on a personal note...

[leashedForLife]

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BTW, i arrived for my wkend-shift at 2, & after returning at 6 from a brief shopping-trip, my client's wife mentioned that the hospital-style bed sox i found downstairs in "my" room might be the property of "the PCA who will be staying nights, when i'm gone".

So that solves the mystery of the live-in person who was being interviewed last Monday - she'll cover overnights when the client's wife is out of town for business, family stuff with distant relatives, etc. // Whew. :wipes brow: My blood-pressure dropped 15 points, right there.

- t

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[leashedForLife]

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Incredible! - THIS is where my friend, an elderly Italian man who spoke almost no English & repaired shoes, had his shop - when i was 5, i'd walk here on my own from our house a half-mile away.

Notice how totally out of place it looks - there used to be a large house beside it, where that massive parking lot is now, with a beauty-salon in the ground floor front. // to the right, even-more incongruous, is a large bulletin board that's 3X the area of the house wall & roof from the side, & a deep Vee of grass between Welsh Rd & Old Bustleton Ave.

The cobbler was the 1st of many old folks that i thot of as close friends - he had chickens, too, who wandered in & out of his little house at the back of the shop; his were Leghorns, nervous, noisy, & twitchy - ours were Rhode Island Reds, quiet, sociable, & they laid pretty brown eggs [that i collected, as one of my chores].
There was a side-door that went directly into his kitchen, now hidden by that monster advertisement hoarding, & the hens would run in & out, squawking, while he worked on someone's shoe, sitting on a bench in the sun.

I can't remember the cobbler's name anymore - his first name was Tony, but only my mother called him that; to me he was Mister-something; i can still see his lined, nut-brown face, small wiry body, & big-knuckled clever hands. He smoked a pipe, & his clothing & shop & house all smelt aromatically of a nice tobacco.


Below is the home of my childhood frenemy, Louise - her parents were rich [i thot] as they had a garage that wasn't turned into a chicken-coop, & TWO cars, plus their house was much-more recently built than ours.

the LEFT side of this double house was my 1st home, from birth to age 5 -

When we lived there, there was no picket fence, nor an airlock with a storm door - the oak front door was over half thick bevel-edged glass, with a brass handle & lock-plate, & it opened directly into the living room.
There was also a big maple tree at the left front, shading the house & the driveway, about 40-ft tall with an equal spread. // there were lilacs by the porch to each side of the walk, & spring bulbs came up around their feet - snowdrops, daffys, tulips, hyacinth, blue squill.

The garage, at the end of the drive on the left of the house, was our chicken-coop - we sold eggs to help pay the bills.
There was a thick hedge over 6-ft tall separating our drive from the next house, & at the foot of it was a long bed of hosta, 4-ft wide, that ran the length of the drive. // Hedge & hosta are both gone; the garage has new aluminum siding [when we had it, the siding was narrow wooden clapboards, & the roof was slate].

It's amazing that the house is still standing, over 50-years later - i have vivid memories from our life there, but they aren't everyday events; they're shocking, hysterically funny, sad, bizarre, or unhappy things, very out of the ordinary.

the basement probly still has traces of my elder bro's many adventures in chemistry - my parents unwisely gave him a set, with all sorts of hazardous, toxic, highly-reactive stuff, in vials of glass in a sheet-metal "cabinet", & among other things, he made PERMANENT ink - which he tripped & splashed all over the newly-painted kitchen as he ran up the steps, shouting, "Mom! I made ink!..." Crash.
He also made fuel for small model-cars; the exhaust gases of the reaction propelled them forward - until they blew up.

One day as my mother prepared to bathe my younger sister, a tremendous thunderstorm began, with wild vivid lightning & deafening thunder; Suzy panicked, climbed from the tub naked, & ran thru the house, then outside, screaming in terror for our mother. // She was just a toddler; that was no excuse, our sire beat her.
She screamed even louder when he smacked her, hard - her whole body rocked forward with each blow as he held her wrist locked in his grip, & slammed his other hand onto her buttocks & thighs. She had bruises that lasted a week, purple-blue to green to yellow.

There used to be a sidewalk that ran at the head of those stairs, all the way down the street on our side, & another opposite - there were big trees all along both sidewalks, that shaded the sidewalks, the street & the houses in summer. // All gone.
Maple keys used to come down in clusters on windy spring days, & we'd fling acorns at each other in autumn - the nuts hurt when Jack threw them, we 3 girls didn't snap them like bullets, we just tossed 'em to pester.

