Getting swept out to sea: I don’t like it.
We’re in Tofino. The four of us arrived last night, meeting up with the other four already at the cabin. It is awesome here, even when faced with near death via epic tides.
I’m posting from my phone in a sketchy-coverage area, so this will be short – in fact, it’s just long enough to say that I did survive the tidal wave and my boots were not waterproof and I may have to go home tomorrow pantless.
Which, of course, is just fine by me.
It’s November, which generally means a flurry of e-activity: NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, Movember. My participation in NaBloPoMo isn’t really interesting any more, as this’ll be my 5th year or something – and my making an extra 3 posts a month to cover the days I wouldn’t normally write isn’t exactly front page news. I’ve always wanted to do NaNoWriMo, but I have serious doubts about my ability to write a flowing story of any length – I have a short attention span and tend to change subjects in the middle of paragraphs for fun and profit. That just leaves Movember – and let’s face it; while I am awesome and can do most things; I cannot grow a moustache.
Ed can, though. And he is. He’s participating in Movember for the first time ever – at first just for me (I’m curious; I’ve never seen him with a moustache) but then because he found out his place of employment is huge on Movember: they’ll match any donation he brings in. I know there are a ton of friends and family particpating, but please consider donating to Ed for that very reason – every dollar you donate is TWO dollars towards the fight against man cancer, and that is nothing but a good thing.
Plus, I’ll post pictures of his terrible creepiness as the ‘mo progresses.
if he's this terrifying without the moustache, just think how traumatizing it'll be WITH it
love that shaggy 'mo!
Hey, welcome to the worst day of my fucking life:
And the very, very best news of all:
I fucking give up on this entire week.
Oh, and I’m crying my eyes out at my desk for all the above reasons and more, and I get pulled into a meeting with my boss and the VP and my goddamn mascara isn’t waterproof so I’m discussing how to configure JIRA with tears running down my face.
Whee!
The inspection passed with flying colours. Inspector Rick was awesome; he spent a goodly amount of time explaining things to us and pointing out things we should have looked at (one baseboard heater doesn’t work, there’s a tiny crack in a shower tile, the gas fireplace needs servicing). That’s a huge relief, and one thing checked off our list. Yay! We are cleared for landing! There are some things with the building that will come up in the next five years – the garage needs to be epoxy’d and the plumbing will need an assessment – but everything else is sound and great. He was particularly impressed with the amount of storage our suite, which we got a nice long look at – SO MUCH STORAGE! I’m also particularly stoked about the TWO CLOSETS in the bedroom – I get my own and Ed gets his and my delicates will never have to touch his stinky man clothes!
There’s just one last thing keeping us from full-on celebration: the mortgage financing. Even if the bank says no due to the partial rainscreening (look at me, talking like I have any idea what that means), MJ Realtor to the Stars has more than enough paperwork to back things up. I’m not particularly worried even if they DO say no, because the information we have should be good enough – but I do so love to worry. We should know soon, and if everything works out, conditions will be lifted on Saturday afternoon and we will spend Saturday evening getting drunk on a beach (the last time we will be able to afford such luxuries).
Then again, if things DON’T work out, we will spend Saturday evening getting drunk on a beach – but in sorrow, not celebration. Alcohol will be present. This is foretold.
We’re going to Tofino tomorrow afternoon with a full compliment of Peeps: M&R, J&S, Darren, and special guest Amanda. We were unable to go on last year’s trip because of Ed’s month-long insurance course, so this’ll be our first time – Ed’s never been to Tofino and I’ve only been once, a very long time ago. I’m excited for the trip! I better be, because it’s the last time I’m going anywhere for 30 years or so.
a close up of a very bad idea
Turns out I’m not actually married to Ed.
Drunk Betty had a drunken conversation at him this morning in which she named Shan to be his wife. This discovery is only cemented by the fact that I picked up my camera this morning, only to realize that it wasn’t mine – I had grabbed Shan’s camera on Saturday night by mistake. Or did I? It seems that I am the Other Woman in this little triangle; maybe her things were in the apartment all along and I am just a mistaken whore. Oh, the shame!
This hasn’t been the greatest week for me. I haven’t been getting enough sleep at night, so I’ve been trying to go to bed early. Turns out I’ve been going to bed TOO early – I fell asleep last night before I could do my usual night routine, and ended up sleeping unclean, unmedicated, and in one position all night. I woke up with a headache so bad I had been dreaming about being sick and throwing up for hours, and right now I’m staggering around the office looking like I spent the evening going several (unsuccessful) rounds with Johnny Walker.
One of the reasons I was able to sleep for as long as I did is because our downstairs neighbours (who shall henceforth be known as the Chlamydia Sisters) didn’t make a peep all night, which was refreshing. They are on everyone’s shit list, apparently – the Ineffective Landlord had words with them, they pissed off the building manager by buzzing him at 4:30am to be let in, and they are the reason yet another Common Sense note has gone up in the lobby. They also managed to lose their dog in the building, which showed up (and peed) on the building manager’s doorstep. He just so happens to have a girlfriend who works for Animal Control, so this could get interesting pretty quickly. This is at least the second time they’ve lost the dog (of which they share custody with an ex-boyfriend) in the building, and they’ve lost the cat several times the same way. The Chlamydia Sisters are not very bright – seriously, what kind of adult is so incredibly ignorant that people have to post notes on the bulletin board reminding people not to:
I can’t wait to move.
