Working Thoughts Through
(Umm, this is someone else's family ... hehehe it relates to having an on-line "family" experience. Physical people are more difficult and involve cleaning, computer friends are a blessing, but our imagination is ace in the hole. Cuz truth, be told as nice as families are, they are a lot of physical, intellectual, and emotional work! Imagine just trying to get four kids to stand still long enough for a "happy" picture, YEEKS).Good morning! Well, it’s pretty much morning … we’ve been doing some more of that going back to bed after waking up at our unusual hours. I think though the tiredness is most like from the sugar content we’ve been eating lately. It makes us very groggy. So, I guess that ought to be one of our resolutions … NO MORE DONUTS!
It’s about 8:30 am now and I’ve been just putzing for the last half hour. I finally figured out the task I want to be working out today. A little while ago Steven had given Directory Assistance (DA) a link to learning HTML. I think today, we are going to put ourselves through the course as long as we can focus. The lessons each seemed pretty short, but we’ll have to see how time plays itself out as to how much we can accomplish. There are a lot of those short lessons. Good project for the day, because I have absolutely no other plans. Free as a bird!
We had a very good time over Margarita’s yesterday. It ended up being only me and her though, because her daughter had picked up hours at another center she works at. Later during the day her hubby came home, and there was also her younger 10 year old daughter a cousin and a friend. Busy place! Most of the time, we stayed in the kitchen sitting around the table talking. We weren’t missing food! She had made a large bowl of salsa and had some chips, which were very good, so we played around for a while getting used to the sensation of my mouth on fire. But, it was SOOO good! Yeeks, we scare ourselves. Through the day we also had … shoot … not going to remember the names. Umm, the first was those soft things usually wrapped in corn husks with meat hiding inside. Except, this time we were eating from Margarita’s home of Guatemala, so they were bigger and wrapped in banana leaves. Ohhh so excellent! Then later … umm, we hung around into dinner time, we ate um something in the round corn … damn, can’t remember names. You know the stuff of soft shelled tacos? But she had some kind of tremendously good port. Some of the pieces were big enough to cover the whole taco thingy, and of course her specialty rice! This was finalized with a few cookies and we drank about 5 beer at a rate of one lite beer per hour. Sooo, we did pretty good in that department!
We listened a lot to what she had to talk about and asked a lot of questions. She had wanted us to stay overnight, but then there would have been more loss of computer time - comfort zone. I think Margarita likes best to teach me about her culture. We were doing a lot of good learning. Usually, the topics are pretty family orientated, like how they family is taking care of her mother in Guatemala, the nephew who is behind on rent because he has no job, the excellence of their holiday party and the gathering of the family for a big New Years party of drinking and dancing, how the cousins play so well together, this kind of thing. We also find more each time we go over Margarita’s experiences growing up and coming to the country at 18 to work and live with a brother, and other memories that have become valuable. She has very good thoughts on how things should be and likes to share opinion with us, if not about us. And, as an extra treat, we collect notes with her about getting old. We are about 5 months difference in age. Really good old fashioned "Women" talk!
There was only one work reference. She said that our boss had kept a situation involving one of our clients from us; because she thought we’d over-react. The boss told this to Margarita, who is the clients job coach, and the client’s DSP. It made me a bit angry. The client has been missing her mother who has been in Mexico this month and she’s wet herself at the Center or work 3 times. Sr.’s version of handling it was to yell at the girl, where ours was to reassure her. But, you’ve all heard our thoughts of not agreeing with Sr. It makes me angry though to see her yelling at the client as if she MEANT to wet herself, and that she would tell my peers who are below my position that she didn’t want me to handle my job, nor tell me she had taken over the situation. The DSP and Margarita got all concerned before the break, because I saw the client crying and asked if she wanted to talk in my office which she did. Of course, I did not know I wasn’t “in the loop” where they did. My boss has a terrible protocol as to handling people situations both with the client, my peers, and me.
There was one other complaint in that she’s still manipulating situations badly. In one case, there had been a problem with a client, so after working through it, I called the mother because she has stated before she wanted to know if ANY thing was amiss. Sister yelled at me for calling the parent. She hadn’t told me she was “handling it.” Which meant that she yelled at the client and made him cry. So, within a couple days another problem had come up with a different client. So I wrote it out on a 3x5 card and handed it to Sr. I got yelled at for not handling the problem on my own and that I should have called the client's sister as follow-up. She said, “Do I have to handle everything for you?” There is just no clear directive because she is impulsive and often ornery. It makes my job difficult because the boundaries keep switching. And, when I present these obstacles back to her, she gets very angry and screams I have no common sense. Pretty sucky…
Ok, ok … enough of that … Moving on … we’re definitely in need of a vacation from her.
In the meantime, a few moments ago my friend IM’d … He said that he had time before the wake today to stop in for a long lunch (without the lunch). Pretty sure after five days with his family, he’s going bonkers and will need some very good massaging/pillow talk hehehe. Good Good. The only problem is that it means my plans have to change. I’m getting pressure from him to do things around the house before he gets here, but the time for my project is narrowed down so that I only have 2 ½ hours before he gets here, then I will lose about 3 hours in the middle of the day, and usually after he’s been here, we get pretty tired. Shoot, don’t mean to complain here, because we love his company, just there were other things on the stove too that we have been looking forward to. *Sigh* I suppose that’s life, one adaptation after another. I vote that we just handle it.
