wanderlust

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With three of my close friends currently wandering around Europe (along with millions of others), I find myself in a desperate state of “I wanna go to the UK”. I don’t have any trips planned, but I’m getting kind of pathetic in my antsiness – it’s almost as bad as my need to be in Vancouver, when I was stuck in Calgary. I wonder if I’m destined to roam the earth like some sort of shiftless vagabond, unable to stay in one place for longer than a decade. I lived in Calgary for 7 years, and have been in Vancouver for 8.5 .. is it time for another change?

That’s scary talk, right there. At the moment, I’d settle for a three-month work trial in London (and even then I’m getting way ahead of myself: this is all just wishful thinking, remember).

It doesn’t help that I’m ALSO feeling a strong need to do Paris again, but properly this time. Why hasn’t instant travel been invented yet? And why am I not free to follow my ever whim and fancy, no matter how ridiculous? Stupid responsibilities and limited resources, you’re harshing my buzz.

I have a team of wonderful elves doing extensive family research for me, and some new details have come to light:

  • My mother doesn’t remember being British (but to be fair, my mother doesn’t remember a lot of things), but this is still a conversation I really ought to have with some sort of consulate. No matter what my mom remembers or not, the fact remains that she was born in Malaysia under British rule .. that’s gotta count for like, two points.
  • Edith Jane Cornes born of Franklin Cornes the Coal Miner and Jane Scott the wife of a Coal Miner is definitely the wrong woman, so now I have the birth certificate of a total stranger which is kind of weird
  • It’s looking more and more likely that the right woman was Edith Jane Corns born of Samuel Corns and Harriet Gough in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England which is so British I could just drink tea
  • The Corns line can be traced immigrating to Canada as a family in 1893 and landing in Montreal, Quebec
  • The only reason I was looking up “Cornes” in the first place was because of my dad – he had typed out part of his life story, and that’s how he spelled it. THANKS DAD
  • The Corns had a huge family who all went on to create their own huge families – I probably have cousins and second cousins I don’t know about
  • Now I can’t have sex with anyone in Malaysia OR Quebec for fear of accidental incest
  • .. damnit
  • Finding my grandparent’s marriage certificate is proving to be enormously troublesome, and unfortunately it’s the one piece of vital information I neeeeeed if I want to – wishful thinking – apply for a UK visa
  • It’s not London, but yesterday I wandered to Point Roberts with some gnomes:
gnerms!

gnerms!

We also made a new friend:

this is trapper

this is trapper

As soon as he was on the beach, he came running up to us with a stick in his mouth. He dropped the stick, laid down, and waited: he was the politest damn dog I’ve ever seen, and super cute. We took turns throwing the stick for him before he got tired of us and went to play with some kids further down on the beach. There were many (okay, three) large friendly dogs there, and I got to pet them all.

So, now I want to go to London AND have dogs.

Sometimes it feels as though it would be easier to be happy if I didn’t have such dreams.

gnoooomes.

gnoooomes.

mad hax

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Does it count as an Ikea Hack if all you do is repurpose something?

I’m going to count it. Look, I hacked the gibson:

 

my krokig is huuuuuge

my krokig is huuuuuge

That’s kind of a terrible picture, but it shows you the whole thing (and my dirty carpet). Here are some better pictures:

Krokig4

shinies: i have them

whee!

whee!

It’s a kid’s clothing rack that I’m using to hang necklaces off of. It’s bright and colourful and keeps all my necklaces from tangling while languishing in a drawer somewhere. When I strip after work, it’s easy to hang things up again on one of the eight hooks. It’s a fun solution, and it would work well for belts or bags or scarves – plus, it’s a comfortable height and helps me build self-confidence by learning to hang up things by myself. Also, at $30 it was way cheaper than the size of a jewellery box I’d need to store all those necklaces properly AND I got to have meatballs. A Saturday well spent!

(DNF)

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I had completely forgotten about this, but apparently school records are forever: In 1993, I attended Oak Bay High School in Victoria. For like, a week.

After Not Graduating from Spectrum, I was somewhat adrift in the world. I feared the stigma of being a high school dropout – even though I didn’t – so I thought that I needed to get my diploma, no matter what. I was still mad at Spectrum for the whole “you’re not graduating” bullshit, so I chose to go to a different school: the one my favourite band teacher had left us for.

