Corner of Bourbon & Division

We'll see how long it lasts. I'm up for another week with overtime, although I'm on days/evenings instead of nights, which is a blessing.

I spent most of last week sleeping. The original plan was to get a whole bunch of stuff done. Instead, my body decided that it was going to put me out of my misery by rendering me unconscious for the better part of five days. When I wasn't asleep, I had just about enough energy to play Dragon Quest VIII (and levelled up a whole bunch). I still cannot get over how much I slept. Appalling.

The weekend was spent at fearsclave's abode in the GFHW, along with toughlovemuse and chibipunkdemon. We went for a walk in the woods, saw a really cute mouse hiding under a log, climbed through a fence and hiked along the railroad tracks. There was knitting and crocheting, and more food than we knew what to do with, and on Saturday night we built a gigantic bonfire, around which we sat and drank scotch and un-scotch, and argued about Harry Potter and various other fun topics. I got tanned and everyone else got sunburned, and we had a fantastic time.

I got back Monday morning in time to pick up Gretzky from the vet (I boarded her there over the weekend because she needs antibiotics twice daily), brought her home, and came to work.

I feel as though I could easily take another two weeks' vacation. I barely saw the week go by, and while I feel okay, I feel about the same as I did before I started the Two Week Marathon Of Night Shift Doom. Luckily, I ought to have some more time off later this summer, unless an operation we have planned soon-ish goes south in a big way, in which case I can kiss my life goodbye.

The only part in all this that's stressing me out is the fact that my apartment is a gigantic unholy mess, yet again. I had it under control for a while, and after the past month it's a disaster. I need to un-disasterify it, first and foremost because I'm likely to be moving sooner rather than later. I have a floor to refinish, and all my stuff to pack, and in the state it is now there's no way in hell I'll ever be able to do any of it.

Gah.

Well, tomorrow is another day. With any luck I will be able to shrug off the feelings of overwhelm and panic and get myself to work on cleaning up, fifteen minutes at a time. That usually works well enough for me, once I get myself in gear.

In other news, my sanity appears to be mostly returned, after the Two Week Marathon Of Night Shift Doom. Whether or not I manage to retain it for the next three weeks remains to be seen.

"Today we were kidnapped by hill folk never to be seen again. It was the best day ever."


Best. Weekend. Ever.

I took scads of photos. No time to load/crop/upload/post right now, but I'll try for tonight, or tomorrow night at the latest. Tomorrow morning is a no-go, as I have an appointment at 10am (more on that in a later post).

Spent most of the weekend up in the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness. I went up Sunday morning with toughlovemuse, baronscartop and ai731, and we met up with owldaughter and ashforestwalker. wultabat and lightwkr also joined us, as well as Carolyn and other members of her family who as yet have no LiveJournal.

Booze was bought and consumed in large quantities. We chatted and talked and laughed and barbecued and built a giant bonfire. Aliens descended on the countryside (at least, that was the explanation we came up with for the weird red lights on the horizon), and more booze was consumed.

With much regret we let owldaughter and ashforestwalker go home to their small person, and the rest of us stayed on, chatting well into the night. When it got too chilly we repaired inside, talked and drank some more (did I mention the drinking?), and eventually we all fell into bed between midnight and 2am.

Yesterday was spent doing the Giant Breakfast At The Fearsranch thing, and I popped over to see wultabat and looking4wings whom I hadn't seen in a very long time indeed. Upon my return to the Fearsranch we (fearsclave, toughlovemuse, baronscartop, ai731, and I) went bashing through the back forty to visit the old abandoned farmhouse, and everyone got sunburned/tanned to varying degrees. ai731 spotted lots of wild apple trees, and we snacked on wild McIntosh apples as we headed home in the early afternoon.

Then I fell in love with a house.

Starting this week, I am going to have to learn very very fast how to deal with real estate stuff, because even if my credit rating is still in the toilet, I plan on trying to acquire that piece of property. It's about 10 minutes away from the Fearsranch, is 45 acres, and has a giant pond with turtles and geese. There's a huge barn (the place used to be a dairy farm), and the front lawn is an apple orchard. There's a grape vine, and a well that's level with the ground water, and megatons of space for a vegetable garden, and room to eventually build a greenhouse, and... yeah. We all thought it was absolutely gorgeous. ai731 pointed out, rightly, that there may well be some structural problems with the house itself, which is a 1940s bungalow, but at this point it could be a tarpaper shack and I'd still want it. :) They're selling it cheap, relatively speaking.

