Brief visit to Augur Inn

I’ve been fighting a megrim on and off for a couple of days and last night as soon as I got into the cleaning of the bathroom mode, it threatened to come back again big time.  So I cleaned the upstairs bathroom a tiny bit, cleaned out the kitchen drawers a little bit, got a bunch of stuff into the big recycling bin called ‘the alley’ – where I imagine everything will be gone by morning – and walked around the house with Paul, contemplating the 20% that’s left – which will expand like an accordion file dropped on the floor to 80% in no time.  We made a partial list and then I grabbed two more little lots of stuff to go to my place, including hangers, thankgoodness, and declared peace.  I’m going to be at the Augur Inn for the whole bloody weekend, and neither Paul nor I are unpacked, so we declared ourselves done for the evening, not doing anything Thursday, and I’m thinking of actually bunking at the Augur Inn this weekend so I don’t get all cheesed off about the commute.

Paul gave me a ride home, and I’ll be unpacking tonight and thinking about what to do next at the old place.

Work has improved marvellously, but I’d best get out the door.  That half hour before the phone starts ringing is pure gold.

So I don’t have rights?

Apparently Paul is upset with me that I at first said that I wouldn’t go after his pension and CPP and now I’ve changed my mind and I will, and that I will be amending the separation agreement to reflect this.

I was hoping that he would understand what a good deal he was getting and sign off fast.  Instead he stalled, and told me that the house was not going on the market until the separation agreement was signed.  In the meantime, I got unbelievable phone calls and emails from friends and relatives, some of them PAUL’S friends and relatives, all beating me up something ferocious about what a prize moron I was being, what an unmitigated ass, and suchlike.  So I changed my mind.  My father, for one, will sleep more soundly, because he advised me ONCE at the beginning of this process, and having both more life experience and forbearance than my friends, has declined to advise me further, considering me both too foolish and too headstrong to take advice.  Okay pOp, the chump wised up, but only after repeated floggings!

However…. I am within my rights to request access to these sums, however paltry, and if Paul wants to be angry with me for asking for my rights, that’s his privilege.  I have something else to say about this that is extremely funny and mean-spirited, but I’ll save it for the Gang of Three.

I will quote from Cat Ballou, “….and made him talk to LAWYERS!” as my envoi….

more paint at the Augur Inn

Robby the Bomb gave me a ride back to the Augur Inn last night and picked up the kindergarten table and chairs which my Granny gave to my parents back when I was a wee tad.  It was odd to be giving furniture that has been in my family for 45 years to somebody else, but Robby (and his amazing wife Char) have been most excellently good to me and my family for many years, and they have two soon to be school aged children – and he said they’d bring it back for my grandkids, ha ha, so I felt pretty happy about that.

I painted trim and doors and carried garbage downstairs and cleaned the upstairs bathroom until I ran out of tile cleaner. Keith said he was really upset about all the changes – he only just came to this realization and it’s making him feel very odd and displaced.

Tonight, Dinner at Tom and Peggy’s.  I may pick up a couple of the frozen salmon and bring them back here: Paul can have the rest as he still has the barbeque.

Paul moved into his apartment yesterday. 

a surfeit of lampreys

I hear via Dr Filk that he and his cousin Jim found a pregnant Morrison Creek Lamprey in one of the smolt traps.  As this is a very rare critter it’s good to know they are breeding.  I went to Lampreyland (see blogroll) for pics and was disappointed.  (Lower lip comes out and trembles.)  So get on it Jim!

 

Keith gets mugged, but it all works out OK

Yeah, there’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever type.  Keith opened the door for me this morning and there he was with a picturesque and bloody bandage on his chin.  I said, what happened, and he said, with a big smile, I got mugged.

He got off work and three guys jumped him.  I asked him if he gave a good account of himself and he said no, and I scolded him.  All those bloody years of karate…

Anyway, they stole his lime green shirt, the one that was so ugly it caused a mutiny, his work ID, and his extremely expensive dress shoes that I got him for work.

He got two blows to the chin and his glasses fell off (but were recovered), but he didn’t fall over or lose any teeth. He seemed to find it quite bracing.  Honest to god.

So he went in to work and found out that his muggers, on opening up the bag and finding nothing in there but evidence that Keith, unlike them, had the wherewithal to get a job, had tossed his packsack in a dumpster, where it was recovered by an angel in human form named Mike, who promptly walked it back to Metrotown and had the pleasure of reuniting Keith with it in person.  Keith lost nothing in the encounter, to hear him tell the story.

Today I cleaned and went to Metrotown and bought myself shoes and then met up with Katie.  Not a single effing thing that I was looking for in HMV was there, berloody useless store, but Katie spent 100 bucks on herself, and then we went to Spiderman 3, and then we all went our separate ways home but we’re going to get together later this week to see Hot Fuzz.  

