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I have some junk removal people coming over tomorrow afternoon to remove the carpet, underpad, tack strips, and various bits of debris that I want to get rid of from my apartment.

It’s such a pain in the ass to move or remove large volumes of stuff in my building. With only two elevators, I feel for the dudes who are coming. I specifically chose a day where no one is moving so I’ll know at least two elevators will be available.

I’ll be impressed if they can remove all the junk in three trips. My apartment will be so much less cluttered after all that crap is gone.

I have been to two restaurants now that checked my vaccine status and my ID. At first it’s a bit weird showing new forms of identification but then I realized it’s an assurance that the people in the restaurant with me, eating and drinking with their masks off, are most likely vaccinated, just like me. I say “most likely” because there’s always a chance some moron has found a way to fake their status.

Before, you couldn’t tell who was or wasn’t vaccinated, but sitting in these two restaurants, I felt more assured than before that it was safer to be inside and enjoying a meal.

I am looking forward to feeling safer in more situations as time progresses.

Someone told me that when they took an antihistamine, they stopped producing that bothersome phlegm that you sometimes get. This person wasn’t a doctor but I did have a Claritin handy, so I decided to give it a try.

Hours later, I am definitely less phlegmy but it’s hard to say if that wouldn’t have happened without the pill anyways. This isn’t something I’ll try very often but it was an interesting experiment.

I’m still unsure if I’ll be going to Florida in November. New cases counts are still hovering around 10k cases per day. Only 56% of the state is fully vaccinated and just 66% have got a single shot. Over 50k have died from the pandemic in that state. In comparison, in this province over 70% are fully vaccinated and 77% have at least one dose.

I’ll probably make a final decision at the beginning of October.

It’s mid-September and autumn is pushing its way into the picture. The temperatures overnight cooled enough that I had to close my windows from fully open to something much more reasonable. When I woke up this morning, it was too cool to just lounge around in a t-shirt, so I put on a hoodie. I haven’t needed to do that in months.

It’s also a bit too cool to walk around in just shorts if you’re not in direct sunlight either. I was out running some errands today and in the shade, it can be downright chilly. Summer is in full retreat now, especially with the heavy rains that seem to be more frequent as the days go by. Thursday and Friday are gonna be quite stormy apparently.

As many of you know, Canadian comedian Norm Macdonald passed away today after a long, courageous, and private battle with leukemia. Norm remains one of my favourite comedians, who I first noticed when he was at the “Weekend Update” desk at Saturday Night Live. He later became well-known for his appearances on various late-night talk shows, namely David Letterman and Conan O’Brien.

I had the pleasure and honour of seeing Norm Macdonald perform live once, about six years ago. In typical Norm fashion, he was dressed in what looked like a windbreaker, as if he was going on a walk outside but decided to step inside briefly to do his set for us spontaneously.

Norm was funny in a way that no one else could be, probably because no one else could match his comedic genius. He was taken from this world far too soon. All we have left are our memories of Norm, but what memories they are.

I recently renewed my car insurance and as part of the process, I had to put on a new decal on my license plate. As such, I’ve been looking at the decals on the cars in my parking garage. This is when I noticed the car that is parked next to mine has a decal that indicates that their insurance expired in March of 2021. As some of you know, it is no longer March of 2021. Indeed, it is six months past that.

Now this might not be a huge deal if my parkade neighbour wasn’t driving their car but there have been multiple times where I’ve seen that car not be parked in their spot. I’d say it’s gone multiple times a week in fact. One can only logically conclude that the car has been driven away. In this country and province, it is illegal to drive without valid car insurance.

Why would my parkade neighbour break the law and more importantly, why would they put themselves in a situation where they maybe liable for a massive amount of money? How could they continue to pay for rent or the mortgage in the building but not have enough money to pay for car insurance? I’m not saying I live in a luxury building but this is not some welfare shack either.

Perhaps they did renew their insurance but forgot to put on the new decal. That’s a possibility but that would be an odd thing to forget. Another mystery to solve.

In most North American homes, hot water availability is something we just take for granted. Even in the most budget friendly living arrangements, people have access to hot water.

Several months ago, the hot water situation in my building changed slightly. I can’t nail down the time window exactly but at night, the hot water supply is heated to a lower temperature compared to the daytime. Normally, in my building if you turn on the hot water to the highest setting it gets hot enough that you could burn yourself if you exposed it to your skin for long enough. It gets plenty hot.

A while ago, I noticed that sometime during the night, after midnight or so, it no longer gets that hot. I can turn on the hot water all the way and it’s basically warm water, no chance of injuring yourself at all. This was never mentioned in any of the strata meetings so I have no idea why this was done deliberately. If I had to guess, it’s a cost savings measure. The boilers were probably programmed to lower the temperature of the hot water during the night so it takes less electricity or energy to operate the boilers when people are using the hot water less. This sorta makes sense, why waste money and energy to keep water at a certain temperature when the demand is so low?

I do feel sorry for the late-night owls like myself though, I certainly do not wash my dishes or shower during this time window because the lower water temperatures are challenging for those activities. Does anyone else experience this in their building?

Tomorrow is Friday and this was a short work week but it certainly felt like a regular week to me. The week seemed to drag on. I feel like long weekends aren’t as restful as they used to be. I’m not sure if it’s just me or if others feel like it as well. In my opinion, the entire world needs a long, extended reprieve from all their troubles and stresses. For a lucky few, they will get that but for the most of us, we will not.

When is the next long weekend? October?