gone, grime, and ghosts

It feels like summer now. We live in a college town, and I'm not gonna lie. As much as I appreciate the university and all it adds to our city, it's nice when the population drops for a couple of months every year. Everything becomes noticeably less crowded and just... slower. *cleansing breath*

My work schedule is a little lighter as well, so I enjoyed a bit more bike riding with no particular place to go this week despite the poor air quality alerts. Canada is burning. We should have a view of the mountain range beyond the trees, but the sky was too smokey.

The local trial gardens (another perk of the university) have begun doing their thing.

A local bicycling group also "planted" two ghost bikes this week, to acknowledge two local bicycle fatalities (so far) of 2023 during Ride of Silence, a world wide event. I didn't participate in the ride, but I did swing by the sites after the fact.

facebook.com/BikeFortCollins

Fort Collins is a very bicycle friendly city (thanks again, in part, to the university), but of course, it could always be better. I'll note that, for these two fatalities, motorists were not at fault. In fact, they likely feel pretty crappy about their involvement. 

Obey the rules. Pay attention. C'mon now.

SO, I look forward to more summer laid backness, and less congestion in our city until the fall semester brings back the U-Hauls and such. 


And NO ghosting from the lovely Violet.






-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

4. Summer is coming! What are you most looking forward to?

a taste of hell

My brain is on vacation.  

The spring semester came to a screeching halt at the college a couple of weeks ago. While, we're still providing testing, the tutoring side of things is out for now, so my brain said, "See ya!"

I did take on a high school tutee for a few weeks of summer. Plus the summer college session could bring in some requests. so hopefully, I won't totally turn to mush. 

I do want to dust off my drawing toys and wake up the slumbering right side of my brain.

For now, I'm looking forward to a simple summer and have no major getaways planned as of yet. 

We got together with Chaco and Meego on Sunday for Meego's birthday/ Mother's Day. Wolfgang was out of town and missed out. Despite the fact that it was Mother's Day plus graduation weekend for the university, we managed to have a nice outing at a local Indian restaurant that wasn't too busy.

Goat and lamb as well as chicken were eaten at our table, I confess. I think I've given up on being a strict vegetarian, but more power to them. I can say that it's been several years since I've eaten cow, so there's that.

We were seated at a booth, and there was another family in the booth behind ours. There was a thick partitioning wall separating us from the other booth people, but it didn't suppress the conversation once one of the women started shouting. 

I mean, there was some Jerry Springer (RIP) Mother's Day family drama going on back there. "divorce... your dad's fault... appreciate you mother (dammit)...waaah " omg. 

I expected them to leave or calm down, but no! They stayed and, I guess, ate their selections while periodically loudly chastising and crying. No chairs thrown, however. Probably a good thing they were in a booth.

The food and service were quite good. We will happily go there again, but it did seem that the staff was avoiding us a bit - likely because of our proximity to Drama World. The restaurant does have a hefty selection of alcoholic beverages, which may have contributed. Maybe?

happy day

Happy Mother's Day, y'all. Hallmark holiday that it is, I do still appreciate my mom and also my kids for allowing me the job.

I was digging around in my archives from one year ago. At this time back then, we were into celebrating Meego's graduation from college. Woot!  He's working full-time now, moved out of the college-years "Lake House" into his own place. We'll get together later for some birthday shenanigans.

I also found in my archives, memories of my dispute with Nurse Ratched. Ugh. 

To summarize, we had a particular nursing instructor at work who was being "not very nice" to us in the testing center. Her wrath stemmed from an incident between one of her students and the not-always-tactful Boss. 

I understood her being upset with Boss, but when she decided to aim her tyrannical ways at us underlings, my coworkers and I said, "F--- that!"

It was the first - and thankfully the last - time I ever felt a need to submit a formal complaint to an HR department. Two of my coworkers and I did just that. 

I was actually a bit surprised at the quick response. Our complaints were delivered to the head of HR himself who called and discussed the situation with each of us individually. We don't know what was said to Nurse Ratched, but I'm sure she had a talking to.

