#233 - Pyramids and Eviction

I worked from home today to give myself more time to get things done and because I was feeling sick. It’s likely a sinus infection from the massive amounts of pollen in the air and because Robyn came down with something the other day.

After taking an allergy pill last night I slept like a baby. The extra sleep seemed to help as I woke feeling better. But the feeling wasn’t to last for long.

I made myself some sourdough toast and a tea then took a tour of the gardens. The day was already warming up. It looked like it was going to be a hot one.

I took the remnant of my breakfast upstairs and booted the computer, logging in repeatedly to multifactor security bits and bobs. It’s the usual start to running on the hamster wheel. I had many paintings to get finished and I hoped to be left to my own devices to sink my teeth into them. But, of course, that was never going to happen. We had an onboarding call for a returning painter.

Then our marching orders came down for the day, and it was all about going through the approvals process to get as many paintings under the Art Director’s eyes as possible, so that they might approve or make revision requests. I spent the day doing that until I reached a difficult section. The painter had followed the examples perfectly, but they didn’t match up to the rest of the sequence from a colour and tone perspective.

I called my supervisor up for a quick pow-wow and we came to a decision on how to move forward. It would involve me modifying three to four paintings to match the others. A little time consuming but within my abilities to get done. It did make it impossible to get started on my own painting though.

At lunch Robyn asked me to go walking with her, but I didn’t have the time to day to take a long lunch. She went on without me, and I touch a short walk around our street to get the mail half an hour later. It was too nice of a day to not see some of it. It was also the kind of day that makes you not want to back inside to sit in front of a computer.

But I had a one o’clock meeting to attend, so I headed back home and upstairs to my studio desk. I kept working through the meeting so that I could get as much done as possible. And afterwards I just kept going picking away at the large pile of paintings that needed to be approved and then processed before the Art Director looked at them.

My counterpart in Ottawa was also doing the same thing. I was also tasked with making a new library item for the painters to reference how shadows for props and items near the characters are to be handled from now on. It didn’t take too long to get it done, but every distraction takes a bite out away from the day’s goals.

Before I knew it, it was five thirty. I needed to go lie down for a bit. I was getting the sweats and felt tired, as well as sinus pressure in my head and nose.

Eventually, I came back downstairs, and Robyn was making some vegetables on a sheet pan, using the new technique I tried last night for the mushrooms; putting them in a ramekin with some broth and then placing the ramekin on the sheet pan.

It turned out great and the mushroom and the broth make for a nice small soup at the end of the meal.

The sky was starting to darken, or darkle as Dean Koontz would write, and I heard my neighbour’s lawn mower. I ran out the the garage and got out my electric battery-operated mower. I love my neighbour, he is the nicest guy, but he tends to scalp the lawn where it touches up to his driveway. And once it gets scalped it’s really hard to get it to grow for the rest of the year. Technically, its part of his property, but I am more than happy to maintain the foot wide strip, but if I don’t get there first…SCALP!

I got there first. And I got the lawn cut before the rains started.

I sat down on the porch to play an online game of chess just as we received a provincial alert to seek shelter of cover due to high winds. I think we received a trickle of rain and only mild winds. The sky looked dark in other parts around us though, that someone might have been hit harder that us.

I switched to reading one of my CSIS books while sitting on the porch. Robyn ran out to pick up the kiddo from work just as the rain started rolling in. Next-door, to the other side, my neighbours were playing with their new puppy, Teddy. I haven’t heard a peep out the dog yet and I am hoping I never do. I’m a cat person; barking dogs aren’t for me.

We are both heading into the studio tomorrow, and Robyn has a wrap party for a show she worked on at another studio. So, I’ll wait for a bit at the studio or maybe do some writing at the train station until she is done. A noisy, bustling station is a good place for me to write, just like at the old diner. There is an energy in the air that is non-specific that I can tap into.

It becomes its own form of energetic white noise.

While Robyn got ready for the following day’s party, I continued to read and then headed upstairs to watch some YouTube videos. Robyn walked in at the start of a longer video about theory of the Pyramids construction. It had some valid points and was presented well. Mainly the idea was that a ramp wrapped around the pyramid was used to create a particular geometric shape that allowed the ramp to maintain a 7-degree slope and still be able to reference the corners to keep the pyramid true.

