|
The Winter, the wedding, and the waiting... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
So, it's Saturday, and I am sitting in bed typing this, while Taina sits beside me reading a book. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, to be exact.
It's not what we'd usually be doing mid-afternoon on a Saturday. But right now, we have these two guys around at our place, installing a heat pump. They're setting it up in the lounge, which means stuff has been moved around in there a lot, plus equipment and ladders and stuff keep being moved around, in the hallway, and near the kitchen, and so it just ended up being easier for us to keep out of their way and hide in our bedroom until it's over.
It's been over 4 hours since they started, so I guess it's a big job. I mean, it's great. Our house is freezing cold so we could definitely use a heat pump. But, it's not the ideal situation for my weekend.
Winter is almost finally over, and frankly, it couldn't come fast enough. I become more and more sure of this every Winter, but I reckon I definitely suffer from SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder. I always get super depressed and weird during Winter.
Just in the last couple of weeks, it is getting to that stage where the sun is coming up slightly earlier in the morning, which at least makes it mildly easier to get out of bed on work days, because I don't wake up in pitch black feeling like it's still the middle of the night.
And by the time I finish work (which is at 5.00 most days) daylight is still just barely hanging in there so it doesn't feel quite so late at night as it was feeling just a few weeks ago.
It's still freezing as heck though, so I am a little desperate for the warmer weather, to help me get through the days without feeling so sluggish.
The main thing that has happened recently, is just a few weeks ago Dad and Jill got married.
Their actual wedding ceremony was on a Wednesday, at the registry office in Wellington.
I got the day off work, and so me and Taina, plus Dad and Jill of course, plus Jill's daughter Brierlee, and also Jill's cousin Kate and her partner went into town, and did the ceremony at about midday.
Registry ceremonies are very quick. You go to the counter to let them know you're there, they grab an officiant and you go to a small room, the officiant goes through the basic "Do you take this person to be your wife?" type thing, do the rings, sign the papers, and you're done in like less than five minutes.
I'm glad that the ceremony at me and Taina's wedding was a bit more detailed and longer, but I can see that the basic registry thing was a good choice for Dad and Jill. They've both been married before, they didn't need the big fuss.
After the ceremony, we went out to lunch at the Backbencher pub. It's this bar/restaurant that is close to parliament, and traditionally has been known as a popular place for politicians to go for lunch or drinks or whatever, so they've made the place themed around New Zealand politicians.
There were cartoon-like sculptures of several well-known politicians, like our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and most of the other party leaders. The one near our table was a sculpture of Winston Peters, but as a DJ, with headphones and skate shoes and stuff.
I've actually been to the Backbencher once before, but I was just a kid then. I think we went there with a bunch of family members to celebrate after my aunt Helen was admitted to the bar (in other words, officially became a lawyer). I think I was only about 8 or 9 then though, so the place would have looked a bit different I think.
The food at the Backbencher was really nice, but very fancy and quite pricey. Fortunately, Dad was paying for all of us, but it made me realise I may not be back there for a while, because I definitely can't afford to go to posh places like that too often.
The next part of the wedding was that Saturday a couple of days after the ceremony. Dad and Jill had their reception at Wallaceville House, a nice venue in Upper Hutt.
It was a place me and Taina had considered when we were planning our wedding, but we had ended up deciding Silverstream Retreat was a better venue for us, for a number of reasons.
Rather than getting a DJ or a band or anything, Dad and Jill had asked me to arrange the music for the reception, just like I had done at me and Taina's wedding. It's something I enjoy doing, coming up with good playlists and deciding on song choices for particular occasions.
Just like for my own wedding, I basically created separate playlists on my iPod, and then connected the iPod to a stereo at the venue.
One playlist had background songs to play while we were having drinks and nibbles in the downstairs area, and then there was a second playlist of super upbeat songs to dance to once we went upstairs later.
The songs I chose were mostly just songs that I knew Dad and Jill would know, stuff from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, with just a couple of newer songs added for variety. And a couple of blues and jazz songs during the drinks and nibbles playlist because Dad's a big blues fan, and Jill quite likes Jazz music.
