Random Ramblings Are Random

This time of year is always a tough one for me, even though I haven't had to deal with my mother's holiday bullshit for years. Everybody is so cheery - or at least acting like it - and here I am not even in the spirit of the holidays. Although I did break out some holiday earrings and a pair of antlers for work purposes. Yeah, I don't usually go for that sort of stuff anyway, to be entirely honest. I'm on my third of four days off after Christmas Eve, and I haven't done as much as I'd hope I'd be able to. I have half my laundry done and put all freshly cleaned bedding onto my bed, so there's that. And by half my laundry I mean that I have half of the total amount washed, dried, and stuffed into a couple of huge garbage bags. I know I need to go through all those clothes and only keep what I actually wear, especially for work. I find that I don't really go out a whole lot, and most of my work clothes fit my usual gothy asthetic anyway so it's all

At work we're smack dab in the middle of the holiday season. And we're severely understaffed. Not necessarily for lack of trying to hire people before the holidays started, of course, although the reluctance to hire has not exactly helped the situation at work. Needless to say, tensions are a bit high, especially as we're being stretched thin as we try to cover all the different events and stuff that is being done by the hotel staff. It would not be so bad if we had the same hotel team that we did last year at this time, but we also were not as booked with events. And I was not working at the spa at that time either so I was much more relaxed than I have been lately. Right now I am on day 6 of 6 working - four days were at the spa and the last two have been at the hotel. Honestly, working at the hotel has felt like a break. I am not being run off my feet with having to take clients to various waiting rooms, no having to run up and down stairs, no having to try to answer pho

Today I got a one month refill on my meds for $33 - seven different meds, 30 days worth of each. This used to cost me over $100/month because I didn't have health benefits. Now I've got them, and it covers me all the way back to October 1st of this year. And when my doctor decides to put me insulin I've got decent coverage for diabetic meds and supplies now. I don't care that my employer doesn't cover much of my insurance because it is still cheaper than paying full price for my meds. Woo? I also purchased a wireless keyboard and a new wireless mouse to use with my Chromebook. I've been doing the best I could with the native keyboard and touchpad on the thing, but it's been so frustrating. The touchpad can't be turned off so every time I would type on the keyboard I would mess up the font size and have to stop to fix that. Not to mention that the mousepad isn't all that responsive or precise. And I got a new mini wireless mouse too. Yay for me invest

It's no surprise to many that know me that I enjoy writing. But what is a surprise is that I have yet to be published. Well, it's no surprise to me but to others it is. And no, I do not include my shared fanfiction writing in the whole 'being published' thing either. I took a writing course all the way back in high school, but the teacher never went over structure or anything like that. It was basically just a 'write what you want and I'll mark it according to how much I like it' class. I learned absolutely nothing during that year. I then picked up professional writing via college. I used those skills to write a training manual during my first contract with my first call center job. But I still didn't do all that much with those skills. But I kept writing stories - fanfic, some original, and everything in between - but never got one to the point of finishing the story. I always ran into the same issue of knowing how I wanted it to end, but no idea how t

I haven't written here since before I took my birthday week off from work, but things have happened! Mostly good things too! I know I was worried when the spa manager was due to come back because I didn't know where that would leave me in terms of hours, position, etc. But I didn't need to worry about any of it. Oh, we still have some things to hammer out but it could have been so much worse than it ended up being. I have my own office now. Well, mostly my own. As the one employee between the hotel and spa that can pretty much do everything I have a space from which I can do everything. Answering calls for the hotel, spa, and medical services we offer on the hotel level, and using the various booking systems for all of that as well. My official title is Guest Services Manager, and I can step into the roll of both the spa manager and accommodiations manager as needed. And I get paid the most I've been paid in years, outside of the time I worked in a finishing shop...and

So, I've got next week off of work - I decided to book my birthday week off. It was not a hard set plan, but my boss is making sure that I've got that time. And I'm glad that she did. I have been working pretty much since August 2020 straight through, dealing with major staff shortages, asshole customers, and so much more. Honestly, I don't know how much more I can handle of it all. I hit a wall today where it was all I could do keep from screaming my head off. I think it's a cumulation of a lot of things. The death of my mother, uncertainties about work, the stress of knowing that I absolutely must clean my apartment from top to bottom, and just everything. Plus the fact that I'm starting a writing class on Monday...homework. Ugh. Today while out for coffee with a friend I started fleshing out a story that has been in the back of my mind and I figure that it will work for the class. I've got the d bit of brainstorming started so I can work from the scene I

