Remains of the living room…

Kelly has most of our stuff packed. We’re more or less down to the things we will need in the days before we fly and our first days in Toronto (because we’re arriving before the truck.) While she’s been doing that I’ve been working on my novel, teaching up a storm, and making efforts to find good homes for our passes to the incandescent Open Door Yoga.

The remainder is what we’re calling “camping stuff.” You know the drill. Two plates, two forks, one pot, two towels, a suitcase each of clothes…

… and of course the cats and a mountain of electronics.

Remains of the living room. We are 80% packed. @kellyoyo has loaded almost everything!

If you are local, there is still stuff you could have for free, just for the low low price of coming to get it: there’s a wooden bedside table with one drawer, a quite pretty wooden shelf, a very efficient–if somewhat heavy–Ikea desk with two shelves, a trio of lamps and a couple of plants.

Some of us get evil twins, Buffy gets a perky twin

slayerI’m up to “Intervention” on the Buffy Rewatch.

Plas related to our relocation are coming along. We have firmed up locations and dates for services, arranged some important banking and medical stuff, and acquired a bed. (Our frame is busted and isn’t coming with. Anyone want a pristine queen-sized futon?) Tomorrow the Frog Boxes arrive and we start packing.

I am obsessing over the bird checklist at the Leslie Street Spit. There will be owl photos.

In the midst of this, my mother-in-law is in town, which is super-delightful! We’re cat-sitting for friends for a bunch of days. And we are saying a lot of goodbyes. Holy crap do I know a lot of people in this neighborhood.

Soon to be former apartment and stuff

So our apartment sold to a couple who renovate and flip condo properties. They will, presumably, get rid of all the 20 year old appliances we couldn’t be bothered to replace–and possibly the window blinds too–repaint, fix up the kitchen and bathroom, do things to closet doors and the fireplace, and generally shine the place up.

This rather delights me. It’s as if the house is about to get all the things I didn’t want it to have. Plus it means that the place as I remember it will effectively cease to exist, which is kinda cool. To me. And we don’t have to clean up all that well as we get out. Cool!

There are many things that K and I won’t be bringing with us when we go. This is our totally awesome but somewhat cat-scratched couch. Are you local? Do you want it? Let me know.
This fab (if cat-distressed) couch is staying in #yvr when @kellyoyo and I leave. Let me know if you want it.

Our goldfinch friends will be losing their favorite snack shacks. That part does sadden me a little.

Painted Ladies, the Pinboard

painted ladiesI have stumbled over a couple terrific art boards lately and have begun gathering up portraits of women as a result.
Many of the women on my Painted Ladies pinboard may be familiar to you–a lot of them are celebrity paintings by celebrity painters. Others, though, are newer or more obscure.

It has been fascinating collecting these, and what I’ve realized is that there’s a real difference between a photographic portrait–even if it’s fanciful–and something painted from scratch. The element of imagination is different: the painter imbues their subject with personality in a way that seems less about capturing reality and more about creating or amplifying it.

(From this you can tell I am not versed at all in art criticism.)

What was most exciting, though, was to stumble over Kneeling Girl, by Thomas Saliot. This is as perfect a picture of the protagonist of my next novel, a woman named Sophie Opal Hansa, as I could ever have wished to discover.

Today’s moving-related discovery: Revenue Canada will let us write off a ton of our moving expenses this year.

Officially on the move…

A few of you already know this, but now I’m telling the world. Kelly has a job offer in beautiful, scenic Toronto and we are relocating there this spring.

More info to come! In the meantime, if we know you and you’re local, we’re getting rid of a lot of stuff, including books and our gorgeous (though cat-scratched) chaise lounge. (Also, actually, the apartment.) Let me know if you might want stuff.

The cats already know something is up, and are freaking out accordingly.
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