Monday, April 25, 2016

Monday and Chocolate Cake

It doesn't really feel like Monday. Barclay recently started this new job and now he works on strange days, and has strange days off, too. Yesterday felt like Saturday, because he worked on the actual Saturday so that felt like Friday, and today feels like it should be Sunday, but he has next Friday off so today is kind of like Tuesday.

I've always put a lot of stock into what day of the week it is. For example, when I wake up on a Friday, I'm instantly filled with a little rush, like I've just had a bite of chocolate cake. Yes! my brain says, It's FRIDAY. Good. Even if something sad happens or it's raining, the fact that it's Friday is enough.

On Saturday, conversely, I might wake up and think, Oh. Only two more days of weekend left. 

(A thing I need to work on is living in the moment - not too much, just enough to enjoy Saturdays instead of being sad that they end.) 

Anyway, it is Monday. I know it for sure, because I have plans. Exciting ones. 

Tonight, I'm going to this thing called Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids. It is exactly, exactly what it sounds like. If you live here, you should go. It's at the Artesian at 8. Bring chocolate cake, two forks, and sit right behind me.

And then tomorrow, Tuesday, which will feel kind of like Monday but also a little like Wednesday, I'm going to Talkies, which is a thing at the theatre in the public library where they show a terrible movie and two comedians sit in the front row with mics and make fun of what's happening on the screen the whole time - so, real-life Mystery Science Theatre 3000, if you know what that is. Admission is a donation (food or money) to the Regina Food Bank, so the evening ends up being a very nice hybrid of good deed and lazy selfish fun. You should come. Your face will hurt, and that's a promise. 

I have other plans too, on other nights, but you're not invited to those. Unless you bring chocolate cake.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Come In, Come In

(If you find yourself confused by this post, part I is here; maybe read that first)

My parents have been keeping me updated on the house progress via text and picture messages (for example, one day I got a text from Dad that said, "I think I got the flue!" accompanied by a selfie of him working on the chimney - he's never been one to shy away from a good dad joke. Or any other kind of dad joke.)

It's no small thing to move an old three-storey farmhouse 228 km, so there's lots to share, but I feel like most of you are just kind of itching to see the inside of this place. Let's call these the 'before' pictures, even though there'd already been a fair amount of work done before I took them.

Welcome:

Here's the front porch.




Step inside and to your left, and you're in the main floor's only bedroom. The next pictures are the dining room, living room, kitchen, butler's pantry, and staircase to the second floor.

(Hint: Look down if you're confused about which room you're in - no two floors are alike in this place.)



The second floor has four bedrooms and a bathroom - again, keep an eye on the floors. (The skateboard in the one bedroom did not come with the house. Mom and Dad have been using it to haul the cast-iron radiators out of the rooms they're working on. Those things are heavy.)



Last but not least: the attic, which is going to be one big bedroom.



And that's it. Or, a very condensed snapshot of it, anyway. More to come!

Monday, April 18, 2016

The House My Grandma Bought

Once upon a time, just a few months ago, my grandmother went to an estate auction sale to buy a buggy. Come to think of it, I'm not altogether sure what an 80-year-old woman in 2016 needs a buggy for, but I didn't think to ask because that's not even the most interesting part of this story.

The most interesting part is that she accidentally bought a house, as well.


This is the kind of thing that happens on TV, to Seinfeld or someone like that - a misunderstanding with disastrous but funny consequences, the kind that makes you laugh even while you shake your head and say, "That would never happen in real life, though." But the thing about my grandma is that I have a whole bunch of stories about her that sound like they've been pulled from the pages of a sitcom writer's notebook. I like to think, sometimes, that I've inherited a little bit of her luck in that area.

Anyway: the house.


It was a beautiful wood-frame Foursquare farmhouse, with a footprint of about 1000 square feet, three storeys high, all full of old books and vintage chairs and peeling wallpaper in every imaginable pattern and colour. The auctioneer noted its beauty and started the bidding at $30,000.

And no one bid on it.

The auctioneer was puzzled at this; there had been a lot of interest expressed in the house prior to the auction. He lowered the starting price to $20,000 - and still, no one bid.

"Alright," he said, "Let's start the bidding at $500 and work our way up there."

And still, no one bid.

My grandma decided to get the ball rolling. She had no intention of buying a house, of course, but she thought, If I just start the bidding, this thing'll take off. 

So she bid $500. Instead of taking off, however, 'this thing' laid down and died right in front of her.

Sold!

My mom says she received a text message that day from Grandma that read, simply, "Oh! I just bought a house!"


So, anyway, my grandma also bought a buggy that day, and my mom headed up to Gravelbourg, where all of this was taking place, to help her get the thing home. That's when she saw the house and, in the second great unplanned and unexpected incident of the day, fell completely in love with it.


To make a long story a little shorter: my grandma gave the house to my mom ("What's an 80-year-old woman going to do with a fixer-upper like that?"). My parents, in turn, sold the farm, and are currently in the process of restoring that old house into their dream retirement prairie mansion in the quaint little village of Frontier, Saskatchewan. If you know them at all, you know that this whole thing is pretty much a dream-come-true for them.

