life

Technically it’s a vacation, technically it’s not: I’m taking next week off work and spending it in Vancouver. I arrive sometime in the evening this Sunday, and leave in the evening next Sunday.

It’s a vacation since I’m not working, but not a vacation since it’s home. Hell, I would probably take a few days in Seattle in there but I have run out of money, having shoved it into RRSPs and paying down debt since I wasn’t expecting to get any time off.

There’s a brunch for me that week which may or may not contain duck poutine. I am very nervous about that, but in a good way.

This time off was decided upon yesterday about 4 pm, so I haven’t made many plans yet and the week is pretty open (though the weekend is filled up with Kimli‘s birthday shenanigans and the hypothetical duck poutine). Anyone on for brunch on Saturday? Or doing stuff during the week? If only I had more friends who were unemployed, damn you all.

I also plan to give myself mercury poisoning via the consumption of immense quantities of tuna sashimi.

I’ve been surprisingly saddened by the recent decision by my parents to give away their Manchester Terrier Seven. Surprisingly because I don’t really like the dog, he barks at every noise and is all nose and elbows, plus he’s a dog. I like my dogs like I like my men, fluffy and quiet and only around for brief visits.

I think my parents got Seven in 2003 or 2004, I don’t remember exactly. He was the runt of the litter (of 9, hence the geeky Star Trek Voyager “Seven of Nine” name) from a breeder in Terrace, BC, and I was visiting when they got him (though I didn’t name him, I was so over Voyager by then). He was cute, but he wasn’t cuddly, though he eventually became so in spite of being all pointy bits and unfluffy, when curled up into a ball beside you in a chair.

Our dog Dom, a Maltese Poodle (very cuddly), had died a few months or maybe a year previous, and he’d lived to be 15 or 16 or so and I’d grown up with him around. Dom’s best friend/worst enemy Samantha (my cat) had died maybe 2 years before that, at 14. I sort of felt when they were both gone that it was the end of an era, as we’d got them when I was in Grade 5. Here they are, old farts at this point, too weak to fight over the sunbeam:

I guess I see pets as family, and I would because I’m an only child so it’s either that, imaginary friends or hardcore drugs. I feel like I’m losing a family member here, and I did something I never do, which is question a parent’s personal decision. I argued with my mom a couple times in the last few days about how I think this is a mistake, but ultimately we agreed that it’s the best thing because she and my stepdad obviously have no soul.

Bah, it still sucks. The reason, really, is that given their move to a small condo from a very large house, plus other life changes, taking care of the dog is harder than it used to be. And the dog is a purebred and while stupid is still quite cute, so there have been a bunch of people wanting to take him. He’s not gone yet but he could be this week, and I’m sorry I was too tired to visit this weekend and say goodbye.

The other household pet is Mom’s Maine Coon cat Spooky, whom they got maybe a decade ago from the SPCA, who guessed the cat’s age at that point to be around 10. That cat is old and crotchety and its fur is all clumped up and matted, and I figure it’s still alive only out of spite for us. Spooks’ kidneys are starting to fail, though, so we probably will be saying goodbye to her sometime in the next year. Oh well, it’s hard to be that upset about the death of a pet that’s had a good life and is frankly on borrowed time at this point.

I think the real reason I’m more upset than I expected is because I’m imagining what it would be like to have to give up my cat Shebang, and that’s a really, really sad prospect. As far as I’m concerned, my home is not home without my pet, and neither are my parents’.

I saw what I think was my first ever Kelowna rainbow last night when coming home from dinner. This is a picture I took from my balcony; some dude who was hanging out in the parking lot below me said they’re pretty common in Spring/Summer when it rains, but hell, I didn’t know it actually rained here, ever. My first month I think it rained maybe half an hour in total. But I like rain, so bring it. It reminds me of home. Also the humidity does wonders for my hair.

My big news this weekend was that I finally bought a dishwasher, my first ever dishwasher that’s mine and not attached to a parent’s kitchen. A neighbour is moving out and sold it to me for $50, so score! Between that and throwing away the cat fur-infused duvet cover, my mother is proud and thinks I may join polite society someday if I keep this up.

