everyday is d. day

on the road to san francisco

i was up this morning shy of seven so i could jump in the shower right after shaun and before the water was turned off to the building. gosh, i wonder if this has anything to do with the fire alarms. probably not. building has probably sprung a leak in some other unfortunate's suite.

i fiddled around with my suitcase, packing and unpacking a few items. i've closed it and called it quits. i know i've overpacked, lacking the laissez-faire of some travellers. also, the weather seems to be a bit unstable and difficult to predict, making it a tad erratic. so i stuffed in some long sleeve shirts and a pair of jeans to join the short sleeves, capri pants and other summer time clothing. at the moment, based on vancouver's offering, those predictions seem a bit optimistic. but we'll see. the weather eye reckons it's partly cloudy and the temperature a bit on the chilly side. in 30 hours i'll find out what is really going on. i'm prepared for most anything but snow.

san francisco. here i come. ready or not!

i coulda toldja that

we arrived back at the apartment after a somewhat uninspired shopping expedition. and though we weren't completely unsuccessful, i was exhausted after trolling around a few stores hoping what i needed would jump into my arms and declare itself practically free. shaun proudly modelled his finds once we got home. he is several inches narrower than he used to be. myself, i have gone the other way. but not for lack of trying. he is oblivious, actually he is happy i am carrying more heft, but the discovery has hit my proud self hard and just won't go away. last time i was this size a bit of idle dieting and a few trips to the gym and it was sorted. not so easy on the other side of the four-oh. deliberate dieting, exercise, green tea, caffeine and sheer deprivation; nothing has helped shift it. it's a mere 8 pounds but it is driving me to distraction. i'm obsessing over what is and what isn't there. over what was and wasn't.  i know i shouldn't but i do anyway.

so.....i wanted to snooze after another demoralizing session with my clothes off in front of a mirror at the local a&n bo-tee-que. my body's way of dealing is by shutting the whole thing down. i curl up with a blanket and begin to drift off. the fire alarm peals insolently and after a delayed response we put the harness and leash on bijou and join the small crowd of neighbours outside. as we stand in the park waiting we could still see people moving around in their suites. regular law abiding citizens. apparently this is a common occurrence says a neighbour who lives down the hall--a teenage girl who has taken a liking to bijou and is an afficiando of all things cats, especially the musical. in her 10 year tenure she has heard the alarm go off many more times than she count.

the next day i see that a notice has been posted on the the door by the fire department. there is a problem with the alarm system and our building at the moment has been deemed "unsafe". if the deficiencies aren't fixed the building will be declared uninhabitable. rich. the fire department is as unimpressed with their slack maintenance and cutting corners as we are. and now they are being taken to task. if they put as much energy into taking care of the building as they do in their "no crime" enforcement perhaps it wouldn't be in the shape it is. strange, but i forgave heritage age buildings i've lived in a whole miscellany of inadequacies and oversights just because they were so old, but in my dealings with the management of this building (a whole two months in) i've run out of patience with this teen age building.

onwards and upwards

from our north facing window the weather looked rather ominous and less than ideal, so i packed my umbrella as a safeguard. of course as soon as i began the uphill climb the clouds parted and the sun danced high in the sky. as my only exercise of the day i was putting my shoulder into it, or more aptly, my sad sorry ass into it, to propel myself up the grade. i mentally kicked myself for forgetting my water, as i felt a pointy tip of my umbrella poking me.

yup, could have done without it and packed t'other. that's for sure. that's me, i plan like crazy and somehow in the flurry always manage to forget something. strangely it's worse now that i have more time on my hands. could be a case of overthinking everything to the point of some distraction. 

i decide to take the circuitous route home and i discover a tennis court with a wall. it is neglected and deserted. perfect for me. the weekend might prove different. some mid-day ball bashing, might serve a two-fold purpose--pent up frustration release, and to aid in the pursuit of some modicum of decent fitness. i make a mental note of the route. surrey street, to richmond (both places i've lived yes....) and down the sherbrooke hill home. busy street 8th ave. drivers not so cooperative. probably the last thing they want to do as they are zooming with some abandon downhill, is brake for a mere two legged ped. and then i discover this.....

a pedestrian tunnel under the roadway. i approached it at first with some trepidation, but it is daylight and it is lit. though it reeks of urine it is safe passage under the street. parfait!

somewhere in the world it's not monday anymore

it's been so long since i posted anything, but what is there to write? my life is not packed with events or work hassles or much of anything at all but the crushing mundane of domesticity. take today for instance. so far i've:

- fed the cat
- drank my morning hot water and lemon
- worked out and showered
- had breakfast
- made the bed
- hung up some laundry
- sifted through email
- surfed some hostel and cheap accom sites for san fran (i am fretting a bit not hearing from jay)
- washed the dishes
- made some inquiry calls
- read the metro; contemplated doing the crossword, but didn't

....by the time i was about ready to leave the house to run a few errands i received a call from the place i was to go interview tomorrow. (don't ask me where it was. the craigslist ad was, as usual, annoying lacking in detail and company info, and the gent who called me didn't state the name of the company either.) his call was to inform me that the position had been filled. and it wasn't yet noon! i think i should have at least had a shot. but so it goes. perogative and all that.

it's the first nibble i've received in ages. part of my daily ritual involves the scanning craigslist--and as many job boards as i feel up to scanning--and sending off resumes with their attendant cover letters. i was beginning to think every one i sent was finding its way into junk mailboxes and not into the hands of the intended recipients, but i think that's just my weary optimism speaking. i notice a few listings that constantly recur. i've even applied for some of them and i often wonder. do they hire people and the people quit or are they fired? are they trolling just in case, to keep their options open? there's one in particular that irks me when i see it. the brief description is of a pub in kits looking for someone to count money and do some minor bookkeeping. this is well within my repertoire and i applied and got nary even an acknowledgement out of it. why didn't they just reply to everyone who responded so they could draw from a pool of personnel when these hirees tired of the job or the boss or was discovered to be a tyrant or the hiree incompetent. whatever the scenario might be. that would be the idle speculation portion of my day. then i:

- picked up some groceries from the safeway at sixth and sixth
- got my library card sorted
- cooked and ate lunch
- dusted
- watered the plants
- vacuumed
- did some recycling
- dropped off cans and bottles to the development bc box (cursed that i forgot my bank card because i meant to also pick up some cat food and litter in the same trip)
- grabbed a coffee
- now this here right now would be the somewhat uninspired blogging part of my day.
- i am going to continue to blatantly ignore my spendthrift blog because i've got nothing to contribute to it. and simply don't feel like it even if i did
- soon i'll cook dinner but that will be a mostly shared responsibility because there's a chunk of meat to be barbecued and that is shaun's milieu.
- sort through pics, correct and organize--post on flicker and on my blog
- later i intend to do a little yoga to augment the ea sports sweat session of this morning
- i also intend to finish a pretty good book i've had on the go for a couple weeks.

that should round out my day and it looks fairly substantial, but i know i could pack in more. like 15 minutes of some educational plinking on my guitar. that could be something done later instead of watching tv. but you get the gist.

this is not the stuff that makes people go ah. makes me want to yawn.  this what i do day in and day out. busy work. fooling myself that i am biding my time until i get a job; like some mythical creature i have yet to catch a glimpse of.

sleep and walking but not at the same time

i woke up surprisingly refreshed after a long awaited decent sleep. i logged in a solid 7. finally. it's been about a week since i've been able to manage more than 2 hours strung together. i willed myself to stay asleep and forced myself not to make the customary 3 nocturnal trips to the loo in the night. somehow it worked and i am thrilled. i almost can't believe it. part of the strategy includes not drinking anything 3 hours before hitting the day. so much for taking in a nice relaxing tea.

after a weekend of living it up a little too much, too much food and not enough exercise--save for the a hike on the trails around hume park--i fired up the ea sports active to continue with day 7 of the 30 day challenge. i'm firm in my resolve to shift some weight and gain some tone and strength. today was supposed to be mostly upper arms, but i found that most of the exercises focused on the lower body, several repetitive sets of side lunges and jumps. the provided band doesn't seem to provide enough challenge for any of the upper arm exercises and a couple of times the band snapped off the band. one beef, wii didn't seem to want to entirely acknowledge completion of the exercises, regardless of how i held the controller and nunchuk--infuriating. i improvised with my own hand weights for subsequent reps. it was simply easier than trying to figure out what was going on with the electronics aspect of it.

there was a light breeze blowing as i set off for extra foods. i welcomed it as i hoofed it in swift tempo to my walkman. it was an overly confident pace even on the shady-ish side of the street. i could feel a rivulet of sweat begin to make its way down my back. about halfway there i encountered a woman stood at the end of a driveway. she was very fair and clearly sweltering in the unrelenting sun. she seemed to be waiting for something, and seemed lost at the same time. she wasn't at the bus stop and if she was hoping for a bus she stood watching the wrong way. as i passed i smiled and said hello and she responded in kind and then turned her head and continued to watch expectantly up the hill. puzzle, that. 

i concentrated on the music in my ears, and determinedly kept apace as the downhill curved into an unkind uphill; looking forward to the chill of the grocery store.