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Ambitious Cat
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2074
Outside, having a cigarette, the cat sits beside me when a jackrabbit bounces up.
It's spring and the neighborhood is saturated with animals pairing off, the other day a mallard and drake couple were soliciting breadcrumbs on my front step, something rather romantic about their engagement that invited my blessing, the cat lurking behind the screen door, somehow mistaking my lures as baiting for her benefit....
When they met her they stopped coming around. Still, for a few days they were good company.
Anyways, outside, having a cigarette with my cat when up bounds a jackrabbit.
Now the rabbits, they're everywhere, and this is a fair-sized hare, the cat lays her ears low and begins to stalk him.
The hare, he's not afraid, not of me, not of her, and continues to nibble the grass on the lawn as she stalks him.
She's ambitious.
She hangs out and continues the charade for only a minute or two after I've finished, somehow she's realized that a hare is a different piece of work than a mouse or a sparrow, and abandoning her hunt joins me inside.
Trapped by future plans
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2035
"It's only temporary" I tell myself, and resolve to look for work my next day off...
This job, it's day to day, the money is good, you can bank on it, but the hours, 13, 14 hour days, 3 to 5 days a week, they're killing me.
And the money's good only absolutely, the summing up, add up the hours spent at work and it's only fair, the split days off, lack of stat holidays, it soon becomes merely mediocre.
And there's the precariousness of the position - the fact that you can be fired, let go, at any time. Or perhaps, like so many that have gone before me, simply have enough and not go in again. In fact the big thing that keeps me going in is the fact that each day, each shift, could be my last...
But the day off comes and it's spent with kids and napping, patchwork recuperation for the coming week.
And there are the plans....
Time off in August. 3 weeks in a row. The last 2 days off in a row I had were at the beginning of January, August, it's only 3 months away....
Meanwhile summer approaches and I'm trapped in the restaurant, sunny days and cool spring evenings, outside the birds, sunsets, the ice has thawed enough on the Bow that I can begin again my hunt for arrowheads and Native artifacts, art projects beckon, my life is calling....
"3 months" I tell myself, I owe the children a decent vacation, it's been years...
But this vacation, it comes at the expense of seeing them during the week, and visits now become the cheapened "Take them for dinner and tell me about your week", not the parenting that I signed up for...
And I owe myself too, and life slips by...
I buy lottery tickets, but even if I won a million dollars still I would be broke, there are the innumerable claims upon my finances that could be made by relatives and ex's, the fair division of winnings would not see me take more than a fifth, a seventh, and a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars, not even a house....
I'm hanging on for the vacation, but after the vacation then what? The thought of returning to the restaurant kills me. And I'm hanging in for benefits as well, I'm in desperate need of a dentist and am loathe to spend several months income on restoring my smile to a marginal state. Benefits will reduce that expense. I don't want to lose my benefits....
The money I'm making, the money I'm saving, there are debts still to be paid, vacations to be taken, teeth to be fixed, vague plans to open a cafe, a business of my own, these sacrifices will not be without meaning...
And I'm like a gambler on a losing streak, throwing good money after bad, chasing my losses, trapped by future plans....
Lists of lists
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2073
Nothing gets done unless I've written it down.
And so I make lists. Day to day lists of things I should get done, like take out the garbage or doing laundry or posting to my blog.
The adding of the item to the list frequently takes longer than the execution of the item would itself.
There's something comforting about a list, a sort of remedial map for the stupid, the ensuring that things aren't forgotten or mislaid (as so often they are), the perverse satisfaction of scratching items off when finally they're completed...
It helps me to recognize when things are done.
I've lists for outstanding art and literary projects, blog posts, finances, bills, menial day to day tasks, and even, in a recent stroke of genius, lists of lists.
A book, then spreadsheets, of things that need to get done. No one is more organized than myself.
Not my lucky day...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2080
It wasn't my lucky day. 45 minutes in line with the book fairy who runs the book stall at Hillhurst on Sundays, fortunately he's not too friendly.
No great treasures, some beanie babies for the daughter (odd ones like Godzilla...), a small opal pendant, silver plate vase, a stack of books rejected by book fairy as unsalable.
Interesting books, possibly, 1st hand travelogues from the 50's, "The Ascent of Everest" by John Hunt, "Tibetan Marches" by André Migot, others similar.
I love 1st hand travel narratives, so despite the rather dated prose styles they should be enjoyable.
And the lottery, my theory didn't even come close. Still, to test this theory properly would take hundreds of trials and thousands of dollars, so perhaps I shouldn't give up so early....
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