Thursday, October 24

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Well, another day and the mover delayed us again. Supposed to be tomorrow, but PHHttt! Who believes him anymore. We've been given about six different days now, and something comes up every time. Whatever.

Hey, at least I got to sleep in, after I stayed up all night worrying about the move. We got the call in the morning that he wasn't coming, so I stayed in bed.

We went to the city instead. One of the things we went to the city for was to get cat food that was for urinary tract support, because the stuff at our vet's that we were told we had to get is ungodly expensive. An employee at this store in the city said they carried it, at a much better price, turns out it wasn't the same stuff. That sucked. I'm trying to figure out the grateful part, but I have to say I hate the whole pet food industry, with it's five hundred percent or more markups, the way they keep saying that their product is good for your pet (but then you find out that there is no industry oversight or proof of the nutritional value, or quality assurance). It doesn't make sense to me that regular cat food can give your cat urinary crystals because the ph isn't really right for cats. So you have to buy food three times as expensive (why would it even cost more? They just add a bit of ash or something. They just charge you more because they know you'll pay it to save your babies. Fucking greed.) to keep your cats from getting sick. It's like they have your cat hostage: pay up!!!

I guess we did get some other stuff at the store anyhow.

We went to the art gallery, for the first time in forever, and that was nice, though the main gallery that has the best art wasn't open.

We went to one of our favorite restaurants, and that at least was a thoroughly pleasant experience. I always end up really liking the servers there. They're usually in a really good mood, and willing to banter a bit with me, and there's always something about them that gives you a sense of them as people. It makes me think that this restaurant is a good place to work. It always has good vibes, and good vibes are a rare and precious thing in this world. I've made sure to tell the owner, who is there most of the time, how much I value having a place with wonderful vegan food (I would have eaten it with gusto even before I became a vegetarian), and such a good atmosphere.

I even managed not to get all crazy and hopped up on the coffee this time.

We went to a bookstore, and I found a few things, as did my sweetie. I was frustrated that I couldn't recall at the time the author I was hoping to find (Kurt Vonnegut). For the life of me I couldn't come up with his name, and my google searches didn't help. Only when we were at home did I remember.

Overall, I had a frustrating day. I'm so tired of not having the house on the basement. We are right down to the wire for trying to keep ahead of the cold weather. If it starts getting below -10C we won't be able to keep this house livable on blocks. We also need to have the house on the basement to build the addition, which has to happen immediately, to go over the part of the basement that will be under the addition. Otherwise the basement will be open at that end and we can't heat it. The mover knows this, too.

I'm tired of all the mud everywhere. Our yard is torn up and there are mountains of clay that we can't move yet, and the driveway is a mud pit from all the big equipment driving on it. Every time I step out of the house I'm stepping into mud, and, you got it, we can't fix that until the house is on the basement. Once the house is on the basement, we can get a load of gravel and fix the driveway because that'll be it for the heavy equipment. Until then, I have to walk through mud to do chores, to go see River, to go to town. I can't wear nice shoes, just my giant muck boots.

I was tired all day of how little control I have. I can't make anything go faster. I can't do anything to make this better. Even our dishes now are back in boxes because we think the house move is happening. All the little setbacks in the city like not getting the cheaper price for the cat food and not getting to see the better art that is in the main gallery really got to me. Not remembering that author made me feel like absolutely nothing was in my control anymore. I've been feeling like I'm caught in the same day every day, waking up to a cold house, with cold mud outside, trying to ignore how the yard looks like a torn up war zone, usually waking up to the sound of heavy machinery operating, and my husband being too exhausted to do anything anymore except to dork around on the computer and go to bed. It's been like this for months now. Since May we've been tearing everything up, ruining the yard, driving on the lawn, mud everywhere, piles of wreckage everywhere.

Getting the house on the basement won't fix all of this. It will only mean the next stage of work. The yard will remain a wreckage now for the winter. Next summer won't fix it either, but maybe the mountains of clay will be gone.

In spite of all of this, I am grateful to be getting this house. Grateful that my sweetie can do this kind of work. Grateful for our health and our resourcefulness. Grateful for the help of our friends. Grateful that it is moving along at a reasonable pace, in spite of my perception that it is taking forever.