Making It Up As I Go Along #228

Last update until August 2…

MONDAY…
--- Hot hot hot. I get home and the weather network on TV says the humidity makes it feel like 44. Around 110 F.
--- Work is alright. A little slow… lunch with Kiyomi, Mike and Derek is fun.
--- Last grocery run before the vacation home.

TUESDAY…
--- Less hot but still hot. And not much happened today. Lunch with Louis and Michelle is not the normal thing but is fine… work is quite busy but goes by quick.
--- Pizza delivery for supper. I’m done getting groceries until after the vacation.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Lasagna for lunch today is great. The HQ Cafeteria does some good. Megan, Melissa, Kiyomi, Leslie all join me. Not many guys around these days are there?
--- The driving range with Atlas after work. My driver has bitten the bullet. It has died after years of use… a little bend near the driver head is too much to deal with. I need to do some shopping on the golf side of things very soon.

THURSDAY…
--- Not a bad day. Kind of too myself kind of day though. I have lunch with Kiyomi and that’s fun… and chat with Leslie a few times at breaks… but most other people are just sort of in and out today.
--- Vacation time starts at 3:01 this afternoon. It begins with some napping at home… exciting I know.


Back to the Breezes
As I write, the laundry is running and the bags are laid out on the bed ready to be packed. It’s an odd thing, searching for sweat shirts and fleeces when it’s feeling like it’s in the mid thirties outside (90s for anyone unable to understand the Celsius scale of temperature measurement). But in less than twenty-four hours, shorts and t-shirts may no longer be enough. Then again, they may be.

For I am returning to Newfoundland. A place where you just never know what you’ll need to wear. My entire trip home may be held in twelve degree temperatures with winds howling and drizzle making those who wear glasses wish for little windshield wipers.

Then again, it may be sunny and twenty-five most days. You just never know. So sandals will make the trip… but so will hiking boots. And several fleece tops will come along in case the t-shirts don’t keep out the chill. Even jackets (I haven’t had a jacket on in more than a month) will have to be reacquainted to me.

How does one travel to Newfoundland? With fancy luggage or business like duffle bags? No. I’m packing my backpack. It’ll be useful in case there’s some substantial hiking going on. Yes, it’ll be a good trip home if the luggage on the plane also sees time in the woods or along the coast.

I will have to prepare for wind. I have become wimpy in Ottawa. I have actually not gone for evening walks because the weather network has told me the wind was blowing at twenty kilometres and hour. In Newfoundland, that’s a below average windy day. St. John’s average daily wind speed is between twenty-four and twenty-eight kilometres an hour.

In fact, wind influences my walking style. That is… in Ottawa, I go walking with my MP3 player. Music accompanies me wherever I go. But in Newfoundland, I often leave the music behind. Gusting wind drowns out tunes so I go with the music of wind and rustling trees instead of Wilco or Spoon (for the musically ignorant… they’re bands!).

With the return home, I will return to some phrases that are put away here in Ottawa. Not that I’ll become an outport skipper, talking a mile a minute. But I will once again be able to ask family and friends “whataya at?” (Translated as “what are you doing?”). I’ll be able to once again say “Yes b’y”… (“indeed my friend”). And when dad talks foolish like, I can scold him with the not entirely logical “dad m’son” (“dad, my son”… translated as “dad, my friend, what do you mean?”).

Yesterday at work, Louis wondered if I would be in Newfoundland talking a different language. He wondered if it was something like Gallic… an old language that few can speak or understand. And it made me think. Because even though it’s all English, there are those Newfoundlanders who speak with such heavy accents and so quickly, that I barely understand what they’re saying.

In fact, the Newfoundland dialect is almost Shakespearean. Sometimes it’s the feel of the phrase that you need to worry about… not each individual word. If you get bogged down in translating the words, you won’t know what’s being said. It’s poetic really. Usually poetic with a humorous spin.

And I’m coming back to it. Where at some point, with surprise, my sister will exclaim “Go on!”… where my mother will make statements in the form of a question in a slightly Irish way… where my uncle will use “Yes b’y” as a greeting much like “hello”. And where perhaps… just perhaps… if the stars align when the moon is full… my father will be heard telling my mother to “Go way Jean… Go soak yer head.”