Apartment life, it ain't for me

Have I mentioned how much I hate living in an apartment? Cause if I haven't, let me mention it now. I hate it. I hate living with other people, I hate listening to their noises, I hate smelling their smells, I hate dealing with their issues. I hate it.

I am currently listening to the fire alarm go off in the hall outside our apartment. "Ring, ring, ring. Ring, ring, ring." it goes, and it's been doing it for about 10 minutes now. Some idiot child has likely set it off, and is thinking they are so clever and funny for inconveniencing everyone who lives here. Filthy miserable brats. They blow smoke in our open windows, run around shrieking and swearing, break things, and make life miserable for those of us who are simply trying to live their lives. And where are their parents, you might ask? Who knows! Probably at the bar, or smoking dope. Oof, I'm sounding judgy, but for christ sake, it took a huge fight and a lot of tears to get Mary to sleep tonight, and I have my doubts that sleep will last with this crap going on.

Have I told you about all that has happened since we moved in here? Only two weeks, it seems like a lifetime. An unhappy lifetime. First there was the bathtub incident, I think I mentioned that before. Then we made the mistake of trying to use the microwave and the coffee maker at the same time and blew a fuse. Ian took a look at the fuse box, and when he opened it up, it spat flames at him, so we called maintenance. They came, took one look, and said "I'm not touching that, I have to call an electrician," and left. About 2 hours later (two hours with NO power at all to the kitchen, including the very full fridge and freezer) the guy showed back up with an electrician who said "wow! I haven't seen one of these in a long time!" Then, we discovered that we don't have enough power in this apartment to run the microwave properly. It took Ian 7 minutes to heat up a bowl of chili for lunch. I won't get into the raunchy smells of ethnic cooking that flood the hallway and our apartment every day. I mean, I don't mind ethnic food, but yikes it stinks, especially when the people cooking it open their front door, handily directly across the hall from us, to air out their place.

And the alarm is still going off. I swear to god, I'm going to loose it. Seriously. I'll give it something to bloody "ring, ring, ring" about.

UPDATE!

The ringing stopped at about 9:45 last night. It started again just before 7:30 this morning. It's been going for about 20 minutes now with no end in sight.

Long Weekend

Things went well enough this weekend. We are still settling in to the new place, it's starting to look more and more like people live here rather than a bunch of hobo's.

Rico drove out Friday with our wayward cat. It was great to see him, and awesome to see Rupert doing so well. It seems that he was a dream passenger on the 8 hour trip out here too. What a little freak. Rupert is setting in well, and while the other cats did a lot of hissing and growling at him for the first couple of days, everyone seems to be getting along nicely now.

Friday night we took Rico out for supper and then to see a movie. We went and saw 28 Weeks Later, which was okay. It wasn't everything that I had expected, but it was passable. I like the idea of an actual virus for a zombie movie, it makes it much more believable, you know? That night I had running-away-from-zombie dreams all night long though. Usually I can handle dreams like that one, but my sub-conscious played dirty pool and kept throwing Mary in there.

Saturday morning Rico headed home bright and early, and Ian and I went over to my dad's place to pick up Mary and to wish my step-mum a happy birthday. Mary was sweet, Michael was happier than I've seen her in a while, and we had some of the best doughnuts I've had for breakfast. The rest of the day was wasted away by napping and bumming around the apartment.

Sunday we bought a new TV. Yay! It was more expensive than we had planned on purchasing as it is a fancy LCD thingy, but it sure is nice. Now all we need is for the cable people to come hook it up and I'll be happy.

Mary's been awfully cute these days. Any time I go out without her and Ian, I ask for a kiss. She gives me one, and then runs to find Ian so she can drag him over to me and demand that he gives me a kiss too. It's awfully sweet. Her vocabulary is expanding leaps and bounds too, she now uses 3 and 4 word sentences sometimes, and everything she says is much easier to understand. If she's upset she'll often tell me what the problem is, which is a wonderful thing. Last night I tried to get her to drink the last bit of her milk with supper and she said, clear as a bell "I don't want it, Mum!" I could have done without the huffing, arm crossing and sulking after she made that declaration, but wow, I was impressed. Not everything is impressive with her though. We have decided to wean her from her bottles and it is not going well. We are down to 30 minutes of heart broken sobbing at bedtime, but I feel like such an awful person when she begs pathetically for a "bottle'a'mahk" while sobbing at her door. We just started Saturday, so hopefully it'll get better soon.

As for the other baby, the one still in my belly. I want it out, now. Only 3-4 weeks left. I am looking forward to going from the misery of sleepless nights because I can't get comfortable to the misery of sleepless nights because I have a screaming newborn to tend too. Why on earth do we do this to ourselves again? Someone, please remind me...

Found!

I got a happy email this morning. Rupert the Wondercat has finally been captured. It took a team of people as well as a cat trap to get him, but this morning I & V moved him into their living room where he can relax and recover. According to V he is doing very well, loving and purring and desperate for affection, and he doesn't seem to mind their dog and cats peering through the french doors to check him out. Now all we have to do is get him here and our little family will be reunited. Of course, before he makes the trip we are going to arrange to get him to the vet and have him seriously drugged for the drive. I don't want to stress him more than needed. And to think, we get to go through this again in a couple months when we buy a house. Yay.

We are slowly settling into the apartment. Unpacking is almost as miserable as packing, and between Marys attempts to help and my growing belly, it's slow moving. We also discovered that our bathtub leaks very very badly into the floor beneath it. When you fill up the tub, it drains like there's no plug in it at all, even when there is. It made for a very quick bath for Miss Mary last night.

We are still looking for a house, and we spoke to our real estate agent yesterday. So far there isn't a whole lot on the market, but we are hoping that once the school year ends, more houses will go up for sale and we will find something wonderful and perfect.

