July 31, 2014

I ended up not going into work today. I made sure to check before I got ready so I didn't end up half-dressed like on Tuesday. I'm apparently still too expensive for them. Which is sad considering the amount of money they pay me. But I get it. If I needed to save money the first place I would start would be projection. I provide a useful service while I'm there (despite all the books and video games and craft projects) but a diligent manager can do a passable job. More often fixing than preventing problems but you can't win them all.

I was kind of productive with my day. I crocheted a lot, finishing a coaster and adding to my sister's washcloth. I am still really liking the look of the Tunisian/Afghan stitch. The coaster actually looks like something people would use as a coaster. For my sister's washcloth, she picked out a rainbow colored string and with the stitch, the vertical line color is different than the horizontal so it looks pretty cool.

We moved Chipotle to tonight because we ate out for lunch yesterday. My burrito was very tasty but there wasn't anything too special about it. I did get an accidental extra thing of guacamole for free though, so that is something. I don't like guacamole, at least from Chipotle, but my sister was appreciative. She was running a little late for dinner because she was angry baking a cinnamon cake, which made for a delicious dessert. She also brought over some chocolate chip scones.

The anger was due to things involving my grandma. She has been down with my aunt and uncle for less than a month and today there was an incident. I guess today she was left alone for the first time because my aunt and uncle went to work at a voter poll station. Thankfully they had the forethought to reactivate my grandma's medical alert button. At some point someone came to the door and when my grandma opened the door my aunt's cat tried to run out. My grandma went to shoo him away and he basically attacked her arm, biting and scratching it. With her age and the medication she is on she has become a bit of a bleeder and she couldn't get the bleeding to stop so she hit her alert button. My aunt, dad, and sister are all on the list so they each received a call.

My sister missed the call but the voicemail said my grandma had been attacked by cats and was bleeding heavily. She understandably freaked out and called my aunt, who basically dismissed her and told her she was too busy to talk and that my dad knew everything. My aunt was a little more agitated than normal because she tried to pull the busy thing with my dad when he called her and he refused to accept that as a response and made her tell him what happened.

When my sister called my dad, he was busy, because it's a family trait apparently, but he did say (or text) that grandma was doing okay. He called back during dinner and my sister told him she was busy and that she would text him later. And then he didn't respond to the texts so I think she called him. Or he called her. I don't know, but they eventually ended up talking.

Despite receiving a call from the medical alert people saying that my grandma was attacked by cats (one cat) and that she was bleeding heavily enough that she felt compelled to use her emergency alert button, both my aunt and uncle were far too busy at the polling station to go home and check on her. They called a neighbor to do that. No offense to people who volunteer at polling stations but a lot of that job seems like sitting around and one person could easily be covered if they went to help an old lady who had been attacked by a cat. The neighbor ended up taking my grandma to the emergency room to get bandaged up (thankfully no stitches), and then for an ice cream cone before taking her back to their house because they didn't want to go near the cat. This is the same cat that attacked my uncle's face causing him to need stitches. It is a demon cat and my grandma has never liked him. She's not a pet person and even if she were, the cat might as well be a wild animal.

Yes, my grandma ended up being okay, but only after a trip to the emergency room. A woman her age who starts bleeding and can't stop is kind of a big deal. I can't wrap my head around both my aunt and uncle being unable to leave their very important volunteer job to check on my grandma. She is not one to cry wolf but even if she were, better save than sorry. Sure, call the neighbor because they're closer, but say you'll meet them at the house, or later at the emergency room when you find out the attack warrants a trip to the emergency room. It just doesn't make any sense to me. The first time my grandpa went into the hospital I was at the theater when my mom called me. I immediately packed up my stuff and told the managers I had to leave. There wasn't even a second thought in my mind. Family comes before work, especially volunteer work at a polling station. Let people pick up their own stickers.

I actually had a forty-five minute visit with the new volunteer kid tonight. It feels like it has been forever since we've had a visit. We missed the last two weeks so that feeling is kind of justified. I was a few minutes last because I got stuck on the road I got stuck on a couple months ago. Back then there were adding a turn lane so I had to wait on one side of the hill for a pace car to bring a line of cars from the other side, and then follow him over the hill, along with everyone behind me, in the left lane. Tonight they were working on asphalting the road. Anyway, the visit went well. The kid said he got a second job but it sounded like he just got trained in another area of the restaurant he is working at. Either way, he said he's been working a lot and watching Netflix when he wasn't working. A very typical summer I would say for a teenager old enough to work. He seems a little freaked out by the fact that he will be turning 18 and graduating from high school in four months. Very understandable. We talked about that for awhile and he said he was kind of looking forward to being an adult. I told him he would feel differently once he was one.

When I got home I crocheted and watched a really long livestream of Sark and APL playing a level of Sniper Elite 3 on Authentic difficulty. That is the highest difficulty, one of the hardest aspects being that it gets rid of checkpoints, so if you are killed in anywhere in a level you have to go back to the beginning. It was weird that they were streaming tonight because today I watched the previous two streams Sark did with APL playing the first few levels of the game. It was a weird coincidence. I lost track of how long it took them tonight to bed one level but I think it was multiple hours. They ended up having to restart at least a few times and there were some internet connectivity issues. But it was fun to watch because Sark is always entertaining and he and APL make a pretty funny team.

This entry has taken me forever because I'm listening to some EDM and keep closing my eyes and getting lost in that every few sentences. So I'm going to call this good. Not just because it is late but also because I think I've done a decent job of covering my day. Now it is time for bed.