Conflicting Sentiments

A few hours ago, two girls were standing outside our apartment building. They were from this building, as I recognized the older, pudgier girl who constantly had a sour look on her face, as many tween girls often do. She was cradling around a charcoal grey kitten; or rather, the kitten was clawed onto her hoodie with dear life, as she would wave her arms around to any passerby, calling out to them. She would then stretch the cat out with one hand as the car would drive by. The younger one was waving around an empty box, similarly yelling out to the street, and rushed over to the opposite side to yell out some more.

As I am a sucker for cute furry things, I had an idea of what they were doing. Unfortunately, I cannot follow through my desires, as I am still allergic to such animals. So I can only watch as the mother came out of the building to console the kids, and they were brought back into the building.

Had I any initiative, or less of an allergy, I would have gone out and done as I wanted to do, which Jorghnassen kept reminding me that I could not do. Hence, I can only write how my imaginary conversation with the girls would have followed:

-Dear, what in the world are you two peddling?

"We're selling a cat." She points to herself with both hands, while the cat is hanging on to dear life with all four limbs hooked onto her shirt.

-Is that how you treat a cat?

"No, miss, we're trying to find a good home for it." The other girl shouts out at another car barreling down the road. "CAT FOR SALE!"

-How did it come about that you have this... cat for sale?

"We had it for a while but now my family can't afford to keep this cat." The girls pout and look toward the cat forlornly. The cat is squirming desperately out of her arms, but the girl manages to enclose it in her pudgy embrace.

-Dears, where is your mother or father?

"They're inside..."

-Do they know you're doing this?

"Yes..." Their eyes dart around and they kick their legs into air with the suspicious look that kids give when they are up to something.

-Well, let me talk to them.

"Are you going to buy the cat?"

-Let me talk to your parents first.

The girls lead me to the mother, who is furious at their callous behaviour. (Why? I don't know. She was pretty mad earlier when she took the girls back inside.) On the other hand, the mother confirms the story. Despite Jorgh's objections, I agree to take the cat in. Everyone looks at the cat, now clawed onto my shirt and scratching me as I take it back to my apartment. It now leads a happy life without little girls trying to perform acrobatics with it on the street.

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Jorghnassen is known as doublebof, and we were comparing our OKCupid match questions.

Long Holiday Weekend

It doesn't feel like a real long holiday weekend coming up, for some reason. In the last two weeks, our school has been tied up with AP examinations for registered students. Unfortunately, not all the schedules for every student is the same depending on what they were registered to write; so for days when there were very few students not in exams, the classes were canceled. So there has been at least one day that I did not teach any classes. Instead, I had to invigilate these 3.5 hour marathons of student BO.

Then there was that day last week when the weather warmed up to above 20 degrees, and the uncontrollable apartment heating was still ON. Jorghnassen and I were melting in the apartment, even with the windows wide open and ceiling fans tornado-ing noisily away into the night. He would check the thermostat often during those sweltering days and proclaim the temperature in approximate terms: "It's around 90 degrees." I'm no imperialist-unit type, so I will assume that means "stupid hot."

Anyway, last week I woke up at 1 pm on a day when I had class that started at 12:45 pm, completely drenched in sweat and realizing no one and nothing had bothered to wake me up. (You'd think the school would call, but by that point no one realized how messy the week's schedules were becoming.) Also, realize that this means I had to have slept through 4 alarms. I stumbled about, blindly through the heat ripples in the air looking for my cell phone that failed to wake me up through three of those alarms. I called the school to tell the secretary that I was not feeling well at all (due to the misery of the apartment heat) thus I would not be going to class, to which she kind of kept a professional phone voice and informed me that it would be taken care of (while she more or less stifled a laugh since I had told her the day before how uncomfortable the apartment was becoming).

That afternoon, we bought a fan. Canadian Tire is getting cheaper with their bonus money. >_<

It's been two weeks and I haven't seen some of these students in class for many days at a time so it doesn't feel like a holiday at all. For what else does a holiday mean to a teacher but some time to take a break from your students? (No, it never means that you don't have any work because any teacher knows that we have pooploads of corrections and preparations to do at any point in time in and out of the year. Part time work my butt.)