My next trip to Vancouver is the week of June 18-20, so please mark your calendars and stock up on the lube.

But will probably recover eventually. Her compromised immune system is no doubt a result of not taking oil of oregano, according to a friend of hers who never gets sick (and never did, even before he started taking it).

Supposedly it’s her lack of external gonads that means that unlike her teammates, she did not catch the man cold that was going around the office:

However she may have whined enough to be allowed to have an honourary, if unofficial man cold, and at that she is satisfied.

Work suddenly got busy again, meaning I’m going to be working some evenings, but I just thought I’d put this out there for those of you searching my site for evidence of my sexual orientation:

I am not a lesbian. Just so you know.

Last week someone used the search feature on my sidebar for the word “lesbian” so I’m just going to assume this person was unsure as to the direction of my swinging. Fine, I’m a tomboy, fine, I don’t mention any boyfriends anymore, but that doesn’t mean I’m all about the muffins now. Maybe I’m just not telling you about my sexual exploits lest you be jealous of my mad skillz in teh bedroom. No, really.

Well, okay, I am totally gay for Kimli but as she’s won some unofficial award for most-straight-girls-saying-they-want-to-lez-you-up, unfortunately that just supports the case for my heterosexuality.

It’s a shame, because being bi would be so much more interesting.

Ever since that Hoarders show started playing on A&E the accumulation of possessions in one’s home has been a topic I return to frequently when tripping over the beer bottles I leave on the floor. Watching an episode of that show will get me to clean like nothing else will, let me tell you. Interestingly a lot of people have told me that show induces cleaning sprees in them as well; I guess we want to avoid getting on that show.

The issue with the show, though, is not directly about lack of cleanliness but that the people can’t throw anything away. They buy stuff and bring it into their home and never remove it. They may have grown up poor, or they developed a mindset somewhere along the way that throwing stuff away was wasteful and they can’t do it. Now, most of us don’t have the OCD-esque mental health issue that these poor people suffer, but somewhere between religious-vow-of-poverty and them are people like me, who were brought up to be pack rats.

When I was getting ready to move to Kelowna, I got rid of a lot of stuff. Probably a third of all my things, including the CRT TV, big couch, clothes, at least half my books. Yet when the movers were bringing my boxes up to this apartment they commented on how much stuff I had for one person. Shit, and I thought I’d been so thorough!

I read some article online a few months ago in some anti-clutter simplify-your-life sort of website where the person spoke about how when you see the insides of houses of rich people, and in magazines, there’s not a lot of stuff in the pictures. Now, I recognize that the pictures in magazines like dwell are staged (avec placement of unhappy hipsters) and in real life the owners’ stuff is all stuffed into other rooms or inside giant closets or something, but it got me agreeing with the writer:

Maybe rich people buy less stuff?

Clutter is bad. I certainly enjoy my place more when I’ve opened up some space by removing a piece of furniture or put some books away. Various books and articles about self-organization talk about how clutter in your home and desk creates mental clutter and I totally get that. I have not been ruthless enough in getting rid of things that I don’t want or need and they haunt me and make me feel guilty that I’m not using them. Enough, yo.

The other thing, and more practical perhaps is that the next time I move it will probably be on my own dime so will I want to pay to move crap I don’t want to keep anyways. Plus should I actually someday live in an apartment that’s not for low-income people* it’ll probably be smaller since it’ll be newer. Which is maybe why richer people don’t have as much stuff, since their fancy shoebox apartments don’t have the space.

Have any of you gone on mad decluttering sprees in your homes? I’m going to be doing another round soon, once I get over this flu. Of course, since October one set of my parents have been getting rid of the majority of their possessions since moving from a 4000+ sq.ft. giganta-house to a 2-bedroom condo that’s maybe 1000, and I’ve taken a few pieces of furniture from them, so I’m not doing that well, pound-for-pound. The TV stand is nice, though.

*Mom thinks I should be ashamed for living in such cheap quarters, given what I could afford. I agree, I am ashamed, but try finding another building in Kelowna that allows cats.