My big sister was in high-school when we made the big move to the farm - she used to walk the sidewalk to the end of the street, catch the bus, & travel alone to St Hubert's girls school. // Her school uniform was pretty - a solid cadet-blue A-line dress with a gold badge; mine was navy, yellow, & green plaid with narrow black lines, & a knife-pleated skirt, & i hated it.


I broke my nose one day, running away from an angry classmate - he used to tease me constantly about my curly hair, & he pulled my skirt up in the schoolyard, so i glued the pages of his text-books together, & his parents would have to pay for them, rather than return them.
I ran headlong into the cast-iron pedestrian crossing box, a bulky thing like a standing safe, as i looked over my shoulder for my pursuer, & smashed my nose, which bled like a tap. // I made the policeman drive me home, I wouldn't let him take me to the hospital without my mother - poor woman, she nearly had heart-failure when the cop cruiser pulled up & she saw my white blouse slick with blood.

- terry

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[Violet Turner]

Some lovely stories and pictures Thank you for sharing.

 

[arealhuman]

Some lovely stories and pictures Thank you for sharing.

Indeed

 

[leashedForLife]

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The photos of life on our farm are all off-line; my elder brother [who vanished from our lives for over 10-years, & never did explain to anyone but our mother, just why he cut us all off - i suspect it was anger at our barsteward sire, but that's supposition on my part] made calendars each year during his "reconciled" period, each month with a different set of family photos & each calendar covering a different decade, but i put all the family calendars in storage.


these are 2 aerial views of the neighborhood around our farm - a satellite photo, & the map in the same scale.
In the sat-pic, the white oblong shining up from the end of a driveway is the Franks' house roof; they were our nearest neighbors.

Note the 2 streams - the one above ran adjacent to our house, the one below ran thru the gully in our pasture, in the section nearest the sheep barn.

With the addition of the springhouse & then the well that we installed about 15-yrs into our ownership, we were water-rich. // I had no idea how lucky we were to be self-sufficient for water.

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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some photos in the village -
the old pottery-kiln has been turned into an antiques shop [i spoze that was inevitable] called 'Gristies'.
The kiln is next-door to the post-office, where the school bus picked us up & dropped us off, & the postmaster's adult son, Carl, glared at us for dripping on "his" linoleum - what a bad choice for counter-service to the public, LOL, Carl was as grumpy as a bear with a bad tooth, even in his 20s, he was a fussbudget that would shame most elderly ladies, constantly complaining about the dirt everyone brought in, the trash in the bins, interruptions to serve them...
Nothing like his old man, who ran the general store in the same building for decades, & was a very civic-minded, affable fellow.

2 views of Gristies, northbound & then southbound -

the US-PO -

the home of my mum's best-friend, Anne Lyons, her husband Tom, & their 4 kids - our playmates -

... that fence above the retaining-wall along the road didn't exist B4, it was a sloping lawn of grass that ran to the concrete foundation of Tom's commercial garage, behind the house, where he sold & installed tires.
That's where their nasty GSD, Fritz, came barreling down the slope at me one day, after i'd dropped off a package for Anne between the storm door & inner door, & was leaving - there was nowhere to escape, the dog was running downhill & less than 10-ft from me when i heard him panting & looked up, he leaped off the retaining wall with his mouth wide open, & i desperately flung my arm up to protect my face - my hand hit something, & i grabbed it reflexively, it was his LOWER JAW & TONGUE, & i hung onto it like grim death - Fritz had severely hurt several ppl already!
He flipped over my hand in a somersault, landed hard on his side, & knocked all the air from his lungs... he was still half-conscious & struggling to breathe as i ran off, down the street & home. Whew! - i was just 10 or 11-YO, & Fritz scared the life out of me, that day - he'd always been untrustworthy, & had ripped the hood off my brand-new corduroy jacket the previous fall, as we all ran down the steps together to catch the school bus; he'd gone for my neck, jumping off the retaining wall from the side of the steps, & got the hood instead.

