We need to talk

A most productive day if I say so myself, especially if it is measured in domestic tasks as I've made brown bread, lasanga soup, pineapple upside down and roast pork and veggies, couple of loads of laundry, dishes, walked the dog and paid some bills. Not too bad for unpaid employment in my estimation.

I am off to do the first of two night shifts as I managed to convince a co-worker (who doesn't sleep well in the daytime) to switch with me and do the third day shift I'd been scheduled for instead of her night. Hopefully there haven't been many major issues today or the priveledge won't be extended again. If our schedules worked out for trading I'd love to do one 12 hr day shift followed by three 12 hr night shifts. But that would be asking too much of the universe.

There was a planned power outage on Sunday morning for an upgrade and waking up disorientated in the early morning to complete darkness is a bit disconcertaing. Not as annoying as the two cell phone calls which came a few minutes apart - the first from a lobster fishermen who gets the call from the alarm company when the power is cut to the tankhouse and the second from an employee who got up when the power went off and checked out the tankhouse - considering there were only a few hundred pounds in the tankhouse now anyway. The shore captain made his rounds to ensure that all the equipment in both facilities (world headquarters and the satellite office as we like to call them) restarted. Apparently the outage, or the surge with restart was too much for the ancient computer here and it refused to boot up. Sigh. I do so hate starting over with a new system, so much work. In the meantime I am using the small netbook to stay in touch with cyberspace.

I did make it to the writing group that afternoon and had an enjoyable time. The exercise was great and the person who offered the exercise even provided us all with a gift of a journal to write in - how thoughtful! May try it out (minus the journal) on my next cruise presentation. Since it was an hours drive to the meeting I multitasked and ran errands, including a great Frenchy's shop at the same time.

One of the errands was to pick up a new vacuum cleaner at Canadian Tire as the existing one had (according to the inhouse Mr Might Fixit) died. It was particularly disturbing to have to hand over almost $300 of my hard earned money for such a piece of equipment as I don't even agree with doing housework but whaddayagonnado? I did select the PetSmartPro which is supposedly warranteed for five years against succumbing to pet hair. This place will certainly be the warranty test! It has a canister so doesn't require bags at least and a quick run on the livingroom mat filled it immediately. The cats were of course as alarmed about it as the previous model, simply picking up the cord caused them to scatter in three different directions.

The cleaning lady was pleased with it the next day though and that is what really matters. She wrote a cryptic (and alarming to those who depend on her) note after her visit that said "black kitty is sick, we need to talk". When I asked the life partner for clarification he said "I don/t know what she's talking about, he looks the same to me" which I did have to agree with as Stanley purred and expected to have his belly rubbed on the sofa. The previous cleaning lady was NOT a fan of cats and believed that hairballs were "crapping on furniture" no matter how I tried to convince her otherwise so I would've expected such an ominous note from her. As the man of the house said of the note "it doesn't look good" we both looked at each other in alarm. I quickly called for clarification and discovered that the cleaner was worried that Stanley had the flu as he'd twice barfed up his catfood whole immediately after wolfing it down (likely thinking one of the other cats would beat him to the food - as a friend pointed out, a not completely unfounded concern) and then ran quickly to the cat box. We use slicia crystals in a covered litter box and the noise of one of the cats (especially Stanley who throws minerals wildily) visiting there takes some adjusting to as it reminds you of a mining operation the first time you hear it. The cleaner was contemplating calling her daughter who is a veteranarian for feline advice as she was concerned. Oh what a relief - not going to quit. As my friend reminded me "she had a diabetic cat remember? so that wouldn't bother her" Whew.

The temporarily one armed boy captain has managed to get himself together and go haul lobster traps for a full day without incident meaning of either himself or the engine. It was rather rough yesterday morning and with the vibration of the boat the shoulder was 'sore' as he described it  - mind you self induced injuries don't garner as much sympathy as others so he doesn't dwell on it. Apparently the engine didn't over heat so not sure if that is luck or there's (finally) been a permanent fix to the problem.

Speaking of technical problems.....this morning when I woke up the temperatuer in the house was 66 F (it is usually a pretty consistent 72 F) and at first I thought a door had been left open and made a quick feline head count. They were sitting huddled up in the livingroom and there didn't appear to be heat circulating. Then it came to me 'the power outage a few days ago reset the water heaters or circulating system' and sure enough the system wasn't on. A call to the shore captain to ask if he noticed the fridgid temperatures. "Ahh.....nope" The propane fireplace on until the heat circulated and then some baking took care of the coolness.

Had a nice email from a friend who is taking a writing course in the city - not that I'm a city gal but those sorts of experiences without travel make me envious. She is a good writer already so this will spur her onwards. There has been some loose planning around her and two of us local gals getting together on Saturday as I have some urban errands but the long range forecast at this point is iffy. We shall see.

With the completion of my course I feel as if I have at least part of my life back again and so some projects which have been waiting are calling my name on my days off. Scrapbooking here I come.