elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
2014-02-24 06:38 am

(no subject)

Yesterday i stayed offline a good bit. After waking i spent time talking about a possible road trip with Christine. I didn't go to Meeting, but instead spent hours on the deck. It was comfortable outside, and much had dried up from the last rains.

There's a lot in flower, which surprised me. I've a purple verbena and an argyranthemum: they look like they are ready entering their long blooming seasons. Lavender and rosemary are blooming, and the lemon tree has quite a number of blossoms. The hellebore, subject of my photography on Saturday, was looking very unhappy, and i think that's what drew my attention away from all the plants that were beginning to spruce up. Usually the scented geraniums are what get my attention as the early blooms, and those are not blooming. I don't know if it was the frosts in December that nipped the taller branches or what. I didn't see any buds. On one of the red geraniums, though, there is a stalk with fat buds.

So, i wired plants up on stakes: one scented geranium is an experimental espalier subject, and the sage had gotten lanky. I wove together the newer branches of the white and scented geranium planting on the declining bakers rack: these plants i'm growing into some strange lattice to make use of the way they send out rambling branches to get the light.

I dumped out lots of little 4" pots full of dirt and dead plants: i've no idea how i collected so many. I was inspired to thin the aloe planter, which always seems to be thriving with complete neglect, and so took on the bigger job: digging out the Hedychium gardnerianum (a yellow ginger) from it's planter. This has been on my to-do list for over a year, but last year it sent forth such wonderful flowers, i couldn't bear to interrupt. The rhizome had utterly filled the planter. The ginger and aloes are off to a friend for her yard.

I'd a little viola that had survived the winter neglect, and in the dumped out soil i found some other rhizome or tuber. Maybe from the kalanchoe i'd bought as a blossom lesson for the first day school last fall? (That's why i had the viola.) Those i put in the "flower" planter: home to the happy purple verbena that i've got growing up a stake, to another less happy yellow kalanchoe, and to bulbs that never bloom.

With all the dead leaves and litter clipped, snipped, and swept, and with the plants rearranged to show off the most green, the garden looks thriving. With the rain coming later this week -- lots and lots and lots please! -- getting things tidy before they were all wet and slimy was a good thing. I did find where many of the slugs were hiding. Those were hurled off the deck, with hopes that robins would find them.

I'm incredibly stiff. This is a sign i sit far far too much!
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
2013-10-27 07:07 am

(no subject)

Sorry to leave everyone with my Friday morning angst: after having blood drawn and my flu shot i was allowed tea and a breakfast, and my mood returned to equilibrium. My conclusion is that given what was on New Manager's mind -- it was a meeting to build his relationship with the team -- relationship building was probably what he was thinking about. I need to let him know that the technical parts of my work are important to me and double-check whether he felt he was presenting my job description or if it was just talking. It may not be all about me but possibly all about him: i have a long relationship with these folks and he may be concerned about how quickly he can build a rapport. There was also something he and i had been talking about over the week, our poor but improving working relationship we have with the DBAs, that may have been on his mind.

The strength of my reaction does say much about microaggressions and about how much hope in which i had wrapped the New Manager. I have felt so dismissed technically by New Director and the VP that receiving this small signal sent me off into to end-of-the-world thinking.

I don't think i've networked enough to find a new job that i would like, the first version of the app isn't done, i'm not ready to say "take this job and shove it." All the sense of being trapped that had me in such despair a year ago had overwhelmed me in the reflection time i had yesterday morning.

--==∞==--

I had scheduled Friday as vacation, but there's a huge pile of Stuff Not Done. The pleasure of not having to worry about morning meetings and to ignore the morning panics, though, led to Friday morning still being quite relaxing.

I worked with email off as much as i could. I still have plenty of progress to make. (And worked on some of the tedious tasks during Saturday's World Series game.)

I had a visit with the psychiatrist at 5 where we established that, in general, all is going quite well. I had been thinking that with new manager - despite my morning's angst - i may not need the antidepressants as much as i have. I can't be sure of that (see Friday morning's angst), but when i think back to all the distress about my job, the worst parts all had to do with New Director's incompetence. What remains to be seen is if the competent New Manager can function with the dysfunction. (Or if he gets fired in January because the install went poorly.)

The nice statement i can make about the psychiatrist is that he happily agreed that we could consider a dosage reduction. My observation that i wouldn't consider a reduction in the winter was met with an, "Ah you are a product of [my ivy league graduate school]!" that continues to rub me the wrong way. Apparently, dosage reductions are best managed in the spring.

After that i joined the native plant group until a production install issue called me home.

Saturday, i went out to join the friends i usually see on Sunday morning. Christine was blue before i left. She was working when i returned: i went on the deck to build my hanging planter. I had bought tubing and a funnel to water from the center of the hanging bird feeder cage. I might have been a little rough with the native California fuchsia: i hope it survives. I also put the bunchleaf penstemon in the hanging planter, along with a bunch of random geranium stalks. I planted the rest of the native plants, attempting to separate what i thought was a clump of sea thrift and splitting its main stem. I will hope that plant is hearty.

I also finished digging out potatoes -- there were hardly any more -- and i'll replant with some potatoes picked up today at the grocery. I also put rainbow chard in the top of the potato basket.

At the end of all this work i was quivery and felt like i had really strained my body physically. I'm not sure why -- it may have been stooping a great deal. I also had missed lunch, so i ate some things i thought would address low blood sugar and would balance out. Instead i managed to give myself horrible cramps. The rest of the day was shot as i dealt with the discomfort.

After watching a couple PBS episodes about super heroes, Christine joined me and we started listening to the World Series game. We were rather proud of ourselves: the mlb website no longer offers the game visualization. It's only on the iPad app. We found a program that would allow the iPad to send its content to our monitor that we use as a TV, and we "watched" the game with the projected visualization and the local sports radio broadcast. That was quite satisfactory up to the final play of the game: fortunately there are lots of highlights of that very last play.

This morning i am feeling all sorts of new muscle groups in my legs, so however i was squatting and stooping in the garden was probably a Bad Idea.