delicious juice dot com

It’s 9:24 on a Tuesday morning, I’m fantastically and cataclysmically tired, and I have already had an excellent day.

Last night while traipsing through open houses eighteen through twenty-two (which shall collectively be known as Davy Jones’ Locker), I discovered that my necklace was missing. Not just any necklace, either – I lost the fancy diamond necklace that I bought myself back in April to distract myself from the natural disaster that is my vagina. I was distraught because the necklace is a favourite, and I traced my steps from suite to suite in vain. The last time I could recall being in possession of the necklace was at work, meaning it had disappeared somewhere between the office and the Locker. It wasn’t in the car, or the building (as far as I could tell), and outside was dark and stormy – I couldn’t see a thing. When we got home, I carefully shook out all my clothes and emptied my bag and checked my boots, but no necklace could be found.

When I got to work this morning, I asked the receptionist if anything had been turned in. Nothing had, and my desk was free of jewellery (but covered in quarters for some reason). I was a sad, sad panda – I really loved that necklace, and it would be expensive to replace.

But then! I had to run an errand in another department, and there! On the table! MY NECKLACE! It must have fallen off at some point yesterday, and someone found it and put it on the table for someone to claim. HOORAY! I squeaked with delight and I may have done a little dance; such was my joy.

That’s not the only reason my day has been excellent, though. In addition to finding my lost jewellery, I:

• Came into work to a company-wide email saying that Angry Guy has reverted back to his original department (one I have very little contact with)
• Was given a nifty gold iPhone case by a co-worker who had a bunch of extras
• The pop machine is out of Diet Coke – but the secret slot still had some cans, so I got my morning fix
• Job Security Through Incompetence: my boss really, really wants me to get certified as provincial trainer, so they are offering to pay 100% of my diploma on the condition that I don’t go anywhere for 18 months
• I got to use “it’s NEVER Lupus” in a conversation yesterday, and I am still amused

If the rest of my Tuesday can be even a little bit as great as the last 2 hours, I will do a dance.

I’m elbow-deep in CRM, and I’m pretty sure I wish I had gone into Veterinarian Services instead – massaging the inside of a cow’s uterus is probably a great deal less messy than inexplicable data.

Josh and Shan got their shiny new keys on Saturday, and on Sunday we moved them into their new home. The place is fantastic – they have so many bathrooms I don’t know what to do with myself – and I’m very happy for them. I can’t imagine how awesome it would be to settle into something that is your very own home, especially one as nice as theirs. I can’t wait to see it once they’re all set up!

I *am* happy for them, too. I know I’ve been a sour ball of angst over the move, but it was never because I wasn’t happy for them. Buying your first home is huge (so they tell me), and I’d be a pretty lousy person if I couldn’t share in the delight of two of my closest friends. I’m thrilled for them, and always have been – it’s ME that had the problem.

I didn’t want them to move at all. I absolutely loved having Josh and Shan living so close to us – it was basically the only thing keeping Ed and I in the building (apart from sheer laziness). For all my “change is awesome!” cheerleading, I actually hate change. Their new townhome meant no more random visits with a 10-second warning to make myself decent, no more stopping at their door before going home to share news or brownies, no more carpooling across the water or border with little to no planning. My angst had nothing to do with bitterness over their awesome new home, and everything to do with my loneliness.

I know that things won’t *really* be changing – the Gang hasn’t changed; there are still Good Times a-comin’, and we’ll see each other as much as we ever did (but perhaps not in pajamas) – I just can’t help but feel a pang of sad when I see the empty windows of their old apartment. I also acknowledge that it’s silly to think we all would have stayed in the same horrible building forever and ever just because it was fun to live with friends, but I live for the present and that’s exactly how I DO think even when reality inevitably comes crashing down around my head and I spend weeks in a funk because I am seven flavours of ridiculous with bottomless fries.

But! I am slowly getting used to their not being in our building. They don’t live far from us, their new place is many awesome, and they have Diet Coke in the fridge just for me. There is no bad here; none at all. Hooray for Josh and Shan and their new home (of which I am already the Mayor – thanks, Foursquare!)

Saw fifteen again, and 17. Going to pass on both – they’re not quite right.

Short sentences tonight. Moved Josh and Shan into their new home; hostile forces now out number the good in the Ghetto of North Vancouver. Our turn will come, they tell me.

Tired in exciting new places.

Eighteen is tomorrow.

Today we saw Gorgeous Kitchen and Smells Like Bacon.

Both places were nice, but Smells Like Bacon wasn’t laid out very well and we will pass. Gorgeous Kitchen is very, very nice but Ed wants to see it again before we decide if we’re going to put in an offer. In my head, we’ve already offered – but there were a LOT of people there, and I’m not holding out hope that we’ll actually get the place. We’ll go see it again tomorrow, and another place on the North Shore that I’m curious about. I need to stop thinking about the place we didn’t get, because it’s just discouraging me and nothing else is coming close to that level of perfection.

