A Skewed View

Uh ... yes, okay, I see the right side of the wall is patched. And ... uh ... there's more crap sitting in the tub. But it is still not me sitting in the tub. 11:30 a.m. on Monday. No maintenance guy. Because he popped his head in half an hour ago to say that he won't be working on my bathroom today because he has to finish the other suite -- people are moving in to it tomorrow. Meaning I have no backup bathroom as of right now. I said to the guy "So now I'm screwed." "No," he says "I'll finish tomorrow." (side note: look at what is left. do YOU think he'll finish tomorrow?!) So I say "Okay. So tomorrow I'll have a sink and I'll have a tub I can bathe in." "Yes" He says. "Okay." What am I going to say? "Thank you." "So I'll try to do it tomorrow." He just had to keep talking. "Wait. You'll TRY?" "No, I'll do it." It's like he spoke out loud whe...

Basically, the tiles were destroyed and the old tub was taken out and the new tub was put in by 3 p.m. on Wednesday. It is 11:30 a.m. on Friday, and this is as much of a new tub as I have. The maintenance guy worked until maybe 5 p.m. on Wednesday (for about two hours after the plumber had removed the old tub and put in the new one). Showed at 11 a.m. yesterday, worked for, I'd say, two hours. Left. Returned between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. (because he wasn't here when I went grocery shopping, he was when I came back) and worked until 6 p.m. So that's, what? Three hours on Thursday? Four if he showed up the second I left for grocery shopping. He just dropped off some stuff a second ago, and left again. He and the superintendant both say how much they want to get the tub and sink installed so I can "get back [my] apartment". But I have severe doubts that the above can be turned into a working tub and sink by the end of today ... so I guess I spend the weekend walking down...

First, they have to destroy the tiles around the old one, to get at it: Then they pull the old tub out through my bedroom closet, apparently: So this is what a bathroom without a tub looks like, for anyone who is curious. AND note, it would appear that upon seeing my bathroom sink, the plumber decided it best to replace that sucker too. Which may or may not be a good thing. I can't see from the packaging what the new sink is going to look like. I kind of liked the old sink. It was wide and shallow, which perhaps is an odd thing to like in a bathroom sink, but I did. Now, you can't really tell because of all the crap that is in it, but this is my new bathtub: One would think that the first thing one would do with a new tub is NOT use it as a garbage receptacle for broken tiles. Could easily explain how the old tub got damaged to the point that it had to be replaced in the first place. As you can see, my bathroom is still non-user-friendly. When I first arrived, my toilet was n...

One of the six television channels I get without cable shows documentaries on various wildlife on Saturdays (thus the musings on elephants last week). Today's was on whales stranding themselves on shore, and trying to figure out why they would embark on this suicidal mission. The theory in some situations was that, best as they can tell, sonar testing by the navies of the world drive whales to flee the water, possibly to avoid whatever the sonar is doing to their insides. The documentary had footage of a pod of dolphins and a pod of whales frantically avoiding an ship that was known to be testing sonar, heading like a tidal wave towards the shore. The heads of two of the whales who actually did beach themselves were given a CT scan, and the brains were shown to be damaged. They note that this did not prove the direction of the causation (did the sonar damage the brain thus preventing the whale from recognizing it was heading to the beach, or did the fury of the retreat and sub...

Just as gosh darn adorable as the days when my mom would cut my bangs before sending me off for school pictures and use christmas ribbon to tie back my hair. (seriously mom, I know we had some lean years ... but just how darn expensive were bobblers back then?)

Just a few hours short of ten years ago, I was sitting in my newly purchased KITT, on the upper level of WEM. I had just come out of a movie and was pondering how the next morning I was going to be 30 years old. I sat and I sat and I thought and I thought, and I just could not summon the angst one sees in all the television shows and movies about my impending age. I had no great ephiphany while sitting there, until boom! It hit me! If I was sitting there, almost 30, that would mean ... one day I'd be almost 40. I drove away, satisfied that I had had some kind of emotional reaction to being 30. And poof. Like some psychic vision come true, here I am. About a day away from being 40. And still ... no angst. I don't even feel any great attachment to the knowledge that this means I will one day be 50. Well, okay, just typing that out right there, there was a twinge. But I don't anticipate it is going to mean a whole lot to me. I've come to terms with the fact that...

