Corner of Bourbon & Division

Moving house is eating my brain and taking up all my CPU. With any luck I will be back and posting properly after I've moved. The date is set for November 4th. Yay! Also, ACK!

Quick update on the State of the Phnee:

1. I am trying to pack like the wind, and mostly packing like molasses uphill in January. Still, things progress.


2. Sergent finally got his ultrasound done (God, that shit is expensive!), and the good news is that he doesn't have cancer or Cushing's. The bad news is that the vet couldn't tell what the hell is going wrong with his liver, so we've got him on some expensive medication for a month to see if that helps his liver a little bit.


3. Octavia (my new kitten) got spayed the day before yesterday and is doing fine, except for how much she hates the Cone of Shame. It bends her whiskers out of shape and so messes with her balance and makes her walk funny. Poor kitty. I'm hoping to take the cone off in a couple of days, as soon as her surgical incision has healed a bit more.


4. I was planning to maybe throw a small going-away party, but I realise now that I can't pull it off in the time I have, given all the work I still have to do. Sorry, everyone. Either you'll have to come to my housewarming in Ottawa, or else we can have a get-together the next time I'm in Montreal. Deal?


5. Packing. ALL THE PACKING.


6. Moving is hard. And stressful. And expensive. Boy howdy, is it expensive.


7. Also, because I am a masochist, I've decided to do NaNoWriMo this year.

Now that I've committed to staying on with my landlords, people are messaging me about potential new rooms. Of course. Luckily they all sound about as "promising" as the other shitholes I visited last week. So I'm not too torn up about it.

( In which Phnee whines about being isolated at work, and also tired. )

( The ongoing hair experiment. )

( Cooking! And mason jar salads! )

( And coffee. )

It's been unexpectedly busy the past few days. Lots of work, lots of running around trying to secure new lodgings, and in all that I haven't had much time to synthesise all of what's been happening into something palatable for LJ. Oh, that metaphor hurts to look at. *averts eyes* Let us never speak of that sentence again.

Moving on.

It's late and I can't really get my brain to work. If we're all very lucky I might be able to produce some coherent words tomorrow about my adventures in apartment-seeking. So far they are few and far-between, but they are proving colourful nonetheless.

For now I must go to bed. Busy busy busy.

As I said in a previous post, my current rental situation is becoming problematic. Between the rent and the gas money (and gas prices keep going up, even though they're better in Ontario), I won't be able to afford it for much longer. Financial considerations aside, my landlords are driving me a little crazy with their OCD tendencies (I got "talked to" for leaving a plate, a glass, a fork and a pot in the drying rack overnight) and their lack of even basic consideration when I'm trying to sleep at any time of the day or night. Seriously, it's like living with a herd of angry wildebeest when they're home, and no matter how many times I have asked them to at least take off their shoes when walking over my head, they just keep doing it.

So I'm looking to rent a (hopefully inexpensive) room within walking or even cycling distance of Vanier Parkway/Coventry/Riverside Drive in Ottawa, starting May 1st. I plan on giving notice April 1st since they want 30 days notice before I leave, which is perfectly fair.

If you know anyone who could use a roommate, or who has an extra bedroom to spare, could you point them my way? I'll only be in town about half the days of the month, two weekends a month, and I'll be at work for 12 hours a day, so I'll be practically invisible! I've also become a pro at staying out of people's way, because of my current landlords. It should be an Olympic sport, because I'd totally be a contender. ;) I am a great tenant, but I can also provide references, if necessary, to back that claim.

I am happy to help out with extra cleaning/cooking/chores/whatever on the days I'm in town (and I can provide my own furniture if needs be). I'm also willing to look further out if it means the room is considerably cheaper (to compensate for the extra gas I'd have to buy).

My budget is about $350 CDN a month, preferably less. I can maybe manage up to $400 if it's within actual walking distance of my work (since I can park at work and not worry about gas), but that's still stretching my budget pretty thin.

You can drop me a line via Private Message here, and I will send you more concrete contact information after that, since I don't really want to post my personal contact info on the internet for obvious reasons.

