Mambo Taxi

- took dog out, picked up newspaper.
- back upstairs, opened newspaper bag and said, "Did they reuse a headline?"
- realized I took *yesterday's* newspaper for unit 710 (the only other unit that gets the Globe and Mail)
- decided I'm not really awake yet, therefore I shouldn't beat myself up about the confusion. After all, there were two bags; the other one said 710, so I took ours, right?
- back downstairs, swapped newspapers with the Saturday newspaper, which is much thicker. There is only one of these, saying 710, also in bag, but I assume they took ours.
- traded pleasantries with cleaning-person for the second time of the morning, who is amused.
- in the elevator, composing LJ post in my head, titled: "This is my life now."
- back upstairs, opened newspaper, which turns out to be 710's Saturday newspaper, and our Saturday newspaper, in a bag. together.
- returned 710's newspaper downstairs. Avoided cleaning person.

Bike log: my odometer just rolled over another 1,000 km. [1]

melted_snowball came home from Slovenia on Friday just in time for the condo to open the roof-top common area, so we had an impromptu party with a few neighbours. [2]

Saturday included a "Doors Open" visit to a local Mennonite church for a talk on the history of pacifists in the traditional peace churches in Ontario during the War of 1812.

I considered and skipped a number of other interesting Doors Open venues, leading to one major theme for the weekend: being choosy with my time, versus too many exciting possibilities for one weekend.

We went to a house-warming across the hallway, at which we heard some nearly unbelievable stories from another neighbour, which I expect I'll write about sooner or later.

I skipped a Local Foods tasting-event in the afternoon, and a "Raspberry Jam" demo event for Linux computers the size of credit-cards. I also skipped an arts gallery opening related to Nicola Tesla sculpture, and the DJ Darude at a local club. Instead, d. and I went out for sushi dinner. :)

Today: Quaker Meeting, and afterward I skipped a street-fair in favour of a nap and housework. Dinner with friends, which we cut short because d. is still quite jetlagged. I, on the other hand, am a few time-zones off; I should be sleepy now but I'm not.

[1] I've only gone 600km so far this year, but this included 3 weeks commuting from Elora by car, plus a 3 week chunk last month when my back was too sore to ride. This is likely to be a low year for cycling- possibly the first since I started paying attention that I will go fewer than 1,000km.

[2] The roof amenities are really not bad: an indoor party space, gym, sauna, and patio, which until this weekend was locked. The patio is better than I expected- it looks more like the glossy renderings in the advertising than it has any reason to. There are a couple of gas grills, and tables and seating for about 30 people outside. Also, nifty planters with many of the house-plants we have (I hope the Juniper shrubs are winter-tolerant) and city views of lots of greenery. Yes, we ought to have a house-warming, which will probably happen in October!...

My world seems to ebb and flow with varying amounts of chaos. Sometimes, it's a bit much.

I wish I'd taken a photo; my study was a disaster area. Last night I was due to be on a conference-call on queer Quaker outreach. So I started prepping 10 minutes before the call was to start- lots of time to re-read the agenda, call up my notes, find my headphones... We'd used the same conference calling number a bunch of times, but somehow I mis-remembered it was a toll-free number. Nope, it's a regular US number. Oh right, I had bought a calling card to deal with that, last fall when I was last on these conference calls. ...Oops, this was going to be a problem.

1) My cellphone's long distance to the US is something like $0.45/min, so that was a non-starter. 2) I tried both of my cheap calling cards, and they had expired or ran out of money, probably in May. 3) I tried skype; but my account had JUST been marked 'inactive' due to no calls in 180 days. It took me a few minutes to figure that out, but they sent me an email last week telling me to log in before yesterday. Oops. Now it was time for the conference call to start. 4) Could I find the parts for my VoIP system, which is only 1 cent a minute? Yes, I can! I plugged in my VoIP box, stringing wires in a mess, dragged out the speaker phone from the closet (which was nicely put away under a pile of other stuff, a pile which became strewn all over the floor), found a phone cord (another mess in the closet), got everything hooked up, and dialed in, only a couple minutes late. ...The call was useful and good, but I was sort of distracted by the bomb that had gone off in my study! So I'm not sure what I learned from this experience. I really like the look of my desk without a phone on it, and I'm glad we got rid of the land-line. I did reactivate my skype account, which would have worked without any wires. And I'm glad I have a backup backup backup plan.

