thisCassandra

Preparing for Flight

I'm leaving my job of 14 years, and it's surprisingly emotional. The friend group took me for lunch yesterday, and I was okay until they gave me the card, then it became difficult to keep myself from crying. Today the management is taking me and everyone who wants to come along for lunch.

I'll probably cry again.

The new job is a plum, a UBC position in an outreach facility located a ten minute walk away from thisCastle. This facility is run like a non-profit social agency in that it helps out in my community. So I'll be able to feel that I'm helping, not just processing paper.

Plum perfect.

 

MetaMorphosis - Now that's a Convertible

My mother and I were invited to Sunday dinner at the home of Art, one of her Richmond brothers, so that she and I could hang out with my three Richmond cousines, all of whom happen to be in town, two from Manhattan and one from Edmonton. These are seriously beautiful women, and accomplishedl: Kelley, daughter of Doug; Michele, daughter of Art (favourite of my grandmother); and Tammy, daughter of Art. Between them they have five children, and three interesting lives, and I have always felt like the ugly duckling-Bart Simpson cousin in comparison to them. Oh well, that is neither here nor there. 

I belong to a Car Co-op and I book cars as necessary. I have favourite cars, and on Sunday I used the white convertible Smart Car which is one of my absolute favourites - I love this car. What's not to love about a small car that's cute, easy on gas and fun to drive? Nothing.

The white convertible Smart Car lives in stall 67 - in underground parking beneath a downtown condo complex called Electric Avenue - which is reserved for it 24 hours per day. Last night, when I took the little white Smart Car home to stall 67, there was a honking huge brand new black BMW X6 SUV parked there, nose to the wall, in our reserved space, so after a bit of confusion, I parked in stall 70 and phoned the Car Coop to confirm the stall number and to find out if I could park the car in another space.

I gave them the info about the big black car, and they told me that they would call the towing company, but I'd have to wait around and show the car to the tow truck driver and sign off after he finished hooking up. So I waited.

I didn't feel good about this, I'd never had any one towed before and I didn't really want to do it at all. I went up to Earl's restaurant (stall 67 is surrounded by free parking for Earl's) and told the front door staff that the car was being towed and they told me they had no public announcement system, but thanked me for making an effort to let them know. I considered changing my booking so that I'd keep the car and return it in the morning when the BMW was sure to be gone, but I didn't. I just waited for the tow truck.

When the tow truck arrived the driver told me that he'd never towed a BMW X6 before, so he was really stoked, really looking forward to it, really excited. While he was working on it, two guys walked past and said "Are you really having it towed?" I shrugged and said, "I have to. They're parked in our space." Then they cheered me on for being assertive with my parking and having it towed. The tow truck driver beamed and thanked me as I signed the paper. Then he drove away, taking the big black BMW X6 SUV with him. I backed into stall 67, put the key away, and walked out of there, almost an hour after I first drove in, feeling okay.

Having thought about it, I now feel even better: these people are going to approach stall 67 and notice that the butt end of their big black BMW X6 SUV isn't visible. They will panic more and more, and then when they get to stall 67, they're going to find a tiny white convertible Smart Car parked nose out where they left their car. They'll freak out. It'll seem to them like their car lost 60% of its value, changed colour, shrunk, turned into a ragtop and turned itself around.

Ha ha. I loved it. I love sticking it to the BMW SUV drivers, and I would pay big money to hear them and to see the looks on their faces as they approach stall 67. I would pay even bigger money to hear and see them just after they arrive. I love this. What's not to love about confounding people (who have quite likely been drinking) by apparently converting their absurdly ostentatious and wasteful vehicles into cute little sensible cars? Nothing.

If It Has To Be This Way, Why Not That Way?

I've seen the True Cameron twice in the last week or so, once at the Hawkes Street sale (in McLean Park) where I was at the Neighbourhood Small Grants program information table disbursing infomation, and again at the Jazz Fest where he works and I saw him standing on a white plastic lawn chair. Neither of these sightings was unexpected, but, that said, nor were they intentional.

Both sightings were a byproduct of my efforts to claim parts of my neighbourhood that I have avoided because of proximity to his place (McLean Park) and to reclaim parts of my life that I have neglected since his and my involvement (the Jazz Fest)  My Neighbourhood Small Grants Program work requires that I inhabit more of the neighbourhood than I have historically, especially the pivotal area around McLean Park. Roberta, the program facilitator, and I work pretty closely together, meeting at her house. She lives right across from McLean Park, across the park from the True Cameron.

True to our history since breaking up, the True Cameron and I did not speak vis a vis. Seeing him is not easy for me, I reckon that speaking with him would be even less easy. As it is, in my sadder, lonelier, needier moments I yearn to be with him, I yearn for the excitement and the comfort of my senses revelling in him: the smells, the sights, the sounds, the tastes, the textures of him.

How tragic that someone who is the greatest of the great loves turned out to be so toxic, even to himself. How tragic that I could not make lemon-ade out of the lemons of him. How tragic that I could not ever have trusted him. He and I are apart because it has to be this way. If it could be another way, it would be another way.   

Ooh - melodrama! Oh, yeah!

Speaking of being another way, my roof needs to be replaced. Sooner rather than later, though I have spent much of this spring trying to figure out what is what in the world of roofing - doing research, talking with roofing professionals, showing thisCastle, getting quotes for the job. I have pretty much decided to do a transition to green, getting the new roof membrane installed to the standards for a green roof, then greening as I am able. I suspect that the amount I currently have budgetted for the job, is about the amount that the roof alone will cost. So transition first, transformation later.

I have been having nasty, nasty allergies the last week or so, and today in desperation tried irrigating my sinuses with warm saline solution. I don't have a Neti Pot, but I do have one of those cups designed for separating the meat juice from the fat - essentially glass beakers with a handle on one side and a long spout placed low on the other side. I mixed up a weak solution of warm water and sea salt, and, following the instructions I found on YouTube, gently poured the saline solution into one nostril and let it fill the sinuses and flow out of the other nostril. I'm pleased to say, "so far, so good." It wasn't bad, and maybe it'll work. It definitely feels a little less heavy and plugged up. 

Somewhere is a line to bring together these three threads, The True Cameron, the roof and the sinuses, something about green and leaks and washing gunk away, but I can't find it.

Pender Street, Mid-winter

I know how rivetting I find my own art to be, but I don't really trust my own objectivity, and always want to get other peoples' opinions. So I took yesterday's art (now named Pender Street, Mid-winter) to work with me and showed it to seven people . Everyone seemed to think it was beautiful and two people wanted to buy it or some version of it. Approximately one third of viewers seriously interested in purchase. Not bad.

With these reactions in mind, I took it to The Fall, the tattoo, art, etc., shop of Paul, my much tattooed friend, to get some feedback from him, a dealer of art and other esoterica, a paid professional. He was working on the left bicep of his friend Rob when I arrived - I've met Rob a few times, most recently in CostCo where he introduced me to his wife Chris - so I chatted with them for a bit, then I said I wanted to get their feedback on the art. Paul has told me before that he wants to sell my work in his shop, but I have never done any work that was editionable. This work is editionable, I said as I took the packet out of my bag. Paul stopped what he was doing and moved his chair closer to where I was, and Rob leaned in. I had their complete attention.

I unwrapped the parcel, and held it up. They whooped in pleasure. They loved it, raved about it, commented on everything about it. Paul even called Josh, his business partner over to check it out, and the discussion went from there: if I make more of them and am willing to sell them, Paul wants to hang them in his shop and sell them on consignment. I've never tried to sell my art before but I think it's time for me to try.

I think I'm ready - well, I'm certainly thrilled at the positive responses I've been getting. I think they're the crush of the day.

It's time.

tC On Dr Mary D MD

This is a Photo-chopped version of the gift I made for Dr Mary D, my soon-to-be-retired GP. You wouldn't know by looking at this version that it's actually a shadowbox (hence the photo-chopping), and you wouldn't know by looking at me that I have as many health problems as I do. My appearance of good health is a testament to the excellent health care that I have received from Dr Mary D. She has been a great influence, helping me to learn how to take care of myself and helping me to take care of my mother.

Before Dr Mary D, my mother's GP was Dr AC, a golfing buddy of my uncle Art. I was of the opinion that Dr AC was a mediocre doctor at best because of my experience with him. I was taking allergy shots and needed my shot and was in the area near his office so went there. After he gave me the shot he asked if there was anything else, and I happened to have started taking the new low-dose pill a few months earlier, and was almost completely constipated and had gained a lot of weight (20 lbs). What he said? "You should go at least once a day, whenever you have cramps...All the Hollywood starlets are on the pill and they don't gain weight, they just don't eat anything but salad...If you don't want to gain weight, eat nothing but salad."

What kind of doctor would say such a thing to anybody, let along a twenty-something young woman who might or might not be suffering from anorexia? Not a good one, I thought, and resolved to never see him again. I stopped taking the pill, and within thirty hours I had excreted (both types) about fifty times and lost about twelve lbs, likely all that water and stuff. Needless to say, I never tried to take the pill again, and I never went to see him again.

My mother's problems with him were bigger: she had, from about 1977, had quite bad digestion problems, and almost everything she ate gave her diarrhoea. He never thought to give her tests or investigate the causes, and in 1997, when she had the emergency bowel resection (accompanied by the multiple organ failure), we found out why she'd had the digestive problems: in 1969 or so she'd had radiation therapy for a cancer of the uterus, and the radiation had burned a ot of the tissue in her abdomen. Her intestines had perforated then sealed themselves up then perforated again, several times, each time leaking a bit of digestive fluid into her abdominal cavity, but not enough to give her full-fledged peritonitis. In 1997 the poisons had built up enough to give her full-fledged peritonitis, and she almost died. She spent 9 and a half weeks (no, Mickey Rourke wasn't there) in the hospital, and when they discharged her, they thought they were sending her home to die.

Quite frankly, I also expected her to die - she was so frail and tiny, and noody seemed to care for her (not even I her only child) - so I did the only thing I could figure would help her, and got her to start going to Dr Mary D, my wonderful doctor, rather than continuing with Dr AC.

I had found Dr Mary D in 1993, quite by accident soon after I had had the appendectomy. At that time I didn't have a GP, I had been attending walk-in clinics for all my health needs, but this walk-in medical care wasn't really helping me. I had a nasty yeast infection from the post-op antibiotics, so I was desperately seeking a doctor in my neighbourhood who was taking new patients to prescribe the ointment. I found Dr Mary D in the yellow pages and made an appointment for that afternoon. 

Dr Mary D was away, and the locum was Dr Allison P, a pleasant young woman (who turned out to be a graduate from the department I work in). She checked me out and gave me the prescription for the ointment, and I thought that was that. Six weeks later there was a phone call from Dr Mary D, she was looking over my file and she thought that I should make a follow-up appointment so she and I could meet one another, and she could help me with my messy health. I was impressed that she was so pro-active, following up on my appointment with Dr Allison P when I might have let it slide, so I made an appointment, we met, and our relationship blossomed from there. 

When I found Dr Mary D, my diabetes had been diagnosed two years earlier. I had a good endocrinologist, Dr Don S, to whose care I had been refered by one of the GPs at the Student Health Clinic at UBC. Everytime I saw Dr. Don S he asked me if I had found a GP yet, and when I told him I had found Dr Mary D, he looked pleased and said, "If my mother or wife were looking for a GP, I'd send them to her. She took on the boys at the College (of Physicians and Surgeons) and won."  Pretty impressive for a GP to be so highly recommended by a highly regarded specialist.

Once I asked Dr Mary D about her background and she told me that she was a nurse before she became a doctor. It shows in the way she deals with her patients. Dr Mary D has always been kind and helpful when helping me to deal with my problems, physical and emotional, small and large. I have responded well to her patience.

My mother responds well to Dr Mary D too, listening to her voice of authority when my voice of authority doesn't work. I have been able to get messages to my mother when she is obstinately not listening by getting Dr. Mary D to talk with her. For that small thing I am grateful.

