I can't really say that this is much of a vacation. This will be my second and last week off. What have I done? To begin with, I have been working from home. I could of course use the income and the activity is of interest to me: I am researching for a series of art classes I will be facilitating in the fall about the Group of Seven painters, Canada's first definitive artists, for some of our clients in one of the mental health/addiction units I work in. This takes up approximately three to four hours a day. I generally work for an hour or two in the mornings, before and after breakfast, and two hours in the evening, before and after dinner. On top of this I have been on the phone with various co-workers no less than six times and have received an email from a supervisor who either forgot or didn't realize that I'm on vacation. Out in public I have had to inform two of our clients, when they wanted to engage with me, that I was not available for anything related to their health situation or therapy needs, and they have both taken care to respect and avoid me.
Ah....The Stay-cation. Nothing like it, Gentle Reader.
I have also had to visit the passport office on three occasions and bother my guarantor (the fellow who signed my passport photo) twice. The first time I was given the wrong form, as I didn't know at the time that my passport would be classified as damaged (it had been through the washer) and that therefore I had to reapply instead of simply renew my passport (I love you too, Federal Kafka Government of Canada!). So after filling out the first form, after waiting in a longer line than I would care to talk about, I brought it back in, after waiting in yet another long line (but not as long as the last one), to be told that I would have to take home with me the proper and longer application form and do everything all over again. My guarantor, also a good friend, was fortunately very good natured about it and we also got in a half decent coffee visit as part of the bargain). This morning I stood in yet another line up in the passport office with all the material they needed. It wasn`t very long this time, then I had to wait another hour and three quarters to see one of their workers to process my passport. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to spend most of that time working on a drawing. I also chatted briefly but pleasantly with a couple of other applicants. One is a mother of a near newborn. I asked her how old and she said six months and I instinctively smiled, no longer a grumpy old man who hates kids, and said that is so sweet. I said that when we are very little and when we are very old we are the best. She agreed, adding how much we come to resemble ourselves when we were babies once we become old. Then I warmly thanked a man behind me for mentioning to someone that in some countries you have to wait five years for a passport so that a couple of hours in a Canadian passport office shouldn't be bad. He did wonders for my sense of proportion. I have also just been listening to a radio broadcast about that poster child of failed states, Haiti. Boy, do I ever feel lucky to live in Canada.
On top of everything else, last week I had to run back and forth for a couple of days with my building managers as we got together all the documents needed for recalculating my rent. Now we are dealing again with the bedbugs in my unit and finally they have contacted the exterminator who should be here in a couple of days. Just when I was getting ready to go to CBC Go Public and publicly shame my housing providers for their slowness in helping me deal with the bugs.
But this too shall pass.
In the meantime I am getting out for long enjoyable walks, despite the unsettled cool weather this early July, and getting a lot of art done. I am reading a lot and sleeping a bit better. Even though I feel almost as busy as I would be if I was at work right now there is something about the variety and the various creative challenges that really feeds my spirit. Tomorrow they expect nicer weather and I plan to spend much of the day happily wandering.
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