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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
thefirstalicat's LiveJournal:
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| Monday, May 12th, 2008 | | 2:14 pm |
A Good and Bad Day The good news is, I finally went over to the radiology clinic, picked up my mammograms and ultrasounds from this year and from 2005, and took same to the breast clinic at the Jewish General - where a radiologist will review them and decide what tests, if any, should be done. It's a bit of a stressful set-up, though, in that the clinic gets its schedule of patients a week before those appointments are set, so therefore they don't contact patients until the week before they will be scheduled for an appointment, which could be anytime within the next four weeks to three months. I'm assuming that if the radiologist sees something potentially significant, that patient gets called earlier than one whose studies show little or no real problem. Which means I don't expect to hear from them for around three months, into August that is. Nevertheless, my part of that arrangement is finally done! The bad news is that FedEx has apparently lost my most recent parcel of work! It was picked up in SF on Thursday, but when checking the tracking number online, I saw it wasn't picked up until after 6 PM that day, which meant it missed the plane that evening and would not be expected to go out until Friday, arriving here on Saturday and being delivered today. Unfortunately, when I looked up the tracking number again this morning, it still said it had been picked up in SF on Thursday at 6:15 or whenever, and nothing more. I called and the FedEx agent had no further information about the parcel, which means it's lost. They opened a file to try to track it, and were supposed to get back to me, but it's 5 hours since I talked to them and I've yet to hear anything. I'm gonna wait another hour and then call them back to see if there's any action, after which I'll have to call my boss. He's liable to flip out, depending on what was in the parcel - if it's got interview tapes, he should have the back-up(s) still, and if it's records, he can have his secretary photocopy them again, but if it's changes to make in a report and then send out as final, or if it's his dictated summary and conclusions, he will have to do those things over again....In the meantime, for me it means at least one day (today) without work and therefore without income, which is kind of a drag.... Not too much of a drag, though, as having no work meant I could get the above-mentioned errand done finally, plus I've thoroughly cleaned the first floor kitchen and bathroom in preparation for my mother's arrival on Wednesday. I still have the bedroom and library to do, but I don't think the floors need mopping this time around, so it's just a matter of dusting and vacuuming, easily enough done tomorrow morning (while waiting for a call about my FedEx package having been delivered at Henry's, hopefully). So I suppose that's a plus, too. Then again, the vote I sent back to San Francisco last week (for Nancy Pelosi, who's up for re-election and who is "my" Congressperson in the sense that if I still lived where I last lived in SF, she'd be my Representative) was returned by Canada Post because it didn't have enough postage on it. Though being a vote, no postage is needed in the US, mailing from Canada means paying for it - double, apparently, since I can't reuse the stamp I put on it and had to put two new ones on. Good thing the election isn't until early June, so I've still got time to mail it in! Current Mood:  okay | | Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 | | 4:36 pm |
I Love Early May! Well, this early May anyway - first the new Donna Leon, The Girl of His Dreams, arrived in the mail last Friday (why yes, I have already finished it, why do you ask?), and then today the new Elizabeth George, Careless In Red, showed up. Not only that, but the fourth Rick Riordan YA book about young demi-god Percy, The Battle of the Labyrinth, arrived as well! Whoooweeee! Yay, Amazon.ca! Right, I'm disappearing into the Riordan now, see ya.... Current Mood:  ecstatic | | Monday, May 5th, 2008 | | 8:35 pm |
We've Been Busy You know, I've not been posting here a lot lately, mainly because I've got a lot of stuff going on and haven't had much time to sit and sort them all out. Becoming a homeowner carries a lot more "stuff to do" than I'd realized! I mean, we literally haven't gone out to a movie since "Michael Clayton" on February 9 - there have been movies that we wanted to see, but we just haven't had time, what with catching up with telly shows (on telly and on DVD) on weekday evenings and shopping for house stuff/organizing the stuff we shopped for on the weekends. This past Saturday was a "day of transitions" as Chris noted at dinner Saturday night - we took all of our keys back to the old place to turn them in, and read the electricity meter to close out our account (yes, we've been paying rent, electricity and gas on the apartment for four months, but nobody was living there during that time). We also went back to the funeral home and bought the urns, so that we're ready now to transfer the ashes. Sunday was back to the Home Depot for more stuff, like a rake, garden hose, hanging basket, etc. etc. All this time we've been trying to plan and organize what we want to do with the back yard, but it's been difficult to know how to start. I'd hoped we could get the fence in by simply calling in the Home Depot people to do it, but their installation service requires a minimum of 70 feet of fencing to be installed and we only have about 45 feet (only one side needs to be fenced, is the problem). I'd also hoped their landscaping service could help with removing the gravel and stones, putting down the sod and removing two cedars that did not survive the winter, but they require a minimum of $2,500 worth of work to use that service, and I'm not intending to plant the whole thing professionally this year, which would pretty much be what they'd do at that price! Fortunately, today my friend M came through with the name and number of someone - she is in the midst of having her own house repaired and renovated in order to sell it and of course won't give up her own contractor while that work's going on, but her mother's physiotherapist swears by this landscaper, who I'm given to understand is expecting our call. I plan to call tomorrow, and hopefully will at least get him to come out to look at what needs doing and give an estimate, or failing that he can pass me on to someone who does the grunt work if he doesn't do it himself. I'm feeling a little pressed for time on this because back in February I ordered some astilbes (sp?) which I thought would look wonderful against a fence, and the plants arrived here last week; given that the