Corner of Bourbon & Division

My exciting Friday night plans involve going to bed soon.

I had a long but really productive day at work. I didn't get two of the things on my to-do list done, but given that I had over 20 items on it AND I got a bunch of things added to it over the course of the day (as you do), I am not too disappointed.


In non-work news, I have decided to avail myself of the services of a professional organizer. Years of anxiety, depression, and fully unmanaged ADHD combined with my ridiculous work schedule have led to my house being enough of a shambles that it's embarrassing to have people over (pre-pandemic, anyway), and I really want to get everything cleared out and organized before KK moves in in May. I am still working 50-60 hour weeks, albeit on a much better schedule, and I am tired and overwhelmed. So having someone else there to A) hold me accountable and B) actually come up with potential solutions for my chronic disorganization, seems like a logical way to tackle my current problem. In the past I have proved to be quite good at maintaining once I have a system in place, it's just that once things go to hell they tend to stay that way. It's now been four years since I had to leave my old house because of Cruella de Froot Loops (many thanks to blackmare for that great name), and I never recovered from having to find a place, pack, and get the hell out of Dodge in such a short period of time. (Yes, I am still bitter.)

I have about nine weeks before KK is meant to move in. Ideally I'd like to have ALL of my clutter gone by then, and to bring in someone to clean all the wall to wall carpet (and maybe also fix the damaged parts of the carpet if possible) so that she can move into a clean, sanitary house, and have space to settle in and make her own. Right now, my house has so much useless clutter that there's barely room for me, let alone another person. So it's time to make space for everyone.

Most of what's going on is not super interesting to the outside viewer, alas. I applied for the rental house I wanted on Friday, and I'm supposed to hear back by close of business today. It turns out that my medium credit rating is a cause for concern to prospective landlords. I mean, it's an okay rating, but due to a fuck-up over four years ago there's a thing on it that's keeping it "artificially" low (another three years to go before that black mark disappears, alas), so the manager I spoke to said he had some reservations. I tap-danced my way out of it, and the fact that I've been employed by the government for over nine years helped a lot. All that's left is for them to call my references, which, of course, includes my current landlady. YAY. I hope she doesn't fuck things up for me. Close of business (or COB, which always, always makes me snigger) is in six hours or so, maybe seven, depending on when their day ends, so everyone keep your fingers crossed.

More landlady shenanigans ensued while I was chasing all over town trying to get my application approved. I got a text message from her while I was out, saying that the reno guys were going to remove the wall between the downstairs storage space and my part of the house, and was I home so they could show me? Needless to say, my blood pressure rose about a million points, because there's nothing I'd like more than to have an entire wall missing in my house. It would mean that anyone with a key to the side door of the house would have unlimited access to my living space. Reassuring, right?

I took a detour out of my day to come home, and spoke with the reno guy. It turns out he had told my landlady that he didn't want to take out the wall and leave my living space wide open without alerting me first, as a common courtesy. If it hadn't been for him having a conscience, I wouldn't have known until I came home one day to find my wall missing. He also proposed installing a lock on a door at the bottom of my stairs (the storage space is about two feet beyond the door, behind the wall in question), so that I'd have at least something of an illusion of control. I mean, the door is made of glass, so it wouldn't afford me true privacy or safety, but anyone in that space would have to at least expend effort to get into my house. So yay for reno guys with scruples! If all goes according to plan, the lock will go on today, and the wall will come down sometime this week (although I don't know exactly when, maybe Wednesday). So at least that's resolved, for now. I even got my landlady to agree, via text message, to return my post-dated cheques to me, so that's a small victory too.

I played 7 Days to Die with my friend V. on Friday evening, and went to bed WAY too late. I knew I had to get up early the next morning for a 06:00 Skype date with my parents, after which I was meant to drive to Montreal for le_maistre_e 's birthday Dim Sum party. Still, because V.'s computer has been on the fritz for nearly a month, I rationalized to myself that I'd go to bed early Saturday night and make up for it then. Remember this bit, because it will come back later.

