Posts Tagged: windsor
road trip!
Saturday morning Ceri and I walk up in the pouring rain to collect our rental car for what is has become the annual long weekend road trip to Amherstburg to see friends at the Shores of Erie Wine Festival. After collecting Carly and Kelsey at their respective homes we get on the highway and point south-west. There is a dodgy hour or so, trying to get coffee and sandwiches behind a busload of seniors at the first available highway stop. Eventually though, the rain clears, and the sky puts on a show and suddenly we're almost there.
productivity and love
Between Don Mills and Sheppard-Yonge Stations
Look at me; I’m being one of those annoying people who busts out a computer on the subway. But if I don’t get a blog post written quickly (in the space of a trip between Don Mills and Union Stations), it’s not going to get written for several more days. And I miss you, blog people. What I need is something copyable and pasteable for when I get home. This time, transcribing notes scribbled around the edges of a newspaper or back of a rental car confirmation is just not going to work. Even if the post-commute-trying-to-work-out-what-the-hell-that-scribble-was-trying-to-capture adds that much to the nuance of a story.
So, I get a new job, and I give my notice in and the Shit. Hits. The. Fan. I knew it was going to happen. This big project has been looming for weeks, and before I get the job offer I’m trying to keep a safe distance from it, because I just know I'm not going to be here much longer. I try to prep the junior writer, without telling him what’s really coming, “there’s this big, high profile project. You could really show your mettle here. Step up to the plate, kid, everyone will love you…”
(Train Change)
Between Sheppard-Yonge and Union Stations
So just as the project is kicked off I get the great job offer and I give my notice. People at work are wanting to be nice to me and wish me well – to talk about my whole leaving thing. To take me to lunch. And I’ve not had much more than ten minutes to take a walk and get a cup of coffee. But it’s okay – even if I’m leaving in two weeks, I still have pride in what work that leaves my desk.
That’s where I’ve been the past week. Sitting at a desk, in an office in North York, hammering out documents like I’m some sort of assembly line Training Guide manufacturer. Making up for an unequivocally uninterested and unambitious junior writer. You know the theory, that you just keep banging your head against the wall because it feels so good when it stops? That’s what all the “It’ll be all over soon, Jennifer” sounds like at this point. They’re right, but I’m bloody tired and not feeling all that reasonable.
The Good News
I did get some fun in over the weekend – big fun. Meaningful fun. My sister blew into the city on Friday for an after work going-away party for a colleague. It was at a pub very close to my house and we hadn’t seen each other in a month because she’s been travelling with her job, and damned if we weren’t going to take advantage of that opportunity.
No, my glass was not larger than hers. And yes, it was Cathy, not me, who said, "Yay! I it's a good place that serves wine in a decent sized glass!"
And next morning my girls and I got on the highway and headed back home to attend the 50th birthday party for one of my oldest and dearest friends, Denis. Carly drove and Kelsey operated the stereo while I sat in the back and worked – as my sister said, “you can’t sit in a car on the 401 and not be productive at a time like this! She was right. For much of the four hours there and four hours back I was doing what I’m doing now – sitting in a moving car with a computer on my lap.
The time away from work might have cost me a little blood and sweat today, but it was worth it. At times like this, nothing cures the work-overload-blues like time with a sister and a bunch of people who you’ve loved to be around more than pretty much anyone for three decades.
Here's to the "50 Club! (Debbie, Jen, Denis)
I hope you stick with me blog people. I’ll be back. Refreshed. With a new job and a WALKING TO WORK COMMUTE (have I mentioned that part?).
In the meantime, I’m back to writing about a healthcare database application. At least it’s a good cause, no?
xoxo
ps – Despite the crappy phone camera shots, the pictures are worth a million.
sometimes waiting is good for you
The Burlington Skyway is part of the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) highway linking Hamilton (west) and Toronto (east) with the Niagara Peninsula. A good portion of my family lives on the Niagara Peninsula and thus, I'm quite familiar with that bridge.
Well, not so much anymore. Some years ago when I lived in Windsor, I visited my brother Jeff and sister in law Carol for the weekend, and on my return home, suffered a panic attack at the top of that bridge. It was a nasty experience; it was all I could do to get me and my car to the other side, where I could pull over and stop and get out of the car drag some oxygen into my lungs. And plan my way up the side of Hamilton Mountain – the only way that would point me to Windsor (home).
Now, those of you that live near real mountains would laugh at the thought of this being called a "mountain." "Hamilton Mountain" is really part of the Niagara Escarpment (one of the world's Natural Biosphere Reserves), where the earth juts up in a line leading from the Manitoulin Island and the Bruce Peninsula down through to that watery wonder, Niagara Falls and into western New York.
But my point is not to discuss what people call a mountain in southern Ontario. My point is, that having come across that bridge once in a sweating, hyperventilating, shaking mess, the idea of then having to drive up the side of that "mountain" with the view of the city of Hamilton at the bottom of a breathtaking earth-slide below me, was terrifying. It took about an hour's convincing, and eventually I did it, making my way home to Windsor, stopping along the way about six times (over what is usually a three and a half hour trip) to collect myself after some minor highway overpass or other.
I'm pleased to tell you that, adjacent to the Burlington Skyway, (the thought of which still causes my palms to sweat), lies the older Burlington Lift Bridge. The Lift Bridge might only take an extra two or three minutes (getting off and back on the highway) to get onto the Peninsuala, but one does risk reaching it when a ship is coming through between Lake Ontario and Hamilton Harbour, and waiting out the "lift" of the bridge while a ship passes through.
People travelling with me might find this an inconvenient hold-up. Me – never wanting to ever experience any sort of panic attack ever again – doesn't mind waiting at all. Turning off the car and watching a ship pass through the narrow canal is Zen-like. Even on those days when my family is waiting for me on the other end. After all, we all know I'm eventually going to get there.
(Ship passing slow under bridge: beautiful thing 28 of 101.)
a magpie tale: kicking and screaming toward a fanciful season
the year drags me
kicking and screaming
toward winter
never ready to stand on cold feet
slush sprayed over me by lurching taxi cabs
I still haven’t found my red gloves
and I don’t want to wear that
serviceable warm coat
I’d rather wear the one with the flattering cut
and the not serviceable boots
the kind that men turn to look at
and well I never much liked being cold and
I’ve slipped on sidewalks
more times than I'd like to remember
winter steals my dignity
though when I was a kid I didn't care about dignity
much
or the cold
forgotten
in the fervour of intense play
outside so long
your legs would sting like a thousand pins were pricking them when you came in
but mom would have hot chocolate in the cupboard
the kind made with milk in a pan on the stove
in the stove light and
you got new flannel pyjamas
with that sweet smell that went away after the first wash
but they got softer
and Mr. P. on the corner would put up Christmas lights all over his yard
I never went for such an ostentatious show
when I grew up
but man could my old house get pretty
smelling like pine
cedar
and cinnamon
all that oak trim aglow
against the frost laced windows and indigo tinted atmosphere in the street
the furnace would kick in
like a benevolent grandpa
when you came in the front door
after chatting with the neighbours
while we shovelled the sidewalks
and the walks of the old people
a job I loved
it made me feel strong and capable – that most satisfying exercise
and full of that proverbial good cheer
I think it's the pink cheeks
dreamy
under the descending flakes
under the incandescent street lights
later I’d sit by the pretty old windows
admiring the street and generous porches and warm lights coming from the windows behind them
recalling life in the country
when the snowstorms that bound everyone in for a few days
were the best ones
I am always kicking and screaming
going toward winter
but
I fancy it when I get there
This is a Magpie Tale. To find more creative responses to Willow's weekly photo prompt, visit here.
published in the beautiful Bella Grace!
