XXXIX: The Business / Follow-through and Follow-up

Were you ever aware of the good times when they were happening?

In my mental rolodex of times in my life, I was thinking about late Grade 12. The distance of decades has made it seem like a golden era of sorts, but at the time I had as much turmoil as any, much of which is recorded for posterity in this blog. I'm not saying I'm nostalgic for that. Maybe the opposite. Maybe it's good to have a reminder that even the better times in your life had some clouds. I did admit, in one post, that while I was pretty negative I did have "a lot going for me" certainly compared to other years. Jeez, just be glad I didn't start this operation in Grade 10.

I'm a little sad sometimes because as confessional as this blog can be, it's not unfiltered. It's a public forum -- just one with no audience -- so it still gets filtered. Triply so back then when I knew people were checking in. So it behooved me to be coy. So if there was something (or someone) I was really into, I had to downplay it. Which makes it hard to trace the map of my feelings back all these years later. But hey, it's better than nothing.

To answer the question at the top of the blog, yes. I vividly recall many times throughout 2022 and 2023 when I was aware this was potentially as good as it was going to get for me. I was sitting in my house, taking a nice long breakfast -- oh, those Dempster's Cheese Bagels, how I yearn -- and my coffee, doing Wordle before booting up my computer to start my day anytime between 9 and 9:30. Do not think for one second it was lost of me that I had it made. I appreciated the fuck out of that, and consciously thought often about how idyllic my life was in that era. And I always rue how it was taken from me, but that doesn't mean it wasn't beautiful while it lasted, and I knew it. I even wrote about it on tumblr of all places.

And I'm saying all of this because I'm having one of those moments right now. It's been a slow, lazy Sunday, the kind that starts late and is over before you know it. Mel and I didn't even have breakfast (salmon bagels) until about 2 (after I went out and procured some coffee drinks from Williamses) and we sat around watching bad reality TV on Netflix for a few hours before she had to go do some mandatory professional development. In actual fact, I got up relatively early because one of the dogs -- won't say who -- has gotten pretty demanding in the A.M. So 8-10 was spoken for, but I was then able to define most of my day. And the reason why this is so idyllic because someday this may not be the case. I mean, it may not be as free as it was when we had no dogs at all, but someday we'll have kids, and every bit of our lives will be for them. and that'll be great, but it won't be this. I liked today. It wasn't perfect, but it was ours.

Yesterday was chaotic. Actually it was several days worth of chaos. We had gotten the invite to go to the trailer to see Lori, Gail and Karen. Bastian had had tummy troubles off and on during the week. Brandon had to bow out due to Chase falling ill. Ali couldn't make it because of a plane ticket mishap. The whole thing seemed like it might fall apart. At the eleventh hour, the trottage had a plumbing issue that threatened the whole thing, we didn't even know if it was on until the following morning. Once we had it confirmed, we scrambled. We had to go to Oakville to drop the dogs with my dad and Deb, then pick up my mom where she was waiting around the corner. It was a long drive and my mom regaled us with tales of her problematic friend, as well as her work which is always dramatic. We sure got a lot of her over the course of the day. It felt like the drive took longer than usual, leaving Oakville around 12:15 and getting to Spring Valley a little after 2.

Well. We had a good day though, sitting out in the sun and talking to the aunts and Cam. It was nice to catch everyone up on what was going on and to hear from them about their own lives. We played some cornhole. I didn't have much to say for myself, more "couple" stuff. We ate after 5, had a quick dessert, then hit the road. We took the usual way home, even though it was getting dark. It's a lot more serene than the other way. We dropped mom off at her door around 8:45 (Mel went in to use the restroom) then doubled back to dad's to pick up the boys. By the time we got home, we were just wiped out, we crashed. But Bastian wasn't letting us rest.

Sigh.

Anyway, these are days. I could probably tell you more, but that about sums it up.

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto