Park People

With the introduction of Whiskey into our household, we've taken to going to the park in the evenings, mostly in the summer, but really any time the weather is nice. The park is about a 15 minute walk each way; we'll pull up a bleacher to have a couple drinks in the sun, watching folks play sports.

We go nearly every day, at roughly the same time, to the same park. As a result, we've become and have become to know, The Park People. Some of them we know by name, most we've come up with nicknames and, more than anything, we know the name of the dog.

It started with The Dog Walker. A lovely French lady that walks many a neighbourhood dog. She LOVES Whiskey. And Whiskey LOVES her. I love her because she always tells me how great I am with Whiskey and how far she has come BECAUSE I'm so great.

There's The Coffee Crew – The Dog Walker is part of this crew, thus, we have come to know these folks rather well. We have been known spend upwards of an hour talking to them. So, yeah... We know their names!!

There's the older Indian couple that go for their nightly walks. They live very close to us and I will often see one or both of them when I'm walking Whiskey in the morning.

More often than not, The Boyfriend and I will often remark about The Park People...

Even though we've spoken at most a dozen words at any given time.

It's a crazy thing – where you feel like you know someone because you see them all the time, but have never actually talked. How can you possibly know if they're inherently good people just from how you both recognize and acknowledge each other in a park??

There are The Bocce Boys (they play Bocce... sometimes... they mostly just smoke weed and drink). Before the team came out, there was Cast Man. He wore a cast.

I would see him multiple times a day, presumably because he was off work. But then again, it's probably because I was walking Whiskey to the park in the morning and the evening and he lives across the street from the park. Then, his friends showed up and they started playing bocce. You know, after the cast came off.

Side story – we know one of our neighbours quite well (same building, different floor). We call him The Door Man because he opens the parkade door for us when we come home. He plays golf at the pitch and putt at the park. He has taken up to talking to The Bocce Boys. We saw him hanging out with them one day and I exclaimed “Door Man – what are YOU doing here”. The Bocce Boys were blown away that we knew him.

We saw The Door Man on the way back from the park the other day and he had been hanging with The Bocce Boys. He recounted a conversation he just had with The Boys... “I've only known you guys for a little while, but my neighbours come here all the time”. Cast Man says “I've known them for YEARS!!”.

Truth be told, when we saw Door Man with The Bocce Boys, I brought Whiskey over to see Door Man and I said to Cast Man “I think this is the closest we've ever stood”. So, "known them" is a bit of an overstatement. But it comes from the same "they're nice people" place.

Anyway, back to the real story... And then there's The Cart Lady. She drives a scooter around collecting cans around the park, neighbourhood and golf course. Whiskey used to HATE her cart. All carts, really. They would send her into a prey drive frenzy. But The Cart Lady recognized Whiskey's craziness and would stop far away. Whiskey came to know the lady and stopped freaking out as she drove past. Whiskey's now really good with her cart, at least, so she has helped us break Whiskey of that hate. She also loves Whiskey and gives air smooches when she's picking up the cans. The cans that happen to be around us.

Like everyone, we've done the obligatory “Hello!”, “Thank-you!”, “Bye bye”. The other day, she opened up to us. She's an older European lady (unsure of region based on accent). From that conversation, we learned that she doesn't speak English very well. We had no idea! She told her story about her daughter's dog dying and how much she loved that dog and how sad she has been. That's why she loves seeing Whiskey.

Often when we're sitting there, she will drive by and if we're early in our shift (i.e. Only a can or two out), she'll make her rounds and come back later. You know, once those park hooligans drop more cans near us.

But the other day, she rolled up in her cart and stopped. She took a few moments to get out of her cart and rather than grabbing her bag of cans, she grabs this paper bag.

She walks right up to us with the paper bag and hands it to me. I take it. She says “From my garden. Tomatoes.”.

I open up the bag and look at 4 glorious, HUGE, beautiful tomatoes. She goes back to her cart and grabs her phone and starts scrolling. Shows me 5 or so pictures of her garden. Cucumbers, tomatoes, squash. All beautiful plants full of fruit.