mail-order catalogue sends the plants or seeds out when time's ripe for planting them, these are supposed to go into the ground asap. But they can't go into the ground until I have a fence, at least, so I'm worried they'll get fucked up by being unplanted for a long period....Anyway, hopefully tomorrow will set us on our way, finally! I've also not yet followed up on the breast clinic thing my doc wants me to do, or at least only called them. But the way this clinic works is, you have to gather all your mammograms and ultrasounds yourself, as well as any written reports about those studies, and take them to the clinic along with your doctor's referral, and the clinicians there will then evaluate the information and decide if a biopsy is needed. Since getting all that stuff and finding the clinic (with which I'm not familiar, in a part of town I don't know) is a hassle, and since it's 99% sure that they'll say "nah, not needed," I've been taking my time on this thing. But I only have a little bit of work to do tomorrow (unless more comes via FedEx), so probably I'll try to do it tomorrow too. At least then it will be out of my hands and I won't feel guilty for not doing something that I should have done! Meantime, we're starting to think about what to get ready for my mother's pending visit - she's arriving on May 14th, will be here until the 28th I believe, which is the longest visit either way that we've had since I moved here (usually we go there for a week, or she comes here for a week - not 2 whole weeks!). I would like to either have the basic garden stuff done before she arrives or while she's here, because one reason for this visit (aside from the fact that we haven't seen each other for, well, I can't remember how many years, at least two I think) is for her to help me plan this garden of mine, and it's very hard to visualize what space we actually have until we get the fence put in and know exactly how much land we have to work with. But we also need to make sure the downstairs kitchen is stocked for her, and stuff like that, and I only have a bit more than a week to prepare all of that. Plus, Wednesday is Chris's birthday (yay!) and I need to do stuff around that (including reserving for dinner on Friday, which I forgot to do today). And this coming Saturday is our second monthly "Get Smart" night - we have the DVDs of the first season of that amazing show, and have committed to showings once a month, when we invite all and sundry of friends who want to see 3 or 4 episodes, with popcorn of course! That means making sure the place is clean - well, this week is my "clean the second floor" week and since that's where we'll be, that works out nicely - and hoping that most people will RSVP as requested so we can figure out the chair/cushion-on-the-floor set-up. These are fun things, Chris's b-day and "Get Smart," but still require some work on my part.... So, long post to explain why I'm not posting much lately. But I'll say this - I'd much rather have many things going on that I need to think about and work out how to do than to be sitting around bored out of my mind! I haven't touched upon reading and telly and DVDs, but you can be sure those things are keeping me busy too - it's probably just as well that my work-for-pay hasn't been hugely demanding lately, as I'm not sure when I'd get it done! Current Mood:  busyCurrent Music: "Got the Time," by Joe Jackson (ticking in my head) | | Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 | | 7:54 pm |
Writer's Block: Life Changing Experiences
1. That 2 AM wake-up call from my mother when I was 14. Easily the most traumatic night of my life, when my drunken father, in a rage while at his mistress's apartment, decided he was going to kill my mother and stormed out to do just that. Luckily the mistress called my mom and warned her, and she woke me up and together we fled in the middle of the night (leaving younger brother Ian at home - Rich was in England at the time - but all that's another story). The nadir of life with my family-of-origin, the totality of which continues to haunt and shape me 35 years later. 2. Graduating as the "Hood Recipient" for my year. At San Francisco State University, one person is designated the "hood recipient," chosen to represent all the graduates of a given year because it's a fairly large school and it would simply take too long to hand out all the Bachelor degrees individually; in 1983, I was that person, not because of high academic achievement (I was only "cum laude," not "magna," and my GPA was only 3.6 if I remember right), but because I had chosen to create my own major, developed a schedule of courses to fulfill that major and written a 250+-page "thesis" to complete my studies, which itself is graduate-level work. The thesis title? "The Goddess in Greek, Celtic and American Indian Mythology: A Comparative Study." The whole time I was writing it, I felt I was acting as a "clerk" (cleric) for the Goddess, Who was dictating it to me. 3. The day I knew I loved Chris and he loved me. Oddly, I can't pinpoint the exact day, I can only say it was between late April 1995, when he came to San Francisco and we met in person (we'd met in cyberspace, on the RockNet forum on CompuServe, some months before), and July of 1995, when I came to visit him in Montreal for the first time. Somewhere in those four months, our correspondence grew and our phone calls began, and we fell in love. I remember exactly my thoughts when I realized it, because I initially said to myself (and to him), I can't fall in love, I have to stay here to take care of Ian, and then there came a point where I knew that I had to put my own life before Ian's (for whom I was doing little more than monitoring his Antabuse intake at that point). I would certainly say my life changed - and dramatically at that - when we decided we needed to be together, forever. And I haven't regretted my decision for one moment in the 13 years since our first meeting.... Current Mood:  contemplative | | 7:49 pm |
Books in April ( Dingo, by Charles de Lint. )( The Villa of Mysteries, by David Hewson. )( Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson. )( A Walk in the Dark, by Gianrico Carofiglio. )( Reasonable Doubts, by Gianrico Carofiglio. )( Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris. )( The Facts of Life: A Novel, by Graham Joyce. )( A Tolkien Miscellany, by J.R.R. Tolkien. )( The Paper Moon, by Andrea Camilleri. )( The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones. )At month's end, I'm reading Barbara Vine's (Ruth Rendell's) The Blood Doctor, from a few years ago - so far it's very good and engrossing, but it's a long book and I'm only 1/4 of the way into it. This is only a problem because the brand-new Donna Leon novel in her Brunetti series just arrived here at chez AliCat today, and I'm jonesing for it - but no, I must finish the Vine first because That's How It Is. sniffleHappy reading, all, and Happy Beltaine to all my fellow Celtic Pagans! Current Mood:  happyCurrent Music: The Waterboys, "This Is the Sea" (in honour of Beltaine) | | Monday, April 28th, 2008 | | 7:53 pm |
