Wheatsheaf to Frontenac

Old souls, palms, bottomless mimosas, origin stories, Guinness, where you’ve walked before, history and the historical.  “Tonight”.

And it was cold and it was smoky and it was beautiful and it caused some flu-like symptoms and the historic moments were captured for all-time on TV broadcasts and photos and so on.  Remember.  

We escaped and saw the Pal ladies and the Parliament, to the upgrade for the sunrise at the Chateau over old Quebec as back in Cole Harbour Agent Cameron did the final walk-through in advance of close.  Ring's offer accepted, and we shall see next week if it firms up to mark the full scope of this major life and future transition.

Gatherings along the route with family and friends, old connections and new memories.  

The ball for the World Cup is Al-Rihla - the journey.  Appropriate for Team Canada and appropriate for this young family just starting out.  One more big month of preparations ahead, and then a summer of hibernation - slow breathing and easy living on the lakefront, baby whispering and sticking to routines.  

  

Iatrogenic Risk

Reviewing the hearing of the transcript you missed...  focus largely misplaced, given the looming costs on the horizon.  Instead discussion about trees, electric vehicle cost comparisons, and definitions.  Self-inflicted risk - failing to identify it, and/or introducing new risks in attempting to compensate as you become aware.  Surprised the term is not more common as it walks about the orb like the sun, shining everywhere.

Condo decluttered and cleaned and photographed, officially going on the market.

Bear with the comment about seeing less Duff than he imagined.  So it goes with the editing process.  Elizabeth says $525K, we'll see what lucky number comes in.  

Incredible morning - Qatar 3x TST3 Cat3 in the morning, $190K draft dropped at Dicostanzo, along with pool key, Energy Law class pushed to the limit before the realtor Uber to the station.  What a way to travel, absolutely loving the sleeper, the dining car, the beauty of the snow and trees outside, all I can do to hold off on the bottle of En Passant until after dinner to help with the rest.  Change is as good as...

Thoughts of Phil, his high tea inspiration part of the planning for this one.  Who could have imagined it coming together with the Maplewood purchase, condo prep, work, class, everything illuminated.

Beyond Your Control

So the day has come and gone, the housing decision made.  Extraordinary in that the appraisal drama should come to this, and yet you choose to go ahead in spite of the risk.  The little things, the ordering of the Pinehurst table, Jamieson’s, the sellers popping their head out to discuss.  The last minute issues with Prince at VV and Alexandria’s, DC to the rescue from Miami.  

3 sleeps until the train, so close it might just happen, and with everything going on it’s truly wondrous.  Just think of the changes to come, all inspired by a chance encounter, a fateful encounter in Cape Town.  The 20 year bachelor party coming to an end.  Ready to shift the wine bottles to an actual home, expose the books to the air and get to reading, the escape to nature within the city.  

Sit back, think it through, and try your utmost.  ‘Tis all that can be done.  So far all so very good.  More from the rolling train and the shower cabin…

Retaining

Last minute nerves, or a saving grace?  Questions about the wall answered at last, disappointing emphasis on “as-is” instead of providing the reassurances sought.  We shall mull the opportunity further tomorrow, but perhaps there is a reason why this has emerged at the end, when slight uncertainty over closing at 114 lingers.  A storage unit for the Deepak delivery perhaps the choice for after the train trip?  Oh my.  

I do love how the juncture falls so neatly on our favourite of days.  How the Selig Road alternative has offered itself up with a timing fortuitous, perhaps auspicious at that.

Nothing to be decided fully until the Morrow.  Amidst and following the Guinness pints.  Exactly as it should be.  Oh I wonder.  Ever the word.  So many different ways these worlds can go.

Above all, enjoy tomorrow, McMahon.  Life has come full circle in two years, in more ways than one.  Cherish this life, in all its wondrous splendor.

RBC

Has it clicked in yet, the limited number of days left under the glow of the blue-yellow lion?  The bridge and ocean view from the balcony never fully decked out?  The warmth of it all, the bulbs slowly burning out one by one, as you await the newness of the Morrow.

