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Packing
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1489
Packing, now, all the shit that won't be coming with me. Despite only being here a year, maybe 2, there's a lot of shit.
Treasures, new candlesticks, old candlesticks, chambersticks, inkwells in colors of pale violet to mercury blue, glass pens, ancient keys, dinosaur bones, knick-knacks, breakables, delicate curiosities, to return to the locker. Furniture, to be given away or placed in the alley (where it disappears suspiciously quick). Separate the shit I'm taking from the shit I'm leaving. This is not so hard, I'm still taking far more than I should, I need, better to be prepared, but whatever I leave will be what I miss most.
A shame, this packing of the treasures that have been acquired but barely enjoyed or appreciated, a good many of them are given away to appreciative audiences, I console myself, do this right in a year or two you can be unpacked. Properly unpacked. Looking at real estate - Kaslo, 10 acres, walking distance, under 100K. I could do this, better in the spring, of course, time to build my homestead over the summer, but this - 100K, this is not impossible...
I think I'm top of it, that I've thought of everything, but thoughts percolate to the surface, the need to fix the jeep, to clean, to make it to the consignment shop, slight commitments to art projects, paintings, other, a hundred tiny things that distract me...
Tomorrow, everything to the locker but the bed and what's coming with me. The bed, it goes on Sunday. I'm living the Zen, but at the moment, surrounded by a hundred semi-packed boxes of treasures and trifles I'm living the nightmare. Soon...
World War III
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Conversations
- Hits: 1342
The Final Tour, Okotoks, Cochrane, a few select shops in Calgary. A few final things before I depart, general treasure hunting, nothing I needed.
Stop in the crazy thrift shop in Bowness, packed to the brim, overflowing, can barely move, there has to be something here...nothing...
The owner, or proprietor, or maybe just the shopkeep, is on the phone, an older lady, loudly conversing with an invisible other:
"I tell you, it's going to happen...no later than a week after the election"
"No, she doesn't believe it, some people, they're not ready for the truth...."
"We need to buy land...somewhere remote...that's why I'm asking you...the more people the better...."
"...I'm telling you, it's going to be World War Three..."
"...I'm prepared, I've got a ski-doo suit and mitts, I mean, I don't have any Mukluks or anything..."
I keep shopping, this is too entertaining to leave. I've got a boyfriend for her...she's the perfect counterpoint to John Goodman in "10 Cloverfield Lane"...Pretend to browse, look long and hard at the dusty rubbish for sale, I try to buy something, it's not for sale, she doesn't want to sell it, polite but rudely declining to show me, poor preparing for the end of the world in my book, but I get her, get every conspiracy-nut-job out there, she's doesn't believe it's going to be the end of the world, she's praying for it, wants to be vindicated, off the hook for any real world responsibilities, wants to be right just this once in her life, the leader of her own dysfunctional tribe of survivalists...If there's ever a final world war, and these are the "survivors", the human race is doomed anyways...
Epictetus
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Quotes
- Hits: 1368
Found this, thought I'd share, like his philosophy, I rather share it but would not have articulated it so clearly. I'm not a philosopher, after all...
"The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things."
"No man is free who is not master of himself."
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants."
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epictetus
& More Quotes: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/epictetus.html & https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Epictetus
The Hat Trick
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1670
Anticlimactic, this final leaving, Friday, slow, Saturday, while by all appearances busier, equally slow. Goodbye to one of the regulars, gruff, "Good Luck", hug, he was the philanthropist who occupied the private room, the owner told him I was leaving, he knew, but the immediacy, "Tonight's the last night" surprised him.
The new waiter, he's catching on, slowly, by no means the brightest lantern, trying to teach him how to cash out for a week, he doesn't understand, and when the rudiments of understanding cross his brow he disagrees...the nephew, he takes over the cash outs, he's not so bright but he's better than this...
...funny, you can see the dissent forming, power corrupts, absolute power absolutely, and I can see the division of tips now, joking with the expediter/hostess that she'll remember these days...
The new waiter, lacking a sense of humour, takes offense where none is given, bad breath, telling me that he plans as well to move to BC, about a place called "Trout Lake" where you'll be safe from the Armageddon that surely must be coming...he's one of those...
Joking with the nephew, need a saddle for the new waiter so he can ride him about the restaurant calling himself king and introducing the new talking donkey that will be taking their order, he laughs, he gets it, he'll miss me, the old talking donkey...and threatens, himself, to be leaving soon, no later than January...the world turns.
The end of the night, early for me, hand over the keys, goodbye to the staff, most are new, there's no connection, the nephew, the chef, the owner, the salad girl, they all have plans as well, and I doubt the restaurant will be here in 3 months, a year, but I'll pop back in for a visit. A rare thing, this hat-trick of leaving, twice on good terms, but there has to be more out there than this, and I am off...
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