I just had the most delicious tomato sandwich of my life. Twas a tomato from my own garden. My garden, this year, is absolutely pathetic. For 3 months, may-august, the critical months for a garden, I was too sick to tend to it. Now there's big empty patches, dwarfed little pea pods, sickly beet leaves and bitter overgrown carrots. The dill has gone to seed, and the lettuce is cramped and anemic. But the tomatoes! Oh my yes, the tomatoes are delicious. Meaty and sweet. I really should have taken a photo of the first one.
Also, I must say, to my surprise, the pumpkin patch is insanely flourishing. I want the pumpkins to grow as big as well fed raccoons. Like one I saw loping past the window the other night at 4am when I couldn't sleep. Big, fat, fuzzy raccoon, sauntering it's bulk around with his little robber mask on.
T is currently distracting me by singing an improvisational song about going to get coffee that ended with a tap dance.
Back to the tomato. I'd been eyeing it for days, waiting for it to be perfectly ripe. This morning I woke up knowing it was time. I went out in the early morning rain (must download some Gordon Lightfoot), in my pajamas to pick it and broke breakfast tradition slightly by having a sandwich. A perfect, delicious tomato sandwich that I really did consider photo worthy and nearly immortalized it for posterity's sake. Instead, I decided that actually eating it was too pressing and there was no time for dilly-dallying. I totally ate that sandwich. Delightful. R.I.P. in my stomach tomato. You served me well.
I think I might need to get out more.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Face it.
So painting. I haven't painted in YEARS. Maybe a tiny thing here and there, painfully excreted, but not real sitting down and "lovin' every minute of it" painting. Maybe it's the therapy, maybe it's the hormones, maybe it's both, whatever, I've been painting and really enjoying it. It clicked all of a sudden: I can draw a face and paint it in and I don't need a reason or a point other than I love doing it. So hah!
Some work out, some don't. The ones that don't, I chuck in the garbage and keep on truckin'. I couldn't care less because I feel like I have about a million in me. Who needs to write stories or illustrate events, really, I can say everything I want to with faces.
Some work out, some don't. The ones that don't, I chuck in the garbage and keep on truckin'. I couldn't care less because I feel like I have about a million in me. Who needs to write stories or illustrate events, really, I can say everything I want to with faces.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Tumult, vortexes of despair and glistening lakes of resolution.
Jeebus, what a tumultuous few days.
On a whim Friday, I looked at apartments on craigslist(Idle hands, devil's work etc... ). I saw a great looking one, told T, he agreed, made an appointment, we go see, we love, we sign application. Just like that. Whirlwind like, not a whole lot of thought. Stimulus,reaction.
The woman emails us, to say our credit check was good and we are her first choice and it's more or less ours, but she needs proof we can get out of our lease for October. We tell her we can get new tennants but not before having a new lease of our own.
She emails Friday to say she's considered it, she trusts us and we can come at 6pm to sign the lease.
Wow! We think. Amazing! We have a new place in less than 48hours. A 2 bedroom corner with a place for a dishwasher, washer and dryer, 2 balconies, across from a park and 10 minutes from T's school. We make the calls, we send out emails, we smile...
3 hours before our scheduled meeting, she calls T to say that she hasn't got through to his school to confirm that he works as a teacher and researcher there and that another appointment had been made to view the apartment that night by the current tenant of the place so she would have to wait until Monday to decide. WHAT???? But he showed her payslips! And the good credit check...
Can you believe that? T tries one last effort of going to find the woman at school that the landlady is trying to reach, asking her to be sure to be there and answer her phone that afternoon, tells the landlady to try calling again, but we don't hear back from her. Just like that, after promising us a lease, she smacks us with this news and refuses to negotiate.
Now, it is a very competitive market for renters here in Montreal. I realize that if you want something, you have to play the game and compete and put up with some shit sometimes. Here's the thing though: Screw that.
There is no thing out there, apartment or otherwise, that for me, is worth being treated like crap to get. No way. I don't want to make a deal with someone who would do that to people. I don't care how great the place was. It hurt, believe me, it hurt bad, but only temporarily for it is but a thing.
We emailed her and very politely told her she was shameful, we deserved better treatment and to stick her apartment up her ass.
Then we vortexed into panic. All of a sudden, after resigning months ago to stay where we were, despite certain upcoming difficulties about winter and space for a baby, we were in the mode of move, move, move!!!
We had already posted ads to find new tenants to replace us (which would have had to happen before we could move anywhere since we were breaking our lease), we were in the mindset of talking ourselves out of this place...With no assurance we could find new tenants, and no assurance we could find the right place after that in time for October, we despaired and agonized. Would our landlord give us a good reference again after we had suddenly announced all this out of the blue? Would we end up having to take a crappy new place at the last second??? Would we have time for anything other than stress until it was all resolved?
