Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Racing the Rain

We must go now. The sky is getting darker and darker. The storm is on the way, and it is really bad storm. I don't think we can afford to hide under the trees - its dangerous. We packed everything. The car is a mess, but we must go now. It started to spit with rain a bit, but it stopped. I am sure it will start to rain hard very soon. Did we get everything in, I don't know. At this point we cannot see anything - its really dark. We know that there is still stuff on the ground, but if we start picking everything up we are not going to make in time from here to the bridge. I know that we still need to drive out from here, and it may take us some time to get out. Okay, I think we got everything now. I used flashlight to pick the rest of our stuff, but it does not matter anymore - it may be fun for bears to play with it and I probably wouldn't miss it at all, probably not even remember what it was. Driving now through signed path, signs by us. This camp was really fun to visit, however, hopefully we can get out from here on time. Lots of hiking trails, good thing we had the GPS, otherwise, our adventures would turn into a disaster, but hey its already been disaster. We are still driving through the forest, cannot see much, it is dark. It is spitting again. What is going on with this weather? Just come from nowhere in matter of minutes. It is going to rain badly, and if we don't get out from here on time then I don't know what we are going to do again, we will have to camp out again. The rain is going to go over the bridge and we will not be able to cross it, and there is no other way out. We are still driving, going through a bumpy road, and - oh no, rain. Rain suddenly started to come down hard. Pouring. We are driving very fast, but the rain is pouring even faster. Definitely the rain is racing us. Now, I am thinking desperately, we are not going to make it. How could we miss these clouds on the horizon, we should have left earlier. We are almost there, still driving over the bumpy road and now filled with water. Paddles are not helping us. Oh, I can recognize the area, yes I can see the bridge. The bridge is here, I shout. Then the break squeak. We are suddenly stopped. I guess rain won this time again. Lets go back to camp and try this bridge in couple of weeks once again when the water dries out. Hopefully we can cross this bridge next time.

[FICTION]

The Passions

I love photography, and I love writing. Which one I like better it depends on a day of the week. Sometime I wish there were more hours in a day or more days in the week. And sometimes I wish that I only worked 1 day of many working days. And not to forget the last and the most important thing I love - the Internet. If one day someone would disconnect the Internet, I will be stranded here, all alone. It will be like being with out food for days on the isolated island. Okay, may be not that bad, but it will be disappointing not to have access to the Internet and not allowing to express thy self to the world.

[MY THOUGHTS]

July 30, 2007 My Day

Let me introduce you to My Day blobbing. My Day Blob is my day, real true stories, and what happened during that day. Enjoy or not, its real. Today is July 30, 2007 and I already wrote one story for my Story Blob blog today. What is so special about today? Nothing really, it is next day after full moon, and in the morning I found dead House Sparrow on my drive way. On the way home from work I saw killdeer - bird, its a bird if you don't believe me, not deer. Just in case you never met killdeer, I photograph him for you. Not just one but many, two juvenile and mother. How do I know that - I don't. Today also been third day on vacation, not me, but my parents are on vacation, travelling in Alberta. I cannot believe. They did not leave us with any information where they will be staying. I guess they did not learn from all the reminders we been getting from them when we travelled. And now it is 12:32 am July 31, 2007 and I am writing My Day blob. A blob from yesterday I guess. Its late, so excuse me for not making any sense.

[MY THOUGHTS]

Monday, July 30, 2007

Car Care Service

Sometimes I just want to answer silly. Silly means that my answers will be logical and may be some how sarcastic. Therefore, we are going to be in the dealership today, trying to negotiate the best price for my car service. How am I going to do that, I don't know yet. I don't care if I have to walk out with no service on my car. I will be getting what I want - but then this is not getting what I want?

Arriving dealership. Parking on the customer parking. Entering service area full of smiling faces pretending the 'happy to see you' face. Are you really that happy to see me? Oh, are you getting a bonus today, ha ha ha - oh lucky me they are not hearing me. Just being in the weird mood. How can I help you? - the voice behind the counter greets. Yes, you can help me, I need to service my car and I need basic service. What is the mileage on your car? Don't know, but I been driving this car for 6 months now, 5 days a week and probably 50 km per day. Okay, we do not need mileage now, yes it is not necessary now, we will check mileage on your car later. What kind of service would you like today? I need good service sir if you know what you mean. The clerk's face drooped. Did I say something wrong? No, you did not - he answered almost shouting. How can I help you today? Oh, you can help me with many things sir? - I answered. Excuse me, I guess you would like to have a service on your car. Yes, I answered. So, what we are going to do today to you is a basic service, which covers oil change, disposal of oil, tire rotation and wash your car. Excuse me - I interrupted - I personally do not need service today, its my car that needs service. No no, its the car we are going to service, clerk answered angry. We have special interior cleaning for another 99.99 dollars, original price 199.99. Would you like to clean your insides, insides of the car, you will be saving 100 dollars. No, sir not interested. As a matter of fact, I would like to bring my service price down by 29.99 dollars. Sorry, the service is already discounted to 34.99 dollars. Would you like the service today? Can you please remove the tire rotation, I been driving backward more than forward past month, and this month I been driving forward most of the time. I checked my tires, and because due to my conservative driving habits I don't need rotation of my tires. By the way, are you talking about rotating my tires, oh no no, in that case no I don't need rotation of my tires, they been rotating every time I drive. Excuse me would you like the service today or not? - now red faced clerk asked. The tire rotation is included in the price. Its our special promotion today. I walked out.