--

We have met all of the conditions for the house sale! The inspection found a leak in the main-floor bathroom, so we knocked $500 off the price rather than needing to deal with plumber / re-inspection / etc. possibilities. They are doing a title search and the house is to close September 19th! (Or earlier, if they decide they want to). I'm still sort of numb that it's finally wrapping up. Yay! But now our line of credit (on the house) goes away, and we immediately had to figure out where we were going to stash the large pile of money until the condo registers in December. (The answer? Canadian Tire Bank. Yes really. 1.8% interest savings account, and the interest is not paid in Canadian Tire Money.)

--

My parents are coming in 4 days. We discussed this option last weekend, decided it wasn't practical for them to rush to get here on the September long weekend, that we'd find another time we're all free... and then yesterday they decided hey, why not do it while they know we're all free, especially if they offset their visit a day to give us a bit of breathing room after our stressful weeks. So they're arriving Sunday and leaving Tuesday! I'm excited to show them the new place, and I'm glad this is working out, since I think we all had a premonition they wouldn't otherwise make it here until 2013.

--

We are starting to have neighbours on our floor. Last night dan brought by a couple, half of whom is living down the hall. They felt a bit like they were out of a soap-opera, and not in a bad way really, just a bit much. Don't get me wrong; I am very happy at the mix of people we've met in the building- young, old, gay couples, straight couples, singles, dog-owners... I agree with dan. This was the right choice.

Just so long as we don't end up as extras in someone else's soap opera.

We just bought a condo in downtown Kitchener. It used to be the Arrow Shirt Factory. There were four floors, and they've built 4 more floors with a set-back. Ours is the first level of the new construction, the only level with terraces. It's 1500 square feet of usable space, it will be complete some time between March and late Summer of next year, and we have ten days from yesterday to have second thoughts.

To say I'm excited is an understatement. Last night as I tried to get to sleep, my brain took me on a walk around the new neighbourhood, with little jolts as I realized what was within roughly ten minutes walk. Victoria Park! persephoneplace! nobodyhere! thefateyouare! Kitchener Market! Kitchener Market Light Rail Stop (hopefully)! Pho! Jerk Chicken! KWArtzlab hackerspace! A somewhat OK video rental store! Eventually I ran out of exclamation-marks and started falling asleep, until I was jolted awake (repeatedly) with we just bought property sight unseen!

The process, last night, was a zoo. They had an open-house for agents, but I had just called the afternoon before to find out when we could look at the demo unit, and they said we were welcome to come with our agent (who we trust very well- she sold us this house, and similarly for many of melted_snowball's colleagues). Mary was a bedrock. She was the one who suggested a few weeks ago that we be open to downtown Kitchener (it's where she lives) instead of close to the University. She was the first to tell us that the unit we were looking at was quite likely the most sensible layout in the building (I've since heard similar feedback, scarily enough) and when she left us last night, she was considering buying a smaller unit in the building to rent out.

Meanwhile, there were 40 other people talking in the non-noise-canceled sales office. Imagine like: a narrow Apple Store with wine and canapes. We got time to tour the demo units (there were two set up). 14-foot ceilings, exposed original pillars of the factory, and a lot of beige. One unit was very snark-worthy (Mary had some sotto zingers about the design and the agent who was telling everybody how great it was) and the other was fairly nice except for one feature: the loft bedroom. It turns out most units have an (optional) raised bedroom with half-height walls and sort-of wraparound windows to let in the light. We kind of want to have noise isolation in the bedroom, so that was a non-starter, even though the storage area underneath the loft was sort of cool.

Our unit only has 9-foot ceilings, but it's got 32 feet of windows, a fairly good amount of storage space, and best of all, the condo allows pets. (That was actually the first question I asked when we arrived. The first two helper-people said, "I don't know, let's find somebody who does." and the third person explained their two-pet minimum, I mean maximum.

A last bit of condo-buying usefulness: we can move whenever they say our unit is finished. However, beyond our 10% deposit, we're not on the hook for the rest of the price until 75% the units are sold, which is possibly not going to happen for a few months after. Which means we get to move first, then sell our place, assuming things line up OK.

What could possibly go wrong?

(*wibble*)