S-s-s-Spiders! Although I haven't seen many, webs make it evident that they're around. Now me, I'm scared of spiders - I don't know why, or when it started, but they just creep me out altogether (so much so that I once called my then-best friend, now s-i-l, who at the time was living in Seattle while I was in Berkeley, to ask her what to do about a spider I'd seen in the bathroom - yeah, like she's going to get it for me from 500 miles away!). We also have these little black fly thingies - they're not biters, or at any rate we haven't been bit, but they're very small and dart around in humongous clouds, so that I'm scared to open my mouth outside in case some fly in! Putting these together is the fact that in various parts of our backyard, but most especially on the second floor balcony, there are these huge areas of blackness seemingly suspended in mid-air just below the ceiling. Yes, they are spider webs that are positively packed with little black fly-thingies, in droves. Which means, spiders are our friends, after all. Except for the one last night: ( Behind the Cut for Extreme Ickiness - You've Been Warned! ) Current Mood: yikes!Current Music: "Iron Man," in my head, in honour of Robert Downey Jr. | | Saturday, April 26th, 2008 | | 8:17 pm |
Another Good Restaurant in Our New Neighbourhood After trying out Mumbai, an okay Indian restaurant about a 10-minute walk from our place, and Limon, an odd but tasty Mexican restaurant a bit further away, tonight we had the opportunity to try a brand-new restaurant just 5 minutes from home, Bitoque. This bills itself as a Portuguese tapas* restaurant and art gallery - turns out that the fiancee of the part-owner (who runs the place, with his father) is an artist; only 23, but judging by the artwork on the walls of the restaurant (all for sale), a very talented person. The art gallery itself is located downstairs from the restaurant, but we didn't have time to check it out tonight because it was being used for a party - we hope to go back in a few days to see more there, though. Foodwise, it was really really good. I started with a mixed salad, which was made up mostly of bitter greens, cabbage and tart green apple slices (the dressing was mustard-based, which I don't like, but since I'd asked for it on the side, I simply didn't use it) - the bitter and the tart worked together really well. Chris had a shrimp starter, with what he said were very succulent shrimp; his main course was a mussel-and-clam paella, with much rice actually poured into the shells, a bit hard to get out but tasty nonetheless. I had chicken (as ever!) in an excellent tomato-based sauce, with accompanying zucchini, eggplant and yellow pepper slices and pureed potatoes - very good indeed! I didn't go for dessert, as they only had creme brule and creme caramel, neither of which I much like, but Chris enjoyed his creme brule. The only downside was that the wine list was very short - only 3 bottles of white**, two of which were chardonney which I dislike, and one by-the-glass offering. We ordered the non-chardonney bottle, and it was okay, but not as chilled as it should have been. They don't have their full liquor license yet, though, and I expect the wine list will expand once they do. We went without reservations, figuring it would be okay because 1) it was early (6 PM) and 2) the place only opened on April 15th - but as it happened, the tables at the front of the room, a little raised up from the rest of the space, were all reserved and we were seated toward the back because of not having a reservation. But the owner (the father, not the son) greeted us at the door, inquired as to where we'd learned of the place and gave us a brief history of tapas and the specialties of the house before we were even seated, and his sister (who is just helping out at the moment) came by and talked to us several times during the meal. The place wasn't too busy, but then it's the second game of the second round of the hockey playoffs tonight so likely most non-sports-bar places in town are having a slow night. And they were busy with the party downstairs in the art gallery.... All told, we were very happy to find this place, and we'll definitely go back! Their card lists a website at www.bitoque.ca, but when I visited it just now I found it "still under construction" (and only in French). There's a flickr link, though, which doesn't seem to be working yet but which will presumably show the space - and hopefully the art! - soon. We fell in love with a painting of a tree, and might have to go back to buy it when we're feeling a little more flush once again (broke just now, due to taxes). I hope a photo of that won't show up on the website because then someone else might buy it first! *tapas, if you don't know, are much like appetizers, small portions of food, but usually with a bit more heft and oomph to them than mere appetizers generally offer **five of red, with one by-the-glass offering Current Mood: content | | Sunday, April 20th, 2008 | | 2:28 pm |
A Pair of Anniversaries This weekend marks two specific events in my life, one happy and one sad. Yesterday was the 12th anniversary of the day I arrived in Montreal to start my new life with Chris. Okay, so he'd come out to San Francisco the week before to help me with final packing, etc., and we've been together ever since that night (April 12th), but we tend to count the move to Montreal as the anniversary of that time. Had dinner at Benedict's last night to celebrate - they know and like us there, and gave us a fantastic dessert on the house (a banana/vanilla ice cream/caramel sauce/strawberries concoction, very yummy - too bad I was too full to eat much of it!). Today is the first anniversary of the death of Chris's father, Norm. His death was unexpected; the death of Chris's mother Mary, which occurred 8 days later, was expected. I'm rather ashamed to say that, one year later, we still just have their ashes in the boxes given to us at the crematorium, and haven't gotten around to buying urns....Though now, according to Chris, we've got a target date for that - before my Mom arrives for a visit in mid-May. We'll see what happens with that. Meantime, it's a gorgeous day here, we've just returned from a lovely bus ride out to a place where we bought some balcony furniture (to be delivered Thursday), and right now we're about to sit out on the second-floor balcony for a while, Chris in the hammock and me on a chair. Maybe some wild songbirds will fly up to the bird feeder we bought and filled yesterday, hanging on the edge of the second-floor balcony - that would surely make the cats all happy! Current Mood: okay | | Thursday, April 17th, 2008 | | 12:56 pm |
