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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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SO, yesterday off. A few things done before I fell down the rabbit hole...
#1. Got rid of that goddamned old computer and flat-screened monitor. $20 it was a steal, but - try selling an old computer. I'm just glad that it didn't end up in the e-cycle. (and, on a similar note, tonight sold my computer projector for $20 as well, another e-cycle rescue). Now a bit of room on my kitchen island to plan my next steps; I discovered in an idle box delivered to me by the boy a demonstration model of Banana Pump which I should endeavour to sell before Christmas...
#2. Paydays. Mine is behind. Last was a couple of weeks ago, the "hours" cheque, used to pay rent, but it's been 3 weeks since the "tip cheque" and I'm getting hungry. How hungry was discovered last night when Kramer came over and I took her for dinner and she got way-too drunk (2 cocktails? Really?) - but the price put my credit card over the limit. And so I had the embarrassing task of part-cash part-cc payment. I shouldn't be this behind, should be ahead even, but community housing, the local banker, loans agent, etc, it's taking it's toll. Payday, apparently tomorrow, fingers crossed.
#3. Kramer. Coming over to watch a lame-assed movie of her own recommendation, kicking her boots under my bed, leaving her coat on my chair, lipstick on my towel. She's marking territory she's never even tried to claim. And not like I'm looking for action or to get lucky but - bloody hell, if ever I did there would be a lot of explaining to do.
#4. Neighbour Upstairs. Sketchy, as always, but now (met on a cigarette break) telling me she didn't turn in her ex(boyfriend) Fred for Welfare Fraud. Which tells me she did. And the entire building disagrees. All the while telling me he should get a job, work, be productive, buy her nice things...She hasn't worked for 20 plus years. He's in trouble and discovering the hard way how toxic certain females can be.
#5. Burger Month. Thank fucking god it's over and the restaurant is once again at a reasonable pace. It's insane, this, I need to write a November fairy tale for the town that involves Santa-Easter Burger coming and leaving hamburgers on the table, this is nonsense. We didn't win, the same winners as last year, the one - for presentation, an orchid on a charcoal brioche bun, well done. Not a great burger but a spectacular presentation, fine. The other, one of the other sushi places, I never tried. And finally the winner for flavour, the "Foi Gras", too close to last years entry and yet it won again, and this is bullshit, somebody, somewhere, is paying 'Big Burger" for the promotion...theirs was a good burger but - bloody hell - ours was better and a hell of a lot more original.
#6. And yesterday friend takes me for lunch and tells me I can stop making her car payments. This is - well, a relief, I'm not rich and don't even own a car myself. She's found work training our AI Overlords and offers to send me a link so I can do the same. I'm not particularly interested, the futures grim and will be so without my help. I send the link to Kramer, who despite wanting work and money so desperately is not interested in this, doesn't have the requisite communication skills. I'd happily be the "Saboteur" but apparently this is not a job they're offering ...
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The restaurant still insanely busy, but Burger month is wrapping up so there's hope for a little more peace of mind.
Wednesday, head out of town, head down, scouring the beach for arrowheads. All this lousy weather and rain should have brought something to the surface.
The bus, I planned poorly and was trapped in Balfour for 4 hours. A dismal day, but with the head down and focus it passes quick. I find a few good flakes, and a couple micro-blades, but no arrowheads. And that ends the season until after the spring floods.
Thursday, I make Salsa, it baffles be that of all the salsa's I can buy in the store, the "Fresh" and "Spicy" and none of them are either. So I make a huge batch, 2 litres, and then get hungry and eat it all. In other ways productive, list my computer for sale, clean out the closet of old clothes, sort them into "Boring Work Clothes" and more interesting fashion choices. This is an unending task, the purging of wardrobe, fortunately socks/underwear sort themselves out, and as they thin themselves I can make better choices in organizing my wardrobe.
Laundry, done, make bed, really, I'm a prodigy of efficiency.
And that's it. Friday, work, insane, easily 3 turns on the restaurant, let alone the deliveries and to-go. I'm glad to see them finally succeeding, but...
Saturday, a more reasonable pace.
Then there's the homeless, a couple of whom were paid and showed up in the restaurant. The first, maybe not homeless, regular at the soup kitchen, perpetually high, we'll call her S****. I've seen her around, clearly lit and out for lunch, she came into the "ole cock & suck" and ate, drank once before, couldn't pay, left an expired drivers license as security and never came back. Which is how I know her name. Confirm with her she can pay, she's actually "Plausibly" dressed, not "stained" in any of the ways you expect the street people to be.