So I started making what I thought would be a lovely good-bye card, but the card ended up being a full fledged work of art, matted and framed. I did it all myself, it took many hours to make all the parts and to put them together (not to mention the several times I took it apart and put it together again because it wasn't perfect). I like it a lot, and it's probably the crush of the day, but I'm still a bit hesitant to give a piece of my gritty downtown eastside art (as yet untitled) to someone who has Anne Geddes posters in the exam rooms. I understand that Dr Mary D's practice was dominated by expectant mothers and mothers of young children, so the milky art of Anne Geddes, and the like, is easy and obvious. That said, I am hopeful that the apparent love of Dr Mary D for Anne Geddes' milky work is a work-related affliction, and that in her life she likes her art a little stronger.

I'm going to miss Dr Mary D. I hope she likes the art.

Deposit Troubles Here

I am in the bank waiting in line to deposit the rent monies, two cheques and some cash. A woman behind me is a bit fidgetty; she seems a bit shifty, but she doesn't seem to be completely under the influence of "conditions" as some people in the neighbourhood are. 

I get to the teller and hand her the cash and cheques. Because the cheque from Kyle, the new roomer, is drawn on another branch of the same bank, the teller has to compare the signatures. She goes to the signature file to cheque the signature on the cheque against the file signature...

While she is gone, I watch the woman who was behind me in line and who is at the next teller. She is having some trouble: when she'd arrived at the wicket, she'd been careful to look around and see who was watching, then she'd pulled a balled up wad of paper from her pocket and she'd carefully smoothed it with her hands. It looked like US currency, but pale. She'd handed it to the teller and told him she wanted to deposit it to her account.

The telller had taken the bill from her and smoothed it more, and he'd examined it, and he'd turned it over, and he'd examined the other side, then he'd smoothed it some more. Then he'd said, "I'm sorry, but I can't deposit this for you."

When she'd said, "Why not? It's worth a million dollars", he'd said, "I don't know what currency it is."

She'd taken it back from him, smoothed it some more, squinted at it, then pointed at a place and said, "U.S. It says "U.S." right here."

He'd taken it back from her, and pointed and said "It has a website name here. The United States doesn't make currency in denominations higher than a thousand."

There was a bit more attempted persuasion on her part, but her teller was firm, he was not going to accept this money from her.

My teller comes back to tell me that the signatures don't match. I try a little persuasion on her, but fail: she is new and she is adamant - she isn't going to risk the trouble she might get into for depositing the cheque, even though the current balance on the account is far more than the amount of the cheque. Drat, while it is true that I'll have to make another trip to the back, I just have to get Kyle to sign the cheque with the old signature or change his signature on file or to give me cash. It is annoying, but not unfixable. I am disappointed, but not nearly as disappointed as the woman with the million dollar bill.

More Raffle Gab

I am really good at selling raffle tickets, but have never had the best of luck at winning raffles. Well, not entirely true. In my college days I won $100 as a door prize for attending a student council meeting, and twelve years ago my now-ex-but-then-partner won a weekend stay in a bed and breakfast on Saltspring Island called the "Blue Ewe". These were good prizes.

We have a temp at work, Eleni. I like Eleni: she gets my sense of humour, so I think she's smarter than the other temps we've had. All the temps have been pretty smart, but this one shines. Well, she laughs at my stories of little or no consequence, and that makes her special in my books.

Friday Eleni told me that the group that she's involved with was having a raffle to raise funds for some good cause or other, and asked if I wanted to buy a ticket. I told her that I didn't have much luck with raffles and told her about the ECU raffle wins (see Raffle Gab or Prizing the "CH" Food Group), the prizes that I could not or would not use, which she appreciated. That said, I bought two tickets.

The chicken chip and dip plate, the most recent ECU raffle prize, has been sitting on the shelf in my office since December, so I showed it to her. She laughed and said that the group had some big prizes, but they were all just gathering random small prizes and asked me to donate it, which I did. Then she laughed and said, "The draw is this evening, maybe you'll win it back."

This morning she told me that I hadn't drawn the chicken chip and dip plate back (whew - but wouldn't that have been a great continuation), but I had won a bottle of white wine which she would bring tomorrow. Now, I don't want to look a proverbial gift horse in the proverbial mouth, but I don't have alcohol digesting flora and fauna, I was never able to get myself past the throwing-up-when-drinking stage, so gave up. I don't even bother to try any more.

One Creature Great and Small

I like to take pictures of the dead creatures I see on my journey. In the city it's mostly vermin, mostly small.

I found this pigeon impaled on a spike on a fence on the other side of the chain link and metal mesh fence behind the barbed wire loops.

This image may become a painting or a print, some personal statement about faith, hope and charity.

I'm thinking about taking nine units this fall. 9 units -  that's 60% of a full course load. that's considered to be full time. Could I do this and do justice to my home and my job and my school? Probably isn't such a good idea.

I'm certain that I'll be taking one 6 unit course, Print Making - alternative methods, a full day studio course. I'm excited.

I bought a small inkjet printer/copier/scanner last week - for $45 plus shipping & insurance. Technology is amazing.

I've agreed to participate in the Neighbourhood Small Grants Committee again, another personal statement about faith, hope and charity.

 

HOT DRM, BOOHOO

Rupert (the MP3 player, purchased in May 07) came with a promotion from boohoomusic.ca (corporate names have been changed) - 30 free songs if I joined up, free to keep regardless, and I joined. My 30 free songs consisted of pop stuff. It was easy.

I also purchased and downloaded a bunch of songs direct from artists' sites, Creative Commons stuff (no DRM), and uploaded a bunch of albums (5 or so) from my personal CD collection to Jackson Institute (the computer).

I was travelling (LA, San Diego, train home), ten days away from home. About halfway into the train ride home, most of the music wouldn't play. The message was that Boohoo wouldn't let me play the music unless I did the Jackson Institute - Rupert sync weekly. In effect Boohoo had taken some weird ownership of all the music, which I found quite annoying, so I quit Boohoo as soon as I arrived home.