The reception was fun. I chatted to a few different people. Rosalene, an old family friend/Mum's childhood school friend. Sue Jarvis. Natalie Pilcher and her new boyfriend, who's name I've already forgotten.
I briefly got pulled into a conversation with Dad's work friends, because one of them recognised me and tried to include me in the conversation with this group of people who I really didn't know. It was fairly awkward, and so I snuck away after a minute or two.
Taina's family was invited so I spent quite a bit of time sitting with them. My little nephew River, who is not quite 2, came along and did a really good job of staying awake and joining in the fun and the dancing, and only crashed and fell asleep at around 11pm. All the other guests were pretty amazed because everyone else who had brought kids had had to leave quite early due to the kids getting tired and grumpy.
My uncle Adrian came over from Australia. Adrian has built a bit of a reputation in the last few years of drinking a lot at social events. It's normally a source of laughs and a bit of fun. But it wasn't so great this time.
He had arranged to stay with my uncle David, who lives in Lower Hutt. And it got to about 11.30/11.45ish, pretty soon before the venue was about to close and kick us all out anyway, and so uncle David came up to Adrian and tried to suggest they head off for the night.
But Adrian was pretty drunk, and created a bit of a scene, swearing at everyone and refusing to leave because he wanted to stay up partying all night. He was sitting with the Albretts at the time, and I think he was hoping they'd want to party all night with him (basically because on the night of me and Taina's wedding, uncle Adrian and my brother Nick went over to Taina's parents' place afterwards and had a bit of an after-party with a whole bunch of their family which lasted pretty much all night.)
But David really wanted to get going, and everyone else wasn't really up for partying all night either, so it got awkward as we all tried to convince angry, drunk Adrian to go with David. Eventually he went, and it was all okay.
I worry a little about uncle Adrian though. He definitely drinks a lot at every family event now, and he didn't used to when I was younger. Plus he had a big relationship break-up a few years ago and he still seems really down about it and quite lonely. I kind of worry maybe he's a bit depressed and he is drinking more and partying more because he isn't coping well.
I had taken the next day, the Sunday, off work too, as I knew Dad and Jill had some plans. It turned out to be nothing major, but we went out for brunch, and then visited Grandma in the afternoon. Grandma hadn't come to the wedding, mostly because she gets very confused and forgetful now and it seems big crowds and loud noise make her very anxious.
I don't think she has dementia as such, but she is 95 now so I think she's slowly just deteriorating, physically and mentally.
That next Monday I was back at work as normal. The morning seemed to go normally, but I was noticing a lot of my muscles were feeling quite achy. I assumed maybe it was from dancing too much at the reception. I also felt very cold, but I figured, "Hey, it's Winter, maybe it is just a really cold day today."
But as it got closer to lunchtime I felt like I was really struggling, getting more and more tired, more and more unbearably cold, and more achy.
Eventually I was falling asleep at a desk while trying to order contact lenses. And next I was falling asleep in the hallway out the back because I couldn't summon the energy to walk back up the hall out to the shop floor.
Mid-afternoon, Teish found me napping in the hallway, and rang Taina to say I was really sick, and not well enough to drive myself home and needed to be picked up.
It was a nice thought, but Taina can't drive, doesn't have his own car, and also has no money currently so couldn't catch a bus or train into town to meet me.
So Taina called my Dad, who was at work in town, and he came by and collected me. He insisted I should see a doctor, so we got an appointment at my doctor and Dad drove my car to get me there.
The doctor said I had the flu. I had a temperature and my glands were swollen. She said I needed a couple of days off work to rest. So Dad took me home, and I immediately went straight to bed and slept.
I slept heaps the next two days, and then tried to go back to work on the Thursday, but I still had a fever- I kept fluctuating rapidly between being really cold, and then suddenly sweating and feeling really hot. So Mark sent me home again because he was worried I was still contagious.
