Ending 2017/Beginning 2018

I end 2017 a little better off than the beginning of it. I’m at least thankful for that. I guess I can also say that I’m happy that it has warmed up today. Even though it’s still only –34 in the wind outside, it’s 16 degrees warmer than it was yesterday morning (-50), which makes this jump in temperature seem almost tropical.

My favourite photo of 2017. 

I can’t say that the year 2017 has been a drastic improvement over the previous one, but through my own will and resolve, I managed to do better with it than what it had offered me. I had an interesting question come to me from a friend on year's end day who was asking me about how she should approach the thing she was resolving to do. My response was something that I myself was going to remind myself to keep in mind for my efforts at betterment for 2018. It generally amounts to one single word. It is the summary of something that the very rich don’t seem to even have. That thing is “enough”; I’ll make that my word of the year**. I am going to be more proactive in willfully reminding myself that I have enough. I will wear things out until they need to be genuinely replaced, I will make the best with what I already have, and to stop over-consuming and accumulating dross. Enough also applies to what I genuinely want to set limits on in terms of things that invade my life that don’t serve me for the better. I have to learn clear stuff like that away better. I am just generally looking for more happiness, and that might include trying to find some aspect of an advantage to use even in the worst of a bad situation.

Last Purchase of 2017:

Olives, or at least that was the final thing that was tallied on my grocery store receipt today

Last Activities of 2017:

• Driving back home from visiting with the rest of my family
• Grocery shopping
• Kitchen work/food prep
• Texting friends
• Stripping my bedroom, and using the extreme cold outside for cryonic sanitization: cold-cleansing, a safe and non-toxic preventative measure for getting rid of odours and unwelcome biologicals from fabrics and other articles (see last sentence of introductory paragraph).
• Watching the IIHF World Juniors, US vs. Finland (disappointed that Finland didn’t avenge us for the upsetting loss to the states on Friday)
• Reading news from the foreign language news services: DeutschWelle (Germany), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), Le Monde (France) by fireside

First Activities of 2018:

• Writing this entry, listening to tunes 
• Reading my past entries for the year
• Burning my old 2017 calendars in the fireplace
• My tradition of sipping and savouring a single glass of some fine Scotch (see below)

Last Meal of 2017/First Meal of 2018 (a huge deli snack platter to graze on, including):

• Rullepølse* (Icelandic style brined deli meat, from a butcher shop in Wynward, SK)
• Hummus
• Various sorts of Cherry Tomatoes, Pickles, and other raw veggies, comprised mostly of stuff around home (remember, the theme is enough). I’m not eating until after sundown, as I’m still trying to digest stuff from two days ago.
• Grolsch Radler (non-alcoholic, if I’m just going to be sitting around being reflective, I prefer to do so being lucid)

Scotch of the Year for 2018: Jura – a 10 year old single malt, mellow, not so over-powering with smokiness like some scotches can be, with a notes and hints of ripe pear and maple. Splendid stuff.

Last Project of 2017/First Project of 2018: - Discovering my own genome. Why? Because genetics is cool beans, that’s why. I recently purchased the DNA testing kit from Ancestry.com while it was on special discount. I reasoned that if I’m not going to be siring or begetting any heirs of my own to see what my own genes send forth, I would like to be knowledgeable about where and from whom I descended from within the grander perspective of the entire human race.

Last Book of 2017/First Book of 2018: - The Hypnotist, by Lars Keplar

Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2018:

The Winter Olympics in South Korea

*- Perhaps it’s appetites for things like this, plus my Mom’s choice to make Swedish meatballs and rice pudding on Christmas Eve (Scandinavian Christmas tradition) that’s making me question our true heritage. 
**- That's for the material things. I don't know yet what word I'll use for the intangible, non-material things that I really don't have enough of.

Ending 2016/Beginning 2017

I did what I could to make the final day of 2016 be an additional day that didn't suck balls, as I already summed up, so eloquently, in a previous entry about the rest of the year. The only good thing that happened during the weeks off work, being not able to fully function physically or participate socially while being injured, is the fact that I've had time for myself to do lots of navel-gazing for some more important life questions. Some made me very grateful, while others made me quite regretful. They are too private to list and post here. A great dump of snow finally arrived yesterday, and I'm not keen on traveling anywhere to be in some crowded place with strangers, despite the free transit service for the evening. Being at home in peace to ruminate and contemplate for the rest of the evening is fine enough for me.

Beginning a review and a rant about how abominable the state of 2016 was would be pointless. I can't find any heart to use in chronicling any of it. It can be simply summed up with the facts that too many good people passed away, more amoral and genuinely rotten people gained more power and have become emboldened, irresponsible, and abusive with it; my state of health went backward instead of forward with some pain, impairment, and suffering, and the news has not just been a stream, but an inundation of one disaster after another. Any good that appeared throughout the year was greatly overshadowed by a lot of evil and disasters.

So, with mindfulness, and some attempt to not let things become any worse, here is how I transitioned between the last hours of the last day of the wretched year, 2016, and the first few hours of 2017 . . .

Last Five Purchases of 2016:

• Groceries/foodstuffs (including a variety 12 pack of lagers and ales)*
• A haircut
• A lottery ticket ($20.00 richer from it)
• Service for my Nordic skis to be refinished/waxed properly
• A Virtual Reality headset - because, after this year's news, actual reality is apparently something I want to be less of a part of. It wasn't bought today, but it seemed significant.

