Working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week just as the spousal unit begins her second year of master’s

Continue readingMaelstrom revisited

The second week looked a bit more promising. There was one day…Tuesday… where the icon was a pure, unapologetic, grinning

Continue readingSecond week of Holidays

Sometimes your trajectory in life is usurped by chaos. Take my friend, for example, who, a few days ago, lost

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Okay, I know the ice caps are melting. But after putting up with the 8 foot high snowdrifts and the

Continue readingGlobal weather changes?

don’t know about you, but my ability to find interesting and relevant information is rapidly diminishing. It’s not because there

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So…I`m discovering that, like most proud owners of antique fire apparatus (this can`t be a very large demographic), I’ll accept

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Sometimes you think your world is chaotic. Then, within that chaos, you find more chaos…like a subchaotic structure that is

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Sometimes I think chaos is self-imposed — the result of bad planning, stupidity and lack of common sense on my

Continue readingChaos lives here…

On the second day of our holidays, we decided to go berry picking. I’ve been waiting all year for fresh strawberry and planned on picking lots so we could make jam later in the week. Pack the kids in the car, lather them up with sunscreen (in case the sun comes out), fill the packsack with water, snacks, bug repellent and off we go.  At the storefront counter, I tell the way-too-young and way-too-bored clerk that we’re here to pick strawberries. Sorry, she says, no strawberries left. Raspberries? I ask. Not till next week. Blueberries? Nope. Anything? Nope. But we’re welcome to use the petting zoo at the top of the hill. The “petting zoo” consists of three bunnies, two goats and one donkey. We feed the goats and my daughter is a bit reluctant to stick her hand so close to the beasts’ jaws. I show her how easy and safe it is and, as she begins to relax in my arms, the donkey, growing impatient, just clamps his jaws on my forearm.

A donkey’s jaw is pretty powerful, I’m discovering, as the pain is sufficient to make me think a bone fracture might be in my future but I don’t want to freak out my daughter by screaming like a girl so I smile and, with my good arm, reach over and grab a bit of rabbit food stick it under his nose. Apparently, rabbit food tastes better than my arm so I’m free. My daughter looks at the bite marks on my arm and studies my face to see if there’s any reason to panic…I smile at her, she smiles back and the moment is saved.  We recover the rest of the day by visiting a reptile museum where we watch a snake suck in a dead rodent, have a tarantula crawl up my arm and walk through a maze of cobbled-together cages where endless varieties of turtles are displayed. Is there anything more interesting than watching a turtle eat vegetables? So ends another day of fun.

On the third day of our holidays, it poured. So we played some indoor games. Some friends came over and the children frolicked outside for the 45 minutes of sunshine we were apparently alloted that day. Somewhat sedate but we tried to recover by lining up a sitter and going out for a gourmet evening followed by a comedy show. I reserved a table at a Spanish restaurant we’d never been since my dearest one was interest in perhaps a little tapas and the paella was highly recommended, and I booked us into a local comedy club.  Upon arrival at the restauraunt, we found ourselves virtually alone with a charming but apologetic hostess who advised us that they have a flamenco player on Thursday…too bad we came on a Wednesday.  We plodded on and ordered the ham and melon tapas and a litre of wine. For some reason or other, we were surprised that the ham and melon tapas was nothing more than a few slices of ham dropped on a few pieces of melon. Finally, we ordered a vegetarian paella with a side of garlic shrimp for my wife. Conclusion: the wine was okay.

Off to the comedy show, hoping for redemption. I guess I failed to note that Wednesday is amateur night at the comedy club.

On the fourth day of our holidays the office called to let me know we were switching to production mode on a major system and my software didn’t seem to work with the new upgrades. Thursday was spent VPN’d to the office going through code to fix the issue before we went gold. Then it rained.

On the fifth day of our holidays I woke up, had breakfast, and felt like I hadn’t slept in 3 years. Actually, that’s partly true, but nonetheless, I was knackered and every joint was aching. And I had a fever. I lay in bed all morning, chilled to the bone. I had a glass of water for lunch while the rest of the family lovingly treated my like a leper…probably a wise move. In the afternoon, for a change, I sweated profusely while my wife checked the status of our life insurance policies.

On the sixth day of our holidays, the fever has subsided to a low-grade one and the aches and pains were more bearable so I found the energy for a shower. Somewhat refreshed I was nonetheless perplexed when, upon performing a customary movement, I noticed a slight pain signalling me something was amiss on my buttock. Hmmm, I thought. Retiring to the bathroom, I checked out my butt in the mirror. It’s not normally a pretty sight but, judging from what I saw, it appeared that a large predatory insect or alien creature had attacked my backside and left a large red welt the size of small pizza. I’ll spare the reader any further details or pictures; suffice it to say that it was red, swollen, hot to the touch and, no matter which way you stand, sit or walk, painful.

Now, with both my bad-luck parents on the other side of mortality, you’d think at least one of them would be rooting for me. Why did whoever controls fate, need to dish this out on a Saturday morning when the doctor’s offices are all closed? And do you know what? If you have a sore leg you get sympathy…sore ass? You get laughter. Then it hit me. Sore ass? A donkey is also an ass…hmmm. Coincidence? You’d think yes… but then my wife looks up the symptoms on the ‘net (which is always a reliable source of medical information) and finds a reference to “foot and mouth disease”… Great. So now I’m going to die from bovine disease, contracted from a donkey who bit my arm and caused my bum to swell. I bet the boys at the office will be lining up to say something at my eulogy. “He was a great guy…but a bit of bad ass…” or “He got a little behind…but problems just grew”… Oh, man…

…and my vacation isn’t over yet. Did I mention those little cloud icons with lightning rods still stretch out to eternity? At least I have a pool I can look at.