Cats in an RV

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Hanging Out in the Garage

I just spent an hour in the garage with my brood. I just set up a chair, sat down with my iPad, and next thing I knew, I had a purring black cat snuggled in for a nap on my lap. Neelix was happy with a cuddle at departure and arrival.

That my tabby is okay with life in the garage is no surprise; he is completely unflappable. But that Tabitha hasn’t been hiding except for the one time I went in with my mother is very surprising. The garage obviously feels safe to her.

I’m amused that I put her favourite blanket in a dark, hidden corner and that either she or Neelix pulled it out and arranged it right smack in the middle of the garage floor. Even though she can’t stand her brother, I’ve caught both of them happily snuggled on that blanket. Cats, I’ll never understand them. 🙂

 

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Homeless Again

Miranda is waiting in the street to be brought to the repair place in a couple of hours. I’ve moved what I think I will need for the next couple of weeks into my mother’s house. The next big chore is to get a semblance of an office set up.

I have pretty much lost two weeks of work this month, which is really going to hurt come July 1st. Doing transcription was out of the question for most of the last two weeks, but, thankfully, I got a small translation contract that is going to make a big difference in the coming weeks. I just hope I have tons and tons of work in the next two weeks to make up for such a poor start in June. I’m still in much better shape financially than I have been in a while, even with all these extra expenses and all the lost income, so I’m okay! It’s very tight, but not so bad that I can’t soothe my nerves tonight with some sushi. 🙂

The plan for this afternoon is that I will go park Miranda at the repair shop with my step-mother following in my truck (she hasn’t driven standard in ages so this has the potential for hilariousness). I’ll then drive us back home. In the morning, I’ll take off to meet the repair folks. I was relieved to learn that I am booked in for two hours, so I should have plenty of time to discuss the work I want done beyond the stuff covered by the insurance. I really think that getting that work done and waiting till the fall to set up the truck for towing is my best bet since I am not going to want to move out of my home again for several years after this!

Bitha and Nee are now living in the garage. My girl clung to me and cried and cried when I brought her in there. I’ve never seen her behave like that. If this change of environment stress does anything to my cats, I will be out for blood!

Have I mentioned recently just how exhausted I am?

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More Upheaval Ahead

Tomorrow’s job will be to get Miranda ready for her visit to the repair shop first thing on Friday. I am going to make a run out to the repair shop in the morning to make sure I know the exact way I should go with Miranda to avoid having to do a U-turn. I am also going to ask if a) I can bring her tomorrow night (since it’ll be easier to coordinate a lift back than it would be Friday morning) and b) if I can leave her until the repairs are completed.

Regardless, Miranda is going to be in the shop for some time. It therefore makes sense that I move into the guest room tomorrow. So I’m going to have to empty the rig of pretty much everything I took out when I moved into The Apartment. The fridge and freezer have to be empty so I can turn them off, I need clothes, and, of course, all my office equipment needs to come. Somewhere in all of that, I have to figure out how to make the garage a safe and tolerable environment for Tabitha and Neelix.

I’m just so tired… It has now been a solid month and a half, with no end in sight, of being out of my routine and my home not really feeling like home.

The trip out west cost more than I would have expected (although there is no question I did it cheaply), so I’m much tighter for money now than I would like. I had hoped to come back with money to both set up the new toad for towing and to effect repairs on Miranda. Now, I can do one or the other only at this time. I’ve decided to get an estimate on the work to be done to Miranda before deciding on how to proceed. I may get the work done on Miranda and save up to get the truck converted in the fall. I hope that the RV place can do the conversion on the truck so that I can get in one stop a full picture of what it’ll cost to get the work done on my rig.

One thing that happened when I was out west that I failed to mention is that I got a call from an adjuster in Montreal who was hired by the moron’s insurance company to evaluate my $2,700 claim for lost expenses and the trip out west. He wants to meet me in person and we are doing that next Friday (June 22nd). Ridiculous. For $2,700 with supporting documentation, they would have been best to just cut me a cheque and make me sign “By accepting this, I give up the right to sue” paperwork. Now, I’m going to do the math on the trip and will be revising that figure. It just keeps going up the more no one wants to pay me…

The adjuster says that if I’m not covered by Aviva, I’m not covered. But that’s horse hockey. There is plenty of wiggle room in my policy to cover my claim. A good part of it could go under the travel interruption portion and the rest could be squeezed into the household good portion. Aviva should have acted on my behalf, as I requested they do, and presented that claim to the third party themselves. I shouldn’t have to do this.

My adjuster at Aviva SUCKS. The adjuster at Intact went out of her way to use the spirit of my policy to benefit me while my adjuster at Aviva is making sure it not only sticks to the letter of the policy, but has also lied about my coverage and shown a complete lack of understanding of the policy. You’d think she was paying out of her own pocket.

My insurance policy with Aviva comes due in September and I am actively shopping for a replacement. No one else has a product comparable to Aviva’s Elite policy, but surely there’s someone out there who could tailor make a policy. At any rate, I can’t renew my Aviva policy in good conscience without looking for alternatives, not with the amount of good press I gave this company before having to make a NOT AT FAULT claim.

 

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I Feel Like I’m On Another Planet

Oh, Quebec… Hated living here but I love, love, love visiting!