Last Five Activities of 2016:

• Physiotherapy exercises
• Housecleaning, bookkeeping, decluttering and trashing stuff
• Fixing and refitting a shelving unit insert (thanks again, Mom and Dad)
• Nordic skiing - thankfully, my arm isn't buggered up from doing it, followed by a long cozy nap with the pooch and I by the fireplace, lit with the tinder of torn up 2016 calendars
• Drinking and snacking between IIHF hockey games (watching the fucking USA team beat Canada - another 2016 disaster), watching TV shows (historical and science documentaries mostly) and reading my chosen book (see below)

First Five Activities of 2017:

• Writing this entry
• Reading my past entries for the year
• Thinking about the people I miss most
• A sipping and savouring some fine Scotch (see below)
• Opening my first resolution envelope (January 2017) . . . too personal to post.

Last Meal of 2016/First Meal of 2017 (a huge deli snack platter to graze on, including):

• Rice Crackers
• Brie Cheese
• Liver and Herb Pâté
• Calamari Ring Ceviche**
• Cocktail Shrimp marinated in seasoned Lemon Oil**
• Smoked Oysters**
• Medley Mix of Cocktail Olives
• Celery Sticks
• Virgin Caesars** (this might surprise and shock some of you, but believe it or not, there are actually some cocktails I do prefer to drink without the alcohol)*** 

Scotch of the Year for 2017***: Twelve year old Aberfeldy, single malt. Definitely a lust element of Lists, Lusts, and Lost Precious Thoughts. Heavily endowed with a heathery floral aroma, entwined with a less-like-caramel and more-like-honey note in its sweetness, and a slight wafting of a secondary ester that's kind of reminiscent of banana. There is a slightly almond characteristic in the body of the base malt in the liquor as the other notes dissipate. There's no discernable smokiness, like some other Scotches have. Superb, delightful, and smoooooooth.

Last Project of 2016/First Project of 2017: Formulating my own Gin Infusion Recipe*** - the ingredients used are:

• Neutral spirit alcohol
• Juniper berries (dried)
• Jasmine blossoms (dried)
• Lemon peel
• Coriander seed
• Six more botanicals that I'm keeping a secret (if it turns out good, it will be my signature blend; if it turns out bad, it wouldn't be worth sharing anyway.) P.S. No matter what the outcome, I certainly won't be calling it "Victory Gin" (see below).

Last Book of 2016/First Book of 2017: A re-read of Nineteen Eighty Four, by George Orwell. It should be a prerequisite read for those who are so gullible and mistakenly/carelessly making and spreading fake news on social media, inciting fear-mongering with baseless conspiracy theories, picking out some unseen enemy to blame for [their] current troubles, and who blindly side with any political authority with a "might is right" (fascist) agenda that preaches isolationism, farcical economic bullshit, war for the sake of peace , and production for the sake of all of that, whilst at the same time cheapening and destroying the welfare of both human beings and the environment. As I re-read this with a more literary mind than I had the last time I read it ten years ago, I find more and more layers of meaning to this satire, which, sadly, is becoming more and more reflective, cautionary, and frighteningly truthful about the times we are living in now, and possibly approaching in the times ahead, as free speech and right to assemble is getting attacked more and more often, and technology is making us become more and more estranged from each other. If I was ever put in the role of an English teacher again, this book would definitely be in the curriculum, because I realize now that there is a whole generation of people who were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and never witnessed or experienced the posturing and fear of total domination by of totalitarian governments like the Soviet Union, or generally blissfully ignorant or the mechanisms of entities like the KGB or the Stasi, who like Thought Police, surveilled and invaded every element of people's lives. That era is completely out of the collective consciousness and historical memory of the Millennials, and that's what I believe the currant establishments are counting on, so this generation can be more easily controlled, as they are trying to bring privacy to extinction, and afflicting more corporate control through propaganda memes, and advertising. That's why I believe that this book needs to reach them most of all. It's a book that I would hope would challenge people to think and question motives beyond a three word slogan, than mindlessly complying to it, whatever it is. It's a reminder of how governments suppress and oppress with words, and language itself is twisted, corrupted, and perverted to obfuscate and hide more insidious measures and actions, like the real life examples of "right to work" in the anti-labour movements, or the term "transformational change"**** in the health care system in this province. It's a read for anyone living under a government who is expounding and touting how great and prosperous we all are, while at the same time is cutting and selling off services, hiking up fees and taxes, and clawing back wages as measures of austerity, putting us closer to enslavement to debt. I can only read about 10 - 15 pages at each sitting because there is so much more to digest of it now that I have more of it revealed to me with a mindset of a more engaged Unionist. Sorry for turning this into a long book review, but 1984 is a pivotal and profound piece of literature of the science fiction/alternative history/political satire genres that is still very relevant today.

Five Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2017:

• Our Nation's 150th Birthday, there's going to be a good time had around here somewhere
• The Possible Decriminalization/Legalization of Marijuana in Canada - not for an excuse to get high (I really am not interested in that; it's not my thing), but to lay stronger inroads for a hemp economy, for commercial/industrial purposes and switching to fibres, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and oils that veer away from using toxic petrochemicals, and that will do more to protect the environment, along with maximizing diversity of production usage per hectare of arable land.
• Getting healed up enough to get the full use of my arm back
• A possible trip I'm planning to Eastern Canada
• Being able to commit to even 10% of the wild things and projects I've set out for myself in 2017 that I've randomly and secretly assigned for myself for each month of this year

Happy Year 2017, everyone. Let the adventure begin . . .

