you buy a piece of paradise, you buy a piece of me

[the_siobhan]

20 – International Day of Happiness: this was created by the United Nations to spread the idea that happitalism rather than capitalism should be spread around the world. Is happiness a choice? What makes you happy? What little thing can you do to make someone else happy? Did anything occur this month that made you particularly happy?
21 – International Fragrance Day: Many public spaces, at least in North America, have scent-free policies in place due to the number of people who are negatively affected by perfumes and other scented products. Are you negatively affected by other people's colognes/body sprays/after-shave, etc.? Do you use scented products yourself?
22 – World Water Day: 783 million people across the world don’t have access to clean water.  What water related activity could you do to celebrate this day?  Pledge to conserve water? Go swimming? Donate to a water charity?
23 – Peanut Month: do you like peanuts?  Peanut butter?
24 – International Waffle Day: How do you like your waffles? Will you be celebrating today by eating any?
25 – Good Hair Day: apparently GHD straighteners were invented in Yorkshire in 2001 and the GHD stands for Good Hair Day - who knew?  Describe your hair.  What was your hair like as a child?  When do you think your hair was at its best?
26 – Spanish Paella Day: yum or yuck? 

The idea of creating a day to commemorate happiness rather than actually doing anything to actively promote it makes me roll my eyes. Like how corporations would rather push "mindfulness" over actually hiring enough staff so that they employees aren't chronically stressed and overworked. I am allergic to a small number of scents but they seem to be the cheap ones that are used in a lot of perfumes (like artificial lavender, which is really common in floral perfumes.) I commemorate World Water Day by never ever buying bottled water, which is an environmental nightmare. I like peanuts but am not a fan of peanut butter unless it's in chocolate. Waffles are OK but I like crepes better. My hair is very thin and very fragile and very dry and a little bit wavy and this is new since it went grey so I'm still figuring out how to take care of it properly. (Also I really really need a haircut.) I have never had Spanish Paella.

27– World Theatre Day: what was the last thing you saw performed in a theatre?

Chekov! BC and I share a love of Chekov, so whenever I see an ad for one of his plays we go and see it. Uncle Vanya was performed by a local group last September and so we masked up and went to see it. Bahia Watson (who was in The Expanse) played Sonia.

It was a fantastic performance, definitely one of the best I've seen. Uncle Vanya was played by an actor named Tom Rooney who apparently has a ton of Stratford performances under his belt and he was amazing. I will be measuring all future Vanya performances against the bar he set.

As an aside, I was talking to BC about what I particularly liked about this interpretation of the play and it occurred to me afterwards that doing the Wheel of Time podcast has made me so much more articulate when I talk about what I like and don't like in visual media. A BA in English Lit couldn't do that.

***

Box is unchanged. The engineer slid by a couple of times to do whatever he needed to do and now we are waiting for the windows and doors to show up. I can report, however, that the roof held up magnificently when we had our two day long used-to-be-once-every-hundred-years-now-once-every-ten-year-soon-to-be-annual basement-flooding creek-bursting car-floating spring rainstorm. So yay. We will be dry when the end times come.

Meanwhile we have received three notices of planning applications on our street in the last two weeks. (And we live on a very small street, under 50 houses.) One was for our attached neighbours, who have applied to add a third story to their house. I sent a note to the committee telling them I was in full support. Seems like the least I could do, given that they helped us out with our permits.

I'd love to put a third floor on this place. Cause what I really want out of life is to spend more of it doing renovations.

***

Old Man went home today after two weeks in the hospital. I spent the entire day dealing with the hospital (five phone calls) his residence (three phone calls) his in-home services (three phone calls) his referrals (two phone calls) plus ordering supplies, paying bills and letting his family know what's going on. Then he called me because he had expected me to be onsite when he arrived at the residence and he wanted me to come over. I'm going to be there tomorrow, but it was really hard to say no to him, it's three hours round trip and I am tapped teh fuck out.

There needs to be two people doing this, one to deal with paperwork and agencies and appointments, and one just to hold his hand.

***

Toronto has been having a mini heatwave and so I've been sleeping with the windows wide open. I don't have access to my backyard and my fingers have been itching to get into some dirt so I've been repotting and splitting all my houseplants. I've been filling my library with so many spider plants and I need to start on the succulents next. My office smells like soil and I love it. I can't wait to be able to get out in the yard again.

 

Comments

[elusis]

Congratulations on the worthiness of Box. Finding out otherwise at this point would be... bad.

I believe the traditional response to your neighbors wanting to add a third story is to complain that it will shade your plants and block your views. What are you, some kind of commie or something?

Also, WTF kind of question is "paella, yum or yuck"?? I know, it's not your question. But is the author, like, ten?

[the_siobhan]

Third-floor additions have become really common in this area, because it's all row housing and there is no other direction to expand. You can tell where people invested to make it look like part of the original building and I only know it's an add-on because I watched it go up. Others look like somebody dropped a packing crate on top of their house.

Neighbours had mentioned their plan back when their kitchen was being reno'd and we said, oh hey let us know when you are doing it because we might be able to save everybody some money by doing both houses at once.

Of course their kitchen is long done so....

[houseof9cats]

You are always welcome to come get in this yard. May is a nice month for flowers. July is peak and also features food. I know, it's a drive.

[greylock]

BC and I share a love of Chekov
I have never encountered a Chekov fan (that I know of), so that is pretty neat.

we had our two day long used-to-be-once-every-hundred-years-now-once-every-ten-year-soon-to-be-annual basement-flooding creek-bursting car-floating spring rainstorm.

I am pleased (?) it's not just an Australian thing.

who have applied to add a third story to their house

Seems horrible, but it seems like a common thing and has no overlooking/shadowing issues?

It does seem like you need someone more local to help out. A 90-minute drive alone is hell at the best of times.

Maybe get one of the tradies to make window plant boxes? :P

(I can't grow *anything* inside.)

[the_siobhan]

Seems horrible, but it seems like a common thing and has no overlooking/shadowing issues?

It's a dense area with all the houses jammed together, so there really isn't any place to go but up.

Our houses face north and they're adding the third floor to the part of the house that is already two stories, so it won't block the sun anyway.

It does seem like you need someone more local to help out. A 90-minute drive alone is hell at the best of times.

It's a 30-minute drive. 90 minutes on public transit because austerity budget for everything except the police.

[greylock]

It's a dense area with all the houses jammed together, so there really isn't any place to go but up.<

I'm in an area that's been rezoned, so in theory my neighbour could build a six-storey complex next door. I'm very alive to this issue. And not a fan.

90 minutes on public transit because austerity budget for everything except the police.

I'll assume that's 90 minutes best case scenario.

[the_siobhan]

That's an average. 70 minutes is normal, but I have had trips that lasted closer to three hours.

[houseof9cats]

I wonder if people are taking advantage of the multigenerational homes tax credit. We're considering it if it goes on enough years for us to even be able to afford a subsidized reno and whatever else. I don't even know if there are extra property taxes involved. Maybe. It might actually be cheaper to sell this one and buy one with a pre-existing in-law, though. >.> /me rambling about that.