Friday and Saturday were my normal weekend anyway, so I was fine to go back to work on Sunday as normal.
As it turned out, several other people, all people who were at the wedding reception, all caught the same flu bug I did. Jill and her daughter Brierlee both did, my little nephew River did, and Taina's Dad John caught it too.
At work, I had to have a meeting with my boss Katy. She was basically telling me off because I've had too many sick days this year. Stuff like that annoys me, because I can't exactly help it. I've always been the kind of person that catches every bug that goes around. And it's not like I stay home every time I get a slight sniffle. I tend to get pretty bad when I'm sick. Those first couple of days with the flu, I could barely stay awake more than a few minutes at a time, I was so exhausted.
Plus this year, I've had a stomach bug, a cold, another flu, and that weird spell of vertigo earlier in the year.
Katy was also on my case about not making good enough sales figures with my dispenses. Ick.
I hate that. I've been at my job at Specsavers now for seven years. It was my seven year anniversary last week. And every year or two, this comes up. The sales pressure talk.
I get that Specsavers is a business. I get that my job is at least partially a retail position. But I'm a Dispensing Optician. I did a course, where I learned about complex technical equations to calculate lens thickness, and prismatic effects, and stuff about eye diseases and all sorts.
I want to focus on that side of things. Using my technical knowledge to improve people's vision. Not compete to see how much money I can make.
And I consistently struggle to make top sales figures, because I refuse to be pushy, and try to always make sure I get the customers with the most money to spend, and conveniently disappear as soon as a customer walks in with a WINZ payment card.
I struggle because I'm shy, and once I've spent half an hour talking to a complete stranger, advising them about frames and lenses and ordering their glasses, I need a few minutes to recover. I can't just turn around and rush to take the next handover from the Optometrist, otherwise I feel anxious and panicky.
And I struggle because I don't want to push lens options onto customers purely for the sake of getting more money out of them. I prefer to be honest. I prefer to tell customers, this is the option, this is the benefit of choosing it, but it is not essential and your glasses will still work perfectly fine if you choose not to get it because you're on a tight budget.
I don't know. Maybe it's time to leave the Optics industry? But then, what else do I pick? I'm not qualified for most other 'good' jobs. I'd probably enjoy most admin jobs or data entry jobs, and those don't usually require a specific qualification. But they don't usually pay well.
Or maybe I just try to transfer to another Optometrist branch? Same job, but a different location, maybe different boss and less pressure, if I'm lucky? Or at the very least, if I get something that's out in the suburbs instead of in Wellington, I might save on travel and parking costs and be less stressed about money.
I guess I just have to start looking anyway, see what comes up.
Taina is still looking for a job. He's applied for all sorts of stuff, both good IT jobs, and also basic retail and admin jobs, but so far noone seems interested. Even KFC turned him down.
I don't know what to do to help. I'm no expert, and I have little energy during the evenings and weekends to help him much. I just want to relax, watch TV, play DDR, do errands, maybe relax with a book.
But we really, really need the money.
Please, please, someone. Give my husband a job.
Project baby-making is also still underway. Still on the fertility drugs from the specialist. Still no pregnancy. Well, unless it's worked this month. It's too early to know at this stage.
But nothing else new to report. Dad and Jill just left a few days ago, to go on a belated honeymoon/general overseas trip for a few weeks. All I've heard so far is they arrived in Bangkok and were greeted with an impressive fruit basket at the place they are staying at.
They are going to go to Paris soon. And then at some point they are heading over to London, which is where my brother Nick has been living, this past year, so they will be meeting up with him for a bit.
In the meantime, I'm just hanging out, waiting for Winter to disappear and hoping for some positive things to come along, in the form of either a pregnancy, or new jobs for me and Taina, or preferably both.
And now I guess, I'm going to go check out how this new heat pump looks, and try to fit in time for playing DDR and having shower before me and Taina head over to Jess and Luke's place for dinner tonight.
weezieishness · Sat Aug 25, 2018 @ 05:12am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|