June 2024 Monthly Entry
The last third of spring has had some rain, then warm sunny temperatures and decent overcast, but the on and off rain returned last week. We had some very heavy rain last late Friday night and again Saturday morning. On my way home from work on Friday, the rain really poured down going east around the Port Mann Bridge and continued even when I exited to go south on 176th Street. It slowed more the closer I got to Langley.
I'm debating if I should do a quick day trip to Seattle Pride on June 30th and get some pictures of the leather groups. If I pull this off, I'll share some pictures in a separate entry.
June 5th was a shift that enraged me at Montecito. At near 4:30pm by the office before I was about to prepare to go to the kindergarten portable, Jay stops me while he is vacuuming with his backpack vacuum. He says he no longer wants me to use the backpack vacuum when I vacuum a couple of large rugs and a couple of medium-sized mats in the downstairs portion of my run each night. He gives me the bullshit reason for this: the wand he uses, specifically the head that sucks up the dirt, is beginning to degrade and it is unlikely we would get the same replacement from the higher-ups who will simply tell us to use the wand that came with the vacuum - which is shitty to use and we both agreed on that. What Jay was in effect trying to tell me was that the degraded damage to the wand was partly my fault and that only he should use it (this is false as I'll get to that below.) I then say that if he is so worried about the wand degrading further, then I can simply use my wand from my cannister vacuum from upstairs as not to further use his. I notice this response threw him off because he didn't expect that there was a fair solution to all this. But he rejected it! It was then I realized that he was bullshitting me and that he just didn't want me using his backpack vacuum. For the past couple of years on and off, he was never a fan of me using it and I don't know why. We then got into why I was using it: there used to be a second cannister vacuum downstairs that I would use. One day, it wasn't working and had it picked up by our foreman to send to repairs and he gave me a temporary replacement cannister vacuum. I remember the suction wasn't as good as the original one, but used it anyways. Soon after, my foreman doesn't return the original and ends up taking the replacement to give to another custodian in another school who needed it! Okay... then what happened to the vacuum in repair? The way he figured it, I should just lug down and up the stairs the heavy cannister vacuum that I use in the upstairs portion of my run. Besides being heavy (20-40 pounds), it is also awkward to carry with the tubing and wand when using the stairs. I've also almost tripped on the stairs carrying it too. I got sick of it that I decided to just borrow the backpack vacuum given its convenience and that I didn't have much to vacuum downstairs anyways compared to the six or seven large rugs I had upstairs. For whatever reason, both Jay and my foreman were under the impression that I was lugging and using the upstairs cannister vacuum when I work downstairs - and believed I should be. WTF? Why can't I use the backpack vacuum? Why does Jay get exclusive use of it? Unlike me, he abuses it. Now, he does his proper use of it with all stairwells and carpets/rugs in his run, but he also vacuums almost all hard floors - except the gym, of course. I've seen what he does and it doesn't surprise me that the head has degraded. I use the vacuum strictly in two rooms (on occasion a third with a small rug) on rugs for about ten minutes. He uses it all over his run for over half an hour as he moves quickly with it. This means he fills the dust bag more than me and ultimately causes more wear and tear toward the vacuum... and he has the gall to accuse me and be irritated at my use of the backpack vacuum? Seriously, why is he so possessive of it? Why can't he share it? Why should I have to lug the heavy cannister vacuum when the original downstairs vacuum was taken away from us? Actually, during the "talk" we were having, Jay claimed that he got into an argument with the foreman over the downstairs cannister vacuum as I wanted it returned, to no avail as I said above. By the end of the talk, he asserts himself with, "anyways, I don't you using the backpack vac anymore!" I reply with a "ooookay?" and that was it as I walked off toward the custodial office to prepare to start cleaning the portable. I knew he went into this conversation with the sole purpose of ceasing my use of the backpack vacuum and that the degraded wand was an excuse he could use against me, even though it was his overwhelming use of the vacuum for years that caused it. I spent the rest of my shift in anger and thankfully, we didn't cross paths for the rest of his shift. After the portable was cleaned, the last teacher upstairs was just leaving when I arrived. This gave me time to vent in my mind. Should I talk to my foreman? Should I consider no longer working at Rosser/Montecito and go to another school? Also, what the hell is wrong with Jay lately? From what I suspected since the Spring Break scrub, he has been more of an ass toward me. Now, it is getting into subtle bullying and he wants to separate our use of things slowly. Later in the night, I came to a realization as to why I felt angry: I remember my late-Daddy David did the same thing to me some time after we moved to Port Coquitlam in 2012 that he didn't want us sharing things the same way like we had for the past decade. For example, the family DVD collection was to be separated between what was his and what was mine though in the past, we simply put our collection together with minor exceptions. Another was his taking back his VCR even though I was the only person who owned a TV in the house. This irritated and hurt me because what was the message being told to me? Of course, this would all come apart and be forgotten once things backfired on David and by later 2013, things returned to somewhat normal. Going back to Jay, we didn't talk for the rest of the week and it seemed we pretty much avoided each other. For a couple of nights, I lugged the heavy vacuum down and up the stairs. As we had a Pro-D day on Friday the 7th, I decided the do all my vacuuming the night prior and change out the vacuum bag by the end too. It was full and needed to be replaced anyways, but at least the vacuum won't be as heavy for awhile. I honestly still hate having to do this and just affirms my apathy toward Jay that caused all this. We still talk, but not as much as before. It has been that way since Spring Break. It's probably for the best as we used to engage in conversations after I would arrive that would last minutes and eat up my free time. But it has gone from us being friendly to us being simply professional these days. It makes me wonder what the next thing he is going to do to screw me over and make my job even harder.
