Not My House

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Sure, I would love a Spacious Mansion, but that is never going to happen! (Though that is totally what Le Manior was, a dilapidated but spacious mansion. Remember THIS PHOTO was only the side of it, the front faced the street to the right.)

Let me know in the comments what your home should be and if you agree.

TB - April 2007

Throwback Thursday - Scroll to the bottom of the month and read up. Or click on the earliest post in the month (to view the post and the comments) then keep clicking Newer Post until you finish the month.

APRIL 2007

This is way easier to read than the last Throw Back post when I was deep into a serious depressive episode. In April of 2007, lots of my friends were commenting on posts, especially Steph, and I can often still hear their voices in my head when I read their words. I am am excited to learn more about the late Spring and Summer of 2007. It seems like it was a month when I was figuring out summer work and trying to find a new roommate. I can't really remember what happened! Was that the summer I started at GeoConnections? Was the new roommate Jake? It is strange how hard it is to put together a timeline 9 years afterwards. Guess I will have to keep reading to find out.

Noted Post: Near the end of the month I posted about a late night interaction with Taylor. I can remember the good-bye that I described and how touched I was by her sweetness and slurred compliments. It was a very strong moment, early on in our friendship. I like that, 9 years later, she is still reading my blog.

TB - November 2006

Throwback Thursday - Scroll to the bottom of the month and read up. Or click on the earliest post in the month (to view the post and the comments) then keep clicking Newer Post until you finish the month.

NOVEMBER 2006

It was a different time - almost 10 years ago. There are hints at the changes a decade has given us. (Not in my life, those changes are very obvious when reading these posts - I was newly single,, writing a lot of poems, working on university essays, and living the student life with roommates at Le Manoir). I mean changes in technology over the last 10 years: There was a comment from Teri in one of the posts that said, "I tried calling u earlier this week but nobody was home." A land line! There was also something about missing the start of a TV show because I didn't make it home in time, no such thing as PVR yet.

There are quite a few mentions of my dad too! A post about him saying I had a "million dollar smile" and another about him editing movies when I was a kid. Also, a comment from Mom about me renting a scooter in Portugal and Dad riding it.

Noted Post: I really like my post of questions about Leisure Time. I work now for a company that designs 'leisure environments' so spend all day connected to the industry of entertainment. Separate from my work life and on more of a personal level, I think that the thoughts I wrote back in 2006 are still relevant.

TB - October 2006

Throwback Thursday - Scroll to the bottom of the month and read up. Or click on the earliest post in the month (to view the post and the comments) then keep clicking Newer Post until you finish the month.

OCTOBER 2006

Oh my, it was a packed month! It is a slow start, but Always Standing in October of 2006 features a really old picture of a long-haired Mike, my 100th blog post, friend introductions of Kristen and Kristin, a couple of posts about a visit from Amanda, my break-up with W, a cancelled party at Le Manoir, a trip home to party with Teri instead, and Halloween.

Noted Post: I really like the strange one that compares passion to horseback riding. It isn't written perfectly, but there are parts that I still really like.

TB - September 2006

Throwback Thursday - Scroll to the bottom of the month and read up.

SEPTEMBER 2006

Looks like I started out the month pretty sick. I would have been leaving Second Cup, since it was just a summer job and there is a pretty scathing post about it. Also a little hic-up with depression and the first mention of my beloved 'Sleep perchance to dream' wall sticker that I have since bought tons of. I went to Waterloo (with side visits to St. Jacobs and Guelph) to see Teri for her birthday - a trip that I only faintly recall. She would have been turning 22, this September she will be turning 30. Where does the time go?!?

Noted Post: I love the Before and After pictures of my room at Le Manior. It was such a huge and awesome room, pretty much the size of my whole apartment now - okay, that isn't true but it was insanely massive.

TB - July 2006

Throwback Thursday - I still haven't figured out a good way to read these old months from Always Standing. Ideally, it would be easy to scroll through, chronologically, see comments, and add new ones; however, there isn't an easy way so just try whatever works for you.

JULY 2006

From the looks of these post, the summer of 2006 was hot and busy for me in Ottawa. It was the summer that I worked at both Subway and Second Cup, while living at Le Manoir and dating W. The reason the blog was called Always Standing is that a summer working two food service jobs literally meant I was always standing.

Noted Post: There are lots of good posts in July 2006, but I like the little poem I wrote called Today about summer rain.

