Making It Up As I Go Along #342

Well this is the last Sunday update. That is to say, updates will not be set aside to be done simply on a Sunday. Starting this coming Friday, I begin a new shift at work where I do twelve hour days followed by twelve hour nights, followed by four days off. I may be just as likely to work on a Sunday afternoon as I am a Tuesday night. For instance, for Sunday, October 26, I’ll be working a twelve hour night shift after having already done two twelve hour days. I doubt I’ll have the energy or desire to try to create something to write down on that day.

So here is how it will now be. I am going to write something within every eight day stretch. My plan right now is to do my writing on the fourth of my four days off. But if I feel the desire to do it on my first day off instead, it’ll be done then. So if you’re interested in seeing if there’s writing on the blog, know that something will be there within eight days. The current plan after today is to have something posted on Thursday, the 23rd. After that, I’ll be into the new shift so the next posting would be for Friday, the 31st (my last of four days off).


MONDAY...
— Mom and dad’s last day in town. This feels like the quickest trip they’ve had here... it just flew by.
— We hang around the house in the morning with mom working on some food for me (soup and turkey for the freezer). We walk the pond and have some lunch.
— Later, we drive to Paula and Eddie’s for a little visit and I drop them at the airport on the way home. Drive home on the country roads. It’s more relaxing and shorter milage but probably a little longer time wise.
— I walk the pond again at dusk. Don’t see the beaver but catch a few muskrats and am there to see about 25 Canada Geese land on the water some 30 feet in front of me. I’m really growing to like this pond... it gets more and more a piece of nature.

TUESDAY...
— I’m pretty foggy at work today. Just one of those times when you feel like nothing is clear in your head. But I get through.
— Vote after work. Do two laps of the pond and see two neat things there... the biggest moon I’ve ever seen... and about 50 geese landing in the dusk.

WEDNESDAY...
— Work is pretty hectic and I make it through. Could have been smoother but I got through.
— After work walk and some laundry.

THURSDAY...
— Long and busy day... and I’m under the weather for it. Sinuses are a bit blocked and I’m pretty dazed... a bit of a morning cough too.
— Lunch at A&W with Janice, Devin and Bill.
— To Atlas and Karen’s after work to go over some work stuff and visit some.
— Stuck at the airport for an hour or so. Supposed to pick up Christie for her visit/wedding... but her flight is canceled on her end (although shows as being there on my end). Whatever the story, she’s not in town and I’m hanging at the airport for nothing. She left a message at home but I didn’t check there... I need a cell phone!
— Almost hit three deer on the drive home from the airport. The disadvantage of the country road route. All three were there together and I had to break fairly hard to avoid them. Kind of neat.

FRIDAY...
— 2 hour day at work thanks to feeling crumby. I pack it in shortly after 9:00 and get home with an orange juice and NeoCitran stop along the way.

SATURDAY...
— Quiet day around the house. Still feeling under the weather. I watch some hockey and a couple of movies and go for one lap of the pond. I actually don’t feel energetic enough for it but thought I could use some fresh air, so I go for the lap. See the beaver out there this evening. He swam up near his lodge and dove down ten feet away from it, not to come back to the surface. I assume he went in the lodge.
— Part of the shoreline of the pond has been dug up by developers. Not sure what they’re planning on putting there and I’m not too pleased by the intrusion.
— Spam e-mails are dying down more and more after those weeks of 200 a day. Today it’s down to 34... who knows what the difference is.


Here Comes Santa Claus, Here Comes Santa Claus, Right Through the Windshield

Driving home from the airport along the country roads is a pretty relaxing thing. It’s no faster than taking the highways but there are many fewer lights and virtually no traffic to deal with. Just a bit more winding and a bit darker when doing the drive in the evening.

This week, I took the drive in the darkness and it was, as the time before, relaxing. Anything to keep the torments of city traffic down is good by me.

One thing that happened caught me a bit off guard though. Something that wouldn’t be an issue on the city streets and highways. I almost hit some deer.

Now to say I almost hit deer doesn’t mean I screeched the tires and drove into a ditch. No rubber was left on the road behind me and I stopped a good thirty feet away from the living speed bump that is three deer walking single file across a road.

But it did get me thinking as I watched them continue on in single file, the last one taking a little stuttering hop as if he was embarrassed to be left there alone on the asphalt. What if I did hit them? Me without a cell phone and deer carnage all over the road in front of me. And then I thought even further. What if this wasn’t any simple line of deer? What if this was closer to Christmas and this was Santa himself with his sleigh of reindeer?

The fact that Christmas would not come that night would be obvious. It’s hard enough to comprehend the idea of one man, a sleigh, and eight reindeer delivering toys to every child across the world. To do that in a year seems incredible. To do it overnight is a miracle. Santa’s miracle is equal to any water for wine or sea parting that you may hear tell of. It’s awfully impressive.

So imagine the guilt one would feel if you put an end to such a miracle by simply wiping out the whole shebang of reindeer over the hood of a Mazda. Cell phone or no cell phone... either way you’re screwed.

There would be the heartbreak of children everywhere. The lack of gifts are one thing. They’d freak out over the lack of gifts. But the reindeer. Well, I don’t want to have Rudolph blood on my hands. I don’t want to attend the funeral of Dancer, with millions watch on TV and the cameras focusing in on my face... with the caption reading how I was the one responsible. And poor Dasher may survive, but I’m afraid his dashing days will be far behind him with an artificial reindeer hip in place.

So there’s the gifts and the reindeer guilt I’d have to deal with. But there would also be the bad karma. If you get seven years of bad luck for simply breaking a mirror, well I don’t even want to think about the eons of lucklessness that would follow the deaths and disablement of Santa’s tiny reindeer.

Legal matters would obviously ruin me. Set aside the criminal courts... because I’ll be swearing on every bible that it was all an accident, a horrible accident. But think of the civil trials. America alone would be looking for trillions of dollars from me. The broken hearts I’d have caused the children. The parents thumping desks and demanding my hide because my carelessness would have made them bad parents. For when little Billy doesn’t get his Transformers and little Suzie has no doll, the parents will be looking to lay blame on me for breaking their promises.

And we’re talking about a nation that will sue you for hundreds of millions of dollars because the coffee you gave them to sip on was hot.

Yes, if those deer I missed were actually reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh... and if I obliterated them rather than stop some thirty feet in front of them... my life would be in shambles and the world would be out a miracle worker. Who knew drives home from the airport could have so much repercussions.