Our neighbour called up last night with a box of Okanangan Valley apple cider. Which normally would be what I would call 'a class thing to happen'...
What happened was typical Eastern Canada January behaviour.
It was late on a Saturday night in January.
Himself and I were half asleep on the couch. We were trying to remember why we are friends after a trying couple of days arguing over stupide things.
Also we were just about managing to yawn our way to the end of Episode 3 of Series 4 of The Wire.
So we ignored the first knock on the door.
Well, I said, 'that's our door' and Himself said 'no it's not' even though he KNEW it was.
After the second knocked we fessed up to ourselves and shouted 'come in' and then of course it was fine once it was our neighbour and not the landlord or an ax murderer or anyone like that.
But it was late which meant we didn't partake of any of the nice cider because we were too 'tired'.
(Before I continue, can I just say.... after the end of Series 3, which was STONKING, and I have to disagree with JB, I thought Series 3 ending was better than Series 2 ending, although Series 2 overall was GREAT... I'm finding it difficult to re-engage with The Wire, which I assume is the point of the early part of Series 4... also the political candidate it is portraying is too close to the reality of a political candidate to be funny and is indeed scary, and when is George Pelecanos going to write another episode?)
Anyways, we woke up and sat up and switched off the dvd (and now Himself is out ploughing snow all night and I can't watch the end of the episode because the deal is we watch it together.... grrroooaaaannnn) and made nice like grown ups because really, this is our last normal weekend at Chocolate Lake.
Next weekend we'll be moving and the weekend after we'll be sitting in our house in the country being all Johnny No-mates and Jenny No-neighbours, so we should enjoy our neighbours while we still have them....
Fuck me though, it's hard to be enthusiastic about anything in Eastern Canada in January.
Cold, dark, snowing, cold, snowing, did I mention cold.
My life revolves around my snow boots and packing tape.
A heady combo, I can tell you.
No wonder I'm dreaming about eloping to Cuba.
Atlantic Superstore is running an ad campaign that says 'we're lowering prices to cheer you up because it's January'.
They don't even have to pretend it's 'because we know you all maxed out your cards in December and we're trying to lure you into the shop to buy some food with what's left of your income'.
That's how bad it is in Eastern Canada in January.
Count your blessings, Queenie, count your blessings.
New house.
Exciting new house in approximately FOUR DAYS.
When one thinks of all the people in a certain part of the world who are having their houses blown up and if the reports are true, are having to clear up depleted uranium shells from the debris, and walk to hospitals miles away to get treatment for the phosphorous sticking to their children's skin etc...
... and you think about all the people in the world who are losing their houses at the moment because some arsehole told them they were 'richer than they think' and nobody introduced them to the credit union movement as opposed to the sub-prime predators...
Having a new house is an extremely rich blessing.
Thank you to the gods who are overseeing it.
I'm having a profound week, intellectually.
I'm reading Nino Ricci's Testament. It's like reading an award-winning Rolling Stone four part series on an early U2 Stateside tour, told from the point of view of a number of key entourage members.
Except it's the story of one Yeshua of Notzerah.
The four viewpoints are:
Yihuda of Qiryat,
Miryam of Migdal,
Miryam his Mother,
and Simon of Gerghesa.
See.... it's really smart, and yet beautifully simple. Four points of view retelling the greatest story ever told.
It won't get out of my head.
I think the fact that the war is going on right now in a relatively close location is making it stronger for me, but still...
We are nearly packed.
I have good friends who have provided me with all the necessary equipment and I scored big time by buying one of those plastic trays for packing tape so I don't have to keep picking the tape off the next layer of tape (people who are moving will know what I'm talking about - buy one of those devices, they are $4 and they are a life-saver).
I have only had four near-meltdowns.
Which is okay because there is a lot of other stuff going on right now too. Which will too work out, but which involve a lot of 'getting our heads into the right space'.
But happily, I know myself well enough to know that this morning I woke feeling better, and more importantly, in the zone.
I'll be okay now.
Whatever is thrown at us.
And Himself has only gotten annoyed with me the once.
We're doing okay.
We'll make it to Eagle Drive and/ or February in once piece, I think.
The main trouble in our lives right now is a divergence of views on the role of packing.
For Himself, packing is a way to move possessions from Point A to Point B.
Simple but effective.
Himself is nothing if not of the 'simple but effective' school of thought.
For me, packing represents many things....
... mourning the past moments that each of my possessions represent...
... considering the complexity of all of the possessions which are now randomly stuffed in a box...
... opportunities to worry about the lack of flat surfaces upon which to place the possessions in their new home...
... moments of concern that all this movement in my life is really for naught and I should just have stayed in that crappy one bed in that crappy block of flats in crappy south inner city Dublin all those years ago...
all of which are to do with needing to CONTROL MY ENVIRONMENT because despite being a Cancerian, I don't actually get to walk around with my house on my back and so have huge home environment anxiety whenever there is change.
Which in my case happens a lot, because my ascendant is Gemini.
I am truly fucked personality-wise.
The only person on the planet who gets this about me is Gypsy, because she are one too.
Add to this heady mix, the fact that I am living with an Aquarian, who is all about THE FUTURE.
Not HOW TO ACTUALLY MOVE EVERYTHING THERE.
Don't sweat the small stuff was written with Himself in mind.
I am so jealous of his laid back attitude it's making me ugly, I swear.
You see, I see the point in spending three hours separating cables and iPod wires and camera stuff (or the contents of the drawer that has all the pharmacy type stuff in it) and putting them in separate, labelled, Ziploc bags that are then placed in a box that's marked CABLES ETC. The point is:
1. I will be able to find things quickly if I need to. Which I will need to, because Himself will ask me to find the goddamn things for him some day when he's busy/ rushed/ sick/ whatever. And if there not findable, then psychically I will have failed him in some way.
I know, I know... it's january and I'm a crab..
In a pathetic attempt to offload the psychic payload onto Himself, I explain the system to him. Even though I know he will not even listen to the explanation because he is an Aquarian and knowing where stuff is is for LITTLE PEOPLE.
AND PROLES.
Of course, because of this fatal flaw in his personality (which he quite naturally doesn't see as such a bad thing), I will be able to LORD IT OVER HIM FOREVER when he can't find things because the afore-mentioned conversation took place.
That's what keeps me at it. In January.
I know, I know, I am truly pathetic.
... I told you it was in the Cable box...
Of course, being a Cancerian, I'm damned if I'm going to do all this work and not get any appreciation...
So Himself comes home from work and then gets moaned at over the home-cooked dinner because I'm tired. Then he asks why 'm tired if I had a day off, and I tell him why and then he, not unreasonably, trying to be helpful no doubt, points out that if I dumped all the cables onto the kitchen table, and then SWEPT them into a box with an arm, and wrote CABLES on the box and THREW it in the corner, we would still find them IF AND WHEN we ever needed them again.
And also I didn't have to cook dinner if I was that tired.
And that's when I have a meltdown.
Because the 'only' reason I am wasting time packing them is because if he catches me throwing them out he'll have a fit. Because he's an Aquarian packrat.
SO IT'S ALL HIS FAULT.
This is typical January behaviour in Eastern Canada, btw.
Couples all over the Maritimes are having equally stupid arguments over equally stupid stuff.
The advice is, this will end mid-February.
And as Myles said in a recent post, perhaps this global gloom and doom is affecting all of us in some way.
But still.... new house....
No more chocolate...
But in a good way.
What will I call the blog next?
Feel free to make suggestions which I will probably ignore, because I am a control freak.
