Saturday, August 29, 2015

An Eastern European Dinner

Here's the thing about eastern European women - when they ask you to dinner, it isn't so much request or invitation or suggestion. No, the question itself is entirely rhetorical. You are coming to eat. Not only that, there will be no less than three dishes (plus vegetables) to choose from, on top of dessert.

And so it was that after dropping off my friend from the airport, I found myself making small talk and eating a curious chicken stew with her and her parents.

On the way up the walk after (politely) failing to decline her mother's invitations, I quietly checked with my friend that it wouldn't be weird if I stayed. She replied that of course it wouldn't be - it'll be nice and will help make things feel like normal.

You see, her father is dying.

My friend flew into town to stay with her family for a month, following the news that her dad's experimental chemo treatment in Florida had failed and his cancer is inoperable.

The structure of this post so far is pretty spotty. But such was my headspace for the evening.

_MG_6565


He didn't have any hair, and I couldn't shake his hand or make any physical contact. His eyes were bright with a sharp intelligence, but were ultimately betrayed by a gaze full of exhaustion. It's strange - I've never met the man before, but I couldn't help but feel that I was almost speaking with an imposter. You got the sense that something was out of place and the person you should be talking with is in the other room.

But we did talk. I was not even remotely expecting to stay for dinner. Had I known that I might have even met her family, I certainly would not have worn my communist party shirt. It's one thing to wear around friends and peers, but it's another for people that were governed by a Dear Leader. We ended up having a casual discussion about the horrible things Stalin did.

He had a thick accent that I was slow to understand sometimes. I always feel inadequate in those situations, as if I'm not trying hard enough to understand or I'm not good enough at listening. Here's a perfectly intelligent person (perhaps moreso than I am), speaking English, and I keep asking variations of, "I'm sorry?" and "Pardon?" Very frustrating.

We all ended up talking about Canadian politics, airport security, terrorism, and the eccentricities of AirBnB users.

In a way, it was a really beautiful moment. It was a really intimate look into a recently reunited family under incredible pressure.

Yeah, sure, maybe for them I was able to help the meal feel "normal". For me... I was on edge. This situation is not a small thing. Her father's illness is not a small thing. I want to get all philosophical about a person knowingly being near the premature end of their life, but it seems like a disservice to the people I shared a meal with. After being close to my friend through her father's sickness, what I think about things seems so futile and insignificant next to the pain and fear that these people are living.

What am I supposed to say? I'm a dude in his late 20's, working his first career job, with a stupid red sports car and a gaming computer. I know nothing that compares, and even all these jumbled words just seem... like a clumsy way to wrap my head around it.

I appreciated their hospitality and openness in a vulnerable time. I wish them all the best and hope that whatever peace that can be found in such a situation will be found.

Life sucks.
-Cril

If it ain't dead
Maybe in the here after
Instead of tears
I'll learn all about laughter
But meanwhile I'm stuck out here

It just ain't fair, but I know
I said I know
Oh yes, I know
There must be a better world somewhere
There's just gotta be
Gotta be a better world somewhere

Dr. John - There Must Be a Better World Somewhere

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Small Things

Car's fixed. I hate to admit it, but it took me a solid 30mins to get the distributor cap properly mounted. I have no idea what Porsche was thinking with those spring-loaded, right angle screws. But I got it in eventually, and I really hope I never have to take it back off.

Autumn started this week. Even though all the trees are still full of leaves, there's a subtle coolness in the air. And we got a brief hit of winter, too - we had two days of solid rain, and on the second one there were odd flecks of damp snow scattered throughout.

It's got me thinking about how I'm going to get around over the winter. I don't think I should be taking the 944 out. The salt is going to eat it alive and it takes a while to warm up in the cold. I can't imagine it's particularly good for it to be running in extreme temperatures, either.

That's all I got. I'm feeling a bit out of it tonight.
-Cril

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Mystery Box

So late on Sunday I ordered a part from Amazon I needed to complete a car repair. I threw in a ping pong paddle so that I a) got free shipping and b) didn't have to keep using a decrepit communal bat when I play at work.

Then on Tuesday, something strange happened. A package came for me. And it was not from Amazon (oddly enough, that one came the next day. Three day service for free shipping ain't nothin' to sneeze at). It was brown. It had "Bespoke Post" written on the side, with "Frontier" on the tape holding the lid closed.

