Making It Up As I Go Along #538

Snow Mountains

Snow mountains

Outside my home

The Adirondacks

Low and easily scaled

The neighbour’s kids

Walking the ridge

Sliding down to asphalt plains.

Surrounding the store

The Rockies.

Unscaled and lining the horizon

Spring melt reveal artifacts

Fossilized shopping carts

Mangled by winter

Hinting at a previous existence.

Outside of work

The Himalayas

Forever growing

And now towering above the world

Cars miniaturized at their foot

Nighttime mountain makers caravan in

Flashing lights announce

Storms of backhoes and dump trucks

Two months from now

All plains.

The Adirondacks

The Rockies

The Himalayas

All gone

Green plains outside my door

Where frogs explore the tropics

Concrete islands around the store

Relics removed with silty discharge remaining.

A grassy meadow across from work

A month of a salty melt water sea

Explored by ducks

Before the grasses reclaim the earth

And Groundhogs graze the land.

WEDNESDAY…

--- Day shift.  Off with not much sleep and plenty to do.  And it looks like Hoth outside.  Wind whipping snow about.  Yuck.

--- On the plus, I get home to find my driveway done.  Nice neighbour.  Twelve hour shift followed by shoveling is not nice.

THURSDAY…

--- Better sleep before this day.  And less busy than yesterday. 

FRIDAY…

--- Mild.  Go for a half hour walking in the woods.  Should have brought the snowshoes.  Thought just the woods trails would be hard packed enough… but did a little extra on an area where only one other and their dog had been since the last snow.

SATURDAY…

--- Night shift.  Fairly tame one… most Saturdays are.  Wendy’s act as a little treat for the night.

--- Afternoon baseball on TV is a treat.  Bring on baseball season.

SUNDAY…

--- Fairly lazy until ball.  We win a good game, 10-5.  Lost last week to a team that wasn’t as good.  Beat a better team this week.  Who knows.

--- Catch up on the Sunday TV thing tonight.

MONDAY…

--- Movies.  Zero Dark Thirty is really good.  Paranormal Activity 4 is really average… if that.

--- Snowshoe for an hour today.  It’s above zero now temperature wise.  A nice time.

TUESDAY…

--- Some computer and tax stuff to sort through today. 

--- Still warm, doing a walk without the snowshoes today.

Making It Up As I Go Along #537

Thoughts.

---My neighbour is a little car crazy.  One… he often sits in the driveway in his idling work van… sometimes for more than an hour at a time… sometimes in the middle of the night.  And Two… he is one of those people who keep a broken down car for eternity.  We’ve been neighbours for more than a year… his black clunker has been on the side of the road around the corner for the entire time.  It’s mounded with plowed snow now and has caused a partial blockage of the artery that is our street.  If only there was a stint large enough to solve the problem.

---Listening is a dying art form.  Be it on TV interviews or with real life interactions.  The majority of people are in it to be heard… not to hear.  The world is constant interruptions and assumptions of what the other person is saying based on the first five seconds of their saying it.  If you can’t get your point across in five seconds it is (a) not going to get across… and (b) assumed to be something the interrupter wants it to be.

--- I’m unable to go to bed without first looking out the front windows towards the woods.  The blackness of the night woods across the street is mystical.  It has the same affect on me as looking into the unknown of a mountain landscape or across the waves of the ocean.  It’s entirely to do with being able to see everything right there in front of you… while at the same time being unable to see through it.  A mountain is right there in front of you but it’s crags and cliffs and forests can be hiding all sorts of creatures.  It is because of this that the legend of Big Foot has lived on.  The waves of the ocean can look calm or stormy.  Sea birds may be bobbing along or soaring overhead.  And yet, only a few feet beneath the surface, animals bigger than buses may be going about their day… oblivious to your presence.  My woods hold no whales… and likely no Sasquatch.  But the mystery of what’s out there remains.  Especially after watching a late night horror movie… when I expect to see a shadowy figure on the edge of the blackness… looking back at me.

--- A constantly placed “wet floor” sign does not make said floor automatically wet.  In fact, “wet floor” signs have become a greater sign of our laziness and covering our butts from lawsuits than one of a freshly cleaned floor.  I used to think it was an isolated problem within my office.  Every stair well has a constantly posted sign at the door to each of the five floors.  Our kitchen has two (one at each doorway). And around every corner… when the previous wet floor warning has vanished from sight… the next one appears on the horizon. 

