#302 - Oil Change Writing

I woke to the Bings from my phones Teams app.

My producer messaged me to ask a question about overtime hours, but she already had the information and hadn’t realized it yet. Then all the other messages started pouring in and the urge to stay in bed was overridden by the need to get to my desk.

I was in need of caffeine, but I headed straight to my computer and turned everything on, read all the Monday emails and messages. Nothing to urgent in any of them. I opened up our show tracker and checked to see if there were any paintings for me to approve and since there was only the one, I went to my own folder to continue painting my own assignments.

I needed to round off the rocks I’d painted in a scene using a brush that has a bit of texture. We do this by creating a mask and then painting black over it. Wherever we paint the image disappears. Any grey tones cause the image to fade. The pen we use is pressure sensitive so black painted softly put down varying grey tones.

It only took about fifteen minutes to make the changes, but those extra little touches really make all the difference.

Next, I went back to my assignments folder and found the next background to paint. This location is different than the previous painting, so I needed to look up the new reference for it. Once I had that opened, I could begin the painting process. We typically paint from the back to the front. So, the sky and mountains go in first followed by some closer hill shapes with the suggestion of pines over their surface. From that point on a painting can vary in what comes next, but in this case, we had mid ground hills and trees. Then closer trees and bushes leading up to a path curtained by grass on each side. There is a clear path of action for the characters to move across by design.

I only got as far as the middle ground hill before it was time to leave. I made an appointment today to get the car’s oil changed. I wanted fresh oil in the car before we left for our cottage holiday. The drive typically turns out to be stop and go and the temperature is usually scorching hot. With the car fully loaded with our gear and people and the AC working overtime, the engine needs all the help it can get.

I had an appointment scheduled for one PM and we would normally drop the car off and then take the other car to the park to take our lunch hour walk. But with kiddo #1 home from Halifax, she has been using Robyn car to get to work. This is normally not a problem, but on a day like to day it makes for an inconvenience.

I made the decision to just wait at the dealership while they did the oil change, bringing my laptop to use while I waited. I have about six thousand words to write today, so every opportunity must be taken. Waiting for the car to get serviced seemed like a good time to do that.

I sat in the Hyundai lounge, where they had comfortable chairs and a large TV that was playing game show television non-stop. The first show that was on I didn’t recognize. It starred Wayne Brady, who I do know from Whose Line Is It Anyway? The second show was Family Feud. I guess there is still enough of a draw for these shows to keep them going.

The dealership offers free coffee and tea as well as bottled water. I didn’t feel like partaking today. I’ve grown particular about my coffee ever since I got the Nespresso machine. Most coffee isn’t as good as the one I can make at home. I need to be fairly desperate to have substandard coffee at this point in my life. I’m getting too old to settle for shitty things.

My stocks continue to do well. I am up just over fifty percent, and I should really sell. Take the win, but I feel there is still some upside.

Our friends mentioned that there is a new show that continues the Interview with a Vampire series called The Vampire Lestat. We weren’t aware that a new series had been released and since we really enjoyed the last show, we can’t wait to check it out. The same actors have been carried forward to play the roles of Lestat and Louis. I think the actor that plays Lestat is the perfect casting choice. I mean Lestat should have a French accent an attitude, and this guy can do both.

I believe it’s playing on AMC plus, but when we watched the other series, it was on the Crave App. Sometimes it takes a little bit for the shows to make it to the app. I read that this new series was made exclusively for the AMC app, but often they will license it out at a later date. Hopefully, that is the case this time too.

I brought my car into the dealership early, hoping they could get it finished earlier. So far, it’s been about forty-five minutes since they took the car into the back service area. Not that I mind so much today. It just means I get to noodle away at my writing quota.

The downside is that we are missing our lunch hour walk. And my body could really use the exercise. We haven’t been eating very well the last week and it’s starting to make it’s presence felt.

