Death from above

We moved on Sunday.

This is freaking nuts. I'm living through a home renovation. I feel like there should be video cameras following me around and a designer should be having a hissy fit about how long everything is taking and how nothing's perfect. Actually, come to think of it, I could fill that role quite easily.

In reality it's not that bad. These guys are working as hard and fast as possible. It's also swelteringly hot and humid, hovering somewhere around 40 with the humidex. Of course our furnace is turned off and half the duct work disconnected so we have no A/C. We do have a window unit from the apartment, but there's no power in our bedroom right now. Also the other room is filled with boxes so we can't even get to the window there. Thankfully we have a ceiling fan at least.

Haven't had much time to watch my birthday present that I almost feel guilty for getting. Watched a few Pink Panther cartoons on DVD, but now we need a hi-def DVD player to take advantage of the higher resolution. Also didn't get cable hooked up until today. The Rogers guy was an idiot but managed to get things working anyways.

They're chopping a great big hole in the side of my house for the bay window right now and it's a little disconcerning. The window goes in tomorrow.

The cats are not terribly happy with the move. We locked them in the bathroom while we emptied the apartment. We let them out when we left for the house. Mabel ran around and around in circles meowing, looking for her stuff. Howard creeped out very unsure. When we came back to get them, they had retreated back to the bathroom, since nothing had been taken from there. Probably spent the entire day there.

Bringing them into the house was fun. We sat in the living room with them and let them explore. All was well until we took them upstairs. I had Howard and Q had Mabel. They were pretty calm until we walked into the bedroom and they saw the CEILING FAN. They freaked and freaked out some more. Q closed the door as they were trying to claw our eyes out, we dropped them and they ran back and forth from one end of the room to the other, finally settling in the corner of the closet. They didn't eat, drink, piss or shit until last night. Every time we brought them out, they stared up at the CEILING FAN in terror and began to shake. They'd sit in the closet and stare at the CEILING FAN in terror. We were finally able to coax them out with some tuna yesterday evening, which got there little digestive systems working. Howard eventually came out of hiding and crawled all around the bed while we tried to sleep last night.

It's freaking hilarious. A ceiling fan. A goddamn celing fan and they're petrified. Maybe they think it's a giant bird that going to swoop down and eat them. I don't know. They're currently locked in the bedroom, so they've got no choice but to get used to it.

CEILING FAN

It was worth the wait

42 inches of Plasma Goodness.

I am so fucking spoiled.

2 More Sleeps

And then we move! We're still in the middle of construction, but it's liveable.

Yay!!!!

New house pics

Are up. I moved them to

www.jbarrie.com/house

The old link will still work, but direct you to the new location.

So tired. So much packing left to do. So much house to clean of dust.

So excited.

Shorts

Yesterday, 8:00am

I step into the elevator to go down to my car. In it are 2 women, one of whom is young, blond and pretty, and a middle aged man. The elevator stops at the lobby and the 2 women step out. The door closes and we continue to the basement. The man turns to me and says "Boy, she even smelled perrrrrrrtty." Yes, that was perrrrtty, not pretty.

Yesterday Evening

Went to check out the house. It's coming along very nicely. All the plastering, sanding and priming is finished. They even started painting the living room. It's green. VERY GREEN. The first coat of paint on a room is always a shock, no matter how much you visualize it in your head. Plus it hadn't dried yet, so was very bright, instead of the nice subdued look I was going for. Once I saw it with a few pieces of floor laid down, I felt better. Q has been silent on the issue, but he did agree to the only choice presented to him, so it's not my fault if he hates it, right? The floors are going down today. I can't wait, I'm so excited.

4:15am

BANG! BANG! CRASH! GRROWL MEEEEOW GRROWL.
Howard caught another mouse. Q got up, took it and flushed it down the toilet. Howard was pissed at losing his prize but too bad. He sat in the corner of the office all night long. Waiting.

11:00 am

Still no birthday present. Have to wait until tomorrow. Bastard.

Eeeeek!

Last night when we got home, the cats ran up to greet us as ususal. Then Howard ran over to the chair and grabbed his toy mouse. He played with it and then brought it over to play with at our feet. I assumed he wanted to play fetch and bent down to pick his toy. Only it wasn't a toy. His usual mouse is about 3 inches long, grey, furry, with a fluffy tail. This one was about 3 inches long, had 4 legs sticking straight up in the air, a thin, hairless tail and teeth.

