Too Much of a Good Thing

Boy did it feel good to sleep in a bit today.

After staying up until 1 am writing, while feeling incredibly tired, I was more than happy to get in more than 7 hours of sleep. I woke up feeling refreshed.

Today is another busy day at work, with us trying to finish some paintings so that we have good reference material for the other painters starting on Monday.

I was apart of two very fruitful meetings involving multiple departments in both meetings. It was a chance for us all to compare notes, make corrections and formulate how we were going to move forward. Incredibly helpful and stress reducing.

We had a good long meeting with the art director who has been so busy with her own meetings that it was our first real chance to pick her brain and hear some of the thought processes that had led to certain decisions that will affect how we move forward.

I worked through my lunch our again because I felt like I was getting behind with the one meeting going a bit longer than anticipated. I’ll likely work on Sunday to get more done for the team starting on Monday.

My vacation was approved to go to the cottage in August, a trip we all need and love. I thought I’d request the time off now before everyone returns to work. They don’t like two people from the same department to be off at the same time.

We take a week every summer and spend time on the crystal-clear waters of Drag Lake in Haliburton. The waters are so clear and there usually isn’t too much boat traffic or people on Seadoos making a racket. The air is so fresh in makes you sleepy in the most pleasant of ways. It has terrible cell service and no internet which forces you to unplug for a little bit at least.

Constructed by the family, back when the current owner Bill was a teenager, of logs cut down from the property. It isn’t fancy but that’s the way we like it.

I love to take the kayak out in the mornings when the lake is smooth as glass or just before dinner when it is usually calm. I make sure not to miss a day and usually go both in the morning and evening. Robyn enjoys walking along to dirt roads an under the tree canopy.

We’ve made it a tradition to bring movies that were a big deal when we were growing up to show to the kids. Like Adventures in Baby Sitting, The Outsiders, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Back to the Future and so many more. Weeks later will be back home and a half dozen kid’s will be over and one of ours is showing them the same movies. It’s great to see them enjoying these “Classics”.

The cottage is owned by lovely couple named the Beattie’s, who run a sugar bush on the property as well. And they make excellent maple syrup that they give to anyone who rents their log cabin. I look forward to that one litre of sweet nectar.

Bill is still going strong in his nineties he makes me feel tired just watching work around the property, lifting heavy equipment, mowing the lawn or doing general repairs. Every year he takes us out on a ride around the perimeter of the lake on his wife Anne’s pontoon boat. He inevitably recants the lakes history and stories about who used to own what. He has a wealth of knowledge of the local area and tell you what stains more marks are from what. I always enjoy the tour even though we have done it every year we have been going there.

It will be interesting this year because our eldest has moved out to Halifax to work and may not be back in the summer to join us at the cottage this year. I suspect the other child will invite their best friend to come along to keep him company.

We love to go into town a few times during the week as well and do a little shopping or enjoy any festivals that might be on. There is always a reason to visit the local grocery store as well to make sure we are stocked up on snacks, and because our son has a dairy addiction, purchase more bags of milk. Not being able to have a cup of tea at night is very upsetting!

One of our friends stopped by at 5:30 pm with some excess sushi from their restaurant and we can’t say no to that. It seemed like a good time to stop working for the day. It’s always nice when people drop in with food! And I was told this person may be making her cherry lime donuts this weekend! And I am pretty excited about that because its means I might be eating said donuts soon!

But there wasn’t much time to mess about after they left because we had dinner reservations at the Fork and Spoon, or is it the Spoon and Fork, in Burlington. It was a new location of the restaurant franchise, and we decided to check it out to compare to the other two we had eaten at in the past.

The place was packed by the time we arrived at 6:30. We were seated after a few minutes of waiting and the food started coming out fast. It’s one of those restaurants that you order items of an ipad and a server will run it out to your table. It’s an Asian inspired restaurant and has sushi, noodles, Thai dishes, soups and all kinds of things. It’s a mash up of Japanese, Thai and Chinese cooking. The meals are portioned out for individual servings and we share all the dishes that come out between us in the beginning and then move to specific dishes for each individual.

I ate like a man who was afraid there would be no more food after tonight. It’s uncomfortable to type these words with a belly this full. I completely overdid it. But it was all so delicious. We finished the meal with fried bananas, puddings and mango ice cream. This location did not have its liquor license yet, so we all had diet Pepsi. I usually order a glass of red wine to aid in the digestion of the massive amount of food. So, maybe I feel like a soon to explode glutton because of the lack of wine.