There have been no negative incidents involving her since. On the few occasions I've had to correspond with her via email, she's been profusely thankful.  There also seems to have been an uptick in the frequency of positive remarks from other instructors like, "appreciate you guys!" or "thanks for everything you do for our students!" blah blah blah.

Up until a few months ago, I'd never even met her in person, but I knew what she looked like when one of my fellow offended coworkers stalked her online and found her.

She stopped in for a rare visit late one evening while Assistant Boss and I were going through some closing procedures. I was in the back room closing out a few things when Nurse Ratched  walked in all stealthfully. I imagine she peeked in, saw Assistant Boss in there by himself, and deemed the coast clear.

I sensed it was her, so stepped out in full reveal, to which she did one of these

I responded with one of these

She thanked us "for all you do", told us about what nice comments we get from her students, then hastily left. 

She's no longer a problem. I have no regrets about filing a complaint with HR. 

I hope to never have cause to do it again.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linking up with Mama Kat for the prompt:

5. Look into your archives. What were you blogging about a year ago around this time? Are you still dealing with the same thing? Your thoughts?

come again another day

Everything is soggy. 

We've had a gentle falling rain for the past 24 hours or so. Kind of odd for these parts. I went for a short bicycle outing this morning, and on the way back home, decided to take the long way. I had an actual raincoat on, so why not?

There's an appealing calmness when rain is gently falling like that.  Here, we're more likely to get violent thunderstorms that blast through and wreak havoc, maybe throw down some car- or roof- totaling hail. But not this gentle make-a-youtube-to-lull-people-to-sleep rain.

So I took advantage of the rain and my raincoat and the fact that I have the day off. With the spring semester over, I have no tutees for the next few weeks.

I came across this mini swamp amid a cacophony of frog noises. I recall reading once that, if you hear wildlife noises, it's usually an indicator that mating is happening or trying to. 

Expect tadpoles soon.

I snapped the soggy pic below from near the area I captured that Goldilocks snow a few months ago.


Goldilocks rain this time. 

                

Recently, at work, we were talking about how people form close "relationships" with inanimate objects. This because we had a pink gel pen left behind by a student who swore she wouldn't forget it because it was her "favorite pen". 

A cart outside in the hallway was stocked full of "favorite" water bottles left behind. 

And we all fessed up to having placed similar sentimental value on items that are otherwise easy to replace.

Pretty silly, actually.

During a short hiatus on this morning's ride, my good friend, bicycle Violet and I got a snarky kick out of the notion.

finally

"B-b-b-but I NEED a private room, or else I'll have a major panic attack...", we were thusly warned.

Yes, we survived the last and most busy day of the semester yesterday. Final day of finals. 

So, I work at a testing center located on a college campus, but only about half of the tests we give are for the students. The others are "professional" tests dealing with professional licenses and certifications. They range anywhere from paramedics to school teachers to insurance agents to cybersecurity pros and everything in between. Seriously, I never knew there were SO many licenses and certifications. 

But on the final day of finals each semester, we shut everything down except for student tests. Only students with special accommodations - granted through Disability Services - come and test with us. They must demonstrate good reason for not taking tests in the class with everyone else. It seems like the list of accommodations grows each semester. 

So yesterday was a high anxiety day. It went pretty smoothly, all things considered. We managed to provide a private room to avoid the aforementioned panic attacker, even though they hadn't made the proper reservation. Better to just find a way.

The most common accommodation is extra time - either time and a half or double. I think that's mostly granted for dyslexia, but it's not our biz to know why a student gets a certain accommodation, we just know the what. 

But some students just straight up tell us what's up. There is an accommodation that says nothing more than "alternative test location" that addresses this meme:

One poor fellow told me this is exactly what happens to him while testing with the class. God forbid someone turn in their exam and leave with time remaining.

Anxiety is certainly an underlying factor with most students who test with us. Without the accommodation(s), they are unlikely to stay in school or even enroll in the first place.

