Will Ferguson - Hitching Rides With Buddha
I didn't want to read this book. I picked it up thinking that my mother, who taught in Japan for several years, might enjoy it. But she'd read it and recommended it to me heartily.
Now I wasn't in any great rush to read it for a couple of other reasons. One of which was that I thought I had attended university with Will and that he was an asshole. Well, not necessarily an asshole, he was quite likeable in fact, it's just that he published before me and while it's probably drivel possibly it's not and that makes him an asshole.
So I did a bit of research and, lo and behold, I didn't go to university with Will Ferguson. A few "Will's", a few "Ferguson's", that was probably where I got confused. It doesn't lessen the fact that he's still an asshole.
I began the book, perfectly prepared to hate the guy and write it off. Looking, in fact, for any reason to dislike it. But, oddly enough, there weren't any. Or not too many. It's actually a perfect travel book. By perfect I mean he meets a variety of characters, there's some humour and poetry, he has some small adventures and fills us in with the history, geography and culture of the places he visits. And his assessments aren't far off of my own (if anything they're probably better, having done research and all). But I won't hold that against him.
It was a good book. Actually, it was a great book, but I wouldn't say that 'cause I hate the guy. I'd give it a full bento box, with extra salmon and octupus and several extra pieces of that delicious fried tofu.
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About that cheque....
I’m just wondering what’s up with the CompanyX cheque.
I don’t like to ask, and I don’t want you to think it’s because I haven’t paid the rent for May because the landlord’s pretty cool with it and when he asks me for money I just nod wisely and say “so much thought for money, but what about our souls?....” and he laughs and tells me I’m a good guy and I can pay him what I want when I want.
And I don’t’ want you to think it’s because I have the kids this weekend and there’s no food in the cupboard because we’re getting by just fine, although the kids have started to question a few things like:
- girl: “My mom says that dandelions and grass aren’t really vegetables…”
- me: “SALAD!! It’s a SALAD!!!”
or
- boy: “My mom says that dirt and water make mud”
- me: “Shut up and finish your Turkish porridge or there’ll be no salad for dinner”
And it’s not because they’re going to shut off the electricity because I can plug in my laptop next door and charge the battery and if I wander around the neighborhood for a few hours I can usually find an unsecured wireless network to connect to.
Gas? Gas, Schmass, it’s summer.
And toilet paper isn’t really necessary because if the kids ask I’ll just tell them we’re doing a practice run for our vacation to China, and to use the personal sized newspaper strips I’ve ripped from the many free flyers I get and if they complain I’ll tell them how lucky they are to be going to China because I never went anywhere when I was a kid.
Then I’ll send them to the yard to collect some crickets for dinner.
No, no, none of the above would induce me to write, the reason I ask is that tomorrow (Saturday, May 30) is GARAGE SALE DAY - WEEK 8 and the thought that I might be skint while all sorts of phenomenal bargains steal away from under my nose is more than I can bear.
Imagine: I’m at a garage sale and someone is offering up these treasures for sale:
- A Bakelite knob from an old brownie camera
- Most of a deck of playing cards
- A stage-west glass with a picture of Jamie Farr (Klinger from Mash) on it
And all of the items are a quarter each, but the guy holding the sale says I can have them all for 50 cents, but I only have 23 cents but I don’t show him how much I have because he might get greedy so I offer him a nickel and we bargain for a bit and it ends up that I can have the whole lot of items for a quarter. Which, as you’ll agree, is a heck of a bargain, but I only have 23 cents.
Imagine the agony of my family. The boy, Klinger is his Idol. It’s the reason he got into acting and while I initially tried to discourage it in favour of a more regular and steady paying job he countered with “like being a web developer daddy?” and I couldn’t really argue and vowed on the spot to support him no matter what his career decisions.
The girl collects pokemon cards so we’d just scratch out the pictures on the playing cards and make them into our own pokemons and so she’d be heartbroken that we couldn’t have them. Maybe the deck would have a few jacks or queens left in it, which are naturally high ranking pokemons and then she’d be doubly disappointed.
And then there’s me. Casting a final, forlorn glance at the Bakelite knob, probably a dealer would show up and snap it up to sell it on at the flea market on Sunday, but what with his markup and all it would probably come in at a dollar or so and I couldn’t justify an expense like that and so it would be yet another bargain slipped through my fingers forever.
So while I hate asking and all, where's the cheque?
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Japan Cubed
I've been sick, tired, blowing my nose every 20 minutes. Too sick and tired to work or clean, the day was spent reading Will Ferguson's "Hitching Rides with Buddha". Which partly explains the dreams.....
All night, a 10 hour sleep, mouth breathing. Sleeping on my left side, my right side, my back, waking up every hour when I felt the cold trickle of snot running down my face to go to the bathroom, wipe it off and blow my nose, then back to bed and sleep some more. And it's the same dream over and over, A giant cube of Japan. That's it. Japan cubed. I'm as baffled as you are. No variation, no recollection past the fact that this was the dream that I just had; it was the same dream all night, "resumed" after every wake up, fall asleep, the same thing over and over....
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Garage Sale Finds - Week 6
It used to be the Calgary Herald, you'd go to the classifieds and plot out your garage sale map, they had the garage sales organized by date and quadrant of the city. But they've changed it, "reorganized" it so that date and area of the city are no longer organizable fields, address is optional, clicking on the "read more..." link in the hopes of finding an address leads to a "Page not found Error". It's been like this for the whole season, entirely not working.
Now the Calgary Herald classifieds are a paid service. You pay them, they advertise your sale, product or event. But this is ridiculous, you can find nothing and certainly nothing in order on their site. So I search around and find other sites - Kijiji, Craigslist, Calgaryarea.com, all sites where you can advertise your garage sale for free. And this, apparently, is where everyone else is advertising their garage sale as well. It's more work, they're organized by date and city only, you have to make your own map to the highlights, but at least the information is there.
This weekend is the first "Big" weekend of sales. By which I mean there are more sales than I can make it to, hope to make it to, in various neighborhoods. There's the Bethany Chapel sale, there's a neighborhood sale in Scarborough, there are others....
And so I make my map and head out on Saturday morning.....
A day full of treasures. Stack of CD's, new, perhaps 30 in the stack, $2.00. $10.00 for miscellaneous Pokemon cards for my daughter (a stack about 6 inches thick). Books - Penguin guide to Shakespeare, Monologues for young actors, Calvin & Hobbes, for the boy, an old rotary phone, bright red ("Mr. President....It's the Kremlin calling.....") as well as a loose red "reset"button...("The Missiles have been launched..."). A small Fireking green jadeite bowl with blue butter dish, a hallmarked solid silver candlestick. And the highlight, a 16 mm movie camera from the 50's with telephoto lense. I need a tripod.
All in all a good day.
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