We're both very appreciative. She goes back to her cart to drop off her phone, grabs her bag of cans and cleans up after us.

Then she walked back up to us and says “See, see, see” as she points at several parts of the park. Parts we've been known to sit. Then “See!!” as she points at us.

She harvested these tomatoes specifically for us and roamed around hoping to find us.

So... What HAS been happening?!

This feels a bit like when you run into an old friend, or schoolmate or coworker. They say “Hey! Long time no see. What's new?”. And you try and think back to the last time you saw them and try and come up with a concise summary of important events.

Then your brain is overstimulated and they're standing there staring at you. So you say the first thing that pops in your mind.

And upon leaving the awkward social interaction, your brain actually starts functioning and you come up with a laundry list of things that are new.

Luckily, I don't have anyone staring me in the face looking for an answer, so I have all the time in the world to spell it out. In detail. Well, moderate detail. I don't need to bore whoever might be reading this from the get-go.

You're welcome.

I think the last time I posted was shortly after my boyfriend moved in... So... what has been happening??

I bought an apartment – my first giant debt. It made me quite nervous. Terrified, really. Truth be told, I vomited a lot during the purchase process.

It's actually a very small debt compared to other peoples' mortgages. I once had someone say “THAT'S not a mortgage”. The way it was said seemed like it was meant to be a dig. A financial version of “mine's bigger”. But in the worst possible way. It's not an RRSP. It's debt. You don't WANT it to be big. Right? Just me? Okay, so anyway!

We got a dog! It took a year after moving into the apartment (no restrictions on height, weight or breed) for it to finally happen. I spent so much time and energy scouring rescue agencies looking for the right dog. My boyfriend was fucking Goldilocks about it.

It got to the point where I was like “if you don't stop poo-pooing EVERY dog I show you, I will make the decision myself”. He didn't much like that. But... then his brother went on vacation and left his dog with us. An 80 lb lab/pittie cross. And the biggest cream puff, lazy dog you ever met. He was so happy to have her with us – he kept saying "Wow - this isn't so hard". Meanwhile I bit my tongue "yeah... sure... all dogs are THIS easy!".

By the end of that week, when he would leave for work on a Saturday morning, I'd hear “Bye – I love you”. And when I looked up. He was looking down. At the dog.

A week later we had Whiskey on a one-week trial. She's great. She's crazy. But I think she warrants her own post.

Holy Crap - it has been a long time!!

I've written and rewritten about a dozen posts (maybe more, but not that many more) since my last post. 

Obviously COVID has not helped the situation, but as evidenced by 6 years of absenteeism, this extends far beyond COVID. 

I've been, in a word, lazy. Reality is, I've spent the last way-too-long simply consuming media and not being creative. In nearly every way. 

I haven't been playing guitar much. I haven't been writing (as you can see). I haven't been recording new music. Or, really even, learning new songs. Stupid cartoon drawings are now back to kindergarten level, instead of the... grade 3 (?!) they were at before. I don't even have the right computer for recording. Turns out my equipment is out of date. My 60 year old neighbour has a new mixer that records right in the unit. He doesn't need the right cable, input jack, etc... My 60 year old neighbour is more with-it recording-wise than I am. AND I USED TO LOVE IT!!

I'm in a rut. 

Is that what comes from being in a relationship for 7 years? Probably (hopefully!!) not for everyone, but someone once said to me, the Wise Woman, "you can't have two sitters in a relationship". I was pretty sure I was a sitter. Turns out, I'm the ambitious one. How scary is that? 

Try as I might to rally the troop (singular), these days, I largely don't have the energy for it. It's too hard. There is too much going on. 

I would like to think that I'll figure some shit out and reignite the creativity fire I once had. 

I bought a new laptop, which is a 2 in 1, so no drawing tablet required. It might make it easier. 

Or this might be another one-off and you won't see another post for 6 years. Or ever. 

Feeling pretty dejected. COVID hasn't helped my mindset. I had my brother over for dinner for the first time in... 2 years?! I've seen him for various reasons, including socially distanced gift-giving (Christmas, birthdays). But haven't really spent any time with him. 

