Write about: catching up.
All caught up on comments again.
But there is more catching up to be done...
Mine:
When I started my contract with the town back in April it quickly became apparent that we would need a second vehicle sooner than later. I was starting my shifts too early for Kat to drop me off and ending them too late for her to pick me up. That meant for the four days I worked in a row, she was basically stuck at home with the boys.
That... didn't seem sustainable for the next six months.
So we started looking pretty much right away. And found what we were looking for before I'd even received my first paycheque. We wanted a larger vehicle to hold all four of us and all the stuff we'd be hauling around, especially on road trips that involve overnight stays.
We bought this Pontiac Montana during the first week of May (I honestly don't remember the exact date):
It's looking rather dusty there but I swear it's clean on the inside.
Why didn't I mention this purchase at the time? A couple reasons. The big one being that life was very, very busy. I didn't even have a decent picture of it to share (I actually took the above today in preparation for this post).
The other major factor in the delayed reveal? I was not super thrilled with purchasing a minivan. It fits our needs and whatever blah blah blah, but it's not exactly a vehicle I'd aspired to owning. In fact, I still insist on calling it our van, not our minivan.
As though the distinction makes any sort of difference.
Anyway. I think that gets me almost completely caught up. Just one more thing coming and I should be getting to that this week sometime.
Oooh, mysterious.
4 comments:
Well done on the comments! I noticed you were slipping behind a little, but since it was your last week at work I thought that was completely natural -- you had much more to think about. I'm glad you liked my pick from Yorktown by the way, and I did think you'd guess what I was up to :)
I can completely understand your distaste for needing to buy a van, but while the horse-and-buggy would fit more with the rural farmlife you've got, and you could then justify your not shaving by telling people you're admiring the Amish, it's a lot more work to clean up after a horse than it is a van. Although, I suppose you could be properly Canadian and have a moose-and-buggy.... I'll work it into that screenplay of your life.
Hmm, and a mysterious revelation still to come. You've stopped me suspecting more children, it's unlikely to be another vehicle given your distaste for the van, so... I'm going to guess pets. It should be something partially self-sufficient, and something that is tolerant of Miles being at a grabby age, plus you're not keen on a lot of animals, so... you're getting a pet hedgehog?
[Sorry for the double-post; I blame myself for writing too much in this section!]
Catching up
I'd been in town for eight weeks I think when Robert Kinsome walked into the public library and started talking to the librarian. His high-pitched voice, with an affected southern lilt that didn't belong to him -- he'd copied it from a boy he was at university with -- carried in the still, dust-flecked air that coccooned the books and mummified the patrons.
"Why-hi," he said, sounding like a Senator, "I was told that all y'all had information retrieval here." The librarian, a middle-aged woman with a comfortably relaxed waist-line, hair as black as Elvira's, and a tarnished wedding ring on her finger stood up and put her hands on her hips.
"I'll thank-you to go and look at the books yourself, Sir!" she said righteously. Even the Southern Baptist priests don't sound quite as much as they have a direct line to God than she did. Robert Kinsome's face didn't even flicker.
"I was thinking of somethin' a little more di-a-bolical," he said, drawing out the vowels on the last word until I thought they'd snap. "Electronicky, asking an unnatural brain what the godless heathen scientists have learned it."
The librarian's face softened a touch, and her hands shifting from her hips to her hair, carefully adjusting it about her head. "Well now," she said, and even her tone had gone from black-coffee-at-5am to cafe-au-lait-at-9. Or "café -- olé!" as some Spanish friends of mine would have it, though they put rum in theirs. "That's a different kettle of sparrows altogether. I'll get the technician out right away for you, Sir. Have a seat, why don't you?"
"Don't mind if I do," said Kinsome, and sure enough he sat himself down right opposite me.
"Nicky," he greeted me, and he held his hand out. I looked at it, and then him, the way you might look at a well-trained dog that has inexplicably decided to piss all over your couch. "I thought it was about time we caught up," he said, continuing to hold out his paw.
"Li'l Robbie," I said. I set the newspaper down, the crossword half-done and stuck the pencil behind my ear. "Al-"
"Not so little anymore," he interrupted. He thrust his hand towards me, more aggressively.
"I'm not shaking," I said. "You can put it away. I left you and the Kinsomes for a reason, and I'm not so happy that you're here having caught up with me."
He sat back, his whole frame showing defiance while his face put on its best smile, the one saved for weddings, christenings, and only some funerals.
"You ran out on us, Nicky," he said. "Mama wasn't 'so happy' as you so nicely put it. But then she doesn't have your dollar-words and edu-ma-cation, just a photograph of you and the memories of a promise."
"A contingent promise, Li'l Robbie," I said.
"Like I said, not everyone knows all these big words that you throw around like a lawyer on his birthday. Is that why you're hiding in a library? So the words can sink in like myxamatosis and percolate your skin?"
"Via osmosis and permeate my skin," I said. "Very close Li'l Robbie, very close. You did your homework sure enough, but seems to me you didn't finish the extra credit." I pushed my chair back and stood up, and Kinsome went to do the same but something pinned him down to his seat. "There's a few more words you need before you can leave," I said. "But since you've got the diabolical machinery to help you I'm sure you'll find them out fast enough. But, if'n I can offer you a word or two of advice here: leave me be. No more catching up, Li'l Robbie."
I walked out of the doors of the library, feeling the tug as I passed across the threshold and having to lift my hand to shade my eyes in the afternoon sunlight. It was time to move on again.
Mother's Lament
So, so much to do
Lots to cross off the list
Oddly enough, it grows longer the more I do.
Will I ever be done?
Greg - yeah, I was trying to not let it get out of hand before I had a chance to get on top of them again.
I look forward to the moose and buggy scene :)
Hah, nice guess. Totally off in the wrong direction, but a fine guess nonetheless...
Ooh, this is good. A different sort of good from you, and I like it. Great dialogue and scene setting and an intriguing story. I'd be happy to see more of this!
Morganna - I hear ya. Oh, do I hear ya. Another fine acrostic, by the way :)
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