Saturday was my mother's birthday, and the Skype call was fun, if maybe a bit shorter than usual. They were expecting my aunt to come to lunch, so I actually got to see her briefly before we hung up, which was nice. She had cancer last year, and had to undergo chemo for a while. She was looking quite good, as it turns out (my mother was convinced that she'd have lost all her hair and look like a skeleton, in spite of evidence to the contrary), if a little fragile. As far as I know she's in remission now, which is good news all around.

I hopped in the car and drove to Montreal, which as usual went well until I got into the city proper, at which point the construction nightmare resumed, and I found myself threading my way through detour after detour until I got to Chinatown. The restaurant itself was on a one-way street that, unbeknownst to me, had been blocked at the end. Why unbeknownst to me? Because there was no sign saying it had been blocked off! So I had to do a U-turn and go back the wrong way up a one-lane one-way street until I managed to find an alleyway I could use to get out of there. Good times. I do not miss Montreal and its shitty traffic and its shitty street signs, let me tell you. I miss my friends and family, but I've become spoiled in Ottawa, where getting around with your car is not a logistical nightmare on the best of days.

The birthday Dim Sum was a lot of fun, as was the outing afterward for bubble tea and cheese cake. I geeked out with friends, caught up with people I hadn't seen in weeks and months, and it was all over far too soon. I did leave on time, though, and managed to get back to Ottawa without mishap. Since it was still relatively early (18:00 or so), I took a couple of hours to run some errands. I was out of milk, and I needed to pull together supplies for First Day School on Sunday (I was meant to lead again, and the first Sunday of the month is always potluck, as I think I've mentioned before).

That's when things went south. I was a little surprised when I got home that Sergent didn't immediately get up to greet me, but when I looked over he was lying quietly on his bed, so I assumed he was just continuing his nap. That was quickly put to the lie less than an hour later when I heard the unmistakable sound of nails scrabbling against the floor. When I went over to check what was happening, I found him unable to get up under his own power. Even with me helping him, he couldn't stand for long, poor puppy. I ran for my coat and boots, and then spent nearly 20 minutes maneuvering the poor dog to the car. He weighs 90 pounds these days (he always gains a bit of weight in the winter), and that's about 10 pounds more than I can deadlift, unfortunately. I just can't pick him up and carry him (I'll have to start going to the gym again or something). Luckily with some coaxing and support from me, he was able to limp to the car. I could see then that it was his front left leg that was giving him trouble, and not just weakness in his hindquarters. I was able to lift him into the backseat, and drove him to the nearest emergency vet (which, luckily, is about five minutes from my house), where the vet tech and the assistant got a stretcher for him and carried him inside.

Once there he was sort of able to stand for a little bit, long enough for them to weigh him (which is why I know exactly how much he weighs right now) and for him to then poop all over their floor (oops). An examination revealed him to have a fever on top of the mystery leg injury. So $900 later we had bloodworm and an x-ray done, all of which led the vet to the inevitable conclusion of "We're not really sure." Nice to know that Sergent's streak of mystery ailments continues unbroken. :P They pumped him full of hydropmorphone in order to perform the x-rays, and he spent the rest of the night stoned out of his gourd. It was actually pretty funny, amidst the rest of the shit show that was that whole night. We spent nearly an hour in a nice quiet room with a leather sofa while he recovered a bit (he lay on the sofa, lucky dog, but also had diarrhea all over it, which was maybe less ideal), and after two and a half hours total spent at the vet's they loaded him back into the car, and I drove him home.

The story doesn't end there, alas. I couldn't get him out of the car at all once we were home. He refused to stand up under his own power, and I couldn't get the proper leverage to lift him out on my own. I wasn't sure if this was the result of the hydromorphone (he was still pretty loopy) or a combination of that and his leg injury. Either way, I could not get him to budge. So, I decided to wait and see if, when the narcotics wore off, he'd be more willing to come with me. Long story short, we slept in the car. Let me tell you, sleeping in your car is overrated. For one, Sergent picked the coldest day of the week to need to spend the night in the car, so I had to run the engine quite a bit to keep us (mostly me, probably) both warm, and I was really worried that someone would come across the still-running car and report me (for what, I don't know, but I was overtired). 