Another Health Task Done I'm breathing a big sigh of relief today, after sticking to my plan and actually going out early this morning to get the blood tests done, yay! Got up at the regular time, but instead of having coffee and reading the paper, I just got dressed, drank some water and headed out. Having just missed two metro trains, I got to the hospital about 7:10 AM, took a number and waited until my number came up - about half an hour. That was for registration only; after turning in the lab sheet that lists the tests the doctor wants done, you get another number and wait until that one is called before you actually get in to see the phlebotomist who draws the blood out of your arm. Today, that wait was about 90 minutes. I finished my newspaper and the book I'd brought with me, and had nothing to read for the last 20 minutes or so, but eventually my number (51; when I finished the registration process, the blood-drawing number was at 17) and got it done. Whew! I was almost exactly 2 hours at the lab, leaving at just about 9:10 AM. Missed two metro trains by seconds on the way home, but I eventually made it home and immediately put on the coffee {g}.... Unfortunately, for almost a week now I've had extremely tight muscles in my right shoulder and back of the neck on the right side. I've been putting it down to anxiety about getting the blood tests done (I tend to carry stress in the shoulders/neck/upper back region), but it's almost 1 PM now and I can still feel it, despite putting a bunch of tigerbalm on the area and also taking some Aleve. Anyway, I figured I could also be having that problem due to using the mouse too much, so I decided to not do any work today in order to limit my typing on the computer (except for this post obviously), and to not use the mouse to play a game later in the day as I usually do. Instead, I've finished cleaning the second floor (this week's task - I'd already dusted, so it was really just vacuuming the whole floor and mopping the two back rooms) and now I'm going to watch Zorba the Greek, which I TIVO'd back in December and haven't gotten around to watching yet. Here's hoping my shoulder tightness works itself out over the next few hours, and that the blood tests all come back normal! Current Mood:  relieved | | Monday, April 14th, 2008 | | 8:05 pm |
Good Me! I absolutely hate making telephone calls these days, especially to people I don't know for services I need to set up. This isn't really a new thing: my old boss in SF used to ask me to make calls about something from time to time, for example getting travel vouchers from the appropriate University office for medical conferences, and he very quickly got very used to asking me to do that sort of thing at least a week earlier than he really needed me to do it, because it would take me a week to "get up the nerve" to make the call. Bizarre, because at that time I also had no problem whatsoever talkikng on the phone with a friend for 3-4 hours at a time. At least those calls at work were professional, done in the course of work duties, whereas making calls from home, whether for "professional" reasons or not, just gradually became more and more intimidating to me.* So I was quite proud of myself this morning, because I made not one but two calls, back to back! The first to the radiological center to make an appointment for mammograms and ultrasounds; the second to the neurology department at the hospital with which my doc is affiliated, to schedule an appointment for EMG of the right hand. The first call resulted in a very fast appointment (it's a private clinic so is easier to schedule) - tomorrow afternoon, ack! The second not so fast - early July for that. Still, I'm glad I've set them up and happy that the first will be done so quickly - I expect no dire results, but it's a relief to be able to have both the mammograms and the ultrasound on the same day, instead of having to go back for the latter as has been the case in the past. I've also committed (by arranging it with Chris) to getting the blood tests done on Thursday - this is a commitment in the sense that it's a fasting test, meaning no coffee in the morning, meaning none for him either; we'll just get up at the usual time and instead of having the coffee machine already going, we'll just dress and head out. Well, Chris can eat something if he wants - it's really just the coffee that's an issue. So tomorrow is the radiology clinic; Wednesday the Pella window guy will be here to replace the cracked window on the third floor finally; Thursday the blood tests will be done; and Friday I can rest {g}....Actually, this coming Saturday is the 12th anniversary of my moving to Montreal - 12 years already! - so getting the major medical stuff out of the way before celebrating that event seems reasonable to me. Hopefully everything will come back clean and I won't have to deal with anything medical until the EMG and blood pressure re-check in July, which right now seems an eternity away.... * so, btw, is answering the phone these days; I'll do it when I'm home alone of course, but if Chris is at home and the phone rings, unless he's in the shower or something he knows I'm not going to get it and he will have to Current Mood:  hopeful | | 7:47 pm |
Food for Thought We had a bunch of friends over on Saturday for the first of what we hope will become monthly "Get Smart" evenings - a friend of our was given the complete run of the 1960s TV show, from 1965 to 1969, and since she doesn't have a DVD player and we have a big screen telly, we offered to host nights at our place where we would show 3-4 episodes to anyone who wanted to come. (At that rate, btw, someone noted that we'll be having monthly "Get Smart" nights for something like the next three years!) It was a fun evening, and everybody loved seeing the old series again, but that's not what I'm posting about. The same friend is, like me, a dual citizen - she's Italian and Canadian. As an Italian citizen, she received a ballot in the mail for the current federal elections there, but she said when it arrived, she simply shredded it. Why, we wondered, and her response was that since she doesn't live in Italy, she didn't feel it was right for her to vote in Italy's elections. Reasonable enough, but it got me thinking - I don't live in the US anymore and am not likely to go back there to live, but I most certainly voted in the primaries and will most certainly vote in November. Not to slight any Italian people or anything, but it seems to me that the US Presidential election is somewhat more crucial to the whole world than the Italian one, and even though obviously my one vote won't make one iota of difference one way or the other, I feel very strongly that if I have the ability to exercise that vote in such a crucial situation, then it's really my duty to do so. Even though, as I said, one single vote doesn't really matter in the US elections because there's a hundred million (or whatever the figure is) being cast. So what do you think, flist people? Is it ethically wrong to vote in elections being held in a country in which you no longer live? Is it morally imperative to vote in any election in which you're entitled to vote, regardless of where you live? I'm curious to hear what others think of this, not that it will sway me from voting. Current Mood:  curiousCurrent Music: "Police and Thieves," Junior Murvin | | Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 | | 8:13 pm |
