Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

When Covid comes to town, round seven.

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Earlier this week we learned that my wife’s great grandmother, who is 94 years old, has Covid for the first time in the nearly three years it’s been around. Not only that but at least one farm hand in his seventies has it too. We suspect the second farm hand, also in his seventies has it as well, but is such a heavy smoker with heart issues and a permanent cough/wheeze , that he just hasn’t noticed it yet. How could he, inbetween smokes all he does is cough and wheeze and shake like a leaf in the wind. He’d never know anything was wrong until he woke up dead one morning. He’d shrug and say “Could have been anything?” And float off on his merry way, oblivious to actually being dead. What a guy! But in all seriousness we are concerned for the 94 year old former nurse who grew up with a pet bear, and worked in a mining town for ages before getting married and going to med school. Lots of interesting stories wrapped up in that one believe you me.

Years ago, before I got married, I used to cut grass on the side of my full time job, and one of my clients was in Locust Hill. A brash and harsh old lady, I was told by everyone who knew her. A widower, her former husband had struck it rich by being the guy who built a machine, or series of which, that could consistently dye wool in any colour you like. Their house was huge, set back on an acre or so of lawn, with massive old growth trees. A shed full of relics, and a house stuffed to the tits with art and sculpture. When i met Barb, she was the cold and scathing witch i had been warned of, but as i kept coming back week after week, she started to open the door to chat, then poke a head out of a window, then settle on the porch, and after a month or two she’d invite me in for a meal and we’d talk at length about medicine (i have Crohn’s disease after all) so i don’t shy away from over sharing, or gruesome details. Anyway, in Barb’s youth she worked as a nurse in the sexual reassignment wing of a Toronto Hospital. Went in to great lengths and detail on how they could turn a penis into a vagina, and collect the meaty parts of a vagina and reconstruct a working penis. It was all very interesting and shocking. This was stuff they were doing in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, and into the 90’s after all. I don’t recall when she retired, or under what circumstances, but she was a hoot, a real riot. Couldn’t cook for shit, but was generous with what she made me, and as a side note she didn’t know how her kids would survive after both of them attended Harvard and now ONLY earn $700k a year as of 2006. Ha. I fucking wish to be a $700k pauper. Her husband was a good looking dude. I saw many black and white photos of him in Jeans riding a motorcycle like a stud. Classic striped down low riding bike too. Old style seat with the coiled springs at the back two corners.

Barb died a while back, and I didn’t attend the funeral. I felt bad about that, but I spent a long time thinking about her that weekend. Had a drink in her honour as well, as I recall.

Really makes me sad that neither of my grandpas are around anymore. I really could have picked their brains on my furniture building projects. They both worked making furniture as a skilled profession for decades in Britain. I remember our house used to be stuffed with things they had made. Chairs and tables alike. Shame I can’t get access to all that experience now that I enjoy doing it myself. Details lost to the wind, like the sands of time passing between our finger tips. Books and YouTube will have to suffice for the moment.

August is upon us!

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Albeit the second day of the month, but still it is here! A refreshing long weekend has just passed us by, complete with wind and rain, and a slight break in the humidity! What fun fresh things will happen in this, the eighth month of the calendar year. I know one thing for certain the Back To School commercials are about to kick up a notch, and it’s going to drive my wife nuts. Soon we will be regaled with exhortations of wasted days, lost weeks of the summer holidays. Screams of “I’ve accomplished nothing!”, and a general sense of panic regarding a return to the classroom. I get it. Now with two pandemics the prospect of being around anyone makes my skin crawl. Corona and Monkeypox sitting in a tree, causing death and destruction for you and me, first comes a cough, then comes an itch, if you don’t catch either, you one lucky bitch! *ironic applause break* thank you, thank you. It’s all very real, and upsetting. If you can’t laugh then you’ll only cry about it. Find the funny, like that comedienne says.

230 days of writing just a little bit.

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I’m fairly certain that if you were to analyze the content, style, structure and execution of my writing over the previous two hundred and thirty days, I don’t believe you would find much improvement at all. My writing is choppy, sloppy and at times semi incoherent. But on the plus side, I have stuck with it for nearly eight full months! Wow! Look at me, just going for it. Had a few scares here and there. Forgot about writing once or twice, had a fair few power outages, plus a complete nation wide communications service provider outage that nearly cost me my streak. But Bell was there to see me through at my in-laws place. It has been a ride, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t recall a lot of what I’ve written, stream of consciousness and all. Only a handful of posts have been pre-planned and those would have been a part of my collected works of short fiction/science fiction. Which reminds me, I never did post the finalized book two to Kindle Unlimited. Oh well. I may just revisit both books for a style check, and print them out myself at home, just to have a paper copy. A good enough reason to buy a new working printer. Or so I think.