Anyway, morning broke, and Sergent still wouldn't get up, so back we went to the emergency vet. I wrote an email to the First Day School volunteers, and thank goodness they agreed to pinch hit for me, because I was a bit of a wreck by then. The same assistant and a new tech carried Sergent back inside, and we got seen by the day vet. It took all three of them to get him up and moving, but by then he managed to start walking around mostly on his own. I took him out a few feet away for a pee, and the vet gave him some makeshift physiotherapy, after which we went home again. It took me another ten minutes to get him inside, but after I lifted him out of the car he was able to mostly manage the stairs on his own, which I took as an encouraging sign. I gave him his pain meds (Tramadol), and he actually asked to go back outside on his own (poor puppy still had the runs) and managed it on his own reasonably well. Then we both got a much-needed nap.

He's doing okay today. He's obviously not 100%, but he's putting a lot more weight on his leg than before, and I was able to get him to eat a little bit, at least. I think the Tramadol makes him feel nauseated, so his appetite has obviously been affected.

Once my nap was over I ended up spending the rest of the evening bookending my weekend with 7 Days to Die with V. and later my friend M., before passing out in bed at a more reasonable hour than on Friday. So, yes, the moral of that story is: don't go to bed late thinking you'll be able to make up for it the next night, because that guarantees you'll have to spend the night in the car with your sick dog. ;)

I'm scheduled for a Skype call with my parents at noon today. My father sent me a slightly panicky email about my living situation, which tells me he's even more stressed about it than I am. He said he would help me out, but I'm disappointed that the content of his message implied that all of this was actually my fault, that if only I kept the house cleaner or whatever, that I wouldn't be having trouble with my landlady. Why didn't I accept her offer? he wanted to know. Why didn't I get a house cleaner before? Why not agree to pay more money so I could stay on here? His offer to support me boiled down to "I will help you fix your fuck-up," which is not exactly the ringing endorsement I would have liked. It's disheartening to feel that, after all this time, my parents still default to the notion that if something bad has happened, it must be because I made a mess of things, and not because the other party is at fault. I constantly hear about parents these days who refused to believe that their precious darlings could ever do anything wrong, and I confess I'd like it if my parents took that stance more often. :P

In conclusion, I had an interesting weekend. Lots of ups and downs, so it's difficult to say whether it was "bad" or "good." I guess it just was.

I'm back to work tonight, after two days of gastro. I started feeling myself again yesterday afternoon, which was a relief, and today I'm pretty much back to normal. So that means heading back to work for my last two night shifts. I am not really looking forward to it, but I suspect that's the perma-anxiety that set in on Monday (after I spoke with my landlady) talking, and not much else. Maybe. I mean, if I won the lottery and never had to go back to work, that'd make me pretty happy too, but still, the malaise is not actually work-related.

I saw the mortgage broker today, and while the news wasn't bad per se, it also wasn't quite what I had hoped for. Basically, no matter which way I slice it, I am not quite ready to buy a house. The broker estimates I could probably swing it in six months, which is encouraging news, but given that most landlords want to sign a 12-month lease, it means I won't be in a position to buy until next summer. So it's back to renting for now, and socking money away until I'm in a position to move permanently into a house of my own.

I finally found a cleaning service (to honour the verbal agreement I have with my landlady), and the girl who came today is excellent, which is a relief. The service that my landlady hired charged almost twice as much as she does and didn't even bother vacuuming under the furniture. So, anyway, it will be nice to have some help around the house. I have mentioned that I am an indifferent housekeeper, so this ought to keep some of the pet hair under control, at the very least. The house is super clean, although I'd been keeping it quite clean myself (albeit not this clean). If I move close enough, I'm hoping I can take her with me. I'll figure out the budget part somehow. Back in Montreal when I was paying half of what I do now in rent (so before I got my own house), I had a cleaning service as well, and I'd forgotten how much easier it makes things overall.

