Category: Domestic Life

Slow site

I had a helluvatime logging on this morning. You may find the site slow.
Yesterday I emailed one of my colleagues with “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t quit.” Within thirty seconds (I do not exaggerate) he emailed back “Cause I love ya.” He literally prevented me from getting up and walking out, and yes, that was the desired response. The confluence of interesting and difficult work and interesting and difficult domestic life kinda got to me, I guess; anyway, I’ll let him remain anomalous but I’d like to record his response with my heartfelt thanks.

Also, about half way through the afternoon Paul showed up with both the kids, and that kinda put the heart back into me because I hadn’t seen Katie in most of a week.

This morning, I have packed my clothes except for what I will be wearing for the next five days, I am almost done the kitchen stuff and I have started on the bathroom stuff. Later today I will head out to the garage and start slinging my boxes into a more reasonable pile for the movers, which will also have the result of making some of the stuff we hope to sell on Craigslist a little more accessible.

Dr. Filk will have his old boss’s truck to move to Victoria in (I cannot belIEVE that ‘the thing that would not die’, as we refer to the John’s Jukes truck, is still extant) but he will also be using it for a Village de Valeur run, so much more useful but surplus-to-requirements items will fly out of here today.

Back from the lawyer

Being married is not the same as living common law.  I got quite a shock talking to the lawyer last night.  We don’t have community property – we exit with what we came in with – but we jointly own the house and our debts.  We’re pretty much done the separation agreement.  But 3 grand for a retainer?  Zow.

Booked the movers

As things stand, I should be moved in by about 9 pm on Tuesday the 1st.  I fired off an email to folks who might have any interest in knowing where I’ll be living, and will follow up with the non-email people later this week.

My next vacation days are in June, and I don’t think they’ll get here fast enough.  I wonder if the Muse will be kind and come for a visit.  Although I can never schedule her… occasionally she shows up in the summer but she’s more likely to show up in November and early spring.
I have also asked for a couple of days off this month and next as vacation days so I can be trained for Emergency Social Services (response to people who’ve been through disasters – in Burnaby that’s been two humongous apartment fires, in one case 80 people were out on the street and needed shelter).  I’ve been meaning to do it for ages, seeing as how I’m not doing any volunteer work and it is something that I’m interested in.

Hope everybody has a loverly day.

Painting, cleaning, laundry

My chest cold is now to the point where I am rarely coughing – I’d like to thank my poor beleaguered immune system. I still need a good swift slug of DM-D-E to get to sleep and still wake up coughing, but hell, wakeytime was 5 am today and that is really an improvement over nights past.

I painted three of the sills in the plant room (the side by side comparisons with the old ones are quite humorous) and have started a list of stuff to go on freecycle.org (thanks Brother Jim!) and craigslist. I finally managed to subscribe to freecycle, so I’m happy about that too; the last time for the life of me I could not get my password to work and whoever the moderator was turned out to be friendly but not helpful. I have also done my laundry, the touchup paint in the bathroom, vacuumed out the plant room (holy COW it was disgusting) and walked around the house making a list of stuff I can actually do with my back bein’ the way it is and all. Oh, and I read the Serenity comeeks Dax bought Katie (!?).

Kate spent 250 dollars on a ring for Daxus’ 20th birthday. This news will be met by cascades of disgust and disbelief, I’m sure. I justabout threw up when I heard it. It certainly hasn’t changed his attitude towards life, the universe, and being an adult.

I will be calling movers today and finalizing the moving date based on their input… despite my scads of moving karma from when I was living in Toronto, it turns out that I don’t have much here (at least in terms of putting together a truck) and I thought about it and … you know, this is going to be a relatively fast and easy move anyway. I will only have about ten sticks of furniture, a couple of awkward parcels (pictures, hangings, bags o clothes) and the rest is all banker boxes, which make for super easy moving. So I’m going to outsource and then if folks want to volunteer to help me unpack, I’ll go for that.

Katie found the clothes Janice put in the garage. I don’t think she’s ever going to forgive either her dad or Janice for cleaning out her room without bothering to pick up the phone and call her first. When she said that she would rather that Dr. Filk had cleaned out her room (as if….) I knew she was choked.
I am investigating my new computer. I had really good luck with TigerDirect.ca and Katie’s phone (thanks Brother Jim!) so I’m thinking…. put the bait on the hook and get a monster gaming computer. And then I’m thinking. Two fans. Do you really want to be listening to TWO fans? I’m also thinking about a big screen TV, but I’m also thinking… hey, I NEVER watch DVD’s when I’m by myself! Watching stuff is a social activity for me, strangely enough, so unless I want to be looking at a thousand bucks I only use when company’s over, maybe I should pass and keep my recently bumped up credit card in my pocket. It would make more sense to get a decent stereo.
I’ve mentioned Brother Jim twice, and I should post the pix he sent to me … suiting up in a bombproof suit! That’s where he’s working now, a company that makes bombproof suits. I want to ‘shop the last one and title it, Ready for Another Day of Work in Customer Support.

The Dandy Warhols are coming. Oy. I should phone Doug and LE and try to make a date. There will be life after Paul, and it will be interesting.

Keith has entirely fallen in love with the oeuvre of Patrick O’Brien, and why not? He’s an amazing writer.

Shelene has new scissors

I don’t mean to whine, but when I siddown in a stall at work to do my bidness, it’s a bit of a shock to have to look at Roberto Luongo smirking at me. You see, we’re having a jeans day (hell, why not have a celebration of naturism day) at work and there are Canucks posters all over the building. Including in the peepee huts. Zow. I’ll be happy when they take the damned posters down. I found the poster on line so you can see what I’m whinging about.

