F 1 D 0 -- 02 03 03 at 12 30 Adventures. I had the most amazing couple of days with my dad. Amazing. Joyous. With feeling. Genuine and warm. I've been taking things from Toronto to Thunder Bay by Greyhound. This is a financially efficient way to move. Why? Because they permit four parcels. Officially? They permit four parcels of up to 60 lbs each. In practice? If I load them, or at least, load the heaviest of them, then they look the other way about the weight limitation. What did I do? Oh, I got me four gunny sacks. They are like duffel bags, except bigger. Taller. Ann made a couple of them for me, as I had two already. One from my dad, one from a trip where I saw it in an Army Surplus store. These are about six feet tall, and big enough for santa claus to sleep comfortably within. They have a draw string to close them up. Ann made mine out of shiny jacket fabric, strong stuff! So I've been filling these up, and you know, something that is six feet tall, and as big around as Santa, can weigh a lot more than one hundred pounds. In fact, it can weigh around 400 lbs, if I'm not careful. I cannot even DRAG something over 200 lbs, so I kept them to about 150. Moving this way has saved me a lot of money, and provided me with good time to get closer to Ann, and to make the time away feel better. It has not been good at helping me take furniture, appliances, or be organized, really. I just go into a room, and throw things into the sack until it is full. So Here I Am, a couple of days before end of the month. I decided that I'd stay as late in the home as I needed to, within reason. My own room mates stayed weeks beyond welcome, and I could do nothing at all about them. I figured an extra week would do wonders for me, and what could my landlord do. I was avoiding him, and just telling him by email "I'm running late" and that "I really needed extra time." I keep feeling sorry for people. I felt sorry for my landlord, because he said he was concerned about losing his home, and wanted to insure it as Vacant to save some cash. But to do that, I could no longer be actually living there. I needed the time, but I also didn't want him to lose his place over my disorganization. All of a sudden, I'm rushing to move by the end of the month. I may be 45, but Dad still came to the rescue. I've got to recreate the days of the week. Today is Sunday, yesterday was Saturday, I arrived on Friday night at 1030pm, so I boarded the bus on Thursday night at 120am. So this story begins Wednesday at noon. My dad was going to restore the furnace. You see, Samier, when I was away, "fixed the furnace". He did this by using a fan motor meant to be connected, and pushed it near. Using only gravity, a book shelf, and my electronic synthesizer stand, he jury rigged this motor so it worked the fan inside. How Clever! Dad was going to Un Jury Rig the contraption, and simply connect the original fan motor. It worked. It just had a bad starter, so that when it was stopped (say for a power failure) you had to let it cool. Once cool, you turned on the system, and gave the fan belt a pull. Yes, we keep the fan going 24 hours a day, since it doesn't start well. In this way I'd get my keyboard stand back, and all would be well. But I felt that being rushed out of the house meant I wanted my dad to help me with things that would benefit ME, me personally, not the landlord. So instead, we worked together on disassembling all of the wooden shelving. I had a lot of that stuff, and managed to leave the disassembly of it until the penultimate day. (is that the right word? The day before the last day, Penultimate Day?) I went to the dance on Tuesday Night, for English. That was important. You see, it was my last opportunity to dance English for a while. But it was also a chance for everyone to make a goodbye time for me. That was nice. The other dancers had a conference, and decided that the flavour of choice was Chocolate. Uh, Chocolate Truffle. After a good evening of dance, and calling, and playing music, I went to Tom and Cindy's where I borrowed their battery operated Black and Decker screw driver. Yes, I own one, but I didn't want that accidentally left behind, so I moved it up north already. Cindy was glad to hang out. Sad I was going. Tom wished I had more time. He wants and needs my major appliances, but getting a driver and a rental truck is hard for him. I just didn't have the time for me, let alone for him and Cindy. Sorry you two. I picked up the stuff, and rushed back, thinking I'd get a lot done before morning. Nope. I even did a coffee at the Coffee Time donut place at Sheppard and Vic Park. That didn't help. I fell asleep in a seated position. Nobody got mad at me. At 3am, I went home, and tried for about 5 minutes to motivate myself to use the freshly borrowed screw driver. I woke in the morning, fully dressed, holding the thing at the ready. This is the morning my dad came over and the two of us together took these shelves apart. He agreed to store them in the back yard for me. Yay! I was going to leave behind this wonderful metal shelf