October 2006

Would you like to come over for cookies and coffee/tea/wine?

Coffee and I are pondering ways to meet our neighbours and figured it might be easiest to finish unpacking the living room and kitchen and perhaps the dining room and then wander up and down our (short) street and invite the neighbours over one evening. I figured I could create some simple invitations and knock on doors to invite everyone – while introducing myself to anyone who happens to be home.

Does that sound.. too dorky? If I invited you, would you come? (Assuming you lived on my street and I was a veritable stranger, I mean.)

I’d like to get to know some local people.. and somehow I don’t think handing out candy to all the trick-or-treaters tonight is going to cut it. Not that I object to spending a lot of time with kids mind you.

I’ve mentioned before that I have many email accounts. One of them is specifically for mailing lists, another is specifically for personal email, one for professional email, one for .. well, you get the idea. All told, I have at least ten of them and it varies how often I check them for new messages.

This morning I decided to at least download some of my messages – thinking that I could get started on reading and replying as a nice distraction from unpacking boxes. (Shhh, don’t tell Coffee..) It’s the account tied to my domain, so I tend to get an equal amount of spam and actual emails.

Unread email in that account? 8,465

I’ve been working on simply downloading those messages for… oh… an hour now. I’m at message #888. Seriously. Obviously I’m going to be here a while. I have no idea when I’ll get to READ the messages.

So, in short, if you’ve emailed me and took comfort from my earlier post about “replying soon”? You may want to stop holding your breath now. I will get back to you, of course, but.. yeah. Not right away.

I laughed, I “awwwww”d and I forced Coffee to view and do the same.

Now I must insist that you go and view this page. It’s safe for work and everything!

For about two months, now, the question of my aviary has been weighing heavily on my mind.

There is no space in our new house that’s suitable for them. They need to be away from the kitchen (due to cooking with teflon or just cooking fumes in general) and away from cold air from windows or doors. They need to be somewhere the dogs can’t get to (and harass them!) and where they wouldn’t be near any of our small animals (the ammonia in the air from even a drop of urine is toxic to them).

With eleven birds, we couldn’t put them in a smaller cage. I couldn’t bear to split them up and part with some of them (because it’s nearly impossible to tell which birds are paired together and which birds are the parents to the babies).

The kicker came this weekend when we discovered the aviary wouldn’t fit through the doorway. We would need to disassemble it. And then.. how do we transport them? What do we keep them in while we build a new one? How much stress would it be on them to drive them around for at least an hour in a cold van?

To make a long story short, I sold my finches this weekend.

There’s a breeder in Hamilton with a gigantic aviary in which they house zebra finches just like mine. They have plenty of room to fly and water to flap around in and ivy to perch in. It’s a happy place.

After we spoke to the woman, we headed home to catch them and put them into the small cage for a quick drive. Coffee ended up taking them there without me – I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to the little beeping maniacs.

I thought about keeping a few of them in a smaller cage but again, which bird was paired with which other bird? I didn’t want to upset any of them or force them apart.

Part of me is relieved to know that they’ll be together and have a lot of space and other friends to sing with. Part of me is relieved that they won’t be crammed into some tiny crappy space here in the house. But I miss their beeping and chirping already and I feel like a jerk even as I know they’ll be fine.

I am going to eat a cabbage sammich, drink some iced tea, and then I am going to go upstairs to where the new mattress is resting and fling myself onto it with unbounded glee.

If I finish my book (“The Guy Not Taken” – by Jennifer Weiner) I may just take a tiny little nap.

The new mattress is… really really comfortable. I can almost hear my spine trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The dogs, accustomed to tearing around the house like maniacs, are having some.. issues with simply walking on the hardwood floors in this house.

The first floor is primarily hardwood and tile with only the living room (filled with boxes and not much fun to hang out in, yet) carpetted. Both beasts careen around corners and into walls, slide across the kitchen, and then skitter around until they reach their intended destination.

Just like little fawns trying to stand for the first time, their legs slide out from underneath their bodies any time they attempt to stay in one place.

It’s mean to laugh. But I do. Oh, I most certainly do. It reminds me of being a little kid and learning to skate – having no solid grasp of why the hell my legs were going in directions I hadn’t planned and not being able to pull myself up without a great deal of effort.

Wheee!

Today is my Mom’s birthday – she would have been 57 today. (I find that fact truly mindboggling. She died when she was 44 and that means it’s been thirteen years.. Time flies..)

I’ve been somewhat stunned by the friendly nature of the good people in KW. Everywhere I go, someone is saying hello or waving or happily stepping aside and waving me through the line ahead of them. Cashiers chat like they’ve known me forever, people in the aisles at Canadian Tire make conversation randomly and, well, it’s all a bit freaky. In a good way. Let me provide an example.

Last night, around 8:30, Coffee and I went to the grocery store to pick up food for the week. It was raining a little, and as we pulled into a parking spot we saw two people dash across the lot and into the store. A second or two later, a red car (parked a few spots over from us) pulled forward and headed across the lot. As the car rolled away in a strange pattern, I realized that there was no one in the car.

