Vinny's Step-By-Step Introduction To Home Ownership.

Mrs C and I will be moving into our new home during the Christmas weekend. We collected the keys two Fridays ago. As with most things nowadays, the entire process was highly publicized as the government wanted to make sure we and the greater public knew of their generosity (especially with next year being an election year). Step-by-step, we're being introduced to the subtle intricacies involved with becoming homeowners. Here's the process so far:

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- Attend “key giving ceremony” held at the new community site. Endure speeches, singing entertainers and shameless political plugs.

- Four and a half hours later, finally collect keys.

- Wait for obligatory photo op (which we thankfully managed to avoid).

- Receive instructions about having up to one month to be fully moved in and, in the meantime, you can basically come and go as you please.

- Go check out the new digs and wonder how the place went from clean and completely undamaged during the walkthrough to:

1. having a portion of the wall which needs to be repainted after a window was replaced (the old window frame was left lying the front yard for an added touch)
2. having a broken hinge on the window in the back bedroom
3. having a moss-caked kitchen sink

- At this point make a note of issues to add to the form you received with your package to list any defects you may find within the first three months.

(It should be noted that, based on feedback from other owners of government-provided housing, following the submitting of said defects report, one should proceed to initiate repairs one’s self since the providers of your new home may never actually send someone to repair whatever is broken.)

- Return some days later to move some of your stuff in and put curtains up to realize half the house has been flooded after the shower faucet came partially out of the wall.

- Turn off water main to house, spend several hours mopping up. 

- Finally hang curtains and move stuff in as initially planned.

- Add broken shower to the defects form for the sake of formality.

- Start looking up plumbers since you’ll have to fix this problem yourself.

- Almost faint from shock as you receive a call informing the work crew will be in the area to assess what repairs need to be done.

- Take time off from work, go back to house and meet with contractors, show them everything that’s broken, exchange numbers and agree to be back again the following day to see what can be done.

- Take a second day off, go back to house again, wait, wait, call contractor, find out they are not going to show because it’s two days before Christmas and the boss can’t convince the workmen to show up.

- Be told they'll they will come back to get started after New Year's... Sometime after New Year's.

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This is where the list ends for now. Until the shower issue is sorted out, we will have to keep the water main turned off when we're not using the water. So far, owning a home is turning out to be more of an "adventure" than I anticipated.

A Little 'O This & A Little 'O That.

It would seem, for all intents and purposes, I'm back. I passed on my sport assignment to my lecturer and, until he provides me with feedback, I'm a free man again.

During my time away, there have been a few things that have been going on. Nothing too major. Just the usual crazy stuff to which I normally end up baring witness. Two, in particular, stood out and, instead of trying to figure out how to stretch each of them into individual posts, I decided smush them all together and hopefully come up with something worth our time together.

Ahem! I shall begin...

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The newest addition to the C Household, our puppy, Kawaii, is a growing girl. She recently got the hang of jumping onto and off of the living room furniture all on her own (“yaaaay” he said with no real excitement whatsoever). I was there for her first successful jump. She was so excited, she had to jump off and on again four or five times to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

Now she’s got her sights trained on our bed. Of course, she’s not allowed on the bed and, added to that, it’s a bit higher than the living room couch. But she’s determined. The other day she figured she’d have better luck if she took a running start (EDITOR'S NOTE: she’s a little too smart for her own good). She had the right idea but because of the limited space in the bedroom, she had to run in from another room at a parallel angle to the bed.

As you can see, essentially she was trying to pull off one of those high jumps you often see done in track and field events.

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Unfortunately, despite her planning and effort, it was obvious that she lacked natural grace and skill necessary to perform such a feat and she completely fell short of her goal. Both height and direction were a bit off.

I was there for that one too, just lying in bed, minding my own business when I heard feet thumping on the wooden floors as she came running up. Then, I saw the brown blur that was the top of her head. Our gaze met for a moment as she passed by and then... she was gone. Soon after came the sound of her sliding on said floor and crashing into the wardrobe.

It was as a result of that one act that I knew she was indeed a worthy member of this family.

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You know those moments when you question whether mankind is really worth saving? I had another one of those recently.

It was morning. An average day, like any other. I was walking through the city, on my way to work. My headphones were on, the music just loud enough to drown out the world around me. That was normal. I was late but this was also normal. Indeed, it was just an average day, just like any other day.

That's when I happened to notice the guy in front of me had his boxers sticking out of his sagging jeans. Not that this is anything new. You know how I feel about trends but this one in particular has been going strong for decades. Personally, I think it's stupid but my complaining about it won’t change it. Instead, I try not to pay attention to it.

I probably would have dismissed him too except I happened to notice he wasn't just letting his boxers stick out of his jeans. His boxers were actually sticking out of another pair of boxers that were sticking out of his jeans. I could tell! They were different colors!

Is this the new "thing"? Is this what all the kids are doing now? I can't keep up anymore.

The icing on this double-boxer cake was that this guy was actually making an effort to show it off – as evident by him having tucked the back of his t-shirt into the upper boxer. Also, he was strutting. He was actually proud!

I briefly considered turning around and going home because, at that point, I had had enough of outside for the day.

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To end things off, here are some blog posts I considered writing but decided against it when I realized the titles were only mildly more interesting than the actual posts themselves:

Of Mouse & Man - One man’s harrowing battle to blog and surf the internet while being hampered by a defective peripheral device.

My Application Letter to The X-Men - After getting caught in the rain four times in five days with not so much as a sniffle, I become convinced that I possess some sort of superhuman power.

My Application Letter to The Avengers - In case the X-Men aren’t hiring right now.

The Great Flood of 2014 - The time when Mrs C broke a pipe in the bathroom and all the hardware stores were closed for the evening.

A Little 'O This & A Little 'O That - Where I regale you with- Oh, wait, I wrote that one...