orphan, a quick check of the time sheet found her a ride home at 7 p.m.and I headed out. When someone commented that I was quick to accept the offer I said "I will eat a late lunch at home, nights have got to be better than this and I will escape the male drama at home, it will be double time for tonight so I'm not heartbroken and I'm outta here".

The three hours at home were spent observing the prodigal son dealing with the justice system to have a year and a half old motor vehicle ticket settled. Since this would involve sitting in court all afternoon tomorrow and ticking off one of the local RCMP officers who mangled the ticket (and yes he would be right but at what cost?) My advice was accept the fact that he will pay $600 more for his insurance due to a ticket he didn't actually get - no seat belt vs no rear tail light - and move on. He was not pleased with my counseling.

As I attempted to get online following the legal interventions I discovered that I couldn't get connected. After trying all the unplugging, replugging, rebooting that I could think off I finally broke down and called an Eastlink tech (where I learned that it was snowing in PEI) and was referred to Cisco (Linksys) my router company. After a very lengthy discussion with a tech whose first language was not English - mind you I don't speak Hindi - he has me plugging in the LAN cable to my laptop, tells me it's only the wi-fi that's a problem and he can assist me with that but .... they only provide free tech support for the first year of the router. I assure him the router is only a few months old as we've only had high-speed internet since June but....when I search out the receipt as he directs I discover that it was in fact purchased (by my niece's husband who was setting up the computer system for me) in September 2009 as that was when the wireless internet was promised but not delivered so in reality it was only used for a few months. He checks with his supervisor and advises that I can have tech support for the low cost of $29.95 - on a $65 router! I tell him that he can put the router where the sun doesn't shine and that I will make sure no one I know ever purchases a router from Cisco! I call the local computer shop where the tech is out on a call but the phone answerer thinks he has a router, I should call back in the morning. I attempt for hours to call The Source where there is no answer. So I give up, do two loads of laundry, a load of dishes, pick up stuff to make surfaces for the cleaning lady to clean in the morning, make a loaf of brown bread and serve up leftovers for supper and head out to work.

The night as you can imagine was....l-o-n-g... due to the sleep deprivation and switched shifts. I did survive it and was pleased to find that I'd lucked into a birthday party celebration for one of the RNs. However eating the amount of food we did at 3 a.m. as we were busy until then was NOT a good idea. I made it home this morning and crashed into bed. I awoke two hours later to the smell of....Mr. Clean. It took a few moments to realize that the cleaning lady was in house and cleaning very quietly in the kitchen. I stumbled up to allow her access to the sleeping quarters and checked the computer. You guessed it.....no problem getting online. So much for expert tech advice! Before long a recently widowed neighbour who I've been assisting with some paperwork called and then arrived for another interaction with the bureaucrats session. After a lengthy phone conversation with a civil servant who was actually quite helpful we discovered (three months since her husband's death) that you have to change your marital status with the Canadian government to widowed before anything can move forward. Now I must be missing something but a death certificate doesn't do this? The official word is "no, as you might not have been legally married but just calling him your husband" Hmmmm, not something that I'd be doing in my world.

So as I try to divert myself from all the last minute lobster season preparations I  make it a habit to pick up some links to include in my postings and here is one from a friend of daughter # 1

 http://igoogledit.wordpress.com/

Also a link from a great writer, teacher and mentor who has recently begun blogging:

http://sandraphinney.com/

And how could a looking forward to retirement  blog not mention around the world trip planning:

http://www.lostgirlsworld.com/2010/11/how-to-buy-a-cheap-round-the-world-rtw-ticket/

Must go as the couch is calling my name for an afternoon siesta.