(No, you're not crazy: yes, some of these posts are out of place or out of order. That's how my life is at the moment ...)
I've lost C. S. Lewis. I've also lost my passport. Not really, of course. I know that I packed C. S. Lewis (or, his books, anyway), and I'm even reasonably sure that he made it to Port Alberni, since I'm pretty sure that I've seen the box, multiple times, since I got here. I just can't find it right now. Which is annoying, out of all proportion to it's real important, since that was the books that I wanted to unpack, onto the bookshelves, next.
The girls have done a fantastic job at unpacking, placing furniture, assembling my new desk, and fixing the bookshelves, slated for the hallway, firmly to the wall. When you've got very tall Billy bookcases, and lots of books, that's a pretty significant requirement. So I now have lots of bookshelf space in the hallway to unpack my books. I found the Bibles, and they have been unpacked, in pride of place, right in the middle of the wall of bookshelves. I wanted C.S. Lewis to be shelved nearby, as part of the religious section. And I can't find him. It's annoying. In my current fragile mental state, it was annoying enough that was impeding my ability to proceed with unpacking anything else and shelving other sections of books. But I did it anyways. I've got five shelves of books unpacked and set up so far.
Yesterday I went to vote. Remembering, at the last minute, that I had planned to do so. And, of course, needing extra identification in order to do so, since I'm not on the election list. That's when I realized I've lost my passport. And I've lost it fairly recently, since I had to have it, to identify myself to the lawyers, when I paid for the house. Hopefully it's not lost either, I just don't know where it is.
I am losing things. And, maybe, I am losing it. One of the things that I am very much missing, not having Internet at my residence, is the ability to dictate reminders to myself. I seem to have become rather dependent upon this tool. Possibly it's related to the bereavement brain, noted earlier, which I haven't noted recently, but which is possibly still in evidence, just covered up by my adaptations, such as the tool of dictating reminders to myself. On the other hand, possibly it is not the bereavement brain, but the sleep deprivation that I have been living under for at least a month, as well as the disturbance involved in moving again but then again, maybe, as well as losing C. S. Lewis and my passport, I'm losing my marbles.
I am starting to figure some things here in my new place. (What do I call it? Is it a house? Is it a townhouse? Is it an apartment? One of the oddities to decide, now that I am, for the very first time, a homeowner.)
Anyway, things that I am figuring out. I have done a pretty good job of organizing the kitchen, if I do say so myself. I have set up at least one of the china cabinets, displaying knick knacks, and received expressions of approval from the girls. Which is important, since I am a guy, and therefore have no sense of design.
I am figuring out where to place at least one fan, to deal with the temperature, which is different than the other places that I have lived recently, of course. I like to have the bedroom cool, possibly even cold. The afternoon sun comes in the windows for the living room, and the entire place gets pretty warm. At this point in the year not excessively so, and I haven't tried out the air conditioner yet. But I figured that the nights, which are pretty nippy these days, should be enough to cool down the bedroom with the window open. Apparently not: it needs some assistance from fan. And I finally figured out a reasonable placement for the fan to do that. Just one more adaptation that I need to do in this new place. I'm figuring out places to put things, and also spaces, available to me, to use for storage. For example, there are the cupboards in the china cabinets, that do not have glass fronts, and so do not display things. They are available as storage. But they are all in the living room, and I haven't yet thought of anything that I need to store in the living room, and have available, but do not need to be displayed. However, it could be used for storage. The first thing I thought of was the log cabin quilt. I don't need it right now, since the weather hasn't got cold enough to need both the quilt and the duvet. So it's been sitting, in a bag, on the top shelf in my closet. But, today, I thought of putting it in storage in the china cabinets. That means it has, in a sense, pride of place in terms of storage, and is available if anyone comes over and wants to see it. I might put some other similar materials in there: there are the decorative pillows for our bed, for example. These aren't things that I, as a guy, really care about, or want to put on, and take off, my bed. But I don't just want to throw them out, so maybe I will put them in storage in the china cabinet. There's also a quilt that came with the set of linens that Gloria liked, and match the duvet cover, and it could go into storage there as well, along with the extra mattress protector, which, when I hauled the existing mattress protector out of the dryer the other day, I noted that I may need to use fairly soon. So, ideas about how to exist in, and use, this new space.
