| Cards | |
February 23, 2015
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| After he retired from his company that he had worked at for many years, he became totally free. Originally he didn't have many friends. He was single. He didn't have any specific hobbies. At first he enjoyed watching TV, taking naps, going to the library and reading gossip magazines, even drinking in the day time. He wasn't the type of person who would choose to go jogging, taking a walk, seeing movies, or reading books. After about six months, he became bored to do his regular routine. On this particular day, he went to a one coin shop. He happened to see a set of card games. They were different from the normal ones which has, for example, seven of clubs or a queen in traditional clothes.
He picked up one card at random, it was an apple. He chose this card because he wanted to buy some apples on his way home. Suddenly an idea came to him. He bought the card set, paying one coin for them. The next morning, he shuffled the cards a couple of times and turned over the top card. It was a 'cake'. He thought for a minute, he changed his clothes. He went to the library and checked out a cooking book which included cake recipes. On his way home, he went to the home hardware shop and bought a whisk and a sieve. Next, he went to the supermarket and bought eggs, flour, baking powder, and cinnamon. (He barely had butter and sugar in his house.) Fortunately, his microwave had an oven function. He started to make a cake. It took about one hour. That was not bad for his first experience of making cakes. He enjoyed eating four pieces of cakes. That night, he knocked at the door of one of his neighbors. He asked them whether they needed the whisk or sieve. They first looked suspicious because he had never given them anything. (He didn't have the idea to bake more cakes to give them, thinking they would doubt his sincerity, and maybe think that he would put poison in the cake. These days there were crimes even in residential areas.) After his explanation that he mistakenly bought these, the neighbors happily received them. The next day, he pulled another card: It was a 'shoes', it looked like athletic shoes. So, he went to a sports shop and bought running shoes and running shorts. He put them on, and started to run. (He hated to run but this time he ate 4 pieces of cakes the previous day so he thought this was needed.) He ran very slowly in the beginning because it was the first time in more than ten years to run. But, soon he got momentum. After finishing, he ran 10 kilo meters or so. This time he didn't gave the neighbors his goods because he thought that he might want to run again. The next day, he picked up another card: It was a 'rabbit'. This time he wondered what he should do. He checked about zoos which had rabbits, the nearest one was rather far away as he would need to take a train to get there. He thought about the mountain areas. It was winter season. There was snow there. Before, he had seen the tracks of rabbits. He wore a winter jacket and his thickest trousers. It seemed to take 30 minutes or so to get to the nearest mountain area by car. On his way, he stopped by a sports shop again and bought some snowshoes. After a while he came to the mountain area that was a good place for parking. He put on the snowshoes. After a light stretch, he started to walk. It was a fine day, and refreshing to walk in the forest. He enjoyed the white scenery. (Of course he took pictures of the rabbit tracks.) He realized that he liked this. He thought that he could enjoy snowshoe trekking until the snow would disappear. He also was thinking to buy a pair of binoculars to see the birds and other animals that were getting up from their hibernation. He could also enjoy the animals in all seasons. More so, he could enjoy the green leaves and beautiful flowers of spring and summer. He decided to keep the cards in his treasure box for the time being. |
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*check out: to borrow sth from an official place, for example a book from a library (O)
*whisk: a tool for stirring eggs, etc. very fast (O)
*sieve: [siv] a piece of kitchen equipment with a wire or plastic net which separates large pieces of food from liquids or powders (C)
*hibernate: If an animal hibernate, it goes to sleep for the winter. (C)