WHOOPS

My website was down for most of the evening so I was unable to write the follow-up post to yesterday’s gripping yarn of a tale. It’s well after 2am here and my site just went back up. I need to go sleep now. I’ll be back tomorrow with real content.

THE COUCH SOFA

My new couch sofa was indeed delivered today but it was not without incident. I am too tired to get into all the details so I’ll just do the terrible thing of teasing something and then not writing about it until tomorrow. You have my apologies for that.

THE NEIGHBOUR

In my building, every floor has an apartment that faces the elevators. On my floor, there’s a dude who lives in that apartment. From what I can tell, he’s lived there for many years, I’d say five to seven years if I had to guess. In that time, I think I’ve seen him twice.

Since I use the elevators a lot (who doesn’t in an apartment building?), I’m often standing outside his door, waiting for the elevators to come. I don’t think I have ever heard any noise from his apartment; no sounds from a TV or any music. I haven’t heard anything like a blender or sounds of cooking. The apartment is quiet all the time.

The two times I saw this dude were quite interesting. The first time was out in the hallway of our floor. I must have been waiting for the elevator. He was outside his unit and he was complaining that he couldn’t be home for smoke alarm inspections. They had put a notice on his door that they couldn’t get into his unit for such inspections. I am guessing that he’s away during the day for work and can’t be home to open the door for the inspectors. I am also guessing he’s got no one to give his keys to so they can be home for him. That is all very understandable. I had sympathy for him.

The second memory of seeing this guy is a bit fuzzy. I believe that I had to get up very early in the morning one day. This might be when I was going on a trip somewhere. It was something very crazy early like 5am or 6am, a time that I’m not usually awake, let alone waiting for the elevators in my building. There he was, also waiting for the elevator. I think we had some small talk, very briefly, before the elevator arrived.

I don’t want to say this guy was reclusive but in the many years we’ve both lived on this floor, I’ve only seen him twice. I have never seen him on a weekend. I have never seen him getting his mail. If he walked past me on the street, I probably wouldn’t even recognize him since it’s been years since I last saw him.

Last week, I saw a note on his door. I couldn’t but help read it was I waited for an elevator. His landlord had been trying to reach him many times without a response from him. He hadn’t forwarded his rent cheque for April. The landlord would be entering the unit for inspection today (if you’re reading this as a new post). The note addressed him by his first name, so now I know at least that much about this reclusive neighbour.

I don’t know what’s going on with him or what his story is, but I am intrigued and fascinated. Does he even spend any appreciable amount of time in his apartment? Is that why he is so quiet and I never see him? Or is he in there and just living very quiet and very minimalist? I am also so curious to find out what the apartment looks like. Is it spotless and spartan or like a hoarder home?

If I find out more, I will update everyone.

NEW COUCH

On January 24th of this year, I went into a furniture store and paid for a new couch. They told me it could take anywhere between eight to ten weeks for the couch to be constructed and ready for delivery. On Tuesday, my new couch will be delivered to me.

It did indeed take about two months for the couch to finally be ready for me. I have been without a couch for much longer than two months though. I got rid of my old couch before I got my new flooring installed. It’s been well over six months since I’ve had anywhere comfortable to sit in my living room.

I can’t wait to watch TV and be able to stretch out properly!

NEW SPONSOR CHILD

So I’ve been sponsoring a child for over a decade now. She was just a little girl when all this started and now she’s a young teen. Because of the language barrier and a great distance, I wrote her very infrequently, perhaps just handful of times per year. I also got a few updates from her family every year as well. I understood from the beginning that my donation wasn’t going straight to my sponsor child. My money is pooled with other donations and spent in the region in which my sponsor child lives. It can go to projects like better schools or better sanitation. I know that money helped many children, not just my sponsor child.

In the last two years or so, the letters I got from the family started to be written by my sponsor child’s cousin. From what I could tell, my sponsor child was no longer living in the same region as before and was now living with some different parts of her family. I really had no idea how far she had moved or if this was a temporary thing. I was just pleased to read any updates I could get.

I checked my mail this afternoon and I got another update package from the charity. I have been assigned a new sponsor child. I was told my previous one had moved out of the region in which the charity provides assistance, so logistically they no longer qualified as a sponsor child. I have no idea if they moved again or if this was the same place they’ve been in for the last few years. In any case, I wish her well.

The charity prefers that donors keep an arms length of separation between them and the sponsor children. I totally understand that. Like I mentioned, my money isn’t going straight to my sponsor child’s pocket, so my connection with them falls on the superficial side. Also, I didn’t adopt this child. The more accurate way to describe this is that I donate to a charity that helps kids and they pair me up with a pen pal.

So I have a new pen pal now and I hope I can continue to help more kids with my humble donations.

SHIPPING SHENANIGANS

My A/V receiver arrived via a crappy shipping company today. Let’s just say it wasn’t FedEx nor was it UPS. This piece of electronics had an eventful journey to get to me. I originally thought it would be a straightforward path to Vancouver since I realized the shipment would begin somewhere in California.

It turns out it would start from Los Angeles. Then my tracking info said something about Cincinnati. I thought that might have been a mistake but sure enough after it left LA, it did indeed arrive in Cincinnati. It traveled nearly across the continent in the wrong direction only then to cross back again in right direction to get to me.

Now let’s be clear, I’m not saying this sort of weird routing makes a shipping company crappy, FedEx and UPS do this as well for their packages. I’m pretty sure that Cincinnati is some sorta central hub that is better suited to perhaps handle packages that need to cross borders with customs and such, necessitating criss-crossing the continent. I get it but when you plot it out on a map, it looks weird.

SELF-TEST

On the weekend I tested myself with a rapid antigen test. It was my first time being tested during the pandemic. Two years in and I got my first test. The test indicated a negative result. These tests are not as accurate of the PCR tests and they only paint a picture of your status at the moment that you did the test. So while it did indicate that I was negative, my status could have changed in the next hour.

The great thing is these tests seem to be readily available where I am located and I have nine more in my possession. If I were really baller, I’d take a test everyday, just for peace of mind. Some people do have that luxury but I currently do not. That’s ok though, because I don’t require daily tests.

MY TESTING

Well, after recently complaining about not getting rapid tests for myself, the government opened up free tests for people forty years of age and older this week. Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m now in that age group, so I got my free pack of five tests today.

I now have ten tests at home. I will probably use one of the tests this weekend. I’m going to do it because I’ve been really tired this week. Maybe it was just the time change but maybe it’s something else. Who knows. This will be the first time I’ve ever been tested for the virus, so it’s gonna be interesting.