Memory Lane, Rotini, Group of Seven

Went through some old pics.

I should elaborate on why I'm doing this. This is the first time that I've had my own camera, computer, and Internet connection since well before student housing. So we're going to go over some Student Housing memories.

This statue stood at the front of our house for the entirety of my two year stay. You'll notice that he's missing an arm. I won't be the one to call this statue "creepy" because of his difference, especially considering the nature of my work. But what isn't captured in this image, and which might be called creepy, is that he at one time had a female counterpart, and her missing appendage was her head. While a missing arm isn't much to take notice of, most humans require a head to survive. Creepier still, for the first stretch of my stay, the boy's arm and the girl's head were laying next to them. Then the arm and head disappeared. Then the girl. No one ever spoke of this.

 During the Extend-a-Family Summer Program, this past year was the first to receive fanny packs. It was enough to earn our team the name "The Fanny Pack". A girl in the group decked ours out to be a bit more vibrant. You'll notice my pack lost the "W" in "Crew" on it, reducing me to a member of "The Fanny Pack Cre"

Here is a tupperware container full of snow peas from last years garden. Crazy to think I've moved twice since then, and gardening season is still not on the horizon.

 Here is a baggy of string beans from the garden.

My personal record breaking seven sunflowers. Indicative that good things are coming.

After the jiffy pots I left out in the sun were wrecked, I threw them into the garage, believing nothing could have survived. I left them in there for months. After going in for an unrelated reason, I saw that something had sprouted despite hardship and neglect. I fostered and cared for it, wishing to honour its resilience, believing that there may be some meaning behind that which could persevere without resources or support. It... turned into this.



 

 My giant zucchini. Pen for scale.

 Nice little passive aggressive note left by one of my roommates. I visited the place recently, and not only is this note still up (long past its scribe has moved out) but there are two other notes of a similar nature alongside it.

 But to be fair, her's an image of what is below the message.

Our landlord once threatened us, that if we did not move our dishes from the sink, that he would put it in a bin. I remember kind of having the impression that this meant he would throw our dishes in the garbage, but he literally meant a bin on the floor. This strategy backfired when my other roommates just saw this as a viable option and started leaving their dishes on the floor alongside the bin. I'm... finished with this stage of life.

Maybe I will add these images to that old "Gallery" blog I've not used in a while.

 I have an awesome calendar this year. Usually, I just get a free calendar from somewhere (last year was from Central Fresh Market), to acknowledge the passing of time. I have a calendar on my phone, where I keep all my schedule information. Not going to check my literal bedroom wall for that when I have something in the palm of my hand no matter where I go. But I can at least be bothered to flip the page on a monthly basis to give my room a sense of seasonal relevance.

I got a Fairview Mall gift card this year, and even when I'm struggling financially, I have sort of a policy that gift cards need to go toward something frivolous and less practical, or else they lose their gift appeal and reveal the ugly truth that they are only cash with a set restriction on where you can spend it, with a cut of the profits going to the company that chose to limit your options.

Anyway, I went to Calendar Club (how do they survive past January?) and looked at the different themes. I was considering a wildlife one and a castle-themed one, before I hit the Group of Seven calendar.

The Group of Seven is a collection of Canadian artists. Now, while I know I'm not the biggest advocate for Canadian contribution to the creative arts (especially when it comes to writing), this calendar gives a depiction of each month by different members of the Group of Seven, even managing to include a piece from each member. They just produced enough landscape work to make this possible. So now I have a stylistic rendition of each month put on my wall. Always stylish, always time-appropriate.

I've grown a real fondness for rotini pasta. You know, that corkscrew shaped pasta. I've always considered pasta as one of the more frugal food options, but really, the popular name "spaghetti" is only one size of a specific shape of noodle. For a while, I've been breaking strands of noodle in half so they could all fit in the boiling water at once, or waiting for one end to go limp so the other could go limp, ensuring one half would be over-prepared. With rotini, there's no need to break strands, as the pieces are small enough to land in a traditional pot, you can easily stab each strand with your fork and place it in your mouth without saucy strands falling on your chin,and sauce collects better on those corkscrew ridges than on regular pasta strands.

And if that's kiddy, than I guess I'm re-experiencing my childhood. I take supplements for vitamins D (all Canadians should do this) and B12, as well as taking Melatonin. My vitamin D is citris flavour, my melatonin is chocolate, and my B12 is Peppermint

PSW

I took on some Personal Support Work recently. I've already done two shifts, but they were kind of like training shifts, one where I shadowed a senior employee, and one where he shadowed me. This is work that deals with the more physical side of support, such as toileting, showering, helping with eating etc. I used to joke that, with all my training and certifications in First Aid and CPR, lifts and transfers, Safe Management, empathy training, and my experience with food service, toileting, showering, transferring, and administering medication, as well as the overlap causing me to work alongside PSWs, that I'd become a makeshift PSW myself. I guess this proves it. Recently, someone else who branched into the medical field from social work asked me if I wanted some work as a caregiver. I couldn't because I still don't have a car, but this is an interesting new dynamic to my work. It's not dealing with intellectual differences, just physical.

And speaking of not having a car, I've recently come across a way to fund some driving lessons, and then to get a car. Only concern I have is, is this the right time of year to be learning how to drive? I mean just from a weather perspective. Should I wait until spring?

And speaking of new employment, I just changed my resume font from Times New Roman to Garamond. Apparently using Times New Roman is a faux pas, since it was the default font on word processors for so long. Now it isn't. Word uses Calibri as default, and Google Docs uses Arial, but Times still has that novice reputation, and Word and Google attempting to get away from that is an example of this.