Anyways, Mary is demanding my attention, so I had better go give her hugs and cuddles.

Casualties

The move is almost complete. Dad got here with the U-haul about 30 minutes ago, and Ian should be in town in about 2 more hours.

Bawling for 2 hours straight is not a good thing if you have a sinus headache already. I feel like my head is going to explode.

We are down one cat. I'm not really able to comment more on that fact right now, I'm still very upset about it. It's no ones fault, and I'm not angry, just very very sad.

Once I started crying about the cat, I couldn't stop, and I cried about everything. I started doubting every decision that we've made, especially the one to leave Edmonton. I'm lonely already, I miss my friends and I miss my home. I hope it gets better soon.

Quick Hello

Hi there everyone!

Mary and I made it to Regina without any major incidents. We are slowly wearing out our welcome at my dads place, luckily Ian will be along with all our stuff on Sunday, and we are moving into the appartment on Monday. We will be looking hard to find a house as the appartment is even worse than I expected it too be...small and in the basement and not terribly well maintained. It will definately do the job of giving us the drive to find a nice house quickly.

The baby in my belly is still driving me crazy, I'm starting to think that she will pop out long before her due date, which is perfectly okay with me. She's huge, and heavy, and puts so much pressure on my pelvis that I have a hard time walking up and down stairs. My cold is still driving me bonkers, now it has moved to my sinuses. Sigh. Some day I will be healthy again, I'm sure of it.

Hope you're all doing well, I miss everyone in Edmonton already.

Changes

Well, tomorrow is the big day. Mary and I are moving to Regina, never to return (at least not till after the baby is born anyways). It's pretty stressful and exciting all at once. I love Edmonton so much, I really hate to leave. If there was any way we could make it here without being constantly in debt, there's no way you could drag me out of this place, but unfortunately, that's not the case.

Last night was my last Paradise Lost game, and it was quite fantastic. I got my character killed after killing one of the bad guys that had been stringing me along for over a year. I was pleased with the way things went, and I can't imagine my character being happier than she was when they finally decided to kill her. She's been trying to die for an awfully long time now.

After the game I didn't go out, as much as I wanted too. I'm exhausted right now, and all three of us are dealing with a brutal cold. I have to say that I find it a wee bit ridiculous that while I was in the hospital they were able to pump me full of Demerol every 3 hours, but now that I have a bad chest/sinus cold, I can't even take Neo-Citrin. Anyways, I got to say goodbye to a good number of my friends this weekend, and amazingly, I've not broken down in tears yet, though last night was awfully close. I'm not sure when I am going to cry, though I'm sure I will. I suspect it won't really happen till tomorrow night, things still don't feel real.

With the sickness in the house, we haven't gotten a lot of packing accomplished. Poor Ian has a whole lot to do in the next week. I hope he manages to get things done. I'm certain he will, but I imagine it will be an awfully miserable week for him. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day for him too. No one trusts me to do the drive on my own...well, to be fair, no one trusts my body which seems to be going out of its way to betray me on a regular basis. Anyways, no one wants me to drive on my own, so the plan is for Ian to drive Mary and me to Saskatoon and hop on a bus home. My dad is taking a bus to S'toon and will drive the rest of the way to Regina with us. It really seems kind of silly to me, but then I remember how the pain of my idiotic pancreas, and I'm awfully glad that I won't be all by my self.

So, as of tomorrow I don't know how often I'll be able to post here, at least till we get settled in the apartment in a week or two. Dad has a computer, but his internet connection is spotty at best, and he lives with two of Michael's kids right now, but I'll try to get on at least once or twice. Take care of yourselves, and wish us luck, life is changing at a pace that's awfully hard to keep up with right now!

Bland

Hello again.

Well, I'm doing better every day, just so you know. I am however getting sick of my guts rebelling every time I eat something other than rice, white toast or chicken noodle soup. After a week of only being allowed to eat clear liquids, my stomach has decided to be lazy. Slowly but surely though, things are getting better. I went to the doctor on Monday, and he told me that he thinks I will be fine. His nurse was alarmed that I had lost 10 lbs in less than a week, but that's what being in the hospital will do to you. Pancreatitis is not a diet I would recommend. I did ask the doctor if there was anything I could do to avoid another attack, and he laughed and told me no, no there wasn't. They have no idea why it happened in the first place, I'm not an alcoholic, not a drug addict, and my gall bladder looks fine, so they call it "idiopathic" and shrug their shoulders. I live in fear of being in pain like that again though.

Mary managed to get sick while I was in the hospital. Ian took wonderful care of her, but her routine was all messed up and she didn't sleep too well, and now we are paying for it. ugh.

Only a few days left till I leave Edmonton for good. The thought makes my already sensitive stomach roll like crazy. All of a sudden we have so much stuff to do and so many people that I want to see and say goodbye too, and we just don't have the time. The week in the hospital really messed up our timeframe, those days just disappeared. I keep thinking that I still have over a week, and then I realize that it's this coming monday that I leave. I hope we get a chance to see everyone that I want to see before leaving, but I'm starting to think that I won't. We are going to a combo farewell us/happy birthday someone else party on Friday, and I'm already working on not bawling when it's time to go.

Oh, last night I had a messed up dream. I dreamed that a big group of my friends and I were at this place, in this city...I don't know which city it was, and we were role-playing. But the lines between real life and our characters were very blurred. I was a robot, and our friend, Rico, had fallen in love with me/my character. Rico had also gotten one of our other friends, D, the girlfriend of another frequent star in my dirty dreams, pregnant. Everyone was all pounded out of shape about it, and any time they mentioned it to Rico he would laugh and say "my character isn't here right now" and just ignore them. It was very odd, and unfortunately not at all naughty.