Last Wishes ....

Previously, I wanted to have a full burial. Realizing the expense and actual burial plots available these days, I then decided cremation would be best ~ just as long as my ashes were released to the ocean's edge of Victoria Island ~ Tofino to be exact, where I met (of course) my beloved hubby.

So now after reading this FB poster, I've changed my mind. I not only want my ashes flung amongst the Japanese winds of jasmine that have reached Canada's shores in Tofino, I want my ashes to smell like popcorn.  Can you imagine the aroma.  Harmony.

PS: I still want some of me buried in the earth, you know, along with some hair follicle for DNA extraction (like Steven Speilberg did in the movie A.I. ~Artificial Intelligence~). I truly believe this will be possible one day.

It was the cheese !

Dilemma. Here's what happened.

I arrive for my usual shift change for the graveyard shift, say hello, discuss afternoon issues, goodbye. Off she goes, I watch her via the surveillance camera, to her car, out the drive. Check mark, attendant left safely, but what on Heaven's green acres of cow pasture turds is that smell she left behind?

I'm thinking the worst kind, various thoughts probe my eyeballs to the left of me, to the right. To the bottom. Can't be? Could it? Was there leakage of some sort? I find a spray bottle of disinfectant under the desk, accompanied with a stiff wash cloth that eerily resembles one that you might find in a teenaged boy's bedroom. I gingerly wipe down anything that is in the smell zone. Doesn't help at all.

I've heated up my dinner, Campbell's Chunky soup, creamy chicken corn chowder. I have flashbacks of newborn poops. ~gag~ ...... ~gag~

After checking my breath a thousand times, sniffing my surroundings, I finally discover the smell is from the waste basket. I mean, so obvious, and sure enough there's a discarded salad container laced with parmigiano cheese ~gag~ ...... ~gag~. I have removed the offender to the far room, until 8:00am when the regular day staff begin to arrive. I have no choice but to return the stench under my desk.

In the meantime, people have been stopping by, chatting, and I'm wondering if they can smell that smell.

I arrive for my usual shift change for the graveyard shift ~starving~, say hello, discuss afternoon issues, etc. Except this time there's an alarm on our shared email account "All graveyard attendants are to wipe down their work areas before ending their shift".

F-U-C-K ! Now they think I'm the stinky one! I immediately walk to my supervisor's office and explain, and if you can imagine in a Jerry Seinfeld tone "It was the cheese - it was the cheese!"

C.R.A.Z.Y.

I am a non-English phobic when it pertains to my entertaining stimuli. That meaning I hate watching sub-titled movies. I don't want to use more intelligence than I need to watch a movie. I just want to watch and listen, not watch and listen and read.
So I avoid these sort of films like the plague.

There is, however, one particular movie that I will watch over and over again. Not only is it French Canadian, but it's sub-titled in English, so I have to read it also. And it's laced with Catholicism, and forbidden sins of said religion, and lots and lots of music from yesterday and tomorrow.

I am speaking of the movie, C.R.A.Z.Y., which of course is a subtle acronym reference to Patsy Cline's top hit, Crazy. Each child born in this movie world was named beginning with a letter from this song: C - Christian, R - Raymond, A - Antoine, Z - Zac, Y - Yvan....'course we don't really figure this out until the end, unless you're a brain weave puzzler and figure this out from the start. Has no substance to the plot or movie anyways, so get over it.

What I find interesting about his movie is comparing it to my husband's strict upbringing of Catholicism, fashion, free spirit, "wish I could speak English" mindset. My husband was born and raised in a small town way up northern Quebec, where each corner had a church and an intersecting bar. And all were welcome - Including 13 year old boys, who began their journey of life based on the music of Frank Zappa and Ozzy Osborne and who knows what.

Go west young man they all sang to him. So he did. 

And he showed up in B.C. with a backpack flung over his shoulders, with St.Michael, or St.Mary, or Saint lady who can find things, or Saint person who will heal my pains, and he kneels at his bedside each and every night and crosses himself, over and over again, even crosses his eyeballs (which I personally think is an Ozzy influence) but insists it's merely eyeball exercises. Nonetheless, a miniature statue adorns our bedroom, a mere 3 feet away on the dresser, and for years I thought it was a plastic statue of the Virgin Mary. For non-catholics, I think we all believe godly people wearing long flowing gowns are girls. My mistake.

I lay a mere 3 feet away from Jesus himself, wondering if he's going to bleed blood from it's eyes, or cry or something. So this is our punishment, I suppose, being a non-catholic person, we're gonna' get you either which way. 

CRAZY

https://youtu.be/FYtrGjJOMpE

Safe

Safe.

Safe levels she tells herself at the neighborhood pharmacy.  The blood pressure padding that has encapsulated her upper arm has told her so. 158 over 103. 142 over 99.

She hits the BEGIN button again and holds her breath, ~third time the charm~ next reading 135 over 88.

She hits the print out button to provide evidence to her doctor why she needs to up her dosage -or lower it-, but there's no paper in the machine, so she records the results with her own pen and paper, which she has frantically garnered from the innings of her fake designer purse.  Frantic because there's no way in hell she's gonna' remember all those numbers by memory.  Thank god she keeps Walmart receipts.