But when I was home at Christmas, I noticed a multitude of “wet floor” signs in the mall, and also at the grocery stores.  These signs should be replaced with “walk at own risk” signs.  At least they’d be more accurate than “wet floor”.  I’d think 95% of the time I see a “wet floor” sign, the floor itself is bone dry.  Of course it would be.  Even when a floor has been freshly mopped, the wetness has evaporated within five minutes… ten for an all out soaking.  This leaves the other 23 hours and 50 minutes holding this sign as a fabrication of the truth.  In our battle to protect ourselves from being sued, we’ve forgotten such parables and fables as “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” or “Henny Penny”. 

--- Hockey is run, and analyzed, by nincompoops.  It is the only sport where the most exciting offensive (that is offense as in to score… not to be offending) plays are seen in the negative point of view.  A goal is seen not as a masterful play with the puck, but by a defensive breakdown by the opposition.  And, conversely, players who specialize in scoring are seen as lacking… while players who specialize in defense are seen as complete.  The league prefers a player who scores 50 points and comes back on defense than a player who scores 120 points and hangs around centre ice, hoping for a breakout pass.  If Wayne Gretzky began playing hockey today, he’d be told to dump it in and clog up the middle of the ice while your wingers go get it.  He’d score 75 points in a season instead of 215… and commentators would go out of their mind with how complete he is.  It would be the same as baseball people criticizing Jose Bautista or Albert Pujols because they don’t sacrifice bunt enough.

--- I have no idea how to plan my summer.  I will likely go to BC for a week in May… but what then.  Do I take more time off work? Do I travel home? Do I aim to go somewhere new? Do I play softball? If softball… do I return to the slowpitch team I’ve been on for years, or make another go of fastpitch, after three years away?  I have a hundred questions about the summer going through my head… and no clear cut answers jump back at me.  Am I becoming too dumb to plan my life?  In keeping with the times, that is a question I’m incapable of answering. 

TUESDAY…

--- Only day shift for the block.  Doing a favour for another team and working their night tomorrow. 

WEDNESDAY…

--- Pre work walk for about half an hour.  Pornographic art has been walked into the snow of one of the ponds.  Nobody said I lived in a classy neighbourhood.

--- Nights alone.  A peaceful thing even when busy.  Quiet building… quiet night outside. 

THURSDAY…

--- Busiest night in a while.  If Keith wasn’t here as well, there’d be no way to get enough work done.  Went flat out until 1:30 and still things to do after that as well.

FRIDAY…

--- Not as busy as yesterday.  I’m fairly tired by the end of shift.  Three straight nights is tougher to do than two.

--- Get Louis’ Pizza for the first time in many a month.  May be getting near a year since I had it actually.  The break has done my waistline good but the return to it was a pleasant thing.

SATURDAY…

--- Up at 12:30.  Later than normal to wake really.  Most times off night shift I wake before noon.

--- Nice out but I’m too fuzzy in the brain and tired to go out.  Lazy time around the house.

SUNDAY…

--- Lose at ball to a team we should have beaten.  It wasn’t embarrassing but it was sloppy all around.

MONDAY…

--- Around the house.  It’s sunny and glorious looking out but close to -20 again and I’m in no mood.  So it’s cleaning around the house for exercise.  All the vacuuming done and laundry to boot.  Back feels old and worn by the end of the vacuuming.  I think I shan’t be vacuuming anymore.

Making It Up As I Go Along #536

Exploration

Stepping into powder

The first one here

Even the animals have stayed away

Curled up in burrows

Tucked away in holes

Hunkered down in moss laced tree hollows

Today I’m Armstrong

Pontoons upon feet

My very own astronaut suit.

I slide down my snow covered ladder

A slope leading to the frozen creek

And it’s a world of exploration

With each step a route is created

Modern day trailblazing

How many will see this path?

Following in my footsteps

Searching for the mystery of my voyage

Seeking my adventure with every step they take.

How many will think to pause?

Pause as I do now

Pausing to look back at the path that’s been taken

Pausing to look ahead at the hint of path

Not yet created but laid out by landscape

Pausing to look down at whiteness

The white is speckled

Speckled with reflective crystals

Creating diamond glimmers

Glimmers of these days

Cloudless skies a roof of deep blue

Contrasting the white of ground as a Greek island home

It’s all exploration.

