A Skewed View

.... I got it! I am now a (volunteer) audience assistant for CBC's Battle of the Blades. (www.cbc.ca/battle/index.php) Hockey players and figure skaters. It's like I'm living my brother's and sister's dreams. Wait a minute -- I'm part of a tv production, so it's my dream too! A trifecta! There is no pay. But they will give me subway tokens, so at least I'm not out any money. And the company hires from within -- and they consider volunteers "within" -- so if I play extra nice and helpful and don't push any jerk audience members down Maple Leaf Gardens' stairs for giving me guff, I may be able to parlay this into more than subway tokens. I think it will be fun. And I know it will get me out of my apartment two nights a week until the end of November. Maybe I can meet Ron Maclean. That would be cool.

I know what you’re thinking. You were there for me for the bathtub. You were waiting with me for the sink. But what about the important stuff? What about the reason why you visit my blog in the first place? My parents will be home from China any day now, and I have every confidence that the first thing my mom will do – other than try to earn back the love and respect of the yappy, hairy four-legged children whom she boarded while gallivanting in the Far East – is check in here to find out: Am I working? No. No I am not. But I’m close. Well, as close as I ever was once I moved to T.O. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that my options have not yet been exhausted. So, I guess I’m not “close” as much as I am “not farther away”. “ You’ve got to acc-cen-tuate the positive, e-lim-inate the negative ...” There’s been a general lack of interest on the part of employers in the resumes I’ve sent out for a variety of office jobs as well as production jobs. About a week and a half ago I...

Twenty-one days later -- my bathroom is done. I had forgotten that bathrooms come with sinks. I actually walked past it this afternoon to wash my hands in the bathtub like I had been doing for the last week (after living two weeks without a bathtub -- no, I haven't forgotten that!). I didn't even share with you what had happened yesterday, because I was a bit too ticked and tired. I asked the manager (or, who I had always thought was the manager -- but wait for it) on Monday when the plumber was planning to come back. Nothing. Called her again yesterday -- she told me to speak to the manager because she had been speaking to her everyday and the manager obviously needs a different push. Uh, I thought she was the manager. No. Turns out she's just some onsite ... I don't even know what. Fine. So I called the woman who is actually the manager. I honestly and truly really hadn't intended to be confrontational or angry, but then the woman said "Okay, do me a favour ...

Yup. Seventeen days later, and the bathroom is still not done. A perfectly good sink was removed in order to access the tiles that need to come out in order to replace the tub. Then ... never returned. I called the manager on Wednesday to find out where the sink went and why -- a week after the tub was complete -- was it never put back. Nothing. So I called again on Friday, at which point she swore she thought everything was finished. She got the plumber back by that afternoon -- with a second hand, small, filthy sink that he was going to install in place of the large perfectly fine sink he had removed seventeen days ago. No. NO! I have waited this long. It will not have been for a second hand, small, filthy sink! When the manager was there, I questioned the plumber about where the old sink is, why it was removed in the first place, and what happened to the new sink that I saw in my front room when the tub was being replaced. He admitted that they had bought a new sink (...

Turns out, they did get it almost done on Tuesday. I wasn't going to take a picture until it was all done ... but of course, once it was "almost done", I fell to the bottom of their to-do list and haven't seen them since. Still ... So there is a tiny patch in the corner, and of course the gaping chasm between the tub and the rest of the floor. And no sink. Tuesday they said they'd come back the next day to fix these little oversights, and to give me a sink. Colour me surprised that no one showed up yesterday (*see "fell to bottom of to-do list"). I was trying to hold off on cleaning the place until everything was done, because I knew if I didn't then I'd just have to do it twice. But oh good gravies how I could not take one more milli-second living amidst the omnipresent layer of fine dust and random debris. So yesterday when it became clear no one was going to come finish the job, I hauled out the Pine Sol and a bucket to wash down the whole bat...