A long hard week with a happy ending

Thursday was one of those days. I’m still figuring out the buses on my commute to and from work, and I somehow got myself turned around at the Billings Bridge Transitway and ended up taking the 148 in the wrong direction. And then, when I got to work, I realized I’d forgotten my security pass which Must Be Worn at All Times, and a higher power had to be summoned to sign me in and then I had to wear a Pink Temporary Badge of Shame all day.

I struggled valiantly through another hard day of training. People talk funny there. They can, and regularly do, speak like this: “If you see a T1 with no NR4 and the 167 is empty, just Option-Z RAPID, TWX-K2 the 5036, 71-76 the 171, do your 2020 , update OTCS, and you’re done.”

It’s all very process-driven, which I expected to be comfortingly easy, but so far it seems like such a complicated and confusing process.  The weird thing is that some of it is actually starting to sink in. (Not enough of it, though – I have to be able to do 3.86 returns an hour, and I can’t even get through one without help yet.)

I’d be panicking by now if I didn’t know from experience that it’s all going to fall into place and soon I will be talking just like them and nobody in the real world will have any idea what I’m talking about. Except I won’t be talking about it in the real world, because it’s way too boring, and besides, I’m not allowed to.  They gave us a little mini-course on ethics and they actually touched on blogging and other social media.  If you go out drinking with colleagues after work, you’re not allowed to post photos on facebook of your drunken escapades with a caption like “Drunk CRA employees – I wonder if anybody will show up for work tomorrow!” And if you have anything negative to say about CRA, you should take it up with your manager, not on your blog. So there you go. My lips are zipped.

So anyway. Back to yesterday. I got through the commute, and I got through the day, and I managed to make it home again, but I was still feeling frazzled and headachy when I walked through the door. Until I found something interesting in the mailbox.

A package addressed to Sir Duncan Dogcat!

Duncan was at work with GC and Rosie, so I had to wait for them to get home.

Look! Toys! Lots of toys! Sparkle balls and clicky mice and hand-knit catnip toys, and a bagful of shrimp treats. Duncan was thrilled. Rosie was jealous. Duncan let me spread the toys out on the table so I could take a picture and then he dove into them and rolled around in them and played with them all at once. I think he likes the hand-knit ones best. The octopus and the bird are adorable.

I made a video, too, of Duncan playing with them, but I can’t find the cable for that camera at the moment. I hope Rosie didn’t eat it (she ate the last one).

Many many thanks to Valerie, of Wandering Cat Yarn, for making Duncan’s day, and for cheering me up at the end of a long hard week.