Making It Up As I Go Along #626

Seven or More

Them:

Enjoy your meal

Let me know 

Can I get anyone

Anything else?

Me:

I’m sorry

I never got

My orange juice

If you please

Them:

Oh so sorry

I’ll be right back

With your juice

And anyone else?

Them:

Here’s some water

For you all

To sip on

If need be

Me:

And my juice? 

It never came

Could I please

I’m oh so thirsty

Them:

Oh yes indeed

Right away

I’ll get that for you

So sorry

Them:

How’s everyone’s food?

To your satisfaction?

I do hope

Can I get anything for anyone?

Me:

For the love of God

I’m still waiting

What does it take 

To get a juice around here

 

MONDAY…

--- Eliminated in Monday night softball.  It was a good team that beat us but we played badly all the same.  Dumb mistakes.  It’s one thing to lose a game to a better team when you’ve both played well.  But when one of the teams doesn’t play as well as they are capable of, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

TUESDAY…

--- Regular type of work day.

WEDNESDAY…

--- Wednesday night ball wins in the semi’s and we’re on to the final next week.  This league is more recreational than the other and the team we played not as good, but still, we dropped down by seven or eight runs early and just didn’t worry about it.  Came back and scored the runs while we tightened the defence.  If anything, it’s as if the other team caved in the mental aspect of the game.  

--- Joined the team at the pub after tonight’s game.  I must have a way… a way to become invisible.  Anytime I’m with a group of more than six, my order gets screwed up at pubs and restaurants.  This time, my order vanished.  She went around the table.  Came to me… seemed to nod understanding of my order… and that was the end of that.  I wasn’t very hungry anyway and, by the time it became clear that my order wasn’t coming, I didn’t want it anyway… but it’s amazing how often I’m cast aside when it’s a group of people.  

THURSDAY…

--- Regular work day and I’m about two hours before I’m home for the night and ready to relax.  Between an accident that caused the highway to get shut down and traffic to increase elsewhere… then a trip to the vegetable stand, grocery store, liquor store, shwarma shop, and gas station, it’s a lot of running around.

FRIDAY…

--- Last time Kiyomi, Sarah and I will all work together in Latents.  I’m on evenings next week and Kiyomi leaves for CPSIC after that.  So we celebrate with bacon stackers at break time… I was going to say that, with fewer than seven of us, my order was fine.  But it just occurred to me that Derek (who joined us) had his order mixed up.  Three of our orders were made a the same time though… so it could be that I simply took Derek’s food.  Hmm.

SATURDAY…

--- Supper with Harley and family.  Nice to just stroll across the lawn to their place in flip flops.  Good meal outside on their patio and we sit and talk much of the evening after that. 

Making It Up As I Go Along #625

The Return of Sundays

Sundays are Sundays again

For years they vanished into shift work

Where each day varied 

One week Sunday’s Sunday

Next week it’s a Monday

But they’ve returned

The quiet of the day

The atmosphere of closed

Even though businesses remain open now

Habit makes them feel shut and dark

It feels as though I need a roast

Wafting through the house

With carrot and potato stovetopped and steaming

And a mother puttering about

Forking a vegetable and inspecting the meat

In fact, Sundays belong in Autumn

Summer Sundays blend in the memory 

Years of them being no different than a Saturday

But Fall Sundays are real Sundays

Where homework is put off for road hockey

First snows happen on those Sundays

White dust wooshing asphalt

Rippling as desert sands

In a rush up the street

Testing the manhood of us road hockey warriors

It’s on those days the roast taste best

Returning from hockey action 

Coldly sweaty and red with icy wind

The aroma beckons me through the door

And the food, moist and gravy soaked, warms me

Yes, shift work pulled me from these memories

The possibility of venturing to work

On a day meant for speeding through homework

Made Sundays near fiction in my mind

And nearly in the realm of the forgotten

But it has returned to my world

And even with August’s swelter

I’m left to think about warm roast

Road hockey

And the first wisps of snow  

MONDAY…

--- Play ball tonight.  Do alright.  Legs still feel a bit lead like… but get through ok.  Could have had two homers.  First one hooked a few feet foul.  Second one was the second of an inning… which, in this league, is an out.  Oh well, at least we win.

TUESDAY…

--- Work is work.

WEDNESDAY…

--- Half the office clears out for a few hours this afternoon.  A retirement luncheon for the officer running our section.  I don’t go.  Never had much dealing with the officer.  Fine enough guy but still, I always think that if I was the one retiring and I looked around the room of such a luncheon and thought how I never spoke to that one… and couldn’t even tell you the name of this one over there… I’d rather they not be there.  That’s just people using your day to get a break from work.

