Shouting into the void

(Warning:  This post is just something I need to get off my chest.  Nothing else.)

My father & step-family spent Christmas waiting for my Stepmom to fade to black in hospice after she suffered an absolutely catastrophic brain aneurysm that week.  Dad was adamant that I not interrupt my holiday with Mom.  Plus a bunch of airports were digging themselves out from under some dreckish weather.  The memorial service (read: scattering of ashes) will be sometime during the more congenial part of the coming year.  So home I returned without ever seeing anyone from that side of the family.

All this went down mere weeks after my father regaled me with the saga of the guest bathroom remodeling and plans for doing the same with the master bathroom in a few years.  At the time, I damned near danced because it meant that he & my Stepmom felt vibrant enough to see themselves getting the use out of the work for years to come. 

When, a few years ago, I called Dad with the details of my sister's funeral, he sounded old.   That was a new experience for me.  But when I called immediately after receiving the news about the aneurysm, he sounded old and beaten.

Then today a completely unexpected call from Dad.  Who sounded more chipper, I'll grant you.  But he was calling because he needed my "official" legal name, SSN, etc. to change the beneficiary info. on all his financial stuff.

Now let's get one thing straight.  To say that financial security is A Big Deal for my father is an understatement large enough to have its own gravitational field.  Otherwise, right now I would be climbing the f***ing walls at the possible implications of that conversation.

That being said...dammitohellalready--what a craptastic feeling to be schlepping around the rest of the day.  It's not what you think.  It's not like I haven't--intellectually at least--squared with losing the 'rents.  (Dearest has already lost both, so don't think that I don't appreciate that, either.)  Also, it's not like I've just been set up for some nasty inheritance fight with my step-siblings--they're all adults and none of them shallow.

It's just don't want to inherit anything, particularly not money.  See, I'm not at all cool with how he made some of it, and I'd prefer to keep my hands clean of that karma.  Okay, there are a few pieces of furniture that I wouldn't turn down, just so I can see them in my mother's living room again.   (There was some disagreement over that kind of thing during the divorce, but I'm sooooo done with sorting out the he-said-she-said; having the stupid things back would shut that up forever.  Or had darned well better shut it up, anyway.)

But I digress.

Mainly I just don't feel the need or desire to be provided-for.  Partly, it's the independent streak talking.  Partly because I inflicted a lot of grief on myself (and, let's face it, plenty of others) by holding onto the anger over that divorce.  I try not to mix "stuff" (including money) and my feelings for people.  (Note the use of the word "try"--no, I don't always succeed where my money shows no--or negative--return on investment.)  I don't believe that Dad does that kind of fire-walling.  So I can't shake the feeling that leaving me anything other than a few odds-n-ends (of sentimental value) is a pay-off of sorts.

In which case, "something" is actually worse than nothing.  Debts to the past aren't fungible.  And I don't want to pretend that they are.  This puts me between the Scylla and Charybis of hurting someone at the end of his life with my version of the truth, and having to compromise who I am.  And I can't see a way around that Kobayashi Maru.

Yet.  If the 'verse grants me a bonus shot of luck--and I've been far, far luckier than I will ever deserve already--I have years to figure something out.

A bit of the old crowd is back

This past week or so, it occurred to me how many of the blogs I used to frequent are now dark and shuttered, so it was good to see the Stupid Evil Bastard get his groovemojo back.  Also, rumour is that Ally Brosh (of Hyperbole and a Half) is actively working on her book (which is a happier event for the fact that it means that she's probably managing her depression more than it means that I can read a new book). 

(Not that I have anything to complain about, being a lapsed blogger multiple times and URLs over, m'self, y'understand... )

But in my defence, the levels of stoopid and crazee coming from south of the border (and shedding their special kind of cooties on the freshly shampooed carpets) are edging kind of high lately.  Soooooo wishing I could schlep about five or so people up here under refugee status.  Whether they liked it or not. ("Oh, just y'all quitcherbellyachin'--remember what happened to Anne Frank?") 


But in the meantime, it's nice to know that I'm not alone in the rage.  And now you know too.

