patio lanterns

I've never been one to sit on patios and drink. Sitting on the patio used to mean one of my friends smoked. Any season of the year, I'd be outside with smoking friends with a drink (if I was lucky) and either melting from the heat or freezing because it was the middle of winter. Since the ban on smoking pretty much everywhere, sitting on a patio takes on a whole new meaning.

Yesterday after work, Eileen and I took the blue chug chug (a fifty cent savings versus the Aquabus) from one side of False Creek to the other to meet up with friends on a patio. We popped into the shop at the Granville Island Brewery to get a couple of big bottles of raspberry beer (it's only available for a couple more days) and then headed to the Backstage Lounge patio. Grasshopper with lemon and amusing conversation makes even hot, muggy days tolerable. Watching people and boats pass by made it feel like the best day of summer. The light fell quickly; it's hard to believe it gets dark-dark by 9pm. I decided to walk home along the seawall and Stuart accompanied me, thankfully; parts of that route are creepy. It's weird to see how much work has been done to the olympic village. A really lovely night.

While I walked home from work today, I got a call from Sara, inviting me to the Whip for some cask beer on the patio. "Black currant heifeweisen tonight!" she exclaimed. I high-tailed it home to drop off my bag and throw water on myself to try to cool down, and met up with her, Aaron and their friend who talked in a terrible fake Scottish accent. The beer was super tasty and, were I OK with drinking alone for hours at a time, I probably would have drank until I couldn't see straight. As it is, I had just the one and wished for more. It's the only cask of it, never to be made again, which is just tragic because it was so tasty. Sara and Aaron talked about maybe making some themselves, which I heartily endorsed as they are magic with anything consumable.

Instead of going to the Richmond Night Market with them, I decided to come home and try to start packing. I'm sort of concerned about packing because if anyone agrees to help I'm pretty sure they'll question the number of boxes I have. I'm getting rid of a lot of stuff, but even still... I think I'm going to have to be a bit more brutal about stuff. Sometimes I wish I weren't raised by packrats. This will be OK, this will be OK, this will be OK...

worrywort

How does one stop worrying?

Today I signed a lease for an apartment and less than an hour later worried that I made a mistake. I felt a little pressured to make a decision at the second viewing, but the second viewing really did alleviate most of the concerns that woke me up at 5am this morning. I felt OK as I wrote a year's worth of cheques. Still, looking at another apartment after the lease was signed was a bad move, as it made me think the cheaper rent was worth the different neighbourhood.

The place I decided on is about what I felt I could afford if I work consistently, though will go up if/when they renovate the kitchen, which isn't necessarily a bad thing (it would mean I get a dishwasher again and the kitchen would fit the rest of the apartment better). It's a decent size with a seemingly appropriate amount of storage and loads of windows for light (something I suspect I'll need in the middle of the winter). It's in Mt. Pleasant, which is pleasing since it sort of hurt my tummy thinking about moving out of the area. But I can't help but think I acted rash.

Worse comes to worst, I can just try to get out of the lease, right? The guy who is leaving was only there for 9 months (a trial separation situation; they're getting back together). The landlord seems really nice and above the board, and the place is immaculate and well-maintained. I need to stop thinking about money. Money is the root of most of my anxiety/stress.

Also, I can't have parties. It's in my lease. Not like I do anyway, really. I'm pretty sure a book club meeting isn't really a party, nor is hostessing a dinner. In two years, I've only hostessed two actual parties, so... I'm probably not going to have to worry about that. The other place I looked at is allegedly loud, both inside and out, and is beside the alley, so I'm hoping to talk myself out of the other place soon. The bedroom was small, there wasn't much storage space, the fridge was small and odd, the kitchen was cramped... See, easy.

When I talked to my friend mere hours after the signing, he just told me to stop worrying. How does that happen?

Next: I just have to worry about how I'm going to move my stuff.

what to do? what to do?

Today I have an appointment to look at an apartment that costs $300 more than what I'm paying now. I suspect it will be of an appropriate size and be pretty decent, and it's in the area I want to live. But I'm torn. I know people in the neighbourhood that pay less than that for what I'm looking for, but those cheaper apartments don't seem to be available right now. (Either no one wants to give up their sweet deals or there's some secret way to find apartments that I don't know about.)

In my current financial state, I am borderline. I can probably afford it with a scaled back social life and a lot of pennypinching. And, if I ever find a full-time job, I should be able to accommodate this higher rent more easily in the future. On the other hand, my paychecks are so varied and I only know if I can pay rent and bills the week before my next paycheck. And, the way those paychecks have been going, I wouldn't be able to pay that and do anything else: couldn't pay down my debt, no trips anywhere, no more going out at the drop of a hat, no buying anything that wasn't absolutely essential. The whole reason I went to grad school was to be able to afford to do stuff more easily and this rent increase would nullify that.

What do I do?
1) Keep looking for another month, hope for the best, and take something less desirable at the end of September if nothing cheaper comes through?
2) Just get it over with and pay the extra $3600 per year?

grrr

Just found out there's a cheap apartment available in my friend's building. Unfortunately, I found out on Craigslist, not from my friend, and am too late.