That realization was quickly confirmed when the car veered left, headed downhill, and plowed into the front end of a parked car.

With a loud crunch, it stopped moving.

Coffee went over to get the license plate number and confirm that no one was inside (as he later noted, someone could have been behind the wheel and passed out or injured). We shook our heads and giggled a little, then made our way into the store to give the information to the woman running the customer service desk. She giggled and thanked us for making her evening more interesting. Then she paged the license plate out to the store – and Coffee and I waited to see who would come.

Sure enough, it was the couple we had seen dashing into the store.

As they walked up, I told them what had happened. The woman rolled her eyes and said, “My husband.. doesn’t like to use the parking brake. *sigh*” and at the same time her husband looked guilty and displeased. I said that I hoped the rest of their weekend would be better because, really, that’s not the best way to kick things off. They thanked us and went out to see the damage to their (and the other!) car.

Coffee and I commenced filling our cart and wandering the store. As we rounded a corner, the woman popped up and said, “It wasn’t as bad as it looked. Phew!” and chatted for a few minutes about cars and parking brakes and all the rest. Her husband commented that “When you drive a standard car, always set the e-brake.” which made me grin. They told us to have a good weekend and chatted a bit more before they went away.

Now. We gave these people bad news and they were still friendly and cheerful and told US to have a good weekend.

This place is really really surreal. It’s like I’ve wandered into HappyVille.

I like it!

I decided it would be fun to sit in the solarium, with my laptop, in the pouring rain. The droplets hitting the glass sound pretty and it’s dark outside and, well, all good.

Except for the puddle I stepped in when I walked into the room.

The. Puddle.

There doesn’t seem to be a source for this puddle, other than… the wall. The solarium is not leaking. There is no river of water heading down from the ceiling.

No, there are merely drips of water landing in a bucket (which Coffee placed there) and, on closer inspection, a slight warping of the floor in that area that reveals it’s not the first time this leak has occured. It appears to be coming from under the shelf – perhaps through the screw-hole – and.. yeah.

We are assuming this water problem will be resolved once the roof is replaced in mid-November. I really need to call the roofers on Monday to confirm the date because I’m having these little palpatations of fear that the entire house structure will become soggy and everything will collapse. Dramatic, no?

Coffee is much calmer than I am about the situation, and for that I am grateful. Marriage is all about this kind of thing; one of us can be hysterical while the other is calm. Unfortunately for one of us (Coffee), it’s always ME playing the part of the hysterical individual.

In the realm of “good news!” I located my cellphone charger AND my digital camera battery charger. I can start taking pictures again, once things are charged up and ready to go, and I can call for help if I get lost somewhere in the wilds of KW. And perhaps take pictures of myself making that call. The terrified expression on my face oughta’ be worth millions… Stay tuned for some photos once I’ve got everything coordinated (this weekend, I’m hoping!)

When I lived with my friend Chz in Toronto all those years ago, one of the best perks was the daily delivery of the newspaper to our doorstep. I loved flipping through the pages and catching up on the world. To me, a newspaper is the equivalent of a daily magazine but better! Plenty of stories on all different subjects and you can skip sections (like the automotive one, for example) and cut things out and then use it to line the aviary.

This morning I was thrilled to find my first delivered copy of The Record – KW’s local newspaper. From all appearances it’s going to be very enjoyable to peruse – and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit excited by the prospect of daily comic reading again, too. The only negative is that more than 50% of the paper’s original weight turned out to be craploads of flyers and advertising for local stores. Oh, and the retirement home around here is having an open house with free coffee. Good to know!

(And, given the waiting lists on some of these places, perhaps I should go check the place out and get my name on that list!)

We’ve always had a “No Flyers or Ads, Please!” sign on our home (and will certainly be adding one here, too) so it sucks to have all this extra unwanted stuff included with the news. It’s the equivalent of email spam! I’ll have to think of a creative use for it. Maybe I’ll weave some newspaper baskets like I did as a kid! (Seriously, it’s quite enjoyable – especially with coloured papers like flyers!) I suspect I’ll have a house full of them within a few months..

This weekend we’ll be heading back to the old house to finish clearing stuff out and do the required vacuuming and dusting for the new owners. If all goes well, it may be our last trip(s) there. I’ll also pick up some coffee for Melle while we’re there. Otherwise, it looks like this trip will be “goodbye” to Hamilton. Eeep!

On an administrative note – I have a new cellphone number. I’ve emailed most people, I think, to let them know – but if you have my number and need the new one, lemme’ know.

Now, I must go forth and rescue the dogs who are DYING in their crates. Breakfast for dogs followed by a nice long walk around the ‘hood again. It’s freezingly cold outside so I’ll need to find something warmer to wear than the sweatshirt I’ve been living in for the past few days. I suspect I’ll need to purchase some warmer clothes soon.. Stupid winter..