... Fruit Flies Like a Banana *

At the certainty of sounding cliche, it sure doesn't seem like all that crashing around to sell the house in The Old Country was a whole year ago. We had to drop the price twice with the additional insult of ponying up part of the closing costs for the feckless gits who bought the place.  I'm sure they they think of us as slobs, what with Dearest apparently thinking that the rollout dumpster was a Tardis, and my poor timing which resulted in the place not being vacuumed before we rolled out.  (For the record, Dearest had a second dumpster brought in and I sent over a professional carpet cleaner.  Neither of which lessens my embarrassment at the memory of the whole debacle.)

The first trek north was more than a bit surreal, partly thanks to sleep deprivation--and probably just the sheer life-altering change being finally realised.  But after it, I figure I can never count on another bit of luck in my life, what with the left-behind wallet being picked up by a Chicago gas station clerk, plus rain when and where snow and ice should have been a statistical certainty.  The second run for the balance of our stuff (this time in a single vehicle and no critters to worry about) was still a warm summer breeze by comparison.

No question it's worth it.  Even living in one of the "have-not" provinces.  Even having--at the last minute--to switch to contractor status (and thus lose perks like paid time off).  Even living outside the city (with the technical and interpersonal network setbacks that entails).  Even with the disadvantage of being mostly uni-lingual and facing a steep learning curve.  I see the maple leaf and bars flying by our driveway, and think that the battle against rolling back society to the 1880s (on so many levels) is more winnable here.  Mind you, Harper and his goons will put up one hell of a fight--as will the cronyism at the provincial and local levels.

But it'll be over three years until I can vote for or against anyone, so in the meantime, it's best to go heads-down learning French, building up the business, trying to make the local economy a stronger place, and studying for the citizenship exam that I am sooooooo taking the minute I'm eligible.

* Groucho Marx:  "Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana."

Hurry up and fret

Three weeks and change in the future, and nary a nibble on the place. Sigh. I wonder when the blame-game will start with the agent, who was floating the idea of dropping the price after the first week. (A suggestion, I might add, not borne out by the MLS cross-comparison, but it may come to that after this week anyway.)

Unfortunately, working conditions--if not actual work--promised to become unpleasant. The Powers That Be cannot, it seems isolate personnel/performance issues--they merely dilute them at the expense of the solid folks. At least in our area. We're not shy about firing the true losers, mind you--at least there's that mercy. It's all driven by the belief that the good developers/QA people aren't thick on the ground and we have no choice but to make due with anything mediocre or above.

Yet every pep rally speech from The Big Guy (crying wolf for the umpteenth time about how we have to be ready for The Big Break) segues into how we can't do it all ourselves, that we're going to have to re-gear to manage outside (read: offshored) talent. Never mind how many effing miracles I've seen the workhorses pull off over the years. Without, I might add, any productive assistance from said Big Guy, who doesn't understand that his core competence is to 1.) gladhand customers and 2.) Keep the higher-up off our backs. Anything more hands-on than that is negatively productive.

So, yeah, thanks heaps for the vote of confidence, dude. I suppose we should be flattered that he thinks we'll emerge from our technical chrysalises as fully formed project/program managers as naturally as anything six-legged manages to do. But to whine about how we can't find programming talent in the area--two colleges and a tech school notwithstanding--all while reflexively defaulting to offshoring as the solution and not see themselves as part of the problem (at least in the macro-sense)?

What.

The.

Fuck.

Like I needed another reason to move ASAP. Which I suppose is kind of the flip side of working so closely or so long with some folks that they're like family. Sometimes you really need put some distance between you and the office's peculiar brand of insanity, if only to grow into your own skin a little better.

Halcyon evening

We busted our butts, and I think it was worth it. The real estate agent came by tonight to take photos/footage. (I wasn't home at the time, or I would have snarked, "The house is ready for its close-up, Mr. DeMille!" which would probably have earned me a scowl or blank looks--either one deserved.) Dearest, however, reports that she was pleased, judging by her "You guys have been busy!" comment.

Such ridiculousness, this charade of living in a dollhouse while it's liable to be looked at. But if that's what tips the balance in a buyer's mind, I refuse to feel like a fraud: "Never tell the truth to anyone not worthy of it." Or something like that.

