Today I snipped the lawn with a rotary push-mower that was old in the 50s while listening to a collection of music (on a music box made in this century) curated by a twisted Englishman who’s rantings amuse me greatly all the while lamenting the fact that nobody really cares about Cranmer’s little book any more even though it still stands up. Admittedly it could use a couple of word changes in the collects because no one uses “prevent” that way anymore.
To celebrate actually getting out of the house and accomplishing yard-work on my first day of being out of work (aah the trades life) I ate a sandwich for late breakfast. But just any sandwich however. This sandwich has a dual distinction. First, it is one of my favorites. Second, it confuses the ever living daylights out of my wife.
I ate a hard-boiled egg sandwich.
Please, calm your gasps. Reign in your incredulity. It is true. I boiled two eggs, slathered two pieces of toast with Miracle Whip®, sliced the eggs onto the toast and ate the concoction with relish.1 Sounds simple enough right? Nothing complex. Nothing horrendous. Nothing that would normally make a person as logical as my wife question the sanity of the person with whom they live 2
Why the confusion? Why the seconds-lasting angst?
I hate egg-salad sandwiches. Mix those two ingredients together and I hate it. Keep them separate and I love it.
I don’t understand either.
Perhaps it is the mayo:egg ratio that makes my eyes twitch. Maybe the refrigeration process modifies the proteins somehow. Suffice it to say that sliced warm egg on toast with mayo and pepper is glorious in its simplicity and exquisite in taste whereas egg salad is icky.
I leave it to you to figure out. I’m going to make another sandwich.
1 Not the pickle kind, the I really really enjoyed it kind.
2 Unlike, say, me watching cricket.
We took possession of our house on July 26, 2006. We changed the flooring upstairs on the 27th, moved everything on the 31st and settled into our first home. Thursday, a scant three days later, we were sitting on the back porch. My wife’s mom and dad had joined us bringing a bottle of celebratory wine.
We were sitting, chatting, and planning the landscaping adventure that would be the backyard project over the next couple of years when we were joined by a very chatting tabby. Myah myah myah myah myah myah myah myah myah! She told us all about her life up to that point, who she was, and by the way did we know she had just chosen us?
We gave her some tuna. We said if she was still there in the morning we would consider the possibility of having a cat. She spent most of the night just outside our door telling us that we had forgotten to let her in. She scolded Byron the crazy squirrel for daring to come near her people’s door. The next morning I went out to cover the barbeque and she wasn’t there. Oh well. I took no more than two steps when I heard scrabbling feet and chattering. Myah myah myah myah myah myah myah. I’m here. I just had some stuff to do under the porch so do you my food for this morning?
I gave her a bowl of (lactose free) milk. She seemed happy.
We talked about it and opened our door. She walked right in, looked around, stated that things were appropriate and curled up for a much needed deep sleep. A few thousand dollars later we had a one-eyed, tailless cat with no intestinal parasites (because food only comes from people and never from this hunting thing everyone talks about). She was a brilliant, logical reasoning, polydactyl with an enormous intelligence and attitude. She would do something only if you explained why and how. She was certain that she was on the same level of importance as people were.
On Saturday she left this world. Freya was seven years old.
She was one of the most important beings in our lives. She protected us. She took care of us. She loved us. Whenever Kate’s kidneys were about to flare up she had a tabby cat pressed against her back for the entire night. Whenever I was ill or suffering from a bout of depression Kate would leave Freya in charge and ask her to keep an eye on me. God forbid I did anything that the ten pounds of fur decided was inappropriate because the moment Kate walked in the back door Freya would charge into the kitchen yelling her head off. I would follow either proclaiming my innocence or explaining that I was indeed in charge and I could do whatever it is I wanted to do. The two of us constantly battled for the right to be second-in-command. She would acquiesce to shut me up.
She loved her brother Cotton. The first weekend we had the two of them together Kate and I were working in the backyard and were subjected to yet another chorus of “you’re outside and I’m all alone” from our princess. Only she was then joined by her new brother, sitting right beside her in the bathroom window, exclaiming the exact same phrase and sounds. I told them they weren’t alone in the house because they were sitting next to one another. They looked at each other, looked at me, and went on to do whatever it is cats do.
She re-taught him how to be a cat. He taught her how to behave with other cats.
When he was in his final days she gave up her fortress of solitude for him. She grieved for him the night he left and spent more than a few nights sitting next to his urn when he finally came home. When Cotton and Sybil were fully integrated she grabbed Cotton’s fish for the first and only time in her life, brought it out to the landing, and showed it to her new siblings. She sat with them for half an hour that night telling his story.
