Month: March 2009

holey


a kind soul pointed out to me, and I snapped at them, don’t ask why, that my left rear tire was nearly flat… a dollar in the air pump at the nearest gas station got me all the way to Canadian Tire where they patched the tire for 35 bucks…. and that was the most interesting part of my Sunday….. rest of the time I hung out with the cats and read Arthur Schlesinger’s A Thousand Days, about the JFK Presidency, I am deep in the tangle over Laos in 1961.

A replacement for TELEVISION


This afternoon I had to head over to the hospital for a brief appointment with one of my doctors. I was sitting waiting and faced a medium sized photocopier.  Someone came to use it to make some copies. Suddenly many past moments of extreme unction came to my  mind and I began to sweat.  After a moment it jammed. She tried to clear it and failed.  Someone else tried to clear it and continued to jam. More side doors and green levers were opened and examined and tiwsted and more pieces of paper came out, some snarled , some just innocent and blank. The copier continued to issue commands on its display panel. People did its bidding and the jamming persisted.

In my office past I would often get sucked into trying to clear jammed copierrs.  I am not sure if some new maturity or indifference has taken over my soul but I had not the faintest urge to get into the healing of this evil copier.  After another ten minutes one more brave soul gave it a shot and freed the copier from its state of jam.  Really very entertaining, should be one of those reality TV shows.

Bay starting to open


It has been getting a little warmer of late and the bay is starting to show some open water.  This is the east end of Georgian Bay which is the eastern end of Lake Huron, which is one of the Great Lakes.  I have been involved with this Bay for a long time, my whole life.

Back around  1958 over near Penetang, the Royal Yacht Britannia anchored and the Queen and Prince Phillip came ashore to visit the Royal Naval and Military Establishment historic site on Penetang Bay, an inlet of Georgian Bay. I am told I was disappointed that Queen Elizabeth did not wear her crown.

Some time before that when I was 18 months old there was another incident with the Bay. My family had rented a cottage for two weeks and on our final day my Dad was off visiting some one and my mother was getting everything cleaned and put away and getting everything ready to load into the car, my sister helping her a little or as much as a six year old can help. I went outside and down to the dock where the day before we  had been throwing bread out for the sea gulls. This day it was windy and wavy and the dock was wet and the gulls were flying around. I fell off the dock and into the Bay into about two feet of water. Apparently I had enough sense to stand up and hold onto the dock support.  My mother came running and pulled me out of the water and into her arms where I went from rigid to limp.

When I was about 18, I got into an argument with my parents about not getting all my cottage chores done and to cool off I took our 14 foot aluminum boat and motor out on the bay and took a long ride. I went much further than usual and it was late afternoon.  I went out and around two islands to the north and followed the channel coming out on the western end. I made the mistake of turning too early out of the channel and almost immediately ran up on to flat rock shelves in about two feet of water.  The Bay was very choppy and the waves started pushing me further up on the shelf. The shelf ran for hundreds of feet. I was lucky that I had been running the outboard motor in tilt rather than in a locked down cruise position.  As the boat  got pushed onto the shelf I got the motor stopped, put on my life jacket and started to push myself off the shelf with one of the oars.  I got back into the channel and restarted the motor. I turned the bow north west and went all the way out the channel and then turned back towards home.  The problem now was the height of the waves coming at me from the stern. They were alost over the transom and would have swamped the boat. So I reduced speed and slowly, very slowly made my way home, arriving at dusk.  That night as I lay in my bed, my head was still moving in the same sequence of the Bay. From behind, lifting me slightly up, twisting to the right, then the left, and then settling down aimed straight ahead.

Almost ten years later I made a miscalculation in cutting the lawns. I rushed to cut the back and front lawns on a very hot humid day in August and after I finished, drenched in sweat, ran to change to my swim suit, put on some old sneakers, for our rocky shore and ran in swimming. I ran out into deeper water, still not over my head and dove in and started swimming. I immediately got a stitch in my side and quickly found that both of my legs had cramped badly and were  completely useless.  The only thing that saved me was the snorkel tube and face mask I had jammed on my face. I fought off the panic and slowly made my way back into shore using my hands and arms to “walk” in along the bottom of the Bay.

I should probably stay out of the Bay and now with my dialysis tubes in my chest I am not allowed to swim.  So I am safe until I get my fistula surgery and get an access site in my forearm.

back to pencil drawing


I picked up my pencil and made a sketch this morning, I am rusty.  My late, great golden retriever, Diamond with toy in her mouth standing in Georgian Bay. I posted this to agroup I was invited to join on flickr devoted to daily quick 10 minute drawings.

From back in 1999 or thereabouts, result of my pencil portait drawing course.  about thirty hours work

NEW GRAD HERE


Checking back with Georgian College I discovered today that I had indeed copleted the course work in order to receive my certificate from their Teaching and Training Adults.  Way to go, Bill.  Now I have to send in my completed application and the fee and wait to receive my certificate.  I floated away from the phone when I got the news.  Yippeee!!!