Hello person reading my blog! Long time, no see. I haven’t written here for a while, and I have been nutso busy. After today I am going to be busy again for a couple weeks, too, so this is my tiny oasis of time to write something.
Prior to this weekend our chess club held its annual big tournament. It’s online at SwissSys.com/events under Langley Open if you’re curious. For the weeks leading up to the event, I go crazy with emails and calls; and the weekend it happens I basically work about 14 hours a day for several days. We had 88 players this year, and it went off so well I am excited to run another one! After this weekend I start studying for an exam I have to take for work. I tried to study at work when I wasn’t on the clock, but the material is so monstrously boring that my eyes glaze over and my head starts bobbing within minutes. The carrot at the end of this stick is that if I can pass this exam I will be qualified to be a foreman and fill in when my boss isn’t around. It’s a big jump in pay and will help my pension. One day, far in the future, it will help keep me in diapers and nutritional supplement drinks.
Speaking of retirement, I was hoping to move away to some sunny locale when I quit working. Somewhere with a lake, a junior hockey team to watch, and access to health care and grocery store options. Seems easy enough, half the towns you could name in BC would check all those boxes, it’s just that every summer one of those towns catches fire and gets evacuated now. I’d be on the run with my cats, photo albums and denture glue, trying to get somewhere less flammable. So maybe I’ll have to stay near the fire retardant coast which hasn’t had any big fires or evacuations yet. It could change I guess, but so far our rain forests and urban sprawl have managed to thwart any major fires, unlike the sun-soaked and crispy dry interior regions.
By the way, I’m so hungry right now my ass is trying to eat my chair. There are cabbage rolls in the oven and the house is starting to smell like heaven.
About two weeks ago I wrote a short story for NYC Midnight’s 500 word challenge. In the past, I usually put my story straight onto the blog, but I think I’m not supposed to, as they get first rights to publishing what you submit. Of course, I could get away with it probably as I’m not a literary figure, but more like a literary figurine. I don’t think my story is going anywhere and I don’t see it getting published, as I wrote into it some distasteful things. In a month or so when it has hit the official wastebin in the contest, I’ll put it on here.
Next time I write in here it will be Autumn – another summer will have expired. With all this talk about my retirement years, it gets me to wondering how many summers I might have left. If I die at the average age, I have about 21 left, and if I think back over the last 21, they went by very fast. Oh well, I’ve had a pretty good time and there’s reason to think that could continue for a while yet.