Category Archives: diary

A thousand words, right here

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Electric Avenue closed

Electric Avenue closed

This is basically the last three months of my life, right here. Thank god for good friends who are easily prevailed upon, even when they don’t think I’m prevailing (like certain meteorological conditions, I am always prevailing, only sometimes you’re so used to it you just don’t see it any more). The latest is Lydia volunteering to do my taxes and passport application, which is pretty damn boss of her, as they are both one of those things I keep meaning to get around to, by which I mean my life would be so much better off if I didn’t have to do them or I just like died before I had to find my T4s and my birth certificate, which I’m sure is somewhere in all of the boxes I moved unless the guys just crumbled it up and threw it on the floor but I doubt it. Then again, why do I? Because…see above thousand words.

icecoaster only lasted five months. winecoaster lasted a month. We shall see how long hobocoaster lasts. I have been heartened to note that God has been saving the Lotto 649 jackpot for me and it’s up over 40 million now. If I win I shall still be hobocoaster, but with an entourage because I’m bloody sick of carting this laptop around. Maybe I’ll get a laptop so small it fits on a wristwatch; yeah, that’s it, because only the rich wear wrist watches anymore, to show people they’re too important to carry cellphones. Oooh, and being rich would really suit my friends who love to talk on the phone, because then I’d hire people to answer my phone and they could talk to them and all complain about me to each other and I’d even pay their long distance bills, and everyone would be happy especially me, for then I would never have to answer the phone. Not that I do now, but somehow it’s leaked out that I have one and haven’t bought the actual, like, phone plan to turn it from an iPod into a phone yet somehow people don’t realize that the reason I don’t do this is not simply that I’m cheap (tho I am, yea verily, very, very cheap) but because I do not wish to receive calls. Ever. From anyone. Under any circumstances.

The lottery people, I assure you, will write. They will email. They will text. And, if they don’t, someone I know will surely say, “hey, didn’t you see the numbers on the lottery? Didn’t you say God owed you? How’d that turn out?” and then they’d never live it down when I read out the winning numbers unless I’m in my old neighborhood or the pubs my friends tend to favour, as neither locale is conducive to personal safety when one has just announced one has a winning lottery ticket on one’s person (and yeah, sure the Barking Parrot is in an expensive hotel, but it’s still full of people pining away for Slack Alice’s, whether because they miss it or because it burned down before they were old enough to audition their pole dance routine there).

But where was I? Oh, right, how was your week?

So, how’s YOUR week going

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Head Crash

Head Crash

Let’s review: in the last week I’ve become officially homeless, had my hours at work cut in half, and now, in the crowning glory, an attempt to install a simple chat client on my computer wiped the entire contents including the system management software.

This is what you call a head crash: when the head goes CRASH on the desk.

What did I do? What would anyone do? well, anyone who was me? I screamed all over social media until someone stepped up to solve my problem, that’s what I did. What do I ever do, right? So the far-more-competent-than-me Tim Adkins from Free Geek met me on his day off and did a complete reinstall, with encryption and a partitioned hard drive so that even if half of it wipes the other half is still useable.

After we met up at Turk‘s for the reinstall, the sun was shining and the day was gorgeous for once in Vangroover, so I took the opportunity to stroll up the Drive for an hour or so, picking up the perfect party top for Gin & Sin on Wednesday at 20% off, then hopped a bus to the Forgotten Value Village up at 49th and Victoria. Lest you think the nature of the universe had somehow changed in my favour, my bank card was declined there, and the Starbucks told me that my Paypal top-up of $25 hasn’t shown up on my Starbucks card.

So it’s not entirely #FML but it’s not all sunshine and roses.

Oh. Wait. Thatcher is dead.

Just. Fine. Thank. You.

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Audible punctuation in my sentences is always a bad sign. If I also narrow my eyes while. enunciating. clearly. , adopt a defensive posture IMMEDIATELY: Stop, drop and roll and if you’re lucky you won’t be hit by the fallout. If you’re really clever, you’ll keep on rolling to the liquor cabinet and roll back with a very large, very cold stirred Botanist Martini for me.

and how was yours, motherfucker?

and how was yours, motherfucker?