thing. Heavy duty, stainless steel, designed for real restaurant use. In a commercial environment, I'm certain that they wash thing thing down by spraying it with Break Up or some other professional degreaser. I wanted to ensure I had all of my milk crates (stop laughing!) and my foam mattress (I said stop laughing!). I love my bed, and it is made of high density foam for people with back issues. I hand picked it from hundreds of densities. The store staff helped me out. They have samples, with standard numbers. At the factory, they just want to know density code height width length They use that information to make a weight, and charge accordingly. I paid 72.00 for that, and got exactly what I needed. Eight inches high, a King Size square. I wish I remembered the code. 5220 ? It was dense, but not so firm that it didn't give (they advise me against that, but some people do as they please, and come back the next week to buy what they should have done in the first place). Ann told me that getting foam such as this was near to impossible, and that I'd best find a way to store it. I used to sleep on the floor, at 42 Byng Avenue, with this thing. The problem is that it accumulates my own moisture, and goes strange. So I took it out to the back yard (it is really light), and dried it out. That took a couple of days during the summer. E-a-s-y. Since that summer day, I've only slept on it by laying it across 36 milk crates, inverted. This has been the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. Ever. It was These milk crates and foam that my father and I worked at taking to Nathan's place. The shelving all made it, including some stuff I wasn't planning on taking. One was a wooden shelf system that was left by the previous tenants. It had a certain width I'd not seen before. It seemed to be best for growing things in standard sized bins. It was full of dead plants when we moved in, and I dispatched them. It was fine for holding boxen with stuff. The mice certainly loved any box I put there. Even if they could not eat the contents, they'd come and play, and of course use the latrine there. That is my main complaint with wild mice is their natural inclination to turn each of their favourite places into a latrine. They also like to bite things. They like the foil mylar stuff that many chocolate single serve bars come in. They ate each and every Reeses wafer bar I forgot to freeze or refrigerate. If I hid them in a drawer which looked that it could be mouse secure, they proved the drawer was only 90% secure. Sigh. They'd get into my garbage when I ate one of these Reeses things, and discarded the wrapper. Sigh again. So the shelving wasn't well used when I lived on Vic Park. It attracted mice, and that bothered me, even when it was only canned goods getting mouse attention. Dad took that apart for me, and it took no space at all! It will be nice up here. Remember that metal shelving? It was a real challenge to disassemble. It had no screws, no connectors, no nothing. I had a hammer, and we tried hitting it apart. It moved! But would not come apart until we got the secret: we had to hit the shelves so they were twisted in relation to the side legs. Then they just fell away! Wonderful. It was during the travel, not the work of disassembly that Dad and I could talk of adventures. He was almost jealous that he didn't have any adventures. He's had work. Lots of that. He owned a hardware store in Toronto for many years, and he figured it was a wonderful business opportunity. You see, the building was his, I think. He rented out the two apartments above the store, and the rent from that paid for the entire building. Cool! The store itself didn't have to be a great success. Well, after a chat with his accountant, he realized all differently. For us kids, we thought nothing of living on 50.00 a week. Doesn't everyone? But this didn't happen all so long ago so that wasn't the average income of the time. He worked to close the store, and move on to a better career. Most of them entailed lots of work from him, and low pay, and less respect. Remember he had the whole store to himself, and while it didn't make mega bucks, it did make money, and did so reliably for years. So he could tell when he was getting mismanaged. Common, true. But still, nobody likes being told to go left, when going right is how to do the job. But we talked about my adventures, and all of the times over the years I've picked up and done something new. So new, so big, that it meant leaving a lot behind. It was such talk that moved him to think that he should consider travel. Soon. Mom and him are of reasonable health compared to Aunts and Uncles in the family. He figures he and mom should do something while they still can do it. I concur. This move up north, all of the dancing, and so much of what I've done over the years has been a stretch for me, or a big deal emotionally. I like the experience. I've not settled in yet up here, and I've heard Beethoven twice in a live concert. Ask me about it, so I can write the details for you. That's all I know.