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A precarious day off
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2074
It's a precarious day off. Someone left, someone's due to start, my day off falls in the middle and so I can't take it for granted, get an early start on the morning's errands...
First stop the Women in Need thrift shop by Marda Loop. A full shop, treasures of the day include a vintage cigarette case that ejects the cigarettes as required (I'll have to switch from King Size, it'll be perfect for the offered cigarettes, as the sole remaining designated smoker at work I'm the touchstone for staff in need of a single fag, amazing how many non-smokers smoke, but you'd have to be a smoker to know...), and an XBox game - Chessmaster - I try to think of how excited the kids will be... well, perhaps the daughter, the boy, it would be hard for him to imagine a more BORING computer game...
From there to the Bibles for Missions, nothing today, then down to Zowie's on 14 St, nothing again, over to Starbucks across the street for a quick coffee & chocolate muffin and a handful of Starbucks cards; run into an old Coworker from Chianti's I haven't seen for years, now a Realtor, he looks good, distinguished, grey hair, rugged features, me, I'm incognito with my handful of treasures, unwashed & unshaven & painfully aware I shouldn't be out and about in this state, we catch up, he's doing well and so am I but it's obvious that I'm not really, then to the Kalamata Grocery on 11th, some Parmesan cheese and olives, walk briskly from there to Kensington, despite appearances I'm feeling pretty good, the sun is shining, my coat's too hot, stop in the art store and get some Titanium and Zinc white as I'd run out, well, not out, but having opened a dozen tubs to find they've all congealed into cracked acrylic lumps I presumed I was out and put them back to mislead me again in the future ("Mixed Media", I tell myself..).
Then home, check the mail, nothing as of yet (damn!), but there's an email on the computer, my package has been shipped, there's a note explaining that I shouldn't be impatient, it's coming all the way from Tibet, and I imagine, briefly, my sacred relic being carted by yaks and Sherpa's over Himalayan passes, the same route taken by the book I just read, and there's anticipation...
There are other emails as well, work emails, but I'll do them after I paint, and I'll paint after I nap, and I should call in to work to ensure they're all right but that will have to wait until after my nap as well otherwise there will be no nap at all, only a gnawing at my intestines...
Dave's new car
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1843
A short nap.
I'm at work and Dave the dishwasher has bought a new car, a shiny red trans-am type vehicle, only it's not our Dave, it's Dave the busboy I used to work with at Chianti's.
I borrow it, it's the gap between shifts and I'm going to run to a distant thrift shop, I haven't been for a while and I've a feeling that they have all sorts of treasures waiting to be discovered. I ask the owner if he wants anything, he asks me to pick up a Herald and 2 copies of the Calgary Sun for the old ladies in the kitchen, I ask about the ones we get delivered and he shrugs, they got snowed on, wet,...
And I drive through the city, it's Calgary but not Calgary, there are old buildings and hills everywhere, it's snowing and for some reason everyone in the world is in the back seat....I take a shortcut down an alley and it goes down a steep hill and eventually I arrive at the bottom but the exits are blocked by barricades, apparently the shortcut I took was actually a flight of steps (obscured by the snow), pedestrians only, and some wiseacre bystander quips that the state troopers will come shortly to release the barricades, and he says it in a way that implies I'll be in all sorts of trouble...
There's no way to go back up the stairs that I've just come down, they're too steep and the snow is melting....
I notice an unbarricaded exit onto a main road, wonder why I didn't spy it earlier, everyone gets back into the car and I escape. It's getting late and none of us want to be late for work. The restaurant will be opening up in just a couple of minutes. I don't know where I am, it's dark, snowy, but coming up a hill I get a dejavu and think that I recognize the area and sure enough, when we get to the top there's the old hotel and I know where I am now, 37 St, we're just a couple of minutes from work....
Driving, passing a nightclub I've always meant to stop into and it's spring now, early evening, green trees, the sun's out, in front of the club there are couples in 18th century dress fornicating, men in powdered white wigs with youthful faces kneeling between the legs of beautiful young women, I slow down, there's a sign above the club that says it's a Kappa Sigma-something else initiation party, there's pale pink walls with maxims written on it in difficult to read cursive script, I'm not in the car anymore, am trying to read it, "Bring who you will and take who you please...." is the motto, or words to that effect, there are others and I'm trying to read them as well when I run into some TV celebrity who's attending the fraternity initiation, she recognizes me and we're chatting, the initiation is open to anyone and then she tells me she's brought her boyfriend in an attempt to dispel any possibly untoward intentions...
Kenny Strasser - Yo-Yo King
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1453
And a bit of a wag. His career is made I think...
Impressed by my piety
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2094
The new landlords, they're impressed by my piety.
They've popped around to attend miscellaneous small repairs, light yard work, check that everything is OK.
They love the "Our Lady of the Birds", a bird feeder I've left on the front step, the blessed virgin presiding.
"It's our Lady of Fatima" they assure me, they're Portuguese and so they'd know. Not to be confused with "Our Lady of Lourdes", which mistake I made (but was forgiven for, they are, after all, somewhat alike, and they take a minute to explain the difference.)
And they love how I've fixed up a little shrine in the hallway, filling the old phone niche with rosaries, devotional cards, miraculous anointing balm.
They think we're on the same page, which is a good thing, and are impressed by my piety.
I haven't the heart to tell them I'm a Buddhist.
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