Making It Up As I Go Along #223

MONDAY…
--- Work 8 to 4 with a workshop thing at the office. It’s as good as it can be but is only really positive in that it allows me to watch the hockey game tonight.

TUESDAY…
--- Back to regular evening shift. Some quiet time in the morning… normal work stuff this evening. A little TV tonight. Very dull day… I did Chip Wagon for supper with Mark and Dave and I walked at one break with Linda.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Edmonton wins at hockey in OT. I don’t watch but check on the progress while at work.
--- Supper tonight with work Shannon.

THURSDAY…
--- Skip out on staff appreciation day. No more BBQs for me right now… I’d rather work my regular evening shift. So it’s me and Louis in CNI and Shannon and Karl in AFIS by the time the night ends. Greek for supper is pretty good and a long walk after I get home tonight is relaxing.

FRIDAY…
--- Just Louis and me at work tonight. Pretty long night with lots of work and not enough time for us to do it all. Plus… that guy can sure talk! Good fellow but I’m not used to so much time with one other person who can just keep a conversation going for so long. Not being used to it, by the time the night was over I was ready for bed.

SATURDAY…
--- Quiet day around the house. It’s hot today so I’m hanging out in the AC.
--- Hockey game tonight is good and Edmonton keeps showing cities like Ottawa how a real hockey city is supposed to be. Dora the Explorer gets sent away to another venue (unlike when the kid’s show took priority over hockey in Ottawa earlier this playoff)… The fans sing the national anthems (both of them) loudly. And the team plays with heart.


Watching Those with No Sense
My grandfather used to love watching professional wrestling. At least, he loved watching it when I was around anyway.

As a kid, I’d sit in the back of the van with either mom or dad driving those five hours to get to my grandparent’s home in central Newfoundland. It would often be an after school trip on a Friday that would have us leave again for home after lunch on Sunday… but the trip would always be a relaxing one for me.

The adults would play a game of cards on Friday and Saturday nights. I’d get a little bowl of chips and all the soft drinks I wanted while they laughed and thumped cards onto the table with authority. And, when it was time for a break, tea and cookies would come out… the news would be turned on… and my grandfather would curse about the banana my grandmother would lay in front of him. “I’m going to turn into a God Damn monkey!” he’d grumble as she’d walk back to the kitchen unconcerned.

Saturday would come and my grandmother would supply me with all the porridge I could want to eat. Brown sugar and milk being the highlights of the bowl of heavy goodness.

And maybe I’d go out back and play for a bit. Hitting rocks with a stick, batting them baseball style out over the expanse of space where my grandparents property dropped off as a hill down to the sea. I’d try to better each hit, sending the next rock further out into the expanse of blue sky until it dropped into the calm blue of the bay.

My grandmother would come out and put clothes on the line and sometimes my father would come and ask if I would like to go walk out to the base. The base is an old US army site from the second world war where they stored ammunition on an island in the bay…an island that was turned into a peninsula so that the soldiers would have easier access to it.

And in the late morning I’d be back in the house watching TV in my grandparent’s living room. My grandmother would be nearby. Always puttering in the kitchen making soup for lunch or supper… or just about any other time someone was in the mood for a snack. She’d pop out and ask if she could get me anything and I’d lay there on the sofa, flopping in the crocheted pillows mulling the proposition for a while. After she’d repeat the question, I’d be forced to give my answer… sometimes accepting her generous spirit… sometimes turning it down… and yet other times answering in the negative only to change my mind and sheepishly wander to the kitchen five minutes later, hoping cuteness would be able to win some service.

Often the snack would be fresh blueberries in milk with sugar on top. Blueberries fresh out of the bucket that sat in the fridge. Of course, they were originally picked back out on the hills a ten minute walk from my grandparent’s home. It was often a destination for us all as we’d go pick and eat and bring back several buckets full of blue yumminess. Although I was too young to be so disciplined to not eat the berries out there on the hills and my grandfather was too busy in his workshop to be bothered to go out in the bushes.

But most Saturday mornings and afternoons would be spent there in the living room. Me on that sofa with the crocheted pillows… my grandmother in the kitchen… and the occasional bird beating its brains out against the giant living room window. Every so often a great “bang” would rattle the window and cause my grandmother to putter in from the kitchen, “tutting” as she’d make her way to the window to see if any little bird bodies were lying on the front steps.

Sometimes they were there, dead, and sometimes they’d perk up and fly away again. Always we’d shake our heads for the poor little birds with no sense.

And at the right times, my grandfather would stomp up over the stairs and take a break from his workshop to sit in his chair, ask “Netty” to get him a cup of tea, and click the TV over to where the wrestling would soon come on.

There was no questioning if we’d watch it or not. If wrestling was on then it was assumed everyone would be quite happy to watch it. And watch it we would!

My grandfather in his chair with his tea, and me squirming on the sofa, body slamming crocheted pillows like my favourite WWF superstars would do to the losers in the plain trunks.

Those poor losers. It was always known who’d win each match. They’d be standing in the ring waiting for the other man to come and beat the tar out of them. And the other guy would get announced with cheers or boos (however the case may be). He’d come with music playing and great colourful pants and accessories. Maybe he’d even bring a manager to help him along the way to certain victory. And the loser would be thrown around for a few minutes until the finishing move was applied and he’d lay defeated on the mat. Like the poor little birds that beat their brains out against the living room window, those poor guys had no sense.

But it didn’t matter. My grandmother would come in occasionally and question if I was too young to see men beating each other up in such ways… and my grandfather would scold her with a “Jesus Christ Netty!”

And this was my introduction to the world of professional wrestling. With my grandfather on sunny Saturdays while little birds beat their brains out against the great window. A few hours later, my grandfather would stomp back up over the stairs once again. More wrestling, but on a different channel. It would often be the exact same program as the one we saw earlier that day, but we didn’t mind. We’d watch those losers get beaten by the superstars and we’d smile and point at the feats of strength… and I’d continue to imitate the moves on those crocheted pillows.