I saw my dad for the first time in 9 months. 

Being social and being active (outside of the usual dog walks etc) is trying. I, like everyone, am having a hard time. COVID hasn't helped. It only helped solidify a feeling that was already lurking under the surface. 

I'm going to post this. And regret it. But I'm hoping this spurs me to do something. More than sit. 

I’m done school!!

As you may or may not know/remember, I’ve been working towards my bachelors degree for, basically, ever. The final piece of the puzzle was a graduating project which has been a constant source of frustration.

My prof continually changed the scope of the project, I had one project swept out from under me entirely and my prof rejected proposals based on minor writing style preferences. I’m not sure what he was thinking – I have a great writing style.

Maybe it was a good thing that I decided to put some thought into it first.

After 18 months of writing and re-writing proposals, I finally got the go-ahead to start on my actual project. Like previous experiences, my prof was less-than-available; he didn’t respond to multiple emails that I sent throughout the summer and fall, providing updates and asking for guidance.

Despite having no support, I managed to submit a first draft halfway through November; I didn’t receive any feedback for a month. With my December 31st deadline looming, I was very stressed out and worried about the whole thing. I could not ask for yet another extension.

After I received the feedback, I had a little over 2 weeks to conduct all the necessary research, write the new sections and implement all the requested changes. With the added fact that it was a very busy time at work and all the holiday celebrations thrown in there, I barely squeaked the final version in; I submitted it at midnight on December 30th.

After that, I had to submit an application for graduation, which required an audit of my courses to make sure I had all the required credits. I was basically sitting in limbo (again) waiting for confirmation and stressing out for another couple weeks.

At one point, I logged onto my school website to see if there was any movement on my application for graduation; I realized that my mark had been submitted for my project class. My heart increased in rate, my palms got a bit sweaty as I waited for the page to open. I scrolled down and saw the mark submission.

Something I didn’t know: it’s a pass/fail course. So of course the options for marks are “S” and “U”. I didn’t get a “U”, so there’s that, but it was entirely defeating to know that all my struggles over the past two years, all the stress, all the frustration, all the everything… culminated to an “S”.

Somehow that doesn’t seem fair.

But I did get my degree.

So I suppose it’s all worth it.

That White Girl’s Alive–Part Two

As I mentioned last time, I’ve had some recent developments in my life. Although, all developments I listed in my last post do not warrant their own post, they do warrant elaboration.

List from last post:

1. I’m still alive

2. Work has been chaos and has been eating up all my time

3. I graduated from school (eeeep!)

4. The Boy moved in (double eeeep!)

5. I lost internet at home for 5 long weeks

6. I just got internet back

1. I am still alive. Unfortunately, I lost my URL because I didn’t have it on auto-renew. Even though that hurts me on the inside, it certainly hasn’t and won’t actually kill me.

2. Work has been busy and will continue to be busy for the next little while but now has a different kind of pressure and deadline. We completed one big project, but now are dealing with the aftermath of it and cleaning up after ourselves. We’re also expecting some auditors in at the end of the year, so we need to be prepared for that and make sure that we in fact adequately cleaned up after ourselves.

3. I graduated from school and this warrants its own post, so I won’t go into any detail now other than to say, I did it.

4. The Boy officially moved in. In the 8 months we’ve been seeing each other, we’ve basically been living together for 5 months. Right around Thanksgiving, he stopped going home much and was spending most of his time here. I eventually gave him a key.

In January, we had the conversation about him officially moving in. It didn’t make sense for him to be paying rent to his room-mate for a place he doesn’t live in and he wanted to be able to help me with the bills instead. So, he gave his room-mate notice and intended to vacate as of March 1st. Over the next few weeks, he slowly started bringing stuff over. As the end of February grew closer, the loads got bigger.

With me being busy at work and not being around to help organize and go through stuff, the boxes simply piled up and remained unopened. Once work slowed down enough that I had an available brain cell, I was overwhelmed by the chaos and was minutes away from completely losing my mind. The Boy may or may not have heard all about it. Multiple times.

