The past week I started off planning to focus completely on writing about my dad. Lately I’ve taken notes while he told stories, and I thought maybe I’d get something written and sent before final deadlines for Father’s Day essays. Then perhaps money would seep in to help keep our budget afloat.
Monday morning my alarm failed to wake me. Great start. Then I received a call asking me to work as a temp at a local food-related establishment, Glory Bee. They’re doing a computer-change project and needed people to weigh and measure products in their warehouses, entering the data for digital processes that will make their business hum along without glitches forevermore.
Tuesday I started a couple-week stint of eight-hour days. I won’t even say how long it’s been since I last worked full time. Thankfully, I have good shoes, because I stood on cement floors. It’s a cool place. The smell of honey lends a positive air. Stray honeybees even buzz past, because there are hives out back. The warehouses hum with busy workers. Alongside Kari, a young woman I’d met earlier around Gutenberg, I measured, weighed, and entered data on an amazing array of honey-derived and candle-making products, besides bags and boxes of foodstuffs of all sorts. The people were nice. I guess I do like people. Not a bad thing to remember.
I will remember, too, what I’m learning about my father as I get chances to interview and listen to him. Last Saturday, I joined him in his little boat on Leaburg Reservoir for trout season’s opening day. On the water he’s one happy camper.
We encountered glitches that morning. The motor wouldn’t start. Dad rowed.
Water seeped inside the vessel.
It was 9:00 a.m. I said, “My feet are wet, Dad. You’ve caught your limit already. Let’s leave the rest of the fish for those people.”
We went home, and my feet dried out in time to work at Glory Bee.
I caught nothing but pictures this time. Same as I wrote nothing publishable this past week. But Dad gave me his five trout, and I pulled out of my computer this week and into normalish life for a rather refreshing change. The fish were gone by Sunday. Mmm.
Oh. 8 hour days. I remember those.
Heavens. May have to do something like that myself pretty soon….
Or even consider the idea of selling personal writing, which seems like an idea from outer space. You remind it is an Earth-based phenomenon, at least in theory.
(I do get paid–suprisingly little, and I’m not being bashful– for my contract (at home) work on geography books, but I always say that’s more compiling statistics and turning them into prose than writing.)
Anyway, this post makes me wonder if there’s some nice recipe of broiled fish drizzled with honey… Maybe honey and mustard, that might be good.
I know nothing of fish, but have always loved honey and once upon a time collected honey pots, which come in a surprising array of designs, as you probably know.
You are lucky that you enjoy spending time with your dad! How nice.
Glory Bee sounds like a cool place to work. I love honey. All kinds, even flavored honey–although whipped honey? I don’t know. For some reason it doesn’t seem quite the same.
I hope you get your father’s day essay finished and money seeps in (I love that visual, btw). Trout are some of my favorite fish. Lucky. :)
Fresca, of course you know writing for income is an every day thing, though people see it as mysterious and unearthly. But personal essays, though maybe more creative than geography (though not more important), sell for probably the same monetary gain as the textbooks. Sigh. I’ll look into fishy recipes with honey. :o)
Jodi, I’ll work on the essay for next year. I already pretty much knew I should do that. Yeah, trout is a fish I can stand to eat, especially baked with lots of garlic. Yum.
Some very thick-soled rubber shoes or sneakers will help. Concrete is one of the only surfaces with less ‘give’ than steel.
Perhaps just letting the words gel without trying to put them to paper would help. Just a thought.
PS..does ya gets free hunny???
Hey, Mike, thanks for finding my blog. You’re so right, I think, about letting the words gel. It’s been helpful. I will watch for the rubber-soled shoes. I think that’s what my dad was wearing. :o)
PS to you, Mike – I might get a discount on the yum-yummy hunny.
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