Balls in the Air

I have flung open the front oaken door of the office building allowing the cool morning air to spill into the recesses of my business tombs. After a confined winter it is refreshing to exhaust the stale air from the place. The sun is already high in the sky tracking its way over the clock tower into the southwest, beaming its yellow light through the window casements across the multi-coloured rugs. It has to be one of the advantages of a store-front operation that one can harbour the air from one’s own veranda.

Sister’s Birthday Party

This evening’s dinner party in Ottawa was unusual for a number of reasons. Among other things, my sister was hosting her own birthday party. As odd as this might sound at first blush, the truth is that it made a good deal of sense. To begin, my mother is getting too elderly to have to cater family dinner parties any more. In addition it does my parents good to get out of the house for a social event now and again, something different from going to the hospital for yet another check-up or examination. My sister also enjoys show-casing her attractive home especially now that her kitchen has been entirely remodelled at considerable expense.

All of us (we were eleven at table) contributed in one way or another to the evening repast, though my sister and her husband provided the central features of fresh salmon and filet mignon. The guests were, as should be the case for any proper birthday party, a collection of both immediate family and close friends (one of whom most of us hadn’t seen for almost twenty years or more, but the ties remain strong to the day). Balancing the group were people both young (24 years of age) and old (92 years of age), though I calculate the median age to have been 52.

Barque on the Sea

It is odd that those who can least afford the expenditure so often devote incalculable energy to the resistance of the turmoil of life. No doubt the effort though futile is prompted by either the impending sense of defeat or the final opposition to the prospect. One may as well fling oneself upon one’s sword. This is unfortunate for two reasons: first, we are all of us but unimpressive barques upon the sea of hullabaloo that is life; second, there is no indignity in allowing one’s self to be carried upon the tides of turmoil when we have meanwhile applied ourselves as best we can to accomplishment of our modest objectives.

For All Other Enquiries, Press “0”

The frustration one experiences in attempting to contact anyone in a large or even moderately large organization by telephone is compounded initially by automation and latterly by privacy legislation. Both features appear designed to defeat the caller in his or her attempt to communicate. The incident invariably ends in complete annoyance, usually only heightening the angst which prompted the effort in the beginning.

The Devil is in the Details

Generally speaking one is admonished to pay attention to the details in whatever one does. The motivation is seemingly to do a thorough job and avoid unexpected traps. While this counsel undoubtedly has its place in things like architecture, law, medicine and a variety of other disciplines including carpentry, plumbing and painting, I think however that the adage can be viewed in a different sense; namely, that if one becomes too detailed about life, the attention can contaminate the broader more sustainable brush strokes of living. Construed in this alternate connotation, the warning is directed to the avoidance of minutiae which can overshadow the more generalized principles of conduct which form the pillars of existence.

Le Vieux Montréal

I think we can all accept that in spite of our best efforts to the contrary we never really know from one minute to the next what is about to transpire, nor how our day will unfold when the ensuing twelve hours after breakfast have come and gone. In retrospect I can see that having an open agenda (and an open mind) contribute greatly to the unpredictability of one’s life.

Today for example was for all intents and purposes very much a normal Saturday morning, though I confess it was singular for its spectacularly sunny, cool and dry weather and the not insignificant added feature that we had nowhere in particular to go and nothing especially pressing to do. In fact the only item of any moment on the horizon, as we sipped our coffee and digested our breakfast, was the rather uninteresting possibility of investigating the purchase of a new mattress (something which, granted, we are all too quick to dismiss as trifling when watching the television advertisements but which oddly becomes gripping when one is faced with the actual need).

Fuming

Many years ago I heard from a family member (likely it was an account by my paternal grandmother in Fredericton, New Brunswick following the death of my grandfather) that my grandfather despised Canadian Pacific Railway even though he always traveled by CPR and on his death he had a considerable amount of money invested in it. Apparently my grandfather was disgruntled by the tardiness and inconsistency of railway travel. I feel the same way about Bell Canada. I am prompted to evoke this particular repugnance first because I received from Bell today yet another bill (a so-called annual “Maintenance Service Agreement” which is about as useful as buying tsunami insurance) and then this evening I got a scary email message from my home internet provider (Bell Sympatico) that I should give them another $5 per month to avoid exceeding the limits of my current internet plan. An examination of my historical usage has satisfied me that any occasions of excess usage far from warrant the extra monthly charge. This type of marketing disturbs me enormously because it is largely without foundation. This ploy is reminiscent of another communication which I received from Bell previously. That mass mailing promoted a newer and more expensive long-distance plan allegedly for the reason that it too would save money in the long run. When I called Bell about the matter and asked them to prove the proposition to me based upon my historical records, it was readily apparent that there were no savings to be had at all. This I view as tantamount to misleading advertising, based as it is completely upon hypothetical or mistaken or no information at all. It hardly comforts me to be guided in my dealings with this huge corporation by the prescription “caveat emptor”! To the unwary Bell represents a leach which eats away at one’s resources by small but incremental bites. Every month I pay Bell for multiple services; viz., house phone, house internet, house wireless internet (2nd outlet), office phone, office internet, cellular phone and annual maintenance. I won’t even begin to think about what I pay in all! In light of this monthly drain it annoys me no end to receive such rubbish communications from Bell.