Mama doing well, on a day of boring checks, how the heartbeat of a fetus can ever be routine, the mocking of the husbands cooking as a cause of acid reflux because who else does he have to pick on now that we support people are back.  Feeling the reflux a bit after the Nigerian Efty spice, the milk to calm your hiccups.  

See how I did that - one of the first seamless times, “you” for you, where in the past I meant me with that you.  You know.

A crazy feeling to move, and move for you.  Everyone notes how beautiful the home looks.  Without fail.  But it’s the forest for Anderson.  And the magic.  The way that on Friday after the deposit we ended up at the Bay instead of IKEA.  To find the $12,481 discount.  If they won’t include the table, Deepak will get us the true 9 footer, I know it, I.

Oh to be.  Oooh to be.  It is something else, my boy.  We have enjoyed the readings and long may they continue.  With the wisdom of the history of the world.  Shakes and the King James and Uncle Walt and the Romantics and Gwendolyn Brooks and Margaret Burroughs.  The good stuff.  Chess on top of it, the ancient and incomprehensible, majestic game.  There is so much grandeur in this workd, amidst the sociopathology.  Can’t wait to find out what you get up to and explore.  Soon.

Soon come.  Tonight your mana felt the effects of a long day and the Nigerian food.  A reminder to pay some attention.  Much to do.  Oh my.

Closings, and Openings

Offer acceptance, and hard not to feel overwhelmed at the telescoping of life’s infinite options down to its one irrevocable and true path.  In this version of the multiverse, anyway.  The slimmest of parcels, reliant on HRM green belt inactivity, yet a gorgeous home that should hopefully require no additional effort on your part except to sit back, fill it up, and enjoy.  

And write, properly, at long last.  Until it sinks into the lake, of course.  Or the city decides to intrude on your patch of forest paradise.  Ha.  Return to this and weep, if so, but I think not, even as one can never tell the future.

The momentum seems inexorably forward, the lining up of car and work and pregnancy and permanent residency issues.  The second guessing, the speculation, the annoyance of mortgages and insurance and utility connections and furniture acquisition.  All part of growing up, growing into this new life, this new book.

For the Maplewood address shall become a bunker, a spot to at last put the accumulated spoils of the first 42 years of life on full display.  Daydreaming over potential titles for such a screed a nice way to pass the time this lazy Sunday that should have been devoted to the development of Information Requests.  But those too shall be done.  In time, as always.

How to explain and capture everything.  How you came to be, and what I would like to pass on, to be known, treasured, remembered.  The laughter, above all.  The love, above even that.  Some chapters...  Sonnets and Psalms, etc. etc.  Exploit that and all the other miscellany.  I feel it coming.  So get the place on St. Patrick's, get the condo ready, get on the train, get the win in the stands versus Jamaica, bring on the classes on the birthing day, and make this a lasting summer to remember.  Go tell it on the water.

One of Life's Junctures

All in the timing.  How go the nerves, as you wait for the word from DC at 1PM?  Cautious optimism on this IWD.  M at only 80% sold on the place a slight concern, but reverence paid last night at Lakecrest and the excitement at more space will inevitably follow.  Plus the shower, the laundry, the pantry, etc. etc.

Nice twist if it turns out that Spray emerged as the precursor to a place of fewer headaches but still the  natural delights of lake and forest, and at the lowest possible of 5 year mortgage rates.  Shall this morning's news of the unsuccessful Qatar TST application be forgotten in favour of an afternoon offer acceptance?  Oh, the vagaries and mysteries of the waiting game.

Much else has occurred since the last check-in.  Another round of Canadian qualifying booked via rail, with ticketmaster efforts to resume this Thursday morning to secure seats in the building.  Valentine's efforts in the wild artistic loft of strange sounds and inspiration, to the registry development and a showering of gifts in Moncton.  

St. Patrick's approaches, a mere 9 days away.  I wonder, truly, about the scope of this year's celebrations.  There is much to commend this Maplewood plan.  Keep the other offers away, Universe.  Let it not be to come, let it be now.  Readiness is all, and I feel the moment has arrived.

But if not, so be that too.  As the proverbial sparrow readies itself...