All The People

I will start with the smallest ones first.

Around 1:30 this afternoon (1:35 to be more precise, though it turned to 1:36 while I was leaving the message) I called Jennifer to say, "I'm going to the bridgehead to write. I'll be leaving around 2:30, so if you're up for it, meet me there!"

Around 2:30 (at 2:24 to be precise, though it turned to 2:26 while we were making plans) Greg called to say, "We're going to the park, and the girls asked if you wanted to come." I'm sick, so I said "I'll wash my hands and make sure I don't really touch them." Which is impossible around 2 year olds as adorable as these two year olds.

As it turns out, the best way to take a picture of a two year old is to have the following conversation:
"Hey Rubes, do you mind if I take your picture?"
"NO!"
"Okay, I'm going to slow the swing down, and get my camera and be right back."
"KAY."
"Okey doke. Here we go. Who's super cutie?"
Well, the answer to that is pretty obvious, isn't it.

For most of our park time, Fiona and I hung out by the swings. By which I mean I listened to Fiona's incredibly entertaining running commentary "higher higher good swinging papa ruby hi ruby hi papa mama slow down fix hat higher megan nice swinging time frances birdies wire higher good swinging ronica burfday paul eamon john john john fun burfday" while I pushed her till my arm ached. She was killing me, she was so adorable.

I loooooove how many words they have.

One of the things I bought at the wicked cool zine store in Portland was a book involving a small girl and a hootenanny. So on the way through the park after playing, Greg tipped up the stroller and said "Hey girls!" To which they replied "Hootenanny!"

Love it.

Further along, on the way to Bridgehead, we walked by the Oak, where a traditional Irish band was playing. We looked sideways at each other and kind of rolled our eyes. Then I got excited. "But but but! It's a HOOTENANNY!" Greg got excited too. He tipped back the stroller "Hey girls! What is it?" Perhaps is was a bit of post-park sleepiness or pre-cookie anticipation or a glaze of wonder in the face of a real live hootenanny, because they said a measured "Hootenanny," and looked away.

Off we trotted then, to Bridgehead, where there was not room for Greg and the girls, but was for me and my laptop. I snuggled myself in with a coffee, and tried not to be distracted by a woman who kept, in a annoyingly nasal and terribly loud voice, telling her son, who was playing some video game that he kept calling stupid, to be quiet.

Though her voice did allow me to overhear parts of an infuriating conversation. The woman, long-haired hippie aesthetic, her son astride her knee, nestling his back into her chest, was chatting with her also long-haired hippie friend, who had an adorably quiet young girl in his lap. Long-haired Woman said "Oh, and we were going to do his toes, purple I think - wasn't it, sweetie?"

Cool, I thought. Long-haired man also nodded his approval. The son mumbled something at his game.

"What was that, sweetie?"
He ducked his head a little lower and mumbled something else.
"Weird? You're weird? At school?" She started stroking the side of his head, obviously distressed.

And you know, they had me up to this point. -Fuck people! I thought. -Ah, kid, it'll get better, I thought. I'm a sucker for that. Going to school with a bunch of people who think you're weird is shitty. Knowing that they're right is even shittier.

She said "You're not weird! Of course you're not weird!"

And she lost me. I mean, I don't know what school that kid goes to, but I do know Ottawa, and chances are he doesn't go to a school where a significant proportion of the boys are contented pink-shirt-wearing vegan jews with purple-painted toenails. Just a guess.

So telling him that he doesn't know what he's experiencing on top of being the weird kid? Not exactly going to help give him the self-confidence he going to need to be a triumphant weird kid.

But easy for me, eh? We'll see what my reaction is if either Fiona or Ruby says that to me in 4 years.

Not Quite Out of the Park

Holy shit. We've bought a house. Holy fucking shit.

My expletives are a little premature. Until we've waived the conditions, we can still walk away.

But in my opinion, the inspection was a home run. Our inspector, a different inspector from last time, was impressed with the house. I was impressed with the house. The real test will be Steve going over the inspector's report and having a look at the back unit where he and Shelley and the Little Dog will live.

Based on my extremely rigorous sample of two, I say that building inspectors are kind, efficient and thorough men. This one reminded me quite a bit of the Great Dater. I didn't get it quite at first, since he's a generation older, with a head of close-cropped grey hair and a neatly trimmed brush mustache. I had just a vague feeling of familiarity. Again, it was the hands - one particular gesture that riffled quick through my memories and came back with a warm feeling.

Of course, there are some things wrong with the houses. The century old foundation of the front house is going to leak. The water pressure's low. The front house attic needs to be vented properly. The water pipe from the house to the street is lead (ditto on the street water pipe).

Whenever something like those last two came up, I say "Okay, ballpark, how much is it going to cost to fix?" And he'd say something like "Well, if the city's already done the street pipe, then you're looking at, oh, fifteen" and here my heart fell into my shoes "hundred."

And it flew back up into my chest and burst into crimson blooms of joy.