Plus, there is the part though that we just want to write for a bit. No, not that we have anything to say, in particular, just that we like to do this kind of writing AND we are on vacation!
Hmm, there was one other thing with Margarita. She suggested that we get together again maybe Friday morning. Etiquette says that this time we invite her to our place. But that means a heavy commitment toward cleaning up. Since I don’t spend much time in any other place in the house except my living room where the computer is … there are not a whole lot of messes being generated, except here and the kitchen. But, to do an hours worth of work, means that I’ll have to commit a full day to it, including getting some kind of food. We’ve been thinking that we’ll give tomorrow to that project. It’s a lot of work for 7-8 minutes, rest 15, etc. I love my friend, but know we'll end up in tears by the end of the day because of the pain. We're such a weakling in this regard. I think I can do it, because I’d like her to come over, and maybe that other peer too, but add pain to being away from the computer, just makes us grumbly ... Yeeks turn into a Sr.??? Ok, let’s resolve to do this. It would be the right thing to do and we're always happy afterward to have a clean place and company of friends. But, TOMORROW, not today.
Maybe, today yet, I can put in a small order of food to be delivered tomorrow. I don’t want to think of it now, but there should be something here. At least chips and some kind of lunch. Hmm, or maybe chips at the little store, and order in a pizza or Chinese? Ahh, that’s a good thought. She’ll have a phone with her, so we can make a call out. YAYYYY!! Sounds like a plan. Maybe instead of beers our friend will let us use the margarita mix he brought over last week. AHA! Sounding better! Oh yeah morning visit … well if nothing else we’ve got coffee. Not so sure of getting donuts or not. Hmm, didn’t someone just resolve not to do this?? Don’t remember. Umm, we’ll look it up later
Hmm, seems like we should be making a trip to the laundry place too. AND, the bank. Hmm, will have to be today or tomorrow. We’ll see on that one … Certainly not up to it at the moment. Stop, stop ... enough reality!
Wow, this is a lot of socialization for me. I hope I can handle it. But, for the moment that is enough thinking about it. It’s making me feel very anxious. It was kinda nice to talk though. We’d gone from Friday to Tuesday without using our voice. That’s probably not such a good idea especially considering a major holiday included. Yeeks enough, enough … we’ll be ok!
Margarita though doesn’t talk about a lot of stuff we do or think about, nor for that matter does our friend. Now, when I am here typing along I can think my own thoughts. But, with others we mostly listen, cuz my thoughts don’t make a lot of difference in their life. Especially, since neither spend a lot of time on-line. Margarita just got a new computer 3 months ago (Daughter will graduate from college next semester – so it’s good for the family too), so maybe I can figure out some things to teach Margarita on Friday. I think she is willing to learn. My other friend is pretty computer savvy. He’s got them at work, on the road, and at home. He does a lot of work on the computer, but doesn’t play with it so much. Except, he discovered on-line poker this year. YAYYYYY! Computers are our friends! Hehehe
There is something different though about people with or without computer friends. If you aren’t involved in life without computer friends, it is hard to understand. Like most people think of me as being completely alone, because they know I am here at my apartment, but there aren’t REAL people here. If you’re a computer friend, you realize that others online are REAL. And, most likely have common interests as yourself, because people tend to gravitate to others like them. For example, in doing the video the other day, I realized how many of my friends were Christians. I hadn’t really thought about that before. And, most of my computer friends are open people in that they share themselves through blogs. I don’t think most of my on-line friends spend quite as much time on-line as I do, but they do check in on a fairly regular basis. How do you explain to a new computer person the value of checking email at least daily, or in learning to at least try IM’s? I suppose in the life of many who are more adept at carrying cell phones, the whole concept of computer relating seems awkward. But, I will go down on record for opposing the cost and evil monopoly of phone service providers. Plus, a lot of people I don’t want to talk to want to call me. Like bill people, or my boss. Nope, nope not going back there. It’s computer, delete, and or nothing!
Well, almost 10 am. I suppose I better get to those HTML lessons, or I’ll miss all opportunity. I figure I’ll do a little picking up, especially around the desk in … umm let’s say we set the timer for 10:30. That will give us time to calm down about it and still make our physical friend happy. Then shower at 11:45. Hmm, better eat sometime too. Our friend has indicated he’d be here at noon, or there about. Usually, it means he’s running late, especially if he’s coming from work. Why don’t we plan a quick lunch around noon then. Chances are he won’t be there, we’ll have already disrupted our computer schedule, and if he does come then … it will just give us some sitting up talking time. We’re not planning on having anything more sophisticated then tomato sandwiches. Shoot, it’s our last tomato though Awe, let's plan to handle that too?
Ok, getting on with the morning then. Hope you are all having a fine day too! God bless those who tolerate personal disruptions to be better included within society.
us
posted by Ann Marie @ 12/28/2005 10:00:00 AM
Comments: 2
