Posted on July 29, 2014 under Storytelling with one comment

Don’t you wish that Mondays looked this good?

 

 

“…but whenever Monday comes, you can find me crying all of the time.”

Monday, Monday   – The Mamas and the Papas

Would anyone strenuously object if Mondays were cancelled?

If you are a working stiff like me, there’s only one thing worse than a Monday and that would be Sunday evening.  The mere thought of Monday as Sunday night draws to a close is almost enough to ruin a perfectly good weekend.  You start thinking about Monday morning just after Sunday dinner and immediately there is a slight gnawing in the pit of your stomach.  You know that you will have the crummiest sleep of the week on Sunday night.

You peer at the clock and realize that you must get up.  The only thing between you and civility is a brown bean from Columbia, finely ground with boiling water poured slowly through.  God forbid that you rise two minutes later than normal, because the remainder of the day will be completely out of step.  It’s going to be bad enough.

You arrive at your place of work and all you can think of is the next cup of coffee.  You know that this is the one which just might propel you into the day.  The one that might give you a chance of being a civilized human being.

You look in the waiting area and see someone waiting.  That client.  The one who seems to show up early on Monday morning, or late Friday afternoon as you prepare to lock the door.  This person has arrived very early, without an appointment, and he wants to see you and only you.  He is standing between you and the coffee maker and you wonder quietly if it is a crime to run someone over before high noon.

You lurch through the morning like a novice driver trying a standard shift for the first time.  You jerk back and forth and sputter, trying to find the elusive cruising gear.  It never comes.

Invariably there is an equipment malfunction every Monday.  Your computer freezes and your printer refuses to print.  There are more swear words uttered on a Monday than during the remaining days of the work week combined.

What does Monday taste like?  It has the texture of dried out liver.  It smells like a dead skunk on the side of the highway.  It sounds like finger nails being dragged down an old slate chalk board.  It feels like a bad hangover without the benefit of the party the night before.

So I say, let’s do away with Monday.  Extend the work hours from Tuesday to Friday.  And if this is not possible, then start work on Monday at noon time.  Give people a chance to find the strength and inner peace to face the week.  Trust me.  This won’t harm the economy and might actually save lives and conserve millions of dollars for the health care system.

Let’s begin the week a few hours or a day later and let Monday unfold gently.

 

Posted on July 28, 2014 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Sunshine Sue’s Shoes ( say that 3 times! )

 

 

It was another glorious summer weekend. As usual, there was lots to do…too many things to do and not enough time. Sounds vaguely familiar? Yes. This was the subject of my story “Feast or Famine” which was posted on the weekend. If you missed it, go back and take a look. All of my posts are archived and are easy to find using the search bar.

So, how about those sneakers belonging to Sunshine Sue, one of our featured performers at the Antigonish Art Fair this past Friday?  It was an amazing evening. Over 800 people showed up and enjoyed the entertainment, the food and of course, the art, which is the whole point of the fair. It was definitely a family affair as there were oodles of small children along with parents and grandparents. The entertainment was first class. There were so many highlights it seems unfair to single out any act but I think if you conducted a straw poll, I believe the young Filipino singers and dancers would easily be at the top of most people’s list. As I said after the performance, we are very lucky that this group of people has decided to call Antigonish their home. We are the better for it.

I received a lot of interesting e-mails this week. One was from a lady from Northern Alberta whom I met a few weeks ago at the gazebo prior to the start of that evening’s “Art in the Park.” I’m not certain how we got on the subject but we chatted about the delicate balancing act that is known as marriage. She started telling me how she and her husband maintain the scales of justice in their household. I asked her to put this in writing, which she did. It is absolutely hilarious. I may ask her if I can edit it and use it. Basically, they have a “tit for tat” arrangement. He collects old cars ( and car parts) which she thinks is frivolous. She, in turn, spends equal amounts of money on clothes. She had accumulated so much clothing that they changed the deal . Every time he brought home another old car, she could get a new cat. This lost its lustre with her husband after cat number 4. And on and on it went. One of the great joys of writing is hearing other people’s stories.

