Author: Rae

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Crunch Time

I’m pretty much in melt down mode now (par for the course for me when I move), but am better than I was four hours ago.

When I picked up Miranda in July, I didn’t have the tow pins, so I couldn’t hitch up the car. The previous owner was going to be out of town for several weeks, so I set all thoughts of the pins aside until he got back. When he did, he questioned if the pins really belonged to me or came with the base plate. By the time I got an answer about that, and learned that no place in town has the pins in stock and they would all take at least two weeks to get some in for me (!!!), the PO was unreachable and… it was 4:30 today. I came up with several contingency plans for getting both Miranda and Pommette back in town by Saturday. None were pretty. Then the phone rang at 4:45 and it was the PO, out of town, but back tomorrow. I can pick up the pins at 5PM. Crisis averted. PHEW.

I woke up at 6:15 this morning in full panic mode and made up several more boxes before leaving for work an hour and a half later. I really don’t have that much left to do, but it’s all spread out and looks worse than it is. I’ve also essentially ‘lost’ an evening. Tomorrow, I’m driving out to North Gower to pick up Miranda, and I’ll drop her off at the mechanic’s where she’ll undergo an oil change on Friday morning.

Friday afternoon, I’ll go pick her up and drive her here to fill her up as much as I have time for. Then I’m going to a sports arena a few blocks from my place that allows overnighting in an RV at no charge!!! How convenient is that?! I was surprised to find not only this option, but also TWO Wal-marts within a ten minute drive. Ssh, don’t tell Gatineau! They’ll shut down that practise if they get wind of it.

So, Friday night I’ll sleep in the moho at the arena with the catkids and be back here bright and early on Saturday morning. I’ll have time to clean the house before my friend shows up to help me with the mattress.

Then, it’s off to the municipal dump to get Miranda weighed, the grocery store for supplies, and, finally, the campground for some well deserved downtime and BEER.

This is my seventh move in ten years. One would think I’d have such an event down to a science by now, but I’m not. Each move has been very different. I’m just so tired of it and hope that I can RV for a few years.

Things are so rushed right now that I have to remind myself that this time next week, I’ll be trying to wind down in preparation for the big departure the next morning. I might not feel ready, but “There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.” (Tennessee Williams)

Eight sleeps left!

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Removing Tar From a Car

When I was out and about on Saturday, I noticed a long scratch down the passenger’s door of my car. Disgruntled, I examined it more closely and realised that it was actually a streak of something that I could flick away with my fingernail.

I suddenly remembered that when I got back to Mr. Wonderful’s street on Thursday to pick up Pommette, the owner of the house in front of which she was parked was tarring his driveway….

My heart in my throat, I took a closer look at the car and realised that the whole passenger side, windshield, front, and part of the driver’s side was flecked with tar. I hadn’t noticed because of the way she’s parked at home. Yes, I’d noticed that the windshield was messy, but didn’t really think that much of it.

At any rate, I was pissed off about how much money and time I was going to have to spend to clean up the car.

I got home, did some Googling and came up with a list of possible solutions, from the supposedly undamaging to the ‘definitely works, but you’ll strip the finish and need rewax the car.’

Tonight, I finally had a half hour to kill to try out these solutions and figure out how much time it was going to take to clean the car completely.

Twenty-five minutes later, I had a shiny, non-damaged, and clean car.

The answer to tar on your car is…

Baking soda!!!

I sprayed the car with water, then sprinkled baking soda all over. I used a raggedy wash cloth to rub away all the tar. Minimum elbow grease was needed. When I was done, I used the hose to rinse the baking soda from the car.

I didn’t even get dirty. Or wet.

*heaves a huge sigh of relief*

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More Frustration

Well, I’ve wound up getting a new phone number.

As it turns out, Virgin Mobile could have ported my old number over to the mobile… had my internet service provider, Vidéotron, been willing to cooperate. They were not. I spoke to an absolutely vile woman this afternoon. But that doesn’t surprise me, all the customer service reps there need to have an attitude adjustment. I would have still gone with them, though, had I moved within the city because the tech guys rock. They are sub-contractors who are in the right business. In case that wasn’t clear, if you’re in Quebec and you have a choice between Bell and Vidéotron, pick the latter. Their reps aren’t as helpful as Emily, but their tech guys won’t make it necessary for you to traipse to the telephone pole with your ladder in the dark in minus 20 weather to fix their bad wiring job.

But, I digress.

