Happy holidays

[Fat Pang]

Fresh from dealing with the latest irritation to cross his path that morning, the correspondent picks his way through his breakfast and considers the characters that manage to float their way across the screen of his laptop.

He considers, in a way that those subject to a twinge of sourness in the morning can appreciate, that the fried noodles and fishballs that are so attractively presented in the cheap styrofoam dish look a lot like what he's attempting to make sense of. The words seem to blur into a coagulated mess, with the odd nugget of comprehension that likens itself to the pak choi that surfaces occasionally in the tangle of noodles. He takes solace in the fact that there is no allusion to be found in the object of grande cup of decaf house coffee that he suffered going to Starbucks for. If there were one to be found he reflects, it would make for unpleasant reading.

He grinds on, through both the both the noodles and the words and manages to somehow digest both, albeit slowly and with much effort.

The distant music that accompanies this mental and digestive slugfest is the sweet sound of children celebrating festive aspects of the holiday season with one of the more popular Christmas tunes. He brightens slightly and, pausing to glance around his place of work, allows a smile to cross his face for the first time that morning. It quickly disappears however when he considers the scene that his colleagues have managed inadvertently present him with. Silent, industrious, business-like and serious. Not to mention that fact that the colleague sat next to him is upbraiding a student for a very un-festive bout of theft. The snuffling sobs that punctuate each hissed sentence with an almost mechanical rythym.

Steam trains he muses. Now that would be something to see on a cold December morning. Well it would be if it was cold,and there were steam trains that actually moved any more. He waves the thought away with a shrug and continues with the slugfest.

News, all of it bad ,passes over him. Why does it always have to be bad, is there anyone nice left out there? In addition to which, why is it that when one of your sporting passions fails to provide a crumb of comfort that none of them pick up the slack. American football, football, rugby,cricket, curling, cricket and the bloody cricket again have all failed to do anything this season that threaten to rise briefly above the tepid pool that is mediocrity.

He puts down the chopsticks long enough to navigate to his e-mail inbox. Here, he reasons brightly there should be something to savour. The usual crap from North American medical supplies companies, fantasy football playoff news which is moderately good as he's made a bowl game for the third straight year, bad jokes from his brother, persistent complaints from his mother, holiday offers in Thailand..........and then he gives up and with a grunt, hits the link that takes him to the clanram pages.

Ah yes, he chuckles, the clan. The source of many an emotional fluctuation.

He considers the short term warmth that results from a recent win and the articles that have accompanied it. Hard to be positive he thinks, when you count on something to provide a measure of relief from the occasional tedium of real life and then it fails to deliver, when you invest so much hope in and on behalf of ,those you'll never meet. There is a detachment in such relationships he thinks that no amount of wishing will ever be able to bridge. Rarely will there ever be another relationship that is so wholly dysfuncational as this one, where the object of attention is so far removed from practical influence that frustration is the default result with only perhpas the periodical occurence of fulfillment.

Still, there is always that, he muses. Savour past glory and look forward to glories yet to come. It could be worse, it could be a lot worse and on the basis that there is little to be gained from worrying about that which one cannot effect, he considers that on the whole as far as this portion of his sporting allegiance is concerned there is much that may yet drag him out of his coffee and noodle abetted funk.

He glances at the papers stacked to the left of his laptop that require his attention and resigns himself to the fact that his red biro will see extensive use this afternoon as he wades through the monotony of repeated error.

His attention lurches back to the sentiments of the clan, down to the now empty styrofoam dish, across tp the half-full coffee cup and back again to the stack of marking.

Sighing mournfully, he navigates away from the clan pages and rummages around for his trusty red biro. After all, it's the job that's never started that takes longest to finish and he's only got two more days until England. That sceptered isle with which he has long maintained a relationship of filial tension.

A smile cracks across his face as he recalls, with the decency of embarassment, that it is Christmas after all and that there is plenty to be cheerful for.

Family, friends, football and festival.

[UtterBlitz]

Come on Fat Pang, you could be a bit more cheerful. Your holiday does not seem to have very many dancing plums in it. Aren't you excited to go back to England for a visit?

[Fat Pang]

Dancing plums??????.............

Why of course, the contrast will be wonderful............

I was just a little scrooge-like this morning. In addition to which, since my last class, my office seems to smell of deep heat. Considering the complete lack of athletic activity in this place, that as to count as the biggest mystery of the morning.

[UtterBlitz]

You gotta have some dancing plums this time of year
Give up the scrooge act...the holidays are here and you are going to be leaving soon.

Weird "deep heat" office mystery. You may want to set up cameras in the office to catch the odd activity. lol.....