In the days since my mother passed I've had the chance to do some serious thinking about our relationship over the years. Looking back over the years, the cracks in my mother's mental health started during her second marriage. She had married a very abusive man who made our lives hell, and considering the childhood my mother had and the fact that was institutionalized before getting pregnant with me, it's probably not a huge surprised that the cracks started forming. I know at one point I used to blame my brother for how my mother started treating me, but it was never his fault. It was the asshole who was his father that is partially to blame. Another part of the blame lies with my mother's refusal to seek professional help when she was clearly (to me, at least) losing her mind. I was finally able to look past the toxity of the past 34-35 years and remember when I was still able to call her 'Mom' when talking about her to my friends. It's only as the years w

Today my mother died. I always thought that I would not be affected by her passing away, but I am currently a snotty, blubbering mess. It wasn't COVID that got her. Apparently her kidneys shut down and then her COPD got in on the act. She died in the hospital some time today. I spoke to family I whose voices I hadn't heard in a very long time today. My brother messaged me on FB and told me to call him, giving me his number. So I did, and I was absolutely surprised at my reaction. Then I saw that my cousin Liz had been trying to contact me...so I gave her my cell number. I learned that our mothers went the same way as each other. I bawled my face off some more, and I got my parents' phone number...didn't even realize I had it in my phone until I dialed it. I spoke to my sister Dani who sounded so much more grown up than I ever remember, and then I spoke to my dad who sounded absolutely ancient. I think that made my bawl even harder. Somehow I need to get the funds togeth

After a stressful few days at work, things have quieted down thankfully. Thursday night things had blown up after some of our senior estheticians found out what the newest esthetician makes per hour, and I thought for sure that I was going to walk into work Friday to there not being anybody showing up to work. Only two call-outs though, but only one was legit. Oh well, such is life. After that, things settled into an even keel for the most part. Which is the way I like it. Sure, I had a couple of really long shifts on Friday and Saturday due to a front desk person calling out sick. But it means more money for me when payday rolls around. My boss was back today after taking a few days of vacation off to get away from the stress that work has been for her. And she was very pleased with the decisions I made in terms of having our esthetician student shadow one of our girls during a pedicure and then having her do one as part of a group appointment - it helped us save three appointments, a

I'm pretty sure I'm being groomed to take on management of the spa - the past three days saw me run the spa while my boss takes a few days off. She is back on Wednesday and it should be interesting to see how things go. The next couple of days the spa is closed and we reopen on Tuesday. And I'm in charge again on Tuesday when the spa opens back up. It's not often that this sort of thing happens, but apparently I'm trusted enough to be left in charge for more than a day or two. I also made a couple of arbitrary decisions in the past couple of days that I'm not sure if my boss would have felt comfortable doing.  One, a friend of mine wants to work with us and my boss is over the moon over it, and my friend was asking yesterday about when she could come in to start training - I said it's really up to my boss, but that I felt that having her come in next Saturday would be a great idea. Saturdays tend to be fairly low-key, which is good for a new employee, so I t

On another note... My friend Jenn stepped in as bartender this past Saturday for a wedding my work place was doing at one of our properties. She pretty much saved our asses because we are stretched so incredibly thin right now, and we needed one knowledgeable employee at the hotel/spa as we have complete newbies working right now. And as part of the management team, that fell to me. My boss is trying not to work herself to death so she was at the hotel/spa until 2pm when I started - at one point she would work at the hotel for eight hours and then go help with the wedding/event until food service was over. She was stressing out over every little thing and while she couldn't recognize it, I sure did and told her as much. Sure enough...within a month after the last big event we put off she went out on stress leave for two months. Mind you, those two months are also how I proved myself to be a very valuable asset to the company because I took on a good portion of the normal management

Yesterday a couple of friends and I ended up taking a day trip out of the city as it was the first time all three of us had a weekend day off at the same time. First stop was Avondale to go for a train ride - out of the nine people on that ride we were the only ones that didn't have a kid with us. And we thoroughly enjoyed it! I have many photos and videos from the ride that I have yet to post anywhere. I just have to edit some of the videos before I post them on my FB and tumblr. The train ride started at the old Avondale railway station, which is the oldest surviving railway station on the island. It was originally used as a repeater station for the first telegraph line that served St. John's before it became a freight and passenger station operated by the Reid Newfoundland Company from 1900 to 1949. From Confederation in 1949 until closure in 1984 the CN Railway used it at their terminus for Conception Bay South. It is now a museum and runs a mini-train ride for guests at $5