My initial reaction was to scream like a girl, but Q was in the next room and there was no way in hell that I was going to give him that kind of ammo. Plus that's what he would have done. So I calmly picked it up with a plastic bag and commented to him on how our little boy had just caught his first mouse. Then it went down the chute.

Howard was so cute and was running around the house as proud as could be. I felt bad for throwing away his trophy. He kept looking for it for the longest time, but then finally settled back down in the corner of the office, by the register, where I'm assuming he caught it. He didn't move from there most of the night.

Speaking of toys, I bought myself a new one for my birthday last night. I decided on an Apple Airport Express. It hooks up to your stereo and allows you to stream music wirelessly via iTunes, and also has a built in print server. I even made it work with my Linksys router to extend my wireless signal. It's only supposed to be able to do that with other Airports, but the internet is a wonderful thing.

It's great. I can sit in the living room with the laptop, and with iTunes I can access all the music on my PC in the office, choose what I want and play it on the stereo.

I'm left thinking that I may not hook my 110 disc CD player back up when we move, considering that I rarely use it as it is. It's huge and bulky. Instead I'll just rip the rest of the CD's to my computer and use the Airport from now on. If I want to hear a CD I can always put it in the DVD player. I think the same goes for the turntable too - maybe. I'm not quite ready to give up on that yet.

I make that mistake all the time

Meat meat meat

Last night we (I) decided to go to the Keg for my official birthday dinner. We both ordered scallops & bacon to start and both had the prime rib dinner. Our appetizer came, then our salads came, and then the manager came to the table. He apologized profusely saying that there was a communication error and that they'd already run out of prime rib. That's when I said "So we get our dinner for free?" and said yes. So I ordered my favourite New York cut and Q got the Baseball.

After thoroughly enjoying our meals, the bill came. It totaled $13.04 with tax. We left a pretty generous tip, since leaving 3 or 4 dollars for two steak dinners just seemed wrong.

See, I'm not always an expensive date.

Retrospective

First of all thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes. Had a great time celebrating with Dickey, Wifey and Phil on Saturday night at my favourite restaurant, Five Doors North (south of Yonge and Eglinton). Q and I always get treated well there, and this time was no different. I got a couple of free drinks and a plate of free desserts - including the flourless chocolate cake that is to die for. Started drinking at 8 and left the place around 12:00. Good food, good martinis and good friends made me one happy camper. It was a great way to break in the 3 - 0.

Today, on my official birthday, I'm at home packing. I found my shoebox of old pictures and decided I'd take a break to give you all an embarassing retrospective pictoral (does that even make sense?)

Grade 8

Grade 9

Grade 10

Grade 11

And this one's for Dan, since I know you're such a Savage Garden Fan. Years ago I was walking from from work and it just happened to be my birthday. As I was approaching HMV I noticed that there was a commotion out front and decided to check it out. As luck would have it S.G. were in there signing autographs!!!!! Yay!!! Since I had nothing better to do I walked in, got a free poster and had it signed. I wonder how much I could get for it on ebay??

Because it's Friday

www.girlsandcorpses.com

Is exactly what it says it is.

The End

This is it. My final Friday and final weekend as a 20 something year-old. As of Monday I will be 30. I suddenly feel old. I'm also suddenly reeling from all the bitch slaps from everyone over 30 reading this blog. What I mean by feeling old is I don't feel like a kid anymore. You can't be a kid when you're past your 20's. You sure as hell can act like one and look like one, but you can't be one. Know what I mean??

It won't be so bad, really. For the next few months, Q and I will actually be in the same decade. Then he's going to hit the big 4-0. Which always makes me feel a little bit better inside.

I'm mostly glad to leave my 20's behind. They were fucked up, but I think that's the case with most people. I learned a lot about myself during that time. I did a lot of stupid things that I never want to do again, and I did a lot of extremely fun things - that I never want to do again. I learned a lot about sex, and its various kinks, and which of those kinks I enjoyed (ie: almost all I tried).

