Waiting

I'm quite literally waiting on a phone call about kittens. Perhaps the foster mom for my hopefully-future-kitties-to-be is on vacation.

You know when things feel stagnant? And not stagnant like nothing is happening, but the kind where things are on the verge of happening and the potential for awesomeness is lingering in the air and you have nothing to do but wait for an undisclosed amount of time to see what happens? Yeah.

Kittens are one thing. The apartment downstairs is another. Our landlady is interested in having a property manager, and we're interested in paying less rent. So we've been going back and forth and our current offer of $75 less rent per month in exchange for property management is on the table. Basically, the Dude would fix small stuff for free and only charge our landlady for materials. He'd handle the garbage, shovelling, cleaning of common areas, and handle complaints from the other tenants. He'd oversee major repair issues and generally be available when needed.

Seeing as our landlady is good about paying for things, but does not enjoy coming out to the property and asks the Dude to handle these things and winds up paying him for his labour costs, this would be a deal for her. But we'll see what sort of conclusion she comes to.

And this is how I'm spending my Christmas vacation. When I was a kid or a teenager, I'd spend it hanging out with friends, watching new movies, playing with new toys or gadgets and/or glued to video games. Now I'm trying to plan a move. And of course, I'm trying to get kitties. The irritations and privileges of adult life rolled into one holiday vacation time.

I haven't been to any Boxing Day sales (Or should I say Boxing Week). That was a standby when I was a teenager. Generally speaking, I don't enjoy shopping as much as I used to, at least not in malls. The crowds fill me with dread. I can't help but remember when I was working in fast food when I was younger and had to work the week after Christmas. It's enough to give you a twisted knot in your stomach just thinking about going into a melee like that voluntarily.

Before I go, I have a picture of my ring, a better picture than the blurry Photobooth one I posted a couple months ago when I first got engaged. One of my aunts wanted a photo of it because she wouldn't see me this Christmas, and so the Dude took a good one. This ring has a story to it, which I'll tell soon.

'Tis a handy thing, having a photographer in the house.

Time out

I'm home, and glad of it. Not that I don't enjoy visiting relatives, because I do, but damn if there's just no place like your own digs. We came home to a bit of a mess, but it was still a comforting sight. And sure, the neighbours had cranked up the heat to 25 C, and we felt the familiar chill as we entered our own uninsulated portion of the house to an uninspiring 15 C, but home is home.

We've been negotiating rent and responsibilities with the landlord over the holidays, so that might result in a happier living space. But even though we're still stuck in this frosty abode for awhile yet, there's nothing like having your home base back. And now that we are back 'n cozy, it's time for kittens. I haven't been able to shut up about kittens. I just don't feel 100% without feline companionship. I've set things in motion to begin an adoption, so hopefully within a couple weeks, I should have kitties, kitties, kitties. Well, two kitties.

I could talk about the actual visit back to ye olde hometown, but it was largely uneventful. The holidays are so often a whirlwind of activity and scheduling. Though I enjoyed all the visits, it would be hard to recount them without making it sound like a laundry list. I answered a lot of questions about my wedding. Mostly they were, "Where is it?" "When is it?" and, "Is there a nearby hotel?" I had answers for all three handy.

I actually fell asleep most of yesterday at the Dude's dad's place. I had an allergy pill (or two) that knocked me out, but I think I really required a mental break. Extended socialization drains me of energy.

In fact, I have written all I can, and I've been staring at the screen unable to write much of substance for some time. Off to unwind and shut off all communication.

Merry Christmas

And so it begins, the great odyssey to our hometown to see three different family units, plus other shorter visits. Thankfully we'll have access to a car. I love being in a car with the Dude. He's a good driver, and relaxed. We're so rarely in a car together that it's actually kind of a novelty.

But for any of it to begin, we have to take the bus, which is of course the least humane way to travel during the holiday season. Or any season, but mostly Christmas eve because everyone is loaded with holiday paraphernalia, is anxious because they're worried about getting a seat, and uncomfortable because they've been in line in the cold forever. Plus, while many love this time of year, it also can bring out the worst in people.

So yeah, not totally jazzing on taking the bus. But we're leaving in five minutes, Christmas will be here any second pretty much, and so one must suck it up and make the trek. After all, we have three consecutive turkey dinners to attend. Something tells me I'll get plenty of sleep.

Merry Christmas, readership!

Oil, Energy and Collapse

I tried to fall asleep last night by watching a documentary. I like documentaries, but if I'm not wide awake for them, I can sometimes fall asleep. Processing information while lying down in cozy bed can make for sleepiness. So the Dude and I threw on Collapse. He fell asleep. Lord knows how, because I found the information too riveting and horrible to fall asleep for many hours.