We travelled to Guysborough town last week to see an excellent concert with Steve Wright and his family. I had a chance to catch up with some old university friends. We chatted about their home town and how beautiful it was in the summer. They have all the amenities a community could hope for including a top notch performing arts venue. One of them lamented that what the community needed most was people. They are suffering a common plight. Outmigration. The region desperately needs new business to keep it alive and well. I’m not sure what the answer is. Any time a new industry appears on the radar screen, it seems that there are many people who don’t want it in their back yards. We all want our families back from Alberta but they need work with good paying jobs to keep them here.

July is just about in the rear view mirror. What a blur.

Hope you have a great week.

 

Posted on July 26, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

Life is one giant buffet

 

 

The other day I was chatting with a friend who had just survived a wedding.

And, no, she wasn’t the bride or even the mother of the bride.  She was a wedding guest, which is not normally a stress-inducing event.  That is, unless the marriage of your own daughter is right around the corner.  She commented that there is so much activity during a wedding week that there is scarcely time to actually enjoy everything.  A year or more of planning is jammed into a few frenetic days of bridal showers, rehearsals, rehearsal parties, a “get to meet the in-laws” party, the wedding, the wedding reception and a gift opening breakfast the day after.

It almost seems excessive.  Like an “all you can eat” buffet.

I remember going to a Sunday brunch at an upscale hotel in Los Angeles back in the 80’s.  It cost $25.  I had never before (or since) seen such a staggering assortment or volume of food.  If you were a seafood lover there was everything imaginable: lobsters, scallops, mussels, salmon and several species that I could not identify.  There was prime rib, turkey and ham and a mind numbing selection of vegetables.  And the dessert table was such that I prayed I would see it again at the gates of paradise.

There was only one problem.  There was too much food and too many choices.

After eating a few dozen jumbo shrimp, there was hardly enough room for anything else.

Sometimes it seems like life is like this.  You go through long stretches that border on the hum drum.  There doesn`t seem to be any excitement and you go through your paces day after day.  This is interspersed with periods of hyperactivity where you can scarcely catch your breath.

Yes, life by times seems to be a feast or famine.

How about the two weeks leading up to Christmas?  Ah, yes, the Christmas party season where an entire year of socializing is squeezed into a handful of days.  It is not uncommon to get more than one invitation on the same date.  By the end of the holidays you absolutely detest shrimp rings and shortbread cookies, not to mention Mariah Carey warbling “… all I want for Christmas is you …”

When January arrives, everyone goes back into their shells and hibernates during the winter.  Like a whiny child you complain, to anyone who cares to listen, that you are bored.  So bored in fact, that after the fifteenth consecutive blizzard you go out on the street and stand in front of an oncoming snow plow, playing the game of “chicken”.   Maybe we should cut down on the Christmas parties and continue the revelry into the New Year with “Board Games and Beer” on those long winter evenings.

Our home town is famous for the longest continuously running Highland Games in North America … 151 years and counting.  It is quite the spectacle.  Young highland dancers, men in kilts and the ever present skirl of the bagpipes.  The week long program is chock full of concerts, competitions and cultural events that would make your head spin.  If there was nothing else going on in the community things would be just fine.  But it seems like every other organization wants to capitalize the influx of expats and tourists and stage its event at the same time.  On any given day of “The Games” there are at least three other celebrations where visitors can spend their time … and money.  One couple I spoke to wished that they could be cloned so that they could attend two events going on at precisely the same time.

The week after the Games, we are sitting in our backyards watching the grass grow and counting mosquito bites.  My wife prefers to describe this as stopping to smell the roses.  There is still plenty to do and see, maybe at a more reasonable pace.  I think I’ll plan a trip to the beach before I’m handed the chore list that I saw on the kitchen table this morning …