Led by one of the hipper flatmates, I found eh-music, a site that sells obscure-ish music with no DRM, which I joined. I took out a monthly subscription, and I have been happily downloading obscure-ish, unprotected music from them ever since. I have also been happily uploading music from my personal CD collection, and had 20 or so CDs in the library. 

My eh-music refresh date is the 24th of each month. For my April download I was a bit late, waiting until about the 10th of May. After I downloaded my new songs to Jackson Institute, I hooked up Rupert II (the third of the MP3 players - it's a long story) which sent the message that it had 1.9 GB remaining, and then the sync started. Something glitched and when the image came back the message read that Rupert II had 4.6 GB remaining; somewhere along the way 2.7 GB of files, all music, had gone missing.

I checked on Rupert II, and the music that was not from eh-music, that is the Boohoo songs and the uploads from the personal CD collection (20 or so CDs), were gone. I checked Jackson Institute, and they were gone from there too. Somehow, everything that had DRM had disappeared without leaving any traces. It was as though they had never been there.

My first I thought was that I might have deleted the tracks, but when I thought it through I remembered that my memory, though growing weaker, has (historically) been very strong; I can remember conversations verbatim, I can remember what people wore and the circumstances surrounding situations, I can remember birthdates and phone numbers, I can remember a lot of stuff in fine detail. My memory is a bit like a two year old hard drive, normally reliable, but a bit flaky. That said, it's not nearly flaky enough that I could delete 2.7 GB of files, all music, and not recall having done so.

Coincidentally, the hard drive (on the two year old computer) has been misbehaving a bit lately, crashing for no reason (clicking on the inbox in gmail), but it is no Hal 9000 (I have been careful not to download any recordings of "Bicycle Built for Two) and it is not yet misbehaved enough that it could/would selectively delete 2.7 GB of files, all music. So what could have happened to that 2.7 GB of files, all music? 

I suspect boohoomusic.ca came after me on the one year anniversary date and deleted all the music files that had any DRM on them. I can't prove this, but what else might it be?

Sunny Sunday

Things I did today:

went to the garden supplies shop and bought ladybugs and insecticidal soap for the aphids on the poor irises;

mowed my lawn, well to be more precise, I weed-whipped the bit of grass that runs between the street and the sidewalk in front of thisCastle;

put up a tool rack in the garage;

organized and cleaned the garage a bit;

put all the tools and equipment and supplies that I used away again.

I am learning that part of doing a job well is tidying up again afterwards. As I learn this thisCastle gets better and better. I am usually able to find things that I need now.

I don't like weed-whipping. 

I am tired. I think I'll order pizza for dinner.

Not Just Smart, Yummy Too

The car co-op has two Smart Cars, one a yellow hardtop, and the other a white convertible. I drove the convertible today.

The first thing I noticed was how much easier it is to put a convertible top down than it used to be; you used to have to stop the car and you (and your friends) had to wrestle with the top, but now you just push a button and it all happens serenely - not much different from opening an electric window - you don't even have to stop the car. I was impressed.

What a joy it is to be able to drive all the fun new cars, especially a cute little convertible in sunny weather. I enjoyed it so much that I'm considering taking it on a road trip, on the highways and byways, in the sun, to the desert, to the beach. Oh yes, I must do this thing. 

Today I decided I wanted to go to the beach for sunset, so got in the car and drove to Pat's place (my apartment before I moved to thisCastle), and called Pat from the parking lot. She was drawing a bath, but driving in the convertible and my company and the beach at sunset was a pretty good draw, so she postponed the bath, and we drove with the top down to Spanish Banks where we watched the sunset, the gorgeous sunset. When we arrived, the sun was still in the sky, but falling, so the light was long and golden. Glorious.

When we looked to the east we saw that there was a piece of rainbow high in the sky, in amongst the red clouds.

Driving the Smart convertible to Spanish Banks to watch the sunset and the rainbow with good company is the crush of the day.

Crazy, Crazy, Krazy!

I went to see a show called "Krazy!" at the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) this afternoon. The full title is "Krazy! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art". Krazy! What a fabulous show. 

I got to play Pac-Man on an actual video table machine from long ago, and I played a bit of Super Mario World. I died pretty quickly on both, but what fun to be back there. Now if only I could find a Frogger machine, I'd play it all the time and be in froggy heaven.

It was also fun seeing some of the anime that I haven't seen or haven't seen in a long time. Great anime, is a wonderful thing: I go to school with many young Asian people; more than a few of them draw manga style and want to do anime. It is to be hoped that before they start doing serious work they learn to express themselves and their worlds in an interesting way. Youth is a wondrous thing, but the combination of dewy-eyed naivete and the big-eyed cutesy style of manga is not that interesting.  I want these young artists to partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but I will not be their serpent. As a fellow art student, that is not my role.

Speaking of big-eyed cutesy art, I've been thinking about doing a Downtown Eastside version of Hello Kitty! called Hi(gh) Ho Kitty! Hi(gh) Ho Kitty! could work the streets around here, she and her friends could have a Kitty Stroll on Princess Avenue (as opposed to the actual Kiddy Stroll on Pandora Street). 

Anyway, re. Krazy!, my favourite artist of the show was an illustrator named Christopher Ware who draws extraordinarily detailed panels with stories from the life of a 27-year-old amputee who lives in a large city with 3-floor walk up buildings with bay windows.

I also loved the old stuff, George Herriman, Winsor McKay, et al. 

I plan to go back and see it again. Three cheers for student memberships!

Young at Heart, Long in Tooth

This afternoon Amy, Marlene and I went to see "Young At Heart", a heartening film about "Young at Heart," a Massachusetts based choir whose members have an average age of over 80. They sing songs like "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "Golden Years" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go?".

The members of Young At Heart are long in tooth, but they rock.

