Take that Bell Canada

A quick update as I find a few moments at work because….I am having connectivity issues in a big way – mostly financial! The ongoing technical continue, but the main problem is that I finally found out what the turbo stick is costing and it ain’t pretty. Apparently it has been $102 for January and $101 for February bills. Not that I received any bills since December due to a screw up in the e-billing. I yelled so badly at customer service about the fact that my $70 bill for this month because I have spent so many hours on the phone with tech support following their instructions and used up all my space that my account was credited. But in order to cancel my contract I have to give 30 days notice (meaning I’m free on April 9th) and pay a penalty for each remaining month which totals $160 + taxes. The customer support dude suggested that someone else might take over my contract and I laughed out loud saying that if they knew the story behind my situation they sure wouldn’t want to. So, the final decision was to cut my losses and run for it by paying the $145 I talked the customer service rep down to and pulling the plug. So my plan is to wait out the high speed connection because I don’t even have a computer in the house which will connect to dialup except for a castoff left by the baby daughter which is definitely not worth the $40 per month for that! So the postings will be sporadic perhaps as I live with work/library/wireless when in town.

Not a bad way to spend a day off

The past few days have been beautiful – sunny and warmer than the usual temperatures with just a slight breeze, requiring the garden door be left open to keep the interior environment manageable. In fact today (no matter what the date on the calendar says) I celebrated spring by hanging blankets on the clothesline. Ahh, the one type of housework I enjoy doing – the rest waits for the cleaning lady on Thursday and she has her work cut out for her as she hasn’t been here for almost a month between both of our vacations.

I started today off with some photos of the beautiful orchid my summer neighbour gave me last year as you can see here. I also snapped a picture of Klyde so you can see that his hair IS growing back and yes I am keeping to my promise of brushing him regularly so he doesn’t have to go through this again. Then I read the newspaper before heading in to town for a massage (tough day off so far eh?) I continued on to a great Frenchy’s shop where I made like Cinderella and found some wonderful shoes, an overnight bag, a GAP and Old Navy t-shirt for me and one for the shore captain which said “CSI Investigations” as he is a huge fan as well as a dickie for under his oil clothes in the winter, two sets of sheets for one of the daughters, pantyhose, and for Cuba a backpack, shopping bag and the find of the day – a bicycle saddlebag! On to the drugstore sales bin – cleaned up - and then groceries. Home in time to walk the dog before supper. Well actually, home in time to fight (again) with the Superior Propane call center and FINALLY get the charge completely removed from the bill for the tank exchange/refill of last fall and then walk the dog before making fish cakes (yum) for three.

The shore captain has a number of items on his to-do list for tomorrow which includes picking up goodies his mother is sending to the western daughter, a thumb drive to send her the Cuba photos and arranging for the salt fish and lobsters which are all being couriered by her sister. A quick trip to the city on Friday to drop all this off to daughter # 2 aka the mule.

Had a nice surprise to hear from a former work colleague telling me that the gang will be in Lunenburg next month and I actually will be free for an overnight visit. Yeehaw! Back to work in the morning again, the first of two more dreaded day shifts, but what can you do when you're not retired eh?

Is it spring yet?

A beautiful sunny Saturday, with the only problem being the sun is shining on……snow still! Headed back from days off to work on Thursday and the storm followed me. Nasty drive home on Thursday evening and only a slightly better one in yesterday morning, at least on this secondary road. It’s March for goodness sake, enough of the white stuff already, although I have heard rumblings of more predicated for Tuesday, sigh. And although it isn’t the time of year that we expect two feet of snow this smile on the left from a summer neighbor hits a bit close to home. The mailbox installation survived the wet snow and snow plows and was (as the life partner predicted) pushed to the side with the onslaught but had withstood the barrage due to the metal shield. I was most impressed. He should apply for a patent. At least the sun today (certainly NOT at Caribbean strength) is warm enough to contribute to some major solar gain in this R2000 hacienda so the garden door is open and the cats have been in and out numerous times. Stanley (who isn’t known for his bravery) even yelled to go out on the run and experienced the snow for a while. My personal measurement of spring is when I can walk the dog without hat and gloves – not there yet.