I guess I am not getting the car care service today I anticipated to get. May be next time.

[FICTION, MY THOUGHTS]

Thursday, July 26, 2007

The Recruiter

The phone rang, the call display showed unknown number, however, the housekeeper girl answered anyway. I guess sometimes never know this may be important phone call. The owners of the house did not mind if she did or she didn't answer the calls and did not mind her taking verbal messages. They liked the idea that someone was always home. It felt like this call needed to be answered, so she did, with her sweet young voice she said -'Hello'. She was only 22 years old and came from very small town where she only was able to finish high school level education, and later she would help her parents around the farm. When she came to the city, she did not know anybody and she still doesn't. The housekeeping position was placed with help of some old family friend that one day contacted them and asked if Maya would consider the housekeeping position. He convinced family that the people are older couple who still like to work, but do not like doing anything around the house. He convinced them that the people were very nice and would pay nice money and provide living. Maya did not really want to leave her parents and her younger siblings. She loved her family and going away and going far away was sad. But then her parents finally convinced her. What are you going to do, marry neighbor's son - probably not, because he already had many girls dropping by his place and he never seem to be happy with any of them. What a waste, her parents thought. After many days of contemplation, Maya finally convinced herself that yes it will be good for her to get a job in the city. When finally she arrived, she never seen such a big house in her life, may be one day on the TV and back then she thought that things like that were not real. The owners must have a lot of money, and she though why do they need such a big house, there is only two of them - what a waste, she thought.
The voice on the other side of phone sound familiar, and said - Hello Maya, how are you? She answered not knowing who that was - I am fine.. And how are you? - she asked back politely. I am fine Maya. Is this a good time to talk? - the voice asked. Yes, and who am I speaking to? - she asked. The voice on the other side answered, this is Tom Miko. I am the person who got you this housekeeping work. I wanted to find out if you were happy with what you are doing? Yes, I am - Maya answered without hesitation. She never really was very talkative person, she usually listen and answered whenever someone asked questions. So I hear, I spoke with your parents and they said the same thing, just wanted to find out directly from you. Maya was thinking, what does all this mean? Anyway, Tom Miko decided to be more direct, and asked if she would consider even better job opportunity. Not far away from here and she will be doing same kind of job and getting pay even better. She stayed silent, while Tom was going on and on about this new opportunity. Here she is alone, no parents, and trying to make this decision if she should leave current job and go to that other place. What am I going to say to the current house owners? - and before she even was able to finish her thought, the voice on the other side of the phone answered. I will talk to your employers, you don't have to say anything. Really she though, but also she thought why this voice sounded more and more familiar. Something is going on here, and I don't know what it is - she thought. So she decided to think about it. Maya finally answered, after Tom mumbled something on the other line. She interrupted - I will have to get back to you on this. Tom was silent. She thought she offended him at first, but the voice came back as calm not knowing if this was different person talking on the phone. Okay, Maya - can I call you back tomorrow same time. Yes Tom, and you have a good night - she said and hang up the phone.She finished up cleaning the kitchen table top, where she started before the phone call. The phone call lasted only about ten minutes, however it felt like ages. She decided not to think about it. She finished up all her work for today and headed up to bed. She liked to go early to bed. She always left a little good night note for the owners. They always came home late, I guess they would eat out most of the time. Cooking was not in her job description, but her duties included to serve morning continental breakfast and coffee. She dropped by the rooms to ensure that everything was in its place. Again she did not have to worry about much because the owners only made some very small mess on the weekends, but they were very good cleaning up after. So how much did she had to do, not much. All the money she earned she was saving. She had a pile of check in her room in the night table that she collected over 1 year. She sometimes wondered why they came through the mail. I guess she never asked how she can even cash these checks. Where she was she really did not have to do anything, everything she needed she had, including food. The groceries were regularly delivered to the house, so she always ate well and cook for herself. Maya stay in touch with her parents, but as time passed she called less and less, since not much was happening around her. She was in bed reading newspaper dated from two days ago. She recalled the earlier call and started to think about it, and most of all not about the offer but why was the voice on the other side of the phone familiar. Of all this she could not sleep, so she decided to watch some TV in the guest room. There was nothing on TV as she was flipping through the channels, so she decided to watch the local weather network. Looked like tomorrow was going to be a nice sunny day, not too cold and not too hot. Enough to spend some time in the garden. Sometimes, she would go and take care of the garden, knowing that some local company would come on the weekend anyway to do all gardening stuff. She would pick some weeds, water some wilted plants and sometimes move plants from one place to another. These people don't know anything about gardening, they just place plants wherever they want. The plants that needed shade were on the direct sun and some would be in the shade crying for sun all day long. She stared to follow sleep, but the familiar voice woke her up. It was the voice on the commercial. It was the local real state sales representative, and she caught the last glimpse of it - 'selling fully furnished houses with the housekeeping services'. Suddenly she realized why on first day of her housekeeping job the owners did not arrive from a long trip.