Thanks, buddy.

from the berry patch

I thought I'd have to go to UBC to pick blackberries because the park has the biggest stash. There's a thatch of blackberry bushes in the alleyway a block away, so I thought I would check out if those were ripe before heading to UBC. They hadn't been picked over at all, so I picked what I could from the road (they're in an empty gated lot, but there's a house next to it, so I tried to stay off their driveway). While I was picking, a security guard for the build site on the other side of the alley strolled by and we got to talking. She said the university building down the street had a huge number of blackberry bushes nearby, so I thought I would go see about those. If I can avoid going to UBC I will. I didn't have to go very far before I hit an enormous thatch, with many big, juicy ones hanging over the fence. I assessed the thatch, picking along the way, and decided to go back another day with sturdier shoes, pants and gloves (those prickles hurt like a mofo). Just as I was going to cross the street, I noticed the most tempting bush beside the sidewalk, so I topped up my container and then headed home.

After a quick wash, I froze a bunch on a cookie sheet with waxed paper and later transfered them to freezer bags. I have just one and a half freezer bags worth with a small container in the fridge for immediate eating, but it only took about 20 minutes to pick that much, so I'm pretty certain there will be more. Now I just need to find enough recipes or uses for the things to make this effort worthwhile.

Also today, I managed to start piles of stuff to give away. The clothes were easy to decide on mostly, but I have a lot of T-shirts that I don't necessarily want to show up in Value Village or some other for-profit thrift store, but don't want to keep, so may put them up for grabs somehow. I wanted to make a blanket out of them, but I don't think that's going to happen and I can't rationalise moving them around.

I need to figure out how to not spend large amounts of time curled up on my couch, thinking. My anxiety is adding to my worry.

no bother

Things I wanted to do today:
- walk around the 'hood to find a place to live
- go for dim sum
- pick blackberries
- go see Shout Out Out Out Out at Richard's tonight
- start packing

Things I will likely get done from this list:
- none of it

I become more Eeyore-like as each day passes, resigning myself to the fact that I must have done something terrible to have such miserable luck with the house hunt. Add to that the fact that I realised I'm not longer friends with someone that I thought I was closer to makes me wonder how long I will pay for whatever I did that set The Fates off.

Yesterday I looked at a place that was more than I could afford, assuming I want to be able to buy food and/or pay off my residual school-related debt. It was the first place I actually got to see, and it wasn't at all a place I would choose to live voluntarily. I would have had to put my dining room set in a bedroom, but there were two bedrooms so I guess that would have been... OK. It just didn't feel right at all, so I had to pass on it. (That it would cost me $500 more per month might have been a more specific reason.) Still, I'm still too stubborn to look too heavily at places south of 23rd, east of Fraser or west of Granville. I wonder at which point that will change; I hope it doesn't get to that point.

It doesn't help that Craigslist is full of $1600 apartments, spam from Nigerians, arguments about not allowing pets in rentals and little else (and isn't even loading today).

"Nobody tells me. Nobody keeps me informed. I make it 17 days come Friday since anybody spoke to me." - Eeyore

Neither my will nor stomach is strong enough for this.

Are blackberries even ready yet?

bountiful

Trips home, even though the idea of them stresses me out, are always better than I think they'll be. I mean, parts of it are bad, like seeing how my hometown has been ruined by greedy municipal officials (you'll never convince me the town council and mayors don't get kickbacks for some of the stuff they allow to happen) and seeing my relatives' health degrade. But the good parts, like just being with my parents and, if I'm lucky, extended family, are worth any of the bad. This weekend I managed to get a couple of things marked off my "to do" list this summer, including:
- go to Osoyoos and eat fruit
- walk in grass barefoot
I probably should have done "look at stars," but I didn't. There just wasn't much incentive to be out when it was dark. Even with the real and imagined stresses of life in the city, stuff just seems easier at my parents' house. I feel less crazy. At least for now.

This morning, early morning, my mom and I picked stuff from the garden for me to bring back. My parents' garden is significantly smaller than it was when we were kids, when it was filled with tomatoes, peas, beans, carrots, cucumbers and corn almost exclusively. They've altered the harvest now that we're out of the house, choosing more long-term fruits/vegetables like melons, squash, potatoes, lettuces and rhubarb to go with the other stuff. The diversity means a couple of plants of each, cutting down on the likelihood that the plants will produce. Still, Mom complains that she doesn't know what to do with some of the stuff because they have so much, so it is with only slight pangs of guilt that I clean out sections of their garden.

The haul is pretty sweet. From their garden I brought back:
- one green squash
- four nearly ripe tomatoes
- one kohlrabi
- bag of carrots
- two cucumbers
- three bags of cut up rhubarb
I also went to the fruit stand this morning to pick up some nectarines (white and yellow), yellow plums and a few peaches, and to the shop for four pounds of blueberries (cheap!). I've got to get to eatin', or figure out how to make this stuff into things that will last a while.

Still nothing on the home front, though I'm starting the walkabout to try to find places that are renting. I'm trying not to think about what happens if I don't find a place in my preferred area. Living in Marpole is like living in another world. Guh. It gives me anxiety.