works of wanderlust

Tag: merrily along

  • merrily along, two

    The internets are full of crazy these days—and if it isn’t flat out nuts, it has probably been generated by an AI chatbot—so here is a few more good news, good vibe, life isn’t all wrinkly grapes reports from my week.

    My positives this past week were…

    The weather cooperated enough that I was able to mash up a few great summertime activities, turning on some tunes on the deck with the pergola shade up and writing out in the backyard instead of a cafe. The dog sat in the grass looking super contented and I got some vibes out my back door.

    It’s berry season, and my garden is full of fruit-bearing bushes and trees. Need I write more? Saskatoons, raspberries, haskaps, and soon—very soon—a tree bursting with juicy plums are just a picking away.

    I mentioned that the Kid got a summer job, but then a couple weeks later got her first paycheque and if there was ever an example of unfiltered joy through a text message, she sent me a dozen of them that morning. And then I think she stopped and bought herself a treat to celebrate.

    I’ve mentioned in other posts that I bought myself a gym membership to the local recreation centre. Some might not look at this as anything but a kind of fitness burden that they have taken on, but having access to some drop in classes and, yeah, the swimming pool is a definite mood boosting positive addition to my days.

    I have been mucking around with electronic music on my various devices, and have reached what I’m calling the curration stage—that’s the point where I am feeling done with just mucking around and am organizing things for a more learning-centric approach to the tools. It’s hard to explain without diving trench-deep into the details, but basically I’ve been weeding and pruning my toys so that I have a cleaner slate to do more experimentation-type stuff with sounds. 

    We have been more conscious about buying “Canadian” stuff lately, reorienting our spending, and have been finding lots of treasures in the form of better coffees, better beers, better fruit, and even better vibes.

    We were able to make a full salad last night for dinner from just stuff that came out of the garden in our backyard. Lettuce, beets, berries! Yum.

    We went for lunch in the Highlands neighbourhood this past weekend and I ate one of the best burgers I’ve had in a year atop the rooftop patio of a little place over there. Add to that a tasty sour beer and garlic fries and it was a divine meal worth reporting here again.

  • 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.