A Shiny Shower On A Miserable Monday

It is Monday and I don't want to go to work. I haven't been enjoying my job very much lately, in fact I gave my notice in early January and am just waiting until they find me a replacement. Mondays have gotten more and more painful as the time drags on. However, a really exciting thing happened over the weekend - we got new tiles in our shower! Rrunuv Bayit has never really been in good repair. (It isn't as run down/literally falling apart as Le Manoir, but unlike Le Manoir it is not huge and beautiful.) Lately, the shower has been the worst part of Rrunuv Bayit.

When we first moved in Kristen's stepdad did an amazing job resealing the tub and broken tiles, but that was a long time ago and everything has gotten worse since. Jason and I were concerned that the mold was expanding to the walls behind the tiles. I would have never thought that our landlord would pay to get it repaired - but he did. It was quick and now looks great. There is thick drywall/renovation dust all over the place though, but I don't care - I am just so happy with the repairs!

Growing Up, Again

Last night I bought a washing machine and dryer. I don't think I ever fully outlined the 'laundry process' at Rrunuv Bayit - I mentioned it briefly early on, before Kristen and I made arrangements with people upstairs.

At Rrunuv Bayit, the other two apartments in the building each have a washer and dryer in the furnace room. It took a while, but after a couple of months we were able to arrange with the nice couple on the top floor to use theirs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There were some definite issues with this, not just that we only had two days to do laundry each week and that they were work days at that, but also that the way the wiring worked only one machine could be plugged in at the time (which means the people from the third apartment might be using their machines and we wouldn't be able to use the ones we had access to) and also the dryer is an 'apartment style' which means it has very little power and takes forever to dry things.

Anyway, the nice couple are moving out, which is sad because they were good neighbors. However, they offered to sell me their washer and dryer, so I bought them. Now I can do laundry any day of the week! Kristen was over and after scolding me for making such a big purchase when I have no money, she seemed impressed at my 'grown up' purchase. It wasn't that much money; I will definitely make it back when compared to using a landrymat. Using their machines thus far has more than saved me the amount they asked for. It did feel grown up - until I remembered I had bought a washing machine in a similar fashion before moving into Le Manoir, though that time it involved moving it too. So, I guess I am growing up - again.

And So It Is Named

I like to name my houses. It tends to happen naturally, when you listen to people talk about places they live they tend to have a name for the house, though it is often related to the address. I find that a tad boring and in Ottawa, stepped it up a notch. Especially moving into my second house, which was an epic mansion (may it rest in peace) that was falling apart but totally worthy of a great name. So far in my life, these have been my houses...

1984 - 1985 - Cambridge - I was born in Cambridge, Ontario. I lived with my parents in a small house until I was one and a half. I obviously don't remember it, though they have shown it to me a few times since.
1985 - 2003 - Paris - So, the first two are named for the towns. I only lived in one house in Paris so instead of calling it by the street, I always just say Paris. The house was sold this past summer.
2003 - 2004 - Rez - While I was living in residence, Glengarry House, at Carleton Steph, Em, and I called it Glen, to distinguish it from the other residences on campus. However, after moving out it just gets referred to as Rez.
2004 - 2006 - Glen - This house is named after the street and even though it could get confused with my residence house, especially as I was living with the same people, it never was.
2006 - 2008 - Le Manoir - It was this mansion that inspired the need for awesome house names. I wanted to make it sound ostentatious, so picked to name it in French. It means The Mansion, however we have always pronounced it so horribly that it would make anyone who speaks French cringe in pain. It seemed like an ever revolving door of roommates there (including Ami, Em, Anna, Wes, Jake, Jer, and a few others) but they all called it Le Manoir.
2008 - 2010 - Die Höhle - Following in the foreign languages vein, Jer, Em, and I decided to name the next apartment in German. This was because the outside of it was very ugly, a big grey 1960's box of a house in a beautiful Victorian neighbourhood. It look like a German war bunker. Translated it means The Cave and again we mispronounced it terribly, much to the dismay of the one friend I have who speaks German. During the second year Linds lived with us and later on JennB, they both called it Die Höhle.
2010 - 2010 - The Cottage - We got the cottage when I was 16, so sometime around 2000. About 4 or 5 years back my parents tore down the original building and set about building a house on the beach that they could eventually live in full time. Well, the time has come. They sold the other house and live at The Cottage, though the name remains. I have never really lived there, but I would consider it an important residence in my life.