Would you say I have a plethora? Of colouring pages, yes – certainly.

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Not sure why but everywhere we go we seem to accumulate children’s colouring pages in order to get entered for free stuff. It’s madness. At one event we came home with no fewer than nine! Nine (9) that’s pure insanity. And let me tell you, the quality of drawing and/or paper was at best lackluster. Shoddy drawings on garbage paper. Fit for the pit! In some cases we used the ugliest, cheapo pampered ones to start a bon fire in a friends back yard. If you want to make an impression, buy a good drawing, or pay a talented artist to provide you with an original for you to use. And don’t skimp on the paper. Bleed through of markers, pencil crayons or crayons will mar your final product if you intend to display the ones you get back at your place of business. If 80% of your returned works have bunched holes in them from markers soaking through and ruining the paper, that makes you look bad, not the children. If you’ve never watched kids colour with markers before you should know they wield them like daggers stabbing at the paper, blunting the ends, and scraping the nub over the paper as if they were trying to skin a rhino. It’s all madness and chaos and mayhem. Act accordingly.

Holiday Monday today. Having pancakes with hand made maple syrup. Living the dream, of sorts. Also we are now officially into August with only five weeks of summer holidays left to go. Trying my best not to count down the days, but I am keeping track of them, that’s like, totally different. Not even in the same vicinity, really.

The Myopic Vision of a Misanthrope.

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A thought occured to me the other night while I was reading an article on the internet. I no longer suffer the pangs of missing out when it comes to back to school season. I really enjoyed both college and university, so I used to feel really anxious once I had started working, about not getting to start something new and exciting every September. I felt that draw for a very long time. Much longer than I would have deemed necessary. It was really bad when I lived in a university town. Watching people move in, meeting new friends, joining clubs, taking exciting classes, going to parties and having freedom for the first time. Brings back a lot of great memories for me. That time of my life was a blast. Not all good, but generally positive.

I’m very happy with where I am, and what I have going on so I no longer feel that draw. If they ever build a uni or college near us I could see myself taking a night class here or there of something interesting. Or learning video editing to aid my freelancing credentials. Revisit web building, or learning some new fangled 3d sculpting program. Who knows, the future education I take on is my oyster, as it were.

I used to read those university ranking articles religiously, but now, not so much. Oh well. To freelancing, building furniture, playing guitar & piano, model kit building, D & D terrain building, and DIY’ing at home for the family. I have a lot going on right now as it is. My learning is gradual and unending, rather than condensed and hyper focused like in my previous youth state. My needs and those of my family are evolving. As the kids get older, more self aware, and less reliant on us for everything, time will open up for both of us to do more outside the immediate family. My wife is out of sorts from not having taught summer school / night school this summer. So I know she feels slightly adrift without the work to keep her anchored. The days man, they blend together and they just don’t stop coming!

Something about the crispness of the air, the changing leaves, the days being hot and the nights cool. Great for patio drinks and dancing the night away under neon lights with a sloshing beverage in your hand. Walking around looking for an open late night pizzeria or hot spot to find food to soak up the booze. Walking home in huge groups, or crowding onto a bus and meeting other friends who’ve had a wild night alongside your own. Rose coloured glasses and nostalgia abound with these sorts of memories. Evenings with threats of violence get shunted into the wild night stories bundle and cordoned off from the block of “fond memories”. To err is human I guess.

Fossils, Gemstones and Fancy rocks.

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I don’t quite know what the allure is here with these things, but I do like to look at all of the shiny polished rocks when I get the chance. Saw a very intricately speckled Sodalite sphere which was particularly interesting. My youngest was drawn to it too, so we purchased that item for around $15~ . I’m sure it’ll only take a day or two for them to loose interest in it, and I’ll scoop that up and put it away somewhere safe. I hate when my kids loose stuff, that really irks me, you know.

Sodalite sphere.

It’s the Civic Holiday Long Weekend here in Canada, so I am going to put my work on hold for a short while, so that I can do more outdoorsy stuff with my kids. My changes won’t get viewed until Tuesday as it is, so I can do them tonight or tomorrow morning, and still be ahead of schedule. Which is a good thing. Don’t want to leave anyone hanging if it can be helped.

I heard on the news today that the heat and humidity are on the rise this weekend. Heading into the dog days of summer! Almost August, can you believe it? The days can feel long, but the weeks are short! Take a minute to stop and smell the roses, look at that view, take a sip of your drink. It’ll all be past you before you know it if you wait before acting. You know what scares me, waiting until retirement to do big travel things, only to be too ill or unhealthy to do those sorts of things by then. A bad knee, a tortured back, sore neck, Crohn’s flare up, anything could derail those retirement plans. I hate that. We are making plans to travel sooner, so we can mitigate that fear. Spending money on family experiences is preferable to filling the house with even more stuff. Ciao Bella!

