First Visit with My Little Persefona Liliana

  All geared up at the airport for the, what should be nine, eighteen hour trip: face mask, face shield, surgical gloves, (at least 200) Lysol wipes, containers of hand-sanitiser... pretty sexy don't ya think?!
  The airport, and gate areas, were actually really very quiet; a nice change from the norm, but a bit weird at the same time. 

 

Good Day for a Walk

When the sun is shining, James is off work, and Percy is happy with life - seems like the perfect day to venture outside, walk in the park and go for coffee. 😎

         

Łòdź has some beautiful parks, one of which is located right between James and Zuzia's place and the flat I have rented for the month, thus I have a wonderful walk everyday getting from one location to the other.

My Polish Airbnb Nightmare!

Eighteen hours after leaving my home, arriving in Poland, having spent a few hours visiting the kids and seeing my most beautiful amazing granddaughter, James and I headed to the rented Airbnb. The issues began almost immediately, considering the Airbnb renter gave us the wrong address… she then sent us to a different location from the one we had originally booked. When James and I arrived at the apartment late that Thursday evening, September 3, we should have known it would be yucky and with issues simply just judging by the condition of the “welcome mat“... eww.

A Few Polish Critters Seen

There are some little critters wandering around here that I do not get to see in Calgary, like this little hedgehog - so cute!  💕

James walks me back to the flat every evening if it is late, and the first night was the first sighting of one of these guys, as he scurried into the bushes.

Then this guy was sliming his was across the sidewalk another evening during the trip home; he is a Spotted Leopard slug, (Limax maximus) also known as the Giant Garden Slug - for a good reason as they can get up to 21cm (8in) long!  👀        ⇊

Apparently their mating ritual is something to behold... no thnx.  

    

I know this is not a critter, but it is another thing that is cool during our walk back to my flat in the evening, as it only blooms in the evening, finishing by morning - hence the name 4 O'clock Flower, (Mirabilis Jalapa).

Time to Say Goodbye

Hands down one of the hardest things I have had to do in quite a while...

Heart is broken. 😢

Waterton National Park - July24-26'20

Road trip - Waterton National Park, 2.5hrs north of Calgary. 

Taking a break before Dean has to go back to work, and I am flying off to Poland to meet my new precious grandbaby: Percy! 🥰

Stayed in a hotel which was built in 1927, and has been kept basically in the spirit of the time it was first built since then.

It contains the oldest still working lift in North America.  A lift was needed to carry any visitors up the 18.5m floor to ceiling building. The lift only goes from floor 2 to 4, so if you are staying on the 5^th floor (as we were) you must use the stairs for the remaining flight. We chose to use the stairs for all flights during our visit, but for the first time up.

The room was VERY bare - even more so because of COVID19. Due to the pandemic, they removed all decorative touches including pens/paper, extra pillows or chairs. The cleaning services have also been altered so you only receive a clean or touch-up if you request it.

The room was fine; very clean and quaint. Waterton tends to be a fairly windy location, so keeping in mind the age of the building, you can imagine how noisy the room was; had to prop the chair into the door so it would stop smacking! Made for a rather sleepless first night.

The view from our room, looking down onto the lake and out to between the mountains was phenomenal; so amazingly beautiful.

   

                                  

We walked down to the town and back again a couple of times - no small feat; but good and worth it. So many beautiful flowers/plants/critters to see!

⤶ Discovered and fell in love with the snowberry bush all over again *sigh  (Symphoricarpos albus) 

    

The harebell ⤷ flowers were just finishing up, but still very beautiful. (Campanula rotundifolia)   

They are, apparently, trying to battle one of Alberta's listed noxious weed: the dreaded Creeping Bellflower. Good for them… they have missed a large number from what I saw - it will be long term continuous battle me thinks! 😧

As we were walking home from one trip to town, we stopped and sat on a bench beside the water. While we were resting, this little guy, a hover fly named Harveydett, came for a visit with me. She stayed for the entire rest time. So very cute!

Saw quite a few wild Saskatoon bushes, (but only one, perfectly ripe, berry to pop into my mouth) and quite a few Thimbleberry (Rubus odoratus); tasted this for the first time - was really yummy, looks almost like a rasberry, but very different leaves, and tastes completely not the same!  Mmmmm. 😋

And now for a few random photos from our rather enjoyable trip. 

Some of the beautiful things in our province. 😎

 

This is the view of our hotel from town.

