Alan:
Gales of laughter echo through the main floor of the mansion of Mavety as I try to nail my daughter with one of her stuffies.
We got the keys tonight. Given that we spent maybe ten minutes in the place the night we decided we wanted it, I was understandably afraid we’d learn some things we wish we’d known when we rented it. And my first reaction was that the front room was a bit smaller than we remembered. But the kitchen is bigger than I remembered and so is the family room.
It’s not open concept, there are walls between the rooms but no hallway, just a good long corridor of probably forty feet from the front door to the back door so naturally I thought we could have some fun chasing each other. I’d suggested everyone bring one object from home to anoint our new place and my daughter brought a few stuffies. So let the games begin.
It was a nice space for our sport. You could get up a little head of steam while hunting or being hunted. And it was nice to hear my daughter giggling in our new place. Maybe we should get a bowling ball and some pins. It won’t hurt those floors.
We brought some rugs, sat on them and ate takeout. There’s a Subway sandwich place up the street and they have a gluten free option so that’s a good thing. Baņuta and I tried this Chinese place that specializes in dumplings. It was doing a brisk trade in take out, and clearly, it’s a popular spot. What I would say is that, for the Junction, it was okay Chinese food. But it’s not going to replace Spadina.
The last two houses I lived in were pretty close to the main thoroughfare, Roncesvalles in the first case and Bloor West in the second. But this place is just that much closer to Dundas and though I’m not sure the traffic on Dundas is greater than Bloor, it does feel like the cars are driving faster and it was kind of bracing to saunter up the street and be in the thick of it. But it goes without saying that can be a blessing as well as a curse. There are a lot of restaurants. Too bad our rent increase will kill that but if anyone wants to visit and take us out, we’ll start a list.
The good news is that Baņuta is confident she can make her room work, but she won’t have the reading spot she has now. So she’ll need to find her calm place in the living room. It’s still a matter of some debate how it will be arranged. Why do couches always end up with their back to the window? Maybe we’ll break the cycle, maybe not. Send in your votes.
When I look at that front room I can’t help thinking of that scene in Big Lebowski where The Dude talks about the rug that really tied the room together. A few nights after we got the keys, Baņuta and I brought some of the things we might put on the wall. I think the monotonal walls and floors will look fine with the right things on the wall, proper couch placement and a rug to tie it all together.
The concrete backyard is even uglier and more inhospitable than I remembered but hopefully we can make it a little prettier. I saw a photo with raised beds and it gave me some, probably false, hope.
We haven’t even moved in and I’ve got a list going. Area rug, raised beds, maybe a cat door, a new couch. And maybe something to brighten my bathroom.
I sort of noticed this when we first saw the house, but Baņuta’s room is essentially the master bedroom, so she has a huge walk-in closet and a sumptuous bathroom. I am glad she has those things because she wants those things, she loves those things, those things are why we took the place. I don’t really mind that in the back room where I’m situated, the washroom is tiny with no drawers and the closet is maybe 20% the size of Baņuta’s. I have four t-shirts, three hoodies and two pair of jeans. And I only need a place for a toothbrush, some toothpaste, razors and soap.
So it’s good enough for me. And it’s not a deal breaker that my bathroom door doesn’t close or that the room has no vent. It is however somewhat surprising since they did such a thorough job in this place otherwise. There’s a drawer beside the stove for spices and another one near the sink for platters but I guess they were tired by the time they got to my room. As my daughter pointed out though, I often leave the bathroom door open anyway and my room has the best view so I suppose it’s a fair trade.
Right now, I am obsessing over papers and wires and memories. I want to get rid of my storage space someday, not bring more things there. But I’m not throwing out very much stuff and I’m painfully aware as I come upon them, that all the old photos, Keely’s earliest homemade Father’s Day cards, my old travel diaries or my Grade 7 project on Beethoven, with the stenciled pages and the drawings that made my daughter laugh so hard, I will not see again until the next time we move.