She nudges the numbers here and there, so no need to be frantic. "Here you go Doc, I'm just fine and maybe sometimes I'm not". I can't tell, those fucking meter machines at the pharmacies. You know, are they real?

They never have paper in them and the arm bands are always sticky, candy covered by fucking kids who think they're amusement rides.

She has, in a bizarre sort of way, lowered her blood pressure without even knowing it.

An Oldie but Goodie (not that I would know)

Friday on My Mind

The Fish Farm

Finally - our first day of work. Mass confusion in obtaining gear for the line; hair nets, cotton gloves, rubber gloves, ear plugs, jacket, plastic smock, boots, plastic sleeves that cover the arms. 100 staff ready to work, but no one to lead them.

First job, piling fish in a neat pile and placing them across to the other line in front, both on conveyor belts. Easy enough, but then Sabrina and I were summoned "You two, come with me" in a chinese tone that always seem to be angry, but in this instance they were.  Next job, scraping excess filleted salmon meat off the bones. 6 newbies scraping away until we were the only ones left in the plant, dead silence. apparently it is coffee break and no one told us, or guided us.

We undress our gear and reach the lunch room and within 5 minutes someone yells to the workers "GEAR UP NOW. YOU BETTER BE READY AT YOUR STATION, OR GO HOME".  I gulped down one much needed pop, but no time to pee. Gearing up took 5 minutes and usually your gear was stolen, so you had to spend a few extra minutes scrambling around to steal someone else's.
Back at our scraping station we completed every last fish with a result of several large trays of salmon pate, which probably would be sold off to Safeway or Superstore as "salmon patties". The remaining salmon carcasses piled high in our throw bin and I felt pleased that nothing is being wasted in this plant. So there we are, 6 first day newbies standing around with nothing to do, until the idiot beside me starts waving her arms in the air. The 5 of us are angrily telling her, 'dude, no one bothered about us before and we missed our break, let them do THEIR job'. Too late. The familiar tone "YOU TWO COME HERE" took us to another station, gutting.

Large salmon moving down the belt, 4 gutter workers on each side, each equipped with long water hoses dangling down with a scraper spoon attached. Lots of scraping in this place, which meant lots of wrist work. I enjoyed this task - didn't bother me one bit, having acquired this skill from my childhood years fishing at Loon Lake with grampa and gramma. Every once in awhile a worker across the belt would accidentally spray their hose in my face, or fish guts would spatter me, in which case I would merely turn to Sabrina and rub my face off the back of her smock. There was just one other person who spoke in this line, the dictator 'YOU DO WRONG - NO CLEAN' ..... and myself "OOPS, SORRY" *snicker*

 The head slicer machine beside us stops, and we were forewarned by our first team lead, an older kind lady, who told us "once that line stops, run like hell". So we did, signalling us to lunch and a much needed piss. Workers who have been here 3-4 days already know what to expect, so all the microwaves are in use. Hubby packed huge lunch boxes for us, I eat 4 chocolate chip cookies instead. The lunchroom is represented by many nationalities, language, colour, food smells and it is at this time I learn of other work lines, such as: scale watcher (stand and watch numbers on a scale), fish packer in a box, person who yells "GET BaCK TO WORK".

Back on the line, Sabrina is pointed to move to the line behind me ---a much faster gutter line. I was really annoyed pleading with team lead 'we are supposed to work together, work with friends and family' the ad posted, 'have fun' the ad posted. SUCK IT UP SHE SAID, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, TRADE POSITIONS.
So I did.
Within a few minutes, the fish miraculously stopped conveying. Suddenly it was break time again, just 55 minutes after lunch break.

Back on the line, I couldn't keep up. The fish kept coming, faster and faster and I no longer had Sabrina's back to wipe my brow sweat. DO WRONG - NOT CLEAN. yell, yell, yell !   I missed lots of fish. Lucy & Ethel all over again. at one point I started grabbing them and throwing them back up the line. Except the person to the right of me was the membrane slicer lady, with a very sharp knife, which she kept sharpening with the expertise of a Food Network Star. When she missed her fish, she crossed over my arms into my space, slice slice, while I'm trying to extract guts in the same fucking fish. Is it fish blood, or mine? Then I have a fat body builder to the left of me, squeezing me as he pretends to do a good job.

We are all missing the fish.

I complain. Well, not really complaining, I am pleading with the head-head team lead person (who happens to be caucasian), I can't keep up, the line is moving fast and is making me dizzy.

 'oh, come on now white spoiled lady, you'll get use to it'  Well, that's what I thought he inferred.

 You are dragged here and there, at the disposal of any lower, mid managing team lead, who probably have been on the line months at best, appointing their bestie newbie, or cousin, to the slow pace scale job. Final straw was asking when our next break will occur, and the answer was until the end of the shift **3-1/2 hours later**, we gave you your second break already (when the fish machine broke). In an instant, I threw my hose down, yelling "I QUIT". I said it numerous times, "I QUIT" almost feeling like Sally Field hoisting up a union sign. I walked to Sabrina's station, heavily smeared in salmon entrails, let's go.

one hand leads to another

The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

One of my favs --- I notice the link no longer works on an older post --- so here it is again.