Fritzie was weird; he'd shadow me from room to room when i babysat for my godchild, Beth, the youngest Lyons family member; he'd never come near me, but would lie a short distance off, & STARE at me fixedly, as i read a book, or played with Beth, or read her bedtime stories. // He had light yellowish eyes, which in his dark face, only made his constant stare more disturbing. He gave me the creeps.
He bit many ppl in his lifetime; one poor devil was driving a motorcycle on a fine summer day, he even had a leather jacket on despite the heat, which may have saved his life: Fritz ran along the coping of that same retaining wall as he came off Rt 32 / River Rd, & past the house; the dog JUMPED ONTO THE BIKE, with his paws on the man's shoulders & hind-feet on the rear seat, above the rear-wheel, BITING his neck & shoulders clear-thru the steerhide coat!
The man managed to keep the bike upright, a miracle in itself, with a 75# dog flying thru the air to land on it, & he stopped the bike beside the stone coping of the bridge, before hitting the wall - another miracle! - then he pried Fritz, still biting, off his back with his gloved hands - his hands were also badly bitten; he had to use a bike-chain to drive the dog off him, & send him home.

Anne adored that crazy dog, & kept him even after that incident; when Beth was born, 9-yrs younger than her next-elder sibling, she was a surprise baby just B4 menopause. // 3 days after the baby came home, Fritz was lying in front of the closed nursery door when Anne went upstairs to feed the baby; she reached for the doorknob, & he growled at her, long & loud, with a direct stare.
Anne froze, & luckily Barbara, the 9-YO, came out of her bedroom to see her mum being threatened by the dog.
Barb walked right up to him, bopped him on the head with her fist, told him he was a bad dog, & led him away with her hand in his collar. He folded right up, looked abashed, & followed her downstairs meekly; her mum called after her shakily to put the dog into the basement, & then she went in & fed the baby. Yikes!
Even that didn't convince her - she just put the dog away B4 feeding the baby, from then on.

What finally sent Fritz away forever was the Sunday that he stole an 8# ham, defrosting in the sink; he lugged it dripping up the carpeted stairs, dug a hole in the guest-bed mattress, & defended it for the next 3 days from all comers.
Then, finally!, Fritz took a one-way trip to the vet's, & Anne's eyes were red-rimmed for a week. All the folks who had stitches from that dog's teeth over the years, & a ham?!... humans are queer folk, no mistake.

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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this little house has lost its porch - U can see the shadow of the porch-roof in the torn stucco.
It's always been a down-at-heels house, but now it's decrepit, poor thing. When i was a child, it was home to a large & noisy houseful of kids, & they made us - growing most of our own food 'cuz we couldn't afford to buy it, wearing hand-me-downs from older sibs & cousins, buying bargain-basement shoes - look downright well-off.
For some reason, it always seemed half the kids in that house were snotty-nosed at any one time & wiping their noses on their shirt-sleeves, & the other half were running around shrieking, while the baby cried. It was always chaotic, & cluttered.

The odd thing about this house was that, for every holiday - & i mean EVERY! - that postage-stamp front yard was decorated within an inch of its life, & the little tree was drafted, too. // For Easter, there'd be an inflatable bunny 5-ft tall, the little tree would dangle multi-colored plastic eggs from L'eggs pantyhose on every branch [painted with unlikely colors of nail-polish, like green, blue, & lavender], there'd be pastel baskets of bright-green plastic grass on the porch, there'd be posable cardboard lambs gamboling across the porch... the lambs came in pieces in a plastic bag; U put the legs on the body & the neck & head together with brass split-pins, like rivets, thru pre-punched holes, & then U could make them move.

... those cardboard lambs, ducklings, horses, chickens, cows, geese, they were taped to our elementary-school windows & pinned onto cork-boards on our classroom walls, but this house was the only private home i ever saw that used them as decor, in their windows & on their porch.
At Xmas, their yard would be completely insane, with a plug-in half-dimensional light-up of carolers singing, the porch outlined in lights, a Santa in his sleigh teetering on the tiny porch roof, a light-up plastic Nativity with Mary, Joseph, & an infant in a cow-trough, the trees covered in red & green lights, & an inflated Rudolph with a blinking red-nose.
There was just room to get up the path to the front door, between warring symbols of Christian & secular myths.

Valentine's Day, St Pat's, Mother's Day, Father's Day, 4th of July... every occasion was an excuse for tacky tzatchkes & plastic decor.