Bits and Pieces (Mostly Good News) When I looked out at our backyard today, I saw not one, but two tiny circles of lawn peeping through the snow! So I put on my brand-new plastic mud-n-rain boots (made, btw, entirely of recyclable materials, and the company will take them back to recycle the materials again when you've worn them out) and stomped out for a look. Chris and I had stomped out onto the lawn snow for the first time on Sunday, and managed to get all the way to the back where the small cedars are; today, the snow was slightly less high and much softer, so that I found myself sinking down almost to the top of the boots with many steps. Okay, so the patches of lawn looked mostly muddy and not very green, but still...the first earth I've seen that belongs to me! Heady times.... And yes, the Spring thaw is finally starting here - we've had temps above freezing even at night (okay, only +1C/33-34F at night, but still) for several days, and although a mix of snow and rain is called for in the forecast for the weekend, that's a long way away and maybe they're all wrong {g}. Worries about fast melting causing major flooding is widespread in the province, but we're okay here - no real problems with the basement, and I doubt we'd be threatened by the Lachine Canal should it overflow its banks, as we're a good 7-minute walk away from it. ********* Okay, no "real problems" with the basement, which is true - but water has leaked in around the edges, just in the back half of the basement. And, unfortunately, we had some boxes of magazines stored against the walls, up until this weekend anyway. We'd ordered a shelving unit from Home Depot, which arrived last week and which we put up on Saturday (well, Chris did all the work, but I offered encouragement). We wanted to have that done specifically to put these at-risk boxes out of danger, but were too late for some 5 or 10 issues of Ellery Queen and Asimov's, dating back to the mid-1990s (I think - I didn't really check the dates on the damaged issues). Some of them literally had mold growing on them already! Most were just very twisted by water damage, but all were unsalvageable. A shame because I'd had complete runs of both magazines going back probably 15 years or now and now those runs are broken; luckily none of the F&SFs were among the damaged lot, because we have a complete run of that magazine going back to something like 1981, with additional not-quite-complete years dating back to 1978. Who knows if that's a valuable collection, but then who cares? Having the initial publication of some great, now-classic f/sf stories is just WayCool in my book! ********* Finally got our tax stuff to our accountant, Dave - well, I got all my stuff together a couple of weeks ago, because I have to file federal US taxes (though I don't ever have to pay) which is due on the 15th, whereas Canadian taxes are due by the 30th. Chris took a little longer, but we got both his stuff and the taxes related to his parents' estates to Dave last week too. Had a call back from Dave on Sunday, asking Chris to call him - turns out there were some further documents that he needs for the parents' estates, which I gather Chris has found or is finding - there's not as big a rush on that because apparently tax matters concerning deceased people can be delayed up to one year and three months after their deaths, in his parents' case up until July of this year. But the great news is that Dave could estimate the approximate amount of taxes due on the estates, and it's more or less what we'd thought, given the types of monies involved. Certain retirement/savings income is taxable here, and certain other types of retirement and savings income isn't, and Chris's parents did him a great favour by managing to put most of their money into the non-taxable side of things. Which means that once we pay those taxes that are due on their estates, there will be enough left to pay off the rest of the house, and still have some $50,000-$100,000 left over. Whee! Of course, we'll not pay off the mortgage loan (what we have, it's not quite a mortgage - it's complicated, but it works out for us precisely because we were pretty sure of being able to pay it all off quickly) until after we've received the assessment from the government, agreeing with Dave's calculations and saying we're all paid up in terms of the estate accounts, probably around June or July if the taxes do get paid by the end of this month. Possibly we won't pay the entire thing off then, but pay it down enough that we're only paying $500 a month or something for the next little while - it might make more sense to do that, at least for a while, although I tend to think that owning the house free and clear is the best idea. But then, what do I know, I've never owned a house before {g}....Anyway. Point is that our gamble that our understanding of tax code was correct enough to put a huge down payment on this place seems to be paying off. And not only that, Chris got a raise. Enough of a raise so that even if I run out of work and can't find a new job, it won't be a problem. Financially, that is - not working at all would, I think, make me crazy before too very long. But then, "work" can mean many things - going to school, creating a fantastic garden, really getting involved in Anticipation (WorldCon 2009, held here in Montreal in August of that year). Nice to know, I must say. ********* And, turns out the History Channel here decided to run both seasons of "Rome" back-to-back after all, yay! Last week we saw the end of Season 1 ("et tu, Brute?" I'm glad Cesar didn't say, on account of Shakespeare made that up), so tonight we're onto the start of Season 2. I can understand why it was canceled after 2 seasons for being too expensive - it's incredibly lavish, after all - but I'm enjoying it a lot and I wish there was more than just the 10 episodes now awaiting us. Then again, I watched the excruciating, 4+-hour film Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison last week - well, I skipped most of the last hour and a half, really - which covers some of the same history, and recognized that a lavish-looking production does not necessarily a good one make (though I think "Rome" is good, lavishness included). And "House" must soon be back, right? Right? Things are Looking Up! Current Mood: happyCurrent Music: "Where the Hell Is Bill?" Camper Van Beethoven | | Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 | | 8:01 pm |