Early last week, Jay let me know that our foreman told him that we are not getting any floor wax this upcoming summer scrub as we requested. I rolled my eyes and sighed. We put in the request a week prior for a box or container of wax as there are about five rooms in our school that need a couple of coats. Given the failure of the crew assigned to us last summer to finish waxing my floors when I was in Denver, I was hoping to rectify that this year. But nope, our manager is a cheap-ass again. Yesterday, I found that my other foreman dropped off two containers of wax at Rosser - even though my sub-foreman, David, didn't request it! So wait: one foreman is willing to give wax while another won't? So it isn't just because of the budget, it's because the foreman wants to look good toward the manager in getting his schools done quickly. And for another face-slap, the foremen are once again telling us to do pre-scrub cleaning despite staff and students still around dirtying things up. Nope, I refuse to as I have no time. I will do high and low dusting on the last couple days before the scrub begins, but that is it.
One last minor thing to mention is that our regular guy cleaning the daycare has fucked off again -thankfully- and we now have a new temporary contracted woman cleaning it now. I suppose she'll be doing it until September at least.
Currently with my mom, she had a second biopsy last Monday. Yes, you heard that right, a second biopsy. It turns out that they didn't send in the sample from the first biopsy last month due to some screw up, so the sample wasn't viable for testing and they had to throw it out. Idiots!!! I so loathe the Canadian health care system at times. As for the second biopsy, they still don't know what infection she has yet. Medical imaging has found that a sac has formed in her lower spine that likely contains the infection and it could mean that she will need surgery to (I guess) drain the sac and kill the infection. While my mom hasn't been in much pain lately, she was in significant pain on Father's Day that she didn't come home and stayed all day at the hospital instead. The doctors and nurses get along with her as she doesn't complain or berate them compared to other patients. I found out yesterday, that she was finally discharged from the hospital -which she has been in since late-February- as there isn't anything more they can do right now. They will help to manage whatever pain comes up and don't think my mom can handle surgery given the delicacy of where the infection is around her spine. My mom is just glad to be home for good and my dad no longer has to drive to and from the hospital every day.
This mid-spring I had a couple of extra health problems flare up. My foreskin infection was still around despite two prescribed oral medications that didn't work and two topical creams. I also had a cough that lasted well over a month and a canker sore located below the middle of my bottom front teeth, approximately the inferior labial frenulum. Even my dentist noticed it during my visit in May though it was healing. My folks got me a tube of Orajel that really helped numb the pain and it would last hours. Recently, I had a couple of good things happen. The first is my recent A1 blood test: I am very close to getting within normal range! I'm about .2 points away from normal, but I'm glad of the progress I've been making in under two years to bring my blood glucose down. I'm sure it will rise again come the next test in August due to my upcoming travels and change in diet, but it should go back down later this year. The second is that I have beaten my foreskin infection. What worked this time was a topical cream called Ketoderm. Shopper's Drug Mart couldn't make this particular cream for me as they aren't licensed to, so I was referred to another pharmacy on Fraser Highway near Willowbrook Mall. After over $50 and waiting a weekend to get it, I applied it inside my foreskin and head of my penis for just over two weeks. I noticed it would prevent itchiness and discomfort just like the Loprox cream I used before. Unlike Loprox, this one was slowly killing the infection too. I still continued cleaning inside the foreskin with the applicator non-sharp syringe to prevent the infection from feeding too much off my sugar-laced pee. I noticed the redness at the end of my foreskin was basically gone late last week that I started to attempt pulling back my foreskin while showering. It has certainly tightened these last two months, but I noticed it was pulling back a little better than what the infection prevented. Finally on Sunday (Father's Day), I managed to get it all the way back! It required lubrication from the soapy water I was shooting in with the syringe, but at least it means the infection is basically gone or severely weakened. I hope soon I can pull it back normally when I shower like before.
I am almost done the main campaign in Rise of the Tomb Raider and I'm working on some of the extra DLC stuff. I guess my review may appear by early July. I have finished Book I of Legacy of Ys and I may start Book II sometime after Tomb Raider. I've watched a couple episodes of Star Trek: TOS and the first season review should be up this summer.
Last Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 (Theatrical), Despicable Me 3 (Netflix)
Last Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - The Screwtape Letters
Last Game: Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360)
Current Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - Miracles
Current Games: Rise of the Tomb Raider (PS4) & Legacy of Ys: Books I & II (DS)