Back on the good shift. Though I may not feel this way when I watch people leaving work at 3:00 tomorrow. But after just going through my first four days off, once again, it felt good. Two day weekends carry too much pressure to fit stuff in. Groceries… Movies… Going out to a pub… There are only a couple of days to squeeze any of it in. Four days off… You can take a day or two to reset batteries or just be lazy around the house and there’s still two days for other things.
The Olympics are back. I must say, so far I’m surprised with the amount I’ve watched. I had absolutely no interest going into these games and completely ignored the opening ceremony stuff. But I’ve been watching a fair bit of the rowing, swimming, rugby and beach volleyball. Rugby 7s would be really good if an entire game didn’t take just fifteen minutes to play. Two seven minute halfs are just too short to be completely legit.
Social media and politics make for a really bad combination. It’s just too easy for people to spout off without really thinking about that which they’re spouting about. You just keep seeing way too much anger and irrationality on a daily basis. This leader is Hitler… That leader loves Sharia Law… If this person gets in we’re all doomed… And that person “isn’t MY Prime Minister”. It’s all extremist. And it’s all garbage. I wish people would share less loony and just go for a walk or something instead. Life’s too short to be eaten up with so much hate. And, for the love of God, check facts before posting stuff. All it usually takes is a quick Google search to see that it’s not actually Hillary Clinton posing for Halloween in “black face”. Barrack Obama still isn’t coming for your guns. Justin Trudeau has never, nor has any plans in the future, to let in half a million refugees. These are all lies told by hateful twits. And if you believe it, you’ve been duped. All it does is make you look stupid.
Anyway, enough of that.
Booked for another trip home. Hadn’t planned to book again so quickly but Porter had too good a deal. So ten days in September will be a nice time around the good ol’ city. Hopefully it’ll be warmer than it was in my week around town in July. But either way, it should be a fairly relaxed, less hectic time. I find I’m always catching up on sleep in Newfoundland. Even on days off around Ottawa, I don’t sleep much beyond six hours. But once I get home to the sea air, my night’s sleep jumps up close to eight hours most nights. So I’m about five weeks away from more sleep, family meals, downtown strolls, and lunches and evenings with long time friends.
Building Burbs
The suburbs are building up.
Most days, my summer walks are now along sidewalks. I walk along the edge of someone else’s lawn while they sit in their driveway, barbecuing this evenings meal.
I’m walking with two minds. One looks to the future and imagines what the finished product will be like. Knowing most will never know, or think about, what their neighbourhood was like before. The other mind remembers back to my original walks. When I’d cross the street and not feel concrete under my feet again for the next hour. I crossed over that narrow border between civilization and nature. I lived a stones throw from a beaver. I watched a deer cross in front of me, huffing at me from the safety of the woods. I crossed paths with a coyote as I snowshoed and startled turkeys into a dried creek bed where they ran for their lives ahead of me.
Today I can walk along and see the house which stands where I once found a moose skull. I see the beginnings of the roadway where a grouse once scooted past me, leaving me only time for a Sasquatch photo (out of focus and dark) as mosquitos attacked my hands and neck. In another year, I’ll be able to drive my car past that spot as I remember the rain soaked pools carpeted by a bed of yellow and red leaves.
I don’t see fireflies across the street anymore. The thick brush was trenched out where they once flickered. In it’s place is now a creek valley.
Dozens of frogs and toads would come to my yards in past summers. Now I spotted one small one, hopping frantically across my front step… As if he’s lost and in search of woods.
But despite the buildup, I’m still near nature. This summer I’ve seen a garter snake swimming in a ditch, on the hunt for frogs and fish. The crickets still call to each other every night. Muskrat have come back to the freshly dredged second pond, and geese raised goslings within view of my spare room bedroom window.
So each day I continue to walk with two minds. One remembering the moose tracks left along muddy patches. While the other wonders how this neighbourhood will look in another five years. As I look forward to seeing the park, advertised by billboard today, as I walk by where that moose skull once lay.
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