I am lying in bed at an odd angle to accommodate my full belly as I type this. I won’t need to eat for days. Why did I do this to myself?

Earlier today, I went downstairs to make a coffee, and Robyn was sitting at her desk working on a personal painting. I stopped to have a look at it, a beautiful road leading into a wall of trees and a little farmhouse on the right side of the painting. The sun was low in the sky and clearly near sunset. It was gorgeous. She is an art director in the animation world, and I was amazed at the colors and the speed with which she had painted this. As she is off of work right now, she is making a painting a day, just for own artistic joy. When I look at her work I wonder what would happen if our clients would just let her do her thing. But that is not how the world works. Usually someone with little or no artistic experience call the shots, and you can end up with a lesser product.

She has posted some of her paintings on Facebook and LinkedIn over the last few days. Someone contacted her to see if they could buy a copy. That didn’t take long!

I am glad to see her lit up with excitement at the prospect of painting what she wants and how she wants. I was a bit worried when she was laid off as she likes to kep busy. It was my hope that she would enjoy what ever time she had to its fullest. And now she shines and smiles as she paints away. I always knew she had mad skills, but now, unshackled from the need to please a client she is producing amazing art.

It’s going so well I wouldn’t be surprised if she starts selling the work as cards, posters, printed canvas or on other products. Her sense of colour is one of the best in the business and it really shows in these new paintings.

In the news today, Netflix back outed of its attempt to by Warner Brothers siting financial reasons and paved the way for Paramount to go ahead with their bid to purchase the media giant. This may or may not be good news for some of us in the animation industry. There is a possibility that some of the animated shows have not been greenlit because of the uncertainty of this takeover. So, there is a chance that a bunch of new shows might mean work for our beleaguered industry.

On the downside, it could mean less shows because there are fewer independent streamers now to commission shows. Another take is that Paramount will have access to many more IP’s and that could lead to making more shows.

In other words, it’s pretty much a crap shoot, but getting things to be less volatile can only be a good thing for the coming year in the media arts.

We went into the Best Buy before dinner to kill sometime because there wasn’t much traffic on the way to the restaurant. I was interested in looking at what they had for laptops as mine is a 2018 Lenovo Carbon X1. And I love it for writing, it is fairly light as 2.2lbs, has a screen that is easy on the eyes and at 13 inches is small enough to carry around. I mean that’s why I bought it; it was small and light. The other reason was for the keyboard. For a laptop it is very nice to type on and has a good feel. It feels like there is a bit of depth to key travel and that makes for a nicer experience.

I banged my meat paws on some of the store models; some Lenovo’s and I didn’t like any of them as much as the one I already own. This tells me I am going to be disappointed when it comes time to replace this machine as I will not be able to find one with such a nice typing experience. The ones I tried in the store all felt cheap. Even the MacBook Pro didn’t feel as nice to me. It feels like they are all using the same manufacturer to make their laptop keyboards these days and that is a shame.

And I also forgot how much I hate being asked by ever salesperson in the store if I need help looking for something. There were more Best Buy employees in the store than customers. It felt like being attacked by mosquitoes. I was happy to leave when our reservation time drew near.

I thought when we came home that we were going to watch a little tv. Then I wold focus on my writing and Robyn would do her reading. I got into the bed and set up my laptop to be ready to start typing, but Robyn saw and decided if I was working, she would just go downstairs and do some more painting. A sure sign that she is really enjoying this new sense of artistic freedom. I support this even if it means I was robbed of a little decompressive television watching in the short term.

We have a bevvy of episodes to watch because we haven’t really had that much time to see them. With me writing in bed in the evenings, at least until Robyn shits off the lights and goes to bed, after which I move to the couch downstairs until I get my words done, there hasn’t been the regular amount of TV viewing.

My stomach is still so bloated that I went and made myself a cognac to aid me in digesting all that food. A little glass of Hennessy to the rescue. I added in a little splash of Licor 43 to add a bit of sweetness to the cognac as well as a nice large cube of ice.

When we were in Mexico a few years ago, they made a drink called mini beers, or at least that’s what we called it. It was Licor 43 served in a shot glass with whipped mango ice on top that made it look like a small pint of beer.