24

5pm: go to Macdonald's Prescriptions to pickup 6 bottles of Professional Care skin lotion for my mother; fetch car; drive; get stuck in the traffic trying to cross Cambie at 12th;

6pm: arrive at mother's house; sit down; organize her meds for the next four weeks; give her the lotion; sign the paper work for the new mortgage/secured line of credit;

7pm: take mother for dinner at the Congee Noodle house; take mother home;

8pm: drive home; arrive home; unlock deadbolt; open door; deadbolt won't lock again; take lock apart and try to fix it; nothing works;

9pm: call locksmith who asks "Do you need to get it done tonight?"; I ask the price difference, and he tells me it costs 185 to get it done this evening, 135 to get it done tomorrow; I wonder why I ask because the price difference is trivial - considering the necessity of a functioning lock and that there is no time to get it done tomorrow; so I wait for the locksmith;

10pm: locksmith comes and installs a new deadbolt, gives me the two keys that came with the lock, but doesn't have a key-cutting machine in his truck so can't make any more;

11pm: talk to the flatmates about the new lock and the two keys - one of them offers to get a key made for the other in the early morning;

12am: go to bed;

1am: sleep, perhaps dream;

2am: sleep, perhaps dream;

3am: sleep, perhaps dream;

4am: sleep, perhaps dream;

5am: sleep, perhaps dream;

6am: wake; shower; eat;

7am: leave the house, try to go to the locksmith to get keys made, but it doesn't open until  8am; settle for getting five keys made at the yuppie Home Depot - where the clerks are so heavily scented that to escape the perfume induced migraine and asthma I stand by the wheelbarrows with their rubber tires and risk the rubber-smell induced migraine;

8am: pick up two cinnamon buns at Solly's around the corner from the Home Depot; return car;

9am: get the shuttle bus to CFRI; run into Angel the untrainable support staff; meet with Genny and Bruce;

10am: doctor appointment - my meeting with Genny and Bruce goes a bit over time, so I'm a bit late; when I see the doctor, I cry because she is retiring soon and she has been part of the team for 15 years;

11am: go to meet Weronika to give the cheque for the returned security deposit;

12pm: run into Ru at the coffee shop in the lobby of the hospital; Amy comes to take me to lunch at the Cafe D-Lite. Chicken Laksa noodle soup - yummy;

1pm: lunch and gossip with Amy about the recent trip to Singapore; she shows me photos and gives me a packet of prepared Laksa mix;

2pm: Amy drops me at Joanne's place for tea with Joanne (and cinnamon buns);

3pm: watch Dr. Phil with Joanne (my first time), then head home;

4pm: arrive home and test the keys - of the five, one opens the lock, three scrape their way in to the lock, but they open it, and one doesn't open the lock at all; I look at the keys and note that, although they're similar, no two are alike;

5pm: Kyle, the new flatmate, comes bearing money and no luggage - his plan is to move in in a week or so; Kyle is a 26 year old Buddhist (Tibetan - red hat),  who appears to be much older than he is; I wonder what he'll be like when he's twice his age.

Unlike Jack Bauer I'm not out to save the free world, so I am able to take time to eat and sleep, not to mention dealing with personal hygiene (not just when I'm covered with my own or someone else's blood) and home maintenance issues.

What She Said

On my way through Chinatown (heading home) yesterday I walked past a street woman sitting on a stoop. She looked at me and asked "Do you have a light?", and I shook my head.

Then she asked "Are you a lesbian?", and I shook my head again.

Then she said, "Well you look like a lesbian."

Guess What!

I was walking down the corridor at work today, and was approached by Helen, the cheerful, developmentally challenged sterile processing department hospital employee with the loud voice. She said to me, "Hello, Cassandra, guess what I did this weekend!" She was very excited, and backed me against the wall and grabbed my upper arms for emphasis.

When someone is this excited, I assume some jet-set weekend in some CA city known by its initials, LA or SF or SD or SB, or a visit to a fantastic new restaurant, or a horseback riding adventure, or the Terry Fox Run,or a good game of bowling

"I defrosted my freezer!" she said as she worried at my upper arms for additional emphasis.

An Auspicious Celebration

Today is my mother's 75th birthday - a month or so ago I asked what she wanted to do for her birthday, and she said she wanted to be taken out for dinner, and so I started planning. I asked who she wanted to invite, and she wanted me and my brother with her, and my friends, and her brother (and his girlfriend) and their cousin (and her two kids).

We went to her favourite Chinese restaurant, the Pink Pearl (always tasty),  which can seat 600 people. Sometimes when we go there, the portable wall - which splits the restaurant in half - is up, and there's some sort of special event on one side and regular dining on the other side. This evening was one of those evenings, and we just saw an occasional young person dressed in some shiny silk or satin outfit. Shiny.

About halfway through our meal, the wait staff opened the wall right in front of our table and we were able to read the sign "4th Anniversary Banquet for Wushu Society", and several young people - men and women - gathered in a line, and put on their lion outfits to dance.

There were five sets of lions leaping and dancing, tails wagging, in turn. Then all five danced simultaneously, worrying at the lettuce offerings.

What an auspicious birthday gift: five leaping lions.

This Much is True

I  don't want to hear other peoples' cell phone conversations;

I don't want to smell other peoples' perfume;

I don't want to see other peoples' underwear.

In short, I don't want their exhibitionistic pseudo-intimacies forced on me.

Reciprocating Saw

I am pleased: I needed to cut down a sheet of pegboard, so used the reciprocating saw for the first time today. Yikes, thisgirl learns how to use power tools.

The Ideal Flatmate Law

I'm seeking a new flatmate, not desperately, but earnestly.

I'm finding it difficult to get people interested in living in a great place in a not-so-great neighbourhood.

I wonder if there might be an ideal flatmate law, perhaps PV = nHT, where P = price, V = volume of space, n = neighbourhood, H = universal cohab contant, T = duration of cohabitation.

A Post Modern Three-Legged Race

Two women moving a computer from where they have it stored after moving it from desk A (where it has most recently been used), back across the hall to desk B (where it normally lives): they (the women) didn't want to disconnect the cables and let the parts run free should they (the women) be unable to get them (the parts) reconnected properly (those USB connections are so complicated) so they frog-walked across the hall together, one carrying the CPU and the other carrying the monitor (LCD fortunately) and the keyboard. Fortunately the mouse was cordless so they were able to carry it across on the next trip.