- t

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[arealhuman]

Someone's been busy!

 

[leashedForLife]

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my wkend-client has family staying; the funeral / memorial service for his mother is ? tomorrow?, i think.
Several flower arrangements on the kitchen table & more on the granite breakfast-bar; most are desperately thirsty [no one in the house is a gardener]. The houseplants are thirsty, too - a Xmas cactus, a golden pothos, & a succulent that i haven't been able to I-D yet, which resembles aloe, but spines edge every leaf.

He's very subdued - watching whodunits on TV. // The granddog is here - Kai wanted to exit & pee shortly after i arrived, & we now clip him onto a nylon-coated steel line B4 letting him out, as hopping the wall to run off is now habitual.
As soon as he realized the steps down to the yard were damp, he wanted to go back in the house, LOL - he HATES rain, even this light misty stuff that can hardly be called rain. // I had to push him out the sliding door to close it, silly dog; his bladder needs to be emptied, even in the rain!

The departing PCA thinks we're ordering a restaurant dinner - i wish i knew from whom, i'd look at the menu, but no one is here but the dog, my client, & myself, & he's not sure where / whether we're ordering in.

- t

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[leashedForLife]

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last night, we had some *good!* Italian from 'Angelo's' [of course, LOL] - it was scrumptious.

today has been quiet, with some errands & a brief trip out to hear Irish music in a local pub - the client & i stayed home. // It was sunny & clear, but chilly - cardinals, robins, & other early arrivals are singing their territorial songs.

I came across an electric bike that's all US-made, has an easily-removed battery [to foil thieves], is lightweight & tough [aircraft aluminum & S/S], & gets 20-miles to a charge, with a 20-mph max speed, & 3 to 4 hours for a full recharge.
I need something that will work for "the last mile" errands, & this looks like just the ticket - the warranty covers any mechanical or electrical failures for the 1st year; i have to pay shipping, but all repairs are fully covered. // The only bummer is that it's manufactured & serviced in Calif, but heck, that's better than China. The horror stories of bikes that must be shipped back to the maker for a simple BATTERY SWAP are stunning.

So i set up a payment plan & plunged... there's a folding cart that can be bought, too, for hauling cargo. [Of course, that draws more charge from the battery.]

here's the bike -

here's the trailer -

_______________________________________________________________________

The bike can be run on grass as well as paving, & can handle rough terrain, so when i start planting with World Peas, i can use it to haul soil amendments, tools, pruned branches, water, etc. // I gave-up my driver's license 'cuz i couldn't afford to buy a car, & renting one seems a bit ludicrous, plus i don't trust my night vision any more, & clients AND THE AGENCY were incessantly pestering me to drive - now, w/o a license, it's no longer an option, & they can stop asking. Neener-neener!

I sure hope this fulfills my expectations - it weighs 35#, so it can be trundled onto the subway, a bus, ferry, up stairs, etc; I can park it by lowering the H-stand on the front axle to load the wire basket, & keep the load level. I can bring it upstairs & stow it under my bed! - Wow.

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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i hasten to add that the trailer won't fit under my bed, even in its folded state - but the BIKE will.
Didn't want to mislead anyone.

- t

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[arealhuman]

I'd be interested in your thoughts when you get it.

 

[leashedForLife]

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well, #$%&@*!....
with so many ppl in the house, even with 2 refrigerators, space is at a premium, & i put the bag of "chill" outside on the back-porch, overnite. // I knew i was taking a chance, but several folks put their juice, etc, out there on a regular basis.
It came thru the night unscathed; i moved the bag into the shade when i came downstairs, & wouldn't ya know it, a SQUIRREL chewed thru the insulated bag, & directly into the corner of my Sprouternickel loaf!
Damn his hide!

That wasn't a cheap loaf, i've never had it B4, & now a full 8th of the loaf is gone - what he ate, what he pulled out in chunks with his paws & dumped on the porch-floor, & what I cut away, to give me un-toothed margins. Waah!
[Squirrels are diurnal, but he got a massive payout for exploring the back-porch, & food won't be safe there, anymore, until he dies. He'll check any package from now on, on the off chance there's something edible in it.]

I've moved it - double-bagging the damaged bag into another insulated bag, as he made a hole about double the size of a golf-ball right on the corner! - & it's now in the FRONT porch, which is entirely screened with a latched door. Nothing bigger than a fruit-fly, or smaller than another human, can get into it. Arrgh.