I had no idea what it was, who it was from, or why my name is on the shipping label. And the thing is, I still don't.

Inside the package was a fountain pen, old school pocket knife, cast iron bottle opener, and a nice notebook. They're all wonderful of wonderful quality, and even though the whole package is incredibly hipster-tastic, I was really impressed. After doing some research, I found out the package is worth about $55 and sent from a US company.

What really gets me, though, is how there wasn't a single clue as to who sent it to me. No note. Nothing on the shipping label. I asked around, and none of my friends, family, or coworkers will fess up to being the culprit of spontaneous kindness. My boss suggested it was a free sample, as I'm an art director at a marketing firm. Alas, upon reaching out to the company, they told me they were not able to disclose who had made the purchase.

Darn.

So now I have this brown box sitting on my desk, full of great little objects I'm hesitant to use. I wish I knew who it was from. I like the contents, I want to keep them. But it just doesn't feel right delving in if they're surrounded by mystery and I can't appreciate the person behind the gesture.

At its worst, it could be from a certain someone that won't leave me alone despite my wishes (and several demands) that they never have anything to do with me again. If I find out that's indeed the source, I'll have no choice but to return the items in perfectly unused conditions.

At its best, I've done something someone has appreciated and is thanking me for. I'm okay with that. I just wish I could thank them in return.

So the beautiful brown box shall continue to sit.

I hate mysteries.
-Cril

Sonic Escape - Circle the Sea

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Car Repairs and Such

This is a reminder that not all car repairs will go well. After replacing all the vacuum tubing and rebuilding the throttle body a month ago, last weekend I replaced all the spark plugs and distributor cables. That last job made a world of difference - the engine now revs silky smooth. That last 'repair' was relatively simple (yes, even though I made not one but THREE trips to the hardware store for appropriate tools) and I managed to do it all on my own. It left me feeling doubly confident.

This weekend's task was also fairly simple: replace the ignition coil, distributor cap, and rotor. I started with the coil, which came out just fine. Upon opening the new one, though, I discovered that it requires a ballast resistor that I don't have. Ok, fine, I'll put the old coil back in while I order in the new part... Alas, I can't get the clamp/harness to close for some reason. It's truly boggling - there's a quarter inch gap between the clamp and the tab it's supposed to be bolted to. So the plan is to go and get a slightly longer bolt to make up the distance. Hopefully it should be pretty simple to find one.

Ok, fine, if I can't take care of that right now, I may as well do the distributor, right? It was a breeze to remove the old one, but lo and behold, the single allen bolt holding on the rotor required a metric wrench (ah, the glories of working on a German vehicle). Once I got the right tool and despite being slightly stripped to begin with, the bolt came off without any drama. I don't want to use the same bolt, though, so I'll add that to the list of parts to get.

So in a nutshell, I'm waiting on a ballast resistor to arrive and I need to find two new bolts. Not the end of the world, not complex, but it's still being more difficult than I had anticipated. At least I haven't really broken anything. Yet.

And on the plus side, I'm slowly building up my collection of tools (over the last two weeks, I've acquired a torque wrench, spark plug socket, socket extension, a mini-ratchet with additional screw bits, and a metric allen key set. I'm gettin' there.

It's worth noting that I'm enjoying myself, even if I can't quite get some of the grease and gunk out from under my nails.

---

Following two recommendations within a short time span from people that don't know each other, I decided to give Bojack Horseman another shot after being unimpressed with the first episode. I skipped to episode 5 or so, and the show slowly transformed into something more interesting. It turns into a cartoon about, yes, celebrity and such, but also depression and self-esteem. While the human/animal mix is interesting, overall the humour is... passable. But the darker themes are what kept me coming back to binge-watch the two seasons over the course of a week and a half.

---

I took my first mandolin lesson on Friday. My teacher, as he put it, can play the mandolin but doesn't call himself a mandolin player. Despite that and seeming a little scatter-brained, he's a nice dude that seems to know his stuff. Even if the quality of instruction doesn't turn out to be that great, the main thing is that the weekly lessons will force to me to practice and try new material. I've become pretty aware that without some external pressure, some things tend to fall by the wayside. If I'm paying $25 a week, I'll make sure to be playing more often (or dare I say, regularly). Hopefully it works. We shall see.
-Cril

Sunday, August 09, 2015

Call me a relic, call me what you will

I think that one of the dirtiest tricks time plays on us isn't that we get to watch those around us die, or that our minds become dull like an abused pocket knife. I think it's the illusion that we stay exactly the same while the world goes on, and goes to mad.