A fire went through here a couple of years ago, September 2017, establishing itself in the park and in the end actually burned approximately 35,000 hectares (135 miles/217km, or 86,486.66 acres) 19,303 hectares were in the actual park! You can see where it was behind parts of the town, and in fact came right up to the water tower beside the hotel we stayed in. Scary stuff. 😧   

It was a nice break at a beautiful location. I do recommend going there, it is very pretty and if you are a hiker there are a lot of trails you can explore. Do not know if I would ever go back, been there now which is good enough. If I ever did go back I would definitely not stay at that hotel - too much money for a very old, (which is cool) hotel which is noisy (wind) and not so comfortable; but that is just my opinion, for what it is worth.  😉

August 5, 2020 

Daniel, 35 years today; hard to believe! 

I often wonder what he would be doing today: 

Would he have gone to University? What would he have taken? 

Would he be more inclined in ways like his father, or his mother? 

Who would he look more like: his Dad’s side, or Mom’s side? 

Goodness, I hope his Dad.

This has been a very interesting week: full of eye openers and hmph’s. Exactly one week ago today I was laid off, (fired). It had been getting harder and harder to keep my mouth shut, and I was not doing a great job of this towards the end. I have a very hard time doing things in a way I feel is incorrect, especially when it will cost the client more money in the long run.

Things began going downhill about a month ago when I could not stay quiet any longer, - on this day I did not do things in quite the order wanted, and disagreed with the decision made to "correct" a difficult issue in a clients yard. I had a very animated, not nice, verbal argument.

  

The results of the argument was my working in a yard, which was unworkable, with much anger and with far too much force; further hurting an area by my rib, which I had already aggravated at a previous job site - making it quite unbearable.

                                        I was furious! 

                Part of the anger being that I was placed in a situation where this could occur, and partly because my reasons were not even considered let alone listened to; even though apparently I "am so important to the company, and we do not know what the f**k we would do without you! You are so valuable to us, we'd be f**ken lost without you!"  I was in so much pain I went to the doctor the next day and found out that I had in fact shredded the cartilage by the rib: an injury which is called costochondral separation. Translation: serious pain; not cool.

    When I got home that day after working in those conditions, I posted a picture on Instagram of the muddy mess I was after working in that yard... this did not please some persons. Further words were exchanged, which ended a few days later with another "discussion", during which a one sided conclusion was reached “I guess we can both say we were assholes on that day.“ ... umm no, you win that award all on your own - but thanks for the inclusion/accusation. 

Things did not get better from that day on, in fact proceeded to get worse. The gaslighting became so much more intense! I could take it no longer; I made the decision to hand in my resignation, and would do so mid August - but then realized if I resigned I would not be eligible to receive the government assistance offered during Covid19. After another nasty turn of events involving many more unearned accusations, I called a meeting with both owners and myself, “at a convenient location, during the work week”. I knew if some disarming happened, and the sense of power was removed, I could achieve that wee nudge they needed towards firing me. 

     I informed them I would be recording the conversation during the meeting, after which I would thoughtfully and objectively consider everything discussed during the meeting so I could formulate a calm response. This was not received well, as I knew it would not be, and it accomplished the complete derailment I was after! Words were stumbled over, gaslighting remarks, (which had been happening over the past three years) were very difficult to accomplish with a one-sided conversation. Then after fumbling about with words for awhile, accusations flying, I was told to "turn off the recording!" - I said if I turned it off the meeting would be over. I picked up my phone and turned to walk away. I had actually not turned off the recording yet when I was venomously told to "TURN IT BACK ON!"  At this point I was handed a letter of dismissal, and my final pay, followed by the adamant command “you do not contact any of our clients, and do not communicate with any of the staff!“. Three hours after our meeting I received an email from one of the clients inquiring if I was okay, and do I do this work outside of that company... The next day another client drove up in front of my house, (she does not live far from me, and knew where I live) and asked me if I do this type of work outside that company. Every single day, for the past week, I have heard from at least one of my crew, and so far about about 4-5 clients! Oh yes, that’s another thing said: “they are not your crew, they are the company’s crew“ - yea, well, bite me bitch!

           Well, it was a long time in coming, a painful journey in the end, but I am glad to be out.        I do miss the clients, and I do miss my crew very very much!                Oh well.

  Now here’s an interesting point: no one outside my (former) work has contacted me to ask me how I am doing. No one. It is very lonely discovering that you actually have no friends. I’m not saying I don’t have acquaintances, I have a few of those, I am talking about the kind of friend that actually asks you how you are doing because they truly want to know, and then listen because they truly care – not just because it’s the right thing to ask, "Hi, how are you? Did I tell you ...?". I do get the obligatory “how are you“ followed by stories of themselves, with no actual interest in my answer.     Not cool.