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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that damage took him less than 2-mins, total. Squirrels are rats with hairy tails, ya know. Grrrrr.

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[leashedForLife]

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I'm still using the 3 days that i work downtown as "recovery time" from the weekend job -
this past weekend, the client's wife was out of town, & it was very hard! Usually i get 90-mins to 2-hours somewhere between 2 & 4, then an hour between brushing teeth after dinner & fluids at 7; he's abed around 7:30, i'm done setting him up by 8, & then until fluids again at 10, there's 90-mins to 2-hrs for me.

This time, from 2-PM on Friday afternoon until Sunday night at 10:30, my only real breaks came around 8:30 or 9-pm [Fr / St/ Sn], when either his son or daughter would sit with him 'til 10.
I was incessantly interrupted at anything i started, whether it was a meal for myself, a cleaning task, laundry, anything. I'll be thrilled when he can change his own TV-channels - like most men, he channel-surfs, & other than home-team live games, he shifts between 2 or even 3 in any given 30 or 45-minute period.

I had the pizza-crust & sauce, but never got to make it - I DID make the pear-&-fig tarts, on Sunday evening, but my God, it took forever! - i blind-baked the crusts at 5:30, & finally pulled the finished tarts from the oven at 10:15-pm. // I cleared the kitchen & went downstairs at 10:30, didn't get to sleep til after 11, & had to be up at 6:45 to start his day.
I went back to bed at 7:45 & slept till 10:30-am Monday.
Thank heaven, the maintenance-crew was working on the fire-alarms & sprinkler-system at Job #1, in the downtown apt-block, so i had the 4-to-8-pm shift off; I gave "my" room a thoro cleaning with 7th-Generation & Method organic-cleaners, plus washed & dried my sheets & pillowcases, before departing in good order; I took myself out for a light dinner [baked-pot & cole-slaw], & was abed by 10.

This morning, Wed, i woke at 10-am after going to bed at 12:45-am, with a brief awakening at 6:45; i read in bed, & went back to sleep, to finally awaken feeling human & fully alert. Whew!

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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my pear-&-fig tarts -

the hyacinths that scented the house all weekend -
they're actually a deep royal-purple, NOT blue, but that's how my mobile reads the color.

The wt of the blooms was pulling the bulbs clean out of the soil, so i staked them with a stirring-spoon & wrapped them to it with a spare elastic from the leg-bags. It worked very well, & the elastic is gentle on the leaves.

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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Wed & Thurs were crazily hot - close to 90' F, which is insane for early May in New England.

I installed the window-AC in my rented room myself - it was stowed in the closet, on the floor, & getting the blasted thing across the floor, up, & into the window was a struggle, but i knew the landlady would give me grief at the prospect of putting it in "now", & i refused to swelter all day & half the night for 2 days.
Plus we were to be inspected by the town assessor, so every room in the house had to be open for him to examine, & i was busily sorting & stowing to get my rooms ready - working away in 90' heat wouldn't have made me at all happy.

By sheer luck, i got Wed off, so that made the project much, much easier - Thursday was beastly, & i was shocked to see a bleeding-heart in bloom already, plus the specimen dogwoods in various yards are sprouting leaves, & their blooms aren't even fully-open, yet. Everything is confused by the sudden summer-heat.
Blessedly, we had a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon that lasted about an hour, & broke the heat.

It's going back up to 80' by 2-pm, so i'll be happy to be indoors; tomorrow will hit 75, then the weather returns to a more-normal upper-60s pattern for a week.

sweating [not glowing!],
- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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well, i was indoors, yes - but INCREDIBLY uncomfortable.
Outside, it was close to 80; indoors, it WAS 80' F, & phenomenally stuffy, to boot. // I was getting my client ready for bed, & he was lying down as i ranged each arm, arranged his pillows, put the sheet over him etc, & several times i had to step away for a tissue, to wipe my forehead -
the sweat was running down & DRIPPING off the end of my nose!

I'm so thankful to be in my basement bedroom - it's literally 68' F, & i'm comfortable for the 1st time since i arrived, over 6-hrs ago. Caves have real advantages.