Of course this day, the day she has money, she's a little demanding but...well, I'm not her server.
Saturday another one, older, my age? Older? Bent double with the fentanyl stoop, has cash, can't decide what to order, his shopping cart, filled to overflowing, is parked just outside our door. We feed him, courtesy of the restaurant, miso, rice, but he just mixes it all up, doesn't eat it, he's an adult toddler. But talking to him, hunched over the table, no conversation possible so decrepit is his state, can't decide what he wants to eat, I notice he has beautiful blue eyes. Somewhere he's in there. And I notice as well he's dyed his hair, moustache and eyebrows, and I wonder at the state of mind that sees one perpetually absent, homeless on a night with a bitter wind and chill, and worried about how one looks...
And today, again off, hit the flea market and saw my belongings for sale, my cuff-links, ties, scarves, bow ties, jackets, the way Michael's put it together make for a pretty interesting stall, and as I pretend to browse notice that they're getting some traction...
And there is the day so far. Now, time for a nap, then out to hunt for some food or bite to eat. Finished watching "Bugonia" last night, currently watching the source material - 'Save the Green Planet' - will review them together when I'm done.
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The weather the past week, piss poor, raining, cold, and I've no motivation. Even cooking is better left undone, go find a restaurant, and groceries expire in the fridge and I'm not made of money, not with the dependants I have...
Last night, upstairs neighbour, her boyfriend strangely absent these last few days, up late moving furniture, noises, banging. She'd been texting to go for a cigarette, but I'd had my own long day at work and just wanted to decompress. Then, sometime as I was trying to fall asleep, a giant crash, voices, the sound of the rail outside being banged (a peculiar reverberation), and then it's quiet.
Still, restless, the day was long and not enough got done, I sleep poorly.
Today, running into her in the lobby, querying her about the noise, at first she denies it, then confesses it was the ambulance/paramedics trying to get her out of the house...
Which explains the voices, and some of the other noises, and she's telling me she's sick, needs an operation, that she came home to an apartment covered in blood, she's doing laundry and needs an operation scheduled in Trail and she can't talk about it...
***
I have my suspicions, but I know nothing and don't want to ask, I've staggered about drunk more than a few times, kicked up a racket, broken things, but she is I suspect a long ways ahead of me...
***
I checked the obituaries, once in a blue moon, another old customer from the old restaurant, married to J**, grown cranky and cantankerous in her old age. And the Pastor that founded this housing, the thrift shop, the Christian ministry above it, his wife also died. Coincidentally both widowers have the same name. Death out here, it's a season. J**, former customer from the restaurant, comes into the Sushi place for lunch with his son. And I give him my condolences, and he's sad, but he seems as well to be - well, not so sad, the relief the dying give the living - when finally dead - is no small thing. A coincidence, I've never seen him in the restaurant before - but - there is a pattern...synchronicity, a symmetry hidden in the ordered workings of life...
***
Today, cold, miserable, rain, wind, wet, I make it out for a coffee, come home, make a big pot of clam chowder, eat it all. Then take some pictures, out again to list the former closet contents (old computer, projector, monitor, suitcases) on Facebook marketplace, sell it or give it away but be done with it finally.
The computer, there's work there, need to move all the files off of it and wipe, then to Library to list, then again home to wash dishes, read, listen to podcasts (nothing good), read all the news that was never fit to print, ever, and now - after a final walk to make my minimal exercise - to watch a movie, read a few dour books on German Philosophy (Shopenhauer) and then perhaps an early bed...
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Finally, after several trips to the hardware store I find the part and hacksaw it down to fit the Oil Lamp, take it to the antique shop to hang in their window. The owner's as impressed with it as I am. The first time in 35+ years it's hung, it looks happy there, a fine stopover on it's way to a castle.
A few of my other candlesticks in the lower left...
***
The daughter comes for a whirlwind visit, to pick up a car she had me look at. She's over the moon happy, she got a "bargain"; if you can call 4X the book value a bargain...
She manages to get the winter tires put on the following day, her old car to the wreckers, insurance - and I tell her to use the book value so she doesn't overpay on the GST, but the seller won't adjust the price on the bill of sale, fortunately she has a friendly insurance agent that suggests she rewrite the bill of sale, the price, and then when she does it again - still too high, the agent slips her a little slip of paper with the black-book price written on it, and she clues in.
So for her a successful trip and Friday morning she was off back to Nanaimo.