Wednesday will mark the longest we have ever lived in this house without her. Every room has some of her story attached to it. Every blanket has a cat dent. Ever window has a silhouette. I pass by and my heart rips again whenever she is not in one of her spots. I miss her nyahs. I miss her checking on all of her family. I miss her.
Our life would never have ended up the way it has without her. She is the reason for so many things we do. She is the reason we are who we are. For all I know, the reason we are still married is due to our bundle of tabby.
She was, and ever will be, first cat.
Blinkies and goodbye Sweetheart. Take care of your brother for us. We will always love you.
If I had a smart phone this is what I would have tweeted during my attempt to shop for Christmas gifts today (and yes I did spend most of my time out with my head performing random commentary in tweets):
I sit in the Walmart parking lot facing the lodge a highway exit sign distance away from the action. The filter into lots on both sides of the road. My stomach gurgles audibly. Deep breath. I pick where I’m going to place my car for the night. Go.
I walk towards the doors anxiously looking around for my contact. A couple of guys say hello. I enter the building and climb the stairs. I see the Master of the Lodge and introduce myself. Then I get to use the line I will forever associate with this night:
“I’m from the Internet.”
After that I settle down. I do the test they require of anyone who doesn’t have someone to vouch for him. They try to make me at ease and even go so far as to ask if I wouldn’t mind sitting in a particular spot so that I can give a hand to the newly initiated mason that night. I have people come up and say hello and ask me where I’m from. Whenever they ask how I heard about the lodge I fall back to my new line and they love it. I begin to feel far more comfortable as the night goes on. I may have nothing to talk about with half the crowd but we have all experienced at least one to three similar things in our life. We’re all on the neutral/lawful good side of the spectrum. I fit in.
My “host” for the night is actually the busiest man in the lodge that evening (Junior Warden with a meal and a first degree for those in the know) so I don’t actually connect up with him. The worst possible thing that could happen actually happens but it doesn’t really matter. I’ve jumped the hurdle. I made it. This night’s adventure happened. I did it.
Now I just have to convince myself that I can do it again.
Tonight is adventure night. Tonight I take a trip out of my city, my district, my comfort zone. A week or so ago a random person on the Internet posted a note on a subreddit: anyone in Ontario want to come for a visit?
Now this is not as out-of-the-ordinary as it seems. The subtreddit in question is r/freemasonry and visiting is one of the things you do as a Freemason; or, at least they say it is. I don’t visit well. Despite what people who know meat think I’m actually quite shy, I just make up for it by being loud and zany. It’s why the zany can sometimes be inappropriate for the situation — it’s not alpha male it’s social anxiety.
Tonight I’m unemployed and thus not required to turn into a pumpkin at ten. That gets rid of that excuse. The meeting is in Orangeville, a not undo-able drive to the opposite side of Toronto. That eliminates the out of the way excuse. In many ways this is the perfect time to make a trip. I have no commitments to keep me out of the car and off the road.
So why am I nervous?
It comes down to the fact that I don’t know anyone. I don’t even know my contact’s real name. Who do I talk to and what do I say?
I sit here in Tim Horton’s using free wifi to distract me from my nervousness. Tonight is an adventure. Tonight I prove that I can actually go on one.
I have added another item to my list of adventures as a tradesman: overtime. For most people overtime is a couple of hours at the end of the day to get a project finished. In the trades, overtime is a way of life. For the first time I got to experience seven tens — ten hours a day, seven days a week. No days off for 25 days when we dropped back to five tens — ten hours a day for five days a week.
The physical toll of overtime begins to show around day 20. The days begin to blur. You don’t know when you are let alone where you are. Most people deal with this by not thinking about what day it is but rather what day they are on. What day are you? Twenty? Sweet. Good job. More often than not, excessive overtime occurs on industrial job sites. The work is heavier and in many cases dirtier but the expectations are lighter. You can get away with an off day from a productivity standpoint here and there where you would be flogged in the commercial sector for not getting your footage on the pipe. The only way to survive is to get into a routine and hope and pray your spouse keeps the rest of the world in heck for you. Don’t have a spouse? Get used to eating out. Every. Single. Meal. Get used to the fact that your home will not change in the slightest while you are working. I’m grateful to have a spouse who understands how this lifestyle works and who went out of her way to try and make my life easier.