It was weird to see. It could be an event at picnics.

I have disdain for some people.

Crasian Woman II

Just after midnight the other night I heard some low whispering outside my door. There's often whispering outside my door, so I didn't pay much attention. Then the banging on the door started up - louder than any banging should have been. The door is metal and I have a bunch of magnets and stuff on it; a few magnets fell off the door and things on the shelves around the door were tinkling and falling. Then the doorbell started to ring and ring and ring, crazily ringing, stopping as I turned on the light to head upstairs.

Where thisCastle is located, in the Downtown Eastside, you might not want to open the door late at night when someone bangs on it or rings the doorbell repeatedly. As well, the windows on the main floor are frosted and you can't see outside through them, so when I want to check out what's going on out there, I go upstairs and open one of the windows, lean out a bit and look down. The other night when I got upstairs Stuart was doing exactly that; he was saying "Go to the other door." and when I asked him who it was, he said "The police." So I headed back downstairs to talk to them.

In the almost four years since I moved here I have never before spoken to the police except for the time I called about a nasty fight that was going on in the lane - a man threatening and beating on a woman. When the police arrived the fight was over, and the two were gone, so the police rang my doorbell and asked what I had heard and seen, and I told them. I don't often call the police, but when I hear or see violence, especially man on woman, I call.

Anyway, last night I went back downstairs and opened the door to a young policeman, not one of the pretty blonde policeboys, but a slim bald one and his partner who wanted to know who was in the house; they were looking for a missing South Asian young man named Nadir, and they'd had a tip that he was in thisCastle, behind the door that never gets used. I told them there was no one fitting that description in the house and they took my word for it and went away.

That said,  when talking with them I was so flustered that I couldn't recall the names of the people who live here.

Today I did my final project for my print-making class: a stencil called Crasian Woman II. Crasian Woman II has her roots in the original Crasian Woman, who was a graffiti tag based on the international women's washroom symbol. Crasian Woman was originally known as Crazy Asian Woman, which became Crasian Woman, and she was designed just before I moved to thisCastle. She is the official logo of thisCastle, and when the flag is made, she'll be on it.

Crasian Woman II is a development of Crasian Woman, a conflation of the walk signal man and the washroom woman. Her head and hands are spirals because they are always crazy busy. Her head is an @ symbol because she is a modern wifi woman. Her feet are heavy boots because she is always well grounded.

Crasian Woman II is yellow, sprayed in marker paint down the lane behind thisCastle, her non-traditional territory. She is yellow lines down the middle.

Bruce Is No Poofter

I went to a tea party this afternoon, tea and wee sandwiches, cheese and crackers, cookies and other dainties to celebrate the 50th of my friend Pat. Pat lives in the huge and funky  co-op apartment I lived in before moving to thisCastle, and most of the guests were other residents of the building. Pat is a good neighbour.

Pat is a printmaker, and works out of a co-op studio on Granville Island. Several of the other printmakers from studio were also invited, and Barb (with her guy Bruce) was the first of them to arrive. The first thing she said was "I just shook the hand of Bruce Springsteen," and went on to tell us that she'd been down at the studio and he'd come in and they'd chatted, and that the previous time he'd come to town he'd bought one of her prints. She was thrilled, and we were too, with her brush with fame.

Sometime during the party, the phone rang and Pat took it in the other room. After about a minute she brought it back out and handed it to Barb who looked mystified. Soon she looked and sounded very excited: it was Wayne, Bruce Springsteen's manager, telling her that he'd arranged comps for her and to pick them up at the box office.

Apparently the Boss had asked her if she'd had a chance to get tickets, and she'd said something about being a poor artist, and he'd said something about her calling his manager to organize comps, but rather than leaving it to her being able to track down the manager, he'd got his manager to track her down. The manager had called the studio looking for her, and someone there had been able to give him Pat's phone number.

What Wayne said to Pat "This is a call about someone who met someone else earlier this afternoon," and any of us would have known who the two people were.   

Barb was excited and so was everyone else. It was exciting even being there when it happened. Also, how great is it that he (the Boss) could so easily be arrogant, and yet he is  nice enough to do something that would mean so much to someone else.

I don't have any Springsteen in my collection. Maybe I should get some.

Hey, if I keep print-making, maybe something exciting like this will happen to me someday.

Not So Handy

Nobody told me that my hands would hurt.

Just How You Want To Be Remembered

One of my friends and I went to the Home and Garden Show at BC Place on Saturday afternoon; I had never been to a home show, but one of my colleagues gave me two passes and I have a home, so I went.

There is a lot of free stuff  - shopping bags and small packets of food, and individual sample small rolls of toilet paper, and a lot of displays of merchandise. I have to say that I am surprised at how much stuff there is to buy for homes and gardens, how many renos there are to be done, and how much it all costs. I could spend all my money, every penny, max out all the cards and the lines of credit, take out more mortgages and still not have the home as I think it could be.

My friend bought nail pens (basically squeezable, refillable syringes filled with nail polish - what they were doing at a home and garden show, I don't know, but they were, and she bought them). I bought a Little Giant Ladder system which some of my other friends have already asked to use. Delivery isn't for two or three weeks, but I don't need instant gratification with respect to ladders. I already have at least three.

On my way home from that part of downtown, I often catch a bus at Abbott and Hastings. Many of the intersections along that part of Hastings are pretty challenging, and Abbott and Hastings is one of the harder core of them. At some point this will change, because of the Woodwards complex which is at that corner, and is going to be full of downtown hipsters - it was marketed with this slogan "An Intellectual Property". It's going to be full of scene people, and the environs will have to change. But this weekend it was pretty much as it always is: there was a young man lying across the sidewalk, on his side, fully awake and looking at everybody. He looked a bit uncomfortable.

My friend likes to bake. She had given me a plastic bag of bread and muffins that she had made, and I wanted to give this young man something to eat, so thought I would give him the home baking. Just as the bus was arriving, I reached into one of the new shopping bags and pulled out something soft wrapped in plastic and threw it to him. He caught it and I got on the bus.

