Storytime: espionage

When I was little, I shared a room with my older sister on the upper level of an old two-story house for a few years. For whatever reason, my parents bought a set of indoor speaker devices - sort of like walkie-talkies, but you plug them into the wall and they're not portable. They had a speaker, a button to push for when you talk, and a little button that made a shrill beeping noise come out the other device. If you held down the speaking button and pushed it to the side, it stayed down.

Looking back, this seemed like an odd thing to find its way into our household. My parents have never been the type to embrace technology for technology's sake - they never even bought a computer until after I went to university.

Anyway one of these devices went in the kitchen/dining room downstairs, and one went up in our bedroom. When my mom wanted us to come downstairs for dinner, she would press the beepy button three times from the kitchen. That was our code.

Once in a while my parents would shoo my sister and I upstairs so they could have what we assumed were "adult" discussions; usually when there was company over. Sometimes, if circumstances were optimal, we'd be standing near the speaker device when we were told to skedaddle. We'd nod innocently with our back to the counter, arms behind us, bodies blocking our actions from view, and push the speaker button down and to the side, locking it in the "on" position. Then we'd run up to our room to listen to what the grown-ups were talking about without us.

I don't remember a single one of those adult conversations. I do remember the thrill of listening in - it was like being a secret agent, trying to gain information by outwitting the other side.

By the way, if my parents are reading this, you should know that it was all my sister's fault.

chimney tricks

When we did our pre-closing inspection on this house a bit more than a week ago, there was a single piece of paper on the kitchen counter. It was a bill from a chimney cleaning company, which was good because our contract stated that the former owner was supposed to clean it out.


The real estate agent took it, saying she would fax a copy to our lawyers. Being a n00b at wood stoves though, I wanted to actually speak to a professional person about our stove and chimney before lighting any fires. The cap on the outside of the chimney was obviously in bad shape, and on top of that I just wanted to hear that it was safe. So I emailed the real estate agent and asked her for a copy of the bill, thinking that it would be logical to talk to the same people that had already been here. With a bit of prodding she eventually sent it to me and I gave the chimney guy a call.

It turns out that there was a second page attached to the bill when he left it here - it even says on the first page "see attached sweep report". I told him we only had one page and he was a bit surprised. Since he remembered our house, he was able to immediately tell me that our chimney liner needed to be replaced, and that he had written that on the second page, which I had never seen because some scumbag of a person took it so that we wouldn't know there were any problems before the house deal officially closed.

Also: he hasn't been paid for his services. Ahem. I can think of a few choice words to use to describe the the previous owner. What a horrible person. (The chimney guy is not trying to hit me up for money owed, so don't worry about that - he knows he has to chase that other harpy.)

We are fortunate enough that we can afford a new chimney liner and it's not a hardship, so I'm going to try not to dwell on the unfairness of this situation.

And now for something completely different.

We went off to the hospital yesterday and the conclusion is that Mark has muscle strain. He was told to get hopped up on Tylenol 3 and go to physiotherapy, so hopefully his back woes will ease up in the near future.

Also, we've repaired the broken window in the bathroom!


With real glass and everything!


We also installed a toilet paper holder. I thought it was funny at the hardware store that all the packaging for those things say "paper holder", as though the manufacturers did not wish to acknowledge the holder's relationship to toilets and bums. "Paper holder". How delicate.


Anyway, finished product:


Next step: mirror for over the sink. But that will require a trip to "the city" and will have to wait until at least this weekend.

Afternoon project: scrubbing grubby handprints and mystery splatters off the walls, ceilings and baseboards.

For Taras, who is Picky

As per Taras' request about my last post, here are some pictures.

A) pic of snow

Here is the truck, which I have shoveled around, and poor Aunt Pinky, who is still a bit buried:


B) pic of me working in the snow

Talk to Mark about that. I don't usually take pictures of myself while shoveling snow. Here's a picture of SOMEONE working in the snow, though:


C) pic of the awesome china

As requested. As a bonus, this picture is taken OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW:


I hope you are satisfied, Mr. Picky.

shoveling

So the weekend hit and we were all ready to go to "the city" to get some much-needed house supplies, like a ladder so we could put up our storm windows.

SNOWSTORM.

It snowed Friday night. It snowed all day Saturday. It snowed on Sunday, and now it's Monday and this morning there were large cheerful flakes still falling out of the sky. We were unable to purchase any of our supplies.

The very best part is, Mark's back has been bothering him quite a bit for like a month now, so guess who bought a shovel and then shoveled off the deck and then the driveway. In snow up to my knees. Multiple times. One time, I shoveled off the deck and worked my way out to the road, and then once I got there it was still snowing so hard that I had to turn around and shovel my way back, and then shovel the deck again on my way into the house.

It's actually not that bad. It's nice to get exercise outdoors and accomplish something at the same time, and I'm only a bit stiff and not achy-all-over. Poor Mark, on the other hand, seems to feel tortured that I'm doing all the physical work around here. He shouldn't though, since his back is so sore that he can't even lay down for an entire night any more. There's a clinic in town that's open two days a week, but they don't have room for new patients.

Off we will go to to the hospital in the next town tomorrow. Mark is amazed that I would suggest going to the hospital - I think he thinks you're only allowed to go there if you get taken by ambulance for a medical emergency. Nuh-uh, this is how it works in rural communities! (Hey Dr. Justin, I have some career advice for you if you still haven't made up your mind, hint hint. Come fix Mark's back.)

Oliver is doing amazingly well in the snow. Saturday morning, when there was something close to two feet of snow on the ground and the plows hadn't yet been by, he had issues. I had to carry him to the school next door and walk him in the shelter of a wall where the wind had blown the snow away. Every time we passed a door, he scratched at it and cried.

Later that day though, after the roads had been plowed and after I'd shoveled the driveway for like the twentieth time, he was fine. We now know that he prefers snow to rain, and as long as we keep walking and the snow's not over his head, he's perfectly content. Good thing! Arlo of course was thrilled to be in the snow and bounced all over the place. I even kept him out with me while I was (surprise) shoveling, and he had fun.

One last thing: I was just now washing my dishes and noticed that on the bottom of our set of hand-me-down bowls it says "Tuscan Fine English Bone China". Ah crap, I thought, am I putting my Special K in something expensive? I looked it up on the internet, and shouldn't have. Firstly, yes, it can tend to be kinda expensive, and secondly? Bone China? It's made from BONES. COW BONES.

Ah crap.

battening down

There's nothing like a nice snowfall to make you realize that you don't own a shovel.


Also, that nice rake that I bought yesterday is now completely useless. Hopefully we'll have a couple of warm days and the snow will melt so I can rake the yard. Either that or I'm hoping the leaves will rot really quickly come spring.

Let me tell you, there are certain disadvantages to moving into a neglected house just before winter hits. I spent last evening and most of the day today caulking the large ancient windows, and we need to purchase a ladder quickly so that we can install the storm windows on the outside. Until then, there is A SINGLE pane of glass in the windows keeping us safe from the snow, and Oliver the Min Pin has told me that that's not good enough. About half of these windows are so old that they are wavy - they're beautiful to look at. If I were sentimental I might feel bad about the new, energy-efficient windows we plan to install in the spring.

So besides installing the storm windows, there is one badly cracked pane of glass in the mudroom that needs to be replaced, and how can we forget that part of the bathroom window is completely missing its glass, and is instead blocked off from the elements right now by an old floor tile, two toilet paper rolls, and a tiny box that has been squished into the remaining gap?


Then there's the old front door that blew open in a stiff breeze last night, and some piping from the bathroom that's exposed in a cold storage area of the house and needs to be insulated. I could do something about that right now, but I'm too drunk from caulking fumes. Mark says the house smells like airplane glue.

He's right.

In the interest of showing you our new house, here are before-and-after shots of our living room. It's not done - no curtains, half-unpacked mess everywhere, but you get the idea:



The dog are settling in. Arlo LOVES LOVES LOVES the windows in this house. He pretty much just goes from one window to the next, staring out at the world. He likes watching all the activity at the school across the road, but it really makes his day when he sees a squirrel. There's a window just before the bottom of our staircase, and when he goes down the stairs in the morning he stops at that window, with all his legs on different stairs, and stares. We have to remind him that he wants to go for a walk.


I can't mislead you - that pic was not taken in our new house. Those modern, double-paned, well insulated vinyl windows are not mine.

the hardware stores

Today I went on a mission to get a whole pile of stuff at the hardware store. There seem to be three Home Hardware stores in Bridgetown, located directly across the road from each other. On closer inspection we discovered that they're sorta different departments of the same store. One has building supplies, one has appliances and seasonal stuff, and one has everything else. I opted to go to the "everything else" Home Hardware and got almost all of what I was looking for. When I asked the cashier where the rakes were, she told me to leave the rest of my stuff by the cash, go across the road for a rake, and bring it back so I could pay for everything.

So I go across the road. I find a rake and tell the clerk in that store that I'm going to go pay for it at the other Home Hardware. I leave the store with un-paid-for merchandise. SHE'S COOL WITH THAT.

Bridgetown is an awesome, awesome town.

So I went trundling back home with my rake in hand, lugging my big new rolling garbage can full of new stuff along behind me. The skies were ominous and a very cold wind was blowing. We're getting the first snow of the season now!

relocation: successful!

Hi y'all!

We're back online, and living in our very own home in the Annapolis Valley!!

Every day since my last post has gone well and felt mostly under control, but thinking back over the entire past five days all at once is a bit overwhelming. There were no major mishaps and I can't even think of any minor ones - yay!

Remember how I made some predictions about the state that the former owner would likely leave the house in when she left? They were mostly accurate. The storm windows are still sitting in the basement. The yard is a mess, with shaggy un-mown lawn and fallen leaves everywhere. Although the house did not stink of cats, I did find lots of kitty litter scattered across the floor where the litter box used to be. Windows, baseboards, kitchen cupboards, and floors were all in dire need of cleaning. The former owner DID clean out the fridge very well, and the bathrooms also seem to have been cleaned (although I cleaned them again anyway). So she didn't break a sweat on our behalf, but she could have left the place a lot worse.

One interesting thing: I caught the listing agent sneaking onto our lawn to take down her "sold" sign, and she said something about the little girl who used to live here getting her foot cut off or something. So I guess the former owner had other things on her mind. It was a strange thing to hear, don't ya think?

We were lucky enough to have heaps of help from family and friends over the weekend. In addition to driving our vehicles here for us, my parents brought their own air mattress and blankets, stayed for a couple of days, and helped us move in, clean up, and assemble things. My friend Kim drove for four hours to come and help us scrub this house - she has DEFINITELY passed the "good friend" test! She loves our mudroom and now her husband is going to be mad at us because he's going to have to build her a mudroom.

Mark's mother has been storing furniture and dishes and stuff for us for like forever, and suddenly we have a house full of furniture thanks to her! I'm not talking Walmart crap either - we have some honest-to-gosh family heirloom antiques now. It's pretty awesome.

Oh, I forgot to mention one old piece of business. Remember how we contacted the Real Estate Commission to help us get our deposit back from the other place that we didn't end up buying? The Commission laid down the law, and our money was returned! I then wrote a big long angry email to the real estate office that had had our money for so long, never sent it, and then deleted it a few days later. This is how I stay sane people. Or not. Maybe that's why I'm crazy, I don't know.

Moving Moving Moving!

Mostly everything is packed - but I must admit that mostly everything has been packed for months.

Things have, strangely, been falling into place. The lawyer, who waited until the VERY LAST MINUTE to tell us what amount of money to send, got our urgently couriered bank draft earlier than expected, rather than too late. Our new extra-special high-efficiency washer and dryer actually arrived in the store on time, so we can get it on the way past with our big rental truck.

There won't even be any snow (probably).

Wish us luck!

Remember

I don't like war. I don't think it's usually the best solution for the problem at hand. It might surprise some of you to know that Remembrance Day is a holiday that I have a lot of respect for, though.

Remembrance Day is there - every year - to remind us that once, people were brave and selfless for what they believed in. Some of them died. Some of them got horribly hurt and felt more pain than most of us can imagine. Some of them bled to death alone in the mud and cold. They didn't do it to be selfish.

Whatever my political or philosophical beliefs are, I don't think it's fair to begrudge the actions of those who were asked to be brave and make sacrifices for the benefit of future generations. I hate war, but war happened anyway and nobody's ever going to be able to change that fact. What we can do is remember that it was an awful thing that showed both the best and worst sides of humanity.

Remember this the next time your barista gets your Starbucks order wrong, or the next time you have to sit in traffic: you and I were not asked to make great sacrifices, but we have pretty damned good lives here in Canada.

Remember, and be thankful.

family love

We're renting a Budget truck on Thursday to MOVE, yeah! Here's a conversation about that:


MY MOM: What time are you leaving on Thursday?

ME: I dunno. We're renting the truck at 9am, gonna come back here and pack our stuff onto it, and leave whenever we're done.

MY MOM: It's going to take longer than you think it will.

ME: How do you know how long I think it will take? I didn't give you a time.

MY MOM: It will just take longer than you think, that's all.

ME: ... so you're telling me I'm... wrong?

At this point Mark, who loves accuracy, chimes in.

MARK: She didn't say that you're wrong, just that you're stupid.

Then he smirked gleefully.

THANKS GUYS.

politics & a farmhouse

Well, the Americans voted Obama into office and everyone seems so incredibly excited about politics and the presidency this week. I have to say that I was very satisfied to see that my old home state, Virginia, backed Obama. Virginia almost NEVER votes liberal so it's significant that they did this time.

Here's a nice picture of Virginia:


Good job, Virginia! (and all you other states, too. Except for you, Idaho. I saw what you did there.)

I also got some pictures from the weekend we spent in Gunning Cove with close family friends in an ancient yet glorious old farmhouse. All of the below pictures are courtesy of Kristie, and this is her with Oliver:


And some close-up shots of old farmhouse glory:




The farmhouse is like a grand damme who is not ashamed to revel in the beauty of her age. Kristie's sister seems to be in love with the place and has started to slowly restore it. I think she hopes to one day live in the place full-time. That would be awesome.

Kristie's mom made her famous seafood chowder while we were there. That lady doesn't skimp on ingredients. I've never seen so much lobster in anything except a lobster shell before, and Mark claims that he found his first piece of potato halfway through his second bowl. There was THAT MUCH feesh in it. I ate as much as I could and then some.


We went walking around Gunning Cove with the dogs and had lots of adventures. Arlo was really excited about somebody's yard one evening, but as it was dark we had no idea what he was getting excited about. The next day we walked by the same yard and there was a big fat porcupine in it. Arlo really really wanted to go play, but I didn't think that would work out very well for him. The porcupine completely ignored us and snuffled around the yard in an unconcerned way.

Nine more days and I will own my own yard, and I too will snuffle around it in an unconcerned way. It's gonna be great!

dead gypsies

First things first: Mark feels strongly that I should have pictures in this post, but I don't have any pictures of what I'm writing about, so here are two "Mangatar avatars" of me and Mark from the Face Your Manga website.



That's done. On with the stuff I was gonna talk about.

So my lawyer called me this afternoon to discuss the only outstanding issue with our house purchase. We're trying to get a "location certificate", which seems to be one step down from a survey, done on the lot. There's a chance the neighbouring house encroaches on the property. We don't much care but would like to know exactly what is going on, and we might just try to negotiate some more on the price if it's true.

I heard a phrase from my lawyer that I thought we were done with. She started out by saying "well, I've never heard of this before" - UGH - I'm sick of hearing that. Apparently they can't produce the normal kind of survey documents because the property has roads on two sides of it and public land on the third. I'm guessing they need to measure from other properties that have already been measured?

WHATEVER.

So they apparently can't show us a sketch of the property, but they can give us a block of text that describes it... ?? .... and this is abnormal in some way and nobody knows what exactly should be done in this case... ??... brain... exploding...

Mark asked me if we ran over a gypsy on our road trip. Darn, she must have lived long enough to curse us. I can hear it now: "MAY THEIR HOUSE PURCHASES FROM THIS DAY FORWARD BE FROUGHT WITH PERIL AND UNPRECEDENTED PERSNICKITYNESS!"

Eeeek!

Change of subject. This past weekend we went to stay in an old farmhouse owned by family friends. There was power but no heat, and a toilet but no running water. Well, there was a woodstove in one part of the house, so there was some heat. It was Fun! No, that's not sarcasm, it was seriously fun. The dogs came along and Oliver wrapped EVERYONE around his little paw in about three and a half seconds. People were looking for excuses to pick him up the entire time, and getting mad at him when he skittered away from them, and then immediately forgiving him. Arlo had tons of fun too - he LOVES new people and noise and activity.

I'll put up some pictures of our weekend away as soon as I can steal them from our friend who, unlike me, actually used her camera over the weekend.