Part of the reason I can’t remember if they were actually called mini beers is because of how many mini beers we all consumed. It as all inclusive so what can you do?

Sounds like heading to Mexico lately is a bit of a gambled. Hopefully it is just contained to the one area and doesn’t affect the whole country. It’s such a beautiful place and I have always found the people to so friendly. I hope for their sake that things get back to peaceful living. There are a great many Canadians in Mexico who either live their part of the year or full time. It’s a favorite vacation spot for my fellow countrymen.

We recently took a trip to Cuba last November and now to watch the news my heart goes out them. They were suffering quite a bit when we were there, but things were getting slowly better. And now things must be getting worse with all the oil fuel shortages and the embargos.

I think about one of the buffet servers named Hermes who was so positive everyday that his joy for life was infectious. Now that people aren’t traveling to Cuba because there is no fuel to refuel the planes that land there, he must not have any work to rely on or any of those well-deserved tips.

I hope things get better for them, but I suspect it will be at least three years before the world returns to some form of normalcy.

I read today our Prime Minister, Mark Carney’s visit to India, to secure a trade deal seems to be going well. This will be a good thing for both countries, I think. India seems to be hungry for Canada’s oil and gas, but maybe even more so for its vast deposits of reactor grade uranium. India plans to expand its nuclear power plants in the near future and Canada has the second largest deposit of uranium located in Saskatchewan. India is also wary of becoming dependant on a single source of energy products and a deal with Canada would help diversify their sources. They indicated that they were will to buy as much as Canada would sell them. And that Canada could not produce enough to exceed their needs.

And of course, for Canada this helps decouple the country from a decade long and fruitful partnership with the USA. The current political climate in the USA makes seeking alternative partnerships a new priority to secure the welfare of the nation. It seems like a win-win for both countries.

Sikh activists in Canada are not as bullish on the idea ever since the assignation of a Sikh journalist that they say was committed by the Indian government. They feel that Carney’s talks may put further Sikhs in danger and possible erode their rights.

To my eyes, the deal looks to be a sure thing. Carney needs to open new trade routes to renegotiate the USMCA trade deal. If Carney doesn’t have new deals in the works, it gives the US more leverage at the negotiation table. And I don’t think Carney wants to be bullied by Trump.

And that is the kind of leader we need in Canada right now. Someone who is seeking a fair deal, one that will benefit everyone. Not deal forced through intimidation.

I am so excited to sleep in tomorrow. The only plans we have is to go to Ikea and walk around, not necessarily because we need anything but just to browse and get some exercise. Get us out of the house and moving around. Although, I will be checking out their office organization section for bins and wall mounted storage etcetera for the writing cave, my home studio space and my work desk at the studio. I hoping they have some new storage ideas that I haven’t seen before or something I hadn’t even thought of.

I’ll need four to five hours to work on my mentor assignment redo. But after that I should be mostly free. And I could really use some downtime. I was thinking to do some overtime work on Saturday as well, but the IT department removed that option from me when they announced some repairs and upgrades to be done.

I am hoping to catch up on some reading and television. Get some good old couch-potato sessions in. Maybe bake some bread or healthly muffins or both. Whip up a fresh batch of my pickled eggs to have for quick snacks and breakfasts.

I haven’t used my writing cave all week either, so I plan to write my assignment down there in the relative quiet to make sure I am focusing on the task at hand. I mean, I built it for a reason, didn’t I? When I was writing my novella and using the cave I was getting my words in most days. The act of being in the cave meant writing was all there was really to do.  I did watch a bit too many YouTube videos to be honest, usually at the start of the session. It was my way to ease myself into the writing.

But was it? Come on, right? It was pure procrastination through and through. Let’s call it what it was. It was me slowly building up the momentum to get over the fear of starting the writing.

Most of the time, the failure to go and write something is all done to fear. Even now, I am writing these blogs at 3100 words long out of some kind of fear to start a short story or even my novel. I’ve said before that I wanted to wait until I received feedback on this latest mentor assignment to see if I could get past my writing weaknesses. But the truth is I could very well be writing it now and if it doesn’t work out, I could always toss It in the trash and start again. And what I trash wouldn’t have been a waster of time, it was just me practicing my craft skills.

Some things to think about as I move forward in my writing journey.

Well, I am ready to sleep for as long as my body needs me to.

Good night and sweet cheese dreams to you all.