I continue to (unfortunately) have an ongoing association with the technical support staff at Bell regarding the turbo stick. It was (slightly) reassuring to hear that it was not the desktop or netbook computer or anything I was doing to them (as had been suggested by previous techs) which was causing the problem. Apparently there is difficulty in the Bell software or system and the engineers are (according to their jargon) working on recreating the problem as it has been escalated, the ticket is still open and a callback will advise when it’s resolved. As I told Mohamed Abeed “that does not solve my problem of unreliable connectively” and he did agree with that. We discussed how I would contact customer support if this situation wasn’t resolved within two weeks as I don’t plan to be locked into a yearlong contract with this situation. I mean 35 min. to send one email after six attempts – ridiculous!

I was pretty impressed to get news from the western daughter that she was in the top 5 for sales in central Alberta within her bank. Considering the rocky economic climate that is not too shabby. The second daughter is enjoying her second practice teaching assignment which apparently is a great school without much staff turnover – good environment but not likely much in the way of a position. Hopefully the dues won’t have to be paid by substituting in the fall but it’s early days yet as classroom assignments aren’t finalized until May and then the repositioning begins.

Almost time to think of getting ready for work, but at least it’s a night shift where there is less management and their resultant requests. I am considering my night shifts precious this spring as we are booked to do 20 shifts within a six week period and I have 12 LDs and 8 LNs without any structure of the four on, four off rotation. Nice to be so versatile I get to work with everyone and everywhere eh?

Vacation recap

Well, we’re back and of course as usual it seems as if the vacation recedes into history very quickly. Just have the 580+ photos to prod our memories and I’ll post a coupe in the summary below. We actually made it back to the area on Friday but…I traveled directly from the airport to work a night shift due to travel delays. We started out Thursday evening flying out of Santiago de Cuba to Toronto and due to a snowstorm in Ontario were delayed an hour before we got underway. The flight was sleepless for me as I was on the aisle with a couple who apparently hadn’t taken their Ritalin as every 45 minutes they were up and down the aisles, chatted loud enough that the earplugs didn’t muffle them and once dropped a large beach bag of beverages on me from the overhead bin. We got in to Pearson at 3 a.m. and finally to bed at the Airport Sheraton by 4. Up at 8 a.m. to catch the connection to Nova Scotia which was (as well) delayed due to deicing requirements and so into Halifax by 3 p.m. with major turbulence along the way so no shuteye and a very challenging landing in storm force winds. Not a surprise that we were one of very few flights arriving from Toronto that day. A short visit with a Cuban ex-pat followed by a cup of tea with daughter # 2 before we headed out into the sheets of rain and very strong winds for the drive home. The life partner dropped me off at work where I made like Superman and changed into the RN of the hour. I amazed myself by staying conscious for the entire 12 hours and not causing too much trouble on my 4 hrs of sleep in the past 48 hrs. When the shore captain met me on the highway and deposited me home I can hardly remember stumbling into bed in the morning – first thing I knew it was 4:35 p.m. with the alarm sounding.

Enjoyed a great supper which had been graciously left by a friend and then remembered the Christmas gifts from the western daughter which had been delivered at the tea stop. Pretty exciting to find a very large bag of Lady Hannah tea as well as a beautiful notebook with my initial on it – just like the holidays all over again. The second night shift started off with some excitement as I desperately attempted to retrieve the electronic triage information from my ‘still on vacation’ brain. The usual Saturday night ‘related to alcoholic beverages ‘ situations settled after 2 a.m. and I managed to survive in much better style. It goes without saying that my four days off were very welcomed.

When I came home from work on Sunday morning I spent an hour and a half on the phone with Bell tech support (couldn’t place the very strong accent due to a major speech impediment) because the turbo stick wouldn’t stay connected. I should not complain about this tech though as I later spent two and a half hours with two separate (more understandable but condescending geeks) who were not able to resolve the identical problem on my laptop although one did admit the changes were in the Bell system arggh. The late bedtime and rainy weather meant I slept the day which was likely for the best due to the power failure that evening. Finally crawled into bed at 2 a.m. after relaying phone calls to Nova Scotia Power for a frantic shore captain who had lost ‘a phase of his power’ at the lobster tank house and was dealing with aerators et al until the wee hours. Woke up in the morning sans power ourselves as apparently trees on the lines here put it out at 3 a.m. and we were 12 hours without so grateful for the propane range and generator. The propane fireplace (our auxiliary heat source for prolonged outages) however would not operate no matter how the shore captain jiggled the wires. The next day he ‘remembered’ that there was a battery in the thermostat (who knew that thermostats had batteries? Certainly not moi) and retrieved one about the size of a hearing aide battery.