My next steps over the following weeks will be to hopefully get into the shed, now that there's less snow, pull out my boxes, and start packing. I also need to sort out my "office" and the very large bedroom closet that's sort of become a catch-all for stuff. If people are going to be coming by to look at the place, then the hidden spots need to be just as tidy as the not-hidden spots. I know that when I look at places I poke into all the cupboards and closets, so I can expect other people to do that too.

I'm waiting to hear back from my paralegal. She's been in touch with my landlady's lawyer, who appears to be entirely out of the loop concerning her intentions. So once she hears back from the lawyer, she will get in touch with me and update me on things. I'm trying to hope for the best, but given how passive-aggressive and bitchy she was with me on Monday, I am bracing for the worst.

 Today was Cooking Day with ai731 , who was feeling under the weather but soldiered on gamely, and it was a resounding success. We started on time, made a ton of food, and I was able to leave shortly before 16:00, which was my cut-off time because I had a house viewing this evening. The dogs had a fun day, too, in spite of the snow having melted considerably due to the unseasonably warm weather we've been having. They romped outside, they came inside and got underfoot, they romped outside some more, came in and tried to eat the baked goods, and were generally dogs. As usual, we had a fun time discussing fandom things, commiserating over various life things (she's heading a local committee that's sponsoring a family of refugees, which is awesome but a shit ton of work), and pretty much anything and everything under the sun. We never seem to run out of things to talk about. :)

The only thing that put a damper on my day was further landlady shenanigans. She texted me several times while we were cooking, insisting that she had to speak to me "in person" today, absolutely. So after multiple texts back and forth I agreed to meet her at 18:30 (an hour after my house viewing), despite the fact that I would rather bathe in a carbolic acid solution. In the meantime, the mortgage broker I'd contacted yesterday also started emailing me, and so in-between texts with my landlady I made an appointment with the broker for next Wednesday to discuss my options. ai731 was very patient with me while I fiddled endlessly with my phone between recipes. I don't like being glued to my phone when I'm with other people, but this whole situation with the house/landlady has me stressed enough that not dealing with it right away would have been worse than the alternative.

I zoomed back to Ottawa, dropped off the dog, did a very quick tidy of the kitchen (I hadn't completely cleaned up after last night's food preparation) in anticipation of my landlady coming by, then hopped back in the car to get to the house viewing. It turned out that the tenant in the property I'm interested in had called to cancel, but by then it was too late for the agent to contact me. Luckily she had another similar unit that was empty, so she showed me that instead, with an agreement that we'd make another appointment for me to see the actual unit for rent.

To my great surprise, I really liked the place! After over a week of seeing places that ranged from "Uh, okay, I guess" to "Wow, no, not on your life," it was really nice to find a house I could see myself living in! The one thing I'm not thrilled about is that it's carpeted on two floors, and I don't have a carpet attachment on my vacuum. Can we say "pet fur," ladies and gentlemen? Yeah. We'll see, on that front. Carpets are not a deal breaker for me, I'll just have to figure out if I can find a carpet attachment for my antiquity of a vacuum (it's an Electrolux, and I love it to death and will not part with it for love or money). Otherwise, though, it's in a really nice set of town houses: the grounds are well-kept, the houses are in good condition, and the whole place was a very decent size and layout. As an added bonus there was a wood-burning fireplace and an indoor garage, which I have long dreamed of (ever since I've owned my own car, tbh). I am very optimistic about this place, especially if the meeting with the broker leads me to believe that owning a house isn't in my immediate future.