I swear that customers are just getting more rude and unreasonable lately. They seem not to realize that staff shortages are everywhere right now, and they blame the staff who does show up to work. It's been driving me more than a little crazy lately. Today we had two separate clients tell us that we had to hire more people so we could book their services at the spa. As if it were just that easy - it's not like estheticians and massage therapists grow on trees. These people need to have graduated from registered programs, and the massage therapists need to have federal and provincial licensing in place. None of it is that easy to come by, and due to COVID shutting down pretty much everything there are not a lot of new estheticians and registered massage therapists being churned out of the schools. So, where the fuck are we supposed to get more staff from? Add to that the fact that there are jobs out there that pay more with a lot less stress on the body - we have lost a couple

So...I got the news that any family member of an openly homosexual man sort of half expects and dreads. My brother was diagnosed with HIV on February 4th, 2020. As one would expect, it hit him really hard when he got the news. But he is healthy and in a good head space, all things considered. Number one being the fact that he's in the midst of divorcing his abusive soon to be ex-husband and dealing with COVID stresses on top of it all. Part of the reason it hit him so hard is that he's spent the better part of a decade teaching others how to not get HIV/AIDS, and here he is sitting with the diagnosis. But he put a positive spin on it because now he can teach others how to deal with it if they ever get that diagnosis, and he can use himself as an example for how seemingly-harmless behaviours can still see you get infected. He's got a great health team around him, so that's a huge relief off of my mind. It can be so difficult to get that sort of thing, especially in the c

We have almost a full house at the hotel this weekend and still no overnight patrol person, so I volunteered to stay on site. I don't even care if I use the jacuzzi tub or not during the course of the weekend because I just enjoy the break from the disaster area that is my home. Plus, I get to use the room's TV for background noise while I veg in my room after my shifts. I know that I have to work on cleaning my home, especially if I want to figure out what I can get rid of in terms of clothing and other crap I don't really need. Besides, I know that there are clothing items I have that are buried deep in one of the piles of junk I have. Anyhow, last night I was waiting in the hotel lobby for my Skip the Dishes delivery and I was sure I heard an unmistakeable series of noises. The more I listened, the more sure I was. Some missus was getting thoroughly railed in one of the rooms on the first floor. First I heard skin slapping skin. And then I heard her moaning. I was very t

Another day, another post. I sometimes wonder if I'm not being groomed to take over as either the hotel manager or the spa manager. I've already proven that I can run the hotel, and now I'm getting trained in more spa management stuff. It could be largely so I'm capable of steeping up in the event that my boss ends up going out sick before the actual spa manager returns from her own sick leave. Yesterday my permissions in the spa booking/scheduling program were upgraded so I could do more spa management things, including removing staff from the system, updating inventory, and so much more. Next up will be arranging to do a full inventory of the spa stock because we have stuff on hand that is showing up as zero in our system. I can probably do it bit by bit for a good portion of the stock, but I found out that we have a metric shit ton of mini tubes and samples hidden away in a closet in our currently un-used vitality room...items that we could use at the hotel in the ro

I'm on the first of two days off, back to back, and so far I have accomplished a bit. I was up at 9:50 and out the door by 10:20, heading to the Farmers' Market for their Pride Market. I may have bought a bit more than I had originally intended on, but I love being able to support local vendors. I have another wand to add to my collection - not sure with HP franchise it is from, but it's lovely all the same - and a couple of books to add to my collection. And two stickers that caught my attention. Now I'm sitting in a coffee shop taking a break from working on my novel. The plan is to eventually head to Value Village to see if anything new has come in that I could add to my wardrobe. And I also want to stop at a Dollarama at some point today or tomorrow to pick up a foam roller and a yoga belt to help with the stretches I need to do for my physio homework. Back to work on Tuesday morning where I will be working on cancelling and rebooking appointments, giving people the

