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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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And the time draws ever nearer. I'm at a bit of a loss, the Italian Waiter leaves end of July, were I to leave then as well it would look like sabotage. It would be, but still amazingly satisfying to stick it to the nephew, throw him in with a bunch of less-than sympathetic new waiters, who'd tire of his bullshit and maybe pay him what he's worth, or walk out. Tell him before the vacation so he could spend the entirety of it stressing out about his return. It would be fair...just...deserved...
...still, it violates my own codes of conduct. Somewhat. It's time to go, I owe them nothing, they've offended me more ways than I can count, still, there is my own integrity, and so I resolve to give notice after the vacation, set departure to September 21, allow time for packing up, moving, ordering locker, ...
There's a lot to be done. A lot of these finds, the Table and Chairs, will have to be sold off, there's no more room in the locker, And while I'm on this Zen binge of reduction I should visit the locker, sell off what I can, make space....I need to start now...
A dozen, or two, adverts on Kijiji, to lighten my load, sell off the extraneous shit, if I'm lucky at a profit but I'd be thrilled to break even, and then it will be time to move. West, to the Enchanted Valley, and in those rare free moments I look for jobs and houses to rent and begin to imagine a better life. Soon...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Saturday Morning, 9:45, after all the garage sales fit to peruse I head home up 14th Street. Already, outside the liquor store at the bottom of the hill there's a line up of the usual suspects...
The 14 Street Panhandlers, grown now to practically a community that lives off the medians and by wandering desperately sober into traffic, they're at every intersection, 17th Ave, 12th Ave, 11th Ave, Kensington Road, the roadworks have backed up traffic and increased their captive audience by twofold, triple even...
...and there's a few I recognize from outside the Ship, the locals, there's a few of the early morning bottle pickers who've already filled their bags and redeemed them for cash, they're all outside the liquor store at the bottom of the hill in an orderly line, of sorts, chatting about the night before, waiting for it to open...
The 10 O'Clock Alcoholics.
Up the hill, past my apartment to the liquor store by my place, it's 10:00 AM now, surely, no line but the parking lot is full. I've a bit of a taste, time for a nap before work, inside, the liquor store filled with the more marginally acceptable alcoholics, the ones with cars and a place to live and party, those still carrying on from the night before, whores and tarts still up looking to take the edge off of too many lines, bleary eyed and checking you out, no shit, who's in a liquor store at 10 AM on a Saturday morning?, but we're all in this together...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1951
Now it's supposed to be my day off, but it was busy last night and the waiter who was supposed to get Monday off had to work, and we're all on guard, it could happen to us, business has been strange...
...we thought it was Graduation, but only for a couple of the tables, the rest, well, the 7th Wave, the peculiar synchronized arrival of old and new customers, walk-ins, the restaurant filled, some loathsome political figures, some pleasant-enough regulars, an odd night, busy, busier by far than the weekend...
...and tonight, looking busy as well, my evening off is not assured. As if to make certain I'd show the owner tells me he's booked an appointment with me to meet a rep from Open Table, they've been harassing us for our business, he isn't sure. He knew it was my day off, pretends he didn't, I say nothing, I'm counting the days...My job is to get all the information and translate it for him. A couple of things, most of our customers (existing) are way outside of technologies age bracket, and most certainly the owner is. However "Simple" and easy it is to use it's probably not of any use here...
...the Nephew, he invites himself to sit in. Of anyone here, he should be the most technologically savvy, he spends days gaming on end at home, days on end at the restaurant on his cell-phone, and however we implement this he'll be in charge, I have plans, I'm comfortable with this, especially when he hijacks the conversation to ask questions...
I don't have a lot. Costs? $.35 cents per online reservation made through our website, $2.50 per person per online reservation made through their website. No hardware required, other information, unfortunately they can't tell us how many new customers this will bring us (the most important question in my books, otherwise we're paying them to do what we already do well enough ourselves...). I gather everything we need, tell them to get back to us in a couple of days. The nephew continues, talks, asks questions for about 10 more minutes.
