Making It Up As I Go Along #237

MONDAY…
--- Work is alright and I watch a movie or two before going in… actually, movie and a half… I see half of Walk the Line on the movie network (good flick) and then put my Friday Night Lights DVD in.

TUESDAY…
--- Work is alright. Get Greek for supper with Melissa and we pack up our stuff at the end of the evening. Tomorrow, CNI will be moved to the fourth floor of the building where we’ll stay for three weeks before another move back to a different part of the first floor. Office renovations can be a bit of a pain.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Work in the new CNI… up on the fourth floor with a good view. I’m going to get in good shape going up and down four flights of stairs. Supper is good with Melissa at Wendy’s.

THURSDAY…
--- Clean up around the house… more or less complete. Work is real busy but one of those nights when you don’t have much to show for it at the end of it all. Potluck for the team goes pretty well too.

FRIDAY…
--- Ruby and Lee arrive today. It’s good seeing them. Work is fine… supper is pizza with Melissa, Casey and Mike… and some drinks after work with a bunch of the work people.

SATURDAY…
--- Rainy day. I hang around the house… watch Raiders of the Lost Ark with Melissa, Ruby and Lee… and we all have Chinese food for supper. Pretty relaxing family day.

SUNDAY…
--- Hit the driving range with Lee. By the end I seem to have my slice under some degree of control… for now.

Fairly brief on the story this week. It’s been busy with work and visitors and now I’m fairly tired. My depth of thought or creative process is not at the forefront today… so with that…

Renovations or SOS
We’re alone among others. Well some of us are alone anyway. I live in an area with four units stacked on top of and around each other. In my segment of the building, there is an older woman next to me… a younger woman (and occasionally her boyfriend) below… a middle aged woman diagonally below me and a couple next to me on the other side… and we barely see each other.

It gets me thinking… how long would I be left helpless if I fall down the stairs and am laid out paralyzed next to my TV?

This weekend, the girl living below me has been working on installing flooring. So we’ve been hearing hammering much of the day yesterday and today. But it got me wondering… what if she was down there pounding on the floor or wall… hoping to attract attention. She’s been at it two days now and I’m not doing anything to check on her. She could be going for another week and I doubt I’d knock on the door to check on things.

My first year in this place, there was a car parked in the lot and it didn’t move. And that’s no exaggeration. For more than a year, that car was planted in its space. Dirt from snow ploughs piled up under its rear wheel. And even a bit of orange paint coated the wheel when the parking space lines were sprayed on in the Spring.

So seeing a car stuck in a lot will take at least a year before bringing people to alert status. That poor soul who never came out to their car may have spent weeks banging on walls… hoping a neighbour would come to see what’s going on.

Well, in that case, the car is now gone. So maybe they towed the old one away and bought a new one. Or maybe a neighbour began to smell something to alert that all is not right!

I’ve been picky about girlfriends. I haven’t been one to just go to whatever girl is out there… I’d rather be alone then in a relationship for the sake of relationships. I know too many bad relationships for me to want to be in that game. But now that I’ve been thinking of a home as a potential tomb, maybe a girlfriend for the sake of a girlfriend wouldn’t be so bad an idea. I may not love her but at least she’d be able to find me before the sense of smell gets involved in the location of trouble game. It brings new meaning to the “can’t live without you” phrase. Here I thought it was a matter of the heart… when in reality, it’s more about safety.

Making It Up As I Go Along #236

MONDAY…
--- Pretty busy day at work… a little post work nap… and squash tonight. I’m not in great shape but things will improve as the games go on… I hope.

TUESDAY…
--- Not too busy a day. Lunch with Leslie and Melissa is good today. Get a few groceries after work.
--- An evening walk has me avoiding the frogs around the pond. Fairly nice though.

WEDNESDAY…
--- A few things going on at work take me from the daily routine… which is good. I’m not feeling great today though… sort of run down and a little out of sorts.

THURSDAY…
--- Not a great day at work… busy and some people stuff to deal with.
--- Squash is good tonight though… I’m starting to get my share of wins.

FRIDAY...
--- Another not super day at work but it’s largely the same as yesterday minus the busy. I leave at 11:00 and head home for a bike ride, some e-mails, and lunch.
--- Supper is Subway and I see the Deer Hunter for the first time tonight. It’s long but good.

SATURDAY…
--- Up a bit early… for a Saturday anyway… and watch The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe on the movie network. It’s alright.
--- Talk to the folks and Melissa on the phone… spend most of the day in and around the sofa… decompressing.


Why Hibernate
Would I like to write funny today? Sure I would. I get a kick out of writing things that I think may make someone smile or laugh… and I get another kick out of being told such things have happened.

But sometimes it seems that the only things I’m inspired to write about are serious matters… or things that just bog a spirit down.

