Stories, Excerpts, Backroads
The full moon and Mars at opposition means we are all aligned.
Mars doesn’t seem as bright when it is beside a full moon, you have to squint.
The moon passed in front of Mars, occulting the bright red planet.
An occult means different things. For me it puts things in perspective.
Tonight was cloudy, luckily the camera sees better than I.
Cut a Christmas tree this weekend. I had to drag it for quite a ways so it may be flat on one side.
The dogs got along. Lola ran while Willow stayed close. Got the truck up the first branch to the first landing. It bucked a few times looking for traction. Lisa wouldn’t have liked it. It was fine. It is when the truck starts pushing snow that you have to watch out. Before long you’ll be sitting on a heap of snow with no traction and every spin of the tires digs you deeper.
My shins hurt the next day from breaking trail. Willow and Lola slept good, even into the next day.
The tree is in a bucket of water in the basement. If it was outside it would be eaten by the deer.
***
I’ve been enjoying driving the snow covered roads. A little bit of drift here and there. Once and awhile I put it in four-wheel drive. Usually when I have to get somewhere quick without spinning. On the highway regardless of conditions it stays in two-wheel, you burn too much gas otherwise.
***
Got a half pound of beef jerky for a good price. Some paté cheaper than bologna. Lisa and I are looking at the sales. I won a pound of coffee on the weekend for being the 50th person through the till. I’ll take it. I’m stocking up on protein and Peruvian blueberries. It won’t be long and we will have to knock off a wild turkey for Christmas.
***
I made fennel liquor in October and it’s just about ready.
Most of the day on a plow, jumping off here and there to shovel. The housekeeping manager hit a deer coming in. She was fine. Her KIA looks fucked. The deer dead as a doornail. To make matters worse a big dog ran onto the road to feed on the deer. Stressing her further that the dog would then be hit on the road.
***
A young houseman wondered where his team was. The team are the housekeepers.
He said, I think they have left. Can I go home?
I said, I can’t see them leaving early. Call them on the radio.
OK, he said, but looked dejected.
He told me later his girlfriend was home alone. Their young son was having his first day at daycare. They live in staff housing and everyone else was at work.
He said, she is home alone.
They probably don’t get a lot of alone time.
If I was the boss I would have given him the rest of the day off. With the advice to pull off on the way home and jerk off, as not to disappoint her with his pent up anticipation.
That’s probably why I’m not the boss.
The sun came out a good hour before noon. That’s winter. It’s lovely. Lisa says I have to change my shirt daily because I sweat shovelling and stink.
Just the way she says it turns me on.
It seems winter has caught up with us. Not a lot of snow, but it is coming. The temperatures have cooled down. Yesterday it was minus 19. Cold enough.
Lisa and I have been busy with our various jobs and with family. We are old enough to know how important it is to make time for the people we love, especially our grandkids, Cooper and Scarlett.
Winter is my favourite time of year. The air feels good. The snow is fresh, plainly cleansing the mountains and valley bottom. The streams run strong depositing icicles on the low hanging branches. And not least of all, the slippers, covers and fireplace all feel good after a day outside. That’s the old man in me talking.
Crazy dreams, cozy. People alive, that haven’t been seen for awhile and plenty of dead people too. All the people I love or did.
Had my head down today. In and out of a plow, shovelling snow. It was just a skiff. Winter eases us into its season. Sometimes it can be a bastard. Freezing beards, crawling up ankle socks, long underwear and Lullulemon britches, which are similar if not the same thing, when I wear them my ass looks anything but nice.
Wood heat, electric blankets. Putting your head under the covers and flexing. Whatever it takes to keep warm.
Shovelling, plowing, gathering around the fireplace.
All those friends and family in the dreams working hard to keep warm.
Socked in down below. We headed for higher ground. Lisa said, she hoped it wasn’t a harbinger to come. The valley bottom can close in on you. Sometimes the only way is to meet the blue halfway.
***
The stores had bare shelves this weekend. The only things left were expensive. Sobeys had a two rib roast, about three pounds for $119. I often wonder who pays that or does that roast go to waste. It could be it is a long weekend and the tourists are out in force. Prices go up on long weekends. It was the same in all three grocery stores.
We keep food in the freezer for these occasions. Some shank meat, garlic, onions, beef broth and red wine makes for a good stew.
***
Our national broadcaster, CBC, gives us news and entertainment, and also lets us know, or suggests how we should think and prepare. More than likely exceeding their mandate. Lately, there has been plenty of articles about belt tightening and preparing for the worst. If they are to believed, the economy is going to go in the shitter. Higher prices and interest rates, less medical, education and safety nets.
***
Canadians, unlike Americans don’t blame our politicians. We concede it is world wide. Americans put up stickers of President Biden pointing at the increased price at the pumps with the caption, ‘I did that’.