The new appliances are presenting various problems. A few days ago, we put in the bedding for from Delta, which, on moving day, I had just hauled off the bed and stuffed into a garbage bag, knowing that the washing machine in Port Alberni was larger than that in Delta, and that, in any case, I had both a spare bed, and spare bedding for my existing bed. As noted, having done one cycle for the mattress protector, the load of linen, and my towel, went through its cycle, but when I asked it for an extra rinse, it showed me an error code, and has refused to do anything at all since. I have tried it a couple of times since then hoping that it might clear itself up. But it hasn't. The owner's manual, and quick start guide, do not mention anything about this error code, but then neither has any section on troubleshooting. I cannot, of course, look up any additional documentation or any issues regarding Whirlpool washing machines in this particular error code, because, of course, I do not have access to the Internet. [Sigh.]
Somebody suggested that it might be due to stuff impeding the door. There was nothing anywhere near the door, but I opened it up, took everything out, refluffed it, and put it all back, just in case. Nope, no luck. When I try to turn it on I still get the Loc code and it does absolutely nothing.
Anyway, I continued on, checked out the library (yes, it is closed on Sunday ), and went down to check out the atmospheric effect on the river at the bottom of Johnson. I was a lot closer to it, even though it seemed to be hugging the far/west/Soomas? side of the river and was quite low down to the water. But, in the few minutes that I stayed there, it started expanding across the water, generally in my direction, with the columns growing taller, up to about five feet sometimes. It was really quite an interesting phenomenon. I wonder if there are First Nations legends or traditions about this being some kind of "spirits of the ancestors moving to the next life" type idea. It does seem like a whole mob of ghosts moving to some unknown destination.
Anyway, I headed back, intending to get to church in time for what I thought was 8:45 Sunday school. I checked out wifi signals on churches on the way. The Christian reform church seems to have two wifi signals associated with it, both protected by passwords. When I went by the gateway church, they didn't seem to have any wifi signal. Then again, they don't need it. They are right across the street from the Shaw office, which is broadcasting a very strong Shaw Open wifi signal. No particular surprise there.
I got to the church, and it was locked up tight. However I also found out that I had misread the sign board: Sunday school was 9:45. Which seems a bit brief, unless the parents were only wanting to dump their kids on Sunday school, and then take the time to socialize a bit before the service, which seemed a promising sign. I went home, dumped gloves and toque and headed back, getting there just in time to see the minister opening the place up. We chatted for a bit, I found out that they have a Bible study Tuesday at 10:00 a.m., but almost the very first thing the minister felt the need to tell me was that they practice closed communion, and I would have to take catechism classes if I was going to become a member and be allowed to take communion. Since communion has been very important to me this past year (somewhat surprisingly so ), I figured that maybe I would go to their bible study on Tuesday, but try another church for the service. So I went up to another church.
Initially, the church was not terribly promising. A number of people did greet me, but it was American level greetings: smile, superficially friendly, not going anywhere beyond "hi." And, when I went down for the coffee time after the service, the same thing happened. The church members were all talking to each other, I was standing on the edges, nobody was talking to me. But then one did, and another, and I had a really good, and lengthy, discussion with one member of the church, and later with the pastor. They also had a Bible study at 7:00 in the evening, and so I did go back for that, and again had a discussion with another member, who also lost his wife this past February, and drove me home, and we talked in the parking lot for probably an hour. So, some promising indications there. They also have a prayer and praise time on Tuesday evenings, so I think I will go along to that. I will probably a different church for next Sunday morning service.
However, before all of that, and actually during the service, I got a call back from Josh. He essentially did confirm that no service could be provided until about 2023. He did promise to get somebody to call me back about keeping Gloria's number on a cell phone.
So, I did call the Shaw installer, and got an appointment for installation.
I did also get a couple more boxes of books onto the hall bookshelves, and managed to find the box of Lewis books, which, of course, in some resourcing of piles ended up on the very bottom. I am not putting anything on the shelves in the office just yet, since running cables is easier if you can move bookshelves.
And, yet another example of me being frazzled and completely mentally incompetent: I have been wondering where my office wastebasket was, and couldn't find it. It is, of course, in the office on top of the box of oversized items, in plain sight.
Putting together my computer requires that I find the USB adapter, which I have carefully put away someplace safe, and now can't remember where that safe place is, and has driven me to check out a box of electrical equipment, which contains a bunch of my phones, reminding me that all of that phone equipment is useless, since I will not have a landline for the foreseeable future. Argh.
I finally found the USB hub that I was looking for. Apparently that was where I put all the stuff from the desk to do with the computer at the last minute when I packed it. Including things like my keyboard and mouse and backup drive and other things which would have been absolutely necessary to get the computer up and running anyway. And then covered it up with telephone stuff, which of course are completely surplus to requirements right now.
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