Chapter 272

Once again, the sky was a thick banana pudding color, no idea what it’s about. Maybe dust. I brought the cat along, riding in my shirt pocket, and once I got to the square with old grampas and grandmas doing taichi I put him down so he can walk around. A woman walking her poodle said she’d seen a bunch of kittens like mine behind one of the buildings in our complex. Maybe it’s the family he got estranged from on the day I picked him up, bloodied and traumatized. The girlfriend said she’d also spotted an adult cat who looks exactly like him, sniffing around our building’s entrance. Maybe the mother. She was with the dog at the time, who caused the cat to dart away, never to be seen again. That gets us to wonder what should we do, should we find the kitten’s family and hand him back, now that he’s recovered from his wounds? Or keep him, knowing that it’s likely not forever? He seems happy with us, but if the longer he gets used to the indoors cushy life, the least likely he could readapt to his stray predator roots.

I got to work, and now, not only do my officemates leave the doors open, but they also opened a window, which causes air currents to slam the doors. Would that make them remember to close the door when leaving and entering? I’d say fat chance. I had three grade-12 classes in the morning, and in the break I checked homework and wrote a quiz for the eleventh-graders. I also volunteered to review new releases on next week’s Metal Minded podcast, my friend sent me the list of albums to listen to, and I started with Rivers Of Nihil. It’s some very pretentious proggy music with a few death metal passages, the kind of stuff I’d never listen to willingly otherwise, but I’ll give it a honest assessment. Too bad the album is over an hour long, I feel like that’s asking a bit much from potential listeners.

At lunchtime I finished the R. n’ S. and watched political analysis videos and then listened to Olivier Aubin-Mercier’s podcast, finally he got GSP on as a guest. It was nice, but what I like about OAM’s podcast is hearing stories from MMA and other combat sports athletes and GSP has been on so many interviews over the years that he didn’t really come up with anything unheard before, aside from a recent development about a possible boxing exhibition against Oscar De La Hoya that didn’t materialize.

About ten minutes before I was to go back to work, it started raining hard. Good, it will clear whatever yellow shit is floating around in the air, but it also means I’ll get soaked on the bicycle ride back. I put my work clothes in a bag and rode there in shorts and a raincoat.

In the afternoon I only had one lesson, with Catatonic Class. I usually start with an energetic “Good morning!” or “Good afternoon!”, and expect a response, which signals the start of the lesson and also serves as a rapport-establishing greeting. With them, I always get a dead awkward silence in return so I don’t even bother anymore, I just jump straight into it. I give back the energy I receive, and if I get none, well then it will be a boring lecture with picked volunteers to answer questions, rather than a more participative approach that works with other groups. It went okay, the skill they had to demonstrate was to draft an electron configuration, and it’s quite systematic, something their Asian brains can do well. The logic to get to the systematic method and the vocabulary around is a tougher nut to crack, but once they do know how to apply it, they can do it quite well. Then I finished writing the quiz, while listening to a black metal radio show. The theme was the Newfoundland scene, and there were some pretty good bands in there.

I got home, ate a bowl of yogurt with chocolate protein powder, raisins and nuts, and kicked back with my animals. Then I went to train BJJ. A great time was had by all. I started a roll in mounted position on the Italian blue belt and stayed on top for about two minutes, I managed to avoid being swept but he sa
w my submission attempts from a mile away and defended them all. Then he eventually bridged, flipped me and tapped me out in fifteen seconds. There are levels to this shit.

I got home, took the dog out for a lap of the block on my skateboard, and cooked dinner. I heated jerk chicken wings in the oven, alongside some calzones the girlfriend brought me. It was delicious.