Summer of Swat - Edmonton Sees Mosquitoes in Reams for First Time in Long Time

Summer of Swat

Trying to get money from hippies is like trying to teach a robot a concept like:  relax, everything is just groovy, man.

It's been an exciting few days for this here cat:  dog-sitting, birthday attending, and picnicking in the park. “Picnicking & Politicking in the Park”, should I ever decide to enthusiastically bore the general reading public with my whimsical follies, might be the title of my memoirs? This blog is sort of like reading memoirs as they happen... memoirs without the context of time tempered wisdom to say the least. Having felt the pangs of the self-disgust accompanying the putting of one's foot in one's mouth, I try not to shoot from the hip except in person anymore. Even fictional writing can land an author in hot water when read by an unintended audience.

Under a recent blog entry I was forced to resort to using my own stock footage, inserting old pics from the archives into current articles. Fortunately, I've since found my little digital video / picture taker and can once again provide you, dear reader, with brand-new photos of things from around Edmonton, like the one below depicting the lushness of the canopied streets of the neighbourhood in which I strive to lead a quiet and contemplative life:

Seniors, students, eccentrics, and yuppies all contribute in comprising the make-up of this little gem of a district that lies between the uptown and the downtown of Edmonton. The Grandin district: bordering on the east with our Capital City's Government Centre, to the west with a fine uptown neighbourhood called Oliver which lies just north of the majestic river valley, and almost about a dozen or so blocks due south of the old City Center Airport. We are just a block to the south from the infamous Jasper Avenue. 

Now folks, I don't mean to sound as though I'm writing a promotional piece for Edmonton, but I must say that we have some incredibly nice pockets of residential space for sale or rent throughout our former “city of champions.” Where I live, having your own transportation in the form of a personal automobile is not so necessary as it is when you live in the outskirts - a few kilometres from shopping and work is a big deal on foot.
I suppose it's all about your personal priorities, but I like to see people buck the trend and ignore the status-quo whenever assessing their own needs. Perhaps too many people overextend their own personal finances to simply maintain their primary means of transport by way of the automobile? Personally, I wouldn't even consider having a car unless I had a float of twenty to thirty grand in the kitty- given the price of everything these days. Being perpetually broke has some unlikely advantages, but boy do I miss having a car- especially when it comes to escaping the concrete jungle on a moments notice.

My tenancy here has been sporadically precarious since moving in six years ago and my partying has been the source of more complaints than I care to admit. Thanks to all the aftermath of circumstance beyond my control like economic forces, coupled with the anxiety that the rising price of everything can have on those of us with limited means, my chin now sports appreciable outcroppings of white hairs betwixt the coppery ones! Alas, for I've only myself to blame for allowing myself to become so intensely caught-up in the intensity of it all, that is, the immediacy of downtown living; keeping the company of people as potentially as rowdy as myself at odd hours during weekdays and the resulting noise and unintended nonsense it begets.

One day at a time, right? I like going for picnics on the other side of the river in Kinsmen Park. In the picture below, you can see my pal Steve about to fix himself a Grey Goose and juice. I really should have taken a few snaps of the spread of ingredients undergoing preparations, but let me assure you that just outside the left-hand border of photo are some cubed potatoes with diced onion and a rack of chicken wings passively broiling in tinfoil atop the cook stove.

The mosquitoes in the park were all but unbearable, but dinner was eventually served, and we ate heartily with improvised chopsticks. Later in the evening, a coyote ventured near our site and lucky for him, the two Belgian Malanois we brought along for the journey are so obedient that they always abandon chase upon command!

Thus, I feel now so inclined to slip the surly bonds and go ahead and sky-write my words into the silvery linings of cloud computing- in hopes of preserving, for all time, this very article you're reading now; it could very well be that this here article may very well be the final blog entry I ever have an opportunity to submit; The Internet seems so permanent but there are no guarantees in this life. One solar discharge of a high enough magnitude could wipe the whole slate clean?

I've had scant little luck in finding a solid employer much less in actually holding down any proper jobs in recent years; my ingenious benefactors are growing ever more tiresome of my bilking and scheming. Mere mortals would've cut me off long ago.

I get the impression from my own circle of friends that so many of us refuse to heed the type of experiential advice our close friends reluctantly offer us from time to time. No... we have to make the same mistakes ourselves. The follies of friends and strangers alike who behoove us to not follow in their footsteps, yet we condemn ourselves to pitfall after penalty, trial after tribulation as a consequence of our negligence.

Are we no more than lab rats running around in a giant maze of concrete, glass, and steel? Are we no more than resigned to "just going for it", only to soon after discover each and every calamitous outcome first hand? So much can be learned from the misgivings and laments of others. My own "recovery" from addictions may one day provide an excellent recourse on what a person should invariably NOT attempt to do in their lives.

Typically, profoundly, excellently, and so far ultimately, I've thus far managed to dodge every bullet ever fired at me.

Don't forget to check out my You Tube channel, and don't hesitate to let me know if there's anything Edmonton related you'd like me to investigate. Until then, I plan to start working on a new screenplay addressing uncomfortable situations or idiosyncratic absurdities or something. For now, I'm off to a park bench with the dogs and a copy of Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited." Ta!