*- Beer is simply a liquefied form of bread, derived from generally the same basic ingredients of yeast, grain and water; a potable version of the staff of life. Therefore, according to my judgement, it's an item I categorize to be included along with groceries/foodstuffs
**- It seems I've rendered this place a veritable zone of death for anyone with a severe seafood/shellfish allergy.
***- Even though I'm experimenting with spirit infusions, I've actually cut down a lot on drinking hard liquor. I've substituted quantity for quality. I've made it my tradition now to have one glass of single malt Scotch on the first day of each month for the year, New Year's Day inclusive. I never really fancied Scotch for a long while, because the first time I ever sampled it, I was offered some cheap and absolutely gross and terrible blended crap. Distillers who blend Scotch should all be hanged. I got to recently starting to love it after trying a single malt (10 year old Talisker at the time). After testing and exploring every note and nuance of that, I found it to be a fabulously delectable libation that gave a sensation that could only be best described as a some sort of sensual simultaneous orgasm shared together between the nose and the tongue. The 750 mL bottle of single malt during 2016 was 10 year old Auchentoshen . . . almost as sublime. I'll stop prattling on about drink-lore now.
**** - The term "transformational change" in itself goes to show how stupid the people are who dreamt up this ridiculous tautology. The word "transformational" already indicates that there is already a process of change happening, so why include the word "change" after it? I wish George Carlin was still alive to be all over this one. 

The 12 Month Random Resolution Game

There has been a long lapse between entries, mostly because there has been so little that has been good or positive, or of any importance to comment on. Four months of this year that I wished to make better have been stolen from me, and I've simply been trying to make moves toward getting back to some sort of normalcy: if there ever was such a thing for me. People who know me know that I've just been trying to work and move towards a full recovery, which has been progressive, but going so slowly in my mind that it has been a real test of my patience. Physiotherapy can be refreshing and relieving on one day, and then torturous on another, as micro-traumas are being worked out of the joints and muscle tissues in my arm. There is some noticeable nerve damage, but thankfully it's only slight. Given what I had going on during the initial days after the accident, things could have easily turned into something much worse. On top of that, I've been depressed and disappointed about the elections down south, and the state of the media coverage used to be corruptive for such an affair already laden with controversy and conspiracy. It was a shameful display all around. The latter third of this year can be summarized in three words - it sucked balls. There's nothing at all about it that I really want to recollect or recount.

Year's End is just 20 days away, and I'm already making plans for trying to have a better go in 2017 even before I attempt any Christmas shopping. I invented a sort game for myself: something that has meaningful projects and acquisition targets set up for me to try and gain for each month of the coming new year. Perhaps it's a flaky idea: one that evolved out of the combined urges of defeating some boredom, wanting to play cards (but no company for it), to play with odds and sort gamble a bit (without staking any of my Christmas shopping funds), and inventing a game of chance where I'll somehow always win*. I found a way to deck my halls with a deck of cards. I am sharing it for those who are also wanting to use it to make a more hopeful and prosperous coming new year.

Materials:

• pen and paper (enough to create up to about 144 slips, plus to write a category list)
• scissors (for cutting such slips)
• 12 sealable envelopes
• a deck of cards, OR alternatively, if you aren't a card player . . .
• a pair of dice, or a 12 sided gaming die (if you are a Dungeons and Dragons geek)

Method:

1. Make a list of 12 categories of 12 things or deeds that you what to have or do during the new year. They can be of anything you want: charitable or selfish, serious intellectual pursuits or something fun and foolish, skill building or talent oriented, material possessions or intangibles, whatever, so long as each category involves things that genuinely go towards your sense of well-being, happiness and life satisfaction. Have them be all affordable within a month's budget, and overall achievable within a month's time, and such that they can be available to have or do at any time of the year. Here's about 12 things as examples that may or may not interest you. (Some of) these categories below aren't necessarily reflective of mine. It's deeply personal thing, so make up your own 12 categories of 12 things to list in each. Strive for 12 things to list in each category, but if you can't, you can repeat some items to make up twelve if practical, or stick to some number under twelve. Some examples here are: 
• 12 career skills you want to build on
• 12 tools/implements you want for your workshop/space
• 12 items you want as home decorum, or things you want to change in your home
• 12 thing-a-ma-bobs you want to collect
• 12 subjects you want to study intensively
• 12 people/places you want to visit
• 12 books you want to read/memorize 
• 12 songs you want to learn to play on your[whatever musical instrument you have]
• 12 charities you want to donate time/money to 
• 12 exotic ingredients you want to sample/experiment with
• 12 restaurants you've never eaten at yet, but wanted to try
• 12 novel liquor ingredients you want in your cocktail bar**
2. Take one category, and write each of the 12 items you listed from that category on a seperate slip of paper. You'll have 12 slips of paper if you've listed 12 items in the category. Put them face down on the table and mix them up.
3. Lay out all the 12 envelopes on a flat surface with the open side up.
4. If using playing cards, take a full red suit out of the deck to use, discarding the king. Shuffle the 12 red cards and place one card, face up, on each envelope. Then, take a full black suit out of the deck, discarding the king. Shuffle the black cards and put them face down on the table. Draw a card from the top of the black card stack. Take one of the face down slips of paper, not looking at it, and tuck it into the envelope with the red card with the matching face value as the black card (i.e., if you draw a black 3, put one slip of paper in the envelope with the red 3 on it.). Turn the red card over, or remove it to indicate that this envelope has been loaded. Repeat the same steps for each draw of the black cards in the rest of the stack. Once all the slips of the category have been put in each of their respective envelopes, re-shuffle each stack of the red cards and the black cards, shuffle and lay out the envelopes again, open , side up, and repeat for the 12 item slips of the next category. Repeat until all remaining category list slips are packed in the envelopes. Alternately, if you prefer handling dice . . .
5. If using a 12 sided die***, arrange the envelopes such that you can visually mark them as 1 to 12 (like the face of a clock, for example). Roll the die and place the slip into the corresponding envelope that matches the number on the die. Turn the envelope over once it gets its one slip. Remember, no peeking at the slips! Reroll the die if the number is repeated, and continue rolling, and filling the corresponding envelopes with their single slip of paper until the slips are gone. Shuffle and redistribute the envelopes again, turning the envelopes open-side up again, and repeat for the slips of the next 12 items in the next category. Repeat this process until all categories are done.
6. Once all the envelopes are filled, seal them and shuffle them. Select one and write "January" on it, select the next and write "February" on it, and so on until each envelope is labelled with one of the months of the year from, January to December****, inclusive.
7. Keep these envelopes in a safe and secure place. On the first day of each month, open the envelope labelled for that corresponding month. Set an alert on your smartphone calendar if you need to be reminded.
8. Start, do, or get the stuff listed on the 12 slips of paper that you find in there. You have the entire month to plan and/or try to commit to whatever is listed on those 12 slips of paper throughout it all when you start on day one, be it starting page one of that book, or collecting materials for a month long project. It would be a good idea to journal your progress, or monitor your interest while you do it. If you failing at it, or if your interest is waning, you get to ask yourself "Why?"

I rationalize things with this betterment/resolution "game" this way. The road to hell is usually paved with good intentions. Resolutions are usually broken because people pile up all their ambitions at the start of the year, which only serves to overwhelm them. Some then drop them within 12 hours of New Year's Day. It's not a good way to practice kaizen - that is small and continuous progressive steps toward improvement. The lesson, if any, that I'm drawing from doing physiotherapy, is that small and continuous steps eventually build up to some more powerful things. Committing to major resolutions, more likely than not, involves throwing one's life out of balance which one is rarely prepared for. I've had enough of life out of balance happening since August - thank you very much; yet I still seek structured improvement for my welfare. The novelty and excitement withers away quickly too when things are over-planned, and there is no chance for surprise and spontaneity.  I hope this strategy is one way to improve upon that. Twelve things per month, be they leisurely or ambitious, amounts to about three things a week with which to reward or better oneself. That's as many times per week as I do PT, and I'm getting results for the better. That sounds enriching and progressive enough for me.

This is also a very deliberate way to exploit stuff that I already have, it's just the element of pacing and time that really is the thing that needs to be adjusted. For example, lots of people have books on their shelves that they haven't touched yet, so list them and use them. The same goes with other stuff that they may be hoarding. This then becomes a practical measure to prevent thoughtless and impulsive spending. I hope calling this a game will perchance draw some kind of fun into the whole process, despite the fact that it does involve some discipline. The cards/dice aspect of it brings in a bit of a mysterious element of divination of sorts. I just like the math and probability calculation of it. It is making a personal lottery where you can (choose to) win every time. All in all, after dealing with the spells of bad luck I've had, my true ambition is just to be somehow happier. We'll see by the end of next December.

Since I have nothing else to reflect on, or share for the rest of this year, I'll only bid everyone happy holidays. I hope that I'll have better things to share for 2017.

*- Because I was playing a video game, and became too frustrated at being stuck at one level with monster robots constantly blowing my head off. A not so productive way to use my recovery time.

**- Unless you are already in a 12 step program with AA, disregard this idea.

***- If using a pair of six sided dice, the last slip of paper left of the 12 in the category automatically goes into the envelope designated as #1.

****- If you would rather devote your time, money, and energy for preparing for Christmas (or other primary holiday month), just simply play this game with 11 envelopes, 132 paper slips, and pull out the red and black queens (if using cards), disqualify the 12 roll if using a die/dice. The parameters are thus adjustable.

Year's End Evening 2015

The year 2015 ends with me sitting in my humble dim living room, by my fireplace that was lit and kindled with the old calendars, sipping on a Scotch* on the rocks, reading and reviewing my chronicled entries I wrote throughout this year that has passed, and writing this current one. I really can’t find the will to be around any other company, despite feeling somewhat more alone than usual right now. The playlist generator app I switched on in iTunes guessed and programmed the perfect set of songs for what’s rolling around my mind right now. The ideal title for this particular playlist would be It’s There and Real. I wish it could be shared with the one I’ve been thinking about.

I was sort of lamenting earlier, as I wrote my last entry, about how 2015 did no special favours for me as a year of good fortune, and I’m at the point where I’m begging for some better karma for 2016. It seems though lately like even a small bit of good luck is a huge thing to ask and pray for. Even when good luck does come there now seems to be a catch, or a caveat. It seems to find a way of short changing me the chance of any complete potential, or the fullest scale for total happiness. Shortly after posting the last entry a little more than a week ago, I received a revelation that stunned and shook me to my very soul. I’ve been in a strange place ever since then, one in which I waver between states: where on one hand I feel like my heart wants to explode with joy, reveling in news that a guy like me would equate to winning the lottery . . . twice!  Then, I find myself falling just as suddenly to the other extreme of wallowing about in a fog of despair because the timing, distance, and other circumstances leave me powerless to be able to do anything more to make the reality of the situation less complicated and conflicted. It's like holding a winning lottery ticket . . . and being unable to collect the prize. A promise of discretion keeps me from explaining anymore about it; I could never betray the trust of the person who told me the facts. It’s something that I couldn’t ever forget anyway, and thus it's not necessary for me to record more here in great detail for the sake of my memory. All I can say is that I really wish I had the ability to clone the dearest people in my life. 

I have set no resolutions for this upcoming year: at least none which I could proclaim openly. My last meal of the year was nothing monumental. I worked this evening with no special ceremonies, struggling hard to find and recall any other special moments of the year for myself, other than what I just mentioned. It was futile. My last purchase of the year is a 3 TB cloud drive, for the arduous task of archiving and organizing my digital life so I can attempt to move other mountains. The recent effort of trying to recover some old photos showed me how urgently this needs to be done. It was bought out of necessity, not desire. It’s for preserving other work I have for the vain hope that it may get published some day. The threat of my laptop crashing any day still looms. Dealing with that may be my next issue.

I just glanced at a clock to see that I’m 40 minutes into the new year. My glass is now empty. Ella’s fear of fireworks was triggered from the bursts and shock waves from outside, and I suppose I have to coax her out of her hiding place. I suppose I should be thankful that throughout this past week, I’ve got real with myself after being sort of jolted and then coaxed out of some hiding places too.

Welcome 2016! Please don’t be as cruel of a year as 2015 was.

*-Single malt, 12 year old Auchentoshan . . . excellent stuff.

Winter Solstice Eve 2015 (Chance Rolls)

I have been doing my usual annual round of avoidance of the insanity of shopping the weekend before Christmas routine, and tried to keep this a low-key weekend at home.  It is the Eve of Winter Solstice*, and it seemed like a fine enough reason as any to relax by the fireplace and reflect. Finding it in me to make entries for the past couple months since the election hasn’t been there. There has only been drama-laden news and negativity charging at me from all sides since all the tragic happenings in Paris and San Bernardino, the ongoing debate about the refugee crisis, plus the fear-mongering stupidity abound stemming from creeps on social media to the campaigning in the States. Adding my input or other comments about these salient things one way or another doesn’t make for a course of relief from it all, nor changes the hateful idiocy of others who are making such crises worse.

Someone else who is just as unwilling as I am to get out of

bed on these dim and dark winter mornings.

I’ve been reflecting on the other 354 days of this year that have passed. I suppose 2015 for me will be known as “The Year of the Great Weakening”. I’ve come to face to face with working through a lot of denial about how much of a toll last year’s suffering really took on me, and what kind of impact it has left, and how it still affects me today. I didn’t think it would have amounted to affecting me so chronically. I’m sick of realizing how much it all has physically aged me in such a (relatively) short while: a notable and pronounced loss of resilience. I re-entered work this year with not only lots of upheavals regarding my personal health, but also wading hip deep into problems and challenges affecting not only me, but my co-workers and people I serve, and with my role in the Union. Holiday plans were ruined by fires throughout the summer, more injuries through late summer and fall, and then the other tragedies pouring through the news from late October onward. It hasn’t been what I would call a fun year to say the least.

Sure, there were lots of hard lessons to learn, but I didn’t need the pain, stress, and anguish; I’d benefit more from them if some element of fun or a lighter side was present. That didn’t happen. Life became too serious for my liking; nothing I’d want write about. It has been bad enough that I decided to suspend my more analytical and logical modality of problem solving thinking recently. It has been helpful in guiding out of problems, or at least taming down sparks to prevent bonfires, but there has been nothing that I would call feeling better with a sense of satisfaction or interest in doing so. So, just on a whim while Christmas shopping for others, I thought I would seek out a small inexpensive something that I would identify with as a “lucky charm”** for a more acceptably benign form of exercising superstitious thinking for myself: by consulting some form of oracle. I realized that the perfect sort of rosary objects or gris-gris for me is a set of dice. My threads of “logic” for making them significant totem objects are as follows:

• I like simple and symmetrical geometric shapes; dice have that going for them. It’s a reminder to seek out the most fundamental and simplest solution to a problem first and to take a balanced approach to tackling it.
• Dice are linked to gaming (my favourite dice games are Backgammon and Yahtzee, which I’m becoming addicted to playing online); a reminder to try to find some way to approach a difficult situation by making it entertaining enough to keep it at least interesting to follow through with dealing with it.
• Often my biggest problem is analyzing too much, and slapping down too many options and approaches in my own private sessions of brainstorming. Paralysis by analysis happens too frequently. Dice would be practical tools to help me speed up decision making and to settle on single options.
• Dice are mathematical instruments, which appeals to me when I want to entertain that geeky side of myself. I mentally retreat sometimes into thinking about the world weighed and measured in numbers to help myself be less bored or depressed.

Most importantly, a six sided die is a mnemonic representation of all the dimensions and elements of what depression or boredom is, or their flipside. Boredom = (energy) – (interest) – (attitude) – (knowledge) – (imagination) – (focus). By default of existing, one has a physical mass that works and interacts within the dimension of time. That is Energy (remember E=mc²). Unless you are in a freaking coma, or sick to a point close to dying, the powers that be gifted your conscious self with some physical/mental abilities to use for the waking hours of your day, and the choice of how, or whether or not, to use them for your and/or others’ benefit. How present or absent the other five factors are that play on your energy will dictate how bored you will or will not become. It’s even hard talk about, or write out what boredom is and to somehow make it a subject of serious interest. That is until you see what happens when you add plus signs to all of those variables following energy. Then what you have is its complete opposite: creativity. If you have little or none of those things in that set, you simply have to get real and honestly ask yourself why those variables are depleted, or outright absent, for each or every one of them; that keep you shackled to a mindset of boredom, and impedes your approach to something more creative.