***
My website, a few days, down, unable to log in. Call customer tech support, who assure me everything is fine on their end...
Tech support, you're damned. But that's all I needed, poked around the back end and discover my database had some sort of injection-session attack, filled it up, truncate all the useless queries so it's back up and running again and here I am.
***
More clutter to be sorted through, the arrival of my chests of drawers means I need to attack my closet. Pushing my way through the bramble and briar of metal coathooks and thrice hung shirts, trousers, I'm more than half expecting to arrive in Narnia and meet Aslan.
Only, four bags of clothes to the thrift shop, 1 to the dumpster, 2 empty suitcases for somebody (?? Who ??), and I can see there's a wall at the back. I find an American Officer's jacket from the Korean war, phenomenal gilt buttons, this goes to Michael, mint condition, someone will want it.
***
Then burger month, had two others, one at the lakeside, good but not a contender. And one from a burger place in town, same as always, just bigger, more processed cheese, more bacon, more beef, both delicious and disgusting, but again, not a contender.
***
And work, unrelenting, full tilt from start to finish, a full on 10 KM, $1400 server marathon, this all to serve tables of two half a burger, tables of 4 2 burgers, again halved, this is one hell of a lot of running. And of course the kitchen is not keeping up, we're turning people away, advising to-go orders it'll be 45 minutes to an hour, it's pure unadulterated chaos, running out of glasses, and again, out of spoons, bowls, plates, chopsticks, cutlery, everything you might want to run a restaurant.
Damn I'll be glad when this month is over.
Otherwise, on season 3 of "Dark", the last season, fortunately, I'm curious how it'll wrap up but a poor choice, really, to watch this now, the season in the show too closely mirror those in town right now, the lowering grey clouds and snow lurking over both Nelson and Winden...
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...and work has been a madhouse. Running, top speed, I should be in the Olympics, from the beginning to the end of the shift, non-stop, always 2, 3, 4 steps behind, there’s a line up at the door, turning people away. Rumour has it that we’ve a good burger. We do, I’ve tried it, and for sure it’s a contender, but we’ve doubled our volume and not our staff and the next three weeks will be trying indeed. Last night, $2200 ring-out in 4 1/2 hours, and this is not regular dining, this is a burger split between 2, 2 burgers split between 4, separate bills, keeping up with this - insane.
Nonetheless I’m still alive.
This week, looked at car for the daughter, twice, a long walk, she’s now booked a trip out to pick it up for Tuesday. So - for her a success.
And - more stuff to Michael’s little vintage booth; there’s a few fairs coming up, I’ve stocked him up with jackets and waist-coats & neckties & cufflinks & tie clips & belts & jackets and too much more to list.
It’s liberating to be getting rid of this stuff, this detritus that has been holding me back for how long, let it go, let it go.
I might be in a position to clean out the closet and sort my shirts, already discovering piles of clothes I’d forgotten I have.
The locker is still very much full.
Then, hey, if the closet clean-out works I can always try cleaning up the kitchen, but…1 step at a time. To consider it all is to be overwhelmed and paralytic and get nothing done.
While cleaning I listen to an NPR "This American Life" podcast on how our things come to own us...appropriate. This is how to get things done.
The chilli plants, finally, I had enough, the were in the end under the grow light 18 hours a day with limited progress, not worth the rain of debris, leaves, pollen, resin, then finally the small black flies and fungal gnats, the leaves were crawling and so I took them finally to the balcony to die…
All that work for what amounts to maybe 10 grams of tiny chilis. Definitely not worth the work. Or clean-up.
The genii-infested-oil-lamp, now ready for sale, had to make a custom part but look forward to hailing it to the antique shop Wednesday, they have a fine selection of candlesticks (largely mine) in their window, I’m pleased to note that some are selling…
Then there’s Kramer, who has decided that her place is haunted; she’s uncomfortable in it, and so has taken to making herself comfortable over at mine. Wake up in the morning to a clatter in the kitchen, it’s Kramer making herself a cup of coffee and cozy in my chair. Come home from work in the evening and it’s Kramer, just waiting in my place, not comfortable in hers.
Now, this is preposterous, see my place and wonder how anyone could be comfortable there, I’m not, it’s an asylum of unfinished art pieces, picture frames, paints, supplies, paper, ephemera…
And she’s not what you’d call great conversation, for the most part just trying to stay out of her own place by commandeering mine.
This catches us up. Today, more stuff to Michaels, breakfast, dishes, shave and clean the bathroom and I feel like calling it a success already yet there’s hours to go…