Waiting

It seems that a large part of my life is spent waiting. I wait for the weather to change so that I can walk the dog. I wait for people to get ready to go and have coffee with me. I wait for my favourite TV show to come on or for the producers to make more episodes for me to watch. I wait in traffic because someone doesn't have a firm grasp of how to control a vehicle weighing two tons speeding along the highway at 130 KMH. 



I wait...I wait...I wait...

Right now I am waiting and watching the hands on the clock slowly turn and in a short while we will go out to eat. I am sure that when we get in the car we will wait at a red light or thirteen red lights before we get to our destination. When we arrive we will probably be told that we will have to wait for ten or fifteen minutes before we can be seated. Then of course I will have to wait for my dinner companions to decide what they feel like eating tonight. I of course will be starving and order the first thing my eyes light upon. The waiter will wander off and we will wait for the chef to make our meal. The only thing we won't be waiting for is the cheque. 

All of this waiting is because I am waiting for the day that my daughter Maegan is to be married. It was over a year ago that I started to wait for this and now it is days away. The venue is set, the catering is arranged, the clothing has been pressed and hung, most of the guests are either in the city or soon will be. Excitement is at a fever pitch. Days to go... 

Today is a down day and everyone involved is taking a collective breath before it gets crazy again. Tomorrow is a down day for me, more waiting, but others are welcoming soon to be in-laws to the city. My only job tomorrow is baby sitting Hurricane and 
Tornado while mom and dad pretend to be single while visiting some friends that now live in the Big Smoke. That isn't until tomorrow night so guess what...more waiting tomorrow. We may go and find something interesting to do. The nice thing is that we are spending our time with Mike and Sharon who are wonderful company.

I can hardly wait until Sunday when Maegan andRyan exchange their vows. We are all happy for them and wish them all the best in their new life together. They can't wait to be married and we can't wait for them to be married. It is all so exciting!

I just have to wait a little while longer...


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Learn To Love Baseball

Today was a first for me, I went to my first Major League Baseball game, Toronto Blue Jays played Atlanta. I'm not going to say who won, but twenty thousand people or so went home unhappy.

Like any large event, it was really interesting. I love watching the people and how the people react to the stimulus of being and sharing an experience with all of those people. What are it extra special for me was that my family were all there and watching the grandkids enjoying being there was wonderful.

I find that due to some flaw in my mental makeup, I am unable to enjoy something as simple as a baseball game. Part of the reason is that the constant buzz of a large crowd makes it difficult for me to concentrate. Whether it is the tinnitus or just that I am losing some of my hearing, it is a challenging process. I am also very cheap. I don't mind spending money, but I have trouble understanding why a beer is $12.25 and a small bag of peanuts is $6.00. I know that is the going price, but they aren't going to get it from me. 

Money is just paper and a way of keeping track of where you are in life and just what and how much you can get. I suppose I can get the things I need to have a good life but the things that I don't need I don't have to spend my money on. It is another flaw in my character which I am on this planet to work on. Not very successfully I might add.

I can watch a baseball game on TV and although I don't get why so many people watch the game, I can watch most of it. I have no need to pause it while I go to the bathroom or to the store for an hour or so. Even if I never get back to this game there will be another that is virtually the same and I will care just as little about that one as all the rest of them. I am not invested in the game and I never have been. My problem.

I can watch a kids game for a while on the local diamond, but I can easily walk away from it.

While I was watching today I couldn't help but think that I would like the game more if I watched from the comfort of my own home. I could channel surf if I got bored and even if I didn't, if there happened to be a great play, I could rewind and watch it again. 

I know there is something wrong with me, and with any luck that is what I am here to learn. I just hope that I don't have to learn to love baseball.


Sent from my iPadLearn To Love Baseball

Today was a first for me, I went to my first Major League Baseball game, Toronto Blue Jays played Atlanta. I'm not going to say who won, but twenty thousand people or so went home unhappy.

Like any large event, it was really interesting. I love watching the people and how the people react to the stimulus of being and sharing an experience with all of those people. What are it extra special for me was that my family were all there and watching the grandkids enjoying being there was wonderful.

I find that due to some flaw in my mental makeup, I am unable to enjoy something as simple as a baseball game. Part of the reason is that the constant buzz of a large crowd makes it difficult for me to concentrate. Whether it is the tinnitus or just that I am losing some of my hearing, it is a challenging process. I am also very cheap. I don't mind spending money, but I have trouble understanding why a beer is $12.25 and a small bag of peanuts is $6.00. I know that is the going price, but they aren't going to get it from me. 

