November places (#8)

It’s not so much that I don’t have time to write (although I feel like I don’t, at the moment). It’s that I don’t feel any desire or urge to write, and that makes me sad. It feels like I’m losing part of my identity.

So I find myself resorting to the theft of other people’s words. Here are some from Gabriel Marcel’s essay, “On the Ontological Mystery.” (And no, I’m not as erudite as one would expect someone to be who quotes from essays on ontological mysteries. I lifted the words from a book I’m reading titled At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being & Apricot Cocktails. You can probably guess which aspect of that title most attracted non-erudite me.)

I know by my own experience how, from a stranger met by chance, there may come an irresistible appeal which overturns the habitual perspectives just as a gust of wind might tumble down the panels of a stage set — what had seemed near becomes infinitely remote and what had seemed distant seems to be close. 

November places (#7)

Some other interesting Canadian place names:

1. The one that tops everyone’s list: Dildo, Newfoundland & Labrador
2. The funnest-sounding PG-rated one: Punkeydoodles Corners, Ontario (I am picturing a panoply of Punkeydoodlians promenading in pink pantaloons and periwinkle pullovers)
3. Mushaboom, Nova Scotia: This place name makes me fear that one day the town will suffer a Pompeii like fate when the local mushroom factory explodes and buries the inhabitants in mycelia.
4. Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, Quebec: Apparently the only place name in the world containing two—count ‘em, two!!!—exclamation points.
5. Flin Flon, Manitoba: From Wikipedia: The town's name is taken from the lead character in a paperback novel, The Sunless City by J. E. Preston Muddock. Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin piloted a submarine through a bottomless lake where he passed into a strange underground world through a hole lined with gold. A copy of the book was allegedly found and read by prospector Tom Creighton. When Tom Creighton discovered a high-grade exposure of copper, he thought of the book and called it Flin Flon's mine, and the town that developed around the mine adopted the name. Flin Flon shares with Tarzana, California, the distinction of being named after a character in an adventure novel.
6. Mosquito Grizzly Bears Head Lean Man, Saskatchewan: A First Nation reserve whose inhabitants, despite their scrawniness, are preyed on by creatures large and small.
7. Spuzzum and Skookumchuk, British Columbia: Two different places, but they sound like a pair of twin cities who everyone dotes on because they’re so gosh darn adorable.

November places (#6)

There's a new idea lighting up the Canadian tourism scene: Bud & Breakfast. And what better place to bliss out in one than Stoner, British Columbia?

November places (#5)

If you go to see A Quiet Place, I strongly recommend foregoing the popcorn… unless you have mastered the art of eating it silently. Or don’t give a shit about sundering the suspenseful and suffocating silence with the sounds of buttery pleasure. 

November places (#4)

I’m in a dark place at the moment. My long-awaited basement renovation finally got underway on Monday. The start date was delayed by two days because the city took more than the usual 10 days to approve the permit—and don’t get me started on all the nonsensical regulations around how big a window has to be to designate a space as a bedroom, which has nothing to do with providing a means of egress, and how hydronic in-floor heating is considered a primary heat source but electric in-floor heating isn’t, necessitating the installation of additional and likely never to be used baseboard heaters (which are electric and are considered a primary heat source, whereas as already noted electric in-floor heating isn't, but don't try to wrap your head around that because you'll probably asphyxiate yourself before you arrive at any understanding)—and I was fretting because everything had to be taken down to the studs to prepare for the waterproofing work on Thursday and Friday, the spray foam insulation on the following Monday, and the heat pump installation on the following Wednesday. The work needs to be done in this order and the heat pump needs to be installed by a certain date in order for me to be eligible for the one rebate that fuckhead Ford hasn’t cancelled. All the trades are booked up months in advance, hence my anxiety over making sure things were ready by Thursday. The contractor assured me that everything would be. 

As the drywall and insulation were being removed on Day 1 the contractor became a bit alarmed at the state of the foundation. He asked the waterproofing guy, who also does minor foundation repairs, to come and take a look. He (the waterproofing guy) arrived on Day 2, took a quick look, and said he couldn’t waterproof anything in that condition, and that we need to consult with a structural engineer. He (the structural engineer) arrived on Day 3, took a quick look, and rendered his verdict:

• The foundation is structurally unsound.
• If nothing is done, the house will collapse.
• He couldn't say when that would likely happen: it could be 40 years from now, or next week. When I expressed anxiety over the lack of precision around the timing of this somewhat important event he made no attempt to reassure me and only said. "I've seen 40 or 50 houses like this in Kingston. People get used to the idea of living in them, I guess." 
• The best fixes: Raise the house and redo the foundation. Estimated cost: $150,000. Or tear down the house and rebuild. Naturally, insurance won't cover any of this.
• Insurance also won't cover building collapses if they occur due to structural defects. So my house is a write-off if it does collapse.
• If I want to run away from this mess (which I most certainly do) I won't be able to sell the house for anything close to its purported value because I am legally obligated to disclose structural defects. Basically, the value of my house has gone up in smoke this week. In fact, if the house does go up in smoke that might be the best option: at least that way I could submit an insurance claim. Or I could pay someone to fly a plane into it, as insurance will also cover damage due to that “insured peril.” Oh wait, no it won’t: insured perils are not actually insured while renovations are underway [probably because other people have run into similar troubles at the start of their renovations, and reached the same conclusion as me (i.e. that a fire or plane falling out of the sky would handily solve things)].

Even if I felt OK about living in a house that may collapse in a week or 40 years, I no longer have that option. The inspector said the structural issues have to be dealt with and signed off by an engineer before the renovation can proceed. And I really don’t have an option to ditch the renovation plans. My main bathroom is (well, was) in the basement, so there’s no longer a shower or tub in the house. And the basement is no longer insulated. And the hot water tank is gone, so there’s no longer any hot water. And did I mention that winter is coming? 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Oh, and did I mention that the roof has started leaking? 

More $$$$$$$

And did I further mention that on Day 1 of the renovation the stray cat I’ve been feeding for over a year, who hadn’t been around for over a week so I assumed he had been hit by a car, appeared on my back deck, eyes sunken and blank and with black, viscous liquid oozing from his mouth? As of Monday he will have been at the vet’s for 7 nights, during which time he has been on antibiotics, IV fluids and painkillers, and has had numerous teeth and his manhood removed. 

Yet more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (In fact, the vet bill may well exceed the cost of doing whatever it takes to render the foundation structurally sound.)

It feels like I’m in a Stephen King story, one in which my malevolent house has turned against me. I so want to flee to Lenger Island and seek sanctuary in the hangar cathedral... except my malevolent house would probably follow me there and finish me off in some spectacularly gruesome, Stephen King-like way.

And yes, I know this post exceeds 100 words. I should probably just have written this, which so succinctly summarizes how I feel: 

FTSM x 1,000,000,000,000

November places (#3)

Two friends and I backpacked through Asia in the mid 80s*. One of the countries we visited was Burma. At that time it was still plodding along “The Burmese Way to Socialism.” Nothing was being imported from the West and our visit was like travelling back in time to what I imagined was mid-50s** America. We rode from the airport to Rangoon in a taxi so ancient it probably would have made a collector salivate all over the leather rumble seats, but most likely was a huge repair headache for the driver. And nobody wanted our money, at least not the $25 worth of local currency we were forced to buy upon entering the country. It was difficult to spend even that paltry amount during our one-week stay, and I ended up buying some carved wooden “musical” (if you consider nails on a chalkboard that) instrument to spend my remaining kyat. Everyone wanted to be paid in Johnnie Walker Black (or was it Red?), lipstick, or jeans. We paid for our first taxi ride with leftover apples from the flight. 

* Or should that be “mid-80s”?

** Or should that be “mid 50s”?

November places (#2)

…the one time I was alone on the streets at 4 a.m., not walking, but driving home. A pair of headlights suddenly flared in the rearview mirror. After travelling a couple of blocks I felt like I was being stalked by a vehicle from a Stephen King novel. This unnerved me and I started cycles of speeding up then slowing down while taking a twisting and turning route to my house, hoping to shake the demon car. No such luck: it continued to follow me. I wondered how much time it would take me to dash from my driveway to the front door, unlock it and get in the house and relock the door. After deciding that whatever was in that car would likely catch and do unspeakable things to me before I made it up the porch steps, I tried to figure out where the nearest 24-hour Tim Hortons was.

Then I heard the whoop of a siren and saw flashing blue and red lights. Apparently my erratic driving had had some effect, although not the one I was aiming for. 

November places (#1)

My neighbourhood seems almost genteel compared to Bridgett’s. Still, it is home to many people with mental health issues, one or two who walk the streets screaming that they are going to fuckin’ kill so and so. And there is a fair amount of hard drug use—the neighbours once confronted someone who was shooting up in my garden—and crime (mainly of the nonviolent sort, but a few years ago someone was stabbed to death one block over.)

Some people say they wouldn’t walk around my neighbourhood at night, at least not alone. I do this a lot, and have never felt unsafe. Except