Thanks in advance!

So for two weeks in a row I've left home early in order to avoid rush hour when I get to Ottawa, and it's working out well. Aside from the fact that I don't get to spend as much time at home as I'd like, it has allowed me to arrive here not feeling rushed and stressed, which is great.

Previously I'd spend a little under two hours getting to Ottawa, and then another hour stuck in traffic. Factor in another hour or so for errands, and I'd be getting in at about 19:00-19:30. My landlord would inevitably be home at that time, which meant I had to make small talk and be polite and sociable when I would rather gnaw off my own arm to escape. Afterward, I'd have just enough time to unpack, grab a hastily improvised dinner, and try to be in bed by 20:00. I'd be exhausted and stressed from all the driving and frustrated by the traffic, and on a bad night I wouldn't be able to sleep right away, resulting in a short night of bad sleep. When you have to get up 03:50, getting a solid eight hours in is kind of a big deal, especially if the rest of your life involves getting broken and insufficient sleep.

So, anyway, last Tuesday and today I left around noon instead of 15:30, and here it is 16:30 and I'm all unpacked, dinner is in the oven, and no one will be home for at least another 20 minutes, so I have time to refill my introvert batteries a little bit before being forced to be sociable. I'd rather not talk to the landlords at all today, but at least having quiet time and not being forced to unpack my groceries while they watch me is a start.

The plan is to have dinner quite early, so hopefully I'll be able to go hide in my room before my landlords even get home. Then I'm going to settle in to do some writing. With any luck, words will actually happen. I haven't managed to get any fiction written since last Thursday, so it would be nice to get something written, even if it turns out to be utter shit. My writing has always been about momentum. If I keep going, the writing gets better. The minute I stop for even a day, I get bogged down. The process gets laborious and the words stop flowing the way I want. So, yeah, a week of not writing? Not good. I need to try to nip this in the bud before I end up not writing for months again.

All righty. The timer has beeped. Time for food. See you on the flip side, LJ!

Or, in which my dreams are a lot more literal than I'd like, and yet still more awesome than my current life. I think this one was triggered by my alarm clock, but I can't be sure. Either way, in my dream I woke up to the strains of "A Well-Respected Man" by The Kinks and started getting ready to go to work. Only in my dream I was actually Susan Ivanova (see icon), or at least her equivalent in whatever my new dream-universe was. My duties weren't exactly clear, nor did it seem to matter, as most of the dream involved being very annoyed at having to get up so damned early. Ivanova, as I recall, was not a morning person in Babylon 5, either. :) I was kind of disappointed when I woke up and realised that if I wanted to listen to The Kinks then I'd have to fiddle with my playlists on my iPhone myself, rather than have a spontaneous soundtrack to my life. I was still pretty displeased at having to get up at 3:50, so that part of the dream was nicely literal. Also, I am not Claudia Christian, which is a perpetual source of disappointment.

( More dreams, cut for length )

I know I still owe an entry about my relationship with the French language, but it requires more time and thought than I can devote to it today. It will probably happen this weekend. I know you're all waiting with bated breath.

Bean was much better today, after spending yesterday with a fever that wavered between "low-grade" and "high enough to be very uncomfortable." We can always tell when he's truly under the weather, because he sits still and is quiet. He also got quite clingy and latched onto pdaughter like a limpet, switching to cling to me only when she got up to go to the bathroom. In the afternoon we watched Casper (the live-action movie) together, and he seemed to enjoy it, though predictably about 50 minutes in he declared the movie "too long" and announced he wanted to watch something else. He was too lethargic to really protest when pdaughter told him we were going to keep watching, though, and the movie piqued his interest again a few minutes later, so all was well.

In spite of pdaughter's repeated attempts to get him to nap, he stubbornly stayed awake until about 17:30, when he dozed off in her arms. He roused briefly when she tried to stealthily put him to bed, but went down again pretty easily about half an hour later. pdaughter went out to get more Children's Tylenol (he got one dose before bed, but that was all we had on hand), and of course while she was gone he woke up crying for her. Luckily I was deemed a suitable alternative to Mama for the time being, and he settled again and was fast asleep—though coughing in his sleep, poor bunny—by the time she got home.