Islands in the Junos, That is What We Are

Stephen pointed out that Islands is nominated for a Juno, for Alternative Album of the Year (2006, I presume, tho the album came out 2005). Of course, as I pointed out before, bro didn't actually record with them, which makes it kind of a pity. Nevertheless, it is a nice recognition, and should they win I will still be very happy for him. (Tho for some reason their website is down... @_@ )

While looking for info on the Juno nod, Jorgh found an interview my bro did for some website. I'll let you decide who was being more facetious and who was being more of an ass.

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So finally I have a bit of time to write about some other dull things about Waterloo than food and... food. For instance, the smell. (Yay for a nose that picks up everything. And yay for a topic that will ensure that absolutely no one will come visit us here.)

It smells like something different every day when I walk out into the hallway and to the rear-facing apartment stairwell in the morning to get to the car in the parking lot. Sometimes it smells like someone's cooking. Sometimes it smells like someone's butt. Once in a while it smells like absolutely nothing. That is the day when they clean the carpets.

But for some insane reason, it smells like dog pee more than anything else. And cigarette smoke. And then a mix of both. And other things I fear to mention.

You'd probably say, "Why not just avoid this stairway to stinky hell?" Well, I am a creature of habit and thus after learning of this particular exit leading to the parking lot is the easiest way to the car, lugging two heavy textbooks all the way around a 50+ apartment sized building every morning doesn't strike me as an acceptable tradeoff.

Anyway, if you do come visit (which by now you might say "OMGNOWAI"), with a method of personal transit be it automobile, moped, or bigfoot, you can avoid the corridor of perpetual stink and you are welcome to park on the street.

Someone Got a Blog!

I'm hiding in Jorghnassen's Montreal condo right now, as his parents dropped me off here this afternoon, and they're not planning to leave the city until Tuesday. It's pretty lonely here without anyone around, especially Jorgh. :( On the plus side, Jorghnassen finally set up his blog, bleuetfjord.blogspot.com!

People keep wondering if I'm going to be in Waterloo with him, or stay in Quebec. Well, if I can secure a job for certain in Waterloo, then I'll go for sure since one doesn't drop a few (hundred? thousand?) bucks on furniture to live in a massive apartment by oneself...

KITTY KITTY KITTY KITTY KITTY

It has been a long day furniture hunting throughout the KW area, but we finally secured a mattress set, sofa set, and some more affordable furniture locations to furnish the apartment that, at the end of the day, was signed over to Jorghnassen. The super had a sweet white cat that she had taken in as a stray barely a week ago and was planning to keep, that jumped on my lap and was making all sorts of cute purring noises and nuzzling and was so adorable that it makes me almost weep from its adorableness and cuddliness. Too bad I'm allergic to cats :( and dogs :( and other various cute furry things :( and dust mite poo. >:(

Jorgh's parents were kind enough to come all the way to Waterloo to hang out here for the week, driving up to the outlet mall, driving down to southern Kitchener to the Brick, driving in circles around the area to the numerous (and pricey) furniture stores, and treating us to suppers abound. Tonight was the Raintree Cafe, where they were quite pleased that the waitress could speak en francais. It's not impossible to find people here who can speak French, but it probably felt like a godsend to Jorgh's parents who spent all this time trying to stumble around in angloland with whatever angloish they could muster.

Also, it snowed. SNOWED.

Is there snow yet where you are? 'Cuz this is just weird.

Readers' Most Anticipated Update!!!

Hello and greetings from Waterloo, to all 5 of you! Thanks to Norm and y'all for coming to the duck supper last week, and for Davy allowing us to invite ourselves to karaoke at his place afterwards. Jorghnassen and I arrived in Kitchener (Waterloo) safely without incident on Wednesday, and we were fortunate enough to have a temporary accommodation offered to us by the UWaterloo people, housed in the second level of the Health Services building on campus. [This will become a detail that will render the later part of my post quite ironic.]