I am going to head to Walmart tonight to see if can find the frozen tandoori chicken we like to take to the cottage. It’s an easy meal. All that’s required is turning on the oven and making sure to set a timer. We’ll microwave some basmati rice and toast up some naan bread. We can microwave a bag of chana masala if we think the meal needs a bit more food. The whole family enjoys it, so it’s a win-win.

My service advisor just dropped by to tell me my car was done. I managed to get over one thousand words written while waiting for an oil change. Excellent!

Every time I goto the dealership I wait for them to tell me car needs some major work done and it will only be X thousands of dollars. The new thing they have going is a sensor that measures whether or not your car needs a tire alignment.

Thankfully this was not the case this time as we both just spent thousands of dollars on our cars a few months ago. I can’t afford for anything else to “need” replacing right now. And replacing is about all they do these days. The fix for any issue it to replace the part with a new one. Gone are the days of repairing anything.

I arrived home and went back to work.

My gums were hurting me from when I used my water flosser on too high a setting. The pain became intense after I returned from the dealership. My forehead broke out into a cold sweat, and I was shocked at how overwhelming the pain was. I did a gentle pass with the water flosser on low and then added some Orajel near the gum and used floss to get it down into the gap between my teeth. Nothing seemed to make the pain go away, and if anything, it got worse.

I popped two Advil and went to lay down for ten minutes. After that the pain had gone done some. My lips went numb from the Orajel but the pain from my injured gums was still making itself known. The pain had reduced enough, so I went back to my desk and resumed working. Not long after the pain seemed to disappear. I’m not sure if that was the Advil, the Orajel or just my gums being less irritated.

I was happy just to be pain free for now so I got back to work.

The painting I had started was there ready and waiting for me. I checked again to see if any of the painters had handed in their work, meaning I would have to stop and change gears into approval mode. Luckily, there was nothing there waiting for me and I could continue working on my own quota. I put an episode of Peaky Blinders on and proceeded to work on the painting.

Peaky Blinders kept my mind busy enough while I worked. Even though I am not giving it my full attention, I am able to look up at the screen now and again and follow along. A painter’s mind works best when it is distracted by something else. Or maybe it’s the distraction of the logical brain that allows the creative brain to run free.

I’ve enjoyed the show so far, even though I watch it while on the treadmill or when working. The characters are interesting and the setting is done very well. The setting is thick and wet like a cold day, damp day in Birmingham England. All the cars, horses and wagons are right on point and even all the costumes feel right. Add on top of all that, the show has some good writer’s who know how to build up a story.

Five o’clock came around fast and I kept working until about five forty before packing it in for the day. I headed out to the back deck and napped on the couch for half an hour before getting up and grabbing the laptop. My goal is to get another fifteen hundred words written while Robyn is off at her second job. That would get me to about twenty-five hundred words written of the fifty-eight hundred I need to write tonight. I may try writing a brand-new short story this evening as well to get the numbers by some other means than writing this blog.

I ordered a BOGO offer from Poke Bowls for Robyn and I for dinner. I felt like having something relatively healthy without having to cook anything myself. We’ve ordered from this restaurant before and always enjoyed the freshness and the flavour combinations. This bowl had half brown rice and half salad with sweet sesame chicken, seaweed salad, cucumber, sweet onion, edamame, mandarin orange slices, cilantro, green onion, wonton crisps and green onion. The flavour is fantastic and full of umami.

This place also makes something that most other places don’t. The food is called Garlic Spam Musubi. It’s fried spam in a sweet sauce and savory sauce on top of sushi rice wrapped in seaweed. And boy, that is something fantastic. Apparently, it is very popular in Hawaii. Some people are turned off by the mere mention of Spam, but it fries up great, gets a nice outer crust and it tastes good when you combine it with other things.

It truly is an underrated food. In other countries you can get all kinds of Spam flavors as well. It’s only here in north America that we suffer from the lack of variety in our Spam. I’ve made a version of this, and it turned out really good.

I wish I could get these in a convenience store like you can in places like Japan and the Philippines. I guy can dream about his Spam, can’t he?