I ended up taking the past week off work and we spent most of that time dealing with the chaos, so now the majority of stuff has been sorted, stored, given away etc. The place is starting to resemble a home again instead of this mess:

5. The internet was being provided by my upstairs neighbour. Once the landlord moved out, his cousin moved in and continued to give the tenants internet. Over the years, the other tenants lost their privileges and eventually I was the only tenant left with this grandfathered perk.

When The Boy brought his computers over, I gave him the internet password and he promptly went to town on it. My upstairs neighbour promptly changed the password and I promptly lost my free internet. I called the service provider for my land line and requested internet be added. They had a fantastic bundle that would end up costing me all of $15 more a month.

And then, it took them over 4 weeks to get their shit together; I had to contact them 3 times in order for them to actually ship the modem out. And then I got my bill.

6. Moral of the story, I now have internet, even though it was a pain in the ass and the longest 4.5 weeks of my life. Luckily, I had a work-issued smartphone and was able to pilfer internet access through that data plan.

That basically covers everything from the last post, aside from the graduation, which will soon follow.

Met up with a friend the other day for lunch; the following conversation occurred:

Thanks LC. Although (I hope) you’re right about the lack of terrible dating stories in the future, I sure hope to prove you wrong about being boring and not having any good stories left to tell.

That White Girl’s Alive!!

Holy crap – it’s been forever since I’ve posted anything! Just wanted to write a quick update to let you know what’s been going on.

1. I’m still alive
2. Work has been chaos and has been eating up all my time
3. I graduated from school (eeeep!)
4. The Boy moved in (double eeeep!)
5. I lost internet at home for 5 long weeks
6. I just got internet back

I swear I’ll write more details on all of this soon – I just wanted to let you know that I’m still alive and haven’t forgotten about this thing I call a blog.

And apparently, I didn’t have my auto-renew on my website set up, so I lost my domain name. Serves me right I guess.

Goings Ons

Where do I begin? Well, the past couple/few months have been a bit of a whirlwind. Between working too much, doing my school project and having a full social calendar, I haven’t had much time to write (well, aside from my school project, that is).

I guess that’s the best place to start. As you may or may not remember, I was having a hard time getting my school project off the ground. I finally got the okay from my professor to quit writing and re-writing my proposal and actually do the project. You could say I was pretty pleased.

In August, I carried out the sampling and then spent the next couple months analyzing the data, researching and writing the paper. I submitted the first draft just about two weeks ago.

After which, The Boy, asked me to come down to the pub for a celebratory drink. Shortly after I arrived, he said something cryptic to the bartender and before I knew it, two champagne flutes were placed in front of me; they were quickly filled with a bubbly nectar.

I was shocked and surprised and, quite frankly, tickled pink. No one has ever done anything like that for me before. I basically swooned right off my chair. When I came to and thanked him for it, he simply said “You did a big thing today; you deserve it”. I didn’t remind him that it was only a first draft and that I haven’t actually graduated yet.

Work has been super busy for the past couple months and will be insanely busy for the next couple months; it will take over my life. The only light at the end of the tunnel is solace in knowing that when it’s all over, I’m getting on a jet plane to some place and spending a week drinking way too much. Stay tuned for that one!

I’ve still managed to spend a ridiculous amount of time with The Boy; I even went to my first minor league baseball game and a couple minor league hockey games. Now, I’m, by no means, a sporty girl, but these games have proven to be a very good time. I even bought a team scarf.

My niece is growing fast; she changes every time I see her. She’s walking and starting to talk. The running joke in the family is that she’ll be graduating college before I do. Did I mention my family are assholes?

Thanksgiving was a success; The Boy came for dinner (I cooked) and met most of my family. It was nerve-wracking but we both made it out alive. Christmas is next on the list, and providing he comes for dinner, he will meet the rest of my family. We’ll see if he’s still around, or if he runs screaming from the building.

I’ll let you know how it pans out. Probably in February when my life resumes normality.