Contemplating the Right Conditions in Everyday Ramblings

I think these are a version of a native wild iris. They are beautiful and I’m sad I was not able to get a better picture but you get the general idea. I love the muted and complimentary colors.

We really need some rain. We have had a pollen alert for about three weeks. Usually we have rain to tamp it down but not this year. This is the place formerly known as puddle town where each of us knows where all the standard issue puddles are. Instead we have dust and pollen in the air, this kind of brown haze wafting in the sunlight. And we just got an alert for high fire danger in the area.

The warmth is nice though. Sandals and no coat, oh my, wonderful.

My right hearing aid isn’t working and I couldn’t go up to the drop in clinic today to get in looked at because I had a meeting with Mr. On the Spectrum and Motorcycle Man. Said meeting was icky.

Motorcycle Man was defensive and grumpy, almost whiny. A characteristic I had not seen in him until these last few weeks. Not his better side. We were all so uncomfortable that Mr. On the Spectrum is going to move the meeting to every two weeks instead of every week, cutting us all a break there.

If I can’t figure out how to get my hearing aid to work I can go up Friday after I teach my yoga class.

This morning I had an interesting and surprisingly engaged conversation with an external employment attorney who knows my organization and is local. He says he has no doubt that I am being discriminated against and that there is no way I can prove it in a lawsuit the way things function right now.

We had a lively exchange about what regular normal people think is actionable by an attorney and what is actually actionable in this current environment.

His recommendation was to file an internal formal complaint through the Affirmative Action and EEO department. At least that way everybody knows what I am experiencing and it will be on the record for the next time this sort of thing happens to a female employee.

I have no expectations that anything will change and things really couldn’t get worse there. But ick.

He did give me an idea about a possible suit having to do with time reporting rule changes but that is not my specific issue, that is what he wants to work on if I find someone willing to step up to the plate on that one.

I applied for Medicare today, as I am six weeks out from my 65th birthday. It is a milestone in the life of an American. Not celebrated like getting one’s driver’s license or a marriage license, those hopeful new beginning type events. This is a new beginning for me, these steps closer and closer to formal retirement.

As long as I am working and have health coverage through work the Medicare is secondary but apparently one still needs to have one’s card and because I still feel the threat of a layoff is in play having it is better than not having it.

A bunch of my regular students are traveling and so my classes are small right now. I only had three people on Monday and will be lucky if I get that many tonight.

I am doing this Climate Change Awareness 5 week yoga challenge and it has podcasts and meditations and physical practices and one of the climate scientists who has a bit of a spiritual bent said this thing I have been thinking about all week…

“What are the conditions under which love flourishes? And what can I do to serve those conditions?”

These are such great questions to ponder instead of thinking about the self-centered bizarro jerks at work.