But why do we do it? Why do we out our bodies through an agonizing process where we live only to drive to and from work with maybe an hour to ourselves before falling asleep? The answer is simple: because the trades get a lot of money to produce the quality of work required to make sure things do not literally blow up. For me, overtime is producing a two-fold benefit. First, my apprenticeship hours will scream by as they race along the highway toward the mystical destination that is journeyman status. The second benefit is something I never really expected to see — I just paid off the first of our debt load. Seven items dominate our financial landscape, five of them are student loans (I lived during that lovely transition time when the government and he banks changed the lending process). As of today one of them is gone. The money being spent on that will be added to the next bill and the process will continue until everything is dead and gone.
Despite clicking the confirm button it still hasn’t hit me that I do not have that Damoclean bill looming over me. At some point relief will replace dazed. Until then I just have to enjoy knowing that I just finished working overtime and can clearly see why the guys take it whenever it is offered regardless of how crazy it makes their lives.
One of the curiously difficult parts about changing your career midstream is having experience in life. Most people would consider having life experience to be a good thing but when you are starting at the bottom those experiences sometimes get in the way. My most recent turn at employment reinforced this fact. Life experience has taught me that I don’t deal well with martinets. Perhaps it comes from my stubborn disapproval of authoritarian figure or the fact that I was considered gutsy for not mentioning that I would like time off for a honeymoon and haven’t really forgiven that person or administration. Regardless of the reasons, I do not take well to those who attempt to micromanage my existence especially when I am doing a decent job to begin with.
The common term for someone who watches you looking for something to report is called “pillar peeking.” I don’t really care if someone pillar peeks me since I’m usually working. What bothers me is when the pillar peeking isn’t long enough to determine what is really going on. For example, I got yelled at for not working with ten minutes to go before lunch regardless of the fact that I just completed the task they gave me without really being off of my ladder the entire time (ignore Ontario regulations that state that doing so is really not good for you physiologically speaking) an with at a least five minute walk back to the lunch room via someplace to wash my hands before touching my food. Should we ignore the fact that I was also getting the evil eye for showing up “too late” at the end of the day because I was making sure that everything was locked up because as the highest ranking apprentice on site it fell to me to make sure that stuff was taken care of before I left for the day?
I know this sounds like I’m kvetching about my job but it has now been over a month since I was laid off, a story in and of itself, and I’m still ticked off at the whole situation. I know that I don’t work well under such an employer an no matter what I did to try and mitigate the situation it ended poorly.
This brings us back to the whole life experience thing. People who exist solely in the world of construction simply assume that this guy is an asshole. That isn’t the case. He truly believes that he will get his end of the project done if he enforces a strict discipline on his employees and while he may succeed in finishing throb he will do only that, he will get not one second, not one milliliter of sweat more than is required.
The Inernet is aghast that twitterites exploded into vitriolic racism when Joel Ward scored the winning goal in the Boston/Washington series. I am not. To be aghast would be admitting that I could not believe that people would think the “n word” much less use it in public conversation. I live beside and work in Toronto, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country if not the world. I hear those words, with their pejorative meanings fully intended, on the job site every day. People like to think that in 2012 we don’t use words like that. We do. And there does not look to be any end in sight. The excuse used to justify using these words is that rappers use them all the time. I’m not certain how that justifies terms other than the n word but that is the excuse.
What is probably a far more serious problem is that the people using these word know they shouldn’t be used. The words are said cautiously in new company and softly in public. Higher education seems to mitigate usage of these words but only to an certain extent. The further afield you go from the humanities the more likely you are to encounter them.
I’m not certain what we can do to stop this from happening. Legislating against this use of language has not worked. Condemnation in the media like we see over the Ward cars does not work. Perhaps we need and old-fashioned advertising campaign that lists these words and shows why they are hurtful. I remember growing up with anti-racism commercials brought to me by the government. It might be a good idea to show them again.
It has been an exceptionally long time since the Kinsey Millhone series was created; however, since moving to multiple narrators Grafton seems reinvigorated in her writing and ideas. This book also continues the theme of Kinsey being a regular private investigator who files papers and sits in a car for hours on a stakeout.In fact, the true plot of the novel is a by-product of the reader witnessing the story unfold through the seemingly disconnected eyes of the secondary players.
This book produces a mild change in format by introducing more than two narrators some of which do not cross Kinsey’s path at all. Oddly enough it serves to enhance the novel by juxtaposing various social classes and how they relate to the twin themes of loneliness and belonging. Grafton weaves her characters in such a way that those who normally would be construed as villains or antagonists become erstwhile and likable characters.
The Kinsey/Dante storyline is reminiscent of some of the early books. It serves as a reminder that Kinsey believes in justice more than she does the law.
In all I view this book as a very good read and a strong indication that Grafton still enjoys her craft and characters. I look forward to the next one and, like many others, patiently await the day when she gets to deal with those truly interesting letters X and Z.