Finally, Saturday, we sat the F down and talked about it like sane people. We drew time lines, we made charts, we assessed statistical probabilities and weighed outcomes on money, stress and happiness scales(all courtesy of T's engineering mind, which I do indeed appreciate being married to). The result: we should stay where we bloody are. It was such a relief. We talked to our landlord, he was happy, we were happy. Everyone's happy. In fact, I haven't felt so positive about this place since I first moved in.
It might be 2nd trimester hormones, but I am feeling some serious happiness. Like a huge, massive, ugly, stinky boulder has been lifted off my shoulders by deciding to stay here and having found solutions to the reasons that made us doubt this place as viable. I woke up this morning to the sun shining so brilliantly on the lake it was blinding white. The humid air had lifted and a cool breeze blew threw the curtains. My pumpkin patch was in early morning full bloom with the promise of many pumpkins this fall and I heard nothing but birds and leaves blowing in the breeze. That, my friends, ain't nothing to sneeze at. That is some good stuff.
Lessons, dear friend. Lessons of life and all that poop.
Now enjoy some of the good reasons of being here:
On a whim Friday, I looked at apartments on craigslist(Idle hands, devil's work etc... ). I saw a great looking one, told T, he agreed, made an appointment, we go see, we love, we sign application. Just like that. Whirlwind like, not a whole lot of thought. Stimulus,reaction.
The woman emails us, to say our credit check was good and we are her first choice and it's more or less ours, but she needs proof we can get out of our lease for October. We tell her we can get new tennants but not before having a new lease of our own.
She emails Friday to say she's considered it, she trusts us and we can come at 6pm to sign the lease.
Wow! We think. Amazing! We have a new place in less than 48hours. A 2 bedroom corner with a place for a dishwasher, washer and dryer, 2 balconies, across from a park and 10 minutes from T's school. We make the calls, we send out emails, we smile...
3 hours before our scheduled meeting, she calls T to say that she hasn't got through to his school to confirm that he works as a teacher and researcher there and that another appointment had been made to view the apartment that night by the current tenant of the place so she would have to wait until Monday to decide. WHAT???? But he showed her payslips! And the good credit check...
Can you believe that? T tries one last effort of going to find the woman at school that the landlady is trying to reach, asking her to be sure to be there and answer her phone that afternoon, tells the landlady to try calling again, but we don't hear back from her. Just like that, after promising us a lease, she smacks us with this news and refuses to negotiate.
Now, it is a very competitive market for renters here in Montreal. I realize that if you want something, you have to play the game and compete and put up with some shit sometimes. Here's the thing though: Screw that.
There is no thing out there, apartment or otherwise, that for me, is worth being treated like crap to get. No way. I don't want to make a deal with someone who would do that to people. I don't care how great the place was. It hurt, believe me, it hurt bad, but only temporarily for it is but a thing.
We emailed her and very politely told her she was shameful, we deserved better treatment and to stick her apartment up her ass.
Then we vortexed into panic. All of a sudden, after resigning months ago to stay where we were, despite certain upcoming difficulties about winter and space for a baby, we were in the mode of move, move, move!!!
We had already posted ads to find new tenants to replace us (which would have had to happen before we could move anywhere since we were breaking our lease), we were in the mindset of talking ourselves out of this place...With no assurance we could find new tenants, and no assurance we could find the right place after that in time for October, we despaired and agonized. Would our landlord give us a good reference again after we had suddenly announced all this out of the blue? Would we end up having to take a crappy new place at the last second??? Would we have time for anything other than stress until it was all resolved?
Finally, Saturday, we sat the F down and talked about it like sane people. We drew time lines, we made charts, we assessed statistical probabilities and weighed outcomes on money, stress and happiness scales(all courtesy of T's engineering mind, which I do indeed appreciate being married to). The result: we should stay where we bloody are. It was such a relief. We talked to our landlord, he was happy, we were happy. Everyone's happy. In fact, I haven't felt so positive about this place since I first moved in.
It might be 2nd trimester hormones, but I am feeling some serious happiness. Like a huge, massive, ugly, stinky boulder has been lifted off my shoulders by deciding to stay here and having found solutions to the reasons that made us doubt this place as viable. I woke up this morning to the sun shining so brilliantly on the lake it was blinding white. The humid air had lifted and a cool breeze blew threw the curtains. My pumpkin patch was in early morning full bloom with the promise of many pumpkins this fall and I heard nothing but birds and leaves blowing in the breeze. That, my friends, ain't nothing to sneeze at. That is some good stuff.
Lessons, dear friend. Lessons of life and all that poop.
Now enjoy some of the good reasons of being here:
