Knitnut.net. Watch my life unravel...
|
Posted by zoom! on November 2, 2006, at 5:53 pm |
Today I got home from work and found another envelope in my mailbox from the Family Responsibility Office of the Government of Ontario. Not that I’m a pessimist or anything, but my first thought was “Uh oh, that big fat cheque they sent me last week was a clerical error, and now they want it back.” (By the way, I put the big fat cheque into a cashable GIC a couple of days ago, while I think about what I’m going to do with it.)
So I opened the envelope, and guess what?? It was ANOTHER big fat cheque! More child support! Altogether, between the two cheques, I’ve received over $9,000 in child support in the past week. He still owes me about $7,000, but this is all money that I never ever expected to get. Ever. I never even thought this money existed, let alone that it would ever find its way to me.
The timing seems divinely inspired, since I bought my first house a couple of weeks ago, and had to dig deeply into my RRSP to do it. This money I’m unexpectedly getting now is an ancient, long-forgotten child support debt from the 80s and 90s. I don’t believe in God, but I’m starting to believe in karma.
Poor John though. I guess I’ll buy him TWO Stellas next time I see him. 
Posted by zoom! on October 31, 2006, at 8:18 pm |
. Okay it’s 8:00 pm on Halloween and I haven’t had a single goblin or ghoul or witch or anything. I did see a cow at Bank & Somerset this morning, and a Tigger on my street while I was out running after work, but so far there have been no Trick-or-Treaters at my door.
What is WRONG with kids today? Have they forgotten how to have fun, or are they just not allowed to do anything anymore? God. I read the other day about a school that has outlawed the game of tag, because children could get hurt. And another school that does not allow running at recess, because children might trip and fall and get hurt. And another school that has banned Hide-and-Seek because children should be visible at all times.
Have all the parents and teachers forgotten their own childhoods? Children are supposed to fall down. They’re born short so they don’t have so far to fall, and they’ve got flexible bones so they’re less likely to break. Getting hurt is a normal, natural, everyday PART of childhood. You skin your knees, you stub your toes, you get slivers, you get the wind knocked out of you, you get bruises and goose-eggs and frostbite and poison ivy and sometimes you cry but usually you just dust yourself off and carry on because you’re a kid, and kids are tough!
We’re raising a generation of wimps. And when it’s their turn to be parents, they won’t have any idea what a normal childhood is like, so their children will be wimps too. I think we were the last generation – ever – to experience getting kicked out of the house in the morning and told not to come back until supper. We were the last generation to have unstructured, unsupervised, unmediated play time with other kids. We were the last generation expected to amuse ourselves without electronics. We were the last generation whose parents couldn’t imagine anybody wanting to kidnap us.
What kind of wine goes with Kit Kats and Twizzlers?
Posted by zoom! on October 29, 2006, at 1:19 pm |
 My son brought me two budgies several years ago, one yellow, one blue: their names were Gretchen and Gunther. These birds had already had several homes, and nobody knew their age. My general policy is that all pets that come to me get to keep their names, but I made an exception for Gretchen and Gunther. I renamed them Jazz and Tango.
I’ve known for the past month or so that Tango’s days were numbered, as a tumor was growing from under her wing. I hoped her passing would be quick, soon, and painless. I just wanted to wake up one morning and find her on the floor of the cage. And that’s exactly how it happened.
The weird thing is that Tango’s name changed immediately after she died. For some inexplicable reason, her name is now Zelda. Every time I think of her, every time I go to say her name out loud, the name Zelda pops into my head and I have to really struggle to remember that her ‘real’ name was Tango.
I was telling this to Mary-Jane at the party on Thursday and she said, “You never really bonded with her, did you? You’d remember her name if you’d really bonded with her. It’s okay, don’t feel bad, it happens. I never bonded with the cat that ate the budgie after Gussie, and I still can’t remember that cat’s name.”
 And then she told me this story about her albino budgie named Gussie that was so tame she could be trusted to fly around freely in the back yard and would always return to her cage. Then one day Gussie got scared by a dog and her tail feathers came off and she got lost in the Glebe for five days without any tail feathers, and at the very same time another albino budgie was also lost in the Glebe, causing great confusion for everybody concerned! But that’s a whole other story. It was the budgie after Gussie that got eaten by the nameless cat that Mary-Jane couldn’t bond with.
Posted by zoom! on October 27, 2006, at 7:39 pm |
I got my first piece of mail at the new house today: a great big fat cheque which made me chuckle.
A couple of weeks ago on my birthday I popped into Irene’s Pub for a beer in the afternoon. One of the people I talked to that afternoon was my son’s father. He bought me a Stella, complimented my expensive taste in beer, and then explained a little problem he was having. That pesky Family Responsibility Office at the government of Ontario had seized his bank account, presumably to give it to me for all those years in which he didn’t make his child support payments. He also owes the government money, because they paid his child support while I was on social assistance.
“How much did they get?” I asked.
“About $7,000,” he replied.
“YOU have $7,000?” I asked.
“I HAD $7,000. Now I have nothing.” he said.
“That’s too bad,” I said.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d give it back to me when they give it to you,” he said. Seriously. He said that.
I smiled. He smiled.
The next day I contacted the government of Ontario to give them my new address.
And today the cheque arrived! It’s a pretty big chunk of money.
Of course nothing’s ever that simple. Now I’m trying to figure out why I feel vaguely guilty about keeping the money.
Maybe it’s because in my own mind I’d written it off many years ago, and I told him so whenever we discussed it. The thing is, it’s easy to write it off in theory, when you don’t even think the money exists; it’s a little harder when it’s sitting in your hand.
Maybe it’s because now I work more regularly than he does, and earn more money, so I don’t feel quite right taking money from him.
Maybe it’s because we get along okay, which works for our son, and I feel uneasy about rocking that boat for money.
Maybe it’s a combination of all those things.
So…what do YOU think I should do with the money? Should I keep it? Give it back to him? Split it with him? Put it into our son’s education fund? Do a 3-way split between him, our son and me? Or something else?
Posted by zoom! on October 25, 2006, at 9:17 pm |
I missed my goal of coming in under 100 boxes. The loom bench was number 101.
The movers were fast. It was a father-and-son team, Garry and Jason. Garry proudly told me he has a bunch of kids “all from different ladies.” Their accents sounded like they were from Newfoundland, and they play fiddle, but it turns out they’re from Greely. They worked hard and fast and accomplished in five hours what it took the last movers six hours to do, and there were three movers last time.
It was a relatively uneventful move, but still stressful. There’s nothing like watching two big burly men forcing your still-new, still-flawless, expensive leather furniture through a doorway which is too narrow for it. They couldn’t take the feet off the couch because they didn’t have “the special tool” so it came down to a matter of sheer determination and brute force. I was standing at the top of the stairs, watching this battle, and thinking “Oh god oh god, maybe I should tell them how much the couch cost, but how tacky would that be?” I just stood there watching and feeling acute pain for my poor couch, too polite to even say “Please be careful.”
This is a couch I’ve been babying for 8 months, and suddenly it’s being violently squashed and rammed and crammed through a dirty jagged doorway. The weather stripping around the doorway gave way as the couch finally burst through the door. My heart was in my throat and I kept repeating to myself “It’s only a couch, it’s only a couch.”
It survived. There’s a sort-of scratch on my leather ottoman, but it didn’t break the skin.
When the apartment was almost empty I was overcome with an almost overwhelming urge to vacuum. But I didn’t, because there wasn’t time and besides, Dave X is cleaning the apartment in return for 8 days of shelter from the elements. God I’m a terrible housekeeper. The carpet was carpeted with fur, feathers, bird seed and autumn leaves. Every time I vacuumed over the past 8 months I thought to myself “I’ll just make it look better today, but next time I’ll actually move the furniture and vacuum under it.” Ha. I can’t believe I still fall for that one after all these years. But at least it gave Dave X something to sink his teeth into.
After everything was all loaded I glanced in the back of the truck and saw all my worldly belongings stacked and ready to go, with my brand-new leather Van Leeuwyn’s chair balanced precariously on top.