I took a short break when the food arrived and watched some YouTube videos. I set myself up downstairs in the living room again. Avoiding the bedroom for writing feels like the correct thing to do right now as I really need to focus. And always being in the same place is a bit of a bore, not to mention it deteriorates the springs in our bed faster the more we are in it over and above sleeping hours.

While I was eating, kiddo #2 and a friend were packing up the friend’s car to take it to the drive-in movie theatre. They left to go buy some snacks at the dollar store. While they were away one of their other friends arrived and raided our fridge, grabbing sodas and water for the movie night. The weather app is predicting what they termed “Torrential Rains” right about the time their movie is about to start. That could make for an interesting movie experience for them. At least they didn’t use our car this time.

The kiddo also found the mattress topper I was using as sound dampening in my writer cave and took it back. He uses it when he has friends over for the night or like tonight when he does a drive-in movie so they can lie in the back and open up the rear hatch door.

So, I’ve lost part of my setup downstairs.

Funnily enough, the kiddo #2 has been using that space to edit his summer film. I have an extra monitor that is setup for a laptop to just plug into in and it’s nice and dark in there, so he can see any color grading he is doing to the scenes.

If I build it for me…they will come.

Robyn has headed off to Walmart to grab a few things we might need for the cottage and the rest of this week. Hoping she’ll be able to find the fruit slice gummies I like, so I can take them up to the cottage. I like to have at least one sweet treat while I am up there. Most of the food items we can get up there, but it’s nice to have the things we like and can’t find up there with us before we go.

I’ll also go through our various stream services and download any movies or shows I think we might want to watch while there. We received a bunch of DVDs from our friends Paul and Laura on Saturday to watch as a group. But often robyn and I will retreat into our room at the cottage to watch one of our shows.

There is no internet connection at the cottage other than what our phones can get, but the connection is spotty at best. It’s actually one of the reasons I chose the place years ago. The digital down time was good for the kids and for us too.

I have an episode of Star City playing again while I write. I am getting to the point where I could use a short break. I reached about twenty-four hundred words so far today and that feels great to be this far along by this time of night. I still have a good thirty-four hundred words to write before I am done with today’s quota. I’ll likely stop in a bit as week to watch House of Dragons when Robyn returns with the groceries.

Robyn returned and I helped put away the groceries. She was delighted to have her dinner ready and waiting for her upon her return. After eating we headed upstairs to our room to watch some TV. I was ready for a break and wanted to watch House of Dragons then get back to work. But an episode of This Week Tonight was available, and Robyn opted for it before the Dragons. A little humor to start the night off is always good for the soul.

House of Dragons was another decent episode. There weren’t too many dragon effects needed, but the animators managed to make a scene with two of them nuzzling up to each other. Funnily enough, this was something I thought they should have shown sooner. It felt like this is what two dragons would do that knew each other. It was a touching little bit of cinema that had nothing to do with the story, but it did make the world of Westeros more believable.

This show seems to be finding its legs, but I don’t think it will ever be as popular as the original Game of Thrones series. It’s hard to catch lightening in a bottle once let alone twice. None-the-less, it’s really the only high fantasy shows around at the moment.

I heard rumors that Rings of Power is getting another season from Amazon. I found that surprising as the first and second season didn’t seem to do well with the fan base of Lord of The Rings. But I guess after spending a billion dollars acquiring rights to the appendices and then pouring almost the same into the show itself, they have to keep going to justify the costs. I think that is called the sunken cost fallacy if I am not mistaken.

I guess there is the Harry Potter series on HBO that will be out at some point in the future as well. But that, to me anyway, is a different kind of fantasy. HOD is more adult compared to HP.

It was eleven thirty by the time the two shows ended, and I spent more time taking a break than I’d intended to. I still had thirty-two hundred words to write, which is a least three hours of work. Meaning two thirty would be the earliest I would be getting to bed. The problem with that is that each night that I stay up late makes the next day’s work all the harder to complete.

Such is life. I brought this on myself of course. I could quit this at any time, but I’d feel terrible if I didn’t at least make the effort to get past the finish line.

While we were watching House of Dragon, I was getting texts from kiddo #1 who was downstairs in the kitchen doing her healthy meal prep. She sent me picture so her baked salmon and wanted me to tell her if it was done cooking. Of course, I couldn’t tell by the photo, and I wasn’t really interested in being disturbed at the time, so I told her to bring it upstairs and I would look at it.

Naturally, she expected that I would come down and look at it, but I wasn’t having any of that tonight. Eventually, she gave in and brought the fish up for me to see. She hadn’t even cut into the salmon to reveal if the center was cooked. As soon as she did, we both knew it wasn’t ready. I guess I forget sometimes that cooking certain foods is still new to her. I’m glad that she asks for help though, because that is a good sign. One should never be afraid to ask questions.

She’s one step closer to independence.

It makes wonder about the things that I know and take for granted. It’s easy to forget that the kids might not have had that life experience yet. I’ve cooked salmon so many times that it’s just second nature to know when it’s cooked.

My injured gum seems to be feeling a lot better. I don’t feel the intense pain anymore. I was careful not to eat on that side of my mouth today in case I got irritated again. Hopefully after a good night’s rest it will heal itself. Good thing about mouth wounds is that the body seems to have a shorter healing time than other parts of our anatomy.

I’ve had scratched on my shins take months to heal and even a year later you could see where it happened. It wasn’t a scare per say, but you could see the mark. It’s since healed over completely, but I did marvel at how long it was taking to heal.

I’ll take another Advil before I go to bed to help with any inflammation that might flare up in the night. As I get older, it seems there are more and more things that cause me pain or discomfort. I guess our pain receptors continue to work just fine as we age.

I managed to make up the marinade for the chicken ruby today using my Ninja food processor. That little machine sure speeds up the process. Robyn purchased two packages of chicken thighs while she was out, so I made a double batch of the marinade, trimmed the fat from the thighs and put everything into a Ziplock freezer bag to marinate overnight.

I’ll cook the chicken tomorrow and then freeze it for the cottage. It feels good to have at least three meals prepared for my vacation already.

I’ll try to find time to install the roof cargo carrier tomorrow as well. It seems like we will need as much space as possible this year. I can’t see the kiddos being willing to pay for the extra fuel to bring up the second car. It makes things easier with two cars, and we can take more things and groceries from home. But with gas prices being what they are, and the kid’s being a bit cheap when it comes to these things, I think it will be a one car trip this year.

And that also means I don’t get to listen to my own music on the ride up. And the kids can be a bit needy on the best of days, even though they are technically considered adults at this point in their lives.

One thing we will definitely be doing again this year is stopping at Weber’s Grill in Orillia. It’s become a family tradition at this point to stop there. Only because my mother and father would never stop. Not even once.

My father would see the long line ups and say it would take too long. The line up is too busy. Meanwhile that flame broiled burger smoke would make its way into the car ventilation and tease us mercilessly. This went on ever time we went up north, which to be fare wasn’t very often, but it stuck out in my memory. So much so that I made it a rule that we had to stop there every year. Not a single person in my little family complained about it even once. It’s something we look forward to with joy in our hearts. It’s one of the places where we make memories every year. And I am happy to have started that tradition.

Maybe one day the kids will take their own little families to Weber’s and pass on the tradition. Assuming it still exists in the future.

The kids returned from the drive-in theatre attempting to be stealthy but hitting everything in sight, as they struggled with the large mattress pad, pillows and empty drink containers. I don’t think these kids could enter someone’s premises without crashes and bangs. I guess I should be thankful they arrived home safely and that they had a good time. It didn’t really bother me tonight anyway, as I was sitting in the living room writing.

As it stands right now, I have another two thousand words due for today and it just past the twelve thirty mark. That puts me on schedule to finish around two thirty or three.

