Zen and the Art of Firewood Maintenance

We burn a lot of firewood around here.  I thought it would be fun to see if I could make burning wood even remotely humourous or poignant.  At the conclusion of this car wreck I’m not really sure what I accomplished but what the hell, it was fun.

With me being at home now we go through about 15 face cords a year.  I used to buy all my firewood.  This caused a bit of a paradox in the complicated folds of my wee mind.  Somehow I saw this as reducing the sustainability of the whole thing.  Obviously I would still be using far less electricity to fire the furnace if I’m burning wood, purchased or not.  But the idea of buying wood from what is effectively a wood factory kind of bugs me.  I understand that these guys probably manage their wood lots well, taking down only appropriate trees in order to keep the lot healthy.  It’s just that this leaves too many opportunities for unquestionable practices.  Yes, believe it or not this shit actually goes through my head.  So now it’s not just greed capitalist that can’t be trusted but Gaston Tranche Montagne from out back of Poltimore, who can’t be counted on to take down a tree properly.

God, I hope I’m not turning into a conspiracy theorist.  It’s recently been pointed out that I’m becoming a lot more reclusive out here.  I’m not so sure this is a good sign.  A buddy of mine told me on the phone the other day that I’m turning into Ted Kaczynski.  Don’t fret though; my revolution remains a peaceful one – we’re only building love bombs here baby!

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

When he was sentenced to prison, Nelson Mandela said to the court that had just convicted him, “I do not deny that I planned sabotage.  I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence.  I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by whites.”  

This could be the most honest thing anyone has ever said.  Madiba had immense balls!

My Father Has Dementia and I Ramble - a Lot!

It’s been an interesting bunch of months.  My Dad had colon cancer surgery about eighteen months ago.  It was a successful operation.

The mechanic who performed the surgery did a bang-up job.  All the disconnecting of hoses here and re-attaching of hoses there was done exactly according to the manual found in my father’s glove box.  I have a buddy who’s a marine mechanic and I’m awed by his ability around a specialized piece of mechanics too.

Unlike a marine mechanic though, the medical community has another aspect to their repair work.  They call it algiatry and it’s all about pain medicine and walking up the pain ladder for managing analgesia.

The white-coated cult has embraced this.  It’s become sacrosanct in their rituals to the point where this actual branch of medicine exists and medication has become of utmost importance.  I guess it’s been a natural progression.  As a species we’ve been looking for the magic pill almost since the beginning of civilization.  Cultures from all over time and place have enlisted sorcerers, witch doctors or medicine men; all of which utilized potions in the course of their healing rituals.

Living Here can be Dangerous to One's Health

We live in the most idyllic place.  Seven years ago, almost to the day, we decided to move away from an ultra-cool urban loft in the ultra-trendy West Village area of Ottawa.  Crammed between the gentrification going on in Hintonburg and Westboro, it’s in my opinion the best neighbourhood in the city.

We also had a lake property that we developed through the early years of our relationship.  It was a beautiful, totally secluded lot just inside the Laurentians area outside of Lac des Plages, Quebec.  It was on a tiny pristine lake, no motorboats allowed.  We put a trailer on the property and developed a great little infrastructure around it and for ten years, running off of propane and a solar paneled 12-volt battery, carved out a cool little summer cottage existence.

Suzanne and Jerry Have a Chat

An actual recent conversation in our house:

Me:  Do you think my big fat ego can take me being a cleaning lady?

Suzanne:  What could possibly be left of your big fat ego?

It’s been two years already.  It’s been two years since I really left the corporate world.  Oh I’ve dabbled a bit since but it’s really just been a dabble here and a dabble there.

I'm presently spending a lot of time working on a business but it remains in the pre-revenue stage.  I’ve noticed that the natural habitat of “the dabble” appears to be the pre-revenue stage.  This is a bad stage.  This is a really, really bad stage.  I hate this stage.

Anyway, my big fat guilty conscience could sure use to contribute a little more financially.  It’s pretty interesting how the progressive male mind works.  When you’re on the other side, mired in the fray you think  - I can handle this ego thing.  I’m above it all for I am metrosexualman...mercifully deprived of the ravages of ego (I know, I know, shotty’d from the Time Bandits…AGAIN!  But please bask in the use of such a millennial urban term juxtaposed against a seminal thirty-year-old movie.) Where was I again? Oh yeah...well apparently I’m not so good at handling this ego thing.  My ego is as strong as it ever was; in fact with this whole emancipation exercise I’m going through, I think my ego has turned into a bit of a mind parasite, lurking under the surface just waiting to pounce.

Jackie-san is Gone

So a guy I lived with my second year of college died this week.  Fifty-four, had a massive coronary.  Poof – gone!  I hope he’d walked through the gates of enlightenment but I’m doubten her (Brockville speak).  Probably back for another 5 or 10 or 20,000 lifetimes according to those whacky Hindu hijinks or who knows, maybe just worm food.  Irrespective of ones philosophical beliefs he’s certainly shipped out of this dimension – Gonedy! (more Brockville speak with a little phonetic Hindu twist).

We lived together in a three-bedroom dump in “Da Get-toe” on Morissette off of Merivale in Ottawa.  Funny the things you remember.  One was a yearlong competition.  The rules were simple.  When you went to the can at night, you kept the lights off and sat down to pee.  Once seated you flicked on the light.  The object was to kill as many cockroaches as possible as they scattered in the light.  Apparently I wasn’t much of a Buddhist or Tolstoyan in college.  Kevin, our third roomy held the lofty record of eleven in a single seating by years-end.

Jack was a really solid guy.  He was going to school to study Law and Security in hopes of becoming a cop.  Boy was he living with the wrong dudes.  Anyway, he never became a policeman and I hope he was good with that.  The last time I spoke with him was about five years back.  He was married to a girl I went to high school with and they had a couple of boys.  Life seemed good.

 

I can’t imagine that he’s gone.

I better get busy – time’s short!    

Spirit Y'all Has a New Home.

Hello people.  How ya?  I haven’t posted in a while.  And by a while I mean 505 days.  Crazy huh?  What the hell happened?

I’ll tell you what happened.  What happened was, is that I acquired a new coach.  I’ve tried this “life-coach” thing a couple of times before but I made a fundamental error both times.  I agreed to act as a guinea pig for a really good friend of mine and for my wife.  They both needed a lab rat during the time of their coaching accreditation.  They say you shouldn’t do this and in this particular case they, the generalized other, is absolutely right.  That ol’objectivety thing can really be tough ya know.

I've done it properly this time and the new guy is a real ball-buster.  Can you imagine, he makes me make commitments and things?  You know what I mean, the kind of commitments that he expects you to know enough to meet???  Man, I hate those types of commitments.  Couldn’t I just make commitments that I didn’t really have to commit too?  The guy is obviously a madman.