We set about setting Jorgh up at the university bright and early, and also apartment hunting on Thursday. The rent around here is on average higher (or just on par) than living in NDG, although the quality of the apartment might be better here. Nonetheless, everything seems far apart because the entire city of Waterloo can be summed up as follows: bland, peppered with mini-malls.

It's not to say that there aren't any interesting details in Waterloo. There are those flocks of Canadian geese that live in and around campus. We saw a fox(!) running by as we walked north of campus, and a rabbit just around the HS building. (Oh yeah, UWat likes to use acronyms for everything here.) Chipmunks and squirrels galore eat the chestnuts and seeds that fall to the ground everywhere. Odd plants grow wild in the Research in Motion (RIM) park. And most importantly, rush hour traffic encourages pedestrians to cross the street. Whatever is considered their rush hour-I've seen more cars backed up on my driveway than that street considered as an artery.

But Thursday was unfruitful. We visited a very disgustingly overpriced 2 bedroom apartment between UWat and Wilfred Laurier University (WLU) that I very bluntly stated, "not worth 1XXX$ a month." We then walked a terrific 5 km to an apartment in Kitchener that was much better in comparison, but killed my feet with more blisters.

Friday, Jorgh called half a dozen places, and we had two apartment buildings to visit, also about 6 km apart. Lucky for me, I had a second pair of shoes, and lucky for Jorgh, he carried everything. We visited a place that was very tempting due to its proximity to a "plaza" (minimall) with a Sobeys, which just happened to stock...

Jorgh: OMG LOOOOOK WE HAVE TO GET THAT APARTMENT!
Ms. C: WHAT? WHY?!?
Jorgh: CRETONS!!!11!1!

Anyway, we visited the second building and also found it somewhat appealing due to a 1 bedroom apartment (that seemed to be rare in our apartment hunting) just recently vacated and readily available, once they cleaned it with an industrial vacuum or Swiffer napkin the size of a small planet. Nonetheless, it was a bit cheaper in the end, and seemed to be close to all sorts of different amenities - but no Sobeys across the street with cretons. It was a tough call, actually, but Jorgh decided to go with the 1 bedroom, as it was easier to furnish and I had already tired of this city...

I've yet to describe the temporary accommodations that we are occupying for another two days. It's a tastefully furnished apartment with furniture and decorations from another era, and accessories like a television and telephone from the times when people didn't care about how pointy things were shaped or how beige things could be coloured. It has a loud ventilation system, probably to keep out rodents from its ducts. Thankfully enough, it is equipped with a washer and dryer, and fridge and stove, and enough plates, utensils, cups, bowls and other kitchen things to not have to eat out every meal. All in all, tidy enough for temporary living.

The bed is another story. And probably the couch.

I developed a very sudden case of hives over the last two days or so, covering my shins, back, neck, scalp, and elbows. It looks very much like a bad allergic reaction, and from the looks of it, from the bed. Last night my throat happily obliged as well, and Jorgh and I have both stayed up in the wee hours trying not to go into massive panic attacks due to blocked airways and other happy fun events. [Recall previous post on paranoia.] We blew steam by cursing everything from the university HS building we were sitting on top of, to the poop of dust mites. I had washed all the sheets and pillow cases of the bed in hot water the day everything started itching like mad.

Today, I was advised by Jorgh's very nice doctor-parents to take (more) Benadryl, use non-perfumed Aveno lotion and wash without soap. Jorgh wanted to move into a hotel room but due to a certain beer festival in this region reputedly the biggest outside of the country of origin, it is nigh impossible to get any room now. Anyway, I'm spending as much time outside of the apartment as possible, as I found myself going nuts over lack of internet usage, something the apartment lacks. Not to mention the constant and cripping itching all over my poor wretched body that I spent so much time running into shape.

I know Jorghnassen promised he'd get a blog up and running, but I think he's still gathering his thoughts for a first post. ;)