These days I’m tired. I’m tired of all the useless things that surround the world I live in and, for some bizarre reason, are seen as important.

I’m tired of the fact that the internet is one of the most useful tools ever created for society but that the most common e-mails I receive are advertisements from strangers for such things as online university degrees, banking, and ways to improve my sex life. I swear, when 90% of the e-mails I receive are of this manner, I openly wonder if I even want to continue getting e-mail.

I’m tired of the telephone and mail. Both of these methods of communication are following directly in the path of the e-mails I have already mentioned. More than half of the phone calls I receive are from strangers wanting to get money from my for charity, sell me some product, or ask my opinion about something. Too often I hang up a phone before ever hearing a sound on the other end of the line. And postal carriers have become little more than flyer deliverers. The current state of the postal service has made a mockery of the proud slogan of how neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow shall interrupt the mail. This is a group that needed communal boxes to deposit letters in (rather than bringing them to my door) and, to tell you the truth, I’d be much happier if the mail were interrupted from time to time if 80% of what I pull out of that box is a menu for the pizza joint a few blocks away.

I’m tired of chest thumpers and loud talkers. Of the people who feel they must win every discussion as if it were some War on Opinions. Too many people that I have dealt with feel like if they can say the most in the most definite terms, they must also be right. They see listening and pondering of ideas as weakness and I get to a point where I can barely tolerate dealing with it anymore.

I’m tired of not knowing what goes through the minds of my friends. I should qualify this… I have several good friends who I feel I know inside and out. I think they know me and they are willing to tell me their actual feelings on a matter. But I also know people who I think are friends, but I can never be totally sure. One day things seem totally fine between me and them… I feel like I know where I stand in their world and things are solid. And the next day it feels as though I was just through a major fight with them… a fight where you make up and agree things are fine but there remains an awkwardness in your dealings with each other. I just don’t want to deal with friends after our imaginary fights. Friendships aren’t supposed to be this way. This ties in to another thing I’m tired of…

When did open communication become a wrong thing? I’m tired of dealing with people who seem to get offended by openness. You’ve crossed some line of decency if you say what you really feel. I deal with too many people who feel we must hide truth from each other and share niceties that mean nothing.

I’m tired of catchphrase politics. Where complex issues are boiled down to “you’re with us or against us”. Where speaking against the WAR ON TERROR is like speaking against God Almighty. Where “support our troops” is said in a tone that’s meant to suggest there should be no more discussion on the matter.

I’m tired of having to include everyone I know in every event that goes on. I can no longer go to supper with a friend at work because that will insult other people… so a group of ten have to go in order for everybody to be happy. Workplace suppers have become such a production that I just find myself refusing to be a part of them. The last time pizza was ordered in my office, I was told I could be in on it as long as I went together with a group of others who were getting a deluxe. My desires for a Hawaiian pizza meant nothing… it would screw up life for the greater good in the complex world of food ordering… so I just threw up my hands and said “I’ll just eat my sandwich.”

I mean just think about it… we live in a world where people over simplify the justification of going to war and make the ordering of a pizza incredibly complex. Now that’s backwards.

I’m tired of TV commercials. Like with the phone, mail and e-mail, we are constantly bombarded on TV with pitches to sell us junk. The most important issue in too many lives is getting a good deal on something.

I’m tired of the drama created to sell news. Reporting a story isn’t enough… newscasters don’t want to give us a story, they want to give us emotion. They’d rather show footage of an angry and crying parent being quoted as saying they want the murderer of their child to die and burn in hell than actually try to understand the events of a story and inform people objectively. And why the public needs to know that the girl, who was killed in Montreal this week, was shot nine times is beyond me.

Needless to say, it’s been a tiring week. I’ve dealt with too much silliness and let my mind be too occupied with some of that silliness. Times like these are why I give myself weekends of hibernation. Weekends when I don’t make any plans to do anything with anybody. I went for a bike ride after work on Friday and that helped. I had some real e-mails with friends and that helped too. And a phone call or two with people who are grounded and know what really matters is welcome… cause at least then I know that it isn’t the whole world that has gone insane.

Salmonier Nature Park

A couple of pictures from the Nature Park outside of St. John's. Unfortunately for the animal lovers, the best pictures were void of life! Above, we have a river running through the park. You can see some boardwalk to the right and a touch more in the distance to the left.

Below is another river that cuts through the forest. This one flows right under the boardwalk.

Making It Up As I Go Along #235

Put your feet up and relax as summer quickly comes to an end. A last round of golf with friends and other thoughts from the week gone by...

MONDAY…
--- Quiet day around the house. I was thinking baseball (last Lynx game of the year) and also of the balloon festival. But the weather is grey and iffy today and I just sit around, watch the Jays on TV, and catch a movie or two… plus a nap.
--- Night time walk is nice.

