Month: July 2023

There is absolutely nothing more refreshing than dunking your bod into the ocean at Queensland Beach.

Applied for job at Fort McMurray oil patch, thanks to info from Sherriann Bella, whom I worked with the summer of 2018, driving Apple cars around Ontario & Quebec. Job pays twice what I earn now but I’d have to live in Calgary and work one week of 12 hour days on and one week off. All this to pay taxes the government has told me it doesn’t care about. They’d be happy to write them off. I breathe the spirit of Dudley Doright! I could work there two years and retire at the age of 78 with ten bucks in the bank.

Net annual income, $56,000 or $4,666/month

Owed to Gov’t, & trustee: $70,000

Pay off at 3000/month = 23 months

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Hey family— awfully quiet here now that you’re all gone. Missed groaning out of bed at 10 a.m. and getting down to your place by 10:30 knowing Toody would be right there with a cup of coffee and a snack, that Paddy would arrive full of learned pronouncements and opinions and we’d chase down Dennis via text messages. After all this time, this old curmudgeon has to admit that he loves you all.

D0n’t need to see Otto. I’m living the script.

Started the new week by getting rid of Charlie. I’m simply not a cuddly cat person and I make no apologies. He is a perfect gentleman but I’m a curmudgeon. Told the SPCA my daughter suffers from severe asthma and couldn’t stand to even visit me. Told Charlie it wasn’t his fault I didn’t like him and I hoped he’d find a more supportive family. He said he didn’t much like me either and left the armchair to skulk in his cardboard box.  SPCA was perfectly happy to take him back so now I am careless.

Good news from my employer who has promised to send a permanent offer of employment in due course. So I wheedled my boss into giving me this weekend off, and am now giving myself a short holiday. I’ll head off to the Gaspé in eastern Quebec tomorrow with kayak and sleeping bag. I’ll hit various beaches on the way. Water is very warm this year thanks to climate change so I’ll try out various beaches on the way up.

Resumed my regular music lesson yesterday and Rory said the new tenor sax is sounding  pretty good. My repairman, a former clarinettist with the Polish Symphony, says it will sound even better after he plugs a few holes. I live and dream of a sax I don’t have to fight with to make a decent sound. The prospect of actually being able to play what I want is exciting. As I might have mentioned I’ve been invited to play alto sax with a pick-up band doing a charity concert. It should be easy, fun rock ‘n’ roll tunes but it’s nice to be wanted.

It’s a lovely, sultry day in Halifax and I’m just finishing lunch at IKEA where they sell beer, so I had one in honour of Charlie. I’ll head back home and take my ebike to the practice room at Dal and honk my brains out for a couple of hours.