works of wanderlust

Category: life & stuff

Generally just words and thoughts on the progress of my day-to-day.

  • weekend wrap, ten

    I spent this past weekend either prone on the couch entering a vegetative state whilst playing video games, or scouting out the north side of the city for various barely-connected reasons. The weather was hot enough to be uncomfortable, but not so hot to be an excuse, and the smattering of rain here and there only helped me avoid mowing the lawn and feel guilty about spending time in front of the screens.

    All that laziness aside, we did accomplish a few things this past weekend…

    After a chill Friday evening, Saturday picked up considerably.

    The Kid had a party to go to across town, so we dropped her off and headed up to the north side, a part of town we only rarely visit and only rarely because it is just a pain to drive all over town when the only big difference is the names on the restaurants. But we were over there, so we went for burgers at a place called Fox Burger up in the Highlands and sat out on the rooftop patio sipping beers and enjoying the sun.

    A little stroll around the area brought us back to where we had parked and then we made a kind of backwards trek to our own party to hang out with friends who were having a board game gathering.

    That was short-lived however, and we only stayed long enough to play one round of a mediocre and what seemed to be a pretty unbalanced chaos game called Dragon and Flagon—which I lost miserably at, which may have clouded my impressions.

    We skipped out before they ordered dinner and went back home to spend some quality time with the dog before we were off again to the theatre. The touring production of The Lion King was in town and we have had tickets for about a year—and Saturday was the night.

    After the show we took another meandering detour to the northside, skirting around a literal detour on the bridge where the cops had it shut down with a “forensics” investigation—ugh—and picked up the Kid from her party before she turned into a pumpkin at midnight.

    Sunday morning a got a little shafted running again. Everyone was off in the mountains doing or working the big Sinister 7 ultramarathon, so it was either run solo again or change into my swimming gear and do laps. I chose the latter.

    After drying off and scarfing some lunch we went shopping for clothes. I have been stumbling into some professional efforts lately and needed some fresh work-appropriate threads. This took us on an adventure to West Edmonton Mall where I found a great pair of dress pants but the colour I wanted was in the wrong size and the size I wanted was in the wrong colour. Back to the northside we went where the store staff had checked inventory and sent us up to Londonderry Mall, the mall that time forgot, where my new digs were waiting.

    The Kid and I took a pair of dogs for a walk, one of them being ours and the other being a favour.

    Then we cooked a nice bit of salmon for dinner on the barbecue and settled back in for the evening.

    Not bad for a lazy weekend in July.

  • weekend wrap, nine

    Somehow I missed a couple weeks in a row of weekend wraps, which is particularly flustering because one of those weekends was a long weekend, and the Canada Day long weekend to boot. I blame the distraction on that my weekend actually ended on Wednesday, so my headspace was a little out of sync with reality.

    Excuses, excuses.

    So, all that is to say that while I didn’t give updates on the various outings and barbecues and chores that were accomplished, I’m sure you’ll get the sense that a couple busy weeks transpired and what we were left with was our first full weekend in July …and it was kinda mellow.

    This weekend we…

    Reunioned. The Kid has been housesitting and so it was a big deal that we picked her up after work on Friday and went out for vermicelli bowls for dinner. A week out of the house and it already kinda feels like she moved out, even though by this time next week she’ll be back to being underfoot and in my kitchen making a mess again.

    I was tired, and the air had just enough of a hint of firesmoke that I shut myself up in the house and spent my Friday evening reading. Very exciting, huh?

    Saturday was by far more eventful. We were out of the house by eigh-thirty in the morning and scooted down to the Italian market to pick up our lunch in the form of a big ole spicy italian sandwich.

    Then we drove east. I will now, likely to the objection of the dozens of people who live there but who will never read this, decribe the vague are east of the city as the middle of the middle of nowhere. Yes, there are a scattering of smallish towns and barely cities and other rural things to see dotted across the prairies, but essentially there is very little between here and Saskatoon six hours drive down the arrow-straight highway.  We went two hours east, and then north for a bit, and found ourselves in the middle of the middle of the middle of nowhere where on the one hundred and fifteen year old remains of the family farm we had a little family reunion. The dog was not amused.

    We were back on the road home and back into cell service range again by about seven that evening and home by nine, after which there was not much to do besides chill for a bit and then go to bed.

    I woke to rain. Pouring rain. And a determination of a sort to get in a run come hell or high water, the latter seeming a real possibility. I showed up for run club and ended up plodding out a not quite seven klick run drenched and solo.

    I stayed to for coffee and to warm up after.

    Karin and I did the grocery shopping and then I parked myself in the basement as the rain continued to watch some Netflicks before working myself up to start prepping dinner.

    In the meantime, Karin went to pick up the Kid because they had show tix for downtown on Sunday evening and the Kid had not brought any going out clothes to her housesitting gig. The pair of them ate then disappeared for the evening and I had the house to myself to practice my Japanese and my music, in roughly that order. The dog continued to be unamused.

  • merrily along, one

    I routinely find that I have a hundred little often-good things that I want to post about but (a) I don’t want to post a whole article about and yet (b) I don’t want to lose them in this rambling, barely-read record of our little life here which can so easily drift into complaining or rambling.

    With world events swirling in such frustrating ways it really is easy to get lost in the negativity and yet a piece of me is realizing with crystal clarity that the hopelessness being drilled into us day after day by the media, by the fascists, and by the universe itself is a feature (for them) not an accidental byproduct.  

