Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Tuesday: June Gloom, Counting my Blessings, and Casting my Vote!

After May Gray, we get June Gloom!  It is all due to a marine air inversion layer and results in cloudy, overcast mornings, which usually clear in the afternoons.  Very often, the effects of June Gloom are enhanced by another weather phenomena known as Catalina Eddy.  This morning, it was foggy, as well.

I don't like gloomy mornings, but I counted my blessings (I woke up this morning, well and alive, I didn't die in my sleep, I have been blessed with another day to live, even if it came with a gloomy morning), got myself up (I'm blessed to be able to get up and move, I am not paralyzed or disabled), and showered (blessed to have hot water on tap!), and dressed (clothes to wear) and headed off to work (blessings of being able to drive and having parking).

I had a productive day at the office.  I completed my portion of a project and sent it on.  I updated my supervisor on that project and updated another person about another project.  One of my colleagues returned from a visit to France and brought back some delicious chocolates to share with all of us and he showed me a video he took on his phone of the ride up the Eiffel Tower and the view from a restaurant up there!

I called the clinic to follow up on the message they had left on my daughter's cell phone to call them.  Apparently, I have been scheduled for one of my screening tests, by them, for tomorrow afternoon!  The receptionist I spoke with was probably doing something else while she was talking to me, because she was rather offhand and didn't give me all the information I needed.  She just gave me the date and time of the appointment and hung up on me!  I had to call her back to ask where I needed to go and she said "radiology on the 1st floor", but not in which building!  1st floor of the clinic?  The hospital?  I asked for a phone number to call, to get that information, and she gave me the general number to the hospital.

I called that number and had to be transferred twice (general number to outpatients to radiology) before I got to the right department, which apparently isn't even located in the hospital or the medical building attached to the hospital (where the doctor's offices and clinics are located), but in another building, altogether, a block away!  I got the address so I know where to go, tomorrow.  But when I asked for their direct phone number, the receptionist said, "Your calling it right now, aren't you?"  Um, yes, but only because I was transferred to that number!  No one transferring me ever gave me a direct number to call, in case we got disconnected, and didn't give me a chance to ask for it!  A long time ago, when I took a secretarial course while waiting for my "O" Levels results, one of the things I was taught, as part of phone etiquette was, to give the caller the direct number before transferring a call, just in case the call got disconnected!  Oh, well, at least they transferred my call for me and to the right department!  Yes, still counting my blessings!

So, to make a long story short, I have an appointment for a bone density scan, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.  I informed my supervisor and told him, I'll be in tomorrow morning, but will leave after lunch and will probably go home afterwards.

I forgot to write one important thing in my To Do List for today - to vote in the California primaries!  So, as soon as I got home, I had a cup of tea, collected my sample ballot, and headed out to the polling station to exercise my right to vote! 

My "I Voted" Sticker!
Daughter called me almost as soon as I got home - she had just got home from her ice skating class.  We chatted for a bit and will video chat later in the night.

I also called friend R to check on her and we chatted for a bit.

Breakfast had been dry cereal (without milk).  Lunch had been leftovers from last night's dinner, with a fresh mango for dessert.  Afternoon snack was the last of the packet of pumpkin seeds.

Tonight's dinner was: the other half of the smoked sausage I had in the freezer (I had made a stir fry with half of it, earlier), cut into half again and split, corn on the cob (half of one ear of corn), and a salad:

Dinner: Smoked Sausage, Corn on the Cob, Salad
The rest of the smoked sausage and half an ear of corn is leftover for another meal or two.  I think I will pack another piece of the sausage with the leftover potato and some of the carrots and peas from yesterday for tomorrow's lunch. 

I might have half an apple for dessert/bedtime snack, a little later. 

Today, I am grateful for:
- Being alive and relatively well
- A drive through the park on my way to the office
- A productive day at the office
- Getting my bone density scan appointment scheduled (and I even know where to go for it!)
- Being able to vote

By the time I got home, cooked and ate dinner, it was already past 9:30 p.m. and I didn't feel like cleaning the fridge, or doing laundry, or ironing.  But it's OK.  I shall be home, a little earlier, tomorrow, and will do them, then.