I learned how to be a victim of someone else's problems. I consequently learned how to stand up for myself - which was something very new. I learned to feel anger, to release it and to act on that emotion. I learned I could be intimidating and actually scare people. I learned what it was like to be scared of your own life.

I traveled to Australia, Costa Rica, Panama, Spain and various parts of the USA. I paid a heavy price, both financially and emotionally for those trips. Yet I don't regret them.

I went to University, worked at Blockbuster, worked as a teller at a bank then moved to internal tech support. I then got a job doing tech support for another company, which ended up being the start of my career. Six years later I'm Head of Technical Services for another company. And by Head of, I mean I'm the only one. It's my responsibility to make sure that all of our client's computers and servers are running, along with doing all the ordering, paperwork etc. Everyone else does programming. I do my work, have the freedom to come and go as I please (within reason) and love it.

I've lost count of how many places I've lived in. I moved up here in '95, lived with my first boyfriend for almost 4 years (most of those against my will). After that I proceeded to move every 18 months or so on average. I lived on my own for a year and hated it. I bought a house with Psycho and he was crazy so it didn't last long. I'm in my apartment for another 10 days and pray to whatever god exists that it will be my last one.

At this point in my life I feel like I'm finally getting my shit together. My relationship with Q is stronger than ever. I've never seen a future with any other guy I've been with. It's always been "good enough for now." With Q it's "this will be great for the rest of my life." Our house is something that we are building together. Never did I imagine that we'd buy a house and renovate the hell out of it, but we have. In doing so we've made it our own. It's truly amazing that we have agreed on absolutely everything related to the house and made all the decisions together (well, some decisions I made and told him about later but he didn't object). We're completely on the same page and have never once argued about anything related to the renovations. Having a competent, skilled, reliable contractor has helped with that too.

In the end turning 30 isnt' so bad. I'm moving into a newer, happier, more stable (I hope) stage of my life. It's like I'm upgrading to Normlr 3.0. I'm sure there will be some bug fixes and enhancements in version 3.1 which is scheduled to be released around this time next year.

In the meantime, as much as I'd like to celebrate and have a huge party, I've got to pack. We are moving next weekend and there's A LOT to do before then. So I'll be having dinner with a few friends on Saturday night and will save the celebrations for our housewarming party - whenever the hell that happens.

Have a great long weekend everyone.

Normlr.

I'm no expert

Torwordo recently posted (brown specks urine) about people coming to his site via Google searches. I suddenly realized that I've never examined that info before. It seems I'm currently popular with home renovation searches at the moment. Boy, is somebody in for a surprise.

I just love the new drywall, concrete floor, refinished basement, bathroom, tiled shower, Moen faucets, American Standard toilet, Sears appliances, patio door, Panasonic Microwave, Maytag dishwasher, Frigidaire washer and gas dryer, build it yourself deck, yard fencing, wall insulation, maple hardwood flooring, custom bay window and refinished trim in my renovated house.

Sometimes I wonder about the following:

Drywall for beginners
How to frame a new wall
How to refinish your basement
Who do I contact to pour a new cement floor
Do it yourself plumbing.
Replacing a furnace
Replacing a hot water tank from Direct Energy
How to pick a relialble contractor
Tips for budgeting a home renovation

Just curious.

Secret

When I was a teenager I wanted side burns in the worst way. Unfortunately there was a patch of hair where my beard met my hairline that was a little sparse and very light. So, being the creative fag that I am, I'd steal my mother's mascara and brush it on those few blonde hairs to darken them and make everything uniform. Perfect!

I thought I'd done a pretty good job until one day a girl asked me "What's that stuff by your ear?" Without thinking my hand instantly went up to wipe whatever it was off, resulting in a smear of black mascara down my cheek and all over my hand.

I was a lot more careful after that.

The Visitor

When my parents arrived home on Saturday they found a visitor on their doorstep. My 36 year old brother left his bitchwife - again. I've lost count at this point. He left her last summer and even got an apartment. We were very hopeful it would last, but the stupid idiot went crawling back to that festering cunt. They are Born Again Christians and Born Again Christians don't believe in divorce so they went to Born Again Christian counselling. I guess Born Again Christians would rather that children live in a disfunctional home than a happy one.

