Walked into the grocery store with my daughter yesterday to grab a few odds & ends while we were waiting for her session of flag football to start. And when I approached the deli counter the two employees were engaged in a friendly chat, and the younger one was sending the elderly one a text with some information. I smiled at them both upon approach and nodded politely which they both saw, and we stood quietly beside the digital weight, and ticket printer to ask for the items we wanted. And the bell was right there, within arm’s reach, but so were both employees whom we had indirectly interacted with via smile, and a partial nod. Only for the younger one (whom was working the counter) to wander away. The older woman called out to the younger one three times before the younger one came out. Now I feel as though had I walked to the counter, nodded & smiled and then rang the bell for service, right in their faces, that that would have been a “dick move”, so I did not. I could have I suppose, but I felt the smile & nod was courteous and an acknowledgement that we would like service. Perhaps I am wrong. Now if nobody had been standing out front talking I would ding the bell. No problem there. We were served, and only waited an additional fifteen seconds or possibly more, and that’s not the issue for me. My issue was the bell. It feels icky to ding the bell right in someone’s face. Like hello, I see you, I acknowledge you, I’m walking over to… DING!, it feels both impatient, and rude to ding the bell when workers are present. I know I would hate to get dinged while present at the counter I worked at. Oblivious employee walking away or not.
But, here we are on Thursday and both of the library programs are done, but the late swimming sessions have begun. So not out of the woods yet. We had people around for a swim, lunch, and a visit yesterday. It was nice, if a bit busy of a day to have three big things going on. All of which were very physical for the kids. I broached the subject of finding more similarly married with children friends for us to golf with, but with the caveat that they must like golf (but not too much), be ok at it (but not too good) and be loosey goosey with the rules enough to keep pace of play moving forward because we are all kind of terrible! That’s my kind of golf buddy. Not a rules stickler. Not a faux PGA tour miser taking every stroke ever so seriously. Those folks can eat my ass. Not my tempo!
So far I think I have found at least three people of similar interest level whom we can golf with as a couple. These are $45.00 courses, so we aren’t flying anywhere, or doing multi day road trips to get to another province to play. Not that Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or PEI aren’t lovely, but I don’t golf enough as it is to justify that kind of cash layout, when I have not tried 99.99% of the courses near me. Maybe if I had exhausted all public and semi private courses that would make sense, but I have not, so it doesn’t.
Today is the last of the month so I will need to send out invoices. That’s a good thing. That means work being done on the regular, and in this economy, with this much uncertainty, that’s fantastic for a freelancer like me. Do I wish my book sales had taken off (sure I do) but I wrote those books to fulfill a dream I had, not because I thought for a second that it would get me anywhere but satisfied I accomplished a childhood dream — twice! Boom! Which is why I’m making the effort to play my guitar more often, to get my fingers dirty with clay once more, to paint & draw, and to work on assembling my resin mecha kit too. I’m just a cleaning, purging, artsy fartsy machine as of late. I have parts laid out for a Taekwondo belt display for my eldest daughter. Spent a whole lot of time on the table saw, and belt sander prepping those bits and pieces. I’m in slow work, high creative energy mode. Trying to do everything I have on the go, and not rush out to spend money. Tighten the belt just a notch or two, and work on what I’ve got. I have some painting to do in order to finish my children’s book. I’d love to get that published up on here by the end of October. In all honesty I think I need to redo almost all of my illustrated pages, except for just one or two that I still like, and am happy with. But that’s alright. Self doubt will make you try a little harder, get a little more creative. I hope! Add another tick to my list of childhood dreams made real. Releasing a music album is going to be a tough one. But! He says, I do have audio tracks available here, but it’s just me talking. So kinda sorta, but not really applicable? I’m not proficient enough musically to make my own songs, as of yet. Watch my YouTube channel and you’ll see that very quickly.
My list of childhood dreams also requires me to release a comic book I created myself, and that shit will go hard, if it goes at all. I’ve sold a painting, and a sculpture or two before. It’s just that the scale of the thing is greatly reduced. I call a one off a win, rather than having to make hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars doing any one thing on the list. The intrinsic value of accomplishment is what means something to me at this stage. Sure I’d love for any one thing to just take off or what have you, but that’s not the driving force of why I need to do them.
Wow look at me getting long in the tooth here today with this lengthy post. Have a great Thursday. Temperatures seem more reasonable. Touch grass! Ha. Ciao Bella.
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 