Because Bean had an early night, we actually managed to watch three TV episodes in a row! Though, in retrospect, the third one was probably a mistake, as we ended up going to bed later than usual. Still, we caught up on Castle and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which FINALLY delivered an episode that hit the right notes for me and didn't feel forced or boring or have only one good part) before watching the 200th episode of Criminal Minds almost live.

Today I packed my bags, took the dog out, got George's antibiotics from the vet, and drove to Ottawa. It sounds like very little for a day in which I seemed to run out of time for everything. Bean was, as I said, feeling much better, which was a relief, but also meant he was back to his very energetic and rather loud self. He was not 100%, but still greatly improved. He spent the morning making cards for me and pdaughter. He made hers first, and carefully and spontaneously labelled it "MAMA," which made her go all misty-eyed. It was adorable. He decorated both with aluminium foil hearts which we helped him glue on, and then drew very elaborate pictures on them. Mine had a toilet (don't ask, I don't know), green grass, several doors, and a picture of someone I believe is meant to be me, as well as the aforementioned foil heart and a foil triangle ("A mountain triangle!"). I have brought the card with me to Ottawa, and need to find a good spot for it in my little room.

Being a step-parent rocks. :)

Even though I have no money, I bit the bullet today and bought some new clothes, because all the ones I have that were suitable for more "casual" office wear were nearly 10 years old, faded, misshapen, and had become irreparably stained. No longer office-worthy at all. I managed to find a few items on sale for $9 and a few cute shirts for $19, and hopefully that will set me up for a while. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this doesn't break the bank.

One of my self-improvement goals this year is to sit down and write out a proper budget. Then I need to stick to it and find a way to cut back even further on some of my spending. I think that some of the trouble comes from not having a strict budget when it comes to "extras" like presents and books and DVDs. (The rest of the trouble comes from trying to wrangle a mortgage, car payments, daycare, a 500km/week commute, and a frankly exorbitant monthly rent on an extra room to sleep in for my job, all on my salary and the contributions pdaughter is able to make, as well as some government money for daycare).

I think I'll save the money talk for a different post. I have Thoughts on the subject, and they deserve their own entry.

I'm not sure it's worth updating if I feel as though I have nothing to say, but then that's the kind of thinking that made me stop posting to LiveJournal completely, so maybe I will blather on witlessly for a while.

Tomorrow I shall make a quick Christmas recap post. For some reason, on the computer at work, the LiveJournal interface is absolute crap no matter which browser I use. I get weird overlapping white windows that prevent me from seeing drop-down menus (like for selecting a mood or a userpic) and the tag selection box, and whenever I try to add in pictures it doesn't show me the code at all. So I'm at once perplexed and annoyed and have no idea how to fix it. At least on my own computer these things don't happen. So tomorrow there will be a more picture-ful entry with details about Christmas.

Overall we had a great day yesterday. I was up first at 7:00 in order to take a shower, and pdaughter got up at the same time. Bean was up 15 minutes later, so she was able to capture his reaction to the Christmas tree and all the presents on film. The morning was spent very pleasantly opening presents, and pdaughter's father showed up around 9:30 or 10:00 to make the gathering complete. Unfortunately I had to leave for work by 1pm, but the morning made it well worth it. I'm just sad I wasn't able to stay longer to watch Bean play with his new toys.

Work, thankfully enough, has been pretty quiet. I've been finishing up the Soopar Seekrit Prodgikt, which, as some of you know, was the 4th Doctor's scarf, which I was making for pdaughter for Christmas. I'm busily weaving in ends, and once that's done I need to attach the tassels. This has to be by far the longest project I've ever worked on, including the Baby Blanket of Doom of 2009. Thus far, because I am a slow knitter, I think I've put about 70 hours of work into this thing.

( Boring planning stuff behind the cut )