Making It Up As I Go Along #704

Christmas really comes early for some.  Out for a walk today and I saw through the windows of four or five houses where you could see lit Christmas trees in their living rooms.  That’s way to early for me but it still starts the holiday feelings.  I’m less than two weeks away from some time off and about three weeks away from having parents in town yet again.  Once they arrive, the Christmas shopping and movies and games will soon be in order.  It has a chance to be one of our quietest Christmases.  Perhaps just the three of us for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.  Having more family around would be nice but I’m also looking forward to a fairly quiet holiday season.  To sitting around with movies and some Christmas goodies.  Maybe with a trip to Upper Canada Village to see the lights.  It feels like a pleasant time to come.

Speaking of movies, I recently signed on to Amazon Prime and have been taking advantage of the video aspect of that.  Lots of solid TV series and lots of B grade movies.  But I must say, the cheesy movies have been fun.  It somehow reminds me of the days of going out to the video store to rent something for the weekend.  Not knowing anything about half the movies on the shelves.  Just making a selection based on the cover art/scene and the actors listed.  Some good laughs and a nod to simpler times as I watched the likes of Deathstalker and Zombeavers.

I actually find that the world of Trump leaves me craving the simple pleasures.  For instance.  I still have an old style tube TV in my computer room.  It was my main TV when living in St. John’s on Hayward Ave.  I recently decided that I rarely watch this TV and therefore don’t really need the old PVR hooked up to it.  But it would be fun to hook my Atari Flashback system to that TV rather than the big HD TV in the basement.  So my computer room has become an Atari room.  Playing the games on the old style TV makes it all the more enjoyable.  A depressing news day is beaten back with a few rounds of Asteroids, Space Invaders, Centipede, Yars Revenge, Frogger, and… the best of the bunch… Jungle Hunt.


They Remain

I’ve wondered
With acres of wood
Chopped and minced
How many of the animals remain?

Winter’s carpet proclaims
Broadcasting tracks
Through remaining woods
Trails of mouse and shrew
Paths of rabbit and squirrel
But most interesting
The Lonely jaunts of the coyote.

I assumed housing work
Would drive him out
Force the coyote to run
As monsterous machines
Shredded his turf.

The tracks could be mistaken for dog.
A German Sheppard out for a walk
But no human prints accompany
And worn snow paths show the back and forth
Of the patrolling coyote.

The time he went unseen.
But I’ll spot him before long.
Me on a snowshoe trek
And he out for a supper hunt

I’ll stop my travels in a hello nod
And he’ll scamper through the brush
Off to wait out my intrusion
From the safety of saplings and high grass

I continue on pleased
Knowing the suburb building machines
Weren’t able to drive out
The lingering bits of wild.

Making It Up As I Go Along #703

Winter is coming.  I can now see traffic through the woods across the street again (the camouflage of leaves is no more).  There’s a small layer of snow on the ground.  And today I put the fleece sheets on the bed.

Another interesting thing about this time of year is the hidden parts of summer begin to show themselves.  Walks will show bird nests in the crooks of tree limbs.  And yesterday I saw a rugby ball sized wasp nest hanging twenty feet up from a branch near the ponds.  I look for these things in the summer but they always seem to be so hidden in the canopy.

River otters are here.  In my nearly seven years at Trailsedge, I’ve seen muskrat and beaver in the ponds across the street.  This week, I saw river otters.  A family of four have taken over last years beaver lodge.  When I’ve been around, the lead otter has kept a close eye on me.  Diving for a fish every minute or so, then coming up to bob in the water, huffing at me.  Not sure how they’ll do.  I read that an adult will eat up to a few kilograms of fish a day.  I don’t think there’s enough little minnows out there for a family of four to get through the winter.  Unless there’s more fish in those ponds than I expect.

Mom and dad are booked and coming.  About five weeks away from having parents nearby again.  Winters are much more family oriented again.

I find I am slowly veering more towards streaming tv rather than the cable.  Last month I got Amazon Prime and now have access to their video service as well as Netflix.  It seems, since baseball season ended, I spend more nights on either Netflix or Amazon Video watching a show or movie there than surfing the channels.  Sports, news, nature programs and movies still draw my attention on cable.  But most of the TV shows I watch are now being streamed.  Perhaps the day will come when I just load up on my internet data and cut the cable entirely.  Who knows.

Not much else in mind to share.  Trump is a psychopath and possibly evil… like truly evil… but I just don’t want to waste my energy even getting into it.

Canadian hockey coverage is so incredibly Toronto biased that, even when you have a family history of cheering for that team, I find myself secretly wishing them to fail.  It really is to a point where there is no more Canadian national hockey coverage.  There is Leaf coverage nationally… and then regional broadcasts of every other Canadian team.  But the Jets are probably a better team than Toronto… it’s largely ignored.  Montreal has been very entertaining this season… ignored.  Vancouver has some good young players… worth a thirty second clip.  The best offensive player in the game is being forgotten in Edmonton.  Calgary is doing well but is completely forgotten.  In fact, the second most covered Canadian team is likely Ottawa… and that’s entirely due to the train wreck factor.  National hockey coverage is basically 75% Leafs… 15% How Ottawa is embarrassing themselves… 5% McDavid… 3% Petterson in Vancouver… 2% everything else.

I’ll aim for something more creative next week.  That’s it for now.