Still so much to do...but right now I'm savoring the milestone...and the illusion that it's all a downhill coast from here--with sun and flower-scented breeze at our backs, no less. Now to bed, and, hopefully a smidgeon of decompression/healing.

Forward momentum

There's just something inexpressibly sad about packing up books. It's like telling friends that you don't have time for them right now, and honestly don't know when you'll be able to get together with them. Packing the dollhouse I've had since grade school is a bit rough too--that's become a de facto symbol of having roots in the ground.

I'm not sniveling, mind you. Not in the wake of taping up U-Haul boxes a week ago with nothing less than fierce joy. The pace of this week will be nothing short of grueling--with Dearest bearing more of the brunt of it than I. Then again, pound-for-pound, working for me and mine always spices the exhaustion with exhilaration.

Another inch

Dearest & I signed the contract today to put the house up for sale next month.

Now, were I George W. Bush, I'd put on a flight suit and slap myself on the back under a big ol' "Mission Accomplished" banner. But I'm too busy semi-freaking that we have but couple weeks for a freakin' lot of work to make the place "HGTV-ready" (to quote the broker's semi-sarcastic term.) Once upon a couple incarnations ago, I would have scoffed at pretending that we don't actually live there. But that was before I learned that no one deserves the truth they're not willing to see/hear.

Now, if the Legislative and Executive branches could be considerate enough to not trash the economy and the value of the American dollar in the meantime, I'd be most obliged. I feel like I've already tapped out my lifetime ration of luck with this whole venture, and that the Gods will not be appeased by my offering of sweat and fret.

Another baby step

The first real estate agent (of two scheduled thus far) is coming to look at the place tonight. Dearest has been doing the heavy lifting--literally and figuratively--on schlepping the extraneous stuff off to storage-exile. So much clutter still left to go--what happens when two pack-rats with weird hobbies park under the same roof for nearly a decade.

But incremental progress is progress nevertheless. Being the ex-Physics major, I can smirk all nerdy-hipster smugly and remind myself that velocity, not acceleration, is a part of the formula.

Two down, three to go

The boss-man doesn't have a problem w/having another remote office, although I know from past experience, I've edged myself closer to the chopping block for the next downturn. Was planning to do some serious professional networking once we've landed at our next address anyway.

Had brekky with Dad this morning & gave him the heads-up with the proviso that Mom is not to know until a little of the dust in her life has settled. P.'s not due into town until next month...if then. Best Friend will be the hardest...if I don't start losing it during that, it'll be a miracle.

I feel like I'm hectoring Dearest on the home renovation schedule--I hate that feeling. Couldn't shake that feeling all through crashing out the moving "inventory" for landing, and should have known better than to think I could kiss it goodbye until moving time. Gack.

Next up: Carpet/Linoleum shopping. An ideal couple-building exercise, to be sure... [eyeroll]

One from the Dept. of Small Mercies

Immediate family has been cranking me off a lot lately. Mostly in the sense that I feel like I'm kept outside the loop even when I'm supposed to be in it. Which is enough fodder for crankiness. But this being pushed to the outside of the herd makes it that much more tempting to think that Dad might have actually had a right opinion or two all these years. Fortunately, all I have to do is remember that, even if he did, he did f***-all about it.

But in the grand scheme of things--in this case meaning my life--it does considerably ease the guilt of not sticking around. If the fact that there's no such thing as unlimited, unconditional love from me makes me a bad person...so be it. You might be, in some cases, less obvious about looking at me as the family moneybags. Or--in other cases--bother to live by the "values" into which I was indoctrinated. Or--in all cases--acknowledge that the lessons of the past apply to you.

In one sense, it's liberating to write that. But mostly it's just pathetic. Why? Because it took me so effing long to stop fooling myself that nearly anyone can change, given the right mix of incentives. And that's because the first step is self-awareness--something this branch of the family tree seems to be pretty thin on. Myself included.

Done...and done

Belated post by nearly a month...but on a blog that's been shamefully neglected for closing on a year and a half, it's proverbial coals to Newcastle.