I've been pretty lazy and lethargic this weekend. The heat has come, and brought with it my overpowering desire to nap every few hours. Mercifully my bedroom stays the coolest room in my apartment, but that means that my bed beckons me almost all day. That being said, it's not too bad. A few cool showers, sitting with a bottle of frozen water behind my neck, sticking my feet in a basin of ice water ... it's not too bad. I have started talking back to my tv, though. Well I guess it isn't technically talking "back", because it isn't like the tv is talking "to" me in the first place. Yesterday I was watching a fascinating and tear jerking documentary exploring the possible causes of elephant rage. It started by showing footage of an elephant herd tearing apart a village apparently for no reason because they weren’t looking for food. Turns out the villagers had “accidentally” killed one of the baby elephants earlier in the day, and had dragged the ca...

Today was a rather casual Friday for me. I spent almost all yesterday online checking out websites of Toronto production companies to try to determine where to send one of the three scripts I have completed. It's not as easy as it sounds. I need to choose companies that have made movies similar to the ones I've written, so that I know they are in the market for my kind of stories and tone. Basically I took note of any company that says they will read anything. =) Most of today was spent in frustration over the fact that my freezer will not keep my ice cream frozen. That has to be one of the most awful kitchen occurences. Well, it's a close second to the fact that, in an attempt to reduce the temperature in the freezer, I turned down the only dial there exists in my appliance - namely the temperature dial in my fridge. So now I have squishy ice cream and frozen solid skim milk. But I did get fantastic news! Check out my icky gag-inducing tub: From that perspective, it just l...

With seven days to go in my 30s, my thoughts go to 25 years ago, the last time I spent an extended period of time in Toronto. I was 15 years old, on an academic exchange with a junior high in Scarborough, and obsessed with Michael Jackson. And obsessed with my hair, actually. I wore my hair curled in a specific way, always carried a comb and mirror, and constantly checked that the curl was "just so". So much, in fact, that my first night at my billet's house was spent sneaking into the bathroom, quietly curling my hair "just so", then laying stiffly in bed so as to not mess my hair -- all because I wasn't sure I'd have enough time in the morning to do my hair properly... but that's not the point of this post. Within days of when I was supposed to move here, Michael Jackson died and became the hottest gossip item, just as he had been in 1984. (I didn't know if that was a good or a bad sign for my move.) Much has changed since 1984. My hair ca...

Today was Service Ontario day. Monday was supposed to be Service Ontario day, but it would appear a passport is required and my passport did not accompany me on my travails on Monday. So, today was Service Ontario Day. And by that, I mean I applied for my Ontario driver's license today. I still walk past signs with the Ontario logo on it and think "oh god I'm in Ontario". Never once was that a goal of mine. Never. I often now flash back to when I was in Toronto 25 years ago (ouch) as a naive small town grade nine girl and the comments the kids from Toronto would make. Like when we were back in Pincher Creek and walking someplace. As soon as the kids from Pincher would hit a curb, we would automatically step off to cross the street. The kids from Toronto would be confused - left behind on the curb because they would never think of just stepping off to cross a street in Toronto. As they rushed up to catch up with us, they exclaimed "Hey! No one runs you o...

I have never had such a view from my balcony before. I think ever since I moved out of university residence, I've had a balcony in my apartment. But never a balcony like this: At night, I just have sky and city skyline in front of my balcony. (well, I have them in day too, but they're more sparkly and twinkelish at night) I've taken so many pictures over the last few weeks, few of which came out very nicely. One day perhaps I shall become a skilled enough photographer to adjust my own exposure times and aperature ratings -- but until that day, I must take what my camera gives me. The last few nights in particular, the moon has been quite spectacular -- and last night, the full moon travelled through quite the obstacle course of cloud cover: Simply had to share.

One of the biggest changes I’ve experienced moving to Toronto was my new winged neighbours. I never had any problems with pigeons on my balconies in any of the places I’ve lived in Edmonton. But for some reason, the word got out of my relocation and I had a plethora of pigeons strutting around my balcony and leaving me little welcome gifts by time I had arrived. Of all the things I regretted leaving behind at the wildlife shelter, scraping poo was definitely not one of them. I was not about to embrace that task in my new life if it did not come hand in hand with the occasional opportunity to hand feed (okay, cuddle) baby flying squirrels. Now, you know that I endeavour to adopt a live and let live attitude with creatures lower down on the food chain than myself. I’ll try to capture and release spiders or flies rather than kill them just because they are in my home. They don’t want to be there anymore than I want to see them there. But I have limits. If they try to take me on, I...