Today seems to be a record for me - 3 blog posts in one day. Meh. Oh well. One more post in the house cleaning saga before I give up for the night, I think. Maybe. I don't know. I have a feeling sleep is going to be one of those fleeting things anyway, but such is life sometimes. The landlord showing up a day early has thrown me off somewhat. I had hoped to get more done today, but between my physio appointment, having to take a few breaks so I wouldn't pass out due to the heat, and heading out for a little bit to put a couple more bags into a donation bin and grabbing a bite to eat, it seemed like it just wasn't meant to be. However, I have a good lot of junk thrown out now and three huge bags of stuff donated to thrift stores. I should be able to get rid of all my recyclable stuff this Friday - pop cans and garbage for the most part - which will clear out even more space in the apartment. Most of the stuff on the kitchen floor is trash to be thrown out now so it's jus

And it was a bit of an eye opener for me! I've known for ages that my right knee is in worse shape than my left, but today really proved how much worse and why I have had more issues with it. And that while my legs are fairly muscular (it's easy to see when I'm wearing shorts like I was today) that the right muscles need to be activated to help stabilize my knees. I have a sheet of exercises and stretches to work on over the next two weeks, plus a recommendation for massage therapy. The goal is to help loosen up one set of muscles to make it easier for me to strengthen up another set that will help keep my kneecaps in place. I knew that I had a couple of tight leg muscles but I did not know how they affected everything else in my leg. I also have to make a conscious effort to not cross my legs, and to keep my feet situated under my knees properly when I sit. Using a foot rest is a good thing so long as I mind my knee placement. And I have to start using my right leg more wh

...I was not expecting my landlord to show up before tomorrow, but he arrived today. Of course he did. I suppose that it's his last day off before he is expected to return to work. And I am nowhere near finished with cleaning my place. Of course. I heard noise outside this morning and I did not think it would be the landlord. It was. And he's fixing windows, repainting sills and surrounds, and re-caulking stuff that needs it. Which means he's seen through my kitchen window and seen that there is still stuff piled up in my place. On the day I am going to be gutting the place rather thoroughly. And that is not including the time I need to take to head to the hospital to their physio clinic this morning. An appointment that I managed to snag yesterday and almost forgot about this morning. Go me, right? In terms of clearing shit out of here, pretty much anything that I haven't touched in at least six months is getting tossed out. I've already cleared out a shitload of s

Due to the fact that I am now in management - basically the assistant hotel manager without the official title - I have to dress appropriately for work. This is not always an easy task because it is not easy to buy clothes in my size without breaking the bank. Add in the fact that I'm Goth and that just doubles the difficulty. Sure, I could sew what I want, but that would mean I have to keep my sewing area cleaned up enough to be able to get anything made...it's definitely not from a lack of fabric because I have four large totes packed with fabric I've bought with an eye towards making clothes for myself and my daughter. It's largely from a lack of working space to do any sewing at all. So, a friend and I have been making occasional trips to Value Village in the attempt to tune up my wardrobe into something much more appropriate for my position at work, yet keeping with my Goth aesthetic. Thank goodness for corporate Goth looks, and stretchy fabrics...when you can find

This past week at work has been...interesting. I suppose that's probably the politest way I can describe the cluster-fuck we've been dealing with. We are short-staffed pretty much everywhere right now, which means that those of us hotel staff who can do spa stuff have been helping there as well. Yesterday was my day off, but the manager managed to wrangle me an appointment to get my nails done after I ended up having my Wednesday appointment bumped due to sick calls. I stopped by her office afterwards to thank her for getting me in...and discovered that we've got a whole mess of retraining to do. Oh, not me needing to be retrained, but retraining the existing spa attendants so that they aren't doing only half the job. And guess who gets to do that...the first two guesses don't count. I don't really mind, tbh. It's just sad that the newest spa attendants weren't trained properly - the lady that trained them is the same one who trained me, but I think she

So, today I was talking to my best friend about posting a certain type of video to OF...rhymes with Lonely Cans. And I may end up going for it, but only if I can disguise myself so I will not be easily recognizable. Wigs and masks go a long way. It could make a a bit of money, I suppose, but I am a little bit of a exhibitionist at times. I will wait to see how I feel about this idea when I get my new toys in...I had to replace some of my older ones, and now that I'm feeling better about things I figured it was time to replace those toys. I suppose we'll just have to see what I get up to :P