--- Play the other ball league again.  Mostly in the outfield and shortstop tonight and my calf holds up.  But once I’m home and cooled it is tired.  We lose this one… last game of the regular season.

THURSDAY…

--- Another work day.  Pretty normal times.

FRIDAY…

--- Quiet evening.  One thing with latent work, by the end of the week I’m mentally drained.  Staring intently at fingerprints five days a week wears you down some.  

SATURDAY…

--- Afternoon baseball on TV and then an evening out with Sarah for a few drinks and supper.  A nice evening on a patio… should probably try doing such stuff more often.

SUNDAY…

--- Late morning I’m out weeding the yards.  The sweat is pouring off me by the end of it.  It’s about 40 degrees with the humidity by late afternoon and, although it was cooler than that in the morning, I was still working away in above 30 humidex values.

Making It Up As I Go Along #624

Vine Bombs

The borders of my yard are vined

They’ve snaked from under neighbours fence

Writhing along the ground

Finding legs of furniture

Pushing up to flowers

Sneaking up to the air conditioner

They intertwine

Braiding themselves into dominance

In and out of the AC vents

I must start at the bottom

Yanking and pulling away

Undoing what has been knit

Encircling the furniture

Climbing a leg

Colonizing the back

I pull it away each day

Undoing the last days viney journey

And invading the flower beds

Using flowery stems and twigs

Strangling them as it climbs up

Breaking the flowery canopy

This is where I’m most careful

Tracing backwards towards the ground

Trying to distinguish vine from flower

Careful not to snip the wrong wire

Not wanting to blow up my flower bed

Sweat drips down my forehead

As the tension builds

While the vine fuse burns 

Ever closer to explosion

A race against time

Before my flowers become no more.

MONDAY…

--- Holiday Monday.  Nothing special planned though.  Just a pretty easy going home day.  I enjoy my house and neighbourhood too much sometimes.  The motivation to go out doing stuff is often just not there.

TUESDAY…

--- Work is fairly normal.

WEDNESDAY…

--- First game of ball in a month.  I take it pretty easy.  Wrap the calf, play 1st base, and have a courtesy runner after each hit.  Things feel good, no feeling of strain or weakness… but by the end of the game, my calf is getting tired.  Of course, the fact it was a 90 minute game didn’t help.  

THURSDAY…

--- Lunch across with Shannon.  Haven’t done that in a while… good way to break up work a bit.

--- Order a Gabriel’s Pizza tonight. Haven’t had one in ages.  Six months at least.  

FRIDAY…

--- Switch to evening shift for tonight.  It’s nice… quiet and few distractions.  I’d say I’m pretty open for business when it comes to switching shifts with people.  Doesn’t do my social life any favours but nice to be away from the distractions of day shift.

SATURDAY…

--- Lazy day at home.  I feel like I should go out walking but keep getting distracted by baseball and movies on TV.  Next thing I know, it’s past supper time when I’m ready to walk… and the problem with that is mosquitos could pick me up and fly away with me at that time of day… so I stay in.

SUNDAY…

--- Get the walk in today… after the baseball game.  Lots of birds on the go for pictures.

Making It Up As I Go Along #623

FRUIT FLIES

Dust alive

Floating 

Hovering

Invisible 

Until a banana reach scatters

Miniature copters of annoyance

Time warp lives

Generations in hours

The morning newborn

Becomes the evenings grandparent

Their entire world, a plate

With breadcrumbs as continents

And dabs of jam a life giving sea

MONDAY…

--- Skip ball again.  Thought I’d be playing this week but over did it a bit on Saturday and my calf is fairly tender again.  

TUESDAY…

--- Liking the hot weather.  Mom would hate it and my back lawn doesn’t enjoy it.  The backyard really heats up.  Between the shelter from the house and fences and the all day sun back there in the summer, the middle of my lawn is pretty much brown and dead now.  

WEDNESDAY…

--- Considered going to ball today but can still feel a bit of tightness in the leg… so caution wins out.

THURSDAY/FRIDAY…

--- Working away.  I’m tempted to take Friday off and have a four day weekend but I am good and go in anyway.  Still, end the day early… leave at 1:00 and go for drinks and a snack with Darren for a few hours.  

--- After the pub Friday there’s weird weather.  Driving home with the sun out and rain pouring down.  Lots of people caught out walking in it.

--- Blue Jays are really going for it in baseball.  Like the trades… and the excitement around the team.  A little afraid of what the pitching staff will look like in two or three years… all the young pitchers pretty much gone now.  But still it’s fun.

SATURDAY…

--- About an hour out walking.  Calf feeling fine.

SUNDAY…

--- More than an hour out today… though walked slower and took more pictures this time.  A young loon hanging out in the nearest pond to the house.  Not often do I see a loon out there.