Making It Up As I Go Along #273

MONDAY...
— In AFIS... it’s quiet with Bruno’s team and that’s actually alright for me right now. Sure beats some of the conversations I heard last week.
— Over to Melissa and Nick’s in the evening for the hockey game. Not a bad night but a late one.

TUESDAY...
— Molasses day at work. That is to say, it felt like I was working in a tub of...
— Got the winter tires off the car finally. Hanging out at garages is a little depressing though. Not much beauty there for sure... not for me anyway.
— Off to the movies with Melissa. Year of the Dog at the Mayfair is very odd but I liked it.

WEDNESDAY...
— Day off... just needed it. It’s nice and sunny too so that’s good. I sleep in a little, catch up on a few e-mails, go to Home Depot to check out a new blind, and go for a hike. The hike is less than it could be because of construction around the trails... and the mosquitos are horrible. But still it’s better than being at work today.
— Chinese food and the Stanley Cup playoffs end the day... although the game stunk and I watched more baseball than hockey.

THURSDAY...
— Not a great day. The office remains tense and it’s tiring. Have a drink with Leslie and Linda after work... that’s alright. And my team is about to get smaller. After next week, Laura and Karen will both be going to work in another department on another floor. It may make for an awkward last day or two before I go on my vacation.

FRIDAY...
— My stomach wasn’t great most of today. So I take it easy in AFIS.
— Go to a ball game with Shannon in the evening. In the 6th inning, the sky opens up with a thunder storm. Game called and we go back to Shannon’s to watch some baseball on HD TV.

SATURDAY...
— Quiet day around the house is needed and pretty good.


Last update until July. I was thinking of doing one other after this week but it’s going to be too busy. Wednesday, mom and dad arrive for a few days in town and, on Saturday, the three of us fly out to BC to visit the sister and her family for two weeks. I’m sure there’ll be too much going on for any meaningful contribution on my part here... so I’ll hold off until I get back to go again. Expect something to be posted on Canada Day (probably a brief holiday rundown)... and for things to be back to normal July 8th.

Summer Vacation
Summer vacation is here again... just about anyway.

As a kid, you’re off for a few months and it feels like a year. Memories of those summer vacations are all sunny and calm. It’s as if St. John’s was a Mediterranean style paradise for those few months. Waking to sunshine and cloudless skies. Playing with gentle sea breezes rustling the leaves. And, at the end of the day, leaving action figures or toy cars in the fantasy towns or secret bases. We’d come back the next day and pick up where we left off.

When I was older, I went from the daily play with figures and cars to the world of big league ball. Not old enough for a summer job, but too old for little toys... it was all about playing fastpitch softball. We’d go to the field in the morning and play pick up games... or ‘knock outs’... or, if it was just three of us available, we’d get together in a back yard and play ‘base run’.

For those that don’t know, knock outs is simply when one person would go to bat, toss the ball up to themselves, and hit it into the outfield for the rest of us to get. Sometimes we played in a simple practice style where we took turns, allowing the next guy to go for the ball. Other times, it was a competition where you’d get 100 points to catch the ball, 75 points to get it on one bounce, 50 points on two bounces, and 25 if you get it before it stops moving. The same points would be taken away for a bobble. For example, if you got to a ball on one bounce, touched it, but didn’t control it cleanly, you’d lose 75 points. First one to 500 (or sometimes 1000) would win the round and go bat.

Base run was a simple game. Two fielders at two bases, tossing the ball back and forth. A runner would take lead offs and try to time the throwing in order to steal the next base. Base run would assure grass stains on pant legs, and torn up patches in back yards.

We’d probably practice playing softball, in some form, for three to five hours a day. And that wouldn’t include the games we’d play in either the summer league or, after reaching 16 years old, the men’s league.

And late night was a time for teenage freedom. Midnight sandwiches of meat, mustard, lettuce and pickles would simply tide you over until morning. And a turn of the dial would find those summer movies that were bad, yet entertaining. Old Lou Ferrigno Hercules movies being my personal favourite. If I could find one of those on TV at 1:00 AM, it was the perfect ending to a summer day of playing ball.

With summer jobs came rainy days. It’s funny how the memory works. The worst summer I remember weather wise was when I rode an ice cream bicycle. I remember needing gloves on more than one occasion, and selling quantities of ice cream that only had me being paid around $3 per hour (as you were paid by the amount sold, not the length of time you rode).