***
It is hard to know what will happen next. We are lucky to live at a time in history, that we don’t die of an ear or tooth infection at nine years old. We get to live to the oldest age in human history. Our warring has slowed. Technology has spared us from the fate of our ancestors. Yet we can only think about how bad things are for us. Plenty of people on this planet have reason to complain, but here, in Canada and the US, for the most part, we do not.
Plenty of honking today as flocks of Swans made their way south. The cold is coming, the weather report says -19°c tomorrow.
Pulled a few more turnips. Walked the tracks to get closer to the Swans. They are difficult to sneak up on, especially with the Willow dog.
A few took off into the wind and made the turn directly overhead. Deep voices and large wingspan, mocking us bound to the ground.
It feels good to walk those tracks, hear the birds, squinting loosing the ruck.
It’s damn near winter, the snow could fly anytime in the valley bottom, it’s wetter than a river otter’s pocket. The garden still has kale, cabbage, carrots, turnips, fennel, beets and cannabis (since it was legalized you can’t give it away).
***
We had fourteen kids came to our door for Halloween. I bought full size chocolate bars to give away. A group of what looked like 10 or 12 year old girls yelled trick or treat. One was dressed in a fur jacket, miniskirt, fishnet stockings and high leather boots. I can’t imagine the conversation with her parents who let her go out in that costume.
***
I made soup on the weekend from a few bones picked up at the store. I browned them in the oven and then made a beef stock. I added grilled, cabbage, leeks, turnip, beets and carrots. All from the garden.
The soup was exceptionally gaseous. I tried to work alone. Warned Lisa. Even Willow seemed disgusted.
When I make soup I like it to last for a few days. I had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This was the soup that kept giving.
Last night Lisa made Chili. It was a welcome reprieve from the explosive beef vegetable bisque. Not nearly as combustable, Lisa bringing me down gently. I have to get the dog to start trusting me again.
***
Had to deal with a miserable couple today. He was an ugly little cuss, he looked like Danny Devito, except fatter, shorter, uglier and not funny.
He looked at me only as someone who should serve him. That isn’t a problem with me as long as you treat me with respect.
Some people feel entitled. Sure enough, I checked his plates, he was from Alberta, they were vanity plates. With a Fuck Trudeau sticker. These guys are a dime-a-dozen out here. We get the worst of the worst from our neighbours to the east. They’re not all like that.
I took his plate down like I used to take a number of a hockey player that cheap shoted me. You never know when you might run into these arseholes again.
***
After work I chopped wood, tended the pile and filled the woodbox. About as good a job a man can do. Calming the mind. Chopping, assessing, figuring the mix of wood to make a perfect fire.
Spent the morning in the studio cutting cards and booklets.
Our paper cutter was made by Westman and Baker, a Canadian Company. They went out of business around 1923.
Perhaps their equipment was too good and they hadn’t built in obsolescence like companies like, Apple, Ford, Facebook and just about any successful company. It is never about making things that last anymore. It’s always about selling more stuff.
I’ve used plenty of high tech cutters. They are easier to use, but don’t do as good of job and they break down, until you relent and buy a new one.
This cutter has been around. My father used to sit me on it in the back shop of The Lake Windermere Valley Echo newspaper and job printing building.
Even then I used to ask he put the blade down.
Later we used it in our printing business. It was the only cutter we ever had and served us well.
Now it sits in our studio. It doesn’t get used like it once did.
This cutter depends on feel. The pressure on the paper and the way the blade feels as you draw it down over the surface of job work. I can tell instantly if I am creating a burr on the spine of a booklet or cube of business cards.
To work with this reliable tool is very satisfying.
The garden is still kicking, turnips harder than algebra, cabbage holding on despite the hounds taking a bite, leeks and sunflowers.
It’s been a sunny fall. Now things are changing. The leaves are being blown off the trees in bushelfuls.
***
CBC reported the Civil Service has bloated by another 35,000 government jobs since Covid. More defined pensions to pay out. Everyone is happy, especially if you work for the government. These employees had three paid statutory holidays in September. Nice work if you can get it.
***
Until I was forty I worked for myself. Since then I’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with a supervisor who was a white supremacist, a lazy cuss, who would take his following, mostly from Alberta, up Findlay Creek to shoot their guns while praying for a breakdown in society so they could shoot the mud people. He was a Nazi supporter and holocaust denier and Pentecostal Minister. None of that hampered him from succeeding in the shit hole town he landed in.
***
Another guy I worked with, at the School District, beat his wife and kids. He told me they deserved it and he had to sleep in his van, during the day, because it took it out of him.
***
Even another guy at the School District, a manager, had a crush on a custodian with fake tits. He was useless in every way, so was she, even the boob job was bad. They deserved each other. His claim to fame was collecting generous government severance packages when it was determined he wasn’t fit for government. This is very difficult to do. Once let go another branch of government rehired him. Nice work if you can get it.
***
I remember those three fuckers whenever I get frustrated with my job.
Palliser Pass 