TUESDAY…
--- Busy day at work and I stay late too. So it’s midnight before I pack up and I end up running in to and chatting with Mark and Bill until close to 1:00.

WEDNESDAY…
--- A morning movie… work is busy with four meetings and I stay on until midnight again.
--- Home and book my ticket for Christmas. It cost more than last year but I can also stay longer… three days of leave give me nine days home for the holidays. Not bad.
--- Mom and dad are booked to be here for Thanksgiving. So Air Canada did well off of us today.

THURSDAY…
--- Busy day. In early for a luncheon… so I work 11:30 to 7:30… although I stay an extra couple of hours too. Meetings now done with my team. It made for a long week.

FRIDAY…
--- Up early. Going from evening shift to day in mid week isn’t usually good for me with sleep. So at 4:20, I’m up for good.
--- Work until 9:15 today and then it’s the office golf tournament. Laura, Leslie and Linda are my team mates and they all do more to help the team than I do. Playing off the men’s tees don’t help me on this course as, for some holes, it added a good hundred yards to my drives compared to them… but Laura would have kicked my butt either way and today, it’s all fun among the team anyway.

SATURDAY…
--- Quiet day around the house. A few movies and some news on TV. Plus some naps… catching up on the missed sleep of Thursday and Friday.


Some Thoughts as Summer Ends
I’ve got nothing today. Too much going on and none that I particularly want to devote an hour or so to covering… so a little bit of a mixed bag today.

The office golf tournament happened Friday. This is my favourite office event and really, only one of two that I have any degree of enjoyment doing (The curling was okay too). This year, the weather was great and the course was quite nice to look at. And history was made for me personally… in my fourth RCMP tournament, this is the first time that I played with another person for a second time (Laura being the answer to that exciting bit of trivia).

But this course hurts my game in a pretty big way. My best golf shots are either from the fairway, about two hundred yards out… or within one hundred yards of the pin. I’m inconsistent off the tee and down right bad if I’m a hundred and fifty yards away (and needing to choose between my five and seven irons). Well this course had narrow tee shots and lots of times when I found myself one hundred and fifty yards out.

Still, despite my awfulness, it was a fun time.

The anniversary of Sept. 11 is fast approaching. There’s not much needs saying about this. It’s still a vivid memory when I spent some 17 hours glued to my TV in the loft of my St. John’s house. I do think back and wonder if I should have walked down to Mile One Stadium and offered my home to a family of stranded passengers on that day.

And rather than bringing those responsible to justice and acting as a jumping off point for the western world to learn how our foreign policies have alienated others we see conspiracy theories and nauseating repetition of “they hate us because we’re free”. Bush’s administration has been strong arming the world ever since Sept. 11 and feeding us slogans rather than reality. And Canada decided to elect a government that was just chomping at the bit, waiting to join in with the “they hate us because we’re free” garbage too.

The most that has come from the terrorist attacks of five years ago was the removal of a dictator that had nothing to do with it.

On a personal level, September 11th has had a gigantic effect on me. Had the events of that day never happened, I’d likely still be living in Newfoundland doing who knows what. The increased desire for security is what started the RCMP’s hiring process and the rest is history.

It always strikes me how interconnected the world is. Saudi terrorists based in Afghanistan took planes from Boston and crashed them into buildings in New York and Washington… and this influences me moving from St. John’s to Ottawa and working in a field I barely ever thought about previously. I have many Ottawa acquaintances and some friends… all of whom I’d never have gotten to know at all had September 11th, 2001 gone the same way as September 10th did.

The Crocodile Hunter dies this week. Steve Irwin was a likable fellow that anyone who watches more than twenty minutes of TV a day would recognize. Of course CNN made his death out to be some vile attack by the deadly and threatening sting ray population of the world. They went on for days about the Sting Ray Attack! It’s laughably predictable how 24 hour news networks distort the facts of life. The reality is, Irwin died of a one in a million accident. A startled sting ray will strike defensively and, on the rare occasion when such a strike occurs, it’s barb hits a leg or arm and you’re in lots of pain but your life isn’t in danger. By simple bad luck, Irwin took the barb in the heart and nothing could be done.

Still, CNN decides this is a good time to ask the question “Are we safe to go into the water!” For 24 hour news agencies, every event is their next Sept. 11th. And that’s just sad.

I end things with thoughts of travel. Mom and dad are all booked for Thanksgiving in Ottawa. This has become a tradition with us ever since my move here and it makes Thanksgiving one of my more favourite holidays now. We’ve already booked our steam train ride that will take us into the small Quebec town of Wakefield. And we’ve begun planning a few other things to do at the Museum of Civilization. Plus I’m sure we’ll be down in the Byward Market to pick up the vegetables and dessert that’ll go with mom’s turkey. Less than a month and this will all have happened and be done… time goes by so fast.