Okay, so this guy named Michael Ruppert is this former cop with a glowing record, who blew the whistle on the CIA selling cocaine back in the late '70s. He resigned and became an investigative journalist. The documentary is about him and his life and what he knows, but mostly about what he knows and how it's pretty much ruined his health and life.

So here's a rundown that should scare the crap out of anyone who's reasonable: We run entirely on fossil fuels (no surprise there) and we hit peak oil already, some time ago. So that means more than half of it is gone (Saudi Arabia has resorted to offshore drilling. That being the hardest, most expensive route to drilling oil, and since the country won't release how much they have in their reserves, it's safe to assume their main wells are dry). The world's population has spiked and consumption has increased. That means that the demand is now and will forever be higher than the supply... until it runs out. Which is going to be in my generation's lifetime.

There is no replacement energy source. Everything to generate every other energy source requires oil, to either build, produce or maintain. So if there is no oil to use for energy and there is no energy to build, produce or maintain other energy, then what? No, seriously, then what?

Also consider that all fields in industrial farms are ploughed with oil-consuming vehicles, are fertilized with oil byproduct chemicals (because by only growing the same crops each year-- corn-- you drain the soil of its nutrients, and chemicals are the easiest way to keep the soil fertile), and most are for corn fields to produce ethanol, and that it takes more oil energy to make ethanol than how much ethanol it actually produces... yeah.

So where does our food come from when the oil runs out? Think about that.

Also, no more plastics. No more maintenance for modern day technology that we rely on, like cell phone towers. No more oil to make materials required for more computers, cars of any kind, phones. No more oil products to build, say, nuclear power plants as a source of alternative energy.

All money used to be based on gold. How much gold was there? Well, money represented the amount of gold there was. Then money started to represent other resources, like oil. Well, as the world's supply gets used up, money stops being worth as much, doesn't it? Because it won't represent anything anymore. Money is just paper without something tangible to back it up and make it worth something. And one could get into how interest and banking further dilutes the worth of money, but let me get to my point.

The world is going to change. It doesn't look anything like it did 30 years ago, and it's going to look completely different 30 years from now in the opposite direction. We've been on an upward incline for decades, and now that the money-maker is drying up, we've begun our downward decline, and with a huge population that still needs to eat. Remember what I said about food?

Michael Ruppert predicted the 2008 crash, and has been speaking and trying to warn the government for years. No one's listened because there was still money to be made for men who will be dead by the time we run out of the black stuff.

We need a renewable energy source, and we need it yesterday. We need clean materials to build and create what we've grown to depend on. We need them soon. To be honest, I can see why this man has dedicated his life to this cause, to the detriment of his health.

Take a moment and consider what you'll do (note, not what you would do, but what you will do, because it's imminent in our future) without oil. Consider that it's responsible for your computer, cell phone, electricity, clothes, and most of what's in the grocery store. If that doesn't instill a sense of fear in your heart, I want to know what you're taking so I can have some too.

Christmas shopping

Okay, so Christmas is pretty much happening any second and I'm sort of in denial about it. No, not really, but I only have to buy one gift. One gift! And I'm not going out to do it.

I bought my aunt a Christmas ornament. We mail each other presents each year. I was going to go out and get her a Swarovski ornament for her tree, but then realized that (a) there's an online store and (b) they would ship it to her with greater speed and less muss and fuss, without me having to stand in line at the post office during the holiday season.

The Dude and I are getting each other kittens (yay!) in the new year for Christmas. It's going to be a somewhat pricey endeavour, hence the allocation of Christmas monies for the cause.

I made bracelets for the Dude's mom and stepmom. And we did a corny Christmas photo shoot for framing as a secondary gift-type thing.

My brother is all that's left. He wants toiletries or other such practical things. Easy enough. But I keep avoiding the task. It's the only gift that involved me doing anything outside the house. I keep thinking how cold and unpleasant it is out there and then I put it off. What the hell is that about? I mean, other than the obvious fact that working from home has made me grown soft.

I'm beginning to see why people who work from home get dressed. I never do, and I think it's the snuggly pyjama feeling that keeps me indoors so much, now combined with an aversion to the cold and slush. Getting dressed means you're serious about doing something with your day. Staying in PJs means fuck it.

In past years when I had more to buy, I'd go out and get everything done in one shot after careful planning about what I'd buy and where. I'd come home with a sense of accomplishment. Thanks to reduced Christmas shopping needs and the internet, that's just not happening this year.

I have a few days left to make it happen. I'll get it done. I have to, otherwise I'm a bad sister.

A step up by going down

I have a problem with moving. And by that I mean I move constantly. I've mentioned this before, probably when I moved the last time, in 2009, to this place. I keep finding a reason to pack 'er up and hit the dusty trail. Usually it's neighbour related, combined with some other issue.