End of a busy week.

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Managed to get just about all of my current projects off my to-do list this week. All bar one long term project have been approved and sent off. Glad to hear it on this Friday of the Civic Holiday long weekend. Now I can focus on being with my kids for the next few days, before new projects begin on Tuesday. I’m more than happy about that!

Glad I cut the grass the other day, I hate wasting holiday time with household chores. Maybe I’ll crack a beer or two with lunch! Ha. Not likely, but it’s an interesting thought. Gotta keep my wits about me if the kids go swimming under my watch. In general I don’t drink until after the kids have gone to bed. I like to be able to rush anyone to a hospital or treatment centre during the day without being under the influence of anything harder than cold medicine.

Still in the midst of The Children of Ruin, the follow up sequel to Adrian Tchaikovsky ‘s Children of Time. I far prefer the second novel, seems to be ever so slightly faster paced, which I appreciate. Not that the first was slow, but it builds upon a new civilization from the ground up, and that takes time to do. Not time wasted mind you, just – it takes time. I am eagerly awaiting the release of the third book some time later this year (November, if I recall correctly). Looking forward to it!

As we get closer to the fall, I think I might start up writing more short stories again. They tend to fall in and out of fancy with me once I can get outdoors and enjoy the nicer Canadian weather. I hate the cold & snow, so staying warm and writing is far more pleasurable, than missing a swim under the warm summer sun. I have written one or two in the last few months, but nothing like I was doing earlier this year. I like to write short one offs until i tap into something i like a lot. Either a setting, a theme or a character i can really get behind. I’m pretty loosey goosey with the actual stories. When things start to fill out, that’s when i will write up an outline of points or events I’d like to touch on, otherwise I just wait and see where the dialogue and characters take me. Fun way to write short fiction. I never set out to write 100,000 words of connected short fiction, but it happened somewhat organically. Great feeling to have accomplished it. That was a private milestone I was very excited to have met head on. Ciao Bella!

The secret to my scrambled eggs.

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No real set of instructions to follow, but you will need: six (6) eggs, salt & pepper, milk (poured in to suit) a whisk or fork to mix, and either a bowl or pourable container with a spout. Also important, a stove top and a shallow sauce pan, or a frying pan. One flat edges spatula or your favourite design.

Glop all of the eggs, a few shakes of salt & pepper, and somewhere in the vicinity of 3/4 of a cup of milk. Mush all that together with a whisk or fork for about a minute. At least until all the yolks have ruptured. Turn your stove top burner to a medium /medium low heat. Let it warm up as you work your ingredients together. (Might want to read through before starting, my had). Pour all contents into the now heated pan on the stove. In a constant movement, scrape off the bottom of the pan to reveal the newly congealed scrambled eggs. Keep going until all of the liquid eggs have become a solid. At this point you can start to flip the mass over in chunks. Then using your spatulas edge cut the mass into many, many smaller pieces. Turn off the heat, and it is at this point you could add a cheese to the top, or go and make some toast to go with it. Scoop up with a spatula and enjoy. The whole process can take about ten (10) minutes, if you start off with a not blazing hot pan. A slow heat will yield softer fluffier eggs, and not a rubbery overcooked mess. Slow and steady. No burned patches, no charring, and every bite is edible. Good if you’re on a budget and can’t afford to let any go due to waste/mishap.

Today is Thursday July 28th, of the year 2022.

Another busy day on the books.

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Dialing in on the final product with a couple of clients this week, which makes me feel good. It’s always nice when a project comes together in the end and everyone is satisfied with the outcome. I am expecting final fixes/edits for a report at some point this week, so I’ll be happy to scratch one more item off the to-do list. Perhaps another report will surface in the next two weeks or so. Not certain, but it’s possible.

We hosted a couple of cousins (outdoors of course) for some swimming, trampolining and lunch. A slight miscalculation lead to a second party being invited on the same day, but seeing as we were cooking for so many already, and the yard is spacious, what’s an extra five into the mix. All bar one is vaccinated, and that particular individuals family had Covid two or three weeks ago, and have been on the mend for ten days or more (or so I was told). No fights, no bloody wounds, so all around a good visit with friends and family. I’ll take it as a win.