Upon leaving, I received more good news in the form of my landlady cancelling her oh-so-urgent appointment with me and rescheduling for Monday. *hands* I got nothing. I'll take it, though, because it's been a long, if good and productive, day, and all I wanted to do was kick back and watch Critical Role, possibly with an alcoholic beverage of some kind. Tomorrow is D&D, and I have prep to do, too.

 I've spent the last two days running in circles. I worked two night shifts, and I had agreed to spend some time with L. and J. on both days. Apart from my own crazy with my landlady, I found myself sucked into the nightmare crazy that L. and J. are experiencing too. Because they have to work everything around their harassing neighbours, even the simplest things end up being super complicated.

Monday was a bit of a clusterfuck. Originally I was supposed to go from about nine to noon, but they called and asked me if I could come later in the afternoon. Since I had a house viewing scheduled for 16:00 and then work at 17:30, I told them it wasn't really possible, but that I could stop by anytime up to 15:30. So they initially cancelled my whole visit, only to call back at noon to ask me to come by anyway. Monday was Family Day, which is a statutory holiday in Ontario, and so their neighbours were home and causing trouble.

I went over right away, and there ensued a logistical nightmare. Uh, I think I need to provide some context before this will make sense. The neighbours, among other things, harass them by parking their very large trucks in front of their house and sometimes in their actual driveway. Mostly they park in front of the house, and then they all hang out around their truck or stand right up on L. and J.'s property (the police won't lay charges because you can be up to 15 feet away from the public street on someone's property, make rude gestures, and even take pictures legally, apparently. I'm not well-enough versed in the law to know for sure myself, but the Ottawa Police made it clear to L. and J. that they weren't going to intervene in this kind of situation). So in order to discourage the harassers, L. and J. try to have cars parked in their driveway and directly in front of their house at all times.

Okay, explanation done. L. and J. don't own a car, but they've been renting vehicles. They also had a friend lend them a car over the weekend while she went on a ski trip, and that's where I came in. They wanted me to stay while J. drove the borrowed car back to its owner, and then got dropped back at home. I told them that was fine, as long as I could leave by 16:00 (my house viewing got cancelled, luckily), and also drove L. to Loblaws to do some grocery shopping, as they'd both been sick all weekend. While we were out at Loblaw's, J. called L. and revealed that she'd accidentally broken her glasses. So when we got back at 15:45 J. couldn't leave until L. had helped her Scotch tape her glasses together, and I ended up going with her because she can't see at all without her glasses, and they were worried the glasses might break again while she was driving. We left at 16:00, and when we got to our destination, the friend we were going to see wasn't there yet. So we waited some more, and ended up returning to L. and J.'s house at a quarter to five.

I ran home as fast as I could, tried to get ready for work, take care of the pets, and have dinner, and only succeeded at two out of the three. Oh, and the dog was sick while I was gone, so I had to clean that up too before work. It was, as I said, a total clusterfuck, and I ended up being late for work as a result.

Yesterday wasn't quite as bad in terms of logistics, but I ended up spending most of my day with them, from 09:30 to past 14:00, which means that I only got about four hours of sleep all day, total. I wasn't late for work, at least, but I was exhausted by the end of it all.

And today the landlady saga continues. The coop called me and said they left her messages which she hasn't returned yet, and when I spoke to them I hadn't heard from her directly in about three weeks (not since February 1st). I checked my cell phone when I hung up with the coop, and to my surprise found a text message from her, demanding to know if I'd be home tomorrow so a floor company could come in. I responded with my availability, and she hasn't gotten back to me. 

I'm a little concerned, because I spoke to my paralegal today, and she said she hasn't sent the letter yet that we agreed upon, and that means my landlady doesn't yet know that I've engaged legal representation. I don't know what that means for how tomorrow's as-yet hypothetical visit (with the floor company) will mean, and now I'm super stressed about it all again. I honestly thought that the letter would have been sent out either late last week or early this week. Two weeks seems like a really long time to send out what is essentially a one-page letter. I don't know, maybe legal stuff really does take that long, but this is sort of a time-sensitive issue. :(

Ugh. Anyway. Speaking of anxiety, it's time to go to therapy. I haven't been in over a month, due to scheduling and life issues. I had to cancel my last appointment due to my landlady being crazy, and then my therapist got sick, so it's been a while. I'm thinking of stopping, anyway. I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere or developing any true insights into my psyche that I didn't know before, and that means I'm wasting her time, and wasting my time and money.

