This is the longest I’ve been able to get online since Thursday morning. I’m desperately afraid to move my laptop for fear that my nubbin will disappear again – it’s been the worst kind of cock tease ever.

We moved the majority of mom’s stuff yesterday. Today we plan to do nothing – I’m dragging Ed downtown to go to the Public Market – and tonight we will ROCK OUT at the Victoria Curling Club, where Rise Against is playing.

I miss you all (and a steady internet connection) terribly. We’re going back to the mainland tomorrow, where I plan to hug my cats and scooter and also cable modem for good measure.

I’m still relatively sane, but there have been some very close calls.

(I found that if I hold my laptop up to the ceiling, I have one nubbin of unsecure wireless – praise jebus!)

Normally I would just assume that people here have more sense than to bandy unsecure wireless connections about, but I honestly think that no one here HAS wireless. I am stuck in my mom’s new place with no TV, no internet, no music, no nothin’  except season 1 of Dead Like Me, of which I just watched the first six episodes back to back. My head kind of hurts. It’s also three am, I’m thirsty, and this place is creepy.

I really hope my mom has a lot more patience than I do. I mean, I’m pretty much universally known as Ms Patience, but I was at my limits today. Her new apartment is the basement of someone’s house, and living above her is an entire family of clog dancers. The floors aren’t very thick, and I’m easily able to hear entire conversations in between all the running – not to mention the small child person who likes to yell and sing and cry and make irritating noises. Ed thinks that maybe she’ll welcome the noise. Me, it fills with rage. I hate other people.

There’s something infinitely depressing in imagining myself in this same situation – a 62 year old widow, living in a basement suite like some sort of lackluster college student, hording dish soap and paper towels because you can’t pass up a good deal. I hope I never get to this point. I always envisioned retirement to be at least mildly exciting, from an old person’s point of  view – lemonade, shuffleboard, flower arranging, maybe some weekly Bingo. This can’t be all there is – a crappy little two room apartment underneath someone else’s life, forging relationships based on lottery tickets and other pipe dreams. There’s more, isn’t there?

Maybe she’s happy like this. I’ve tried talking to her about it, and she does seem just fine with the status quo. Ed told me it’s not my place to worry about it; if she doesn’t want anything better then who am I to force it on her. Just because I want fireworks and scooters and food fights and raspberries for dinner doesn’t mean it’s what everyone else wants or needs – some people are fine with all this. Some people don’t miss excitement. Some people are content having nothing – or maybe they just have nothing I would want for myself.

That’s it, isn’t it. There’s nothing wrong with the life my mother is living; it’s just not what I want for myself. And that’s fine, because this ISN’T my life – and as long as she’s okay with what she has, my distaste for everything presently around me is of absolutely no concern to anyone. On Monday morning, I can go home to my own life and cats and friends and toys and not worry that I’m going to wake up in a life that’s far removed from what I want. I can do the Good Daughter thing for that long. If all else fails, there’s a liquor store down the street.

Remind me to tell you what happened at the Space Station this week, okay?

Train station bathrooms have to be one of the most depressing places on earth – they just seem so hopeless, like a desperate last resort after your life has been cut into pieces (sorry, couldn’t resist). I know this is far from the case – every time I’ve been in a train station it was either to go somewhere fun, or to pick up a friend who, while occasionally hopeless, was usually not hopeless AND desperate, being more of a “one or the other” situation. I had to go to the train station yesterday to buy Ed a bus ticket to Victoria – one way; the dirty bastard has crossed me for the last time – and on my way out, I peed. I kind of wish I hadn’t. Afterward, while my bladder felt infinitely better, I was very depressed.

Off to Victoria, for the Big Move. I am going to try my damnedest to have as much ME time as I can get away with – my mother drives me insane. I’ll be a drooling mass of humanity by the time I get back. I don’t think I’ve spent 5 days in close quarters with my mother since high school, back when we were trying to kill each other. Ed gets in on Friday. Here’s hoping he packed his mediator hat.

Behave! If I can steal internet, I’ll post updates on my mental condition!

I take back every nasty thing I said or thought on my way into work this morning in the rain – my snails are back!

I was worried that the heat had done them harm, but I think they just burrowed into the cool dark of the soil and waited for rain. I saw one this morning, and when I came home there were so many more! Baby snails, too!

I picked this little guy up and put him on my hand. He was a little scared – in fact, he pooped on me.

For the record, baby poop is disgusting. Baby snail poop, on the other hand, is adorable (but also pretty disgusting).

I called Ed at work to tell him a baby snail pooped on me. He did not share my excitement.

I am going to be very very sad when snail season is over. I love my slimy little guys!

Yay snails!

I’ve been waiting for the House Sadness to kick in, but so far there’s nothing.

I tend to have emotional attachments to inanimate things and/or have deeply sentimental pangs towards anything with some sort of history. When I was young, I used to feel very guilty when I changed toothbrushes – I missed the old one, and thought perhaps it was sad it had been thrown out. By the end of this month, the house I’ve thought of as mine for the last 28 years will no longer be something I have a claim to. It’s only natural to be all sad and wistful about it, but so far I’ve got nothing.

I didn’t really have a very good time in that house, which probably lends a lot to my indifference. Still, there’s history there. I made and lost friends, have many memories of my dad, of the pets I’ve lost, the people I’ve made out with, still others I fondled, the room I lost my virginity in, that one time the group of us did that stuff ..  you don’t have decades of attachments to a place without having a lot of stories to tell. I’m leaving for Victoria in two days, and it’ll be the last time I’m in the house I grew up in. Eventually I’ll be weepy about it – right now, I’m just looking forward to being away from work for almost a week. Talk to me again in a few days, though – at that point, I’ll be insane from the constant close contact with my mother.

I’m tempted to leave tomorrow night instead of Wednesday morning, for reasons that are rather unknown to me. It would mean an extra day of insanity, boredom, no cats, and stress – I think I just have cabin fever, and am eager to .. do something. It’s dumb, since I just came back from Edmonton and spent the weekend having excellent adventures. Deep down I think I know why I’m itching to get this whole move over with, and my reasons are purely financially anxious. Our grand plans will come together eventually; I just want them to happen NOW instead of having to wait another few weeks.

So, what’s new by you?