If I were to create an official national holiday marking winter solstice in this land, the celebrations would include a lot of dice based games, candles/lights/fire to brighten things up, and of course drinking. There would be no obligation to exchange gifts; just share good company. Sounds like a good start anyway. Who knows, if Trudeau the Younger ends up legalizing marijuana, the trend might naturally flow to there being a reversion to some more hippie neopagan-esque celebrations that would mirror things like this anyway.

An addendum paragraph to this entry the day after. The question about what my plan for 2016 was brought up to me by a friend over lunch hour. I was lacking in speculation and answers. It may involve more of what rolls of the dice have to tell me. If they break horrid spells of indecision and, if I gain a course of action and commitment from using them, it is all fair game.

*- I always wondered why we haven’t made more generic holidays and celebrations here in this nation for both solstice dates of the year, like they do at least for the Summer Solstice in Scandinavia. We are multicultural society in Canada, and we all live under the same sun. It wouldn't then matter who you were racially, ethnically, culturally, spiritually (or not). It would be somewhat uniting I’d think. I’ll always welcome another statutory holiday.

**- If you want to get judgemental and think that this is all very silly, let me remind you readers that people use such symbols, charms, and trinkets all the time, and it is more common than you wish to acknowledge. It usually comes and is possessed in the form of jewelry. Think about the multibillion dollar industry happening alone just for the sake of procuring an outrageously expensive shiny rock affixed to a ring just to show off and symbolize engagement or marriage. Others get more and extreme and tap ink into their skin permanently to express their totem symbols in tattoo form on impulsive whims (which they may regret later). Surely, my choice is no weirder or more extreme than any of those things.

Boxing Day Sale Shopping/Being a Decorum Dummy

I've recovered enough to at least arrive at a place to be of better humour. Recently, I was educated more about the Aboriginal shamanistic ceremony of "saging" a home. That involves the burning of a bundle of dried sage grass to produce a smoke smudge used to purify one's living space; to cleanse it of negative energy, and to drive out any unwelcome evil spirits. I learned about this by the way of someone I know, who chose this practice to close off this year: a more unfortunate one for her, and to prepare to open their home up and invite something better to come in the New Year. The Japanese also have a custom of welcoming the incoming New Year by cleaning their homes near the end of the old one: every room, from ceiling to floor. This is done to welcome the presence, and good favour and fortune of their kami, the god-spirits of the Shinto religion, into their dwellings. I have my own pre-New Year habit that is similar to that of the Japanese one. I've been cleaning in my own place as well: not so much to invite the right kind of benevolent spooks and divinities in here, but more to be mindfully organized, and to clear and set a stage for efficiency and order that will hopefully help to attract some form of prosperity, of any kind, in the New Year. Given my condition, I started today to break the process into modular phases. It should all end on New Year's Eve. I don't give much credence into stuff like conjuring up spirits, feng shui, or anything else that is as oogity-boogity. However, after this latest bout of events closing my last month and a half of this year, if rearranging furnishings and scrubbing things down coincidentally helps to rid this place of any lingering bad karma around here, I have no objections to it. I don't have any sage; I do have some sandalwood and musk incense though. I started to burn that too, just to cover my ass.

I also have another custom in my home as I organize stuff: not done so much out of superstition, but out of prudence and frugality. If I bring in a new furnishing, appliance, or technical fixture into my home, I'm relegated to clean at least the whole room where it will be stationed or stored, and then sell off/repurpose/donate/throw out the same volume of stuff (if not more). Such a ritual prevents me from accumulating clutter; and encourages me to be more thoughtful about balancing my living space, to avoid being wasteful, and to seek practical alternatives (if any). Knowing that there is ultimately an obligation (or penalty) of having to press myself into some distasteful task of cleaning later also psychologically prevents me from buying anything rashly and impulsively. Thus, to be effective and efficient, I tend to do my home furnishing shopping near the end of the year when the Boxing Day and Year End sales are on, when prices are slashed, and I'm when scheduled to clean anyway.

I looked in my living room, and said
 "I gotta have more cowbell!"
 However, that didn't happen.
Instead I did the next best thing
 and found more cowhide. Ella isn't yet
 sure if she likes it.

That past month and a half of being stuck in here and staring at my mostly naked walls has been a real sobering revelation as to how much my own condo really isn't my vision of what I would think of as a truly comfortable home. It's actually very devoid of any reflections or signatures of my true personality. Most of the time, it is just a glorified dog house, as it is in fact Ella who is the being that spends the most time inside here, strewing her chew toys all about. For me, because I spend the majority of my week at work, this place ordinarily is just utilitarian space where I sleep, bathe, do laundry, and cook and eat the occasional meal. With having all this time off, I was dumbstruck after realizing just how little time I actually spend living in here while I'm on my regular work schedule. The decorum, or rather the sad lack of it, is a true reflection of that. I realize that because of this I'm kind of reluctant to invite other people over. It's no wonder I've been staring at screens all this time, because I really don't consciously want to look at anything else around here. A few other things also prompted me to think that I should put more thought into making this a place more personalized with creature comforts, and less like a place where it looks like Value Village busted in here, drunk in the middle of the night, and vomited up random junk in every room. Things like, receiving some pictures of my brother's family in the mail, they deserve to be hung in special places. I made myself a promise to keep junk off my kitchen table and actually use it for eating my meals, instead of plunking down in front of the TV and eating mindlessly. I have a nice new(er) rug now to dissuade me from doing that, because I don't want to risk getting it soiled. Rather than collecting a new piece of technology, like I initially planned to do, I instead chose to go on the grand adventure of at least window shopping for decorum for my place.