 I don't want to make this the All Landlady, All the Time journal, so I promise to try keep it brief. I have been in touch with two paralegals today. The first is actually on maternity leave (she was recommended by a friend who obviously wasn't in the loop), but she gave me some good unofficial advice and then recommended a couple of other names for me to try. I have now secured the services of one of those firms, and will be having my first meeting with the paralegal on Wednesday. She wants me to come in with all paperwork and pictures of my house, so that she can see for herself that there's no damage to the house. Shockingly, she can't take my word for it. ;)

So, for now, I'm exploring options. While a huge part of me wants to just rip off the bandaid and get out of this place ASAP and just have done, already, I am coming to see that there are more reasons for me to just grit my teeth and bear it for a couple of extra months. If nothing else, moving in early spring will be easier than trying to dig out my barbecue, patio table, and a lot of gardening stuff from under 3-4 feet of frozen snow, not to mention that I have to dig my packing boxes out of the shed, which is also buried under the same 3-4 feet of frozen snow. As much as I am loath to deal with extra landlady shenanigans during that time (and shenanigans there will be, I am quite sure of it), moving in the spring would be much more convenient.

There are a few avenues open to me, all of which have some drawbacks and some advantages. We shall see what comes of the meeting with the paralegal and go from there I guess. Yes, that's the royal "we." ;) I can ask my landlady for a 

In the meantime, my job is changing categories, starting April 26th, if all goes according to plan. This was all put into motion years ago, when it was decided that Civilian Members were to be eliminated from the RCMP. So we're all being converted to the public service. I think I mentioned this in a previous post many months back, but I can't be bothered to go find it right now.

Anyway, none of the Civilian Members are happy about this, because it means we're losing a ton of the benefits we enjoyed before, including unlimited sick time, which I don't think is offered by anyone else in Canada. Instead we're going to be getting the same amount of time as the other public service employees, which is 120 hours a year. For most employees, that's the equivalent of fifteen days of sick leave. If, like me, you work 12-hour shifts, though, suddenly you find yourself with ten days of leave instead. Granted, most of us don't use that many days in a year, but every now and then it's to be expected that you *will* find yourself in need of long-term leave. Right now, what that means is that if you get seriously ill, you imply stay home and concentrate on getting better, at full salary. Once the "deeming" happens (as it's called), it becomes a lot more complicated. First, you have to burn through your sick leave, then any vacation time you have. Then you have to claim unemployment insurance (thus guaranteeing a not-insignificant interruption in your revenue while they determine if they're going to accept your application), and after, IF that goes through, your insurance kicks in after a year. Needless to say, unemployment and insurance is a lot less than your actual salary.

So if, for instance, you get cancer, you get to also worry about keeping your kids fed or a roof over your head as well as worrying about whether or not you're going to die. Before you say "But lots of people have to worry about that!" let me hasten to assure you that I know. The point is that we had a more progressive set of benefits, and we are going backward. The goal should not be to remove our benefits so that we're like everyone else, the goal should be to give everyone else the same security we have. Of course, that's not what's happening, and I can all but guarantee you that it will end up costing the government more in the long run than they are saving in the short run.

The other part of this is that, thanks to Bill C-7 and the elimination of Civilian Members, we also now have to unionize. Now, I'm generally pro-union, so this isn't terrible news, but I will confess that, having never been part of a union before, the unionization process is breaking. my. brain. We have several unions competing for our attention, and none of them appear to understand our jobs or see the whole picture or even be able to give us a straight answer to any of our questions. It's bloody well disheartening. 