My brain hurts.

Even though it’s been a very, very long time since I’ve been an admin assistant and I’m more or less established as totally awesome at what I do, I still get all bristly and insulted when people ask me to do things I think are too “adminy”. It’s not that I think the work is beneath me; I’m just afraid of losing the ground I’ve worked hard for and turning into the office bitch. All the weird little things usually fall on my shoulders – and if you’ll excuse the unnecessary horn tooting, I am really good at the weird little things – but the instant I start cheerfully doing everything asked of me because “you’re so much better at it than I am!”, I find myself suddenly responsible for ordering office supplies and cleaning bathrooms and scripting donut routers for helpless people who refuse to learn.

Today, for example, I came into the office to an email asking me to order pizza for the department. My hackles immediately rose and I sent off a snarling IM to the requester’s boss, reminding him that we HAVE an office assistant and she does this sort of thing. He quickly mollified me – we only asked you because you’re so good at it! – and I had to grudgingly admit he was right: I know best what the team wants and how many to order and from where and who is allergic to what and that we have to order at least 1 cheese-only for the vegetarian who hates vegetables. I don’t actually have to do the ordering at all; they just want me to organize it and get someone else to deal with it. I apologized, because there was no reason for me to be so obnoxious about it. I AM good at that sort of thing, even if I don’t want to be – and hey, I get a free lunch out of it; one that is suspiciously free of olives and feta.

I’ve only ever been asked to serve coffee in a meeting ONCE, and I almost exploded. It was during the Dark Time, when the only job I could find in Calgary was as a receptionist for a horrible little train company. It wasn’t out of line that they asked me to do it – I was the friggin’ receptionist, after all – but I resented it so much I almost walked out the door in disgust. I still have nightmares about that place, and that time in my life – I’ve done a lot since then, and I don’t like to be reminded of it.

In the meantime, free pizza! Yay!

.. then again, if I have to spend one more week in this building, I might kill everyone ELSE in two. Fuck it – there is NO WAY IN HELL I am going to wait a year or more before I move. Fuck this place; fuck it right in the left nostril.

(A car alarm went off outside for close to an hour – turned out to belong to one of the new guys in the basement. He went outside to deal with it and on his way back in, got trapped on the stoop by Drunk Betty sqwaking at him from the second floor, so loudly that I could hear her in the bedroom with the TV turned up loud enough so I could hear the movie over the car alarm. Ed finally went downstairs to get the guy to COME THE FUCK INSIDE so Drunk Betty would stop talking at him. I HATE THIS BUILDING SO HARD.)

Why do all my brilliant schemes involve self- flagellation in one form or another?

I am Stressed the Fuck Out about homes and ceilings and money and all those other awesome things that have aged me more in the last 45 days than anything done in my wild formative years. I am worried that we won’t find anything that suits us, and worried that we will end up settling for things that aren’t perfect in the name of panic and jealousy.

In my near-constant stalking of MLS for new listings, I’ve seen several places that have piqued my interest, only to note that some sneaky sumbitch is selling units in a building that won’t be completed until 2010. This annoyed me almost as much as the listings for buildings that are 55+ (but don’t mention it until you’re three paragraphs in and calling your realtor), but then I started thinking: why *can’t* we potentially buy into a place that won’t be finished until next year?

I asked around on Twitter, and several people answered my most pressing question: how do you pay for such a place? I was worried that you would be responsible for making mortgage payments on a place you don’t live in as well as paying rent, but apparently that is not so: you make a down payment, and then you wait. Once you take possession, you start paying the mortgage you’ve already obtained at a pre-approved rate for a pre-approved amount and everything is super.

Think about it: a brand spanking new building with a shiny new suite in outfitted with our choice of either “Sun Kissed Pine” or “New Hampshire Mauve” colour schemes, surrounded by people who are just as new to the building as we would be and are therefore more likely to be careful with the property and surroundings? Having a warranty? Getting some sort of tax credit or rebate or exemption for buying new? Having sex where no one has ever had sex before (except for maybe randy construction men but let’s face it that’s totally hot)?

I’m aroused with both interest AND homo-erotic fantasies.

As with all my magnificent ideas, there are pros and cons to both buying new or pre-owned; things I’m probably not even thinking of: construction delays, funding issues, things being built on Indian burial grounds, etc. None of these, as terrifying as they can be, are even remotely close to the insurmountable scale of the most staggering issue of all:

I would have to WAIT.

I *hate* waiting. I lie awake at night filled with insomnia and angst because I am not already moving into my own home. A wait of this magnitude may very well kill me right in two, and then where would we be? We can’t afford a place large enough for all my many pieces should I completely lose it while rotting away in the Ghetto of North Vancouver. A wait like this would drive me COMPLETELY INSANE and there would be not a thing I could do about it.

