Okay, so, could the strike end please? Another bill day, and no money to pay them. Anytime… Really guys. And just to be sure you know the truth, the union has been waiting to negotiate for the last week and a half. The stores are saying no dice. In other words, pay the $98 a week (yes, that’s week), with no overtime pay, for health care, and like it. With the other cuts, in paid time and such, it’ll cost us $800 a month. That’s how much less we’ll be paid. That’s unacceptable, when you consider my husband’s a journeyman. And also when you consider the cuts in pension, retirement, and no raises for 5 years, it’s going to cost us even more. He’d leave, but where else can he find a full-time job and still go to school? He can’t. There aren’t many graveyard shifts out there, except at grocery chains. This just sucks. And Jay estimates at least another 2 weeks. He doesn’t feel the groceries will feel a big enough crunch to negotiate until people start shopping for Thanksgiving. Please don’t cross our lines. And if you have questions or comments, email me, and I’ll be happy to explain what in (and not in) the contract under dispute. Even if your opinion isn’t the same as my opinion – I don’t care, as long as it’s based on the truth. If it’s based on the actual facts and truth, all opinions are valid.
Okay, so things keep getting
Okay, so things keep getting worse around here. My husband is still on strike. We’re lucky though. My parents are certainly not going to throw us out, and they’ll let us coast on rent, and they know we’ll pay it back. But it’s this ongoing yucky thing. Jay will be leaving this weekend to go see his parents so he can take measurements for blueprints and plotting for his father’s office. Yay. All alone with the kids with no help. This ought to be fun. But, his dad needs the plots and doesn’t have time to do it, and Jay needs a final project for school. I live in SoCal. So there’s fire all around and it’s awful. So far, it hasn’t hit where it would get to us (the Angeles National Forest), so that’s good, but the dingbats finally got it through their head to close the forest to the public. Can anyone say duh? They should have done that days ago, and their just lucky that no idiots decided to get their 15 minutes of fame by adding to this current disaster. While we’re not (yet) effected by flames/evacuations, we’re surrounded by trapped smoke. So, Joseph’s going to the doctor today, due to coughing and wheezing. I’ve been coughing myself, but I’m getting over a cold, so I just think it’s tickling my throat. However, there is one thing on this earth I’m allergic to. Sagebrush. I’m hardly ever effected by it. Only, say, going horseback riding on vacation, or weird instances like that. During which I take medication and I’m fine. But I’m having scratchy eyes, weepy eyes, and my sinuses are all plugged up and my head feels just huge. And then it dawned on me, sagebrush is what’s burning on all those mountains. And I’m sure that the pollen is in the smoke that we’re all inhaling. So, the logical explanation is that I’m having an allergic reaction. The fire has effected me in another way. So many freeways have been diverted that my 45 minute commute was over 2 hours this morning. The entire time in which I had to pee. That sucks though, ’cause you know it’s not supposed to be that way, and makes you very nervous and twitchy. So many people have had their homes lost. So many have lost their lives. Is anyone else waiting for armageddon?
I am very sketchy. Yesterday,
I am very sketchy. Yesterday, the day went by like any other normal day. I had a vague sense of foreboading, but I think that always happens when you know something bad is going on around you, but doesn’t directly effect you. We have some very serious fires going on, but they’re miles from us, but I still feel uncomfortable about it, since we live in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest. You know, you start wondering, will it get this far? Is that actually physically possible? So then I leave last night. Because the days are getting shorter, as I left it was sunset. It was pretty in a purely asthetic kind of way. But it scared me. Then entire horizon was like a big leeoming omen. Just blood red as far as you could see. And with it still hot enough for the air conditioner in my car, it was just weird. And because of past episodes in my life, I’ve learned to trust my instincts. But my instincts were just weirding me out, due to the content. So I keep driving. I’m trying to hurry, as much as one can in rush hour traffic, since Thursdays are training days for Jay and I, and I have exactly one hour to leave work, drive home in rush hour (which is an hour in and of itself), change into my dobok, and get to class, including putting on my ankle and wrist braces, which take FOREVER. So I’m trying to hurry, you know, taking the open spots in lanes when I see them and such. Traffic was terrible. Which I wasn’t expecting since it was so light on the way in. And then on one portion of the freeway, where I’m about 15 minutes from home, my windows were down, and I smelled this horribly overwhelming smell of smoke. Living in the foothills as I do, you know that smell deep into your bones. It’s not a cigarette, a campfire, a bbq, or someone’s fireplace. It’s Fire. It was completely dark by then, so I kept looking everywhere for that tell-tale orange glow. I couldn’t find it anywhere. The smell lasted for about 5 miles, and then it was gone. So I thought it was my imagination. Then all of a sudden the traffic going the other way on the freeway just came to a complete halt. You could see their stalled headlights for miles up ahead, and a sea of brakelights in the rear-view mirror. Then one, and only one, police cruiser went flying by with sirens and lights in the carpool lane. I never found out what it was, but chalk it up to another creepy experience. So I get home. When I walk in, Jay is standing in the kitchen with the lights out, just standing there, staring at me with red eyes. I freaked out, asking him what’s wrong? What happened? Turns out he had just woken up and was just trying to get his head clear. Basically he was just zoning out. So, since my husband has seen my instincts at work, asked me if we should stay home. I poo-poo’d him, and we went. Had training, came home. Put the baby to bed. Joseph spent the night with my parents. Later when we were watching TV he looked up at me from lying on the floor, then he looked behind me, and got that look. You know the one. Something’s behind me, and That’s Not Good. Turns out he just thought he saw something, but nothing was there. I think I started muttering at him. So, we’re watching TV and I heard something strange. I thought at first it was our neighbors. They like to sit in their very pretty front yard and have friends over, and chat on warm nights. Nothing loud, but our front door is right there, so I thought it was them, but their lights weren’t on. So I muted the TV to listen. It was dogs. Barking and howling like you wouldn’t believe. We don’t have a lot of dogs in the neighborhood, and the ones that ARE there aren’t the annoying bark all the time kind. But they were all barking and howling at each other at the same time, from all directions. It lasted about 45 minutes. TOTALLY creepy. Then they just stopped suddenly. We decided to go to bed, and Jay went outside, and he got the basball bat. This is our protection, since I won’t let my husband get a gun. I asked him why. Turns out, he’s had the \”Something Bad’s About To Happen\” feeling all day today too. Thank God it wasn’t just me. When I feel like this sometimes, it means I’m going to have a flash-back, so it was good to know that it wasn’t just me. We went to bed, and nothing happened. I slept like the dead all night, but this morning I found out that during the night Jay had a nightmare (he NEVER has nightmares), and stayed up for about an hour in the living room, ’cause he couldn’t get back to sleep. I still have that creepy feeling today and I don’t like it. I think because we’re having a triple-digit heat wave, and the Santa Ana winds are starting up. If you live in Southern California, you know what that feels like… Earthquake Weather. All of the big earthquakes we’ve had were during heatwaves, outside of true summer, during windy, dry conditions. So, I think that’s what Jay and I are waiting for. We’ve got fires popping up all over the place, terribly dry, hot hot hot weather, with the bad winds coming up. Jay and I are going into wait mode. I don’t like this feeling because that’s all it is, a feeling. There’s no true evidence behind it. But it’s so very hard to shake. And Jay’s working the picket line tonight, and I just know I’m going to have trouble going to sleep by myself tonight. I’ll be worried that something will happen at home while he’s not there, and I’ll be worried about him there outside in the middle of the night, in an increasingly violent agressive situation. I hate feeling this way. It’s so stupid.
Recent Comments