So, having my pick of any area code in the country, I decided for a Victoria-based number (area code 250). I anticipate being in that area for several months and having a ‘local’ number will make government job hunting easier. I have the option to change my number later, of course, and local calls (say to Calgary from Calgary or Saskatoon from Saskatoon) are charged the local per minute rate, not the long distance rate, no matter my number’s area code. So, really, this was self indulgence on my part. 🙂

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There is No Love Lost…

Between the city of Gatineau and myself. It’s no secret that I have nothing to recommend about this backward money-grubbing city and that the only way I could have survived another couple of years in this area would have been by returning to Ottawa.

One of the biggest issues I have is the draconian parking enforcement. Here are two examples:

1) One day, I parked my car in front of my house at about ten to five during the week. The way parking is set up at my house is that I have to drive down a narrow laneway and then park in the backyard. To get to the car, I have to go down a flight of stairs. In the front, though, I only have two steps to go down. So, I had parked on the street in order to fill the car for some excursion or another. During the week, I’m only allowed to park one hour in front between the hours of 8 and 6PM, so I needed to be out of the spot by ten to six, then move the car for ten minutes. Well, with seven minutes left on the metre, a parking enforcement officer came by and told me that he was watching me and that if I wasn’t gone in exactly seven minutes, I was going to get a ticket. He could see that I lived there and was loading boxes and that there were a ton of empty spaces on the street. He could have let me have those ten minutes. Instead, he sat there staring at his watch while I shut up the car, drove down my laneway, parked in the back, did a couple more loads up and down the stairs, and then came back to the front once 6 came. He was still there, making sure I didn’t repark until it was 6:01.

2) I’m beginning to fear that I will be rushed on Saturday morning. I need to drive to North Gower, boost the coach, and hook up the car for the first time. A friend is meeting me at 9:30 to move the mattress in and I need to be out of there for noon. So, I thought that I could bring the coach up on Friday. I don’t trust the neighbourhood, so I would sleep in it with my cellphone kept closeby. That would give me all of Friday night to get the coach loaded. I called the city of Gatineau to see if this was okay and made one heck of a mistake: I told the lady where I live. She informed me that I cannot park on my street, no exceptions, not even to load the coach on Saturday. She said that she knows my address and is looking forward to sending someone over on Saturday to ticket me.

I’m fairly sure this is just talk on her part to discourage me, but Saturday night onward I am sleeping in Ottawa and I will never, ever return to this city to live ever again.

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Joining the 21st Century

I got my first cell phone today.

I’ve never had any use for such a trinket, but I know having one will make sense in the context of my adventure since I won’t be able to rely on internet access.

Canada is woefully behind the times in the telecommunications choices available, so I didn’t have many carriers and plans to compare. Also, I knew exactly what I wanted, and only one could provide it:

  • a cheap phone (under 50$);
  • no contract;
  • a low monthly fee for voice mail and a low activation fee;
  • no other costs except the minutes I use;
  • the minutes have to be good for a long period of time;
  • I can keep my current number;
  • coverage is country-wide

I chose Virgin Mobile.

The phone was 49.99$, I don’t have a contract, there is no fee for voice mail AND activation; I will be paying per the minute; my 100$ worth of minutes are good for a year; I can keep my number; and they use Bell Mobility’s coverage area, which has the most coverage. That’s the best I could hope for in this country.

Of course, there is a catch. My 100$ worth of minutes come at the expense of 30 cents per minute for local calls and voice mail checking, and 60 cents per minute for long distance calls, both incoming and outgoing. So, this won’t be a phone for chatting, but I don’t chat on the phone anyway. I can check in with my family occasionally by pay phone with a long distance calling card.

If things change and I find myself racing through my minutes, then I can upgrade to a monthly plan.

Apparently, I have free call display, too, so I can decide whether to take a call or not, saving me some minutes.

In order to ‘port over’ my existing telephone number, I have to do a juggling act with my current phone provider. VM told me to have my internet disconnect, but to keep the phone for two days. So, I’ll call on Monday to have the internet disconnected on Saturday morning and the phone on Monday.

Virgin Mobile has been a pleasure to deal with so far. Staff is friendly and knowledgeable and there is absolutely no bullshit. I researched them online and then went to speak with a sales representative. I then emailed them to confirm what the sales rep told me before going back to the store and purchasing. The sales and customer service reps I spoke to in the research phase listened to what I wanted and proposed exactly what I had come up with on my own during my research. They never once tried to sell me anything else. I didn’t even get the ‘Of you buy a phone that’s X$ more, you’ll get all these cool extra features’ spiel I was expecting. Today, I went to the kiosk and said “I want your cheapest phone and a 100$ prepaid card” and that was that. The rep didn’t try to sell me any accessories or suggest a monthly plan. After all the horror stories I’ve heard of people getting locked into contracts and otherwise getting screwed by mobile phone companies, I’m relieved to say I made a clean getaway. Of course, we’ll see how good service is once I’m actually hooked up with them and using their services. 🙂