My sister was not pleased, to say the least. She practically loathes my brother and can't stand to be in the same room as him. She was supposed to come down for Mother's day but refused because dickhead was there, which upset my mother who ended up having a crappy day. I'm not sure what my sister is going to do now. She brings her kids down to visit grandma and grandpa a lot. She can't stop that.

My parents claim to have laid down some ground rules for my brother. I don't really believe that they did, or if they did, that they will stick to them. That's been their problem with him all along. I can't believe that it would change now. They claim to have told him that he can stay, but if he ever goes back to that psycho bitch (my words, not theirs) that he would be on his own. Also he's to look after his kids if they come down on the weekend, not them. It all sounds like bullshit to me. They've complained about these exact issues before many times in the past and have done nothing to stop them. In fact they keep enabling him to act as he does.

Of course all of this drama goes down and no one bothers to call me. I only find out because I called my parents this morning about something totally unrelated. Nice.

So here's what I'm left with:

• A messed up brother trying to leave his labia infested cunt thing, while not giving up access to his equally emotionally messed up children.
• My parents who now have to deal with him and his kids and the ensuing drama with the Soap Opera Queen.
• My sister who hates him, hasn't spoken to him in years, who also holds a grudge against my parents for how they drop everything for him, making her (and me sometimes) feel less important.
• Me, seeing everything from all sides, understanding all points of view. I'm excited at the prospect of maybe having a brother again but I don't want anything to do with him when he's with It. I'm still very pissed at him for what he did in the past too. My sister and I are very close, and in some ways (right or wrong) I'd feel guilty for having a relationship with him again knowing how she feels. I have to watch the friction between her and my mother and her frustration with my parents in general. I'm frustrated with them too for not having the guts to stand up to my brother, firmly lay down the law and stick to it.

For some reason I feel like it's up to me to fix all this shit. I'm removed from most of this since I don't live near them, so I can have the most objective view. Also, after a year of therapy, I'd say that my communication and listening skills are much better than anyone in my family, since that is our number one issue. As corny as it sounds, I think that a family meeting is in order. It's been well over a decade since the five of us have sat down at a table and collectively had a discussion. In fact, come to think of it, we've never all sat at a table and had a serious collective discussion. I think it's time. I will make everyone sit down at a table and air out their grievances. No spouses, no children, just immediate family. Sounds like fun.

Because I don't have enough shit to worry about already.

Time-less

I have no time to read blogs these days. I feel like I'm missing out and it's going to be a while until I can play catch-up. But it's a good busy.

I know I've been whining and complaining about all the money we're spending lately, but the truth is I really don't mind. It's all going towards a solid financial and personal investment, and will be worth it in the end. I just like to bitch.

Parental Approval

My parents finally made it up to see the place and liked it. My mother was a bit disappointed that we had already purchased solar lights for the backyard. She was going to buy them for us as a housewarming gift. Just like she was going to buy us a patio set, which of course we already bought. We were talking about other things we'd like to change in the future, and I mentioned the screen door that opens out onto the deck. It's old and ugly and opens the wrong way. "Fine then," she said, "we'll buy a new one for you. That will be our housewarming gift!" Couldn't complain about that one.

Lots more work's been done. Basement floor is finished and dry, and the framing is going up. Old beam and columns are out and new one is in. New 50 gal hot water tank is arriving tomorrow. It might last long enough for one of Q's showers. Maybe. The giant green gas meter is going away on Wednesday morning to be replaced by a new, smaller one outside. We're also widening the entrance to the living room.

All in all, everything is coming together quite nicely. In fact, we're ahead of schedule. The only thing that could slow us down is the bay window. It's supposed to be in sometime this week, but you never know. Even so it's workable if it's late.

Taking more pictures tonight. Might move them over to flikr or something. Creating and updating my own pages is a pain in the ass.

Spiralling

We are going over budget. Not a little, but A LOT over budget. I think once all is said and done we will be almost $10,000 over our initial cost. Of course we didn't plan for any of this, but we are just going to make it work somehow.

First surprise, the $1500 drain replacement. Not a surprise and not an option. I'm very glad about that one.

