Dream Garbage

Today is garbage day. Actually, every Friday is garbage day except for those rare occasions when Christmas falls on a Friday and then it is on the following Monday and once we had to wait another week to have it picked up. We don’t generate very much actual garbage any longer, what with the kids making and dealing with their own garbage now, so we can afford to wait a week for pickup.

We can, but since I am paying for the service, I expect to get service. We also have a recycling bin ($8.50/month) and sometime in 2017 the city is rolling out a compost pick up ($6.50/month). The recycling is done on the same day as the garbage, but I understand that come 2017 the garbage will be picked up every two weeks and the recycling and compost every week. Well, I hope the compost will be picked up weekly or else our back alleys will be filled with interesting odours and attracting some of the less desirable wildlife. That’s progress.

Just a grumpy old man’s complaint….I already compost in my back yard and don’t see why should have to pay extra. They should reward me for years of keeping my compostables out of the city dump. There are things the city can compost that I couldn’t, and it will be nice to cycle everything back to planet earth I suppose. Things change, we adapt or die and then get composted.

Last night I was dreaming about garbage. It was my garbage bin, but for some inexplicable reason it held an amazing amount of stuff. There were the typical bags of rotting veggies and normal household waste of course. I noticed a human body and a few small animal carcasses, some auto parts and yard waste. You know…normal stuff.

The things in there that disturbed my dreams happened to be from my garage. They were items that needed to go into the trash, but I wasn’t quite ready to part with them. Small bits of wood, too big to throw out and too small to use. An assortment of metal that might have a use some day. There were some large sheets of card stock that I was saving to make patterns for as yet undetermined wood working projects. Louise had also thrown out my clothes! Not just some of my clothing, but all of it. I will admit that at least half deserved to be there, but a lot of those items had sentimental value for me.

The bodies I can live with, I’ll just cover them up with an old blanket so that the garbage man doesn’t see them and call the cops. Now, I will have to start collecting small bits of wood, a new assortment of metal bits and the worst part is now I have to go to the second hand store to buy new/old clothes that some other wife donated instead of tossing them in the bin. This is starting to feel like a nightmare…

Saint Ken

In my late teens and early twenties, I fancied myself something of a hippie. I wore the typical jeans and t-shirts, sometimes tie-dyed, I listened to the best music of the century and I believed that my generation had the opportunity and will to change society. It was a wonderful time and I retain wonderful memories.

We didn’t change the world as much as it needs to be changed, but that’s what happens when life gets in the way of living. Historians will tell the tale, but I suspect that we will be a footnote in the gradual change to become Aquarians.

 

One thing I could never do that kept me from thinking I was a full fledged member of my generation was wear those cool buffalo sandals from India that head shops sold. I could never get comfortable with the thong thingy going between my big toe and the one next in line. I tried many, many times, but I could never buy a shoe I knew I would never wear. I wore sandals, but they were the type with a band across the top of the foot and a heel piece. Old man sandals! The only thing missing was black knee high socks.

 

It may seem like a small thing, but I knew that I would never be a messiah sent by God to teach the people a better way of living. All messiahs wear sandals, the kind with the thong thingy. No self respecting saviour would wear Reeboks or Nike runners when feeding the masses, healing the sick or raising the dead. A career in the spiritual world was out, all because I didn’t like how a particular type of shoe felt.

Fast forward forty years and those buffalo sandals have been replaced by flip-flops that come in all the colours of the rainbow and many different styles. Sure there are flip-flops that have a band across the top, but they aren’t cool or stylish. I still have my old sandals and some Teva sandals that are sort of cool when you look like you are about to go into the back country, but people wonder why you are wearing them shopping when you could be wearing flip-flops.

 

I thought that I had come to grips with my footwear shortcomings. I live in a cold climate for the most part and no one looks twice when you are dressed for cooler weather. It is Calgary after all and the temperature is known to fluctuate hour to hour. Besides, cowboy boots are more than acceptable year round.

Then we went to Hawaii for a vacation. Can you imagine? I was in a place where EVERYBODY wears flip-flops. The whole state, all nine islands! They call them slippahs there, but flip-flops they are. I had my big old clunky Tevas, and a pair of water shoes but they really don’t make the grade in Hawaii. We have been there a few times and every time I keep thinking that I will be asked to put on a pair of slippahs or leave paradise. Maybe Karma is holding me back from spending more of my life in paradise because I can’t deal with that thong thingy between my toes.

 

Today I decided that Karma and God won’t have that to criticise about me any longer. I bought a pair of cheap flip-flops and come hell or high water, I will learn to wear those damned things. So far I have managed to wear them for a while but they feel very weird and every now and then I am tempted to toss them in the garbage. Most martyrs have had to put up with discomfort, some live in cool damp caves, some wear hair shirts, some live with lepers, prostitutes and orphaned children. I keep telling myself that I will be able to wear them for another few minutes, and hour, tomorrow and maybe even Sunday. They may never be comfortable, but in time I will get used to them.

 

Who knows, maybe I will someday live with leprous, child prostitutes in a cave making clothing out of my own hair. There will be a place for Saint Ken of the Flip-Flops in Paradise!