Earlier today, one of the bigwigs at work was asking for some pictures, since it was the tenth anniversary of our 2D animation studio opening in Toronto. I had some great shots of the crew when we were working on the second season of Final Space. At the wrap party the producer had got giant ballon sculpture made of one of the characters called Mooncake. There were some of the group photos we took at Christmas parties and one with all of us wearing our Final Space merchandise. We had to buy the merch from the creator of the show, who had a t-shirt company, but it was the only merch available. They did send us a little stuffed animal of the Mooncake character as well at one point.

I had a lot of fun and put in too many extra hours on that show. It was a good time that I remember fondly. We had a great layout and paint team, maybe one of the best assembled in the city at the time. I was proud to be a paint supervisor on that project and to work with so many talented artists.

This week the studio is doing a viewing of two of the episodes at lunch in celebration of comic that the creator just put out. There will be prizes for swag and merch and maybe some food as well. It will be great to see an episode of a show that was put into the Warner Bros. vaults, never to be seen by the general public ever again.

Across the street from our house, past the four-lane road used to be an open field. Over the last few years construction started on some four to six-story condos followed by a larger ten story assisted retirement home. It seems like the major construction has finally come to an end. All the bright lights from the cranes and the security lights are gone. The cranes were dismantled a little while ago, only to be replaced by massive telehandlers.

But even those have slowly disappeared.

It’s been years of extra noises early in the morning and walking up to a car covered in constant fine dust. And although I don’t like having such a large building directly across from our home, I can take some solace in knowing the construction is in its final stages. Most of the work is being done inside the building. Outside the landscapers are working and every day the add new plants to the site, which only serves to beautify and soften the area.

I’m looking forward to a clean car and less noise pollution. The new building does reflect sunlight toward our house at certain times of the day, but I can live with that. We’ll have to see how it is when people move in and the employees start arriving to earn their pay.

Another thing that is happening in our neighborhood is the refurbishing of the curbs in our area. There seems to be some campaign to redo many of the curbs throughout our area. And this involves ripping up people’s driveways to install the new concrete. The mess on the street today as I drove to get oi changed was over the top. There was asphalt all over the place, pylons as far as you could see and driveways and streets ripped up all along the roadways.

I’m not sure why this had to be done. The concrete didn’t look that bad to me. Sure it was twenty plus years old, but it was in relatively good shape. Certainly not perfect, ut how could it be. It’s a curb after all.

Seems to me like they could have spent that money on something a little more crucial than slightly crumbly curbs. The other thing they were doing was to redo the crosswalks. This at least made sense to me. Making all the crosswalks accessible to wheelchairs and strollers is a good idea. Maybe they should have just stopped at that.

Anyway, they have made a right mess of the neighborhood, and I am not sure the place will look any better after they fill everything in.

I’m really feeling the lack of movement over the past few days. I need to make sure that I can get out for a walk tomorrow at lunch. I can feel my body getting bigger each day. I made an AG1 for myself this morning. The stuff does get rid of the nagging sensation my body puts out when it wants vegetables. I added a little bit of maple syrup, maybe half a tablespoon to it. It’s amazing how tastier it is with a bit of syrup in it.

Mixing up a batch doesn’t take much effort, but every time I manage to remember to do it, I feel like I deserve a pat on the back. Like someone should be handing me a medal or trophy or something.

It really does make me feel better and I find it settles my stomach a bit. Coffee is likely to make me gassy when I drink AG1. Heck, it’s worth it just for that.

It’s now one thirty in the morning and I still have another eleven hundred words to write. Things are still on pace as I predicted. The hardest part is coming up with things to write about after such a long post. Certainly, my life is not that interesting to anyone, and I doubt that anyone would have read this far anyways. And if you are reading this then why aren’t you leaving something in the comments?

But someone reading this is not really the point of the exercise. The point is for me to make the effort and to keep showing up. And even though I show up stronger some days and barely at all on others, I do show up every day. I’ve formed this habit of doing the work.

My next trick is still going to be to transfer this effort and consistency over to writing fiction instead of blogs. And boy, have I struggled in that area. I hope my time at the cottage allows me to devote some energy towards making that transition.

I could for example, make an effort to write a short story per day while I am there. It doesn’t have to be anything major nor do I need to have the pressure of finishing. But I should make the attempt. What have I got to lose?

I had this idea to use my BYOK writing device at the cottage. It’s about the size and weight of a cellphone but has longer battery life, easy on the eyes screen and is only meant for writing.  My idea is to mount it to a baseball cap’s brim like a mobile screen and using a Bluetooth keyboard type some stories. This would be ideal for writing in a hammock or reclining in a Muskoka chair.

I may try to create a setup for this tomorrow. I should also do a google search to see if anyone else has had this idea yet.

I couldn’t wait. It doesn’t appear anyone else has tried it. Or at least if they have, they aren’t talking about it on the interwebs. It’s settled then. This is tomorrow’s mini mission.

None of my typewriters will be making the trip to the cottage this year. One there isn’t enough room in the car and two it’s not very practical. My laptop will be my main writing device as it is every day. One day I might try out using an Apple iPad mini as my screen/computer with a Bluetooth keyboard case. The size is just about perfect for a portable writing machine. But sadly, I don’t have the cash for that setup at the moment.

I’d also like to experiment with a pair of AR glasses to use as a portable screen. I think the could be cool as a productivity enhancer when paired with a keyboard. But again, the cost and the batteries are still not there yet. Often you need to carry around a little hub to make it work with your phone and that kind of defeats the purpose. But every year these AR glasses are getting better. Some of the ones that have been catching my attention are the glasses that don’t try to do everything. For example, you might have ones with only one colour and it only does text-based images. Sure, you won’t be using them to watch videos, but for writing and basic day-to-day activities they would be more useful to the average person, who is basically texting or reading, getting directions or interacting with an AI assistant.

I would always have a mobile writing environment with me. And I could see a future wear talking to your device would be the main way in which we got things done. Voice to text apps have become sophisticated.

The rain we were expecting to get earlier just arrived. Sounds like it’s going to dump a lot of water all at once. The grass sure could use a good drink. I hope all the people who I work with that suffered flood damages last week got everything sorted out so it doesn’t happen again.

My own supervisor had to make a case with the board over mold issues. Turns out the mold was worse than she thought. The inspector immediately wanted to know if any elderly people lived in the building. And if they did, they should stay somewhere else. Not the words you want to hear coming out of the inspector’s mouth.

Our area has really good waterways. Behind almost all of the subdivision are water retention creeks that run all the way to the lake. The amount of water that would have to fall to flood our area would be on the biblical scale. I make sure our street drains outside our property remain clear throughout the year and inspect our downspouts regularly to ensure we aren’t likely to have a flood issue.

The town also constructed large runoff ponds at each off ramp from the highway. It’s almost as if a civil engineer had some real concerns about flooding in this area and they put all kinds of protective measures in place to make sure that it would never happen even under the worst-case scenarios.

We are lucky to live in a town with so many creeks and walking paths riddled throughout the neighborhoods.

The rain is already over; it only lasted a few minutes. I do miss the big summer storms we used to get when I was a kid. But I guess I should be grateful that as I finish up this writing session and it approaches two thirty in the morning, that I won’t be kept awake by the pounding of the gods in our ceiling.

If I am lucky, I will get a good solid seven hours of sleep. Probably less than that if my phone starts chiming with work chatter. Some of my colleagues start too early in the morning for my tastes.

When I started this morning, I didn’t think I would be able to meet today’s word quota, let alone repeat if four more times over the next four days. But I somehow managed to pull it off. I think getting started early really helped. I’ve talked before about writing in chunks throughout the day and how that makes it seem less like a daunting task.

My writing time while waiting for the car to get it’s oil changed really helped propel ne forward tonight, I would have quit earlier if I hadn’t had the thousands words written from that time already in the books.

Anyway, it’s been one heck of a long day and I am dying to curl up in bed and get some rest.

Until tomorrow.