Plumbing Nirvana Finally. Finally! After weeks of calling the plumber who'd been recommended to us and not hearing back, this morning I called a different plumber (recommended by the same person, but not someone she herself had used - she just knew some of her neighbours had been happy with the service). I called at, oh, 8:35 AM, got a real-live person right away, explained the problem and he was here by, oh, 9:10 or so. I showed him the situation, he did his thing and figured out the cause pretty quick, and then fixed it - which took a while because it turns out the plumbing on the first floor is all behind the walls, not easily accessible by paneling (which we'll remedy in the future). It was a simple problem really - you know the thing on taps in bath/shower combos that you pull up to send the water up to the shower head instead of down to the bath faucet? Well, the toggle inside the tap that makes that switch-over when you pull the doo-hicky up was broken (made in China, he noted as he finally got the broken piece out, not an easy task because he had to get it through just the small hole in the bathtub tiling where the faucet is fixed in place). When he got it out, it was a simple matter to replace the faulty piece (with something much more durable), put everything back together and there we are, with a functioning first floor shower once again! Definitely not something we could have done on our own (as in, if some part just needed a bit of sealant, for example), but not something that required a huge amount of work either. Our shower was working again by 10:00 AM. Guess who I'm gonna call next time we have a plumbing problem??? Current Mood: pleased | | Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 | | 8:11 pm |
Wednesday Update Had a busy little while for the last 2 weeks of March, work-wise - my bill for the period March 17-31 came to 41 hours! So I thought I'd check back to see when I last worked at least 40 hours in a 2-week pay period....would you believe not for two years? The last time I had 40+ hours of work time during a pay period was the second half of March 2006! No wonder I didn't have to pay estimated quarterly taxes for the second half of last year.... ****** Meantime, still no plumber, but (hopefully) that ends tomorrow. My friend M who recommended the one we called (and called and called....) called me yesterday when I sent email soliciting new plumber names, to say I should have called her right away when they hadn't called me back 'cause it's not like these guys to blow someone off like that. So she was gonna call to find out what was going on - haven't heard from her yet, but I'll be curious about what she finds out. Meantime, tomorrow I'm calling one of the three names I got by the email query, and if there's no reply or return call by noon, I'll call the next number on the list. I mean, it's been almost three weeks and no plumber has even looked at the thing yet! How grrrrry is that? While on the grrry side of things, on Saturday March 22 we sent, by expedited mail, a parcel to my brother and sis-in-law in Santa Rosa, insuring it and asking the postal person how long it would take to deliver it, specifically because it had to be there by yesterday, their 25th anniversary (!!!!! 25th!!!!!). Well, I have a tracking number, and as far as I can tell, it was accepted by the Post Office on the 22nd, was sent to the postal clearance place later that day and since then, nothing. If they've lost it (or more likely someone's stolen it), I'm going to be furious - this is a very special anniversary and called for a very special gift, which was one-of-a-kind and which can't be replaced. Don't you hate being at the mercy of incompetents and/or thieves?????????? ****** Enough of the negative, here's a positive bit: My "bike movie" this week is LotR:FotR, and this is probably the first time I've seen it in a good six months - certainly the first time since our move, and quite possibly the first time since last summer. And you know what's striking me about it this time around? It's like sitting down for a long chat with a very good friend whom you haven't seen for a while; it just feels like home. ****** A friend of ours was given an ultimate gift by her brother this past Christmas: the DVD box set of the entire run of the brilliant 1960s TV sitcom, "Get Smart." Well, our friend doesn't have a DVD player and isn't up on American culture anyway (her family is Italian, she was born in Africa - can't remember the country - and she grew up all over, as her father was someone very important at UNICEF; she's a fascinating person, partly because she doesn't have any of the pop-cultural references that most North Americans her age have, including this program), so we offered to host viewings here. She thought a once-monthly gathering would be good, with each session showing 3-4 episodes - which would mean at least 3-4 years, as the show went on for a while - and we agreed back in January to set it up. And then we forgot, or I forgot. Chris reminded me this past weekend, so finally I remembered. And now we're set to kick off the gatherings a week from Saturday, on the 12th - I've sent emails to everyone here whose email I have, and have had a number of RSVPs so far. We did this once before, but with the far-more-somber miniseries, "Brideshead Revisited" - I think it'll be a lot more fun watching these episodes over the years; if people miss gatherings here and there, it won't matter because it's not a series that needs to be followed episode-by-episode. Should be fun to see all those old episodes once again - I wasn't in the US for the original run, but saw at least some of it in re-runs, and I have this sneaking suspicion that it will hold up really really well! So that's two positive bits, and that's enough for one day... Current Mood: optimistic | | Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 | | 3:20 pm |