"So what about the new Toronto apartment?" you ask. After about a week, Kristen and I set about coming up with a name. Our landlord is Jewish and we live in a fairly Jewish neighbourhood. (Though there is a Catholic Church right down the street from us that plays its bells all the time and I have seen actual nuns there. However, I don't know where our closest Synagogue is.) We are basing this assumption about our neighbourhood on the number of people we see in yarmulkes walking on the streets, that the local grocery store has a huge kosher section, and the ice cream parlor sells kosher brownies. It seemed fitting that the language we pick for naming this one be Hebrew. This was easier said than done!

Hebrew uses different letters, not just some fancy two dots above the 'o' like in Die Höhle but a totally different thing all together. Hebrew does not have an Alphabet it is instead considered an Abjad. (This means it is a segmental script containing symbols for consonants only, and the vowels are optionally written with diacritics or 'pointing'). We decided that we wanted to called it Grown-Up Apartment. We are working hard on this place to make it nice and to avoid that student feel. But, even with all the online translating sites out there, we couldn't find out how to say that in Hebrew. We had to settle for Adult House (which has some funny connotations on its own). I'm sure, like the other houses I have named in languages other than English, I am screwing this up horribly, but we have called our place...Which seems to be spelt in the Latin (or Roman) Alphabet, which English uses, as something close to Rrunuv Bayit. Obviously pronouncing it is also challenging. The 'Rr' is rolled but then the rest of Rrunuv sounds like it is spelt and Bayit is more like 'buy-it'. Though I'm sure this is wrong. When in a rush, we will sometimes refer to it as just Bayit, and that is currently our wifi name. Now, I need to go and finish painting, unpacking, cleaning, and in general settling in, so that Rrunuv Bayit can live up to its name and truly be a Grown-up Apartment.

My Poetic Friends

By JennB
To convocate is quite a feat,
Six years in the making for Chris.
She started as an engineer
But finished in worded bliss.

English is by far the better degree,
And to what we owe this poem.
But she made good friends on the other side
Like Steph and Dave and that guy from Rome

She’s lived all over the Glebe Lite,
In Le Manoir and Die Hohle.
Brought trusty Binx along with her,
And in his room her boyfriend had a pole.

Hummus will never be the same for us
And you so don't live downtown.
The K in Karleton stands for Kwality
I can see your labia through your gown.

This afternoon was about academic success
We hope you had a super day.
We also hope you've waxed your legs
Cause we're going to Mooney's Bay!

By Kate
There once was a girl named Christine
Who's culinary skills were obscene!
When faced with the oven
She did not feel the lovin'
And she'd default to a can of green beans.

(Note: Everything said in these poems is true, they know me so well.)

Tristen and Kaylor

There is a little bit of back story needed here. These are two of my closest friends, I love them and can sing nothing but their praises, and some Disney songs. Both have finished their degrees and are moving away from Ottawa this weekend. It is so hard to see them go as they are a big part of my life here, lump in my throat. I met Kristen in the first week of first year (well, her first year.) Through Kristen I met Taylor, who I became friends with in second year. What should also be noted is that a lot of the memories I have of them from the last year or so are also tied to Heather, who thankfully is staying around for at least the summer.

In rough chronological order, I will always remember...

-meeting Kristen in first year French where I terrified her and forced her to be my friend

-never learning that 'Je suis une chat' means 'I am a cat'

-going as a guest to the cafeteria

-getting kicked off their residence floor for having alcohol in the hallway

-discovering The Lonely Island

-cooking Kristen perogies at Glen

-studying for Human Rights with Kristen and Taylor from a page of predetermined questions

-the Gentleman way

-hanging out in Taylor's big room on the first floor of 998

-Socrates and Jesus

-meeting M- during a random make-out at the bar

-Taylor's issues with pee and Kristen's issues with first dates

-the Numa Numa dance

-Kristen milking her birthday for weeks on end and me milking a break up to go to Pizza Hut

-Kings

-being quoted in a number of articles both for The Charleton and journalism classes

-having Kristen stay with me at Le Manoir off and on throughout the summer she was Productions Editor

-Kristen always convincing me that we should just walk downtown

-Taylor as a raptor

-nights sleeping on the futon

-Jeopardy

-being told that a box of chicken fingers and a bag of baby carrots does not count as a dinner

-visiting Kristen at work both at the Charleton and Smithbooks

-Kristen crashing on my futon after watching Amanda Bynes

-fierce Wednesdays with the girls along with dinner and great desserts

-painting Die Höhle

-going camping and having Taylor cook incredible meals over a fire

-being 110% sure

-the alcove becoming the cubical

-creating strange sound effects for rummy, the birth of a cow, and what a raccoon says, 'heeeey'

-babysitting Friends DVD's for over a year

-offering to help paint Taylor's new house but just ending up drinking for the whole weekend

-downey paper, the plastic lattice, and fear of sleeping with Kristen

-Taylor's short bangs

-being purposed to by Adam, as Eve, at The Big Apple

-issues with Acers

-going to see a show about sex put on by children

-photoshoots

-playing rummy, learning honeymoon bridge, and teaching two handed euchre

-Kristen's strange eyelash

-falling in love with Taylor's bed and sleeping in it whenever she wasn't there

-picking Taylor up from the airport

-all nighters in the library, frantically trying to print, rushing around campus, only to find out that St. Pats was locked

-Mark's Easter egg hunt

-Guuuuuy La Douche

-winning at the Wii because I was the only one who was sober

-Mark getting ready to lunge and me screaming while Kristen did nothing

-sleeping with Kristen when I was scared of the monsters

-Taylor leaving her mark on Ottawa and the walk home along the canal

.... and so many more that it is impossible to list them all. While new memories are sure to be made I will miss having Taylor and Kristen living just around the corner. I love them both so much!

Marching In A Line

Gradually all of my friends are graduating. Anna just graduated for Carleton with Highest Honours and got her bachelors degree with a Major in Political Science and a Minor in Film Studies. Besides her amazing varsity fencing record, Anna has done alot of awesome things over the past four years at Carleton. Some of them are (not in any order): Getting a job working with statistical information at the Data Centre in the library. Meeting Wes, they started dating, and now they live together down the street with a puppy and kitty. She went to France to study at Sciences Po - Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris. She has travelled across Canada in both directions, across Europe and into the States. She was on the executive for the Exchange Students Society. She went and worked on Hilary Clinton's campaign and met her. She was Maid of Honour for her sisters wedding. Last, but not least, she lived with me for a while at Le Manior.

Garbage Day

I’m not so good at figuring out the garbage system here in Ottawa. First off they have separate weeks for the cardboard/paper recycling and the glass/plastic/metal recycling. At Le Manoir we had a big calendar put out by the city that detailed which week was which. It also showed when you could put out garden waste, or Christmas trees. I forgot to bring it over to the new place when we moved out so now I have to just look at what the neighbours are putting out at the curb and hope that they are right. My landlord told me that I could look it all up online, which is true. The second thing that confuses me is that my landlord, the City of Ottawa, and my roommates all inform me that our pick up day is Tuesday. But this means that the city is actually coming to pick it up on the Tuesday, and they come early in the morning, so you have to put it out the night before. In my mind the Garbage Day is Monday, the day (evening/night) you have to actually do the work of getting the stuff to the curb. Misunderstandings and confusion abounds.

The Cave

I had originally decided to name the new apartment The Cave. Then I thought about the fact I named the current house, Le Manoir, which is French for The Mansion. This is because the current house is a beautiful, huge, three story, three bathroom, Victorian home on the canal. The new place is a three bedroom basement apartment with small windows, exposed I-beams, and low ceilings. I didn't want to switch from using French back to a simple English name for my new home. Since the outside of the new place looks like a bunker for the second world war, I decided to translate The Cave into German. I asked the current boy roommate, who did an exchange to Germany in high school, what it would be and he told me Die Höhle. Since he told me over MSN, I didn't get to hear it pronounced and figured it was said 'Die Hole' but I have since found out it is more like 'D Hool.' Either way I think it is an awesome name. I think Em, Jerrica, and I will be very happy in Die Höhle.

The Mysterious A.

Someone commented on the previous post and signed it only with an initial. I had pretty much figured it out to be Anna, as she gave me the scarf she was commenting on but I still felt the need to double check with Anne to see if it was her. Anne confirmed that she wasn't the one but confessed to have used only an initial on an earlier post a couple of weeks back. Similar to the Kristin/Kristen issue, I am now friends with an Anna and an Anne. They are both really awesome easy going people. Anne is the new co-op student at my work from University of Calgary. (Anne-See Left.) She has only been in Ottawa for a few months, but plans to stay until the end of August. I have known Anna for about 3 years, as she lived above Steph, Em, and I at Glen. We weren't friends at that point but soon after she moved into Le Manoir for a while and we became quite close. (Anna-See Right.) I visited her when she spent 6 months in Paris last year. Anne also spent a chunk of time living in Paris, the year before she went to university. She was also born in France. They are both bilingual but are from separate sides of the country. Anna grew up in Nova Scotia and is my maritime girl while Anne is totally west coast and from Alberta. The moral of the story is that I have a diverse group of friends and whether they have the same or similar name as another or not, everyone should sign blog comments so I know who they are. I can get so easily confused!!