I was so fucking happy that I almost said "Fifteen hundred?! That's nothing! Everything that was wrong with the other place was one more zero more expensive than that!"

However, I did not. My agent was standing right there, and though she knows that there was a possible other deal, we have silently agreed to pretend there never was.

Let This Not Be a Curve Ball

In just over one hour, I will be going to another house inspection. I have everyone I know crossing their fingers for us. We really really want to own this house - these houses, rather, since it's two separate houses on one property. They're built against each other, but are entirely separate.

When we first started looking that would have been ideal. Their space, my space, very very separate space. To start, we really wanted a side-by-side duplex. Both sides with access to the backyard, lots of space inside, maybe my side would be divided into apartments and we could rent one out. But the only SxS's that came up were fucking dodgy and even more fucking expensive.

So almost everything we looked at was up-down, and we didn't think that was ideal. Little Dog really doesn't like stairs, and in almost all of the up-downs we looked at, the Ess's would have been in the upper unit(s). Not perfect. There was also the fact that in most of the units, the main floor unit (mine) was gorgeous and well kept and the upper unit was, well, generally not. Not perfect, but it's what was out there.

And then the more I envisioned how those spaces would work, saw us all living in the same house, the more I really wanted that. The more it came to seem like family all under one roof.

Because that is what this is about for me. Building family.

Mostly. Of course, finances play into it. I can't afford a home in Centretown by myself, and I won't leave my neighbourhood - my community - for the sake of owning. I love my current apartment, and I don't think that paying someone rent is throwing money down the toilet any more than I think buying food is throwing money down the toilet.

Especially when I do the math and realize how much money I will be giving the bank over the next 21.1 years.

Especially when buying food is literally throwing money down the toilet.

Buying a house is one of the most stressful things you can do. It completely disrupts your life in a way that moving apartments and looking for a job (the former top two activities on the list of things that stress me out) don't. Part of it is situational, I'm sure, with one of us here and two of us in Halifax. Shelley has thanked me a number of times for taking this on, and I brush it off. Not because it hasn't been stressful and disruptive, because it has, but because it's been equally stressful and disruptive for them. Just differently.

But we're in it, and we're dealing each in our own way,* and it looks like the deciding is almost done. The agreements have been signed, the financing has been firmed, and if it doesn't fail on inspection, and please please please let this be an easy pitch, we will be waiving our conditions in the near future.

And, one roof or two, starting to build a life together.




*For example, Steve's facebook status often seems to be "Steve is stressed and going out to hit people with sticks." In martial arts class.

You Wanna Buy My Tax Software?

Okay, this is probably way too late, because you all, you're all together and shit. But I just did my taxes tonight, using one of those handy software packages.

There's one more >$25,000 return left on it, and 18 <$25,000 returns left on it.

Anyone want to buy it for $15?

Email me at my yahoo account (over in the sidebar) and we'll work out the details.

Helpful Hint for Winning Friends

Don't start kissing someone 20 minutes before your guest's ETA. Because even though your house is really close, you know your house is really close and so your make-out brain will whisper "there is lots of time" so as to prolong the kissing and put off the leaving.

And then you will feel like a schmuck for pulling someone really lovely out of their neighbourhood into yours for no good reason, other than the fact that you are, indeed, a schmuck.

Later: Just so no one worries, we just missed each other. So the hint here is to reconfirm time and address before having tea with someone who's never been to your house before. Though I will almost always recommend starting the kissing sooner, no matter the situation.

Near Miss

When I walked out of the Herb and saw her, for some reason I felt compelled to lower my voice and scratch out a slow gravelly "rodenhizer".

It took a couple more steps for Rodenhizer, the assistant manager at your favourite local sex store, to clock that her name had been called: then her shoulders tightened, a hiccough in her stride. She looked up, a little scared and a lot confused. I stepped forward. She looked back. The worried look broke into a grin.

"Oh, it's you!"

"Yep, not god, you're safe."

"Hell, this is way better."

Though people have called god in my presence, it's the first time I've been called better than god.

"You know, I was worried there for a second. There was a nun in the store yesterday, and she got totally pissed at me."

"Really? In the store? What was she doing?"

Not that I doubt nuns are sexual or anything. It's just an unusual occurrence.

"She wanted me to buy a calendar. And when I said no, she gave me a one hundred per cent scowl. So I thought I was maybe in trouble with god."

"She came into the store to sell you a calendar?"

"I know. She asked and I just thought, 'Lady, there are cocks on the wall. You think I want a Jesus calendar?'"

Though, come to think of it, that might make a nice tableau.

Helpful Hint For Wooing

If you are quite aware that a Smokin Hot Girl is going to show up at your house between 5:30 and 5:45, you should refrain for those few minutes from nibbling at the edges of the vegetables you have been thinly slicing, because as soon as you put a piece in your mouth, the knock will knock on the door, and instead of the smoothly torrid greeting you had planned, you will open the door slightly sheepishly, with your hand held in front of your mouth, chewing fast, and hoping to christ that she likes the taste of fennel.