Long-excuse-short, The Gods do, sometimes, look out for fools. This one in particular. Again. Go figure. We're officially permanent residents, with paperwork and everything. Although we need to...you know...actually relocate now. (In all honesty, though, I can't stop myself from envisioning the scenario where we apply for the PR card and then learn that the nice CIC/border agent--with the gorgeously Gallic nose--missed something during the "landing" process, and, well, too bad for us: Do not pass "Go"; do not collect $200.)

It's still largely a secret. Oddly, my (non-Dearest) best friends don't know. Dropping the bomb on Mom has been postponed b/c she's already lost one of her "babies." I don't think Dad--to whom I had to go for certain familial details for the application really takes it seriously. But we've been a full time zone apart since 1979, so what's another time zone, really?

The Office Illuminati d--n sho' don't know. Normally, I'd let the chips fall where they may--"Short-timer's Syndrome" is already setting in. But information is power. And not much insight has been coming my way lately, so I indulge a certain semi-spiteful payback in kind. It won't last much longer, though: It's just not sustainable.

In the meantime, I'm trying to cultivate an ethic of trying to accomplish one thing toward the goal of moving per day. That's not going so well, but the dust is already settling re: recent "extracurriculars," both planned and not. With each little inch forward, though, I can feel the sense of adventure rising, and that's a feeling I wouldn't mind developing an addiction to.

Shout-out to Kansas

I understand that the jury took less than an hour to find "pro-life" Scott Raeder guilty of murdering someone in cold blood after years of low-level terrorism. Now, if only that mouth-breathing thug Phil Kline and the mouthpiece of the anti-choice Al Qaeda (a.k.a. Operation Rescue) could be tried and convicted as collaborators, I'd call the justice complete.

I've said it before, but I don't think it can be stressed enough: If these douchebags would give a tenth of the hyperventilating to the children who die of malnourishment, disease, genocide, disaster, abuse, etc., we could have a productive discussion. But to them the abstract of a fetus or a happy middle class white baby on a billboard is all that matters. It might be more productive trying to have a rational discussion with a rabid pit-bull in heat.

Big ups to the prosecutors in this case for the immediate accomplishment and also for demonstrating that the entire state hasn't in fact gone over to the Religious Reich.

Really, PHP, really?!?!?!?!

If I want to use an HTML <SELECT> drop-down list that allows the user to select multiple items, PHP requires that its name end with a pair of square brackets, []. Otherwise, PHP only recognizes the last selected item. Wow, even Microsoft's much-maligned "classic" ASP can do better than that.

I guess I'm just stunned by the arrogance of a language that required programmers to change standard HTML naming conventions to process REQUEST data. That the naming conventions will mostly likely break any JavaScript references to the <SELECT> list is even more stupefying.

Documents in Montreal

FedEx came through, and the package representing much collective effort (on my part and Dearest's) was delivered--so far as I know--without incident. I'm annoyed with the paralegal for not replying to Tuesday night's email asking him to skim the list of enclosed documents had any red flags. Will nag tonight. On to finding something else to fret about, be it a screw-up on my/our part or a particularly crabby CIC agent reviewing our app. & documentation or whatever...

Second milestone (hopefully) reached

Two pounds of paper in a FedEx envelope, sixty-four bucks on my credit card, and a guilty twinge of my conscience over the carbon footprint of overnighting something to Montreal, all before my first cup of coffee. Hopefully, that's all that's needed to convince the CIC folks that they should let us in as productive members of Canadian society.

No red carpet required--nay, nary even a butler to open the door while the valet parks the car. Just pretty-please-with-organic-fair-trade-chocolate-sauce-on-top no more having to take off in the middle of the day to stand in front of desks or counters. No more freakout moments of "Oh, $#!+--we were supposed to have that notarized!" No more digging through boxes to find documents that have no relevance to our day-to-day existence. No more being told that we'll have to pay handsome fees for 6-8 week waits. And for love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, no more gut-dropping moments when we realize that some faceless bureaucracy has dropped the ball.

But most importantly, I just hope that we have, in fact, dotted all "i"s and crossed all "t"s. After the package--His Noodliness willing--lands on the paralegal's desk tomorrow morning, the second round of waiting begins. I'm not particularly good at waiting, but given the choice between waiting and scrambling...yeah.

My subconscious still surprises me at times

Normally, I think it's boorish to talk about dreams, but I was just surprised to find that my subconscious is so slow on the uptake.