“It’s not a done deal.”

There are many points in life when you don’t want to hear those words, but I’d venture to say that among the very mostest so is the seventeenth of the month when you are expecting to move into the house on the first of the next month. From your landlord.

Or maybe not-landlord.

Particularly having packed up everything you own and thrown it in storage at a cost, thanks to enthusiastic but amateur labour, of about $300 more than one had budgeted for labour.

THIS is my fortune?

THIS is my fortune? From lunch Saturday.

I. God. Damn. Well. Better. Be.

The possibility exists that he’s hoping to leverage my desperation against the price of the rent and pop it up by a hundred or so a month, which would frankly make this a non-possibility for me; I took that off the table immediately by being upfront about how much I do and do not earn in a month. As it is, the place would take slightly more than 50% of my income, but the lifestyle rewards would more than make up for that in my book.

It is indeed a lovely house in a lovely pocket valley with lovely vineyards, a spectacular view, a half-hour walk from my friend’s barn with her two horses, and a couple of blocks away from the covered riding arena. When I asked what the facilities fee was for the riding arena, I was told there is no fee.

Also, plenty of room in the house for Julian, should he wish to take refuge on a Canadian Indian Band reservation, with a very aggressive attitude towards independence from whitey’s Big Sweatervest in Ottawa. If the RCMP or, god forbid, the Yanks, set foot on the Rez for the purposes of nabbing Jules, there would be an international armed uprising the like if which hasn’t been seen since we Canucks looted and burned the White House. So, either way this is a win for a revolutionary, right? AMIRITE?

He's all like, I dunno, whatever you say, raincoaster

He’s all like, I dunno, whatever you say, raincoaster

Panorama Palace

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So, here’s the new place. Yeah, it’ll be a bit of a change from the Downtown Eastside. Thanks to Madame Metro for the photos of the place upon which I, myself, have not yet laid eyes.

KVR trail

KVR trail

This is the trail that goes directly from the cabin to downtown and beyond, the Kettle Valley Railway trail.

Panorama Palace 1

Panorama Palace 1

The palatial gateway. Vineyards on the left, horses on the right.

Panorama Palace 2

Panorama Palace 2

Panorama. Lake to the left. And also to the right. Panorama Palace just off to the right of the centre line.  So, yeah, bit of a change from this.

DTES

DTES

Buried Treasures

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Oooh, is that my DVD player?

Oooh, is that my DVD player?

T’is no surprise to regular readers of the ol’ raincoaster blog that we have piratical instincts at Operation Global Media Domination HQ, formerly Mildew Manor, soon to be TK. So it should be no surprise that as we slowly pack up for The Grand Migration, we are finding buried treasures of all sorts.

Remember that post where I said that the burglars had stolen my late mother’s jewelry box and my great-great-uncle’s silver?

Yeah, not so much.

Shahee must have stowed them safely away in one of his cleaning frenzies while I was out of town, because I found them in the storeroom on the very tip top of a bunch of shelves. God only knows how I’ll get them down now that the construction guys have stolen my ladder (and, incidentally, thrown out my Starbucks table; still, it’s worth it to me just to get the deck cleared off, and I DID catch them before they threw out my $500 bike and my slab of Carrara marble) but we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.

Today I snagged about two dozen sturdy new boxes thanks to a friend who has just moved herself, so tomorrow is packing day. I had arranged for Robert to come over and help me with the heavy stuff, but now I’ll defer that to next week once all the shelves are emptied and he can help me chuck out the old particleboard bookcases. I’m sure I can build something better quality and cheaper than moving the lot of this water-logged crap. I’m not taking anything that’s broken or waterlogged, and the only shelves I’m taking are solid wood.

Also, there are great benefits to having friends who are cheap, as they are relentless at finding me bargains. Bargains? Try a truck rental for a buck plus mileage and storage at $35 a month, that’s how much of a bargain. I may be able to afford this move after all!