Money is just paper and a way of keeping track of where you are in life and just what and how much you can get. I suppose I can get the things I need to have a good life but the things that I don't need I don't have to spend my money on. It is another flaw in my character which I am on this planet to work on. Not very successfully I might add.

I can watch a baseball game on TV and although I don't get why so many people watch the game, I can watch most of it. I have no need to pause it while I go to the bathroom or to the store for an hour or so. Even if I never get back to this game there will be another that is virtually the same and I will care just as little about that one as all the rest of them. I am not invested in the game and I never have been. My problem.

I can watch a kids game for a while on the local diamond, but I can easily walk away from it.

While I was watching today I couldn't help but think that I would like the game more if I watched from the comfort of my own home. I could channel surf if I got bored and even if I didn't, if there happened to be a great play, I could rewind and watch it again. 

I know there is something wrong with me, and with any luck that is what I am here to learn. I just hope that I don't have to learn to love baseball.


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Slowly But Surely

Here we are in the GTA again. It is wonderful seeing those that we love and catching up on all of the latest gossip. The last trip was a sad occasion, but this will be the celebration of life that all weddings are. Well, not the drunken weddings in Vegas, that is more of a celebration of Jim Beam, Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan. We will be spending time doing touristy things and all of those last minute pre-wedding things that always seem to need doing.  I am excited for Maegan and Ryan beginning their lives together.


One of the things that I have noticed over the years of coming to Toronto area is just how bad the traffic has become. Whenever you get a lot of people together that need to go in the same direction, you are going to have problems. I suspect that moving people is one of those things that define a great civilization. Our civilization was good, but is getting progressively worse as the years go by. We are losing our ability to move people from where they live to where they work and play.

There is an acceptable amount of time for a commute, but here it seems to be pushing the boundaries quite a bit. Thankfully I won't need to drive to work or anywhere else in rush hour traffic this trip. I won't need to "press the flesh" on the buses and subways for an hour at a time. I can stay blissfully unaware of the troubles the average citizen faces every day. Lucky me!

Someone, somewhere needs to address the problem of moving all of these people in an orderly and timely fashion. Some solutions are being looked at and enacted. Mass transit is pretty good at getting people from there to here and the road system is congested but still works to a certain extent. What is needed is a change in the way that we live.

More and more people are finding that they can work from home which allows employers to save money on brick and mortar head offices and allows the employee to still function through the Internet. Not everyone can do this of course, a lot of Jo's need to be hands on and involve physically moving things around.

I think that the only way to find a solution is through a change in expectations and a change in the way we locate our homes and businesses. We will need to go back to the way things were before the automobile enabled us to travel vast distances in rather short periods of time. We will need to live within walking distance of where we work. The stigma of living in an industrial area will have to be forgotten and businesses will have to evaluate if they really "need" to locate themselves in the locations they are in.

During the early part of the twentieth century there was a mass exodus from rural areas to urban locations. This was brought on by the desire. To earn more than farm wages and the development of a more industrialized farming methods. We will need to move back out to the rural areas and find methods to work from home or in businesses that can relocate in. A rural environment. To do this we will need to focus less on the bottom line and more on what is best for our society as a whole.

Unlikely to happen, but we can work to that end slowly but surely.
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In Coming Blogs.

Just a real quick blog tonight. Quick because I should be working on my father-of-the-bride speech and I’m resting after packing for my trip.

In all probability there won’t be blogs for the next couple of weeks. I realize that no one is in tears because of that announcement, but just thought you should know it isn’t because I am a lazy SOB. I am a lazy SOB, but that isn’t the reason this time.

I am excited about this wedding, mainly because my daughter will be embarking on this crazy trip called marriage. Her hubby to be is a nice guy and seems to love her very much which is all a father can ask for. Like all brides, Maegan is stressing just a little too much, but that is her prerogative, as a nearly wedded woman.

I don’t get weddings really. I have always felt that jumping over a broom stick and pledging your undying love should be enough. Then all the friends and family do a pot luck and show the young couple that they are loved and not alone. Somehow weddings have morphed into the big deal they are today, the size and scope only limited to the wealth of the people involved.

I guess that everyone wants to feel like a princess at least once in their lives. Probably real princesses would opt for a simple ceremony. We always seem to want that which is unobtainable. The truly happy person wants to remain just as they are, learning to be a better person each and every day.

