September 2004

September 25, 2004

Early one morning two weeks ago I awoke to a bit of a mystery. I was feeling a little hazy as I stumbled into the kitchen, my head feeling a little thick from the wine I had had at a dinner party the night before. Still holding onto sleep a little, opening my eyes only wide enough not to run into furniture, I came across a slight irregularity in the normal topography of the kitchen floor; namely, there was garbage strewn all over it. I stood there for a moment, wondering if I had drank that much wine last night, and whether it was possible that I myself had overindulged to the point where I might have thought it a good idea to overturn our garbage can and kick around the kitchen waste before calling it a night.

I am proud to say that it has been some time since I have felt the need to do such a thing.

Satisfied - after some reflection - that I was not the culprit, I decided that perhaps the day had begun too early, and that I should go back to bed. As I picked up the trash from the floor, in that automatic, thoughtless way that the barely-awake generally have, I began to wonder idly if, perhaps, Laura might have decided that this was to be the new way to deal with our garbage.

The mystery went unsolved, with me believing the incident to have been caused by a cat sneaking in through the window, and Laura opting for the worst-case scenario; giant (plague-ridden) rats.

Fast forward to last night. Laura and I came in late, and it was shortly before 2am when we went to bed. Just as I was drifting off, I heard a crash in the kitchen. It wasn't the first time I'd heard noises in the night here, but this was loud, and sounded distinctly like there was someone in the kitchen.

Waking up and thinking that there is a person in your kitchen in the middle of the night is not a nice thought. I sat bolt-upright in bed and thought about what I might have on hand to take on any would-be burglers, but before my brain had truly clicked into gear, I found myslef lurching out of the bedroom through the dark in search of the interloper. I burst into the kitchen, relying on the element of surprise (which was likely enhanced by the fact that I was in my underwear) to drive off any intruders.

In that somewhat dazed state of mind, I'm not sure what would have surprised me more; a hooded thief making off with my speakers, or the two big, fat raccoons that I found sitting on my kitchen counter.

Now I've done a lot of cooking lately, and though quite a variety of meat has been on that counter, to that point none of it had been ambulatory.

Caught off guard a little by my find (I was expecting to foil a robber with a witty line like "Now are you picking those up, or dropping them off?" or something like that) and was at that point down to reflexes...and I now know what my reflexes are in a situation like that; I started hissing. Hissing, I know. Pretty weird. The good thing was that the raccoons thought it was pretty weird as well. Suddenly completely freaked out by the crazed hissing human that had lurched almost naked into the kitchen, the raccoons turned tail and leapt out of a huge rip in our window screen, looking for another house with slightly more psychologically stable inhabitants.

"What the hell was that?" Laura asked when I came back into the bedroom.
"There were bloody raccoons in the kitchen!" I managed to say, still pretty surprised.
"Oh man...yeah, I could hear all the hissing!"

There's no need for her to know that that was me.

September 23, 2004

At long last I'm starting to feel pretty settled in here, and I'm starting to establish a bit of a routine. It's funny how long it can take to get a rhythm back into your daily life when you've been without one for so long. A major part of getting back into things - I knew - would be to make a return to Aikido. This has been my longest break from training in quite some time, and I was beginning to worry about my fitness level...which has led me to learn something; apparently, eating lots of cheese while loafing around, drinking wine and stuffing your face with pasta is not actually an effective way of improving your cardiovascular fitness. If only I'd known!

This startling revelation came to me last night, while I was huffing and puffing my way through my first Aikido class since Paris. Needless to say, I'm a little sore today.

Another reason that I am beginning to feel settled in here is this; all of our belongings are now to be found in one city! What's more, they are all under the same roof! It's quite fun to wake up, open your eyes and see furniture that you recognize...of course I mean 'fun' in a 'I-must-be-getting-old' kind of way. Our trip to Ottawa constituted our last stop in a four city, two country effort to reassemble our stuff. It's amazing how far and wide your things can disperse in two years!

So now we're really back, and we have a home. Laura is looking for work, and I'm planning out how to start a career in writing. It's not too easy on either count, but at least we're going to sleep at the same address every night...that's a start.

September 16, 2004

A new day, a new city. Even though we're trying to work on settling down in one place, it seems that the process can sometime involve a little travel. We're now in Ottawa, comfortably ensconced in a guest room in my parents house.

To start my day off right today, however, I managed to get myself a speeding ticket. Evidently Toronto is in the middle of a ticketing blitz, so it figures that the one day that I borrow a car I should be pulled over by the police. What was funny was that within hours I was speeding again. Why? Because in Toronto it's generally dangerous to drive the speed limit on the major roads and highways, as everyone else will be pulling out their hair trying to get around you...which makes the selective enforcement of police campaigns an exercise of somewhat dubious value...but I digress.

September 15, 2004

Okay, this just in. I perhaps shouldn't be as excited as I actually am, but we finally got our internet connected here in the apartment. As a matter of fact, it's actually quite sad how happy I am to finally be hooked up again, but there it is.

So once again; to everyone to whom I have not written in a very long time, expect a reply soon! I will also be putting up some very good pictures from our canoe trip very soon, so keep an eye open.

Laura and I are headed up to Ottawa tommorow until early next week...so until then...

September 15, 2004

It's hard to stay motivated in putting together postings for the internet when you have no means of connecting to it, but then today is the day that Bell Canada is supposed to grace us with DSL service...I'm not holding my breath, though. Many apologies to all that I haven't written back to; I haven't had access to my email in more than a week, and it's killing me!

Life finally seems to be getting back some kind of rhythm as Laura and I settle in, albeit slowly. This weekend will be the last trip in an effort to reassemble all of our belongings that were scattered in the years that we were away, an undertaking that has already involved a shotgun 22 hour trip to New Haven Connecticut and back. The money is running almost as thin as Laura's patience in looking for a job, but with a little more time we're hoping that all of the wrinkles will be ironed out.

Last night Laura and I went to a play here in Toronto at the Harbourfront. The tickets came courtesy of Ian, who managed to score them for free...a pretty sweet deal. Not only was the play excellent, it was a great reminder as to the reasons why I wanted to come back to Toronto in the first place; getting into some good cultural events and hanging out with friends.

September 7, 2003

Things have moved pretty fast since we've been back from the canoe trip, and in a matter of days Laura and I found a place here and Toronto and have moved in. There is still the matter of getting phone and internet hooked up right now, but that will come soon enough...

For now I am just happy enough to say that we have an address...good news if there ever was some. Please see the contact page for the updated info...though I still don't know our postal code.

September 3, 2004

It's been a crazy couple of days. In the short time since we've been back from the canoe trip, Laura and I hunted for an apartment, signed one and have almost completely moved in. We're sort of going incognito at the moment, as we don't yet have a telephone or internet access, but that's all on the way.

I can't say how good it feels to finally have an address again. Every box that Laura and I open is like Christmas, as so much of the stuff that we're finding we haven't had for over two years. It's all very exciting.