We all climbed into the truck with the movers’ giant plastic lucky lizard, and rumbled five kilometers to my new home. Did you ever notice how badly potholed Carling Avenue is? Me neither. But it’s atrocious, and with every pothole I worried about that chair balanced on top of the whole rickety pile of worldly belongings. I was distracted briefly by Garry’s story of moving a truckload of someone’s stuff into a house in my new neighbourhood, only to be stopped by the cops and told there was a woman being held captive in the basement of that house, and the cops went in with guns drawn and Garry had to leave the second load of belongings on the front lawn.
Sam spent moving day with my mom and her dog Kenya, and came to the new house that evening. He got through the first night, but not peacefully. All night long I could hear his toenails going clickety-click on the hardwood floors as he wandered and paced around the house. He had a lot of trouble with the hardwood stairs in the dark. I lay in bed listening to him trying to get back upstairs: Clickity-clickity-clickity-click, THUMP, bumpity-bumpity-bumpity-bump. And again. And again. Eventually he made it to the top of the stairs, found me, laid down for a minute, and then went back down the stairs: Clickity-clickity-click, THUMP, bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump. (At least getting down the stairs didn’t require multiple attempts.)
Dave X phoned me the morning after the move to tell me he was going to need more vacuum bags. Two wasn’t going to be enough. Hmph. Was this a thinly veiled criticism of my housekeeping skills? On the plus side, he seemed pleased with the food I left him. “Can I really eat the food you left, or are you coming back for it?” he wanted to know. “Eat it,” I said “and throw away whatever you don’t eat.” He was happy, I could tell. I left him peanut butter (his favourite) and chips and gin and olives and snack bars and crackers and pickles and some juice. He’s a man of simple tastes.
The unpacking’s coming along nicely. It’s funny how boxes are like gold in the lead-up to the move, but they’re just annoying after you unpack them. There’s still a week to go before I can throw them in the recycling.
This morning I took the bus right past my old neighbourhood on the transitway and I had my nose pressed up against the window trying to get a glimpse of my old apartment and the dog park. I couldn’t quite see them, but almost. I felt wistful and nostalgic. I do like my new house but I miss my old neighbourhood. There’s no place like Chinatown.
Posted by zoom! on October 21, 2006, at 6:02 pm |
Yesterday was the day I officially became a homeowner. I met with the lawyer first thing in the morning to sign a whole bunch of documents in triplicate and give him the great big crazy cheque. Then he shook my hand and said “Congratulations.”
“Am I a homeowner now?” I asked dubiously.
“No,” he said, “When I give you the keys this afternoon you’ll be a homeowner.”
“Good,” I said, “Because I don’t feel any different yet.”
The day went by. I worked. I had my annual checkup. I walked to the Rideau Centre at lunchtime to buy a Magic 8-Ball. I walked back in the rain. The panhandler who sits at the top of the stairs above the park offered me a free umbrella. (I seem to attract a lot of offers of free umbrellas.) I went back to work. I asked the Magic 8-Ball if buying the house was a mistake. “Without a doubt,” said the Magic 8-Ball.
The phone rang: the keys were ready. I walked to the lawyer’s office in the rain, got my envelope of keys, shoved them in my pocket and walked back to my office chanting to myself “I’m a homeowner now, I’m a homeowner now, I’m a homeowner now.” I still didn’t feel any different though.
 Back at the office I took off my jacket, which was soaking wet, opened the envelope and tossed the keys on my desk. I looked at them. I took a picture of them. Then I hung them on my map of Europe thumbtack and took another picture of them. Then I hung them on my bulletin board and took another picture of them. Then I hung them on my capital S on my bookcase and the capital S and my keys fell to the floor.
It was all very odd, really.
After work I went to the house and used the keys and then I started to feel like a homeowner. And a little bit more today, when Jamie and I took the mannequins and plants over to the house. I’ll probably feel it even more on Monday when I move into the house, and Tuesday when I wake up there, and next month when I start making mortgage payments.
Right now I feel a little bit like a homeowner, and I’m happy. (I’m relieved that I’ve started liking my house again. The Magic 8-Ball doesn’t know what it’s talking about.)