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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at 10-pm last nite, it was 81' F & 47% humidity in the dining-room, at the table where i set my laptop.
... at 7-am this morning, after the initial getting-up routine with my client, it was 77' F & 49% humidity.

meanwhile, outdoors it was 65'. Wa-a-a-ah!

I opened the wide vertical-casement windows above the sink while leaving the BLIND down 3/4, as that's the east side of the house; i opened the bathroom window, put a portable vortex-fan on the raised hearth in the living-room & aimed it at the skylight-well to blast the stored heat out, turned on the ceiling-fan above the dining-room table & moved the screens to the TOP half of both windows on the currently-shaded west / south side of the dining-room to let the heat above shoulder-level escape outdoors, & last but not least, CLOSED all the wide vertical blinds in the sunroom adjacent to the dining-rm -
with all those east- & southwest-facing WINDOW WALLS, floor to ceiling glass!, that sunroom can hit 75'F on a 30' day in January, so on an 80' day, 100' F is easy.

My client sez they won't turn on the AC "until after it's been serviced". // All i can say is, they better get that scheduled & done ASAP, 'cuz i can't deal with 80-&-up temps indoors, while moving, bathing, & dressing a 200# person.
The client's wife adores sunshine, & doesn't seem to take the greenhouse effect of bright sun on the interior-temps in an enclosed space - she's cooking us with solar-power. *panting*

_____________________________________

that was yesterday - today, Sunday, is cloudy & cool. Thank goddess! whew...

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[leashedForLife]

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It's been a bit weird, the past few weeks, & I've had 2 significant blows in the past 3 days.

My weekday client told me her "hours were cut" from 28 per week to 12 - which i simply cannot believe, but that's her story, & she's sticking to it. // She said that I'd need an "open schedule" to find another job with more hours - but as my weekend job pays approx double what her hours did, I wasn't worried about it.
She insisted that I finish at the end of May - she terminated me, & while i know there's something else at the bottom of it, I can't imagine what it is. We've never had a serious disagreement. // The only thing that comes to mind is her former PCA, a dear personal friend as well as a caregiver, who wanted to come with them when they moved to Boston, but she had small children, then.
I'm wondering if her ex-PCA has relocated, & understandably, they want her back - but I wish they'd tell me what's going on. // I've worked for them since Sept-26, 2015... & when my Lexington client died, in Oct-2016, i *could* have taken other FT employment, & left them hunting for a replacement. Instead, i spent weeks hunting for work that would let me keep that job.
I'm second-guessing my loyalty, now. Dummy me.

So that's 24-hrs / week, lost wages.

TODAY - my landlord, who does not live here, dropped by to say that his niece is coming in Sept, & i'll need to find another place. // Granted, it's "only" June - but the student-popn here is enormous, & most places will already have been taken.
I'll be in AirBnBs, again - moving weekly, hustling, never knowing where i'll stay. Even the prospect is exhausting.

Meanwhile, to add to the tension -
my weekend-client's wife has been very cranky - she's always picky, that's normal; she criticizes everything we do, peers over our shoulders, & micromanages, but lately, she's downright irritable, which is not typical.
She has also cut my Friday hours 2-weeks running - I went in at 6-pm instead of 2, last week, & I'm going in at 8-pm tomorrow - a very unusual start time. // One of the 3 PCAs, Henry, is being let go - I don't know why, they're training a replacement. The Brazilian lady, Cleire [Clay-dee] & myself, plus another woman I've not yet met (who's being trained by Cleire), are "it", now.

So I have 3 days / week open for work, M aft / eve, T W or maybe Th - possibly TWTh would be better, as my primary-care Dr. is now OUT OF THE OFFICE Tues & Th every week, which makes appts extremely difficult to arrange.
I don't know - it's up in the air.

I have an offer to cover for a vacationing PCA, she'll be gone the 30th to the 9th of June - that would start next Wed & end the following Sat, so assuming that I still *have* a weekend client, I can cover Th, Fri-AM, Monday aft & eve, T, W, & Thurs, possibly Fri-AM. // Their case-Mgr is out of the office; I left her a message, but haven't heard back, yet.

Everything is so unsettled - I feel very disheartened & anxious.
My downtown client assured me she'd e-mail a reference, so that I can post it on my Care-dot-com page, but she hasn't, yet - & she's a very anxious person, things left hanging upset her. It's been 2 days... no e-mail. I don't have a good feeling about this.

- terry

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