Seems like a repeat

Dogs barking in the back alley
for invisible reasons (as if they
ever needed any),

fan whirring, installing a semblance of cool
in here while the immense summer heat
drags on into September.

While I’m trying to keep my cool
as I’m going through rows and rows
of written materials that would most likely
not be missed had they not been written.

But that’s what ya get paid for, me boy.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
This should be blunt enough not to require any explanation.

Part of Weary Outpourings of a Grump Ground Down by Life and Other Things.

Let me do my work

 Dedicated to Alessandro

There we go.
And now.
That’s what I need.
Next.
A bucket.
This goes here.
Shit.
Dropped it all.
A broom.
Now what.
Needs to dry.
What is this.
Nothing.
Damn.
No way.
Next thing I need.
Found it.
Now that.
Doesn’t work at all.
Maybe it will.
All OK.

– Nicole Weiß (© 2024)

Author’s note
Yesterday, the handyman Alessandro S. was working in my house. This short story is more or less based on things he mumbled to himself while he was going about his work.

Translation from German. The German version was published here.

The don’t take toilet breaks haiku

Went to the toilet. Came
back – a job had come and gone.
Lucky someone else.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
Once again: the truth and nothing but.
In today's fast-paced always-on environment, going to the toilet for a minute or two can make the difference between getting and losing out on a job.
And I didn’t even go golfing! (Reference to Gary Kildall of Digital Research, developer of CP/M, an early PC-age rival of MS-DOS. Supposedly he turned down a meeting with IBM because he preferred to go golfing. The lucky winner was Bill Gates of Microsoft, who did have time for IBM and sold them on his operating system. This is the story as I remember hearing it in the 1980s - veracity not guaranteed.)

The working man’s haiku

Got a new job. And
somebody next door inflicts
loud nasty grinding.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Notes
The facts and nothing but.

The working day haiku

Working away, cold
feet, cold day, February,
no wild conclusions.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
I needed one more syllable for the last line, so introduced “wild”. But actually there were neither wild nor tame conclusions. So far. Oh, and there's an internal rhyme here, which is frowned upon by haiku purists.

The haystack haiku

Today I have to
find three bent needles in a
PC file – achoo!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Note
In my work as a coordinator of translations, I have to deal with the idiosyncracies and erratic behavior of a CAT software named Star Transit. Most likely three occurrences of an apostrophe in a text file caused Transit to stumble and fall today (it stumbles and falls a lot in general). These are the bent needles I have to find in the haystack. And I do have a highly developed allergy to such problems (which are a great waste of time and nothing else), hence the achoo.

Philosophical dollop

One should observe the significant
and ignore the trivial.

So what am I doing here
ignoring the significant and observing the trivial?

– Leonard "Muzing" Blumfeld (© 2012)

Poets United had a vice versa challenge to which this mixture of the trivial and the significant pays tribute.

Portrait of the artist as a working dog

Here I sit,
a working lump,
safely turning into
a cantankerous old grump.

– Leonard "Lumpy" Blumfeld (© 2012)

Blood, sweat and tears

Not
quite
so bad:
Sweat, no blood,
no tears. Just dry eyes
from screen slog. For daily bread. For
others, yes and no.
Daily toil.
No end.
Yes,
no.

– Leonard the Screen Gazer

Shorty snuck in

He did, before I had to leave for work.

This be said, though, in all haste:

• The weather angels put on shiny garb today. Hooray!
• For those who don't care about weather: try a whole season with rain.
• Heard about such a season today, which lasted from October till March 2005, from one who had to endure it close to the coast of Croatia.
• Everything wet, no electricity because solar power can only last so long with rain.
• Cooped up in a room.
• Night falls at 5:30 p.m.
• Lots of opportunity for involuntary candlelight dinners.

This is how one turns chance conversations into blogs, which then become ... what? Evanescent? Pubescent? Nascent?

Nothing to say no. 3

There might be more to say than nothing (be warned). It has been said about me that I hardly ever run out of words, and that, if I do, that's a very bad sign.

Today's list of events (non-exhaustive):

• The rain gods meant well and opened their buckets.
  
• The chill gods meant equally well.
• Today's light was mostly grey. No, gray. One vowel grayer than grey.
  
• Some primroses for sale at the grocery store brightened things.

• I treated myself to some super expensive chocolate, the wrapper of which was more expensive than the taste.
• I got work done slightly after the deadline, and then felt it was too late to get started on more work.
• Failed miserably again in the fields of morning yoga & fibonacci.
  
• What am I going do about that fall vacation with scooters that Blogger keeps suggesting for tabs?

Today was good,
today was fun,
tomorrow there will be
another one.

– Dr. Leon Seuss