Working From Home Today

It hasn`t been that bad.  I'm not used to being around home all day so there is a certain native restlessness that needs to be reckoned with.  It works best if I divide up the day.  I was suppose to have two meetings with supervisors at work today.  Both were cancelled and it was recommended that I work from home on the coming art project this fall.  I began with a three mile walk between nine and ten, then went right to work for two hours researching on the Group of Seven and their artistic legacy while figuring out ways of condensing and simplifying the vast plethora of information without dumbing down and still keeping it fresh and interesting.

At around noon  I took a break, had a bowl of Harvest Crunch for lunch (for me, comfort food) then went down for a nap.  Being sleep-deprived after three weeks of extreme stress from coping with bedbugs in my apartment I was still tired and napped about a half hour longer than I intended, following which I took another three mile neighbourhood stroll then an hour in a local Mexican café where I worked on my current drawing, a northern carmine bee-eater surrounded by philodendron leaves:

Isn`t he beautifulÉ (oh dear, Microsoft has ruined my question mark again.  F--king Windows 10!)

Here's one in flight:

I got the bedbugs courtesy of some pencil crayons my supervisor gave me that had been found by one of our clients who likes to dumpster dive.  I didn't know they had been found in the garbage otherwise I would have refused them or I would have insisted that they first go in a plastic bag and be frozen for three days before taking them home.  I am still hoping that from now on they will be a little more careful about these details at work and I have been working hard at not blaming anyone.

When I came home I spent another two hours researching the art project during which I made from scratch a pot of fair trade cocoa served in a beautiful ceramic cocoa pot I bought in Mexico. Then I took a huge batch of books out of the freezer where they had been for three days, put them on the shelves then emptied the freezer of ice trays and frozen vegetables in order to cram in the final huge plastic bag full of books for the next three days.  For the first time in two weeks I can sleep tonight with the lights out.  I had been sleeping with lights on to deter the surviving bedbugs from coming out, since like all evil things they hate the light.  Let me explain: The exterminator came in to spray my unit two weeks ago.  I only was informed afterward (thanks you guys!) that I had to wait a couple of weeks for all the bugs to die, meanwhile having to brace myself for being an ongoing human buffet for repulsive insects.  In the meantime, my most infected books went either in the garbage or into plastic bags to put in the freezer for three days as a rapid execution for surviving bugs. Unfortunately some of the bags tore and were too big to double bag so I left them in the kitchen with the stove light on all night to discourage them from coming out.  I live in a small bachelor unit, by the way, so of course I have gone to sleep every night with the light on, likely affecting the quality of my sleep.

Tonight I am looking forward to a normal sleep though I might still keep all my clothes on and sleep on top of the bed, for the next few nights anyway.  Following the research I treated myself to another walk, this time on the Yaletown Yuppie Walk (False Creek Seawall) while making the observation that far too many people own and drive cars.  I chatted a lot in Spanish on my phone to my invisible friend, Fulano (Spanish for what's-its-face) then made dinner upon returning home.

I am still feeling tired and I hope the bugs are all gone now.