People who are passionate about fonts are interesting. I knew a girl who would only use Georgia. She was top of her class and concerned about her grades, just on the edge of getting an Honours grade, but when we got an assignment that specifically said that we would be docked marks if we didn't use Times or Arial, she drew the line right there. She was like "I only use Georgia" and risked jeopardizing her chances of an Honours grade by using a forbidden font.

I brought this up in a conversation with an old roommate, and he was like "To be fair, Georgia is an amazing font". It was actually him that recommended Garamond, as it had a similar style to Georgia, with a similar print size to Times.

I looked into it, and yeah, Garamond is a celebrated font by professionals. But if you put a list of "acceptable" fonts in front of me, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to identify them.

We... uh... have a dog over here. Her name is Winter and she's a husky puppy. My roommates got her. I'll post pictures in future updates.

Yellow Roses

My roommate bought me a pot of yellow roses. Fool doesn't even know the language of roses. Yellow means friendship and it might have been one of the most meaningful friendship gifts I ever got, and he didn't even know.

There really is a language to it:

http://www.rkdn.org/roses/colors.asp

Recently I made it back to my old place in student housing. I was there to get my mattress, bookshelf, and dresser. It occurred to me that there was a standing plant holder that came with my room, which I'd put in the shed because I couldn't find a use for it but would now work great for my yellow roses. When I went into the shed, not only did I find my plant holder, I found:

-Chicken wire
-A shovel
-A fake axe
-Seeds
-A watering can

All previously belonging to me. The guy who drove me saw me be like "That's mine... that's mine... that's mine..." and was like "How long ago did you move out?"

We only had a car, so I couldn't move my dresser or bookshelf, but I still got to pick up a lot.

Got my mattress back. I'd fooled myself into thinking that I was comfortable on my air mattress, but when I lay down on my old one, I instantly passed out. Too much comfort.

I was in Guelph a bit last weekend, and my family through me an old little CRT TV (like one of those tube sets with the curved glass). Found out my roommate had an old $8 DVD player from Value Village. Rigged it up today and it works. That kind of equipment has no value nowadays, when you can get videos for free and laptops have better screens anyway, but I'm still happy. Gonna start a little used DVD collection.

I forgot my solar powered snail, turtle, and toad lawn ornaments with glowing resin at my interim housing arrangement, so I gotta get those. And then yeah, kitchen table, dresser, bookshelf, waiting for me.

New Place

Do you know what I think is pretty cool? When things you don't think have value become useful later down the line.

This is happening a lot in the new place. Since I don't drive, everything I had at student housing was something I could carry on my back. Since the last place came furnished, we didn't really need to establish ourselves there, either.

So in the new place, we've got no furniture.

One example of finding a new use for something is that, I bought a couple of tension rods for shower curtains at the other place because there was a strange alcove in the room I was sleeping in, like a closet but fixed above the floor, and with no door. So I tried to cover it up with a shower curtain as a makeshift door to make the room less cluttered.

And now, we don't have an alcove, but we do have a shower without a tension rod or curtain. Bam! Glad I made the effort to move those.

Also, I won a kind of romantic set in a raffle once, and part of the prize was a set of king size sheets. Now, I'm not going to have a king size bed anywhere in the near future. But you know what our place needs? Curtains!

I left my old mattress at student housing because we had mattresses at the new place. Now at the new place I don't have a mattress. Glad I've got an air mattress.

 Yeah, my last place was in a century home surrounded by family and coworkers. This place is a bit more realistic. The last place was like the home of an established social worker, this is more of a bachelor pad.

They never threw out the stuff I left behind in student housing, so I've got a mattress, bookshelf, and small dresser I could pick up, if I could find a way to transport it. One of my coworkers is donating a kitchen table, and my mom is donating a TV. Again, transportation's the issue.

We do have a microwave and toaster oven, which I wasn't planning to have for awhile.

We will have our Internet up this 21st, 22nd, or 23rd.

The weather has been so strange. Before Christmas, we had a heavy snowfall that seemed permanent but melted. Then a little after Christmas we had another huge snowfall, and after three days, that one melted too, Than it got seriously, and was raining for awhile. Then the rain turned to snow. Not packing snow, but the brittle, powdery stuff that happens when it's real cold. I actually was outside when it changed from warm rain to snow powder in front of my eyes. So all the melted snow froze to carpet everything in ice, and then the snow covered it up. Not easy to drive in, I can imagine.

And there's been snowstorms pretty consistently since.

New Year Move

Well, we're done the vast bulk of our move.  Every place up until now that I have lived in has been all-inclusive, but this one charges for utilities. Even had to go to the hydro place and the gas place to get set up. Never done that before, it was a learning experience. Looking forward to my first gas and hydro bill.

We don't have Internet yet though. I'm at Tim Horton's right now, they have free WiFi and are open 24/7. This is going to be my new office until I get home Internet.

This Tim's doesn't have an outlet that can be reached by a charge cord, and both my work and personal computers have terrible battery life, so I can't do things indefinitely here, and I can't make this post too long, as I've already run through my work computer and am using my personal one and it's half dead.

New Year's Eve was spent moving. It was kind of a drag, but at least it seemed poetic, starting a life in a new home as the New Year rolls in. It will be easy to remember how long we've lived her, later down the line.

I have to check my work email now, and I'm cringing. The holidays and the move and not having access to Internet have distracted me from this for a bit. Oh boy. Wish me luck.