I keep meaning to talk about watching The Clone Wars, or my continuing re-watch of Deep Space Nine, or any of the other shows I'm watching, but my brain is currently being consumed by anxiety about my living situation. When that's not happening, my brain is being consumed by anxiety about the entire world being a political trash fire. There is, of course, the living nightmare going on in the United States, but even Canadian politics are being depressing, with Trudeau going back on his promise of electoral reform, which was basically the platform on which he was elected. It's such a disappointment, even though I have to admit I'm not entirely surprised he's reneging on it.

Okay. I am off to find more painkillers in the hopes of making this lingering stress headache go away. I have fish in the oven for dinner, so at least healthy food is in the offing. See you on the flip side, LJ!

I am perhaps overreacting about my landlady, but I am incredibly frustrated. After the whole cleaner saga, she has come back and told me that the cleaners said my pets had *stained* the floor and that, as I said yesterday, the cat litter smell is overwhelming. I'm honestly flummoxed as to why they would say that. I have had pets irreversibly stain floors before, and I paid to replace them out of my own pocket. These floors? Not stained.

She insisted on having floor people come to see the house today, which in turn forced me to cancel my afternoon appointments. Did she turn up at the time she said she would? No, of course not. I didn't know the main purpose of their visit, so I was unable to answer even the most basic of their questions. They were very nice, though, and made friends with the cat and the dog. They agreed that my floors are not stained, that it's just normal wear and tear, and they will be passing the message along to my landlady, thank goodness. They also gave me a good trick to keep further dog hair out of the ducts, which was the previous reason for my landlady freaking out.

As for the litter boxes, well, I've got nothing. I don't smell anything, other than the smell of normal clay litter, which does have its own distinct odour. It's not the same as used litter, so if it's the clean litter smell that's the issue, then there's nothing I can do about that. I poured out all the old litter today and washed the litter boxes, just in case, and went down on my hands and knees in the house just to make sure I hadn't missed a spot where one of the cats might have been going outside the litter boxes, but I found nothing. *shrug*

Honestly, part of me kind of hopes she'll pitch one final fit and just ask me to leave. It'll be easier to deal with the extreme anxiety of having to movie on short notice than to deal with the constant rollercoaster of crazy. I mean, I'm not really in a position to move, financially speaking, but I *could* do it if I had absolutely no choice, and I'd be out from under her thumb. I really regret signing that lease now, let me tell you.

In short: ugh.

I passed the certification course, thank goodness. I mean, I can't claim much credit, here, because the instructor practically spoon-fed us the answers to the test at the end. I am a little irritated with myself, but apart from being a sea of acronyms, the course was one I had trouble wrapping my mind around. I think it'll get better once I have the chance to apply the knowledge in a more practical setting (i.e., work) and get to ask questions specifically pertaining to the subject matter as it relates to my job, and not just the abstract stuff we went over this week.

Still, it's over now, and I'm glad for it.

I was going to call it an early night tonight, but I'd forgotten it's Critical Role night, so I guess that's a wash. XD

In other news, my landlady has decided that not only is she going to pitch a fit about dog fur, but she's basically strong-arming me into paying for half of a cleaning service to invade my space twice a month in order to... IDK, vacuum even more? Ugh. I suppose I shouldn't complain too hard, if it keeps her off my back, but that's a lot of money to devote to it each month, on top of the hike in rent. She's really fucking high maintenance, and I regret considerably signing a full year's lease now. Still, the milk is spilled, no use crying over it. The cleaning service will be coming first thing on Monday, so I'll be spending my free time this weekend trying to tidy up my paperwork enough that they won't have to negotiate their way around my clutter while they're cleaning. The house itself is mostly fine, it's simply the room that I was originally going to make my "office" that's a bit of a disaster.

