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The centenarian & Yeeting a Skunk
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 10
Working extra shifts this week, a little drowned in debt and this needs to be immediately addressed.
Work, busy, the last blaze of summer through the long weekend and then into ordinary time.
Thursday, some seniors in, one of them an older gentleman and I hear it mentioned that he's 100 years old. And yes, he's old, but lucid, conversational, mobile, fit, still downhill skis, and I'm so chuffed to have met him and I suspect that my enthusing over his remarkable condition makes him a little shy, he blushes, shrugs it off, but I've never in my life met someone doing so well at 100. Most seniors I've met start falling apart in their 80's, even earlier, and here he is up dancing a jig...
***
After work, home, outside having the prohibited fag and I'm remarkably impressed, trying to share with a couple of the neighbours the tale of the Centenarian, only Ben has his own tale. That they were watching a skunk walking down in the shadows when out from a bush stepped a homeless person, who immediately "Yeets" the skunk up by his tail and walks back into the bushes. The smell is still strong, but clearly this person didn't care, whether he was foraging and the skunk ended up being eaten, or whether he was just another crackhead doing crackhead shit is unknown...
***
Friday, busy, the waitress I'm working with has gotten another job, has to start at 7:30, has gotta be out of the restaurant by 7:00, it's not so busy she can't leave. But Saturday is busy, and when she dashes out the door she leaves the place a mess, not having set or bussed a single one of her tables, no side duties, and I've got a table of 11, 6, 7, 4, 2, 2, and they keep coming and I'm not keeping up; damn pissed at her but she won't be around for much longer, and I know - where she's going, the other job - well, they turn over staff like toilet paper, use a couple of times, throw away, find another, the standing order, perpetually hiring, and this girl, well, we put up with as many sicknesses and absences that others will not...
Wait and see. We'll already interviewing her replacement.
***
This morning, up and at-em, dishes, done, bed, made, kitchen floor, swept, hall, swept, pillowcases and sheets changed, my place is a mess, too much stuff by far, and for every 20 books I take to the bookstore I find 1 that I'm not sure I've read, or want to reread, and my desk is cluttered to the max, towers of books, shit that needs to be dealt with but just not yet, not right now, I sort a couple of boxes, nope, all the boxes here are full of books or old writings and empty journals. There's only so far I can go.
***
And the reason I'm being so productive is that I've been assigned a miniseries to watch, and have begun it, and while it's excellent (very well done) I'm loathing the story. I have no points of reference to any of these people, it's a British production, filled with characters that while true-to-life I despise and every episode is like sticking a needle in my eyes, brain, it's visceral in the worst of ways and yet - since I so frequently recommend films and series to others, I'm on the hook to watch this.
But it's a chore, not a pleasure, and we'll see what the payoff is...
Gold Nuggets and Tent Pegs
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 10
The title says it all. Now were I finding these things pulling up Tent Pegs I'd be back with a metal detector and shovel within hours - this is a stroke of good fortune that I'd need to be out and about a great deal more than I've been. Anyways the fact that he didn't give a more precise area suggests he might be off doing that very thing...
Free Pho &
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 86
Meanwhile, Tuesday, day off, a few chores done before I flushed it down the toilet.
Books, done, I went light, big books, "The Complete Charles Dickens..." heavy to carry, light on the cash. But they took them.
An email from a local restaurant, I'm due a free Pho, "won", I downloaded their app and then never used it, probably a win-back on their promotions front. So - for lunch, Pho it is. Pho is good. And after Pho I get an email promising me a free dessert, but that will have to wait until next week.
Neighbour, "Kramer" needs a hundred dollars to invest in her online crypto scheming, she'll e-transfer me the money. "Sure" I say and duty obliged wait for the transfer. It's not forthcoming. She comes over and I am a little sauced and confrontational and mention it. No money arrives. Now - not a big deal, I never lend money (anymore, not since Sam at Da Guido's) with the expectation of return, but this woman has perverted the word "borrow" to such an extent I feel obliged to correct her.
She's not pleased. She's down thousands borrowing from the Bank of Rod, and Rod's been a little too lax in collecting. Bank of Rod owes the Bank of Alberta thousands due to Rod's easy lending policies. Bank of Rod is exhausted.
Neighbour is not happy.
Fortunately she walks out before things get ugly. They were already ugly, just getting more so, I hate dealing with money, find it vulgar, as must she, but sometimes things have to be said.
Today, work, another shift picked up, I have bills, need to work more so neighbours can "borrow" more, and bills of my own long overdue, so - Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho...
Big Cats in Britain
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 41
This has been a thing since long before I lived in Britain, and continues to be a thing even now.
Big cats, Melanistic Leopards, Pumas or wildcats, supposedly from the 60's when they were kept as pet and then set free...
Amazing to think that a viable population of big cats could survive undetected in a such a highly urbanized area the size of Great Britain, roughly 1/3 the size of Alberta or Saskatchewan.
Links: https://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/new-dna-evidence-confirms-presence-of-big-cats-in-the-uk & https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/big-cats-in-british-countryside
Maybe Bigfoot is real after all? I need to talk to Mrs. Notkenny Hicks...
And this gives hope for the Thylacine, "Tasmanian Tiger", frequently reported as sighted but no evidence has been forthcoming. That would be a success story.
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