So, I ended up taking a trip to HomeSense where, as per their moniker, I thought they would have a lot of obvious things to make a house even more homelike. To be honest, I was in a loopy/crazy disposition for much of the day, perhaps due to being (finally) hungry and having low blood sugar, right along with my already impaired uptake of blood oxygen, so my observations tended to get a little weird and skewed toward the realm of the right-brain. I made handy use of the camera on my cellphone to serve as a visual memory aide. I'll declare and affirm right now that I'm by no measure any kind of expert on home decorum, but I am wise enough to see and know what kind of crap is out there that doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. I found a lot of instances where the store should have been renamed HomeNonsense. The following paragraphs and pictures I've listed are the random observations, home utilities, objectives for my own place, fancies, and other home-oriented concepts that made me wonder what kind of dope various artisans and craftsperson were smoking after viewing some of the stuff I saw there.

Observation: The Mega-Pot – I stumbled across a kitchen pot that would be every hard core home brewer's wet dream. The damn thing must have had at least a 120 litre capacity, a larger capacity than the fuel tanks of many half ton trucks. Being shocked and surprised, I was being silly and flippant at the moment when a young girl of seven or so, and her mother walked up to stare with awe at this strange anomaly along with me. I like kids at that age because their questions and answers are imaginative and spontaneous. Just to see the reaction, I turned to the young girl and said out loud:
"I wonder how many babies you could pack into that sucker?" She began to laugh and giggle uncontrollably, and I chuckled along right with her. Her Mama however didn't seem to appreciate this moment of levity, and kind of began to usher her away from me. At least the daughter had a sense of humour. The presence of this thing begs me to question: what kind of home is out there in which the wholesale purchasers of HomeSense thought it would be a perfectly sensible move to market a friggin' 120 litre cooking pot? This thing was made of stainless steel, and already heavy by itself.

Filled to capacity with liquid, it would easily crush my average-sized stove, that is if I could have ever got it on the damn thing! I guess this thing must have been there for that exact instant when a Hudderite colony should wander into their store looking for something to adequately cook all their borsht for them (for a whole bloody month!), or if the Jolly Green Giant comes along looking for something to steam his peas. I was going to get the young girl to stand by it to get a sense of the scale of this thing when I took the picture, but she and her mother already left, probably looking for Security. HomeSense 0, HomeNonsense 1.

Objective: The far wall opposite of my entrance at the end of my hallway – Initially, I thought I would hang a mirror on this wall space, to give it an illusion of greater space and depth. Then I thought again about when I'll be arriving home after work at night, and how I really don't want to have an instant reminder in seeing just how ghastly, disheveled, and bedraggled I look after an eleven hour day when I come through the door. I would want something a hell of a lot more welcoming than that. I may have to get creative and try to paint my own picture to hang there, but I think so far I like this one. HomeSense 1, HomeNonsense 1.

Objective: a utility, Drink Coasters – How is it that I'm using a drink coaster all the time when I'm at the bar; and yet I'm not so civilized enough to have them handy around my own home? Lord knows I do most of my serious drinking here at my own abode. Maybe I just don't set my glass down long enough around here. Apparently, throughout all this time, I've been one of those innovative bachelors who has figured out that any corner of a newspaper, or a DVD case, or the open end of one of my socks to slip around a drinking vessel works well enough to keep condensation rings and dribbles off my coffee table.

As eccentric as I am, I don't really use this kind
of makeshift coaster, but I was curious as to
know what the visual actually would look like.

However, that just doesn't work if I'm endeavoring to attract and keep a more sophisticated ilk of company. So, I decided to get some coasters. After looking around there without any success, I finally approached one of the stock clerks at the store: a somewhat scrawny, yet strangely attractive and comely young blond woman.
"Excuse me, where would I find the drink coasters?" I asked plainly. The look on her face after my query was one of an attempt to stifle bemused astonishment.
"We have no drink coasters here." she replied with a thick Slavic accent, sort of almost half spitting the answer at me before she turned away. I couldn't help but to react like this was the stupidest thing I ever heard. How in the hell can an establishment, dedicated and devoted to decorating a home with ornaments; a place that sells seemingly endless varieties of stemware, cocktail glasses and coffee/tea cups; a place that sells a plethora of tablecloths, trivets, place mats, napkins, throws, slip covers and other surface protection paraphernalia not have a single goddamned set of drink coasters in its whole entire massive inventory?! I'm being led to believe that there are dinner parties out there in this town where even the more elite homes are having their guests using magazines or their own socks slipped on their wine glasses to protect the furniture because there were none to be found anywhere. HomeSense 1, HomeNonsense 2.

