Making It Up As I Go Along #318

MONDAY...
— Lousy day. I wake early... make a mess just trying to make a bloody tuna fish sandwich... have a day listening to conversations I’d rather not hear... have softball practice rained out... and have the Montreal Canadiens lose to fall behind in the series.

TUESDAY...
— Movie in the morning. I watch Stranger Than Fiction on DVD.
— Work is fine with Claudio doing an OT shift along side me. Supper out with Megan is good too. We don’t talk as much now that we’re in different sections.

WEDNESDAY...
— Sleep until 10:30. Bad of me I know.
— We’re a short sighted lot. Yesterday I got another invite to an internet call to arms against gas prices. Go on strike against the gas companies... go so many days without buying any gas... put the pressure on them to drop prices. As a society, we just don’t get it. The pressure should be on car manufacturers to build vehicles that are more fuel efficient. On the city planners who build cities in great sprawls connected by highways. And on ourselves for wanting to live in suburbs... hoping to have oversized houses and lawns... and for wanting to drive in big SUVs. But instead we whine about the cost of gas going up and we want to make gas producers take the hit for our own laziness. I do think gas companies are greedy but the answer isn’t to beg for pressure to make them drop prices, it’s changing the way we live. If you’re not willing to change the lifestyle, suck it up and pay what the oil companies are charging.
— The Habs are killing me. A game away from elimination and I don’t know if I can take it anymore... to see a team outplay another and still come up short... ugh.

THURSDAY...
— Start work with a chat with Laura. She’s around the office for a visit and it’s nice to have some face to face catch up rather than the e-mails.
— Work is alright. Have Thai food for supper. End of the night I’m wondering if I’m getting sick. I’ve slept more than 8 hours a few days in a row now... and have a scratchy throat tonight. Uh oh.

FRIDAY...
— Sick day. Never feels good to take a sick day on a Friday or Monday. You can feel the “yeah right he’s sick” comments from here. But I feel pretty crumby today and I think work would have been a tough place to be.

SATURDAY...
— Still feeling tired and headachey. A few movies, a baseball game, and the hockey game are about all I do today. And hockey doesn’t mean much anymore as Montreal is out in another disappointing game.


The Call of Home

Leaving the land of warmth and leaves,
Returning to the land of bare branches,
A quasi state between the bleak of winter and life of spring.

Boney branches of sleeping trees drip.
Even if rain does not fall, wetness hangs in the air.
Lingering in grey mist, so solid that fog horn wails echo off it.

Despite the promise of wet and cold,
It’s a return to roots, to comfort.
Only here can cold wetness warm you like a blanket.

Away from busy bodies re-seeding lawns.
Away from backyard project planners.
Returning to the sea, even when buried in the mist, you hear it, smell it... you feel it there.

And perhaps luck will shine on this trip.
Forecasts are as foggy as the environment.
Sun and warmth may grace some days, sending the locals scurrying into the outdoors.

Faces may smile while jackets are shucked.
Come from aways shaking heads puzzled,
While locals bounce along downtown streets, treating ten degrees as if it’s twenty-five.

Don’t waste time planning gazebos.
Don’t bother with the raking of the backyard.
Get to the shore, venturing to those locations winter has blocked off for too long.

Bergs of ice are calling.
Calling locals away from their yards.
And calling former locals away from springtime warmth, thousands of miles away.