Being overdue for a Walmart run and having access to the car for a few precious hours, I  headed out this morning for the first time to the Quartier Dix30 (Ten30 Neighbourhood, because it’s at the intersection of autoroutes 10 and 30).  To me, this mega complex, that would rival the West Edmonton Mall if it was enclosed, is new, but it’s of course been here a while. It took a bit of navigation to find the Walmart, so new that it doesn’t even have a Walmart sign on the exterior.

I hadn’t been in there a minute that I was grinning, listening to a husband and wife have a quiet argument. Husband was ranting in English and wife was trying to calm him down in French. During my shopping I caught associates doing the same thing, one talking to another in French and getting English responses. Even though French is my first language, I make sure I’m exposed to it everywhere I live, and I spoke tons of it in Dawson City, it still sounds so exotic after not living in a French environment for almost four years.

The actual shopping experience was horrible because Quebec has a European-style culture of ‘the customer is not my bread and butter, it is a disturbance’, but I knew that going in and kept telling myself, “Réspire par le nez” (breathe through the nose), a common expression meaning, “Relax!”

They were having an amazing deal on the Omega Paw litter box, so I picked up a new one (and I even managed to score the bronze one that I have been coveting because it will blend in better with my decor). The clasps on the one I got in Campbell River are worn, so the box leaks when I roll it. There is also the matter that even with cleaning it completely once a week, a litter box retains odours. I used to buy a litter box a year, so having done a year and a half with my litter box in no way reflects on the quality of the product. My review of the Omega Paw litter box still stands; best litter box ever!

Now that it’s almost summer, I’ll be having tomato sandwiches for breakfast for the foreseeable future and I was out of tomatoes. So I made a stop at IGA to grab some. I don’t know what it is about the produce out here, but it lasts longer. Then again, Jody agrees with me that the produce in Lethbridge is terrible. I’d slice a tomato there and the next day the leftovers would be mouldy. Here, a tomato can last me for three sandwiches/days. They also taste like tomatoes here.

Quebec grocery stores are nothing like the grocery stores out west. There’s a lot more ‘ethnic’ stuff, especially Middle Eastern, and a lot more gourmet products. It’s so lovely to have access to not just pita bread again, but a variety of it, and stocked by a store that knows that pita bread is supposed to be soft! And let’s not get into the options for hummus. I used to be a bit of a purist, but I’m starting to like the ones with add-ins. I went with roasted red pepper today. 🙂

Another difference is that some products that are really expensive out west are cheaper in Quebec. I’m thinking specifically of grey shallots. I occasionally splurged on a mesh bag of three or four of them for about $5 in Lethbridge. Here, I bought a big box with more than 10 for about $2. Cheese and yoghurt are also cheaper. My favourite kind of yoghurt is about 50 cents cheaper here at regular price and I got some $2 cheaper on sale. Finally, when my favourite brand of frozen pizza goes on sale here, the whole brand goes on sale, not just a few flavours. Yay for a freezer full of $3 Dr. Oetker Hawaiians. 🙂

I really hope that I’ll be able to get out and explore Quebec this summer. I think that once I have my new toad set up for camping, it’ll be really motivated to go out for three-day weekends. I’d especially like to get to Charlevoix and maybe even as far as Gaspé. But if I do that, I might as well keep going and visit the last province on my list, Newfoundland!

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Intact Insurance Claim Resolution

My cheque from Intact insurance for the car settlement arrived this morning! Since I’d already done several hours of work today, I decided to take a break and walked over to BMO to pay off the car loan and have the balance given to me as a draft.

I was concerned that because the cheque was made to my name and BMO’s, they could try to apply the balance of the cheque to the motorhome loan, meaning I would have to take the cheque back, have the insurance company pay BMO directly, and then wait for a new cheque for the balance. I almost went that route and kicked myself for not going through with it.

Needless to say, my pulse started racing when the teller said, “Okay, this more than covers the car loan. Do you want me to apply the balance to the motorhome loan?”

“No! Please! I’m on foot! I can’t use my motorhome as a daily driver!”

She laughed. “No. No. Don’t worry. I have to call the insurance company to confirm that the cheque is good. At the same time, I’ll make sure that it’s for the car and not related to the motorhome loan. Then, I can do a draft for the balance.”

It took nearly an hour for all of that to happen, but I walked out with a bank draft for nearly $8,000, which is more than enough for the truck, towing equipment, a year’s worth of insurance, and some left over to get work done on Miranda.

Next, I walked to CIBC to deposit the bank draft. I was shocked to learn that they have to put a week-long hold on it! It’s a bank draft, as good as cash! Apparently, this is a brand new policy; the memo came out just a couple of days ago. The teller said that she would ‘fax Toronto’ and that I could call them this evening or tomorrow morning and they will lift the hold. Anyway, it’s unlikely that I will be flying to Alberta this week, so a few days’ hold is fine.

Thumbs up to Intact insurance. This was a painless claim!

From CIBC, I decided I might as well go pick up cat food and decided that an extra couple of kilometres would be less tiring than going to the grocery store across from the bank and carrying the bag all the way home. So I’d planned on a 5.5KM walk and ended up doing 7.5KM. After several days of typing, it sure felt good to get out and take in some fresh air!