I know a few of these students from my tutoring in the math center. I feel for them with their struggles as they show up for tests with that deer-in-the-headlights look. We sometimes question how they will do once they're out in the non-accommodating working world with their fresh degrees.

On the other hand, we suspect that a small handful of them played it up for the counselors. Sold them a line to get special treatment for testing, similar to what happened with some people involved in the Varsity Blues scandal.

Maybe they'll eventually enter politics and become rising stars. 

life gets warmer

The high school near us serves as the school district stadium. There is a raucous track meet happening there currently. I can hear the announcer calling athletes to their events, bringing back memories of my track olden days in high school. Butterflies in the starting blocks. Better them than me.

It's a beautiful day for a track meet, actually. I'm liking this spring weather. Each day lately, when I emerge from the front door, this guy is hanging out.

He knows he's gorgeous and happily poses for photos, but has yet to let me pet him. He belongs to a family across the street, so I'm not feeding him. I think he just comes over here to taunt our cat, Napolion, whom we no longer let outside. 

Technically, it's against the law to let cats roam about willy nilly, but plenty of cat owners do it. We decided we'd abide the law, much to Napolion's disgust.

Yesterday was my last tutor session of the semester, so I've got downtime on the schedule that I'll try to use wisely. Monday will be busy busy with testing for the last day of finals. Then onto the quiet lull of summer semester.

I caught a bit of King Charles III coronation through news networks this morning. Not the long, drawn out pomp, but a 2-minute "cliff notes" version. So much royal regalia. Plenty of comments on Harry's absence on the balcony, since it's just for "working royals". Funny, no mention of Andrew *ahem*

The nice weather and royal pomp reminds me to reserve my spot for the annual Tour de Corgi.

It'll be here before we know it!

baby maybe

"I'm gonna take the kids up to Horsetooth (reservoir) tomorrow. They've been really good with their school work lately", she told me. 

This was a typical thing for my coworker, CC, to make. She often commented on "the kids" and what they were up to.  I worked with CC at the nursing home. She was assigned to train me on my second day at that job. 

She was 16 years young.

She was 16 and seemingly more mature and responsible than a lot of "grown ups" I've known. Because she was still in high school, her hours were limited at work, but she had proven herself over the previous seven months to be reliable and responsible.  Our managers often tapped her to train new people.

"When I first started working here, I was really uncomfortable, and didn't want to come back. But I made myself keep it up, and now it's okay", she confided to me. 

As with some of the other teens I worked with at the old folks' home, CC activated my maternal instincts. I worried about her working too hard, about her taking too much responsibility for "the kids" - her younger siblings. Later, when I would become her supervisor, she'd sit in the office with me after she'd clocked out and tell me stories about her "crazy" and large extended family.

And I always enjoyed working with CC. As her supervisor, I knew I never had to worry about her slacking off or not following certain protocols - this was in the peak days of covid. There were a LOT of protocols to follow.  We went through a lot of crap together, literally. We got our covid shots at the same time, hanging out for the 15-minute wait-and-see periods. 

I only remember one time CC was late to work. This was alarming, because she was so responsible. I worriedly texted her. Turns out she was so tired after doing her homework the night before, she had inadvertently set her alarm on her calculator.

Yeah, there is no alarm on her calculator.

Around the time I left to take my current job at the college, our then-manager left for a new position at a larger, more upscale senior living establishment. She intelligently recruited CC away to the new place with her. CC and I have kept in touch sporadically since going our separate ways nearly two years ago. 

Earlier this week, I pulled up my facebook, and there was CC, all aglow. All pregnant in photos from her weekend baby shower.  She and her boyfriend looking happy, but SO so young. 

I congratulated her and told her she looks beautiful, which is true. I always figured she'd make a good mom someday, but I've got mixed feelings that it's happening this soon. She is now 19.

Well... at least she's got the crazy and large extended family?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

4. Write a blog post inspired by the word: late