Scottish Highlands

Scottish Highlands

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Making It Up As I Go Along #622

General Observations

--- My back yard has become a place of odd amphibian encounters.  Earlier in the week, a toad came to greet me each time I went outside.  Three times, that day, I’d walk out and onto the patio only to find the small toad bounding off the grass and next to me on the stones.  He was like a dog coming for a sniff of my hand in hopes of a little play.  

And just today, a tree frog.  As I’m putting my BBQ cover back on, I feel a brush against my foot.  Ignoring it as just a grasshopper ricocheting off me or perhaps a bumbling fly, I finish with what I’m doing.  My next step brings my foot against something soft upon my deck.  With just that touch, I lift up to see a tree frog.  He gave a small hop to give my foot some minimal leeway but seemed altogether unconcerned at the near squishing.  Slowly he moved over to the edge of my deck, posed for a few pictures.  And sits there still, an hour after our encounter, Comfortably tucked in between a few deck posts.

--- I would gladly set up a TD bank account if it would mean they’d remove that blasted commercial of the 50 something year old parents laid out in massage bliss as they take a call from their son.  They have got to be the most unappealing people on TV… taking the crown that was long held by the Trivago Guy.

--- Two twenty-four hour sports networks with five channels each is a complete waste of time.  Between them, we have ten channels of sports and, at any given time, those ten channels may show four different programs.  Sportsnet will give us four channels of the Blue Jays game with a channel of soccer and TSN will give four channels of a football game with one channel of some other soccer league.  Five channels are only worth our time is they broadcast five different things.  Otherwise they’re just wasting space on the crowded cable landscape… and this is coming from an actual sports fan.

--- I went through the entire Pan Am games, watching no more than ten minutes of coverage… total.  One of the few things I would have considered watching (the mens baseball final) wasn’t even on TV but only streamed on the internet.  The Pan Am games is minor league Olympics.

--- Orange and black construction pile ons are to the outside world what wet floor signs are to the inside one.  They have become permanent fixtures of a place rather than temporary warnings during times of work.  I really wish that, when work is done and reductions or caution is no longer needed, they’d go around and pick up their mess.  

--- The soccer player ‘injury’ is a World Wrestling moment within a beautiful game… fake and cheesy… leaving you slightly embarrassed to even be watching such over the top theatrics.  It has been made even more ridiculous by the world of HD video.  We get to see in slow motion, crystal clear detail, that no action occurred to warrant such ‘agony’.  

--- I am always shocked by the fact that so many Star Wars geeks hate episode I yet give episode II a  passing grade.  Although by no means a classic, Episode I had many fun scenes… while Episode II had the worst love story I’ve seen in movie history.  There is absolutely no good reason why Nathalie Portman’s character would want anything to do with whiny young Darth Vader and each of the two or three times I’ve watched that movie, I keep expecting some of those ‘romantic’ scenes to belong to a blooper reel.  I expect to hear “Cut! Let’s run that one again!”… yet somehow, the movie continues on without any redo’s at all.

--- The recent pictures of Pluto is one of the best things of my year.  When a kid, I had a poster of the galaxy that had Pluto included but with a note stating the image to be an artist conception.  Later I saw pixeled white blobs of Pluto.  Now it’s a real place in graphic detail… and it fascinates me.

WEEK…
--- All put together this time cause not much worth writing about happened on any give day.
--- Skipped both ball games again.  Calf feeling pretty good but being safe.  In fact I work it pretty hard on Saturday… do a 45 minute walk and include some jogging in that while also doing strengthening exercises on it three times through the day.  But then I wake Sunday with a fairly stiff and sore feel back there.  Not too worried.  The soreness is on the other side of the calf from where the injury happened.  So I think it was overdoing the exercises some causing little used muscles to wake up a little sore in the morning.
--- Friday I feel somewhat under the weather.  Wake with my throat a bit phlegmy and am at work with some hot and cold flashes and that feel that comes with sickness where it’s like you didn’t sleep at all.  By 9:30, I call it a day and head home to the sofa.  My energy is low Saturday morning but once I get out for my walk in the afternoon, it isn’t too bad.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Making It Up As I Go Along #621

Writing Day Distractions
First the internet goes
My Rogers world interrupted 
The commercials of connectivity perfection a lie
My Rogers home phone dead
My internet gone
Half my TV channels black
Only my Telus cellphone connects me to the world
And only from the end of my driveway
As my home remains a black hole for connection to the outside world.

And silently and without warning it returns
Nothing outwardly different
But five hours later, it all come back
Dial tone, wifi, Those extra TV channels
Where would we be without such things?
Most likely a better place
We’re connected to the point of distraction.

But then comes the alerts
A piercing siren through the television
Tornados in the area
A shower put on hold 
The internet, TV and phone now reminding us of good
Alerts and information in an instant
I watching upon my tablet
As the purple cell of doom
Dances across a satellite map 
And let two sides of the continent know
Son and brother is safe

And then as writing is about to commence
Darkness falls throughout the land
Rumbles of distant thunder
Like distant artillery at war time
I’m up to my windows
On edge as a dog knowing hell is descending
I wander outside
Listening and watching
Preparing for the deluge to come

But it rumbles by
Skies lighten
Pavement remains dry
And I sit to my tablet and keyboard
Deciding blogs don’t write themselves
And I tap away
Still periodically distracted by those miles off artillery shells
That bring nothing but anticipation.

MONDAY…
--- Skip ball. I'm still hobbling a fair bit with my calf. 
--- Evening shift at work is a good change though.  Get away from the crowd and distractions. 

TUESDAY…
--- Not much out of the ordinary. 

WEDNESDAY…
--- Calf still getting better. Do a walk at break at work with Brenda. No speed record but I can manage it with minimal problems. Just a little tightness and tiredness in the leg. 