 

The end.  Kids, I tellink you.

More cleaning

Yesterday I got to the Augur Inn, where I a) returned the penultimate Strangers in Paradise, b) cleaned the downstairs bathroom, removing paint spatters and glue which had been there since we moved in, cleaning the door, and putting the light fixture back up so that all that remains is scrubbing the floor and painting the door c) cleaned the railings in the deck, d) rewashed some windows, e) ran the loveseat cover Janice got through the laundry and hung it to dry as Zeek! bled all over it, f) started detailing the downstairs kitchen, g) scrubbed out the laundry room sink some more (it isn’t done), h) washed the exterior of the windows in the garage.  Partway through my day Katie took me out for breakfast.  It was yummy, and you can get steak and eggs at the Big 6 for $6.35.

About 3:30 I bailed and Paul drove me to the liquor store and I picked up beer, wine and vodka (the only mix I have is orange juice….) and helped me in with MORE boxes and some pictures (I left them in the garage) and then I spent a lovely four hours with Gail, Jerome’s mum, who’s a simply fascinating woman who has raised three simply splendid children, and whose brother Bruce wrote that Vancouver Map Book (before there were computers).  This is a book which shows what Vancouver looked like in ten year increments and which lived next to my bed from the time I got it to the time I moved (of course I can’t find it, but I will when I’ve finished unpacking…)

 

Then I unpacked my new vacuum cleaner and I LOVE it. It’s a new Hoover canister and it does everything a vacuum cleaner should do and there’s only two attachments and it looks like a bug eyed alien and is bright orange. I vacuumed my apartment (well, not the bedroom, the bedroom is a disaster still) but the rest.

This morning I got up and washed the pot and pans I got at Ikea and made myself coffee and breakfast, and now I’m going to figure out when the first bus comes and then go over to the Augur Inn.  Katie was going to take me to see Spiderman and Keith and Paul invited themselves along but that’s okay….

The weather has clouded over.  There are many, many birds here,  I could birdwatch all day.  This morning I watched a hawk kill something.

Burnt and his new bride are probably honeymooning somewhere.  I will get a full report on the wedding from LTGW on Monday, or so I hope.  Men never remember the details women want to hear, unless they’re gay or making a heroic effort.

I have started reading Master and Commander.  Stephen Maturin’s comments about thinking he was gonna die are very funny, and Jack Aubrey is the most admirable mixture of low cunning, high spirits and cluelessness that ever walked on the foredeck of any ship, real or imagined.  Sigh,  I can hardly wait for Pirates of the Caribbean III.

Paul has made revisions to the separation agreement (as have I) which I have not yet seen.  He says he’s not putting the house on the market until the separation agreement is chopped, and also I shouldn’t have moved out because it’s costing a lot of money.

Uh…. I wasn’t thinking about money when I moved out. I was thinking about my sanity.  I had a little hiatus there while I didn’t do much, but that had as much to do with the unbelievable YogSuggothian hor-ror of work as any other emotional background noise, and I was still going back to the house to clean rather more than I want to, because I am actually serious about getting the house sold.

I already know what’s going to happen.  Paul will stall until the house selling season is over, then move back into the basement and rent the upstairs.  He can do what he likes.  I still own half the house and when the time comes to renegotiate the mortgage, he can buy me out and experience the joy of doubling the size of the mortgage on one income with a renter who may or may not work out.  Even if housing prices plummet I will still be free.  This is why I find what Paul’s doing so amusing.  He keeps talking about money. He never talks about the emotional stuff, only about the inconvenience, and how the house which he spent many many hours complaining about has now majickally turned into a haven.  I already got what I wanted.  I have contemplated how I would feel if I lost every penny on the house.  I would be plenty cheesed, but you know, life goes on.  My spiritual advisor has lost just about everything, twice, in the last ten years, and all it’s done is make him a better person with a clearer understanding of what’s important.  I should be so lucky as to have life events that did that for me!

I want to sell the house and get the best buck possible not because I am a raving acquisitive bitch, but because I want to have the wherewithal to help my children.    Happy Mother’s Day, everybody.

More cleaning

I am off to the Augur Inn for more cleaning, and then a visit with Gail.  Hope everybody has a great day – the weather is simply glorious.  Which means, of course, that the chances are very good that I will be sitting on the administrative side of a table in a reception center after the Fraser floods….  Pray that it cools down and doesn’t rain too much….. or that we just get lucky.  The disaster planners are thinking about numbers that are just mind croggling.

Talking and cleaning

I’m having Jerome’s mum over for tea tomorrow and I’m finding that it’s NOT WORKING as a motivator for cleaning.  I’m cleaning, very slowly, and I am not motivated.

Also, I keep thinking that I’m paying for unlimited phone calls so why not go for it?  I called Phil, and we had a lovely long chat.