Working From Home Today

First, a message to Microsoft, if any of their spies or minions are reading this.  Bring me back Windows 7!  Now!  I am sick and tired of my Skype page suddenly appearing when I am writing this blog, I am sick and tired of my text magically shrinking and expanding, I am sick and tired of entire pages of text suddenly deleting themselves, I am sick and tired of punctuation problems and I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I discovered another bedbug in my sheets at two am last night and new bites on my skin so I got dressed and tried to get back to sleep but on top of the bed covers.  Since I couldn`t really get back to sleep I got up at 3:45, had my shower, cleaned the apartment, had breakfast and did some work on the art course I am preparing for some of my clients this fall.  It is going to be about the Group of Seven and their use of colour.

At 5:30 am I went back to sleep, more or less, while listening to the morning news program on the CBC Radio One, and lay there more or less for almost four hours.  I got up, feeling fairly well-rested, made a pot of coffee and did two more hours of work on the art course.  I phoned my building manager to communicate about the bedbugs and he is supportive and sympathetic.

At 11:30 I got on the bus where I chatted in Spanish with my Honduran neighbour, got off in the rich area and walked three miles to one of my favourite cafes.  During some of the walk I sang, then I practiced my Spanish on my cell phone, talking to my imaginary friend, Fulano, through my voice mail service.  I had a pleasant hour and a quarter in the café where I was working on a bird drawing, a purplish-backed jay from Mexico:   Nice looking birdie, eh?
I also had an enjoyable chat with the barista, the sister of the owner, a lady of around my age.  We were talking about how much the work culture has changed because of globalization and how difficult it has become to cope with the changes.  Then I walked another two miles to one of the offices where I work to drop off the month's paperwork.  I get paid only four hours worth by these people since they always seem to keep me severely underemployed.  Since I am taking two weeks off next week and the week after, I am scrambling like mad to get all my ducks in a row.

I took the bus back home and waited around forty minutes in the Mexican café where I waited for a friend of mine.  I got some more art done and then we had a great visit, touching a lot on matters of theology, human nature and human perversity.  He walked me home where I resumed another three hours work on the art project while making and eating dinner, pausing to read the paper, finishing the month's paperwork and hoping to have a few minutes to work on a painting.  I even managed to squeeze in a few minutes to write this blog post.