THURSDAY…
--- Get some groceries before work. Little else going on. 

FRIDAY…
--- Kind of annoying day. Decide to organize some music on the laptop. Got a few new vinyl albums, one with a CD included and another with a digital download of the album… Plus Wilco put their latest album on their website for free download (cause they're the best band going). Anyway, my laptop is very slow and fussy today… It basically takes four hours of working on it to get those three albums put into my iTunes and onto my phone. I don't want to buy a new laptop but can't deal with much of this kind of work.  And as I'm working on this, lots of construction vehicles keep going back and forth outside the front of the house. So its noisy as well as annoying. 
--- To work and straight into priority work. Got to get through it tonight so it's pretty intense work for the majority of the shift tonight. 

SATURDAY…
--- Able to do a half hour walk. First one out at the woods and ponds since I hurt my calf. This is the longest I went without going across the street to walk. Ten days. It was nice to get out there. I have to be careful with not overdoing it though. My calf is fairly weak compared to normal. 

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Making It Up As I Go Along #620

I’m Not Supposed to Be Here
I’m not supposed to be here

July is family time

On Pacific coast 
Under tree giants

In the east
Wandering coastal trails

Or preparing for Europe
Solidifying plans for adventures to come

Regardless the place
I’m not supposed to be here

Ontario mid Julys are rare
This is my sea time
My view should be of mountains
Wandering Nelson bookshops
Patioing evenings with childhood friends
Sitting aboard ferries with an eye for whale

I’m meant to be elsewhere
Where evening games of cards bring family rivalry
Us against Them
Doublechecking the score
To be sure cheating isn’t ongoing

Where sleep comes with salty breezes
Ruffling window shears
In a full home of family

But this year I’m here
No mountains planned for visits
Rocky home several months away
The evening thunder rumbles humidity away
And another workweek starts tomorrow

Tonights sleep will be vaulted in artificial cool
In my own bed
In my own home
But isolated

Julys are never alone months
This is a time of gathering together
But not this year
And the thunder rumbles more distantly now
Leaving me behind 
As it rolls towards Montreal. 


MONDAY…
--- Lose ball in a fairly choke fashion.  Up by five or six going into the last inning and boot a few balls and low and behold… we lose by one.  I don’t need to win every game I play… but choke losses are horrible.  Especially when people on the team try to forget the choke part and talk about how we played a good game anyway.  There is a time, in sports, to just shut up.

TUESDAY…
--- Not much out of the ordinary… work day in Latents.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Well three weeks after a hamstring injury, I’m hurt again.  Strain a calf muscle in softball tonight.  So I only got one healthy game in between injuries.  Very frustrating and makes one just want to forget about playing sports… except maybe golf… that looks fairly safe.

THURSDAY…
--- Hobble to work.  I’m walking like an old man ready for a hip replacement.  

FRIDAY…
--- Calf is getting a bit better each day.  Still slow going and a limp but reduced anyway.

SATURDAY…
--- Feeling ok.  Still walking very slowly but the limp isn’t so bad and I can get about on the stairs much better.
--- Out with some friends to celebrate Kiyomi’s birthday.  A nice evening at the Mill Street Pub.  I don’t do that kind of thing enough really.  


Sunday, July 05, 2015

Making It Up As I Go Along #619

Pet Toad
Sometimes I want to catch a toad
Like in rhymes caught by the toe
Make a home in my backyard
With extra fencing so he won’t go.

Grasshoppers, worms and insects
There’d be plenty there for food
I’d even find him before I mow
To mow my pet would be rude.

But then I think no toad would like
To be confined by my big fence
Not with toad world across the street
His forested world that’s so immense.

So I resist a capture of a pet
I leave him to carry on his way
For in a way this forest is my yard
Perhaps I’ll see him again some day.

MONDAY…
--- Start of a short week.  There was talk I’d have to go back to CPSIC for a bit to cover for a team, but find out today that this won’t be the case and so instead of working there on Thursday and Friday, I’m taking them off.

TUESDAY…
--- Friday on a Tuesday is ok by me.  I don’t miss much about CPSIC, but I do miss the four days off.  I’ll be off five days now with the Canada Day holiday… so it’ll be like old times for the first time in a couple of months.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Canada Day is fairly easy going for me.  Hang around the house much of the day.  Watch baseball on TV… Check out some pretty stormy weather blowing through.  Then it’s over to Harley’s for supper next door.  Meet his daughter and granddaughter and have a nice evening with good friends.

THURSDAY…
--- Like old CPSIC times on my days off.  Quiet times… go for a walk across the street… mow the lawns.  Pretty peaceful.
--- I am being driven crazy by mosquito bites though.  They never much bothered me as a kid but it seems every year older I get, they love sucking my blood more and more.  And my body reacts to it worse each year.  This week I got a bite on my palm that drove me nuts for days and now there’s one on the inside of my index finger that irritates me every time that finger happens to rub my middle finger.

FRIDAY…
--- Another walk today.  Much like yesterday.  I do see the biggest toad I’ve seen since moving here.  This one is out on the street too.  I convince him to lumber up to the sidewalk and make his way over to the woods.  I don’t think he’d have done well with passing cars.

SATURDAY…
--- No walk today.  Largely to let mosquito bites settle down.  So another around the house kind of day.  It does make me miss the CPSIC life more actually.  Being away from the work place beyond regular two day weekends is a nice thing.  To get up without the use of alarm clocks… to go for groceries when everyone else is at work… To be able to hang out in one of my favourite places more often.  It’s good.  Still, the work in CPSIC was becoming a bit too routine after five and a half years… and being off shift is good on the body.  But I won’t rule out maybe heading back to the old department in a year or two.