So….on Tuesday I began the quest for the battery – not an easy task in the small local town as the hardware store would have one in on Friday, the smaller drugstore didn’t carry that size, the building supply center didn’t carry them at all but the larger drugstore rewarded me with the $2.75 necessity. After a great Frenchy’s shop and $335 in groceries (the highlight being I purchased a pizza stone – have wanted one of those for some time) I headed home to straighten the casa out thinking I was going to scrapbooking in the evening. Not the case as the community room was overbooked so an in-house session with a friend substituted instead.

Did some baking, unpacked and laundered + +, forwarded goodies from Cuba and for some reason a reorganization bug bit and I cleared out the bookcase and several drawers – not really sure what came over me with the domestic duties. On a more social note I did manage to transfer the trip photos to the computer and we had a little vacay replay to cheer ourselves up.

The trip (of course) was a great time. We visited with our friends, enjoyed the sun and food and generally enjoyed ourselves to the fullest. The weather was a bit cooler and wetter than we’ve ever experienced in the 13 years we’ve been traveling to Cuba but it sure wasn’t snow! It was difficult to believe that we had two weeks there as it simply flew by. Not sure if that was because we hadn’t visited for two years or we’re just getting older and time is moving faster. I’m thinking I’ll do a scrapbook on the ‘real’ Cuba – the one not of resort publicity shots but a bit grittier. I did some extra shots this year thinking of a photo journal. Enjoy.

Woohoo and we're off

Well, just a few moments snatched between work duties (and yes I did do those first) and all the last minute details involved in getting ready to go. I've topped up the minutes on my cell phone, copied the message (en espanol no less) from daughter # 1 to her Cuban family, found a spanish translation of the antibiotic I'm taking to them and made sure I have all the phone numbers for when we are on the ground.

One of the lighter moments in our preparing for flight is that our e-tickets came with my age as 29 and the shore captain's as 23. It was flattering and tempting to try to travel with those documents but unfortunately the passport photos and faces themselves would lead to troubles I fear.

As well as last minute packing, I spent the day doing all the last minute things that need to be done and which aren't any fun but are less fun if you come home to them ex. emptying garbage, running the dishwasher through, putting away the laundry. I also cancelled the newspaper and made arrangements for the dogwalker,left a long note for the prodigal son with respect to watering flowers, feeding of animals etc. So a full day before it was time for the shore captain to drive me to meet my ride at the intersection.

The shore captain is concerned about the strong winds which are forecast (and appear to have started already) but hopefully we'll make it out to Toronto. We're on a really tight schedule so if there is any kind of delay we won't make the connection to Cuba. Fingers crossed. I am being picked up here at the door as my shift ends and whisked away to the airport with very little time to spare so it'll be a long day by the time we arrive.

We will be returning on February 26th but yours truly will be coming back to do a night shift so it may be a few days after that before you're caught up on the blog. And for all those who have wished that we have a good time...that is not going to be a problem!

Transitioning to Days

The last two night shifts have been manageable and in fact the final one was downright pleasant - not often the way staying up overnight for pay is described. Managed to check out Twitter a bit, get my crocheting back on track (one of the hazards of doing it at night are mistakes which become glaringly obvious in the daytime and necessitate ripping out large sections) and catch up on all the news.

After a sleep until early afternoon the shore captain and I headed up to Yarmouth to do some final Cuba shopping. It was necessary that he drive (as I was sleep deprived) but he had his warnings about male shopping behavior (he has a severe case - meaning he spends 15 minutes maximum looking for things he wants and the is ready to leave) and staying focused as his adult ADD kicks in when he is forced to participate in shopping especially with me carrying a list! We started at Frenchy's and true to form he looked for t-shirts for 15 minutes then began wandering aimlessly with a pained looked on his face (think constipated and you're not far off) coming back frequently to stand beside me and issue a long sigh. This (as it would have with whining children) gave him the gift of firm instructions to sit in the car if he couldn't wait any better than that. He quickly moved away to the book bin and allowed me space to dig for 'sports clothes' for my Cuban nurse friend's daughters. Found a good selection and scored a duffel bag as well. We moved along to WalMart after that for sneakers, fishing gear, and discount bins and although we are still lacking a few things on the list the charter luggage weight restrictions will likely settle that problem for us.

The weather was a bit slushy and as we backed of the parking space I snuggled down into my winter jacket in my sleep deprived haze when......bang! I flew up out of my seat yelling "what did you hit?" and the shore captain who is looking surprised says "that big blue truck" pointing to an older model 4 wheel drive (the kind you would expect to NOT carry insurance) which was exiting the parking lot by now. He maintains he looked and it wasn't there and came out of nowhere. Hmm. I looked pointedly at my chauffeur so he did grudgingly get out and have a look at the rear of the car pronouncing "no damage". Now I shall decide that for myself in the daylight tomorrow as it was dark when we made it home. I instructed that if he wanted to drive his own vehicles like that it was his choice but I am doing my best to keep mine on the road. It was a quiet ride home.