Second surprise, the living room walls. They're old and made of lath and plaster. They're also beginning to buckle. Peter called me to inform me about a crack that went from floor to ceiling and was talking about the cost of repair. As we were talking he began pushing on the wall and realized that it was all letting go. It has to be torn down and replaced with drywall - $880. Then we were going to be left with a room with 3 old walls and one new one. It wouldn't look as nice so we decided to just redo the whole goddamn room - $880 turned into $2360. He's also going to remove/redo a lot of trim and fix and insulate the bay window. We'll also be gaining 3 inches in the doorway. A noticeable improvement when finished.

Third surprise (not really a surprise but...), the columns in the basement. Originally I loved the brick columns in the basement. I thought that they would look great if left exposed once the renos were done. Since the new cement floor is finished(!!!!) Peter was able to chalk out the layout we had discussed. The living area is going to be L shaped and we've realized that the column is going to be smack dab in the middle, visually cutting the room in half. We can continue as we had planned and everything will be fine, or we can replace the main beam with a steel one, effectively removing the brick column from that spot and hiding the new supports in the walls. That will leave us with a very large, open area to work with. All that for only $1500. Sigh. We decided to go for it.

Now I don't want you to get the wrong impression of Peter. He's a great contractor with an amazing eye for detail. He's not out to suck more money from our pockets. When he points out changes he doesn't pressure us into doing them (except for the drain of course), and has made a point of telling me that they are only suggestions and not to feel that we have to do them in any way. His train of thought is that he'd rather give us all the options up front so that we don't have any regrets afterwards, thinking that we should have done things differently. The problem with Peter is that his suggestions and ideas are good ones. They make sense and make a difference. Bastard.

Hopefully more pictures on the weekend.

Spamademic Prose

I got this in my spam box this morning. It reads to me like some beatnik poetry. I picture somebody up on stage reading each verse with jagged passion, pausing to let each meaningful sentence absorb into the hungry minds of the willful audience:

Other gulls refused to believe the glory of flight that awaited them;
they redheaded cretin,
you dragged that bastard on your back- bone,
you ass.
You Where had he heard that?
The memory of his life on Earth was falling


Cooooool Daddio........

Pictures

It's a good thing that we had the floor removed. Originally we had thought that the main drain had some cracked spots due to roots and age. Once the contractor began digging he discovered that the drain had completely shattered in the middle with a huge root going through it. Nothing actually made it out to the sewer. Instead it spilled out into the sand under the cement floor. Yikes!!

This explains why the floor was so uneven. All the moisture would have created sink holes and leeched up into the floor. At some point in time in the last 90 years, someone decided to fix the problem by putting on another layer of cement. Smart. The drain has been broken for decades. Thankfully, since the ground is mostly sand, the water was being absorbed. If we didn't catch this now, it would have become a huge problem at a later date. He also had to replace the stack as it shattered every time he tried to cut it. He also discovered that the city had already replaced the line from the house to the sewer to a plastic one, so no worries about blockages. anywhere. Plumbing is now A-OK.

Finally got some pictures up at www.jbarrie.com/house.htm. Not the best page ever, and there's probably too many pictures, but oh well. There's only so much you can do with Photoshop.

Dirty dirty

Yesterday they took out the basement floor. And by that I mean they broke apart a 4 inch thick cement floor by hand, dug down a few inches, and removed all the dirt and debris. The hot water heater is gone, and the furnace is suspended from the ceiling so they wouldn't have to unhook all the ductwork. The house smells earthy, like a garden.

They did find one surprise though. The main drain for the house is old, made of clay and filled with roots. I'm not surprised, I was half expecting that. Q and I rented a house a while back where the drain backed up because of a blockage, resulting in the owner having to replace the basement floor and some drywall. We moved out because of that and other issues. I've been afraid of that happening to us ever since we bought the house. Now I'm relieved that we won't have to dig up the brand new cement floor in the future to fix the drain. It was just a matter of time until disaster struck by the looks of it. Another $1500.00 down the drain. tee hee hee. Looks like that's the only surprise we'll run in to though, and for that I feel fortunate. I've heard the horror stories and seen them on TV.

They also tore away the wall where the bay window is going. What's there right now is beautiful exposed brick. I'd love to keep it, but it's an exterior wall and needs some sort of insulation. Too bad, but the window's going to look awesome.