I’m nervous about that, too. Today is Inspection Day, and I am armed with all sorts of things I imagine one might need for an Inspection:
Today is really the Second to Last Big Hurdle. We read over 3 years worth of strata minutes last night, and it was boring – which is good, because we don’t *want* an exciting strata. Nothing raised any red flags (except perhaps the line about all window coverings needing to be beige or white – there go my plans for a Very Plaid Christmas), but we do have a few questions. Still, I worry. It’s a hobby of mine.
I would love for this headache to go away.
On our anniversary in September, Ed and I spent the day hanging out with Miranda and Reilly doing a photo shoot. Miranda showed me the slideshow today, and IT IS AWESOME! They made us pretty! :D
I will share the link later, because Ed hasn’t seen it yet – but here are some of my favourites:
something over there is fascinating
he is telling me a secret, and it involves bums
mysterious kimli
YAY! Thank you, Miranda and Reilly! You guys are the best!
I never get to have any fun.
At the moment though, this is a good thing – my present idea of “fun” involves Molotov Cocktails, drained cans of tuna, and clogging lessons.
Sometimes fun can be malicious!
I am about ready to put a hit out on our downstairs neighbours. They’re a pair of nurses who do shift work, and have the mentality of a couple of 14 year olds with parents out of town: any time is party time, regardless of what the clock says. They tend to start up around 10pm with the loud music, smoking, and singing. They have terrible taste in music – Celine Dion, Def Leppard, that one song from Ghost – and I want to slap their ignorant faces until someone spits blood.
Yeah, I’m kind of angry.
Last night they – the two ridiculous whores and their boys of the week – had another party. I’m long past the point of polite confrontation, as they refuse to answer the door and/or hide the guilty parties in the bedroom when we knock, AND refer to us as “the mean neighbour/s” when referring to us. I stomped on the floor a couple times, but when they started singing along to “Pour Some Sugar On Me” I lost it and had a little temper tantrum, hurting my foot in the process. Their response was to yell “FUCK OFF” and turn the music up, to which I screamed back “FUCK YOU” and had to do some breathing exercises to calm myself down so I wouldn’t stab large knives in their door as a warning. I hate them. I hate them so hard.
I really, really wanted to engage in a little passive aggressive payback this morning – they sleep when we wake up. I was actually prepping my sub woofer for some revenge when Ed stopped me, saying it just wasn’t a good idea. I know that, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to make them hurt – even if it’s just interrupting their sleep like they’ve done mine for the last month or so.
He did call our landlord, who just doesn’t care. He’s losing tenants left and right, and isn’t going to do anything to help one way or another. He’s actually thinking of renting them the Penthouse – an awesome idea, because then they’ll be pissing off 4 tenants and three other apartment buildings when they crank the music up at 1am on a Tuesday morning instead of just us. He doesn’t live in the building OR the area; what does he care? We were told to wake the building manager up the next time it happens, but the guy doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this kind of shit and has a pretty crappy life as it is; we like him and don’t want to make it any worse. So, we’re stuck. They get to party and smoke and generally be assholes all they want because the landlord won’t say boo either way, I get very little sleep each night, and my urge to do something incredibly foolish (but so satisfying) is rising every day.
I know we have a move coming up, but until the conditions are lifted this Saturday, I don’t want to celebrate – but when I do, you better believe it’s going to be loud and in the middle of the afternoon.
When Josh and Shan said they were buying a place, I was a little dismayed – it all happened so *fast*. I had no idea how they could have done it all so fast – the looking, the decision, the offer, the counter offer, the acceptance, the paperwork – surely this is a long, drawn out process and they were just rushing into things, right?
Ed and I saw a place on Friday at 5:30. Just over three hours later – 8:47pm, according to my outbox – we were emailing MJ with our intent to offer. Barely 18 hours after that, we were in a coffee shop in Park Royal with MJ, signing the necessary paperwork. 4 hours later – we had a counter offer. I emailed back our counter counter offer, and by 8:06 Saturday night we had an accepted offer on the unit. The seller’s paperwork was signed by 8am Sunday morning, and by noon we had initialed and dotted and crossed and now the waiting begins.
I absolutely understand how this could happen over a weekend.
I’m still a little shocked at it all. We’re doing the inspection on Wednesday, and assuming everything goes according to plan, all conditions will be lifted on Saturday and it’s a done deal. We’d be taking possession on December 12th, and spending the holidays in our very own home.
Holy shit.
If I may direct the attention away from my own shock and awe, I would like to toot the horn of Social Media: we used the same realtor and same mortgage broker that literally all our friends have, and they are completely awesome. We’re new to this entire process and didn’t have a clue how to go about it, but we followed the advice and recommendations of people we know and trust and it led us to MJ and Chris, who have made it seem far too easy to buy a home. They are super! I know “Social Media” is an extremely fancy way of saying “Word of Mouth”, but we DID set up most of our meetings via Twitter so that has to count for something.
MJ’s site is funny:
in order: miranda and reilly, josh and shan, and pending me and ed
Starts today!
.. a little later today, actually. I have news and a hangover (Kimli style; I need Diet Coke) but I’m in Gastown and have a bunch of errands to run. This afternoon I shall begin National Blog Posting Month with a vengance!
delicious juice dot com 