[FICTION]

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The Bear Fight

This is the beginning of my satirical modern novel, or not. However, when I will finish this write up who knows what kind of write up this will be - may be a new form called just blobbing. It was early Friday morning and I went biking again, this time alone. Just to let you know, this summer started nicely for us. We started with walking, and slowly added bikes to our local adventures. We are on the shopping spree for hiking trails, and seems like where we live there are no shortage of walking and biking trails. Where was I? Oh yes, its Friday morning and I am biking. However, the real adventure starts with local bear fight. So here I am in the middle of nowhere, well, somewhere, looks like grassland to me. Sun is up above me. Must be noon time. I don't have a watch - I don't know how this relates to this story. Can you see, I am trying to set the mood. Anyway, the BEAR. Bear can be defined as a furry animal with big head and big claws. What kind of bear, no idea. I am hoping for a grizzly bear. The wilder the better, this could be a real fight. Oh yes, yes, lets go back how it all started. I followed sleep on the couch front of the TV watching some National Geographic documentary, I think it was called the Dog Whisperer. Suddenly I am in the middle of this grassland. I am debating if I should leave this to your imagination, you probably know what happened. Yes she followed sleep and she is dreaming. You are exactly correct. But this story gets better, please don't stop reading. I am standing in the middle of the grassland, how do I know it is middle - I don't, but the middle is better to describe as opposed to North of this White Oak tree and to the left of this burning bush, and on the end who cares. Did I say a burning bush? Yes, a burning bush. So what is the real story about this burning bush, does it really burn? If yes, please someone show me the picture or show me some kind of evidence. Why would you even want to call this bush, a burning bush. I think this bush is not appreciating that we are calling it a burning bush. So I see this bear hovering around the bush, and it must be a burning bush because hell this bush is red. Something wrong, the bush cannot be red yet, its summer. Got yhaaaaa. Let start this again, it all started with the Dog Whisperer show. I recall also that there used to be a horse whisperer and parrot whisperer. Personally, I like the parrot whisperer because she could actually whisper in English. Okay it was few words but they were meaningful, like 'Hello'. And we all know how much it means to us when someone says hello to us. It means a lot, like a lot. Not sure how much a lot is but it means a lot. So this bear finally attacks me and whispers to my ear - 'I am going to get you'. And I am thinking you already have me, and what is this - a bear whisperer, oh no not another show - we do not need another whisperer show, or another reality show. Lets describe this fight now. The bear grabs me from the back and lifts me up, and that really lifted my spirits up. Then he started to spin around. Is he having a good time, do I look like a toy. This reminded me a bear fight on one of the Lucy shows. Just to point out, that bear on the Lucy show was not a real bear. If you saw this show or the bear, I think you will agree, the bear was fake as it can be. Well, I don't care if this was real bear or not, I Love Lucy show a lot. Remember no definition for my 'a lot', but I tell you one thing, I watched this show for two years straight since the discovery of her existence. I think it all started with 50th anniversary of the I Love Lucy show. Sometimes, I think I am like her, but then there are ten other shows and they resembled my life in detail as accurately as the bear fight. Since we are on the bear fight topic or more accurately, I am on the bear fight topic and trying to introduce this Canadian Open 2007 bear fight. May be with this statement in addition to the bear fight I will now have to worry about pack of gophers attacking me. Or they will see the bear and run away, but this is just my imagination in my dream, just another crazy dimension that Albert Einstein would want to get the Nobel Prize for. This man was a genius, a real genius. I like him. I sometimes wonder about his hair due, is it like that because he was fighting a bear? So now I am in the field being spanned by the bear, and Albert Einstein is standing in front of me trying to help, but he is scared as hell. I wonder if he was the one to discover the pepper spray. And I also see this pack of gophers once in the while sticking their heads from the ground, up and down, and up and down - the rolling golf hills can really do that to you. Did you ever see a gopher? If not, go and see it - they are real fun to watch. I think you can find them in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. So the story is getting better now. I am in Jasper National Park with Albert Einstein trying to invent pepper spray really hard on the fly and pack of gophers cheering the whole situation. And I am here thinking - why? Why what? All this is not making any sense. Albert Einstein is long time goner, pepper spray been in circulation for ages, and what are these gophers cheering for, I don't even like golfing. But then this pack of dogs shows up barking at the bear and the bear releases me, and runs away. I think that was a grizzly bear. I got few pillow marks from having my arm under pillow, but all is good now. I am back on my feet turning the TV off and heading for the bedroom. I guess the Dog Whisperer show is now over.

[FICTION]