habemus condominium, et cetera
Jul. 18th, 2014 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishImportant news first: we have a place to live. We're moving out to New Westminster, two towns over. The new place is thirty-one floors up and directly on top of the Skytrain station. It's a little less nice than the current apartment but only a little: electric stove & fireplace instead of gas, no awesome superfast internet, office space will be awkward to figure out. It's got a decent-sized balcony, which is nice, and a view of the Fraser river (and, on clear days, Mt Baker) instead of Stanley Park / North Shore, which is a slight negative. Most importantly it's saving us a grand a month in rent.
In retrospect I'm a little bit sad to be living *directly* on top of the Skytrain; I would have enjoyed a short walk home after events. More importantly, I don't know what living in New West as opposed to downtown will feel like. Most of the people I want to see are out there, but most of the stuff I want to do (shows, the independent/artsy movie theatres, Stanley Park) are towards downtown. Will try it for a year or so, see how it goes. I expect we'll be fine out there.
Lease starts in August so we have a full month of paying double rent (boo) and getting the move sorted out (yay).
Over the weekend my aunt Susan came up from Atlanta to visit. Rather, she came up from Seattle since she was already visiting out there, but close enough. She got roped into games on Satyrday, which she seemed to like pretty well, and then dragged out to Chinatown and Granville Island on Sunday.
I like Susan pretty well. She's... I was going to say 'prickly' but that's not exactly right. I don't know how to describe her. I think it's to do with having lived with a bit of loneliness for so long that you get almost but not completely used to it. Or I might be projecting.
Regardless, we had a really good time. We (well, she) found a store in Chinatown that I've walked past dozens of times and never stopped in, that's full of fascinating stuff. I'd call it a junk shop except that they know what they've got and want real money for it. Example: an old laboratory glass bottle of HCl, where the label is made of raised glass letters on the bottle itself (awesome!), for $35 (yow!). And we poked in shops and galleries and wandered all over the place, and talked about all manner of things, and avoided roasting in the heat.
We'd made plans to go camping this weekend, but the combination of "fire ban" due to weeks of heat and drought, plus "rain saturday through monday" made that look like a less good idea. Stupid weather. Instead, tomorrow we're going off to what appears to be a live-action version of Myst. Will report back.
In retrospect I'm a little bit sad to be living *directly* on top of the Skytrain; I would have enjoyed a short walk home after events. More importantly, I don't know what living in New West as opposed to downtown will feel like. Most of the people I want to see are out there, but most of the stuff I want to do (shows, the independent/artsy movie theatres, Stanley Park) are towards downtown. Will try it for a year or so, see how it goes. I expect we'll be fine out there.
Lease starts in August so we have a full month of paying double rent (boo) and getting the move sorted out (yay).
Over the weekend my aunt Susan came up from Atlanta to visit. Rather, she came up from Seattle since she was already visiting out there, but close enough. She got roped into games on Satyrday, which she seemed to like pretty well, and then dragged out to Chinatown and Granville Island on Sunday.
I like Susan pretty well. She's... I was going to say 'prickly' but that's not exactly right. I don't know how to describe her. I think it's to do with having lived with a bit of loneliness for so long that you get almost but not completely used to it. Or I might be projecting.
Regardless, we had a really good time. We (well, she) found a store in Chinatown that I've walked past dozens of times and never stopped in, that's full of fascinating stuff. I'd call it a junk shop except that they know what they've got and want real money for it. Example: an old laboratory glass bottle of HCl, where the label is made of raised glass letters on the bottle itself (awesome!), for $35 (yow!). And we poked in shops and galleries and wandered all over the place, and talked about all manner of things, and avoided roasting in the heat.
We'd made plans to go camping this weekend, but the combination of "fire ban" due to weeks of heat and drought, plus "rain saturday through monday" made that look like a less good idea. Stupid weather. Instead, tomorrow we're going off to what appears to be a live-action version of Myst. Will report back.
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Date: 2014-07-18 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-19 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-19 01:02 pm (UTC)Hooray on the apartment! I hope it works out well for the both of you.
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Date: 2014-07-20 09:28 pm (UTC)And, thanks! I'm looking forward to it, which I wasn't sure I'd be doing.
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Date: 2014-07-20 10:46 pm (UTC)So true! I love my sister totally and completely, but she and I are quite clear on the fact we'd likely never be friends if we weren't related.