The kids are on day two of their outdoor swimming lessons. I’m not sure how much a three week course can do for them, but they soak up stuff they enjoy like sponges, so maybe getting both kids to swim using their arms and legs simultaneously will be worth it in the end. The youngest is more confidence than skill at this point. So any help from a swim instructor will be greatly appreciated. If it’s not me teaching them, or my wife, the kids will actually listen and follow along. It gets to be like pulling teeth with them if I’m the one leading the instructions. Gladly pay a certified specialist to get them water safe around the pool or the lake.

Heading into the last days of week four. Five left to go, and the temperatures are set to go up! Going to need to think about the state of their back packs, pencil cases, consumable stock piles of paper, erasers and pencil crayons & crayons. Look at sizing indoor and outdoor shoes. Do coats and hats still fit. Sort out all the ruined school clothes from the still viable pieces. Late August, and very early September will see a flurry of activity regarding the children. Of course my wife will be back at work before August is through, so that will fall to me. I have the kids in a dance, music, acting camp the last week, so I can tackle that stuff unimpeded. I’ll get through it a whole lot quicker if left alone to tackle it with music playing as i work.

Early September will see me ramping up my house cleaning. Cabinets doors, walls, baseboards, waxing & polishing the floors, after sweeping and vacuuming thoroughly with ever chair up turned and off the floor. Moving the couch and tables to get every last scrap of crud off the floors. Windows will get washed inside and out. Laundry piled as tall as I am in preparation for the first day of school. All the new clothes will have to get washed and sorted. Closets upturned and decluttered. The toy box actually used to store toys that I don’t throw away or ship off to the cottage.

Once all that is done, then the leaves will begin to fall and the lawn, exterior will be an area of concern. Plus I’d like to go buy some hardwood lumber and make a few more furniture projects before winter hits and the shop becomes too cold to use. That’s getting months ahead of myself. Best enjoy the sunshine and family time now, as it really is so fleeting. Getting darker earlier and earlier the further into summer we get!

“Why do all of these hallways…

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Smell like shit? I had never noticed it before, but now every one we get called out to stinks like hell.” Moans the slight framed man with a wispy beard. “Probably due to all the piss and vomit, would be my informed guess there Garreth.” Replies the short heavy set woman with cropped grey hair. “That and the dead bodies.” She chimes in a second later. “Yeah – the dead bodies would most likely be the culprit for the stench.” Chuckles Garreth, his weak shoulders jumping as he laughs. “So how the fuck do we keep finding these bodies after they’ve been dead for so long?” Garreth whines as the two officers walk deeper into the dilapidated tenement building, wandering the labyrinthine halls lit by flashing yellowing bulbs. Everywhere you look is cracked dry wall, mould patches, and peeling paint. Ceiling tiles with greasy brown water stains, and puddles of urine gathered at the edges of the red well worn carpets. “Well Garreth, in these instances most of the neighbours are junkies, extremely poor, or illegals. Nobody wants us here, they want as little local law enforcement scrutiny as possible. So shit goes from bad to worse, until they can’t stand it. And we turn up, bother people by asking questions which nobody will answer, and then cart off the rotting corpse. Rinse and repeat. Feel me wee man?” The large woman croaks through gritted teeth. “How many does this make for us Garreth?” The female officer asks as they get within visual range of the slumped body. Previously laying on the floor where it meets the wall. Turned inwards to face the baseboard. From the angle they are standing at they can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. There is a definite unusual twist to the torso, like it had tried to scratch an itch went too far and died after snapping it’s own spine in twain. Various fluids and puddles seep out from under the grayish blue body. The smell is thick in the air. A humid and pungent overly rotten orange twinge to the air. “At last count we were up to six this week. Not counting the four last week left in a similar state.” Garreth replies quietly. “Looks like the last apartment on this floor. Shouldn’t this hallway have a window or fire exit or something?” Garreth asks as he kneels down to poke around the body with one latex glove on, and a thin metallic rod he uses to lift a collar here, and a jacket pocket flap there. “I’d be surprised if any of the rooms had more than a port hole sized window per unit. These bastard builders cram as many bodies into these apartments as they can. What a shit hole.” Grumbles the larger officer turning away from Garreth while he conducts his first pass over the prone body. “Something tells me we won’t find a listing for this victim in this apartment block. Not sure why, just a vibe I’m getting.” She offers offhandedly. “Whatever you say boss lady. I don’t see any Id on the vic, and the coroner’s folks will get here soon. We can get some fresh air and wait for the retinal scan from doc’s people.” Garreth answers standing up while peeling off his lone glove by the heel of his palm. “Want me to go grab us a bite?” He offers. “Yes. We passed a Longo’s on the way in here, grab me a partial rotisserie chicken.” “No problem Priss, what you eat for breakfast is no business of mine.” He chuckles as he walks back out of the dim pungent hallway.