So... anyone know anything about buying property in Ontario? >_<


There will be a more detailed post later, but I felt the weekend needed minimal chronicling at the very least.

I must confess that I don't understand how I can be seeing more stars in the sky these days, when there have been so many smog warnings in the city.

I don't recall seeing stars like this a couple of years ago. I remember seeing stars as a little girl, but as I grew older they faded behind the smog that hung over the city. Now, when I get out of work in the evenings, the stars are back.

I'm not complaining. Just... bewildered.


Also, I miss the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness, and watching gazillions of stars in the night sky.

It occurs to me that I may have to find myself a "Forgetful Jones" icon from Sesame Street. So many icons, so little space and time. *sigh*


I am not sure whether I should be writing about this. It seems, well, kind of premature. Not to mention it feels a little bit like I'm exposing part of myself that I've always kept a little sheltered from the cold wide world. But then again, I think that may just be my paranoia talking.

I had a little bit of a crisis in May of 2005, directly after coming back from the Rural Wastelands, better known as the home of prolixfootle (*waves* Miss you, sweetie! Start posting again!), and detouring by the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness to visit with wultabat and looking4wings. It wasn't a bad crisis. Nothing crazy-making or anything like that. Just a... I don't know. A panicky realization that I was 26 years old and was nowhere near doing anything with my life that made sense.

While I was out there, I remembered quite suddenly a whole lot of things that were important to me: my friends, my family, and being out in nature. It's not that I didn't know any of these things before, it's just that I had let all of my priorities get out of whack for, oh, three or four years while I sorted out the crazy in my head. Once that was sorted out, everything else came swooshing back in with a vengeance.

I have to admit to wanting to be involved in social and ecological activism for purely selfish reasons. I've always, since I was a little girl, wanted to live in the country. The city, for all that I love it in its own way, makes me feel trapped and claustrophobic after a while. So I want the whole world to collaborate so that I can live my little dream in a small house, unencumbered by pollution and socio-political wank.

In essence, for the past two years, I've been fighting off an ever-growing nesting instinct. I want to have a house, and I want to fill it with pets and children. Two years ago I had no money. I was in debt, in a dead-end job with no prospects of anything ever getting better. Things have changed since then, obviously. I'm still not well off, but I'm better off than I was. Still, at best I will have to be content with delayed gratification when it comes to having a house. At worst, and this is what I see on bad days, I will be stuck renting a three-room apartment for the rest of my life.

I know things could be much, much worse. I am grateful for what I do have. But occasionally I do feel the lack of a home filled with family and friends, quite keenly. It's a gnawing, aching void, and there are moments when I wonder if it isn't going to tear me apart.

Work is chugging along merrily today. Consistently busy, but not crazy. Shift change is now (the night shift overlaps with the swing shift), so I'm taking the opportunity to update a little bit. I have been closing calls all afternoon and evening (which essentially means that I'm writing up the summary of what happened during an alarm, assigning it a number and putting it in the client's call history). I have done about 200, which accounts for about 60% of the day's calls. Not too shabby.

Had a marvellous weekend. Got up at oh-my-God o'clock on Sunday morning and caught a lift with ulvain, his brother, and our mutual friend Janik all the way to the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness. We grabbed a quick breakfast at Tim Horton's, and spent the time in the car catching up on news, since I hadn't seen any of them since August.

We visited a property in which ulvain and his brother were interested in order to build a hippie commune survivalist compound in the relatively near future. They're looking at properties in the area and in rural Quebec, having both received the shock of their lives a few weeks ago when they found out about the peak oil crisis. I've been thinking about this myself for a while, and I've always wanted to live in the country, but it seems my sense of urgency isn't nearly as developed as theirs. The property was lovely, 119 acres of land, a barn and a small farmhouse, but the buildings were in such a state of disrepair that I doubt the nice lady will get anything close to her asking price. If she knocked $50K off her price, I'd be knocking at the door of my bank asking for a mortgage. As it is, though, it's not really feasible.

Spent the afternoon with fearsclave and his lovely spousal unit. I had a long heart-to-heart with Carolyn (the spousal unit in question) about her work, where she's having some communication issues with her boss, while fearsclave took the others out for a crash course in the Safe Handling and Shooting of Firearms. When they returned we partook of Glogg, which wasn't as strong as last year's (see fearsclave's LJ for the details on what he puts in his Glogg -which is essentially mulled wine) but still very tasty.