And when permanent jobs came, the magic of summer disappeared. Time no longer stood still. Practice for ball disappeared. It was replaced by attempts just to rearrange schedules in order to make a game twenty minutes before it started.

Those months, where each day appeared to be paradise, simply became extra months of work. The day was no longer ours to do with as we pleased. Bedtime had to be observed and alarm clocks began the days just as they would in the spring, fall or winter. And the late night movie could only be searched for on Friday or Saturday. The rest of the week brought ‘school night’ restrictions.

Now, those months of freedom that felt endless are compacted into a few weeks. A few weeks if you’re lucky or daring. Next weekend, I’ll begin my two weeks of freedom... but it’ll come with a cost. With only three weeks of available vacation time, taking two of them at once is seen as almost reckless. For the rest of the year I’ll have to be measuring out when I can and can’t take a day away from the office.

But for those two weeks in BC, I’ll push that out of my mind. There will be organized events, but organized for entertainment rather than the daily grind. There will be a dog to play with (something I’ve almost forgotten about over the last nine or ten years since my last dog). And there’ll be kids to be around. Nieces that are in the middle of their magical summer period, where each day is a sunny paradise and time seems to go on forever. Maybe some of that magic will rub back on me for two weeks... and each day will feel like a sunny Saturday.

Making It Up As I Go Along #272

MONDAY...
— Tired day at work. I didn’t sleep tonnes last night and even was laying in bed at 2:00 AM thinking “maybe I’ll call in and tell them I’ll take time off until 11:00 so I can sleep more.” I didn’t do it though and worked on about four hours of mediocre sleep.
— Get my resume done and sent for the promotion coming up in our office. This means I don’t leave the office until about 4:45 or so.

TUESDAY...
— Learn some new stuff in AFIS so it’s an okay day where you don’t get stated and some skills are put to the test.
— A walk with Kiyomi is good at second break.

WEDNESDAY...
— Four years ago today, I moved to Ottawa. It leads to reflection, both of what I left and what I now have.
— Evening shift for a day. I switch with someone who had a family thing going on tonight. The extra sleep and break from some is a good thing.
— Go to work in my Leafs jersey. Get lots of smiles and laughs from the poor Senator fans... and the loss tonight makes me think those fans will be a bit more whiny about it all tomorrow.

THURSDAY...
— Quick change as I’m in for the day again today. By lunch, that tires me out. Put it with doing a dozen unsuitable fingerprints and that tiring out is more so... but unsuitables are kind of good to do... really bad finger prints that you have to try to work through in order to search them off our database. It’s more of a test than doing regular prints.
— Dinner and a movie with Karl is nice enough. I’m a bit tired during the movie but Fracture isn’t half bad all the same. I may have missed some stuff fighting the sleepiness though.

FRIDAY...
— Work is okay... been a long week though and there are things going on that still tire me out.
— Sheila and her room mate, Nicole, pick me up for Michelle’s BBQ... the BBQ itself is pretty good and a bit of a thunder storm ends the night.
— Oh, and a funny thing at work today. Kiyomi and I go out at last break and as soon as we hit the bottom of the steps to a courtyard, a baby groundhog pops out from under a bench and runs at me... bounding twenty or thirty feet across a walkway. It stops a mere inch from my foot, stares at me for a few seconds, and then runs off under some bushes.

SATURDAY...
— Quite day followed by a BBQ with Devin and a few of his friends. Then it’s the hockey game. Not a bad night, Devin has a great house out in the country.


Attack of the Groundhog.
Steps to the grass, we take them all
The courtyard looks so fair
But when we reach the bottom
We’re in for quite a scare.

It comes bounding up upon us
It was a couple pounds or three
Bouncing fur sprinting
Its sights are set on me.

Closer still it’s coming
No hesitation as it goes
We play a game of chicken
And me with sandaled toes.

A little baby groundhog
How can it be so brave?
But I can show no fear
That’s not as a man should behave.

Closer still it comes to me
Who’ll be the first to blink?
I stand there in mortal fear
Into my toes, baby teeth will sink.

Almost now upon me
His nails clatter on the ground.
And still I wait just standing there
Too scared to breath a sound.

The moment of truth is here
Life flashes before the eye
For it all appears most certain
Which one of us will die.

And then the most improbable
As I stand frozen like a deer.
He screeches to a sudden halt
Missing my toe by just a hair.

A moment passes between us
Some understanding between he and I.
And then he scurries under a bush
And with relief, I look to the sky.