Which, instead of deterring me like it would a normal person, actually makes me want to try it, for science: would I be able to contain myself for that long without exploding?

Should we look into buying new? I simply don’t know.

Pros:

• New! Shiny and new!
• Warranties!
• While we wait, we’d be saving scads of money!
• We’d have more to choose from!

Cons:

• Things could go wrong
• We might agree to something we would regret but be unable to get out
• Scary; I have no idea what we’d be in for
• I WOULD HAVE TO WAIT

Oh, there is much to think about.

I can’t stop reading episode details for The Twilight Zone. It made for a spooky commute yesterday – I half expected something otherworldly to happen, like getting on to a Seabus with hundreds of copies of myself (terrifying to consider) or being told that I don’t actually exist or waking up to discover that I’m William Shatner seeing Hitler ripping wires out of the airplane wing at 20,000 feet.

There is nothing for me to say today. I am tired of being tired at our apartment and the house hunt and the rain. I tried to ask Twitter for suggestions, but everyone suggested the same thing: scooters in the rain! I haven’t been able to ride in weeks – I don’t own enough rain gear to keep me dry in storm season – so Lola is parked out back with the other 5 bikes, waiting for spring. That’s it. That is hardly an update at all, let alone an interesting one.

Do my work for me: what should I write about?

You take the good (Angry Guy is no longer heading up his department! My people are back from their trip!), you take the bad (no Q3 bonus! Christmas is canceled!), you take them both and there you have my Wednesday morning.

We moved our mattress back into the bedroom last night. I was tired and full of fury at the thought of sleeping in unholy configurations for one more night, and figured if the roof was going to fall in it would have already done so. I’m also choked at our landlord, whose helpful suggestion of “I’ll bring you a dehumidifier, that’ll fix everything” has not materialized – he was supposed to bring one over on Monday so we could start drying out the room, but he didn’t. He wanted us to dry things out for at least a couple days before he brought repair people in, so we’ll be living with a damp ceiling and no light as well as a demolished living room because the ceiling is still bleeding plaster for the unforeseeable future. Ed called him last night to find out what the deal is and got voice mail with no call back, so we are in limbo. Angry, angry limbo. Why, I’ve got half a mind to just move!

We are looking at potential homes as quickly they appear. By my calculations, we’ve seen 14 places so far with one failed attempt to buy. The pickings are fairly slim at the moment, but we’re doing what we can – we saw a place last night that was really nice inside, but way too small for us and also it did not come with the pug that lived there so why bother. We got to the building really early, and in the half hour we sat in the car waiting, I counted four people pissing on things within eyesight of the street. Inside the lobby were multiple notices about break-ins in the underground parking area and the building, and they might be moving St. Paul’s hospital into the lot across the street. All that for 816 sq ft and one bathroom? WOO! At the very least, I’m starting to feel less hopeless about the whole thing. I’m also having a great deal of fun giving nicknames to all the places we’ve seen, so I can keep them straight in my head:

• Awesome Townhouse We Couldn’t Buy
• Water Damage on Commercial
• Too Many Carpets
• Smokers Suck
• Almost Perfect but Not Quite
• Dank and Smelly; Do NOT Open the Dishwasher
• What the Flying Fuck There’s a Sink in the Bedroom Closet
• The One (That Turned Out To Not Be the One)
• Warehouse Sized Bedroom Fireplace Pink Kitchen
• (two week break because we thought we were done)
• Spiral Staircase of Death
• Wendy’s Parking Lot with Hidden Jesus
• Creaky Floor Child Factory
• Arched Doorway Tiny Kitchen
• Enclosed Bedroom No Pug Crime Spree Toilet Place

There are a few other places I’m curious about, too:

• Wacky Kitchen
• Here is All My Money; I’ll Take It Based on Pictures Alone
• South Vancouver is the Devil, No Matter How Many Sq Ft It Is
• Out of my Price Range But Maybe They’ll Take Less

It is a good thing I enjoy making my own fun.

The horrible blinding migraine I woke up with yesterday eventually subsided, but left me with day-long nausea that invited me, several times over, to take advantage of the available bucket and spew the contents of my soul up into it. I’m not nearly as unstable today as I was yesterday, but I can’t seem to keep anything down so I am at home, biding my time and eating crackers.

Mmm, crackers.

This day is costing me money – I’m officially out of sick days and am taking the day unpaid – but it is better than the alternative of barfing all over my desk and people. I hear they hate that.

Plus, crackers. Can’t go wrong with those.

I really don’t think this month could get any worse, but there are 13 days remaining – that’s a lot of time in which catastrophic things can happen, and I am not willing to tempt fate.