Today they are finishing the floor removal, replacing the drain, roughing in the plumbing for the bathroom and if there's time, pouring the new floor.

Been taking lots of pictures. Hopefully I'll get some posted tonight.

Construction Time Again

Been unbelievably busy these past few days. Barely any time to read, let alone contribute to blogdom.

The contractor started on Monday. He and his team managed to rip up the entire main floor, rip down the basement ceiling and partitions, remove the old washer and dryer and empty the entire basement, take out a wall, get rid of all the garbage and start laying down the new subfloor - all in one day! Then they swept and tidied everything up before leaving. Today they're breaking up the concrete basement floor and hauling it away. This place will be done in no time. I'm already impressed with his work and all he's done is tear things down.

Monday

Ma ma se
Ma ma sa
Ma ma coo sa

Ma ma se
Ma ma sa
Ma ma coo sa

Ma ma se
Ma ma sa
Ma ma coo sa

(Not so) Way back Wednesday

One day, a number of years ago, after Psycho and I had just finished buying our house in Cabbagetown, we decided to go for a walk and explore our new neighbourhood. We came across this cute guy standing on his front porch and said hello. He answered back and we started a conversation. We talked about how we're new to the area etc, etc and then he asked us if we'd like to come in and see his house. Having nothing better to do, we agreed.

The main floor was nice and redone in typical Cabbagetown Fag Style, as are most of the houses in the area (hence why it's so popular). Then he took us down to the basement. There was a workshop down there and he explained that he did pyrotechnics for film and TV. He then proceeded to show us little contraptions he'd made, and I was getting a little nervous thinking that we could be surrounded by explosives. Then he reached into a bag and gave us a bunch of little raver glow sticks. I don't know why he thought we'd want them, but to be polite we took them. I hate raver glow sticks.

After that we moved upstairs to the second floor, and that's when things started getting creepy. He showed us his office, including his computer which was connected to a porn site. Apparently it was something he had a hand in running and he gave us some free access cards to try it out. Then he showed us the bathroom. He'd installed a huge shower with jets protruding everywhere. There was even a seat if you wanted to sit back and relax while getting pounded by water from all sides. "You guys are welcome to try it out you know," he offered. We declined.

Our next stop was the master bedroom. The door of which was closed.

"Hold on a sec," he said "I have a friend over and I just want to make sure it's ok." He knocked on the door and then peeked his head in. After a few quiet exchanges he opened the door. Inside the room was a huge bed and at the foot of the bed was a huge TV. Playing on the TV was gay porn, and laying on the bed was a young, thinly built, naked guy masturbating his huge cock. He looked completely fucked up, like he'd been on the bed watching porn for hours and hours but was so high that there was no way he could actually reach a climax. Mr. Masturbator mumbled some sort of hello and went back to staring at the screen and jacking himself. After some awkwardness we left the bedroom and went back downstairs. Psycho was very curious about the visitor on the bed, but couldn't get a staight answer from our creepy new neighbour. We thanked him for his "hospitality" and quickly left.

We didn't walk down that street again for a very long time.

Meet the parents

Looks like the renovations start a week Wednesday!!!! Was hoping to have my birthday/housewarming party on the May 24 weekend, but a delay in getting the bay window is putting a stop to that. Instead we will be having it the first weekend in June.

Q's parents were going to be away the weekend of our party and were a little upset they couldn't make it. Now they can. It's going to be an interesting day because it will be the first Meeting Of The Families. I don't foresee any problems though. My parents live on a farm, Q's parents used to, so there will be lots to talk about. I can't see any reason at all why they wouldn't get along come to thing of it. Plus my mom mentioned to Q a while back that if he's ever out with his parents that he should bring them down. She's becoming so progressive, my mother. Still, it will be a first for the both of us.

I remember Psycho pushing for our families to meet, once upon a time. I was against it. His mother (acutally grandmother, but that's a whole other story) was a nice lady, but old and not all with it and hooked on x number of prescriptions. I remember her telling us one time about her friend Nellie, the Loch Ness Monster and all the adventures they would have. I thought it was cute, Psycho was mortified. Just proved the apple didn't fall far from the tree though.