Welcome to Chaos !!

Let me tell you about what happened to me last Sunday. I arrived to my volunteering shift with Pet Pack. Helped set up, started giving out dog and cat food and other things that I had bought and brought with me to give away. After about 15 minutes I decided to go and get my phone from my car because my friend and mechanic was coming in all the way from Bend to fix whatever was wrong with the shifter in my car.
Next thing I know.....I can't find my phone. So I check my car. My pockets. Dig around the Pet Pack stuff. No phone. I start to panic and feel very stressed and sad. My phone is not locked. So everything on it is available.
I had no idea how to do that "find my phone" thing.
My mechanic somehow found me and since he too has an Android we started locating my phone with/on his phone.
Somebody else walked us through the process, a houseless guy that was like a genius. Otherwise we (me and my mechanic) would had never been able to figure it out. I am NOT a technical person.
We all hop in my car to go and try to find my phone. I can see that it is on the move. Somewhere around downtown Portland. I asked all kinds of people, offering $100 to get my phone back but nobody knew anything about my phone. The houseless guy had to leave eventually (I was super impressed by him by the way, really cool guy), so then I decided to go to the police station on SW 2nd Ave. At this point I am crying, not hysterically but I am super sad.
See.....the last two years I've had enormous stress. Some of the things I have not shared in the blog. And it is never ending, it is just one thing after another. I have basically reached a point where I can't take it anymore. A stolen phone on top of it, it was just too much. I am so tired mentally from all the stress that I have been through that even a simple small task can feel like a mountain. 
A police officer inside the police station asked me where we had last pinged the phone. Around Union Station area I said. He told me to drive over to Union Station and said there would be another police officer waiting for me there.
And yes, when I got there, there were two police officers - a female and a male. I explained the situation, they asked my mechanic if they could borrow his phone and told us to wait. About 20 or 30 minutes go by and next thing I know the female police officer is outside my car with my phone in her hand.
UNREAL! LIKE HOW? I asked her if I could give her a hug and she said yes. They said some guy had my phone (thanks a lot you asshole).
I am just so GRATEFUL I got my phone back. I decided that I will get both officers coffee giftcards from Stumptown Coffee (my fave coffee shop in Portland) next time I am in Portland. They were amazing. And the female officer was super hot. Thank You Portland Police! ❤
 

On May Day or International Workers' Day me and the rest of the girls at the club I work at went on strike. How fitting. May 1 is a day that people all over the world (?), well Europe at least like to go outside and voice their opinions for better work terms. I recall May 1st demonstrations growing up in Sweden.
The owner of the club I am at decided to change some terms in our contract and we are not OK with the terms. I am really not willing to say much more than that. What I can say is this, more than half of the girls are ready to fold and agree to the owner's terms, not even a full day into the strike. One of us is fiercly opposing the terms. I am leaning towards that as well. And two other girls are not having much to say at all. Just radio silence.....
Disappointing is how I would describe the situation. I am at risk of getting fired of course. A dancer that speaks up is labeled difficult and dancers are disposable. We are also dealing with an owner that is not playing with a full deck of cards.
I suspect not much is going to change. Accept the situation I guess.
I wish Riverside Corral was still open, what a nice and relaxing club that was. I was actually looking forward to going in to work there. It was so easy.
The owner Mike cared about us girls, the bartenders did as well, the stage was great with good lights, the dressing room was comfortable with chairs that you could relax in. Low and reasonable house fee. A five hour shift which is perfect.
We mostly had FUN. Were there issues? Yes there were issues but at least all the boxes checked for a comfortable place to work at.
No place is perfect. The club I am at now has one good thing going for it which is super important to me, no touching allowed. I strongly prefer no touching strictly enforced. We shall see how this situation unfolds......we have even loosely talked about getting unionized. So far to my knowledge there are ONLY two out of thousands of strip clubs in the US that are unionized. Star Garden in Los Angeles and Magic Tavern in Portland. Lusty Lady in San Francisco was the first club to unionize but they are no longer open. Much respect to the dancers that went through months and months of unionizing.
I have no idea how that works and I do not have a lot of knowledge of what that means for the dancers in reality, if anything.
I hope it was beneficial for them to unionize. I just know that they fought for a long time. I do not think that I have that time on my side because I will most likely quit at some point in the not too distant future. Not too distant does not mean next week or next month though!
One of the dancers at the club I am at just quit, a few of the resons were that if she did not quit the club she was going to start hating men. And that she could not take the noise level in the place. I totally hear her. It is definitely a gathering hole for loud troglodytes of all ages. Far from an elegant gentlemen's club. But touching is strictly not allowed. So I am here, for a little longer.

Meanwhile one of the dancers has an Instagram, she posted about the strike on there and a kind and generous human asked if there is a solidarity fund to donate to for us to split while we strike. Like......how nice, thoughtful and generous!
And speaking of funds. There is something I should had done a long time ago, gotten on some sort of platform in order to get paid for blogging. Instead I have been writing here for free because I love writing, for many many years now.
Anyways.....I will keep ya'll updated on our strike. Again, I do not think much will happen in our favor. It is an it is what it is situation. 
Tati's strike fund 😉 Venmo Tati-J-1