Here's a blurry picture of the house on the back of a truck, slowly making its way, uh, home.


I went and checked the place out this weekend, and left feeling so excited to see what they do with it, but also so excited that I don't have to help (I live 4.5 hours away, so phew). It's a needy little house. My mom's favourite kind.

Some of their friends have asked if they wouldn't mind keeping them updated on the reno process, and my mom, in turn, asked me if I wouldn't mind posting pictures here every once in a while so she can just direct that traffic this way. So, every once in a while, I'll post updates on the #fivehundreddollarfoursquare. You're more than welcome to follow along.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Tack Attack

Yesterday, as I walked across the floor, I felt a sensation in my foot, in the bridge part of my foot, in the very most sensitive, ticklish bit of it. It was not a tickle, but what it was, I could not tell you at the time. It was indiscernible. Like a shock, or a buzz, or a flash of heat. Had it made a sound? I couldn't tell you that either. Puzzled, I lifted my foot and assessed the situation.

A little round silver sticker. Oh. Whatever.

But then I tried to peel the silver sticker off of the bottom of my foot and realized that it was not a sticker, but a thumb tack. And the tack part was all the way in my foot. In the bridge part of my foot, in the very most sensitive, ticklish bit of it. And it was stuck.

Only then did I understand what the sensation was: pain. Absolutely, unmistakably. How had I missed that?

I pulled at it, but it stayed firmly imbedded in my foot skin. I contemplated leaving it there - what if I got it out and all of my blood drained out of my body via the bottom of my foot?

I took a deep breath and plucked it out. I felt like a hero in a movie who has to pull an arrow out of her own leg. I gritted my teeth and tried to do it without wincing. I'm only telling you this so you'll be really impressed and maybe cower a little in my presence next time you see me.

So, then, I looked in front of me and saw three more little silver thumb tacks. And a fourth! And a fifth! Thumb tacks everywhere!

And I have no idea why. Just none. All signs point to Kevin Mcallister.

So I spent a solid chunk of my afternooon scouring the living room for more thumb tacks (didn’t find any, only the five) and then vacuuming, because I didn’t want Sullivan and I to have matching mother/son foot piercings.

Is that a thing, do you think? In some other country, maybe? The USA, perhaps? Americans are weird, man.

Friday, April 01, 2016

DEATH CAB


For about a week after a good concert, I feel weepy. I slug around the house, collapsing into all the seats, sighing a lot. I don’t even try to hold my head up. I feel a weird mix of sad and exhausted and nostalgic. 

I’ve been this way always. I remember the morning after a concert in grade 8 where I woke up feeling like I’d been dumped. The band I’d gone to see had this song called “It’s Over,” and I laid on my bed and listened to it and cried. It’s so excessive. 

Music takes a lot of energy to listen to or something? I’m working on a theory about how musicians are actually a weird kind of con people who have discovered a way to suck the life force out of the audience while they’re playing for them – that’s why they play their most emotional stuff and try to make you scream or cry or laugh or whatever. They want to elicit your most raw and powerful reaction; it comes out of you and they keep it. They bottle it up and drink it, and that’s how they stay so young-looking and why Emily Haines can travel around doing what she does and staying up late and hopping all over the place like she’s 16 instead of 42, while I have to spend a week recuperating from just sitting in a seat in front of her for two hours. 

It’s got a hole or two, but it’s a pretty solid theory. 




Seriously though, I saw Death Cab for Cutie Monday night and I have still not recovered. They played almost all of my favorite songs (it would’ve had to have been a much longer show for them to play all of my favorite songs), including a lot of their older ones, mostly from Plans and Transatlanticism. I appreciated that. They’ve got to be so sick of them by now, but those CDs have never gotten old for me.

But, also, I’m so glad I waited until this point in their career to see them live, because Kintsugi is such a solid album and I loved every song they played off of there. And they did “Cath” and “I Will Possess Your Heart” from Narrow Stairs. Not much from Codes and Keys. It was like they consulted with my subconscious when they were making the set list. 

(Thanks, guys. Next time, though, I will need to hear “Marching Bands of Manhattan.”)




The only thing I hated about it was that it ended. And there was no encore. They finished with “Transatlanticism” and everyone in the audience went crazy and then it was done. 

AUGH. 




Oh, and then Metric came out, and what followed was the most laser-driven concert I've ever been to. They got me in the eyes one too many times and I woke the next morning with red, swollen eyelids (not from crying). I had to wear sunglasses inside the house for the next two days. I did not know this was a thing that could happen).




Oh ALSO (sorry). The opener was a band called Leisure Cruise who was dang good. I wasn’t expecting them, and they started before the time on the tickets, which meant that I missed their first song or two, but I really enjoyed them. The girl had a killer voice and an equally killer jacket made of tinsel. 

Cue dramatic sighing and head lolling. What a night.