There are only three more weeks of 2020 left, and I’ve figured out how to make it worse. I’ll be ending the year sharing a one-bedroom suite with an ex-boyfriend.
Yup.
Continue reading “2020 is a write-off.”Tag: Victoria
January 9, 2006 Throwback blog post.
Today’s post is going to be as stale as the gingerbread structure that I’m still working on. Ed says he enjoys my vintage posts, and I value his opinion. Except when it comes to the Avid BB7 brake calipers, which are garbage. Silly Briton is silly.
Anyway, this throwback post was written during my original Victoria days, back when I was certifiably poor, and a trip to Starbucks was considered a splurge. My then-roommate, Danica, taught me to embrace kitsch. If you don’t have the funds for tasteful décor, go big and go ugly. We had velvet paintings, an Astroturf rug and matching Astroturf topped coffee table with halved doll heads glued to the sides, a clawfoot bathtub, and a sink decorated with a hula skirt, a gold elephant clock with light-up flowers, and so on.
When Danica moved out, I took over her bedroom, which was actually a den and therefore had no closet, I found myself needing a dresser for my unmentionables. Why’d I taken over this room, then? It was large, had a fireplace, and a private balcony which was illuminated by a red lightbulb. It was my own little red light district, overlooking a tree decorated with baby doll parts.
Continue reading “January 9, 2006 Throwback blog post.”My arsonist neighbours.
Oh my glob.
Continue reading “My arsonist neighbours.”My little neighbourhood watch newsletter.
When I wrote that post about my neighbours two weeks ago, I received a comment from Zoée saying the post had a very Amélie feel to it.
I’d love to know which vibe this post gives off because what happened Sunday night was not whimsical in any way.
Continue reading “My little neighbourhood watch newsletter.”A week of recklessness.
I nearly made a trip-to-the-hospital mistake at work on Tuesday. I was checking the chain tension on a fixie by springboarding my fingertips on the top as I turned the crank. As my fingers were bouncing off the chain, the tip of my thumb began to get sucked in. I reflexively jerked back my hand before the drivetrain trapped it.
A fixie differs from a single speed in that the cog is tied to the motion of the pedals. Single speed bikes have a freewheel that allows you to coast downhill without pedalling like the devil to keep up with the spinning rear wheel. Ergo, the force generated by the spinning rear wheel of a fixie is strong enough to gobble up a digit or two.
I told a co-worker about the accident that almost was, and his response was: “Oh, yeah, that would have been really bad. People lose their fingers. There’s a website featuring photos of mangled mitts that were fed through the drivetrain.” (I’m paraphrasing.)
I don’t touch fixies often (they’re not as popular in Victoria as in Montréal), so I had let my guard down.
Yann says his shoelaces once got sucked into the drivetrain while riding a fixie: “My shoelaces broke, but my foot turned blue.”
Then, Wednesday morning, on my way to work, I nearly found myself in a visit-with-the-police situation.
Continue reading “A week of recklessness.”
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