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The murder of slow days
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2101
It's murder, this. My temper is short, I've almost entirely run out of patience, the solution, of course, is to leave and I'm resolved, I'm not returning after the vacation, but there's the caution, the memory of hard times too close to forget, the bills aren't yet fully paid, but it will be done one way or the other and I would prefer it be on good terms.
Hot, slow days in the restaurant, customers trickle in, they want to come late, stay later, we're not paid by the hour, there's no incentive to stay until the wee hours, already enough of our lives is stolen, it's trying this "So Happy to see you" game and my patience is wearing thin.
Time passes, each day the same, wake, coffee, bus to work, work, work, home, if I'm lucky the sun's still up, an hour or so on the computer, then to bed. Repeat. If my life were set to music it would be the Vuvuzela theme from the world cup.
The benefits, they haven't kicked in, administrative errors and they're not bringing it up, me either, I'll live.
But in my mind there's always the knowledge that it's the slow murder of innocent days.
Favorite Bench
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1895
It's the favorite bench by virtue of being the closest.
I sit there, book unopened, watching the sun set, brightly reflecting swarms of insects, snatches of conversation as the people pass, cool breeze, make notes in a notebook, it's treasured time as it's at most twice a week I get this, time alone, not on the computer, not at work, it's just me and my bench.
Wednesday, June 30 - 2010
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2081
Gaps in child care, my day off, I borrow a car and the daughter decides she wants to go to Drumheller to look for dinosaur bones. This is fine, I try somewhat to talk her out of it, suggest maybe quartz crystals or trilobites up at Lake Louise, but she's decided.
It's going to be a hot day. First stop Drumheller, we check out the Salvation Army (I have this persistent vision of great treasures lying unrecognized in rural thrift shops), nothing, then a quick sandwich and we're off.
Horseshoe Canyon, we've a route we take through the badlands, the flat tops and hoodoos, and when we get far enough back we begin looking.
No great finds, a few pieces of bone, some sticking out and weathered into a thousand pieces, if we were professionals we might dig and look further, but it's not legal in Alberta. We find a number of small amber beads, brilliant gemmy yellow with the weathered white crust, a (relatively) large piece at almost a full centimeter in length, the amber here, like the bone, is poorly fossilized, crumbles easily, it's pretty and curious but you couldn't make jewelry from it.
Then home, we vary the route to bypass construction, through small towns where kids play in the bleak, hot afternoon prairie sun, it reminds me of my childhood, the dead hours between noon and 6 or 7 PM when nothing could be done for the heat, the trees cast no shadows, the children would pace bored upon the street, looking for something, anything to do, in the evening, that's a different story, it's cool, there might be thundershowers or great buildups of dark cumulus clouds, an aerial landscape to compensate for the boredom of the prairie landscape, there would be gangs of neighborhood kids gathered for great games of "Kick the Can" or "hide and Seek", but the afternoon, the tortuous long afternoons of summer, they were death.
The Lost Lemon Mine
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Lost
- Hits: 2129
Highly doubtful, but it's a great story. And if you're living in Calgary it might make an interesting day trip or two to the mountains to explore.
Link: http://www.wardcameron.com/Writing/Article_01-LostMine.htm
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