When I got home I dumped all the loot out of the new shopping bags and I found the bag of bread and muffins, and I couldn't find the sample pack of toilet paper. I'd thrown the young man a roll of toilet paper.

Yesterday I went to that part of downtown again to buy yogurt and greens. When I rounded the corner to catch the bus, a young man and woman walked past me. As they passed I heard the young man say "Toilet paper." He remembered.

Ha 2

Because they were too chicken

Ha

Why didn't the chickens cross the road?

Countries

After coming home from Whistler, the land of ice and snow and comfortable beds, I understood how uncomfortable my bed is; the pillow top is flattened and without hope. So I called Fairmont customer service and asked about the beds. Yesterday I took some time and went bed shopping. I bought a new Simmons Beautyrest Westview mattress and box spring set at a store called Sleep Country, which has a 5% price guarantee. Another store had an equivalent set on sale for $200 less, so I got mine for $200 less less 5%. Delivery is free, and happens next Saturday. Yay!

I went to get my teeth cleaned this week and my dentist has workstations at each of the chairs in the office. I thought of posting during the cleaning, but thought better of it. Bluetooth..

I'm reading again, right now a new to me sci-fi guy named Charles Stross. I've also been reading another new to me sci-fi guy named Corey Doctorow. They're splendid. Also, there's going to be a new Iain M. Banks novel released soon. Yay!

 I'm spending a lot of time on school work, some block cutting and print making almost every day. Yay!
.

I am grateful for friends and Google is my friend

I am presently up in Whistler, the world renowned resort. I am not resorting, I am working here, doing surprise prevention for a course that we (at work) run every year. Being ever equal parts neurotic, intuitive and clear sighted makes me very good at surprise prevention. Being also ever well-behaved and good at dealing with surprises when they happen makes me a good on-site person.

Tuesday we were traveling: it snowed in Vancouver on Tuesday morning, a lot, six inches. In Vancouver the least bit of snow on the ground results in the city grinding to a halt. My great friend Rob H and I had scheduled to meet at the bus station at 7:30 a.m. to catch the 8 a.m. bus, so I called a taxi at 6:45 a.m. The bus depot is less than 5 taxi minutes away from thisCastle, so, even with the snow, 45 minutes should have been enough time, but apparently it wasn't. Even though I was first on the list in my section, I waited and waited and waited outside and no taxi appeared. I called the taxi company again, but the line was continually busy, busy, busy. I also called the other taxi companies, but their lines were continually busy, busy, busy too. Being ever pessimistic, I started to panic.

There shouldn't really have been a big time panic, because, being ever overly cautious, I had planned to take the bus before the bus before the bus that would get me there on time for the pre-con meeting, but I panicked anyway. The snow was still falling, and it didn't look to me like it was going to stop. Being ever melodramatic I didn't think that I would ever get to the bus depot, so being ever practical I decided to so something useful while I was waiting, and shoveled the walk. Six inches of wet snow is heavy, it was hard work.

Even though traffic was moving fairly normally on Hastings Street I had only seen two taxis drive by in the entire time that I'd been out there, which is not normal. I called the cab companies, but they were ever busy, so I started to approach people on the street, offering to give them twenty dollars to take me and my suitcase to the bus depot. The first person I asked was cleaning snow off his car with a piece of junkmail, and he mumbled, "I don't have any money." I tried to explain that I would give him money, but my Cantonese wasn't good enough, his English wasn't good enough, and he didn't (or wouldn't) understand.  He said he had to go to work in Richmond by 8:30 and he drove away without me. I understand that in our neighbourhood it might not be a good idea to involve yourself with strangers in distress, but really - he was on his way to work in RIchmond, and it wasn't out of his way to take me to the bus depot. Really.

The second person I asked was Vin, the owner of U2, the 9 - 5 grocery store across the street. In a neighbourhood full of grocery stores that are open 20 hours per day, I don't know how U2 survives. Vin is a small Vietnamese man who dotes on his family. I always enjoy watching him deal with his children, especially his son. Vin couldn't help me because he was on his way home to pick up his daughter and take her to school which was in the opposite direction from the bus depot.

After Vin refused my request, the panic started to set in seriously - it was 8:30 a.m., I had missed the first planned bus and was aiming for the 9:45 a.m. bus, but there was no sign of my taxi. I had been waiting more than an hour and a half, so I did what I never want to do: I called a friend who is between jobs and asked for help. She came to my rescue and drove me to the bus depot getting me there with twenty minutes to spare. I gave her a chocolate bar and $50 for helping me.

The bus ride wasn't exciting (this is a very good thing), and we made it up here with plenty of time to spare. I have stayed here, at the Chateau, several times (all for work), and each time I have been disappointed by the lack of cleanliness of the rooms. The surrounds are grand, but grungy.

Our meetings are in Frontenac A and B, two of the main conference rooms here. I sit outside of the rooms at a table, and I have to entertain myself. This is not so easy to do without a functional internet connection.

Since arriving, I've been having problems connecting my computer to the wireless hub here; the message from the computer was that the radio was set to off in the Bios setup and I didn't know what that meant. I tried and tried and tried again, but nothing was working for me. At the point when the computer started cycling through the several windows that I had open, flashing one second each, I gave up and started walking around a bit.

In Frontenac C, the third conference room, was a noisy party. Four hundred or so mostly younger-than-middle-aged, mostly Asian, mostly male people in winter resort gear. They are many more than our one hundred and twenty, and they are having way more fun than we are. They have at least seven security guards with them, five in uniform and at least two in plain clothes. I actually didn't know who or what they were, until I went over there to see why they were making so much noise.

When I saw their signage: Google Northwest Ski Party, I thought of the computer issues I was having. I approached and the two plain clothes security guys near the door questioned me. I explained my computer issue, and one of them said, I know how to do this, and came with me and showed me the switch to turn the wireless transponder back on. He didn't know what was with the cycling and flashing windows, but that was easy.

I asked my hero what he did with Google and he told me that he was the head of security in Mountain View California. Gee, at Google even the security people are handy with computers.