  If anybody were to ask, and care, my answer would be: “I’m not doing very well; I’m not in a good place right now, and I don’t know what to do; I am sad; I am lost; I am tired; I am lonely.” 

      Very sad. Very lost. Very lonely. And very very tired. Tired of all of it! So tired. And lonely.

               Definitely not a fan of life right now.

                          So very not a fan.

Maybe I don’t want to work in landscaping/gardening anymore, as I have said to anybody who listens.

Maybe I don’t want to be around those people, as I have said to anybody who listens.

Maybe I don’t want to live in Calgary, a city I don’t even like, as I have said to anybody who listens.

   I just want it all to go away - all of it.  I am so done.

That is how I am feeling, thanks for asking...

Weifen's China Wedding, 2019

As a teacher, it is amazing the connection you make with some of the students - connections which sometimes last for many years.

Such a connection was built between Dean and one of his ISS students in Singapore: Weifen.  Weifen is a wonderful young lady from the "little town" of Foshan, (urban population around 7.2 million in 2012) which is located just over an hour outside of Guangzhou, China. She, as many do, went to Singapore to complete her IB education at a private school, which happened (thankfully) to be our school!

Weifen invited Dean and I to her Chinese wedding, in her home town; the answer was an immediate "YES"!!

When we arrived, the smog was as thick as everyone said China was known for - however, that did not last the whole time we were there; in fact it was quite nice most of the time.

In the hotel, if you wanted room service, you call for this "house keeper" to bring you whatever groceries or food items you desire. She will then retrieve the items, bring them to your room, then she goes back to main floor reception and attaches back onto her dock - just like Wilson (our Rumba vacuum)! I love her. 😍

The other thing I had never seen before was gas masks in the coat closet by the door in our room.  Rather disconcerting! 😟

Pushing jet-lag aside, we stopped at Starbucks -
Chinese style!
I have never been in one so fancy! 😮 Impressive.

← Cheese Danish anyone?

Or how about a →

"Christmas House" (there is a little bird inside the house...)?

Different.  😐

Coffee in hand, now to begin our day, the day before the wedding traditions begin; so it's off to a park on the edge of town.

I am sad I did not take my camera to the park with me, the photos were done with my phone, thus the quality is just not very good.  😞
Ah well, I had fun taking photos of this and that throughout the park.

These are a few of the ones I like:

↑ Railing on the guardrail going across the bridge into the park.

↑ The hand carved detailing is amazing!  ↓

↑ I love the random dragons here and there. 😊

 Boogie critters to guard the monies inside your home, (usually on wealthy individuals homes).  ↑

↑  Average means of transportation.

 What a cute puppy - I would totally have one of these in my yard!  😻

 According to Shuowen by Xu Shen, the ram, or Yang羊 in Chinese, means auspiciousness or good fortune (Xiang祥).

The lotus is one of the most significant flowers in the Chinese culture. It symbolizes the holy seat of Buddha. Because the flower rises from the mud and blooms in exquisite beauty it symbolizes perfection and purity of both the heart and mind. It also represents long life and honour.

They really do rise up out of the mud!  (wish it was a bloom, not just the seedhead - but still cool to see that much of them).
It is also an important symbol/flower in Taoism.

To the Chinese this flower symbolizes:

• One who comes out of the mud clean
• Inwardly empty, outwardly upright 
• Purity
• Fruit, flower and the stalk of the lotus = past, present, and future

Very cool.

Water trees -






















trees that grow in water.  😂

A photo of Candice taking a photo of Sharon taking a photo of ... yea, basically everyone was being all artsy = FUN.

Girls being girls,
         as only girls can. 😎




































Eventually we even got Weifen in on the fun.

Dean enjoyed some time catching up with some of his former students, which was awesome! 

There were some ladies working in the park, planting something, little tiny plants, by hand in the rock hard soil; basically pick-axing it in!
I understand - I had a couple of clients with soil like that to work in this past summer...
not nice.

There they were, toiling away, smiling the whole time.

They were super cute!!

Speaking of cute - hahaha!

And there is Weifen on top of the bridge, peacing ✌

Some were having more fun than others... actually no, we were all enjoying it very much!






















And then we posed. 



































And then we posed again - 
such posers.  😁

Sharon, (a good friend of Weifen's) asked me to pose for a portrait photo with some beautiful flowers we found, (they really were very beautiful!).

Apparently I have gorgeous eyes; must be the gold flecks in them, after all, who doesn't love gold?!  😊  (I do)






Following a nice dinner with Weifens parents and some of her bridesmades, that concluded day one; what a wonderful day it was!
Weifen was such a good hostess: spending her time with us the day before her wedding, (I am so thankful she did).