Just one more question

 As opposed to one lonely shrivelled apple, I guess.

Anyway, the post title. I just got off the phone with someone from Stats Canada who's been trying to get a hold of me for a while. A month or so ago I got a lovely letter in the mail informing me that I'd been chosen for some labour study in which I'll be contacted once a month for half a year to answer questions. Our representative will be contacting you soon. It's important blah blah blah and oh yeah it's mandatory and you can go to jail if you don't comply.

Always gotta love government paperwork that comes with friendly banter and threats, right?

Well, a while later he phoned me at work when I was in the middle of something. He got my voice mail. A day or so later there was a notice on my door that he'd come in person and would I please call back. Ok, yeah, I'll get to it.

Then, you'll recall, my gut exploded.

I didn't have my phone for a while (long story, but they managed to misplace my stuff), and then when I finally got it the phone was dead anyway, so I had to wait for Dad to pick up my charger before I could even get my messages.

Six voice mails from Stats Canada guy. Six. And when I phoned him back -- from my hospital bed, no less (ok, seriously? I had nothing else to do so I figured whatever) -- I got his voice mail. I left him a guess what? I'm in hospital message, and then didn't hear from him. At all. Cue the hope that maybe they'd given me a miss.

No such luck. There was a message on the weekend when I had my phone off, and a call from him this morning. So yeah, I've finally done my patriotic duty (whatever, again) for the month. But in the mindset that turnabout's fair play, here's my question for Stats Canada:

You seriously make your employees seem that tenacious/annoying? You don't let them give up after over a week of no answer? The initial letter wasn't addressed to me, by the way. It was my apartment that was chosen by whatever algorithm they use. So what happens if a person's on long-term holiday? Has medical issues, like I did? Just doesn't ever answer the door to strangers? Do you really still make joe stats guy phone every damned day?

I'm not sure I'd last too long at a job like that. I have no desire to be seen as a government cockroach who just won't go away...

I suppose that it's his choice in the end, but geez.

Let's move on quickly to today's misnamed rock, Dendritic Pearl Opal. Neither a pearl nor an opal, this stone's a piece of agate or chalcedony that has been given a fancy name to help it sell better. The dendrites are sometimes erroneously called fossils, but they're really just a dark mineral (often manganese oxide) that's percolated through cracks in the rock making tree-like patterns.

All this futz about silly names and metaphysics (which I'm completely not getting into today. Sorry that you're missing out on the weirdness) for what is, in fact, a fairly striking-looking rock all on its own. There would have been nothing wrong with calling this dendritic chalcedony and leaving pearls AND opals to be pearls and opals, you know?

After looking at so much crystal oddness lately, I suppose that I just wish I could look up one of my rocks and find out that it doesn't cure anything.



Maybe I should get myself a piece of sandstone. Ah, but even then we'd be dealing with the wonders of tiny pieces of quartz, no doubt.





The weirdness finds you everywhere, I tell you.