Posted by zoom! on October 20, 2006, at 9:41 pm |
Remember last year when I knit Mike a Magic Chick Magnet Hat for his birthday? He said he definitely noticed some heightened interest from women whenever he wore that hat (as I predicted he would).
 Well guess what? A couple of weeks ago he was in a bar on Elgin Street, and at the end of an uneventful evening with his regular group of friends, he left by himself. The last thing he remembers is pulling his Magic Chick Magnet Hat out of his jacket pocket and starting to put it on his head. The next thing he remembers is regaining consciousness in a doorway. He was a bloody mess, having been punched and kicked in the head a number of times.
The only thing missing was the Magic Chick Magnet Hat.
Mike and I both wondered aloud if maybe some other guy had learned of the power of the Hat and would stop at nothing to possess it. Another possibility is that Mike was just kind of dozey when he regained consciousness and left his Magic Chick Magnet Hat lying on the ground. We prefer the first explanation.
Mike asked me to photograph his face several days after the attack, because his all-time favourite photo of himself is one taken by me about 25 years ago after he collided with a no parking sign while playing football on the street at night. I am the official photographer of Mike’s Misfortunate Facial Injuries.
I promised to knit him another Magic Chick Magnet Hat. But first I need to knit a replacement scarf for my mother as she misses the scarf she lost last winter. (Replacement knitting is probably far more common than we know. Someone should do a study.)
Posted by zoom! on October 19, 2006, at 10:23 am |
I feel in some ways my life is going round in circles or cycles, but in other ways it’s branching out into interesting new territory. I’ve been pretty busy lately with packing (I’m up to 81 packed boxes now, and still going strong), so I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like. Nevertheless, I could point you towards previous blog entries that seem to be echoing current themes in my life. For example, I’m packing and moving just like I packed and moved last February. Homeless Dave X will be living in my vacant apartment for the last 8 days of the month, just like he did last February, in return for cleaning it. I have another mouse in the house (remember the capture and domestication and liberation of Frankie?).
Posted by zoom! on October 17, 2006, at 8:34 am |
 Look what I found: my bus pass from June 1979! I had a lot more hair back then. This bus pass is now about 10,000 days old. It has somehow managed to stick with me – undetected – for 27 years and 10 moves.
And look, it only cost $16 for a bus pass in 1979!
I immediately stopped packing, and found an online inflation calculator, which shows that if the price of a bus pass had kept pace with inflation, it should now cost $43.57 for a bus pass in Ottawa. But guess what? It costs $72.00.
Posted by zoom! on October 15, 2006, at 10:12 am |
 The move is scheduled for a week from tomorrow, and I’ve now packed 65 boxes. This is my living room. If my dog and I encounter each other in the maze, one of us has to back up because the tunnels are too narrow for us to pass each other. He’s not entirely clear on the concept, so I’m doing most of the backing up.
You know that stage in packing where you feel like your stuff has been breeding? That’s where I’m at now. I just keep finding more stuff. There’s stuff everywhere. The more I pack, the more stuff I come across. I don’t know where it all came from, since I hardly ever go shopping, and I got rid of all kinds of stuff last February when I moved. I had 72 boxes then, and this time it looks like I’ll have at least 90.
I’m reminding myself of those crazy hoarder ladies who never throw anything out and who still have all the yogurt containers from all the yogurt they’ve ever eaten and all the newspapers from 1936 onwards. (But I don’t. I kept the newspaper from the Jim Jones mass suicide, and the one from the day my son was born, and a couple in which I was published, and the ice storm, and the great blackout, and the one from September 12, 2001, but I think that’s it. And I only have two yogurt containers.)
I’ve got 21 boxes of books. I’ve tried not to buy too many books lately, but I did see one for sale at the library about Rasputin and I decided I would only buy it if I opened it up at a random page, stuck my finger on a random sentence, and the sentence was interesting. This is the sentence (I have to paraphrase because I’ve already packed the book): “He had a fetish for being photographed in coffins.” You’d have bought it too, wouldn’t you?
|
|
Popular Posts