Tuesday's To Do List:
- Go to the office - DONE
- Call the clinic - DONE
- Bring the trash cans in - DONE
- Vote! - DONE
- Call friend R - DONE
- Clean the fridge
- Do a load of laundry
- Iron the sari

Wednesday's To Do List:
- Go to the office
- Bone density scan
- Clean the fridge
- Do a load of laundry
- Iron the sari

How was your Tuesday? 





16 comments:

  1. I feel bad now, having just got up and thinking 'Ugh! It's Wednesday and I've got to go to work.' I should start counting my blessings more often. I don't even have the excuse of it being a gloomy morning, as the sun is shining. I think I'm just tired today.
    I hope your screening goes well tomorrow. Thank goodness you eventually got the right directions. Will you have to wait long for the results? X

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    1. Jules, I'm sorry if I made you feel bad! There have been mornings when I've woken up and felt that way, too. But now, I try to remember that I am blessed to be alive, no matter what the day might hold. Every night, when I say my prayers, I remember to give thanks for another day. It's going to be 3 years, later this month, since that initial mammogram which detected the cancer. Every day I've been alive since then has been a blessing for which I am grateful. I hope work goes well for you, today, and you get some rest, and the rest of the day is good.

      Thank you for the well wishes. I don't know when the results will be available - in a couple of weeks, I suppose. I will have to call the doctor to see, since the results go to her, directly.

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  2. While it’s definitely no excuse for the poor level of customer service you received, It seems that technology has replaced direct customer service. I worked for a hospital system and when the call center replaced direct phone numbers that dialed in to individual hospital departments, it was nearly impossible to reach each droaemrtmrnt directly. I sympathize with you!

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    1. I'm sure the technology they have to use has something to do with it and the volume of calls and work they have to do, as well. I've been at these offices waiting to be checked in, etc., when similar calls have come and I know the receptionists are entering my data into the system while trying to help the caller and often, there's at least another caller on hold! It gets overwhelming, I'm sure, but, for the caller, it can be quite frustrating, too.

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  3. My Tuesday was good fun, just pottering about at home in the morning, teaching in the afternoon and spending the evening with a good friend. I've woken this morning feeling refreshed and relaxed!

    I hope your bone scan goes well today and the results are good. I like your idea of counting your blessings - it's so easy to take everything for granted and to forget how fortunate we really are.

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    1. Glad you had a good Tuesday, Eileen, and to hear you feel refreshed and relaxed, this morning. That is exactly how it should be!

      Thank you for the good wishes. Yes, it is easy to find things to grumble about, but, being able to count blessings often show that there are as many good things as bad, if not more.

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  4. I hope your appointment today is really where you think it is after all of those calls. Good luck.

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    1. Ha, ha, wouldn't it be sad if I showed up at the wrong clinic, after all? :D Maybe I should show up a little early, just in case I have to go somewhere else! Thank you for the good wishes!

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  5. You put in a full day at work, got most of the things done from your to-do list (and then some), and finally after you cooked and ate your dinner at 9:30 in the evening, you didn't feel like cleaning your fridge?? Tsk, tsk. If I recall, you didn't get it done yesterday either. LOL. Today, I went to a doctor's appointment after picking up my mail....end of story.

    We have a provincial election tomorrow, so I will also be casting my vote. Hope today was a better day for you and not quite as busy as this week has been so far.

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    1. I know, Susan, fridge not cleaned, laundry not done, and sari not ironed! Tsk, tsk, indeed!

      Today has been OK, except I banged up my car, again! :p

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    2. Oh no! You weren’t hurt I hope!

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    3. No, I wasn't hurt, thank goodness! No one else was hurt, either! Just the car, rear right door got dented! I took a turn too close to a barrier!

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  6. We have to vote on Thursday in our provincial election, I see Susan already mentioned it. Then the fun starts, waiting to see what the result will be!

    I have been blaming a pine siskin for picking seeds out of the feeder and throwing them down, but I saw the real culprit yesterday - a downy woodpecker! I think he was hoping to find some unshelled seeds among the others. The feeder seems to be empty quite often but with very few birds on it, unlike in winter. I only feed the black oil sunflower seeds, so it is not as if I have poor quality stuff in there. Anyway I gave that woodpecker quite a talking to when I opened the door!

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    1. Elections are always fun, aren't they?

      Well, that's rather cheeky of that woodpecker! I hope some of the birds are eating those seeds he tossed down! Good that you gave him a talking to! I can just imagine it! :D

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