I spent some time with my parents the other week as we vacationed together and attended not one, but two family reunions. Somewhere along the way she made a comment about how dumb flat-brimmed baseball caps are. Why on earth are they catching on. Why would anyone wear one.

Fashion. It's fashion. I won't claim that they catch my fancy either, but the world evolves. It's scary how out-of-date everyone looks in a school yearbook from just 15 years ago. I don't think there's a single yearbook that ages well, where people today would look at it and say, "Yeah, I totally dig that hairstyle and those glasses. I have no idea why they never went out of style." Makes you wonder all the horrible things that we're wearing now that will look stupid a few more years down the road.

There's this old lady I tutored for a time, and now occasionally help with computer problems. All the time she remarks about how, as a young lady, people were so much nicer and kind. No one stole anything, there was less crime, and overall the world was a much safer place to be.

I think that, as a whole, society tends to favour the younger generation and looks fondly on a certain degree of naiveness. I've enjoyed the benefits of that so far, and I can already see that as I age those benefits are starting to wear off. It's just how it is. And as for crime and safety... Statistically speaking, things are better now more than they've ever been.

There's this older guy I know, who isn't aging to well. He'll be on oxygen for the rest of his life, doesn't have a lot of money, and drives a used minivan. He's gifted me his bicycle (because he's too weak to ride) and sold me his DSLR (too heavy to old). He's a kind dude, has some amazing stories and a treasure-trove of skills, but can be pretty depressing to be around. He talks about how there's nothing these days to enjoy and the world is miserable. I was at a party with him once and a few of us were discussion music when he remarked that "The Beatles ruined rock and roll, and there hasn't been anything good on the radio ever since." If you go to YouTube and look through the comments for any The Band or Led Zeppelin videos, you'll see the same sentiment repeated ad naseum. Commenters coming along, with an air of objective, non-biased authority to assert their utterly biased opinion that "music these days just isn't what it used to be."

Now, I undoubtedly skew towards enjoying older music myself, but that above statement is so full of self-important crap, from people who miss their youth so much that they need to tell themselves that their early-adulthood culture was superior to any and all others. Newsflash. Before the older generation was complaining about pop or rap compared to rock, there was another that complained about what an abomination rock n' roll was versus their beloved and wholesome swing. Before that, swing and jazz was considered the abomination.

It's all the same. No doubt, the music of today will be seen as superior to that of 2045. Same goes for fashion, TV, literature. It's just a cycle that will repeat and repeat, as long as there is a younger generation and an older generation and a gap between them.

Maybe youth is alluringly deceptive, or maybe age is breeds bitterness. In the end, I think it's just all the same. What I'm scared of is become a bitter old man that can't see this cycle. I'm not saying that I need to even like the latest hot band. I just need to recognize that it isn't my taste, and it's not therefore inferior. I don't want to get stuck in this self deluded sense of superiority, thinking that the history of anything and everything clearly peaked when I was in my 20's and 30's. What a narrow view of things. Yeah, growing older grants you a great deal of universal wisdom. But it also robs some of their sense of perspective.

I was chatting with a friend a few months ago about the nature of life and death, and I told him that the biggest reason I fear death is that I won't get to see what comes next. Our planet/species has made such incredibly strides during my lifetime (never mind even over the 100 years), that it excites me to see what we're capable of another 20, 50, 100 years down the road. I dare you to successfully explain what the Internet will become to a farmer during the great depression. Now just imagine what kind of advances there are to come that a mere designer from 2015 won't be able to comprehend.

The thing is, though, there are some people who are alive, but have shut down. People who don't get to 'see' these modern miracles, because they're too deep in their opinion that it's all going to hell anyways.

Please, please don't let me be grow old and bitter. Let me see and appreciate the world how it is for as long as I have air in my lungs.
-Cril

Just take those old records off the shelf
I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself
Today's music ain't got the same soul
I like that old time rock 'n' roll

Bob Seger - Old Time Rock n' Roll