For example, in the Village, they raised my rent, and I had a showdown with a neighbour in the laundry room. Guy was commandeering all four washes and four dryers for himself, and was planning on four more loads. Wouldn't let me use one. That's not why I moved, really, but it was awkward running into him on the elevator. More so because I lived on the second floor and had no business taking the elevator.

In Parkdale my neighbours were trash. C-word screaming, delinquent teenage daughter raising, smoking in the halls trash. And I just started working at home and didn't have enough space.

In Christie Pitts, The neighbour downstairs smoked in the house, and we shared air vents. So we were smelling it whenever we were home. The Dude, trying to quit the cancer sticks, was being driven out of his mind. Plus it was too cold, and then too hot, and too expensive.

Where we are now, there's the opera singer. It's also got temperature issues and the ladies downstairs act like they own the whole building, and yet neglect the duties that come with it, such as taking out the garbage.

What's all this got to do with anything? Well, they've moving out in the spring, presumably back to Australia, as they're selling off all their belongings. We've been offered dibs on their place. Why both move downstairs? Well, there's a few large bonuses.

1. The temperature is normal downstairs. When it says 21 C, it's really 21 degrees. Upstairs it's 17, but down there it's all gravy.

2. They have a yard. We have a deck that is too small for more than three people, but they have a real, honest-to-God yard. A yard in Toronto is like the promised land. We could plant vegetables and have people out for a barbeque. You can tell it jazzes me because I made two religious allusions and I'm sort of a heathen.

3. Two bedrooms. There's a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and living room on the ground floor, and in the basement there's another living space and a bedroom. I could finally have a proper office. We'd have more space for our at-home work.

4. There's a door going to the laundry room. No more going outside in January in -14 weather. Actually, I beg the Dude to do that for me, but I wouldn't have to anymore.

5. A real kitchen. We're making do in a box of a half-assed attempt at a kitchen, where the room gets so cold the butter may as well be in the fridge, and there's no space to contain non-perishables or small appliances. There's storage, and space and counters downstairs. We could live like real people.

6. The bedroom is bigger. Things are a little squeezed in this place. It'd be nice to have more room, as the Dude's stuff is kind of everywhere 'cause it's got nowhere else to go.

And the cost? $200 more a month, $100 more a piece. Sounds like a no-brainer, doesn't it? Yes and no. By the time we move in and till the wedding, we'll have paid $1,400 more in rent. It's not like we can't use that right now. Also, we'd pay 20% more in utilities, which will be an extra $50 every two months. Again, not helpful when you're trying to save.

Ah, life. I'm a "bargain shopper" as it were. I don't buy into extravagance. Even when I spoil myself, I look for deals and scale back. I'm the same with my home life. I've never splurged on an apartment. This is barely a splurge either, this downstairs place, it's just better.

And the move would be ridiculous. Just call a buddy or two and move things downstairs at our leisure. Done. No truck, no loads of boxes, no deadlines, no driving around the city or worrying about stuff breaking.

This probably isn't the time to be frugal. This could be a chance at a life-changing upgrade.

Christmas cards

I'm doing Christmas cards. In years past it was so easy. Now it's a lengthy process. It's not just the gathering of addresses either, though that has been a task of the ages (as I broke my hard drive and lost my entire address book). I write personal messages in each one. I don't enjoy only signing my name and then sending it off. I don't like the cards to speak for me. If I'm sending someone mail, surely I have got something of my own to say. But this task has grown since the Dude entered my life in a serious fashion. And now since his family will be my family, I'm sending cards to his loved ones, too.

Now, he's not leaving it all to me. He gathered all the addresses for me, bought the stamps and mailed them out. He's on his way out soon to buy some more, because 24 wasn't enough to get all our families and social circle covered. What do you get when two people from Catholic families get engaged? Gigantic Christmas card lists. And an even bigger guest list for the wedding. Dear me. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Last year I made my own. So I had to get particular about who I sent them to because I had roughly a dozen of them. Then people were bummed out not to get a card, so I had to nix that idea this year, and forevermore until I can find the time to handcraft about 30+ cards. One thing that generally spurns me on to send them at all is that people really seem to genuinely enjoy the cards. I get comments on it all the time.

And I think that says a lot about a few things in general:

One, people love getting cheerful things in the mail. Two, people feel special when you make things personal, and Three, no one ever gets handwritten anything anymore. No one sends letters. And I think that's what got me going in the first place. And what kills me is how much my penmanship has suffered. I didn't really learn to type till I was 14, and didn't have a computer in my house till I was 15. I wrote everything. And I think most people have gotten out of the habit of handwriting. One more reason it's so important to try.

If there's any time to revive old cherished forms of communication and to go out of your way to do something a little special, Christmas is the time. I never want to feel too busy to do it. I don't think I will. It makes me really happy.