Backstory: There's a recurring theme in my dreams where I am present when my (maternal) grandparents' graves are unearthed--sometimes with purpose, sometimes through freakish accident. Another theme is that I'm venturing into their house (which was control-burned by the Fire Dept. something like 20 years ago). Once, Grandma was somehow alive despite the fact I knew in the dream that she wasn't supposed to be.

I lost an uncle just over a month back, and last night was the first night I returned in my dreams to the house in which he and my aunt (still living, albeit in a nursing home) shared for decades. Almost returned, anyway--I woke up before the fact. Now I wonder how often I'll be returning in sleep to that house, which is on the opposite end of the road on which my grandparents' house stood.

...And yet you will weep, and know why...It is Margaret you mourn for...

Nice call-out

I can't say I'm a fan of what's become of health care reform, particularly given the anti-choice poison-pills and the big fat, chocolate-dipped giveaway to insurance companies in the form of the coverage mandate. Frankly, I hope the reconciled version dies and the process begins again--with rather less hysteria. What will be remembered of the 2009 putsch, though, is how close it came...and that the GOP lost the round.

That being said, I thought that the smackdown the Associated Press handed the hypocrites in the Grandstanding Old Party was ace: Democrats see GOP Hypocrisy in health care debate.

The bleat that "the economy has changed since the Medicare expansion" just doesn't wash. When you pass an entitlement in perpetuity, do you assume that the coffers will be full and still expect to balance a budget during the lean times? I call bull$#!+ on that line of self-excusing spin. Particularly as the economy was rather precarious even after things settled down post-9/11. I knew it at the time, and I've had six whole credits of Economics. And these so-called leaders couldn't figure that out? Really?

Just goes to show what not having to do your own grocery shopping and balance your own checkbook does to your mindset, I guess. Man, I hope these pinheads are handed their heads in 2010...

D-minus way-too-friggin'-little

The second to last piece dropped into our laps last night, largely thanks to Dearest's persistence, and the last piece was handed to me early this evening. All should--Flying Spaghetti Monster willing--be safely stashed in the fire safe now. Weather permitting, I should be able to FedEx the whole lot to the paralegal no later than Monday.

I won't moon Fate by considering this a done deal: There could be any number of hurdles, delays and other bureaucratic nightmares in store--in fact, I'll be shocked if there are not. But I'm celebrating this milestone nevertheless...and toasting from my usual half-empty cup, hoping that I/we haven't overlooked something. I just wish that I could share the Snoopy-dance with a few more folks.

My most immediate boss took the news pretty well, all in all, and was actively looking to find ways to keep me working for the firm even after the (still hypothetical) move goes down many months hence. Which was quite touching. Still is, actually.

D minus 70

Finally was able to drop the bomb on the boss as discreetly as possible. It seemed to go well enough, particularly as I held out the possibility of either working as a contractor or with folks already up there. The funny part is that he asked me to write the first draft of my own job documentation letter for the immigration service. Tonight's gonna be full, with the workout and all.

D minus 88

My second-to-last document came in today. I'm holding off asking for a letter of reference (more like a description of what I do, but oh, well...) for a bit longer, for reasons that should be obvious. Dearest's last school is driving me up a wall--I'm almost ready to grab the wheel on this bus and make life miserable for the superior of the woman who's supposed to be (but patently isn't) figuring out why there's no record of graduation on file.

Grrrrrrr....and I thought I loathed the gatekeepers at my last mega-corporation job... Then again, it's been about a decade since the last time I had to push the "Screaming Unreasonable Bitch" button, so maybe I'm due.

This had better be worth the annoyance and expense. But, on the positive side as of next Monday, it will be illegal to use a cellphone (the usual way) while driving in the province of Ontario. Something that should be a no-brainer, but you could line up American idiots from here to the moon who will scream that insisting that they stop endangering other people's lives is a violation of free speech. Actually, I rather like the prospect of lining them up to the moon, because that means that most of them will have to be in space, which will definitely keep them off the roads...and hopefully chlorinate the gene pool in the process.

So maybe the annoyance isn't quite so annoying nor the expense quite so dear...assuming that the immigration process goes reasonably smoothly, of course.