HB

Love from And & Ali.

Chaos, Both Infuriating and Exciting

So here's the story. The people moving into our old place were to come over yesterday right after work so we could introduce them to the ancient landlord couple, who live in another of the row houses. So I went over there to meet them, and ran into his lordship and her ladyship sitting in front of their estate. I told them that the new people would be coming by any minute and they said, "Well, that's fine, but we have someone else in mind. If she doesn't want it, though, your friends can have it." To which I said, "But we told you a month ago that we'd found someone to take the place. They're moving in this weekend." To which they said, "No you didn't. You only said someone was coming to look at it." Then I think the conversation went something like, "Yes, I did," "No, you didn't," "Yes, I did," "No, you didn't," "Yes, I did," and then his lordship started shaking his wizened red head back and forth violently.

Then he said, "Well, who are these people anyway? What do they do?" which made me even madder because when I'd originally told him they were going to move in he wouldn't listen to descriptions of them, saying only, "As long as they give me a cheque every month, I don't care who they are." I started telling him about how they're a nice young couple and I know the guy because he manages the coffee shop I go to every day and I've also played some shows with him, and that got the landlord really mad. "Young? No, I don't care for that. Musician? No no no, I don't care for that at all. The woman we have in mind is responsible. She's in the navy." I started shouting that they're moving in, the landpeople handed me an application form to give the young couple, and I walked away furious and shaking.

I really didn't relish the thought of bringing the dreadlocked girl and newlly-mohawked guy over in the mood I was in, what with their tattoos and piercings and all, to duke it out with the old couple, so I was just as glad when they didn't show up. Alison and I walked back to our new place in a funk, only to discover a phone message that they were just finishing up a couple of beers and would be over shortly. I called them and told them the story, they still wanted to come over to meet the duke and duchess, so Ali and I walked back to face the music. Weirdly, after an initial angry explanation of why he would never shake their hand and a warning that they would be out if he heard one loud party, the feudal lord became sweet as pie, as did his wife, and ended up saying that they would tell their friend not to bother coming to look at the place. Then he talked our ears off for probably about an hour — he was in rare form — while his wife went over the form with the young woman. We really wanted to eavesdrop on that conversation, but all we managed to pick out over the gravy=>pasta-sauce=>soup recipes and stories about hookers in 1930's Belgium versus those in present day Halifax was, "So, what religion are you exactly?"

Anyway, all's well that ends well, I guess, though I still had traces this morning of the stress the whole situation caused me. Luckily, our new place is really great and just getting greater every day. Here are some pictures, as I promised you, of the painted rooms with their disorganized piles of junk. I mean valuable possessions. They were all quickly snapped and even more quickly Photoshopped.

- Andrew








P.S. The blue curtains are probably going, but we'll see.

P.P.S. Here's a shot I took tonight when I went for a bike ride out to the northernmost end of the peninsula to see a billboard that was supposed to be up yesterday which I produced. For some reason, it's not up yet. But the ride was worth it, as the sky was doing some pretty amazing things. It'd been sunny and humid all day, and then in the evening a cool, high fog rolled in and it seemed like it might rain. But there was also still plenty of clear blue visible. Turneresque!

Quick Update

Just want to let everyone know that we're all moved into the new flat. Well, there's the small matter of putting all our stuff into some sort of ordered arrangement other than The Random Pile, but at least Buster is no longer foaming at the mouth and cornering our friends.


In fact, I think he's kind of into the place.Thanks a million kazillion to Krista, Keith, Meg, Johanna, Charles, and Michi for all your help. I'll tell you a crazy story tonight about the people moving into our old apartment.

- Andrew

Just More Facts

I still don't really have time to be doing this, but this incommunicado phase is weighing heavily on me. I'll keep it brief with a partial list of what's been going on over the past, oh, month or so.

1. ICE Awards: awards for advertising. Yes, they really do give them. I went on the company's dime and ended up wishing I hadn't because the whole affair was sickeningly self-congratulatory. No one seemed to have an inkling that we were anything other than an auditorium full of people who do wonderful things for the planet and its denizens. Even the irony of the visible discomfort felt throughout the room whenever we were forced to watch sponsorship reels was lost on them. I walked home feeling like a self-loathing Satanist.

2. Softball: there were two rained-out weekends in there, bookended by games wherein our team was beaten soundly by another team of infuriatingly friendly people. In the first one, i.e. the lefthand bookend, I was hit very hard in the shin by a line drive. Luckily, the physical exertion of my loud swearing was not enough to prevent me from reaching down to pick up the still spinning ball and throw it to first, thereby getting the perpetrator out. The messy wound on my leg healed just in time for the righthand bookend this last weekend.
[Editor's note: I just realized this is the third time I've told you this story. Twice would be unforgivable, but I think three times is leaning back towards funny, in a bemusing kind of way. Besides which, I believe this is my best version so far, so it's staying on.]

3. Hockey: ultimately disappointing, but penultimately thrilling. I was pretty impressed with those Oilers, and especially with that young turk of a backup goalie, Maarkinen. They got real grit, those guys. Now that it's over, I can finally stop drinking beer during the week. Sometimes the price of being Canadian is almost too much.

4. Painting: still going, bit by bit. And, relatedly,

5. Moving: same status as above. The big finish comes on Sunday, when we rent a cube van for the big stuff and Buster.

6. Nosferatu the Vampyre: a remake of the first, silent Dracula movie, which was directed by F. W. Murnau. This one is by Werner Herzog and is not silent, but retains the super creepy atmosphere of the original. It also fits in perfectly with a lot of Herzog's other films, of which I'm a big fan, in that a) it moves very slowly and mystically, the actors sometimes seeming hypnotized, and b) Klaus Kinski takes on the title role. He's a scary looking dude any time, but you should see him doing the rat-and-plague-obsessed filmmaker's vision of the character. Yoiks! I'd bought this movie secondhand awhile back, but we didn't watch it until we were desperate for something to do besides paint one evening. Well worth the price and the wait.