If there is a next time.
Not that I won’t be around for another couple of decades. But even so, eventually the Junction rats will probably destroy the rest of my clippings unless that desperate archive speaks up and sweeps them away.
We had some friends over to bless our empty home. One of them, a truly sweet cheerleader was walking around and pointing out all the advantages. She’d been immobilized recently herself with a knee replacement so I’m sure it was that kind of thing, and nothing more dire, she was thinking of when she said “Someday if Alan can’t get up the stairs, you could just put his bed in the family room”.
15 years ago a doctor told me I would need a knee replacement in ten years, so maybe I’ll eventually have the pleasure of staying in bed for a couple of months in the family room and being waited on. Someone I live with might say that’s already happening.
There’s a TV right there and a washroom too. No shower of course. But the job can be done with warm washcloths.
I’ll do it myself thanks.
Baņuta: The big question is, do I know how to use a measuring tape and are the numbers I record the actual numbers? I don’t trust myself with three dimensions. If you say to me oh it’s about three meters away. I have no idea what that is. It doesn’t change with the imperial system. My son is appalled that I give credence to astrology, but I’d like to mention how the stars are aligned because it relates directly to my problem with measuring tapes. In everybody’s astrological house there are four elements: earth, wind, fire, water. In mine there is a lot of everything except earth. Zero earth. I use that point to justify my profound impracticality. Though I am very proud that as an undergraduate I used to crawl under the sink in my pink dressing gown and slippers and thaw frozen pipes every morning with a blowtorch. But that was before I knew that I was missing earth.
This is a long preamble for what I really want to talk about, which is how did it feel to pick up the keys on Valentine’s Day. I’d say my emotions were on kind of a dimmer that went from Dread and Fear to Relief and Pleasure. I feared buyer’s remorse; I feared we would find that we actually hated it, that the kitchen was too narrow; that the workmanship was shoddy and that all handles would break off. But, no, the place has ample room, including kitchen, the workmanship is very new; yes the floor leans a bit but they have hidden that well and the closets and the bathrooms are great. Though Alan does have an issue.
“When will we meet the landlord,” I asked the realtor, who let us in.
“Never,” he said.
Wow, so final.
All of our communications will be through a property management organization. Welcome to the new Toronto.
The never-to-be-met owners lived in the house for a long time and moved to Thornhill. Then they did a big reno on Mavety which the realtor seemed to be part of. The contractors left a lot of garbage on the back porch and the realtor seemed to think we should get rid of the ashtrays ourselves. We’re still fighting that. It’ll happen.
I went back by myself the next day with some objects. My fragile wine glasses, a bath mat, all my shoes. I hung out in the house on my own and measured things out on the floor and put down green tape. It looks like there is enough room for everything. Can it be true? Do the planets align with my measuring skills? Read the next blog and find out.
Now we are packing every day. Do I really need to keep that drawing my daughter when she was five? Definitely. What about the goat skull I have kept since my son found it on a trip to Crete when he was eight? Toss it. Now Alan is mad at me because I threw it out. I told you I wanted it! he said. I couldn’t take him seriously. Should I keep the small container with seaweed which I could put on something as a garnish but never have? The correct answer is: how long have you had that seaweed? If the answer is more than five years do I still keep it?
And just before lights out, I Google how to move cat. It turns out cats hate to move. Oreo is definitely stressed. One night he jumped on me at 4.25 am, draped himself over my chest, thrust a paw on my cheek and purred loudly. He hasn’t done that since he was a kitten. Another time he sat next to my bed like a dog while I was reading and stared at me for an entire fifteen minutes. I think he wanted to go outside, but there was something new about that staring. He definitely knows something is going on. Google and my friend Aefa told me that we should keep the cat indoors for at least two weeks if not three and spread their pheromones all over the place. Oreo for sure won’t like that. Here’s hoping his anguish distracts us from wondering where on earth we packed the fill in the blank.