Wallowing in the Waters of Weariness

The phone rang last evening and per my tendency I checked out the caller ID before picking up. It was the True Cameron so I didn't pick up.

The True Cameron is one of the great loves, the one who, the first time I saw his name, I knew that he would turn out to be important to me and how important he would turn out to be. It was like the universe shone a spotlight on his name. I didn't meet him for almost twenty years after that but I remembered.

We met soon after I'd moved out from Rob/Bob (my ex) and soon after that we were lovers. We spent the next four years like Kathy and Heathcliff on the moors in a maelstrom of desire and emotion. I have described it as "A four year long on and off NSA arrangement that kept wandering into relationship territory." It was so toxic that we were only able to maintain it occasionally. Such melodrama!

The True Cameron is insistent like a dog who wants you to play. He wants you to throw the ball, and if you do, he'll want you to do it again. If you don't want to do it again, he'll sit at your feet and nudge you until you push him away. If you push him away, he'll go, but he'll be back in a minute or two, approaching you from the other side. He is needy.

I have a new flatmate who picked up on the fourth ring and then came down to tell me I had a call. I have never been able to bring myself to ask my flatmates to lie for me, and I'm not going to start now, so I took the call.

Now I don't know which is meaner: to take the call and disappoint, or to just refuse the call. I haven't taken any of his calls since May 2005 - it was six or seven months since the last time I had spoken with him, four or five months since he'd last called. One of my friends and I had just been organizing a meeting and I had just hung up the phone. The phone rang as I was walking away, and thinking it was her calling back, I picked up. As soon as I took the handset from the cradle, I knew it was him.

That conversation lasted for 45 minutes: he used most of it talking about his shattered left wrist, and he had wanted to continue, but I had not, so we stopped. A few days later there was another call, then another, then another, one day seven, all logged on the caller ID. Twenty or so over the next week or two. One day there was a call at work, I didn't have caller ID then and I picked up. As soon as I took the handset from the cradle, I knew again that it was him.

After he said "Hello" I said, "You have to stop calling me." He answered "Okay" in a small sad voice, and I thanked him and hung up.

He was able to stop, and I don't know which is harder to take: the sinking feeling when I pick up and know it's him or the disappointment that it isn't him. He was able to stay away more than two years, in July 2007 I went away for a week and came home to find a message from him. I kept his message on the voice mail until I changed phone providers, but I didn't return his call. Not speaking with him makes not living with him much easier.

But last night, I chose to talk with him, The True Cameron. He is one of the great loves, and I am not always the tough gal that I try to be, and last evening he and the universe and I conspired, and I chose to speak with him.

We stayed on the phone for two hours: he told me that his dad died (a year and a half ago), and he told me about having broken his right wrist, and he wanted to apologize for how he was before, and he wanted to see me - maybe we could go to a movie tomorrow night, and maybe he even wanted to know how I was doing. At the end I tried to sign off and he said "So you're just going to leave me like this? I thought you'd enjoyed talking with me...Are you purposely being mean, or just tired, or just want me to go away?

I didn't really answer because I don't know what to say when all of someone's accusations are true. Really, what do you say?

I already knew that I wasn't really over him - I still think about and miss him from time to time, but I am no longer in the middle of the melodramatic place where I was, and I don't want to be there again. Not ever. I am always grateful for my life without melodrama - I'm really not missing anything.

Worth Writing About

I have a thing for fine writing utensils - I love the sensation of writing on ultra smooth paper with a  pen that actually leaves a trail of liquid ink. I love to watch the shiny wet ink as it evaporates, leaving the mark, remarkable or not, behind it.

I love drawing on slightly rough paper with 2B .5 mm lead held in a lead holder - my personal favourite being my Pentel metal mechanical pencil that was given to me in 1992 or so when I was working at the Bookstore. It had been given to one of my managers by the sales rep of a company called Imperial Parking and he gave it to me. It has "IMPERIAL" and a crown stamped on the top half of the pencil shaft. The top half of the shaft is a bit dented and crushed out of shape. My pencil has been through a lot since being mine, and it has helped me to make some wonderful drawings.

Some time this year, the pencil came apart in my bag. I thought I'd found all the pieces, and I put it back together, but it never quite worked properly again, dropping the leads rather than advancing them, the leads breaking rather than flexing. Neither of which is good for a pencil.

I figured there must be a piece missing, a small gasket or something that acted as some sort of clutch, and I did some research and didn't find any drawings that would tell me which part I needed (if any). I did discover that my pencil is a Sharp Kerry - to serious writing instrument geeks a famously worthy mechanical pencil (retail cost about $16). I had thought I had a thing for fine writing utensils, but I hadn't even known that my pencil was part of a famous family. I had just thought it was a wonderful pencil, I wasn't even aware that I had underestimated my pencil and its origins.

I questioned the writing instrument geeks about my pencil problem, and no-one had any suggestions other than this: "Contact Pentel, they're usually pretty good about repairing product." So I went to the Pentel webpage and contacted the customer service department with a vaguely pathetic e-mail explaining my problem. A few days later the Pentel VP of customer service contacted me and told me to send my pencil to the Pentel distributors in Richmond, that they would be able to help me.

So sometime in mid December I put my Sharp Kerry into a padded envelope with copies of my vaguely pathetic e-mail and the e-mail of the Pentel VP of customer service, and a note asking about repair options. I didn't hear anything from them until today just before the end of my work day, when a well-groomed, well-dressed (black and tan), presentable young man carrying a padded envelope came into the office looking for me.

He introduced himself as Sean from Pentel, and shook my hand happily. He held up the envelope and said "Your pencil's in here." and I said, "Were you able to fix it?" and he said that they weren't. When I asked "What was wrong with it?" he said, "We don't know." Then he said, "We've given you a new pencil." and pulled it out of the envelope. Then he pulled the original pencil from the envelope and gave me that one back too.

So to recap - my $16 (free to me) Pentel pencil broke down after 15 years of use, and the company not only gave me a new $16 pencil, but they hand delivered it too. How great is that? Pretty damn great I have to say.