Also this week, after Canjet went belly up, I decided I better hurry up and book my Christmas trip home. So I’ll be there for a nine day period (much more than the four or five days of last year) and hopefully I’ll be able to find some of that magical time of St. John’s. Being with family and friends is great but I do admit to missing the alone time in my home city. It’s the quiet, night time walks alone downtown that inspire. And times at Cape Spear when you walk where you will and hear nothing but crashing waves or the wind meeting the land… these times have become rare for me now that I live in Ontario. It’s not that I don’t like sharing these things with others… and if I only have the time to do it once while I’m home, I’d pick to go with mom and dad rather than alone. But the times alone are special too.

More of the summer trip home

Two pictures today... The first is from Brigus. I think a yacht trip around the island would be quite the event. The second is "Pop's Place" in Placentia. I don't know who "Pop" is but he's got quite the place. You can only get there by boat... you can see a hammock to the left of the Canadian flag... and Pop himself is at the door, probably wondering why someone is taking his picture. (click images to enlarge).

Making It Up As I Go Along #234

MONDAY…
--- Work is alright… go for a bike ride afterwards and make some spaghetti for supper. A few e-mails end the night.

TUESDAY…
--- Alright day at work and a nap when I get home.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Really busy at work. I’m not very busy at all until about 9:00 but from then on it’s go time right until about 2:30. Makes the day go by fast though. Lunch is good too with lasagna at HQ with Leslie and Melissa.
--- After work drinks and a snack at the bar nearest me.

THURSDAY…
--- Kind of busy at work and it’s pizza day so we get extra time off to line up and get it.
--- After work I go to the movies with Melissa. The Mayfair has “An Inconvenient Truth” and it’s good… well done and makes you think.

FRIDAY…
--- Busy day again today. Lunch with Leslie and Melissa is good… Laura cracks me up once or twice… I have a few quick e-mails with Jim when I get home… and then watch a movie on the movie network. Derailed is alright… Clive Owen is good and Jennifer Aniston is doing about as much as she can.

SATURDAY…
--- Wedding day. I go to Carole’s wedding with Kiyomi. It’s fine as far as weddings go and it’s fun hanging out with Kiyomi… good roast beef too.


Public Torture Chambers
So I have come to a conclusion. It has taken years of research to figure it out but last night swayed my opinion to one very important statement. Public washrooms are to be avoided at all costs!

Sure I’ve been in baseball stadium washrooms. They feel like you’ve just stepped into a room of infinite pee. Like every wall and spot of the floor has, within the last two hours, been coated with urine.

But last night was the final straw. The washroom at Carole’s wedding was clean enough. There was nothing obscene going on in there either. But I found myself standing perplexed at the door of a stall wondering if I would have to crawl out from underneath the locked door.

The first time in there, I made the mistake of pulling the lock latch across, while also flipping the little handle part down (for extra security). The problem with this is the fact that, once dropped into the mega lock position, the latch froze tightly. Latch riggormortis set in.

So when I was ready to exit the stall, I had to try to tear my fingers apart, digging that jagged little latch into my flesh in the hopes of gaining a good enough grip to free myself from my toilet tomb.

Finally, desperate, I took my key out of my pocket and pried it between the metal and wood of the door. A muscled twitch of my wrist popped the lock and enabled me to slide it open. I ran from the stall and towards freedom… with a stop at the sink to wash my hands of course.

A second journey into the room came an hour or so later. Truth be told, I was feeling nervous about it. I was tempted to head outside, venture out into a farmers field and find myself a bush.

But the decision was to push the metal bar across yet not to drop the bolt down. Surly I’d be able to escape without the need of a lever this time.

There would be a price to pay for such a plan. And that price was paid in blood.

The metal slide stuck in the open position this time and, with my tug to get it moving, my hand slips off and my finger slices across the protruding handle. A bubble of blood wells up out of the divot just above my top knuckle of my pointer finger.

So I’m using the washroom while attempting to stem the bleeding. All while others enter and leave the room, seemingly with total ease.

I get the door open again without any aid. But I’m defeated and go to the sink while watching my wound well up again. Washed up, all that’s left is the paper towel… how hard can that be?

Well, with an audience of the father of the bride, my pushes on the towel dispenser yield minute amounts of paper. Five or six pushes, either done with quick force or with a slow and patient compression, only give me a few centimetres of towel. I pluck at it and try to tear off all I can… hoping to manage to pull more out from within the dispenser.

It isn’t to be. I dry my hands with torn squares of brown paper and push it into the trash with Mr. McKay proclaiming “They don’t make it easy do they?”

I laugh wearily and agree before exiting the torturous world of bladder relief. I make up my mind right there and then that my next trip to the washroom will be when I return to my own house. At least there I’ll be confident to find relief without bloodshed.