7. Yoga: the spring session is over and the summer one doesn't start for another three weeks. I'm a little worried we might actually go insane from not standing on one foot and staring into space regularly. I realize this is an unorthodox version of what constitutes sanity. In the land of the blind...

8. Ali's birthday: was real nice. We went out for dinner and drinks with some friends. It WAS on the 7th. Thanks to everyone for cards, calls, and camaraderie. I got her a camera lens which I thought was pretty nice but which turned out to be just this side of crappy. Man, those things are expensive. So it's gone back, to be replaced by a better one soon.

And that's actually more than I have time for right now. I'm sorry for this blog abuse through negligence. Things should even out, keel-wise, fairly soon and then I'll be able to type your ear off much more regularly.

- Andrew

No Bloggy-Bloggy

Due to busy schedules which would be considered insane in some parts of the world, there's been precious little time for bloggage these days. Sorry. Whaddayagonnado?

We've been painting and moving into our new place. It's a lot of work and is taking a frightening amount of time. It'll be worth it though — the place is looking great. I mowed our new back lawn the other day, too. Now I just need to buy a rake so I can clear away what was knee-high grass and is now piles of mulch. I'm going yuppie and I'm going all the way!

Work is also nutso freak-out these days, what with a huge new account and one of the designers on vacation for two weeks, only to come back and get sick for another two weeks. I'm starting to lose it a little bit. Yoga helps a lot, but we had our last class until mid-July last night.



That Serena Maneesh album I was telling you about back in January finally came out domestically, so I bought it and got excited about them all over again. Here's another track, to hopefully make up for my cyber-silence.

- Andrew

Happy Birthday, Ali!

See you tonight for dinner & drinks, cutie!



- The Honky-Tonk Donkey

Our New Igloo

We took a bucket of games and videos over to our awesome new place today, along with some assorted knick-knacks. All our books are now moved in. It's kind of fun doing one little trip at a time, because you can unpack at the other end immediately. As requested, here are some photos of the apartment. I'll give you a guided tour.


This is the hallway that the front door leads into, looking back at the door. I think we're going to paint it.



The first room off the hallway, to the left, is this large front room with a non-working fireplace. We're going to use it as the den. That wall colour has to go.



The second room off the hall, accessible also from the first room as you can see, is the living room. There's all our books!



The living room leads into the kitchen, and also to a small set of stairs which go up to the bedroom, the only room on a second level. More painting that definitely has to be done.



The kitchen's pretty nice, with a big fridge, gas cooking stove, and wood stove which also will give some extra heat to the bedroom in the winter. Then, beyond the kitchen, we have the pièce de résistance...



This is a little sunroom that looks out onto our beautiful backyard, complete with trees and gardens. The big window opens right up and hangs from a hook on the ceiling. Obviously, we will paint over this hideous purple. We'll also have to learn how to do some gardening so we don't wreck our little Eden back there. That's Ralph, by the way, Krista and Keith's cat. Buster hasn't seen the place yet.

I'm not sure why, but the place looks smaller in almost all the photos than it feels. We were using Keith's digital camera and you seem to have to stand farther away with that than with our camera, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Now we're going to try to pick out some paint colours online. I don't know how much I trust that concept, but I guess there will be paint chips to double check in the store. Alison's going to try to pick up the paint tomorrow so we can get this show on the road.

- Andrew

Trivial Pursuits

I made one of my patented mix CD's yesterday. This one is called "Baroque Pop" and it's pretty great if I do say so m'self. Got some Kinks, some Zombies, and some Beach Boys on there, as well as some more contemporary stuff like Belle & Sebastian, Dungen, and the Shins. I even snuck a little Neuseiland on there. It's a very pleasant mix.

I've been using my Spirograph set too, as you can see. It's just as much fun as I remember it, but unfortunately it didn't come with any pens. I only have black ones, so the house is full of black geometric squiggles. "You can have any colour Spirograph design you want, as long as it's black," to paraphrase Henry Ford. I'll have to pick up some ballpoint pens at the dollar store.

We're the official residents of our new apartment now. The other guys moved everything out yesterday and now we start the long process of crap transference. The new backyard is looking beautiful — flowers and blooming trees everywhere. I'm a little concerned that we're going to ruin it, not knowing anything about gardening. But I'm excited to learn. It's such a nice view out the large sunroom window.

Did I tell you that I got hit really hard in the shin with a softball last Sunday? I think I did. I got to see just how gory and ugly it looks last night when I played some tennis with Meg and therefore wore a pair of shorts. Ugh. Actually, we didn't really play tennis, as such. The courts were all in use, so we found a place to hit balls against a wall, which is probably what we need more anyway. It took a really long time to find a place, though. It seems like they build schools these days in weird convoluted shapes, probably to prevent exactly what we were trying to do. So by the time we started it was already quite dark, but we got in a good forty minutes or so anyway.

I'm quite proud of this one. I moved the ring around one of the wheels as I drew it. I want to get into more like this, using the oblong pieces, but the pins we have are too wide to fit in the holes. Another dollar store purchase, I guess. I'd kind of forgotten how this was my favourite toy as a kid. As Charles always says, in imitation of his friend Lonny, "It's a clyaassic, myaan!"

- Andrew