So, new hot water tank was installed, but apparently it isn't working for some reason. Could just be a faulty unit, but it will mean a fight to get Home Hardware to take it back and do an exchange. And to help prove that it wasn't an issue with the breakers the landlord came into my apartment...and he was shocked at the state of it. I had warned him that it was bad, but that we were working on it now that we weren't as depressed as we had been. I've got a week to get it to a better state, because right now it is bordering on something you'd see on Hoarders. And I know it. My landlord has stated that he will haul any and all of the garbage out of the house for me. All I have to do is get it downstairs into the basement and let him know when it's all down there so he can haul it away. The sad thing is that there is a LOT of stuff to get rid of. Like way more than I actually realized. Considering that I pulled three big garbage bags full of crap out of the kitchen

Not overly impressed at the moment but such is life sometimes. My hot water tank isn't heating water at all, and has been like this since at least Saturday. At first I thought that maybe somebody had used up all the hot water, but even waiting an hour saw no change in the water temperature. Then I figured that maybe it was due to a breaker switch tripping, so I checked that and found that one of the switches in the panel had tripped. Flipped it back into position and waited several hours to see if that was the issue. Nope. I checked the tank yesterday after work to find out that there is no hot water being generated at all by the tank. So I texted the landlord. He messaged me back stating that he would swing by this morning to look at it. Cue me realizing that he would need to shut off the power to do this, meaning he would have to be in my apartment...and see the state it is currently in. I've been letting it go for a few reasons, one of which is being tired of being the only

I have successfully bleached my hair white blonde! And trimmed it up nicely after the butchering of the ponytail Tuesday morning. I splurged on purple shampoo and conditioner yesterday when I went shopping before work yesterday in the hopes that it would help my hair whiter. And today, after one final round of bleach, I used the new shampoo and conditioner. And it worked really well! I still have a bit of bit of darker colour on the ends, but it's not orange anymore. And I'm considering just running a bright colour through my hair to cover the darker bits with something exciting. Besides, I have four tubes, and multiple jars of wild colours I can use! Also, now that I have short hair again, it will be easier to stay on top of bleaching my roots once in a while. Until I get lazy and dump black back on my hair. Or go with a dark brown, which is my natural hair colour anyway :P I've had lots of compliments about my hair too, so that's always nice! And unlike the last time

Being in management means that I am guaranteed a minimum of 35 hours per week. I'd prefer 40, but such is life. Especially as we're waiting for life to return to some semblance of normalcy. But I've been beating my head against a bit of a wall when it comes to allowable hours. Myself and another person have moved up to management positions at the hotel. I run the front desk and he handles events as well as works the front desk with me. At one point he was a front desk supervisor but with COVID things have been shooken up quite a bit and there wasn't an official front desk manager until this week when I was given the position. So there is approximately 140-160 hours per pay period that is alloted to the two of us. And then we got a guy who was hired for marketing, which only requires 15 hours a week tops, who was promised full-time hours...which goes against the rest of the allowable hours that is then split between four housekeepers, and a p/t time front desk agent. And

This week has started out to be full of surprises and changes! I had Sunday off and because I didn't have to go anywhere I decided to start bleaching the black out of my hair to get it ready for a wild colour change - I've got four different Aveda colours sitting on my desk at home. Charcoal, Cobalt, Iris, and Emerald. The plan was to work on lightening my hair as pale as I could get it so that the bright colours would really pop and not look muddy. Well, two bleach jobs later my roots looked amazing, but the rest? Not so much. Black hair dye, even the professional stuff like I was using, is a bitch to get out. The length came out sort of copper/brown/yuck. But I knew if I did a third round Sunday night that I would end up with loads of breakage...more than I already had after two rounds of bleach. I toned the mess with some home-made purple conditioner, loaded it full of moroccan oil, and went to bed. Yesterday morning I was less than impressed with how my hair looked, but I d

At work as usual. I'm really not doing a whole lot right now because I'm just not feeling it. I've got at least two weeks of schedules done so I don't have to rush through that right now, and I've got most of a third week's schedule done. Watching the final season of Halt and Catch Fire , and remembering yet more of the technical advances I've witness. I remember well having to pay the overage on the amount of bandwidth we used, instead of there being no limit. I seem to recall that the overage issue ended when we switched to cable internet. I also meant the end of my phone line being utilized by the rest of my family so they could connect to the internet. These days I don't even have a landline although I know that if I had a regular phone I could plug it in to dial 911 if I had to. Instead, my daughter and I each have pay-as-you-go phones. This started back when neither of us were home a whole lot as we were both in university. And eventually, about ha