Lunaversary of my house
Oct. 27th, 2007 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pyesetzTomorrow I'll have been here a month. It's a good thing I didn't try to buy a cheap dumpy house and avoid all debt—I forgot that one needs to reserve additional 20% of the price of a used house for fix-ups, which I couldn't have afforded without a line of credit. So far I've spent $1200 for electrical upgrades, $1800 for plumbing improvements, about $4000 for appliances, and $2000 for a shed—built on-site from local Ontario pine! Plus lots of small stuff: $80 for plywood so the attic in the addition will have a floor, $20 for a bag of mortar. I'm not impressed with the mortar. Applying it requires lying on my side on the driveway (which is disintegrating into pebbles), reaching over my head to poke a stick into a bucket and pull out a heaver goober of mortar, then fling it over my belly into the cracks in the foundation. Very tiring for the forepaw! And I'm still getting some water in the basement troughs after rainstorms. Maybe the "weeping drain" under my house is clogged? My neighbour is proud of the fact that the original weeping drain under his 1890 house is still working. But he's decided not to replace his half of our shared driveway because he'll probably be selling out his house to a commercial developer within five years.
My postal code includes all of five houses. One was recently replaced by a dental clinic. Another is in the process of becoming a veterinary clinic. The owner of a third has a terminal illness and wants to sell. My neighbour with the 1890 house is thinking of buying it so he'll have a double-lot to sell to the developers. Then I'll have the only residential lot left on my block! That will be good for my property value. Meanwhile, the local post office (which is also a bakery, restaurant, and convenience store) has the street addresses labelled on each mailbox and ignores the postal codes when they sort the mail.
There's a standard joke about Americans bringing skis on a summer trip to Canada, thinking the place has the same weather as Mt. Everest. Apparently October is rainy season here in Southwest Ontario. It's 12°C. The impatiens are still blooming. I need to mow the lawn again. For Hallowe'en they're predicting partly cloudy and 15° going down to 6°, so it should be a good night for candy-collection. Supposedly the snow won't arrive until January.
Still haven't gotten my permanent-resident card, or my Social Insurance Number. Haven't retitled my car in Ontario, or gotten a local cell phone. Still have dozens of boxes of stuff from the move that hasn't been unpacked yet. My digital camera is ???someplace??? so I still have no photos to post.
Kid #2 is out selling popcorn for Cub Scouts. Yesterday Kid #1 went out selling cookies for Girl Guides. In the States my wife was a Service Unit Manager (she led a troop of adult Girl Scouts who were themselves leaders of girl troops) but it doesn't seem like they're hurting for volunteers around here and don't really "need" her. The local Girl Guide uniform is exceedingly plain, consisting of a shirt embroidered with "Girl Guides" and a single pin. It's quite a change from the Girl Scouts USA uniform, which looks like a Women's Auxiliary unit of some military organization, festooned with patches and pins and dangly doohickies.
It might be time to try reaching out to the local furry community.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
danruk is a bit of a drive from here, but I'd like to find out whether he's really the wild and crazy guy that he usually pretends not to be online. LJ says there's about a dozen journals from people in my township, none of them updated recently. When I brought the family into the local hardware store to have a custom kitchen island made for us ($600), the woodworker asked "what kind of animals" I have, referring to the kidlets. I think he wanted their names, but that's not what he asked for! So I told him that kid #1 seems to be a lion, while kid #2 is definitely a monkey. Then kid #2 went into his banana routine; it was nice of him to back me up.
The chairman of the International Monetary Fund says the greenback may be due for an "abrupt" fall. I should move my 401(k) money into Euros. Some investor or other says the US economy is in a recession. Well, duh! Is the sky blue when a bear shits in the woods?
My postal code includes all of five houses. One was recently replaced by a dental clinic. Another is in the process of becoming a veterinary clinic. The owner of a third has a terminal illness and wants to sell. My neighbour with the 1890 house is thinking of buying it so he'll have a double-lot to sell to the developers. Then I'll have the only residential lot left on my block! That will be good for my property value. Meanwhile, the local post office (which is also a bakery, restaurant, and convenience store) has the street addresses labelled on each mailbox and ignores the postal codes when they sort the mail.
There's a standard joke about Americans bringing skis on a summer trip to Canada, thinking the place has the same weather as Mt. Everest. Apparently October is rainy season here in Southwest Ontario. It's 12°C. The impatiens are still blooming. I need to mow the lawn again. For Hallowe'en they're predicting partly cloudy and 15° going down to 6°, so it should be a good night for candy-collection. Supposedly the snow won't arrive until January.
Still haven't gotten my permanent-resident card, or my Social Insurance Number. Haven't retitled my car in Ontario, or gotten a local cell phone. Still have dozens of boxes of stuff from the move that hasn't been unpacked yet. My digital camera is ???someplace??? so I still have no photos to post.
Kid #2 is out selling popcorn for Cub Scouts. Yesterday Kid #1 went out selling cookies for Girl Guides. In the States my wife was a Service Unit Manager (she led a troop of adult Girl Scouts who were themselves leaders of girl troops) but it doesn't seem like they're hurting for volunteers around here and don't really "need" her. The local Girl Guide uniform is exceedingly plain, consisting of a shirt embroidered with "Girl Guides" and a single pin. It's quite a change from the Girl Scouts USA uniform, which looks like a Women's Auxiliary unit of some military organization, festooned with patches and pins and dangly doohickies.
It might be time to try reaching out to the local furry community.
danruk is a bit of a drive from here, but I'd like to find out whether he's really the wild and crazy guy that he usually pretends not to be online. LJ says there's about a dozen journals from people in my township, none of them updated recently. When I brought the family into the local hardware store to have a custom kitchen island made for us ($600), the woodworker asked "what kind of animals" I have, referring to the kidlets. I think he wanted their names, but that's not what he asked for! So I told him that kid #1 seems to be a lion, while kid #2 is definitely a monkey. Then kid #2 went into his banana routine; it was nice of him to back me up.The chairman of the International Monetary Fund says the greenback may be due for an "abrupt" fall. I should move my 401(k) money into Euros. Some investor or other says the US economy is in a recession. Well, duh! Is the sky blue when a bear shits in the woods?
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 03:35 pm (UTC)OMG, you only have 30 days. Unreasonably short. :-P
BTW, I drove through K-W on Thanksgiving weekend. It's about an hour from here.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 08:51 pm (UTC)We should get together at some point or other.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 11:33 am (UTC)I do have relatively-reliable connection by way of roomie aaeden's computer. My computer is 'working' and it does look 'connected' for all intents and purposes, even Kensuke and Aaeden can't seem to figure why when all setttings are proper and the connection shows 'green', that my computer refuses to accses any websites, emails, or chat programs.
I 'make do', and I'm a bit of a drive but not impossibly so. an hour and a short bit, only 'worse' if going through rush hour traffic. As for wild and crazy... *hehe* well.. mmm.. I guess that'll either prove itself or not the moment we meet. I"ll bring some bananas for your monkey. Maybe an impala or a wildebeest for your lion too.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 11:35 am (UTC)Just a thought is all...