Alluring

Moving! Before I move I need to pack up everything at Le Manoir. I also have to paint the new place, which we will be calling The Cave. Em, Jerrica, and I were able to nail down our colour choices the other night after I brought home a big index of paint chips. Some where chosen because we liked them, others so as to match to certain furniture or accent piece. Each paint colour has a number, a name, and amusingly a single descriptive word. Our main room is going to be this pale beige colour called 'Snuggle In' which is described as 'Relaxing'. Our bathroom is also 'Relaxing' in a grey blue colour called 'Quayside.' Both Em and Jerrica picked colours that are 'Energizing', Em's back bedroom will be a lavender called 'Sophisticated' and Jerrica's bedroom colour is a spring green named 'Transformed'. We picked all the colours just by their shade and only their number was referenced. After writing down all the numbers I flipped the cards over to find that there was name and description information on the back. We couldn't help but laugh at the fact that the 'Heavenly Sky' dusty blue colour I picked with Kristin's help for the guest room is considered 'Inviting'. Hopefully that means lots of people will come and stay over. Even more fitting is the name of the paint for my pale purple brown bedroom, 'Le Vie En Rose.' I could not be happier with my 'Alluring' colour.

Catnip

Jerrica and I got Binx high tonight on some catnip. I haven't seen her act like that in ages. It really affects cats, they go crazy. She was twitching and rolling around on the Le Manoir's main staircase. Then she would bat around anything she could find. She often attacks things and bats stuff around, but what was different when she was on catnip is how fast she moves and how randomly. It isn't like little kitty pot, it is like kitty speed.

Chickadee

I have been going to this nature trail affectionately called 'The Chickadee Place' for as long as I can remember. It is actually called 'The F.W.R. Dickson Wilderness Area' and is a short drive out of Paris. It is a really small trail with steps and boardwalks. On the boardwalks chickadees will eat from your hand, even from the hands of little kids. We go all year round. I can remember going as a kid all bundled up, the trails completely covered in ice. I still love going there when I visit home. It is all about the chickadees. Definitely my favorite bird. (They are also the provincial bird of New Brunswick, Ontario's is the Loon.) When I was younger, I also subscribed to the children's magazine 'Chickadee' which was a younger version of 'Owl', which I got later on. Chickadee isn't really the right name (but I'm neither a biologist nor a bird watcher). Chickadees, tits, or titmice basically are the birds found in the family Paridae under the order Passeriformes (known as perching or song birds.) Most of the birds in this family look like what I would consider a chickadee. The Paridae family is composed of small stocky woodland birds with a short stout little bill. I like the ones that have the little cap and bib with a strip to the sides of the face. The name 'chickadee' is also onomatopoeic, which is my favorite literary term (when the word mimics the sound it is describing, like 'meow' or 'click'.) Yes, I have both a favorite literary term and a favorite bird and today I realised they combined. I always forget the the chickadee is another example of onomatopoeia, their call is 'chick-a-dee-dee-dee'. I don't really see them much in the city, they used to come to our feeders at home. I would put a feeder out this winter at Le Manior, but I think that the squirrels would take it over. They are cute, but not as cute as fluffy little chickadees.

Anna and The Boy Roommate

Anna and The Boy Roommate are pretty much completely moved out. There are still some of their stuff around but they are sleeping and living at their new apartment now. The big move was yesterday. I'm not ready to have them gone yet. Beyond the fact that I have to give up having a guy around who could fix anything; Anna's amazing comforter that I have been sleeping with; and the only phone in the house that ever really worked; I really will have to let go of the fact that I won't be living with two of my really good friends anymore.

I don't know who is going to provide the comic relief with The Boy Roommate gone and Anna is such a great friend I will miss her company so much. I know they are just around the corner, and we will get together lots. It just feels like the house is a little empty and lonely right now and I miss them so much. Time spent with Anna always feels too short. The time she was here before going to France wasn't long enough, the time I spent with her in Paris wasn't long enough, and definitely the time spent living together after she returned wasn't long enough either. I miss her, already.

My Own Home

I love....
..having a computer in my room so I can stay on it late at night
..leaving my clothes on the floor
..watching TV with the volume up really loud
..unloading the dishwasher of mix-match cups and plates
..sitting on the porch alone when no one knows and no one cares
..waiting weeks before cleaning my room
..drinking at 5 or even noon
..walking in at anytime day or night and leaving again whenever I what
..my independence in my own home