While fearsclave went off to buy dinner with ulvain's brother, Janik, ulvain and I remained in the living room, drinking more Glogg and succumbing to fatigue, singing silly songs (including the theme to "Passe-Partout," which was a French-Canadian kids' show we all watched growing up, and many different ABBA tunes). 'Twas much fun.

Carolyn went off to visit her mother while we consumed the pizza and discussed the fate of the world as we know it, and then Janik and I left the boys to their own devices in the living room and had our own heart-to-heart about what's been going on with her in the past few months, sitting happily on fearsclave's kitchen floor.

The day came to an end all too soon, and it was very reluctantly that we all piled into the car to head back into Montreal. I hope that much less time will elapse before my next visit up to the GHW.


( Cleaning update # 27,963,105,410 )

Saw the little man from Paradoxe today, and he and I don't speak the same language in person either, but we managed to get our points across. More to the point, he seems to make everything ten times more complicated than it has to be, and doesn't seem especially organized. However, he promised to have both my estimates ready by the end of the week, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Details, including a picture of me and Alice, can be found in fearsclave's LJ. Suffice it to say that I had a lovely weekend out in the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness, and that it was long overdue.

Every time I leave there, I become acutely aware of a sizeable hole in my heart. It's sort of shaped like a house with plenty of acreage and filled with dogs and cats and people. As much as I love going there, it always reminds me, like a gentle tug, of how far I have to go before I'll ever get something like that.

Oh well. I still love it, and I wouldn't give it up for the world.

I saw deer! And a rabbit. And Rusty gets more appallingly cute every time I see him.

Watched four zombie movies in two days. I think my brain has melted. Totally worth it.

Life is good. Spent weekend in Godforsaken Howling Wilderness. Have made banana muffins. My life revolves around banana-themed baking lately. Can't complain.

Things are good. Life is just eating my brain. Back online when I have something of interest to report.

Be good, have fun, and make sure that if you do something dangerous that it's with someone you love and trust and that you've got all your safewords straight. :D

Also, Part 100 of Beyond the Pale is up at secret_history. It's a stand-alone kind of instalment, if you're interested in reading it but are hopelessly behind in your reading. Just sayin'. :)

Good night, and good luck!

fearsclave's wedding was lovely. Picked up kino_kid at 2pm and drove to the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness yesterday and arrived in plenty of time for the ceremony. Got caught up with meallanmouse and fishstalker, as well as rotagar whom I hadn't seen in well over a year, closer to two, since he moved to Toronto. He looks very dashing in a kilt, as did all the men. I also got to meet the lovely kirixchi, whom I will now be adding to my flist after this post.

The ceremony was shorter than I expected, but all the important elements were there, and it was wonderful to see both fearsclave and Carolyn looking like they were about to burst from happiness. :) There were bagpipes and kilts and an exchange of the bride's veil for the Elliott tartan, and I managed not to weep uncontrollably throughout the ceremony. I'm very proud of myself.

Very nice to see everyone all gussied up. looking4wings was looking especially nice in her new skirt, and I did double-take after seeing her in makeup for the first time ever. Everyone in that family cleans up really nicely.

We spent the entire afternoon and evening talking and laughing until our sides hurt and tears came to our eyes. We discussed everything from webcomics to hentai ("Oh no! Here come the tentacles!") and the difficulties of having to choose between children and careers, with sidetrips into creative writing and various fandoms and video games, and pretty much traumatised the less-geeky folk at our table, although they seemed to get into it after a while. There was a long discussion involving what we would do in the case of a zombie holocaust. All in all, a very good time.

The food was delicious, especially the soup and the cake. There was dancing and more chatting, and Carolyn's sisters put on cute little sketch based on The Sound of Music to welcome fearsclave into the fold, and after a good deal more dancing, I drove Caroyln, one of her sisters, kino_kid and rotagar up to the Fearsranch, where fearsclave built a bonfire. We sat around drinking beer and eating cold pizza and then the piper showed up along with two women and a man with drums, except that he was little too drunk to play properly by then. Then the other man made the fatal mistake of letting me have his drum, so I whacked away happily at it for a while and no doubt drove everyone crazy.

People drifted to bed around 3am, and I stayed up a little later, because there was still a small group of people I didn't know in the living room, and I wanted to make sure that they all either had a place to stay or a sober driver to get them home. Turns out I needn't have worried, because they had a driver and it was all good.

( I'm putting the one negative event behind a cut tag )

Apart from that one thing, it was a fantastic day, and I'm so very, very glad that I had the privilege of being there when one of my best friends got married.

Darroch: Mazel Tov!