Tomorrow evening has been booked as 'packing night' which is always stressful. Meaning the shore captain thinks it is and I know it is! Into the countdown now. Hasta.

It will grow out

Have been keeping rather busy in the run-up to vacation so just noticed I haven't blogged since last weekend. On Saturday I forgot to get up from sleeping after nights (had meant to get up at 1:30 p.m. but regained consciousness at 4:30 p.m - oh well) we had a great evening with friends, good conversation, lobsters and all the fixings. Sunday I spent being a domestic goddess and made eggs benedict for brunch, then baked rabbit hotpot with blueberry buckle for supper. Entertained one of my co-workers and her husband in the evening as he had been on an adventure where he signed up as crew on a tug in his first non-fishing sea adventure. He flew to United Arab Emirates to pick up the tug/barge and head back expecting to return in six or seven weeks and finally made it home seven months later after having been in Sri Lanka (twice - once during the war) Indonesia, Hong Kong, Egypt, Suez Canal, Gibraltar, Portugal and after the Azores across the pond. They had + + mechanical problems etc. and finally had the tug and barge seized for unseaworthiness when they arrived in Newfoundland. Great photos and stories though!

On Monday I took it easy and played on the computer, figuring out how to post photos on Twitter using something called Twitpics - how could that be bad? Then in the afternoon I got into the countdown to Cuba vacation mode dragging out the one way suitcases and various items collected over the past two years to see where the gaps were. The actual packing of our clothes is usually accomplished in about 15 minutes and fits into a carry on bag. It's the finagling required to cram the tall stack of gifts into the 55 lb. luggage allowance that is exhausting. An appointment has been made for Sunday evening for same as it is (at least) a two person operation and that is the only time available until we leave... a week from today - but who's counting?

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in gainful employment doing long days (and they sure were) but there was an added bonus of having good travel and work buddies so that always helps. And I was successful in not one, but two IV starts! I have begun to regain my confidence and have settled myself to the thought that it will just take time to get up to speed. I had a day off (if you can call it that with the schedule I kept) and work nights on the weekend.

Poor Klyde as you can see from the before (on left) and after (right) photos of the coiffure experience he has had a bad haircut day. And before you think that something's happened to his hips - he often lays like that. He's not one to really care what anyone thinks but being shut in the front entryway without food or water since last evening, then carted to the vet in a cardboard box (no way could I locate the cat carrier) in the pickup truck (which I was taking for the shore captain to have repaired - more on that later) then waiting for 45 minutes at the vets to be 'admitted' with badly behaved dogs, then conscious sedation during which dematting, pedicure and immunization was done, a nap in a large cage before being dragged home in the cardboard pet carrier I purchased at the vet. He was very relieved to be rescued but still majorly ticked off at me for being involved with the whole fiasco. Needed to be done and it will grow out. Since I felt very badly at being such a bad cat-mother I have resolved to brush him weekly.

In between my to and fro of the animal hospital I managed to take the shore captain's truck to have the tire fixed. And by this I mean a large piece of wood from the side of the wharf which was wedged between the rim and the tire causing the alignment to be out and a shake in the front end. When I suggested he might be the one who could benefit from bifocals (the not wearing - I didn't say not needing - of glasses being important to himself) he finally disclosed that he could see but had run down the wharf when he came off a pile of snow there. I'm nominating him for that show 'Canada's Worst Drivers' if this keeps up. Of course I had missed the appointment at the garage when it took so long to get sorted out at the vet in the a.m. so I had to beg a Neon to run my errands. This allowed me to visit Frenchy's and shop with all those folks who are already retired - ah to dream - scoring some great Cuba and personal finds. Off to the drugstore for requested items and then some grocery shopping. This consisted mostly of convenience foods for the heir to the empire who is being left home to pet sit. No point in stocking up on veggies as I'll have to throw them out on my return home. By the time I got the truck back, transferred all the shopping over and made it home it was 2 p.m. Only time to make brown bread, read the paper and head back to pick up Klyde before getting a haircut myself, and not a bad one at that. Full day.

Tomorrow I am going to pace myself after sleeping in and then perhaps read. Ahh.