Um, also I was once a third degree Band Geek. I haven’t mentioned it a lot – most of my high school life was dull and not worth rehashing – but there it is. I played the Bass Clarinet and Tenor Sax, and sang in several choirs, and was devastated when Mr. Campbell left us to teach snobby rich kids music.

Anyway, back to school. I enrolled myself at Oak Bay as an upgrade student, and planned to take mostly “fun” classes in addition to the Consumer Education course I was missing. I lasted less than a week before I realized that I hated being in school and didn’t want any part of this – I never even made it to a band class; I just .. stopped going. I don’t think I ever officially withdrew, either. So yeah, I guess I AM a high school dropout. Oops.

All of this has come up because at some point over the weekend, someone – someone who is staggeringly bad at Google – emailed info@mywork.com, looking for me. I have no idea how they managed to figure out where I work but not that I am on every corner of the internet and reachable through almost every communication method possible, but they did. Individual people at work have forwarded the message to me six times now, so I have definitely received it. Yes. Thank you.

The message contains an invitation to Oak Bay High’s 20th reunion, to be held some time later this year. I do not know a single person at Oak Bay High; I didn’t attend class long enough to make any friends (or meet any people whatsoever) .. but apparently, I’m still on the school’s list of alumni and that is hilarious. I hadn’t thought about my week spent as a student of Oak Bay High since 1993, but they managed to track me down. That is some weird shit! I didn’t attend my actual reunion last year, so I do not think I will be attending this one. Still, I’m amused to learn I’m still on the list. It’s nice to be remembered by a computer.

who are you

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Shit

Unless this woman got married in the UK to some guy named Herbert Hawthorne and stayed in England long enough to be counted in the 1911 census, then somehow got to Canada and met my grandfather and got married and had babies in 1913 and 1914 .. I’ve been tracing the wrong line in the UK.

There’s another woman with the same name from the UK who, in 1901, was counted in the Canadian census and listed as having immigrated to the correct part of Canada in 1893. This could be the right line, but every time I try to search for her, the records are crossed between these two women. For all I know, the information I have is partially correct (the birth certificate I received for the woman in the image above has a birth year of 1883, not 1884). Most of the information I DO have was researched for me by the amazing Ken in Calgary, and I am forever grateful because he was able to provide a ton of stuff – now I just need to put the pieces together.

What I DO know:

  • All the information I’ve found about my grandfather is correct
  • Every piece of war correspondence I’ve been able to find lists him as “Husband of Edith J. Welsh of 2883 St. Andre St. Montreal”
  • I confirmed my grandmother’s maiden name when I stole my dad’s birth certificate after he died (which I then had to return) and also in a story my dad had written about his early life
  • I really should be working and not looking into all of this right now

I absolutely hate it when I have a mystery on my hands that I cannot solve. It’s rare that my Google-Fu fails me (or I only search for really simple things), and it’s infuriating when it does. At this point, it’s not even about wanting to immigrate to the UK – it’s about getting to the bottom of this once and for all, because it’s pissing me off and few things motivate me more than being pissed off.

I WILL DECIPHER YOU, EDITH CORNES!

 

one step closer

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Dear England,

When can I move in? Can I just put my stuff anywhere? I’m gonna need a shelf in the bathroom; I have a lot of girl potions.

I received my grandmother’s birth certificate in the mail this week. It’s a little sobering to look at – as someone who often feels adrift and without family ties, it’s probably always going to trip me out to encounter my history. I learned that my great-grandfather was a coal miner! That is neat.

Getting the birth certificate was just one small step in this whole “get to the UK” process: I still need to find a way to tie my grandmother to my family. Unfortunately, it’s proving to be ridiculously difficult to get any information out of Quebec and Nova Scotia – my grandfather’s birth certificate would be nice to have, but I NEED my grandparent’s marriage certificate. Seeing as I have no idea when or where they got married (I’m assuming they didn’t have grandparent sex until they were married, so I can safely guess it happened sometime between 1910 and 1912), this is proving difficult. Complicating matters are the other women who share my grandmother’s name – it seems that a lot of babies were named Edith Jane in England in the late 1800s, and several of them had some variation of the name “Cornes” (if not the name itself). Most of the information I can easily access online refers to an Edith Jane Cornes born in the right location, but the year is off by one. If that’s not the right woman, then everything I have is wrong and I don’t actually know where my grandmother was born. It’s all very confusing.

