Every year at the same times my energies ebb. A calendar is not necessary for this observation - I could be on the Moon and it would come a-visitin'. October is one of my bad months. Too late I remember my Lite Book (tm), too early I remember my troubles. The Octoberness has fallen upon me.
Part of this years troubles are of my own makings and a testament to my frugality, (cheapness, my child would say). PAY a painter to patch, sand and wash walls? UNTHINKABLE. In my fervour to complete the job in a timely manner, I managed to upset both my shoulders and hands - especially my right hand. Repetitive strain injuries, to be sure. Live through this I must as mortgages times two must be paid. I cannot be anything less than spot on. This morning I awakened to below spot, considerably below.
The reasoning of September in which the perfect solution to debt and want was a second job that involved a few days of 18/24 seems to elude my Octoberness. Not factored into my Septembering equation was the obvious danger of working in a building with seniors loathe to open windows and willing to sit in the crowded dining hall coughing into the air delicately, (and not so). Working with Teens who come down with the inevitable school colds and flus, my exposure is doubled. Table by table, week after week, I see the ranks wane as residents catch the early Autumn bug. One week it is the husband, the next the wife and everyone else who sat near him staying upstairs for dinner only because of the logisitics of making a bathroom visit during the supper hour. Last nite as I leaned in to speak with a little lady profoundly deaf, she put her face right next to mine so I could hear her whisper that she had been feeling poorly all week but today was the worst. ---arg---
I suppose I rant about these things because I cannot speak about them and sound anything less than ungrateful. I am not. I am profoundly grateful to be working in the building I most enjoy visiting. It is me that needs to change, not the building. Perhaps I must revise the notion of working 18/4 to something less depleting. The work part is easy. The winding down part is hard. It is usually about 2:30 am before I am asleep these days on a double shift day. Six am comes early. Perhaps I should take an evening posting with the Health Authority and work Monday to Friday. Hmm unlikely to see such a posting. The perfect solution would be to have a posting that saw me work Thursday to Sunday, thus reducing the impact of one job on the other. Truth be told, if not for the pension I will likely never see, I would rather work 5 nights in the building and 2 days for the Health Authority. Whether in a Facility or in the Community, it matters not to me as long as my benefits stay intact. This seems more fairytale like every month.
The beauty of my job with the Government is that I am a regular Part-time employee with Medical and Dental benefits and a pension. I am going to need that pension all too soon. Because of my move to pricier digs, I require more funds than I make at that job. Traditionally my second jobs have been contract labour Hospice work providing end-of-life care for those who choose to die at home. I still treasure my work with the dying, but choose to insert something else for my second work now. My choice was a good one, of that I am convinced. What is surprizing to me is to find that I may prefer the second job to the first.
Change. Weights and measures.
I bend, but never, ever break.
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“"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs, and explosions, and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, ideas, predjudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, predjudices can kill and suspicion can destroy. A thoughtless, freightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all it's own for the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is, is that these things can not be confined to the Twilight Zone.”
-- Rod Serling