    “How dare we celebrate the positives while they’re busy burning down the world?” I have been told in maybe not so literal a phrase… but the meaning has always been the same: despair you fool, and now pay us our due.

    So. I want to start a new ‘series’ on this site where I just reflect on some good things that have been going on in our lives.

    Like.

    The Kid got a summer job. I won’t tell you where or necessarily what she is doing, but she is currently getting paid a decent union wage to spend her summer outside with kids and helping the community. The only days I won’t be jealous is when the mosquitos finally come out.

    One of my longer-serving running friends is getting married today. It’s one of those tiny, family only weddings, but we took him for drinks last week and sometime today, atop a streetcar crossing the river he’ll get hitched to his long-time girlfriend, soon-to-be wife. 

    I’ve been reading more. You may have noticed from the review-count on this site, but I’ve read more in the last three months than I have in the last three years, it seems, and losing my patience with the written word while I was trying to write more was a point of distress for me lately. Digging into words as a consumer is a huge positive shift for me.

    Oh, and I finally fixed our television box last night. Two hours it took to figure out that the problem we’ve been having for months and months, the set top box resetting and inexplicable technical fails was in fact a borked power brick. The don’t tell you this but they basically put little computers inside those little power blocks now and become another point of failure. The Wife gets to watch her shows in peace now.

    The dates are secret for obvious reasons, but we booked our trip to Japan later this year. That’s about all I have to share on that for now, except to say that we have flights and hotels scheduled to spend over two weeks in Asia later this year with plans to go to Tokyo Disney, the Ghibli park, and eat a lot of tasty Japanese food. Sorry, we’ll do Korea next time.

    Lately, I’ve been making music. I mean, playing a lot and learning a lot and loving sound for the raw enjoyment of it in my own ears with no expectation of sharing it beyond headphones or my living room walls. The act of learning and honing enough skill on the piano has allowed me to flex musically beyond tinking keys and the exploration of synth sounds is a deep art form.

    Of course, finally, I can’t neglect to tell you that I get free bread all summer. Well, kinda. I stumbled on a (potentially in error) crazy deal at the grocery store where I traded in some of my loyalty points for three bags of bread flour. I think there was likely a zero missing on the redemption value, but everyone gets a break once in a while and me, I have nearly twenty kilos of bread flour thanks to my acute mathing skills in the grocery aisle. 

    See? Good stuff all around.

  • the speed of summer

    Everything grinds to a crawl during summertime.

    Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s just that time of year.

    I’ve got a half dozen projects on the go right now and I’ll tell you exactly how I feel about them: I feel like I shouldn’t be squandering the summer weather sitting in the basement writing code, but damn if it isn’t too hot to be anywhere but the basement writing code right now.

    I set myself up with some strategic planning tools for myself.

    I picked up (yet another) blank notebook and started a kind of quasi-bullet journal. But, instead of tracking my water intake and groovy moods like a moody influencer, I’m using it to keep a concisely organized list of ongoing projects, both personal and professional, as well as a tidy collection of daily goals to meet.

    For example, today my four (semi-personal) tasks to accomplish were:

    • – write a blog post (in progress, hmm?)
    • – add more detail to five of my professional portfolio entries
    • – write 500 words in my novel
    • – make some art

    It all seems pretty banal if you look at it in isolation, but each of those objectives is part of a larger project or hobby I’m trying to cultivate and work on, and each day I have 4 different things to accomplish meaning that each and every day I should theoretically (a) accomplish at least 4 things and (b) move slightly closer to some goal-based efforts.

    It’s either that or nap on the couch watching YouTube, so I’m thinking this way is objectively better. And summer heat excuses be damned.

  • weekend wrap eight

    The last three days have been punctuated by epic thundershowers meaning not only does the lawn now desperately need to be mowed thanks to the rain, but also that it was a good weekend for a time-consuming indoor actitivity.

    This weekend was filled with:

    Games. Anita scored a pair of tickets to the annual Game Con convention over at the expo center, three-day VIP passes, and she apparently had no interest in attending. One ticket to her husband, obviously, but I took the second and spent a huge chunk of the weekend, including Friday, there.

    Friday I got to the con just before lunch, did some of miniatures painting, wandered around, watched a couple demos, and then met up with Chris on his break, who was volunteering there all weekend, and we played some board games in the middle hall.

    I skedattled out of there around five, and chilled with the dog through another thunderstorm as the evening pressed on.

    Saturday I got up and got back to the con to meet Aaron. We did some wandering and product sampling, checked out a lot of the vendor booths and then watched some of the mainstage shows while we ate mediocre poutine. He took off around 2 and I stuck around a little longer to paint another free Warhammer miniature.

    Back home later that afternoon we made dinner and I retreated to the basement to read.

    Sunday morning was a beautiful sunny day and so we logged a nice ten klick run in the river valley.

    Sunday was also a dual event in our house, Karin’s birthday and also Father’s day, so the poor kid was juggling gifts and cards and being in a good mood.

    I had bought Karin a 2 player “duel” variatiaion of another board game we like. Finding good two player games is our new challenge as the parents of a kid just about to launch into university, and we played a couple rounds trying to figure out the rules… then the strategy.

    We walked the dog over to the cafe for something else to do later that afternoon, and then as the evening pressed on we went for a slow but tasty dinner at the nearby sushi place to celebrate the double celebration day.

    And then, just because it had been a busy couple of days, I hunkered down for the rest of the drizzly night to finish off another book in my queue so that I could move onto other things… not that it’s a race or anything.