I just got back from a trek to my stylist, Shelene, and damn but her new scissors are sharp. I light a candle for her. She was practically in tears (didn’t affect the quality of the cut) over being abruptly and without any real explanation dumped by her boyfriend.

I light a candle for the families of the dead and the slayer at Virginia Tech. I light two candles for the gal who survived both Columbine and Virginia Tech. Please God, not too many copycat killings.

Jeff’s gone

We watched two more movies (Local Hero and Impromptu, which I loved), and now he’s off to the ferry to start (brr, yech) another work week.

I recited the lyrics to Scary Clown’s birthday song (one of the many I can’t post because it is…. scurrilous) and Jeff justabout folded up laughing.

Where are they now?

Jeff took off to Rob’s yesterday around noon and hasn’t been seen since (although he did phone.)  I am expecting him to show up back here, all sheepish and giggly, sometime just before he has to jump back in his car to get to the ferry.

Katie said she was coming home and didn’t.

As for me I’ve been plugging away on domestic stuff.  I’m not moving fast, but I’m moving steady.

I feel guilty

I didn’t touch my mandolin all day yesterday.

Today we interview (how many real estate agents is this now?) yet another real estate agent who wants us to just ‘put it on the market and see who makes an offer’.  This one is the spouse of one of Paul’s work colleagues.

 

ba…ba….ba….

Scary Clown makes the above noted noise.  Apparently other people in the Engineering department are starting to do it – unconsciously.  When the going gets weird, the weird gets normative, as ’twere.
Some time in the last couple of weeks Burnt jumped up over Scary Clown’s pod and blasted him with a can of compressed air right in the face, and Scary Clown screamed “WHY??” so loud everybody in the engineering department started laughing.  Because your face was there?  I dunno….
I just got two reminders about kitchen avoidance, and why it’s a great idea.  1…. Morning ritual of trying to locate lids for my lunch containers…. 2…. where the hell is the coffee and the coffee filters I bought on the weekend?  Their complete nullibiety is a matter of some concern……….

Signed the lease….

I have a new address effective May 1st and will…. hopefully…. have functioning hydro when I get there.  I have never SEEN so many restrictive covenants in my life.

No BBQs allowed, not that I mind that much.  It’s one of the few things I’ll miss about home ownership, and I never did any of the work anyway.

On to the next nightmare…..

 

Beeyutiful day

It’s absolutely gorgeous out, but a little on the cold side.  I am in a good mood for the first time in ages.  There’s a party coming up, and I have to pack, and I have received my bonus cheque, and it’s really sunny, and we MAY just have licked the bedbug situation, but only if Katie STAYS HOME for the next month.  Te he.  There’s a way to get her to come home at night.

It makes me sad to say it, but Paul and I are evicting Dr. Filk.  We both asked him to clean up his living space preparatory to the sale of the house, and his response to both of us was a polite, “No, thanks”.  Since we aren’t going to be getting the full sale price unless the downstairs is at least tidy, we regretfully gave him his notice yesterday for May 1st.  This is dreadful family news and shows that Paul and I are cruel, nasty people with no consideration, and that all we care about is money, and that we have no sense of fine family feeling or any clue about how truly upright and moral people live.  Since everybody in the known universe with the exception of my mother and a couple of close friends thinks I’m self-centered and crazy, what’s a little more fuel for the fire?  C’est la vie.

Grey day

There’s high overcast and ground fog, so it’s a bleary kind of day.  I’m just as happy not to be going to work.  Heather will be over later for more cleaning.  Katie was here last night.  My mum appears to have gotten home okay.  You certainly spend less time travelling when you take the harbour flight.

The internet is still weird here….

I have gotten approval for my rental application and will be moving May 1st.  Since I hate commuting, it is up the hill from my work.  Keith, I think, was a little annoyed with me for my choice of location since he was hoping to stay in the neighbourhood, but since he did not respond positively to any discussions about moving in with me I was obliged to not include him in my plans.

It turns out that Katie’s in laws DO have bedbugs.  Paul and I bought poly wrapping and tape so they can keep their bedding clean after they wash it and Katie delivered it.  Apparently 15 of the little buggers came out of a pillow when it was put on the balcony to ‘chill’.   They don’t do so good in the cold.

I had bedbugs when I was a kid, and I remember the smell of the insecticide.  Brr.  When I saw the bitemarks on Katie – she always was the tenderest morsel of us lot – I just shook my head and made my pronouncement.  Then we went to the internet and found out that the line of bites they make is macabrely termed “Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner”. Pic is from a Creative Commons licensed site and taken by the site owner. Site here.
As far as we can tell, none of  them made it here, and if they did, oh well.  It’s a lot easier to spray in here now with all the crap in the garage, and there’s not a sausage in Katie’s room anymore, she’s long since hauled it all out to the garage.  I would have been bitten by now anyway, as it’s only about a ten foot crawl from her room to mine.

Sarah Michelle Gellar may play Harley Quinn in the new Batman.  I could more or less get next to that.

m0m will be turning up shortly.  Well, longly – she’s doing the harbour to harbour flight, which is awesome when the weather’s good and a bit urpy when not.  Keith’s out the door for Comicon (Paul will be leaving for Seattle with him straight from work).

Heather detailed the bathroom yesterday, so things are pretty shiny clean in there.  My various excesses with respect to lack of sleep (and sleep interruptions, details of which I will politely not enumerate ;P) caught up with me and I slept about 12 hours yesterday.  Now it’s 6:23 and I’m ready for further punishment.