If I want to get to the UK legally and not just as a tourist, I need to prove that:

  • you are a Commonwealth citizen – check!
  • you are aged 17 or over – check!
  • you are able to work and you plan to work in the UK – checkity check check!
  • you can adequately support and accommodate yourself and your dependants without help from public funds – I don’t want your public funds! Let me work!

I have those, so what next? Well, I must show that at least 1 of my grandparents was born:

  • in the UK (including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) – yes, as far as I can tell
  • before 31 March 1922 in what is now the Republic of Ireland – my great grandfather appears to have been born in Ireland, but I think that’s a generation too far removed to qualify
  • on a British-registered ship or aircraft – that would be super cool, but doesn’t apply here

Apparently, I can claim ancestry if my relationship to the relevant grandparent is legitimate OR illegitimate. That makes things easier!

Unfortunately, this is where things get difficult. When I apply for UK entry, I need to include:

  • your full birth certificate – I have this!
  • your parents’ and grandparents’ marriage certificates – um. I don’t know how to get this. My mother MIGHT have her marriage certificate, but I won’t know until I can get my hands on her papers and go through them myself.
  • the full birth certificates of the parent and grandparent through whose ancestry you are applying – I have A birth certificate for a woman I THINK might be my grandmother, but I’m not sure and I don’t know how to verify :(
  • your marriage certificate or civil partnership registration document, if your husband, wife or civil partner intends to join you in the UK – I have this! The real question isn’t “do you have paperwork”, it’s more “will Ed join you” .. that, I don’t know. So far, all of this has been idle wishing. But what if I could do it? What if everything fell into place and I got the papers I need and had a way to get there and a plan and could work and and and? What then? Would Ed come with me? Would I go my own way? Should I stay or should I go? Why DO fools fall in love? Did you let the dogs out?

So many questions.

I wish my dad was around to provide some answers.

And a cream egg. I wish I had a cream egg.

LET ME LIVE IN YOU

poetry in (slow) motion

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poetry!

poetry!

Henceforth I insist that all package status updates be delivered in Haiku form.

Departure from in/
ward office of exchange – Van/
couver Canada

Package is delayed
Customs has opened your goods
Nice discount panties!

There’s no way that dress
Will cover your pasty ass
Keep on dreaming, though.

Your mail will be late
A conspiracy?
No, we just hate you.

.. I could do this all day, but things need speccin’.

recycling

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I wasn’t in the office on Thursday due to a sinus migraine (or as I like to call them, snigraine), and people were busy:

LATEX EXPLOSION

LATEX EXPLOSION

I still don’t know who was responsible, but I truly appreciated the unexpected surprise. I didn’t know what to do with all the balloons, though .. so we made it someone else’s problem:

it doesn't count as recycling if you have fun while doing it

it doesn’t count as recycling if you have fun while doing it

They fit much better in Scott’s office, and the best part is he’ll blame someone else. Hooray!

Seriously, though. I laughed a lot. Good times!

twelve

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According to Wikipedia, the only important thing that happened on March 30th 2001 was the discontinuation of the Sega Dreamcast.

Hmpf.

Delicious Juice Dot Com is twelve years old today. That is .. so many words. Just think of what I could accomplished if I put all that energy towards something useful!

Okay, that’s not fair – this blog has always been exactly what I needed at the time. I would likely explode with feelings if I didn’t have this blog as an outlet, and as always, I am grateful for anyone on this ride with me.

Twelve is SO MANY!

new record

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I wrote two complete blog posts today that I can’t publish because they’re both incoherent with rage and unresolved issues. I should just delete them both before I get myself in trouble, but they’re lurking in my drafts folder. Perhaps one day I’ll calm down enough to extract the logic from the emotion and write something meaningful, but at the moment it’s just a heaping pile of anger and incredulousness – it’s best to keep those pent up inside, where they can fester quietly as a mental illness.

So, there’s nothing to see here. If you want something to see, you should check out my #rando tumblr – there’s lots to laugh at over there. Here, not so much. I’m at home with a yucky sinus cold and all I want to do is sleep and drill a hole into my face, but I have to taxi Ed around in a couple hours so I should probably hose the grossness off. Not the best start to a much-needed long weekend, but I’ll take it (and milk the whining for all it’s worth).

To the tumblrs with you!