Observation: Ridiculous packaging – Selling bottled water here in Canada apparently wasn't already a stupid enough idea. Unless you were going to a place with an actual tainted water supply, there is no need to buy bottled water here. Now, I just found something that trumps even that for marketing imbecility. Yes, that is, A BOX OF WATER!!! . . . a 5 litre box of water,

They actually have to add the
word "Happy" on the label
to encourage the miserably
stupid people to buy this.

packaged like it was exotic bulk wine from Chile or Australia. It's not even imported from some exotic locale, it's from right here in Canada sitting on that shelf. . . WTF !!! I was tempted initially to pick it up and check and see how outrageous the price was for such a thing, but then that impulse was quickly halted by the self-conscious fear of having some onlookers watching me handle it, and thinking to themselves, "Look at that stupid fucker over there, he is actually thinking about buying that BOX OF WATER!!!
 
Another thing that pissed me off and made me think about how affluence is making us devolve into something that is so much stupider as a society is what is in this next picture. Look at it. Kinda pretty, isn't it? Is it some finely-crafted chocolate bon-bons from Switzerland? . . . Nooooo! Is it an intoxicating fragrance from some boutique in Paris? . . .Nooooo! Is it a package of high-quality rolled up silk handkerchiefs? . . . Again, Noooooo! This is actually a package of plastic bags for collecting DOG SHIT!!! Why is it packaged like this? Is it to give people a fleeting window of appearing superior to someone else when they whip one of these out and bend over to pick up after Rover? I began looking for some gold-leaf embossed toilet paper there after I saw this. HomeSense 1, HomeNonsense 4.

Objective: Decorative, yet manly – Adjectives for things that I will not have in here: frilly, ephemeral, sparkly, pink, yellow, lacy, chiffon, fluffy, sheer, silky; that already eliminates about 40% of the merchandise in HomeSense. There are some things there that would suit me, but would go out of style too quickly as I mature. There are some definitely non-feminine, testosterone-charged things that guys embrace a little too willingly to use as ornaments in their homes, like antique license plates, sports memorabilia, heads of antlered beasts, or even the more ridiculous collections of swords and battleaxes. Unless there is an impending attack by a horde of Visigoths over the hill, I really have no need to keep medieval weaponry around the place. The same goes the relic pieces of vehicles: if I don't want that crap cluttering up my garage, why would I then draw it into my actual living space?

The weird manly things I'd probably have around here are wood carvings and figurines of animals, mathematically complex sculptures, hand puzzles and classic board games, and signs in tasteful calligraphy that reflect a simple personal philosophy, like what is seen on this serving tray. HomeSense 2, HomeNonsense 4.
 
Observation: HUH?!?! – And finally there is home ornamentation there that I just have no words for, as it just boogles my mind as to what kind of home these things would actually belong in. HomeSense2, HomeNonsense 6.

The perfect something for the gay cowboy/cult leader in the family

I don't know what this thing is supposed to
represent, but I can think of a few people
I'd like to have sitting on it.

A house is just walls and a roof, but a home is defined by the characters in it, which in turn are often reflected by the objects and artifacts that they chose to include in it and collect. Sadly, today's shopping trip was a reminder that there will always be people stupid enough to buy water in a box in a nation where it's free on the tap, and others who are pretentious and idiotic enough to by dog shit bags designed by Gucci. I wish all it took to cleanse these sorts of people away from me was burning some sort of herb. If I had only one wish for the New Year, it would be to encounter fewer and fewer people with this degree of stupidity. If that happened, about 90% of my problems in life would probably disappear.

Addendum: I at least managed to find some bloody coasters. I went to Pier One (a place too dangerously close to the Future Shop) for them. This time, I was helped by a stunningly beautiful store worker . . . another one with a thick Slavic accent coincidentally, but this time with some very pleasing proportions. They are of a black alligator skin texture (the coasters I mean, not the physical assets of the woman I mentioned). Nothing too pretty, and yet nothing too corny and cheesy: something you'd expect to find in a more sophisticated man cave.

Closing 2013

Summary:

All 2013 was for me was the year in which I'm going to welcome the chance to burn all the calendars of it in the fireplace tonight. It was one in which there was a lack-luster summer sandwiched in between the end of one miserably long winter, and another that's becoming ridiculously and unrelentingly frigid. I really have nothing significant to list as "best of's" coming to mind for this year, except for: my father's recent 80th birthday party, Saskatchewan hosting and winning in the Grey Cup, and a couple of cousins getting married. I can't say that there were really any new blessings in it for me directly, nor can I account for anything as being progressive, no matter how much I tried to rectify things. It was a year cursed with unwanted setbacks and opting for lesser evils made under duress of necessity to solve avoidance-avoidance dilemmas. I don't wish to recount specifics, but it was a year fraught with accidents, illness, losses, and injuries to me and others I know. At the risk of being crass for me saying so after this reflection, the only other thing I can be thankful for during the year 2013 is that I suffered less than some of them.

Status and Activity for this Last Day of the Year

Weather: it's -32 Celsius, with a -41 wind chill.

Last social outing of the year: No real appetite to speak of, but I had a soup lunch my dear friend. Sadly though, both of us were too physically sore to even give each other a proper New Year's hug when we parted.

Last meal of the year: My celebratory supper was simply snacking on cheese, olives/pickles, deli sausage.

Last purchase of the year: A lottery ticket for tomorrow's draw, with the faint hope for the new year to begin with taking a 180 degree turn from what this last year was.

Last moments spent of the year: Reviewed past blog entries of the year, finished reading a book between commercial breaks of TV programme marathons. Things are staying cozy and quiet for the rest of the evening. I just want peace, and to think of what to do better for the coming year, now just a couple hours away.