Clearly Getting Old I noticed toward the end of last year that I was definitely starting to look my age more than I had before - I've always had good skin and have never used make-up, so that my face stayed comparatively young-looking for longer than most, but last year I gradually started developing more puffiness under the eyes and more sunken eyes in general (so that you wouldn't really know that I actually have very long eyelashes - you can't see them now!). And, of course, more lines here and there. Truly, given the year I had in 2007, it's not surprising, and I'm sure that the extreme dryness in our new place doesn't help (it's so dry that I literally have to soak my toothbrush in the morning to moisten the bristles enough to use). This past weekend, we went to the Body Shop for more shampoo and soap, and the (young) sales clerk gave me a free sample as they often do - but this was telling, it was a sample of something called Wise Woman Regenerating Day Cream (for "mature skin," no less)! Old lady cream, I called it to myself, but I know the young woman meant well {g}. Anyway, I've tried it over the past few days, and I don't know if it's just a psychological effect or if it really is a decent product, but my face has looked a bit fresher and, yes, younger in just the last few days! So today, after I learned that work would be postponed (storms in Tennessee last night delayed FedEx from delivering my packages), I went back to the Body Shop and bought a whole jar of the stuff.... Oooh, finally turning girly at 49! Who'da thunkit? Current Mood: okay | | 10:20 am |
You may have heard about an accident at sea recently, where several sealers were killed when their boat capsized as it was being towed to safety through the ice fields by the Canadian Coast Guard. The CBC was just interviewing one of the survivors, who was on the Coast Guard vessel, and he told the audience that after the boat capsized, the people on the Coast Guard boat could hear the trapped men banging on the hull. However you feel about the seal hunt, the idea of knowing that at least one of these people was still alive and the fact that other people who could hear him/them but could not help, is horrific. Current Mood:  sad | | Monday, March 31st, 2008 | | 9:53 am |
| | Thursday, March 27th, 2008 | | 8:19 pm |
Head Cleaning After all, I spent a few hours today cleaning the second floor, so getting rid of the random detritus in my head seems appropriate! I've been getting quite a lot of work lately, so much so that I didn't have time to do any housecleaning until today, almost the end of the week, and I could have avoided the housecleaning by doing more of the work that is still sitting in my to-do file cabinet drawer. This is good, money-wise, not so good, house-wise, and somewhat aggravating, going-to-get-the-damn-package-wise. I'm still planning to keep my FedEx delivery at Henry's through June, because it's paid up until that time, but I suspect I'm going to have to either switch to the closer place on Notre Dame, which is probably about a 7 minute walk each way, or see if they can deliver directly to the house here. I checked the ordinary FedEx parcel size and if it's not stuffed with records, it could fit into our mail slot in the door, but there's no outside place where it could be left if it was too big to go through the slot and I wasn't at home. (The whole point of having it go to Henry in the first place was so that I could go out of the house if I needed or wanted to, without fear of missing a delivery - in order to get the package if the delivery is missed, it's necessary to go somewhere way out in the boonies, hard to get to without a car!) I'm sort of back-charging my boss for some of that aggravation - for a while, I thought I'd get receipts from taxi drivers and write them off on my taxes as a business expense, but it's too much of a hassle to remember to ask for the receipt and then to keep track of them all, so instead when I take a cab there and back, I consider myself on paid work time from the time I get into the cab until I get back; when I take the bus or metro there and take a cab back, I just add 15 minutes to the hours I'm tracking for work for that day. (I haven't yet gone both there and back via public transit, which was originally the plan, but my excuse is that...well, it's fucking been WINTER all this time, hasn't it? Horrible conditions to try to get around in on foot.) ********** Started a new book that was sent me by LibraryThing, as an advanced copy for review, but I have a feeling I'm going to be giving it a less than stellar review. It's okay so far, but the writing is fairly pedestrian and I probably know more about the subject (Arthurian studies and Celtic myth) than the author does, so I keep waiting to catch her out. Plus, the note from the publisher more or less demanded that I post a review to other sites in addition to LT, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which kind of puts me off; and then, the author's note included in the publisher's note gives me WAY too much information - about the author, that is. Do I really need to know she had a serious illness, the treatment for which wiped out her memory? Do I really need to know that she's Bipolar? Uh, no, hon, I don't need to know these things. (Of course, providing TMI isn't uncommon in the manic phase, but even so, I oddly kind of feel a little violated by the fact that she forced this info on me.) I'm trying to separate out all those things and read and review the book on its own merits, but I don't yet know how well I'll be able to do that. Stay tuned, as my review will probably turn up in March's round-up (it's a fast read, I'll give it that)! *********** Been exchanging emails with my s-i-l lately, which is nice 'cause we haven't done it for a while. I don't know why I've gotten so phobic about talking on the phone, but these days I almost always email people and avoid calling. Except the plumber. Who still hasn't called back, almost 2 weeks after my initial call (the one call, of three, that he did return). I gave Chris the info tonight, and he's gonna try calling tomorrow. If there's no result, I guess we'll just have to find a plumber in the Yellow Pages - always worrisome 'cause you don't know if the person will be any good (versus one who is recommended to you) and, here, because you don't know if the person will speak English, or speak it well enough to be understandable. It's no wonder, really, that in spite of having a wonderful husband, a terrific job that I enjoy thoroughly, a beautiful new house, some good friends and great cats, a number of things to look forward to, enough money to not worry about it and generally good health, I still feel anxious and apprehensive a good 50% of the time that I'm awake. After almost 12 years, this Province is, I think, really getting to me....(I could go into several recent anti-English-language incidents here in Montreal, but they're happening all the time and I'd just get upset/anxious/mad; probably if you Google "language police in Quebec," you'd find some of the same stories.) ************** Oh, and? Temps have been nicely above freezing the last few days, which should make us feel that Spring is finally on the way - instead, what you near is more and more worry about April flooding. Not fair. Current Mood:  anxious | | Monday, March 24th, 2008 | | 8:10 pm |