The pyramid was then shaped from the top down, and the extra stones went towards making the next pyramids base. It was interesting and very plausible, but like all things Egyptian, the story can never truly be known.

After some archaeology we switched over to some comedy and watched an episode of the Daily Show. Later they had two guest that wrote a book about how to win the tariff war. It became clear that their opinion of how long it would take to repair things after Trumps tariff trade war was somewhere about 2050. A whole quarter of a century to repair the damage done. That’s so insane to think about.

We can only hope that they are wrong and it doesn’t take that long to return to normalcy.

I have some Amazon purchases on the way. I bought some hangers for hanging baskets that I am eager to set up around the backyard and deck. As well as some vertical growing bags to fill with the extra begonias we had left over. The local greenhouse we usually by them at sells them for $25-$30 a piece. I bought six bags for $15 dollars, and since we already have the soil and the plants it will only cost me three dollars a piece. Can’t pass that up and the extra hanig flowers always add a nice touch to the deck area.

I took a Neo-Citron nighttime at around eight. It’s now about ten thirty and I am getting very sleepy. I hope I sleep like a baby tonight. Another goodnight’s rest should do me some good at fighting whatever this is. I’ll need to bring some surgical masks so I can contain the contagion as best as possible. I just paused to put some out to grab in the morning. Can’t hurt to be prepared.

The book I am reading about a man’s career at CSIS, might as well have been called, I was worried about all these things, and they never ended up happening. It is useful to see the inner workings of the agency, but the guy isn’t writing about any big cases he was on. So far, its all pretty basic stuff. He has managed to keep it light and entertaining though.

If I’ve learned one thing about CSIS from this book, its that they have very limited powers and resources to cover a large scope. They can’t arrest or bring charges to a person, but they can influence the RCMP to do their own investigation into a person or group. I was also surprised that they are a completely domestic agency that has no out of country spies or units. I guess I was one of the people that believed they were so good at being secret that no one talked about them very much.

This creates a bit of a dilemma for my spy thriller. I suppose Mick Herron works within these similar boundaries with his Slow Horses novels. The action takes place in London, sometime by foreign entities, but the agents stay in England. Once in a while to story might go to France, but the agent acting there is usually gone rogue for a bit. A good way to take a domestic spy service to another country.

Something for me to keep in mind as I start to pen this new thriller.

Another way for me to go, is to create a black op service that works clandestinely in foreign soil. They are part of CSIS, but so top secret Canadian’s have never even heard of the unit.

Both ideas intrigue me, and maybe I can combine then somehow.

I was sad to hear that the high flying and precision aerobatic Snowbirds were being shutdown until 2030 as they look for replacement jets and revamp the Snowbirds program.

The are retiring the old jets, the CT-114 Tutor jets, and appear to be switch to a new propeller driven plane called the CT-157 Siskin II. The planes and the crew are said to turn to the skies in 2030 after a three-year hiatus.

This first thing you think of is how are the pilots going to stay sharp if they aren’t constantly practicing. And the Snowbirds are a matter of national pride as well!

My deceased mother-in-law, Mo, loved to see them flying over the Exhibition ground in Toronto every year. I imagine there are plenty of Canadians just like her who will miss the performances of the Snowbirds.

The kiddo has informed us that he is filming his summer project here at the house and could be make ourselves scarce for those two days. He thought we could just invite ourselves to another family members cottage or perhaps rent a room in one of the hotels down the street near the highway on ramp. He seemed less agreeable to the idea when we told him he would have to pay for the room. And then I suggested we should be getting a location fee for allowing him to film at our property.

The kid’s sense of entitlement is off the charts. He isn’t shy about asking for things he wants, and he usually has thought of a few reasons why we should agree with him. Didn’t do a great job on convincing us on this one though.

Although, it would be nice to take a couple of days to take a trip somewhere. Not sure where we would go, or if we could even afford it.

Maybe I’ll have a look around and see what’s what. I do have some friends in Ottawa I have been meaning to visit for the last few years. Maybe there will be one of Ottawa’s musical festivals happening. That might be fun to do, and we would have a place to stay.

Well, as usual, it’s going to be an early morning tomorrow. On the plus side the temperature is supposed to dip, making the commute a little less steamy than usual.

I think I’ll make another neo citron and grab some shut eye.

Look at me getting my writing done before midnight!

Until tomorrow, my friends!