When we're done, we're not so busy, I'm going home. I review the information with the owner, the nephew, he has some questions for me. It turns out he didn't listen to, didn't understand a single thing she said. He only understood the $200.00 set up fee (which, like any cable/internet company they said they'd waive, this is the BS "loss leader", the free incentive, like when your cable company says they'll install that cable/internet/satellite dish for free, a regular $1,000,000.00 value, it's all BS), didn't understand they'd waive it, didn't understand how he'd be getting the reservations, didn't understand anything, and he will be the one in charge...He think's it's a good idea. I'm happy and agree...
"We'll implement it in September" I tell him, and he's excited...
Me, I'm leaving, my regular scheduled day off now once again my own, yet I'm feeling somehow that it's a bit of a reprieve...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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And now the pox is mostly gone and the scars are healing, the flesh is almost done shedding from my hands and my hearing is back in one ear and it's time now to fix the other...
It seemed like something that should just fix itself, earlier in the week, when I was entirely deaf, I could pinch my nose and blow or yawn and get hearing out of one ear or the other, but never both...peculiar, and after a too vigorous attempt to clean the left ear found that by default it became the deaf one...
Never mind, use a syringe to rinse the ear, lie in the tub, somehow or another it feels as if you could only just dive a bit deeper the pressure would sort everything out, ...
but it didn't, and this morning the pressure from the inside was growing uncomfortable, again with the syringe and some Hydrogen Peroxide this time. And it feels like I've woken something deep in my head, the percolating, the bubbles, the amplified noise and tickling, it's like a giant centipede in my head has woken up and is scrambling about in my brains, tickling, stinging, or a nest of ants, and the more you consider it the more awful the possibility becomes...
Empty ear out, repeat, a dozen times at least, two dozen, 3 dozen q-tips later and it's marginally better, time now for a few drops of Olive Oil, keep them in the ear with kleenex...
...and finally, 2 hours later at least, they're clear. I can hear. A bit more cleaning, to get out any gunk, a few more syringes of warm water over the tub, maybe another drop of oil or two and I'll be good as new...
I know I'll regret this when I go to work...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Now it;s been 3 weeks since any real treasures, every weekend hitting the parades of Garage sales, finding nothing. In a day, 2 or 3 dozen sales, a couple of pairs of sunglasses, a book, 128 copies of "50 Shades of Grey", 98 copies of "50 Shades Darker", 102 copies of "50 Shades Freed", all of which should be, would be terrific conversation starters with the voluble hostesses, but I can't bring myself to address such commonplace tastes and deviance, it's the fashion now, after all...
...Until you find the riding crop, which paired with the books suggests ...
...only $2.00, can't have enough of these, begin the conversation..."Are you a horsey person? What happened to your pony? Do you have any other riding equipment...", or, the oversharing "I have a saddle...".
***
SO three weeks and I was due to hit..an early start, St. Edmunds, I'm late, they started early, but I still get a pair of shoes for a twonie and an antique drafting table...
This is a perfect project, clean the terrible paint off the base (when was that shade of brown ever fashionable?), wax the cast iron, maybe paint the wheels a fire-engine red. Swap out the pine tabletop for an old piece of oak and Voila! a fine new desk...
From here to another, rummage sale in my hood, it's bad, a few stops along the way, I pass this sign:
Hippies, of course, but the fine taste in car betrays a modest assemblage of crap, still, a rusty geology pick for a dollar and a pack of tarot cards. Ask the hippies if their moving to Nelson (the hammocks all over the back yard, are they renting the house or the yard I wonder?), they think about it, seems like a great idea, hadn't crossed their mind...
Leave them, there's other sales, find an antique key for another $2.00 (a couple hundred years old at least), can't leave that, some other trifles, then home to unload the car...
From here, the drafting table the big find, I set out again...and discover that Kensington is having it's neighborhood sale, and I missed it, a shame, it's over now, mostly just kids stuff left, still a nice walk through the neighborhood and I turn up some mouthpieces for trumpets/trombones...
There will be something to be done with these...
And that's it! Not a bad day, although after the table the treasures were walking away from Kensington while I checked the wrong sales in my hood, a bad call, but they weren't advertised and so it goes...