Match It for Pratchett I don't know when I first heard of the DiscWorld, except that it was a great many years ago. I've actually only read a few of Terry Pratchett's novels set on his wonderfully imagined planet - not because I don't like the novels or don't want to read 'em, but because there are simply so many of them by now that I'm not entirely sure where to start! This is actually one of those projects I've been saving up for retirement, to collect and read the entire DiscWorld oevre; now I think I might start that project sooner than planned. (I did read the extremely hilarious novel co-written by Terry and by Neil Gaiman [you know, that guy I keep writing about whenever he publishes anything, even his dry cleaning list?], Good Omens, which is a terrific romp concerning what happens when the Anti-Christ is born and, well, starts to grow up like any other kid....) You may or may not know that a few months back, Pratchett informed the world that he had contracted a particularly rare form of Alzheimer's - he's only in his 50s, so this is quite unexpected. His response to the knowledge of his disease was to donate a massive amount of money, some 500,000 Pounds (over $US 1 million) to Alzheimer's research, as a gesture to raise awareness about the disease and to, obviously, fund research into cures. Now, the SF/F community, initiated by Pat Cadigan, has responded to Pratchett's plight with a push to "Match It for Pratchett," that is, to raise the equivalent amount of money for Alzheimer's research. This info has been posted by Neil before, but was also just posted by George R.R. Martin (another writer I rant about all the time, 'cause I totally adore his work and have since the 1970s), and I'm nicking some of the urls he posted in his lj to include here. First is a site set up by an LJ person, Poosk, who created the icon I'm using at the moment - which is available on teeshirts here: http://poosk.com/2008/03/14/match-it-for-pratchett/I myself intend to buy said teeshirt tomorrow; all proceeds from those sales go to an Alzheimer's research foundation. A jolly good way to spend your $10 or $15 to help a serious cause, and a cool teeshirt too. For my Brit friends, there's this site: http://www.alzheimers-research.org.uk/to which you can also donate money - tell them it's for the "Match It for Pratchett" scheme, so that it'll get counted in that fundraising effort. GRRM is also auctioning some signed editions and out-of-print special editions of some of his work on e-Bay to raise money for this effort; check http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZbenveniste for details. [I'd check them out myself except that 1) I have the books already and 2) I'm a-feared of e-Bay, it'll steal all my money if I start hanging out there!] We all know that fine writers are a great rarity, and fine comic writers even more so. Terry Pratchett is one of the best, and I hate to think of the brain that provides me and millions of other readers with many hours of entertainment that is also sometimes quite thought-provoking being eaten away by this horrible disease. And let's face it, if we all live so long, we're likely to be in Terry's boots one day - maybe not his particular form of Alzheimer's, but some disease of the brain that destroys memory and takes away who we are. Anything we do to help researchers learn how to mitigate or cure this illness is good at any time, but right now is even better. Current Mood: hopeful | | Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 | | 11:52 am |
The Neighbourhood We've been living here now for more than three months, since mid-December, and you'd think we'd have begun using local shops, etc., on a pretty complete scale by this point, but we haven't. I keep going back to the old neighbourhood to refill my Amitriptyline, for example - but the reason I'm doing that is that I only have 2 more refills on the current 'scrip and I'll be seeing my doc and getting a new year-long presciption in April; I just figure it's easier to bring in a new prescription to the pharmacy closest to our new place, when I get it. We've also not eaten much in the neighbourhood, because in our immediate area it's mostly junk/fast food (being a working class neighbourhood, that's to be expected). But we are switching shopping areas, slowly. For example, we mailed off something yesterday at the nearby postal outlet rather than going all the way back to the old neighbourhood to do that - I'd held off on doing that for a bit simply because I was afraid the guy at the nearby outlet would speak only French, but it turns out he speaks both languages, though French clearly much better than English....And last night we went a bit further afield for dinner, although not so far afield as all that - a 15-minute walk, or a five-minute to the metro, ride one stop and then walk a few minutes on the other end. This was only the second restaurant we've been to in the area - the first was an Indian place which was okay, but the food was warmish to cool, not hot (as in temperature, not as in spicy), which kind of put us off. The one we went to last night was a Mexican restaurant and it was really quite good - a little weird, as the fajitas come with bacon and without guac unless you ask (which we did, we also skipped the bacon), but very tasty. Good guac, excellent refried beans, pretty tasty margaritas - what's not to like? Well, the service was okay but not as friendly as we're used to (but then, this was our first visit there, once they get to know us I'm sure they'll be friendlier), and the choice of music was icky - I dunno the genre terms these days, but this was stuff that had very jazzy instruments like sax and flute playing jazzy-type music over a thumping electronica bass line beat - the kind of bass that makes me feel that I should have a migraine (or that it will cause me to have one, if I'm not careful). Apparently the place caters generally to a younger crowd, although it wasn't very busy while we were there and the other people eating there all seemed more mid-30s and up rather than 20-somethings - but we were there early, at 6:30, so that probably made the difference in terms of clientele. Anyway, overall it was a good experience and we'll definitely go back, so now we have at least one relatively close neighbourhood restaurant! We took the metro there because it was still horribly windy, which made it very cold to walk, but after we finished eating, around 8 PM or so, the wind had died down so we walked home, which took around 12 minutes. Not bad! I need to check with the post office person if they accept FedEx packages - I'll keep using Henry until the end of June, but after that I should get someone closer (though I'll still go visit Henry, I hope!); there's a store about 5 minutes away that has a FedEx sign in its window, so I can check there too. And, of course, I'm going all the grocery shopping locally, so we are, slowly, integrating into the neighbourhood - it'll be better when the weather improves and we'll actually want to go outside, which has certainly not been the case so far since we moved! Current Mood: okay |
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