AWAITING HAS BEEN A'WAITING FOR SOME PICTURES OF A MAN'S SHOES.

"I want to see what kind of shoes a single man wears," the Mississippian Mom commented (or something along those lines) on one of my recent postings about MY STUFF.

Here it is.

I do humbly offer my apologies. About the only thing that's missing are my winter snow boots, my black dress shoes and my Perry Como lounging slippers.

I don't think this is what Awaiting was awaiting, but I blew out my tire last night and had to change said tire early this morning in temperatures of -35C with the windchill.

I have only recently returned from paying $197 Cdn for a new tire to be installed, a process that took half my day. My fingers, ears, eyeballs and some other body parts are still numb.

I fully expect I will be told I need new shoes too. And no, I was not wearing my sandals this morning.

I think what I need most is a vacation.

Christmas, Collection Bin Style

SOMETIMES THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

ISN'T WHAT WE WANT IT TO BE.

I don't want to make this a depressing post, not at all. And I know it isn't telling anyone anything they don't already know.

But I do want to let you in on something I witnessed Tuesday.

These pictures were taken from a distance through my bedroom window of a woman I've seen for the last several months, a woman who looks Chinese, maybe about 50 or 55.

She rides around on a bike with paper bags hanging from the handle bars and goes through recycling containers and garbage bins (like the big blue one she's rummaging through above) in my apartment complex.

Her face is very weathered. I've seen her several times and she's seen me, but she never looks at me -- I've imagined that's because of some sense of lost pride -- and she always wears a mask.

There doesn't appear to be any embarrassment on her part. She doesn't try to hide what she's doing and is all business as she searches for bottles, cans and anything else she can salvage.

I have sometimes thought I should talk to her, or offer her help, or something, but I don't sense she wants any. Still, I somehow feel drawn to her and curious about her life.

The final picture below is a shot of her (bending down by her bike) and another woman, a resident here, walking by, carrying what very well could be a Christmas gift she plans on giving to someone on Dec. 25.

I wonder what this bike-riding woman will be doing on Christmas morning.

NOSE CUTS AND OTHER BIZARRE SHAVING SNAFUS

I have always hating shaving. And now I hate it even more.

See the cut on the tip of my nose? I cut myself there not by trying to shave THERE, but by shaving the left side of my face and then bringing my hand, with razor in it, over my nose to shave the right side.

What hairy follicle-filled tales of close shaving disasters do you have to share?

My STUFF (Part 2)

Because there were so many pix of items I couldn't include in the last post, I'm throwing them out today only because I'd feel badly if I excluded them.

And I'm still excluding some stuff. Like the art my mom has given me over the years -- a wooden picture carving, for example, of jazz musicians; a metal ship; a painting of a house on a mountain.

As I explained in the previous post, this stuff is all part of me, things I will never part with, things I always want around to remind me of different times and stages and experiences.

The painting that's shaped like a pipe is called Pipe Dreams 1984 by a Winnipeg artist named Jerry Bone. It was New Year's Eve 1983, a year after I got married, we were at a New Year's bash at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

It was of course all about George Orwell's 1984, cruise missile testing over Canada, the Cold War, acid rain, the brain and all kinds of other stuff. I dropped $1,000 on it in a bit of an alcohol-induced spending spree.

I love it.

BAH HUMBUG! I had a picture on here I inadvertently deleted of a cup shaped like a breast with a nipple on it. It was given to me by my sister, who had it given to her after she had a radical mastectomy (removal of both breasts due to cancer).

The pic of the shapely bottle opener lady on the left was a gift to me from Homo Escapeons, my dearest friend, when I split with my wife.

The weird stuff in the middle (if it comes out in the middle on Blogger) includes two decorative metal face thingies I picked up from India, along with an old 1903 British tour guide of India, which is sitting on top of a little music box I picked up in Syria.

The picture of the sunset over a lake on the right is a picture of Wallace Lake in northeastern Manitoba that I took in the 1980s. The cottage my ex's parents owned there is a place we often went to, but which I never go to now.

And it's a place I miss.



The wall hanging on the left is an obviously sexually graphic, really cool Kama Sutra-like image I also picked up in India.

And the sculpture on the right was done by my son when I enrolled him in an art class a few years ago...

Again, I'd love to see any such stuff from others, if they care to share their personal stuff...