Be it a telescope peering into the cosmos

A submarine protecting from the pressures of the deep

A river boat splashing you up the amazon

Or these snowshoes

Bringing you to the world of the winter urban forest.

MONDAY…

--- Monday on a Monday.  This job is pretty anti-social as it actually makes you feel a little claustrophobic to know you’ll have so many people working around you for two days of the shift.

TUESDAY…

--- Finish off season two of Downton Abbey after work.  A really good show.

--- Fall asleep on the sofa while trying to stay up late for nights.  Oh well… there are worse things than a sofa snooze.

WEDNESDAY…

--- Up around 10:00.  Tempted for a pre-nap walk but winds continue to keep temps lingering around -20.  Despite the sun, I’ve just lost all desire to be out in such temperatures.

THURSDAY…

--- Leave work during night shift as a snow storm is coming.  Streets are touchy, as when I pull out of the RCMP lot, I see a car flying down Vanier Parkway, doing a 360 as it goes, before jumping the curb in front of the hotel across the street.  Sometimes hitting the gas to get through a light just isn’t worth it.

FRIDAY…

--- Don’t move from the house as the snow falls all day.  Probably about 20 cm I’m thinking.

SATURDAY…

--- Shovel out in the morning.  And a snowshoe in the afternoon.  It is great as, for most of the 75 minutes I’m out there, I’m walking through fields where not only are there no footprints or ski tracks, there aren’t even animal tracks.  It’s just pure white powder.  Literally making me the trailblazer. 

SUNDAY…

--- Nap a bit in the afternoon before softball.  We go back to playing good, after an iffy day last week, and we win 10-5.  

Making It Up As I Go Along #535

Hibernation

The winter makes me a hibernator.

The frozen world forces me in.

Hidden for the season within my cave.

Bundled warm under fleece.

Forever within shades of darkness.

In morning darkness I stir.

Rushing from warm sheets to warm layers.

Lingering in warm showers

Afraid of the instant chill

That comes when the water stops.

I leave in darkness.

Rolling back the frigid door to my cave

I’m still too cold.

And drive in darkness

Arriving frozen… to work.

Daylight comes while I sit inside.

Looking out at the brightness

But knowing the cold remains.

Meat lockers of dangling cows

Are tropical compared to this.

And when work is done there’s darkness.

The sun gone again before I can venture out.

My steps crunch towards my car.

I sit in coldness

Wishing for instant heat with a dial’s twist.

Then it’s straight back to my cave.

Rolling back the frigid door

Remote control allows me to avoid the air.

The car rolls indoors.

Ready to slowly thaw within it’s semi cool hole.

I climb back into my dark cave.

Warming soup on stovetop.

Huddling in front of televised glow

As gaseous flames lick away the frost.

I cower under layers as I daydream of summer.

Back to bed, climbing into warmth

The first relaxation of the day

Comes here at the end.

Curled with slowing heartbeat

As breathing switches to dreaming.

Dreaming of sleep ‘til March.

SUNDAY…

--- Tired of waking in the morning to wrist issuses.  But it improves as each day goes and gets worse again each night.

--- After work it’s softball.  The wrist always loosens up when I play.  We win again and, after I get back home, I ice things on the wrist and this actually improves it greatly.

MONDAY…

--- Up for work early and the wrist remains pretty good.  That ice was a miracle worker.

--- Lunch with Shannon.  The cafeteria is falling apart.  With people having moved out of the HQ building, they’ve downsized.  Dishwasher is gone now so we use plastic plates and cutlery.  The stir-fry station is closed down entirely.  Soon it will be nothing but wrapped sandwiches made off site… is my thought.

TUESDAY…

--- Alone at work.  Nice and pretty quiet night.  Freezing rain makes the car a bit of a mess to clear off before I head home.

WEDNESDAY…

--- Temp above zero again.  Nice to see some plus temperatures.  I was getting pretty tired of that -25 garbage.   Rainy day though.

THURSDAY…

--- Day one off.  Quiet and around the house as it’s cold again…. And quite windy on top of it this time.

FRIDAY…

--- Grocery run and some movies and shows on TV.

SATURDAY…

--- Sleep in some today… watch hockey in the afternoon.  Montreal does look good today.  Too cold still for a good walk.  Anything where the temp feels like -20 or worse makes me want to stay in.

--- Little cleaning as well today.