I hope that this wedding has everything that Maegan wants and it is my desire that she smiles and laughs until her cheeks hurt. I wonder if she knows just how much she is loved.

I am sure I will have more to say about this in coming blogs.

Full Circle

I am not sure why, but lately I have been thinking about the music that played in my formative years. I suppose it may have something to do with Maegan’s impending marriage. She is embarking on a journey that will take her to the end of her life. Maybe I am reflecting on that journey and realizing that my journey has been a long and more or less happy one. I wish her all the happiness that I had and more.

 

What has that to do with music? Yeah, I don’t know. Right now I am listening to Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water” album in its entirety. Only nine songs, so I will still have some life left when it is over. I just had the thought that the song was written in 1971 and in 2017 there really is a madman across the water. This album resonated with me then as it does now, I would sit in a comfy bean bag chair with my Roots shoes, smoking a joint or two, having a cup of tea and reading Tolkien.

 

Next July, I will be able to smoke a joint while sitting on my couch with a coffee, orthopaedic shoes and a choice of a thousand books on my eReader. I will probably re-read Tolkien, but I find I like to play Carol King’s “Tapestry” album. I think it was written with the Lord of the Rings in mind. Carol doesn’t agree, but what does she know, she only wrote it.

 

I still have most of my albums collecting dust in boxes in the basement. My music listening now is done mostly with help from iTunes and Youtube. They say that vinyl has a better sound quality that MP3’s, but I can’t really tell the difference and if I can’t tell the difference, what does it matter. Besides, most of my albums have been badly mistreated over the years. Drunk and stoned people trying to place the needle on a particular track and dragging it over the rest of the side. I’m sure that some of the albums have a few burn marks from those same people. I remember coming home to find Rick Parker washing my albums in the kitchen sink because they were “dirty”. Surprisingly, they played at least as good after the cleaning as they did before.

 

I am missing some of my favourite albums of course. I would have taken them to a party and missed picking them up in a smoky haze. One of my roommates still has some of my albums that he insists were his. Who knows after forty years? I do! They are mine! A couple of the albums were lost when a good friend passed away suddenly. You can’t go to grieving parents and ask to go through their dead son’s record collection. I can and did live without them.

 

Like I said, they are in the basement and I am happy with pulling my music from the ether. That is where the inspiration for music comes from after all. It’s nice to see things come full circle.

Bring Socks

Okay, so it has been almost a week since the last blog. I am suffering from withdrawal from paradise. I miss that mellow cup of coffee the first thing every morning followed by a walk down the beach and back to another cup of coffee. Then maybe I would write the blog or perhaps a swim in the ocean and a walk along the beach to dry off. The rest of the day just flowed from there.

The weather here is pretty nice although so far there has been no need to turn on the A/C in the car. I have been unpacking and going over the vacation, wondering why I brought all of those pairs of socks with me. I suspect that I like to be prepared for the just-in-cases. Like if Hawaii were to all of a sudden get cold temperatures for the first time in ever. Maybe if I needed to put on my shoes to kick something for some reason then socks would be needed. Perhaps if I had to gag someone. I could fill a sock with sand and smack someone over the head with it. We all know people that could benefit by getting smacked in the side of the head with a sock full of sand. Well, I do.

It has been easy slipping back into my life. Too easy! I kind of wish that I could slowly work my way back by spending a month or so in Mexico or the Caribbean and then perhaps Florida, Vegas and finally home. That is not to be as we have a wedding in Toronto at the end of the month. My baby is getting married to a wonderful man and they are going to honeymoon in Oahu. It’s kind of like a vacation by proxy…kind of.

I am not sure which is better, seeing something for the first time or seeing it through someone else’s eyes for the first time. Both have merit, but the second has the added benefit that you have returned. I envy them visiting paradise so early in their lives, they will have many opportunities to return if they so desire. I just pray they enjoy themselves. I couldn’t bear it if they found it not to their liking. But, who doesn’t like paradise?

So, we need to get everything ready for our trip to Toronto in a week and a half. I must remember the things I am bringing for Maegan and Ryan. I must remember to be on my best behaviour. I must remember to bring the father-of-the-bride speech. I must remember to smile when people say stupid things. I must remember not to say stupid things (no chance there). I must remember to bring socks! I am not cool enough to wear dress shoes without socks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wmghI_vnYg