I have to say, that wasn't how I had planned on spending my weekend. I have to go back to work on Monday, and I was looking forward to a quiet Sunday, at the very least. This is disappointing

 Sorry I haven't posted in a few days, I got super busy with various commitments and didn't have the time to sit at the computer and compose an entry to talk about all of it. It's been a busy week, and it doesn't look like it's about to get any less busy any time soon.

I visited with L. and J. (well, only L., but I met J. later), the lesbian couple being harassed by their neighbours. They are just the most adorable people, and what they are going through is horrific. It's been taking place for years now, and it's not an exaggeration to say it has ruined their lives. Not permanently, but right now they can't even have a semblance of normalcy. It's not just verbal harassment, either. They've been assaulted on a couple of occasions, and it sounds like the police have been treating this as a neighbour dispute rather than a clear case of harassment/hate crimes. I am livid on their behalf, because it sounds like the entire case has been badly mishandled from the start. Unfortunately, the situation is beyond salvaging now, not without their putting in time and money and energy that they simply don't have, and I don't blame them for not wanting to put up with it any longer. 

We're setting up a tentative schedule for me to go hang out at their house once a week starting in early February (my schedule isn't free until then, unfortunately), and with any luck they'll be able to sell their house soon and move to a place where they can start fresh.

The rest of the week was taken up with cleaning the house, hosting a potluck for the young Quakers, and work. Oh, and making sandwiches for a Quaker wedding today (which I was unable to attend, due to work, alas). It feels like I haven't had a moment to myself all week, which isn't true, since I actually got to stay home most of Wednesday and just chill. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been had I not had at least one day to myself to do not much.

Tomorrow was supposed to be my one day off before I start a week of training, but of course my landlady has decided to make my life hard again. She's insisting on twelve post-dated cheques (and wanted them two weeks before the first of the month, no less!), so I pushed back a little, and so now we're signing a new twelve-month lease. I refuse to give post-dated cheques for a month-to-month lease, and at least this way I'm slightly more protected than before, although it means a commensurate increase in my rent, which is going to hurt. *sigh* I can't win with her, and it means I have to put up with her in my home for an extended amount of time tomorrow, instead while we sign a new lease. Bleh. Still, it could be worse, and I hope it won't take too long.

I'm going to call it an early night tonight. I've poked at my Romanian lessons a bit, and now that I know how to say "cow" I feel like my life is just that bit more complete. ;) Tomorrow I'll go to Meeting, then come back to deal with the landlady, and maybe after that I'll have a bit of peace and quiet before work starts up again on Monday.

I will say that the highlight of today has been watching the Women's Marches taking place all over the world. It gives me hope, even as fascism soars to new heights to the south of us.

Life has been a whirlwind of stuff now that I'm back at work full-time, and on meds that seem to be allowing me to have more energy. I've been playing catch-up on life, and it is ridiculously busy as a result.

I have said before that I am not a fan of the Cult of Busyness™ that has infected our culture. I don't like using "busy" as a positive descriptor for myself, as if my levels of productivity are a measure of my worth. Nonetheless, I have a lot of shit to catch up on that I didn't get done while I was recovering from burnout. There have also been landlady and her useless handyman shenanigans, which are both energy draining and time consuming.

In short, I shall endeavour to write a post by the end of this week (so by next Saturday at the latest) in which I shall explain (no, would take too long, let me sum up) everything that's happened since I last posted. Almost all of it is positive, exciting stuff. It has been time-consuming, however, and has kept me even away from Twitter most days, which is where I hang out the most.

There have been finance developments, fitness developments, pet developments, career developments... all sorts of things. For once, the curse of 2016 appears to be lifting for me, though sadly not for many others. Though I haven't been posting, I have been reading faithfully, and I do commiserate with all of you who are having such a rough time of it right now. The good part about burning out this summer is that since I've been on a similar roller coaster before, I kind of knew what to expect, and I knew there would be a light at the end of the tunnel (which wasn't a train), which kept me going pretty steadily. So, that's a useful psychological skillset I wasn't aware I had.

On that note, I have more Things To Do, so I shall see you on the flip side!