Neighbors to the North

You can see the Peace Bridge from our attic window and in the summer it's possible to ride bikes to Canada. This week alone I went across the border three times!

Peace Bridge, looking towards Canada. November 2007.

Most recently--as in, today--I took my brother to Toronto. He turned 17 yesterday and this adventure was part of his birthday gift. We spent most of the day walking around so Josh could see the city up close; it was his first time exploring Toronto on the ground and at length.

We hit up the Annex, Kensington Market, Chinatown, the whole Queen Street West strip. It was lovely, all in all. Such a great city.

Flowers on Bloor Street. May 2007.

While munching on some Korean bibimbap downtown, I crossed my fingers and prayed that Grant Street in Buffalo would someday turn into the international restaurant scene that everyone is talking about.

That's all, I'm rusty at this writing thing of mine.

An open letter to my mortgage company

Dear Jerks,

As much as I love wasting hours of my life on hold with your collections and customer service departments, it's getting kinda old. Especially because the error in accounting is entirely yours.

I've made my payments, on time and without exception. In fact, the checks posted weeks ago, a fact I've explained to all four of your employees that have either reached me at home, at work, or on my cell phone. Once I explain everything to your employees, they usually say something helpful like "Oh wow, yeah this is a mistake," or "I don't know what's going on here," and then end by telling me "I'm going transfer you to customer service." Twice their transfers have led me to 35-45 minutes waiting periods, all of which I've ended because my lunch break was up. Twice the collections representative hung up on me when he/she tried to transfer departments.

The woman with whom I spoke this morning--my cherished Sunday morning--was frustrated herself. After a couple minutes of her bullshit customer service lines, she said, "Ok, I'm gonna be real with you, I can't even see my supervisor--I don't know where she is right now." Awesome. Then I got disconnected when she tried to transfer me to customer service.

Awesome.

So no, I won't be making a payment over the phone because I didn't do anything wrong. Your company messed up, your employees have backed up my claim, and next time a collections rep calls me at work, I'm going to refer them to the letter I've slipped in January's payment. It's written for the customer service department and it includes my phone number and the best time to reach me. Until then, leave me alone.

Sincerely,
Whitney

Frozen waffles

I'm working from my kitchen table right now as I can't get my car out of the snow. I'm pretty sure the old woman living behind us is throwing frozen waffles out to her two Rottweilers.

Man, working at home is exciting.

Monster Snow Storm

I've been reading the Weather Channel's front-page narrative, titled "Monster Snow Storm" and it's kind of poetic:

Heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain have raced across the Midwest into the Northeast as yet another powerful early season December winter storm roars along headed to the Atlantic coast to redevelop and fire a ferocious storm into the Maritimes...

...After a quick burst of sleet and freezing rain mainly from the Mason-Dixon Line northward this early morning, rain will rapidly push northward from Virginia, through eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to New York City as temperatures rise with a mild but strong wind off the Atlantic. The I-95 Corridor from New York City to Washington should just be wet through Sunday evening.

I can't find a permalink so chances are by the time you click there it will be gone or modified, but it looks like this narrative feature is a regular thing on Weather.com. I will be checking it more often.

Quick hit

Found this great gallery of decorating ideas via KRISATOMIC: LivingEtc. I'm a big fan of the sections on "Walls," as I have a ridiculous amount of photos to put up. Great ideas.

From the safety of my winter hibernation...

Now that the snow is flying, I am content to sit by my window sipping coffee, knitting hats, and thinking about all the things I'll do around the house come Spring. These daydreams include what has become a staple of all my fantasies: the illusion of more time.

This summer, for example, I constantly claimed that post-campaign I'd have more time. Now it's post-February I'll have more time. This spring--I claim again--I'll have more time. It's not likely that I'll have more free time at all. In fact, it's likely that I'll be up to my waist in local and presidential campaigning.

Still, one can fantasize and fantasize I will:

• Get Your Garden On with Gayla Trail, a workshop held in Toronto this April with the author of You Grow Girl. She's an urban garden goddess.
• Food not Lawns: My little patch of grass has such potential, at least from the perch of my warm window seat.
• The removal of this monstrosity. Steve and his pops did put a nice, new door on the outside to keep the heat from pouring into the kitchen of our tenant but it's likely we'll scrap and rebuild the whole thing. And I'll help, I swear.
• Paint the downstairs, including the room that STILL has painter's tape around the windows. This could happen sooner than the Spring, I know, but the fumes. The fumes!

Roto rooted

Today the Roto Rooter man came and cleared out a bunch of roots inside our sewer line. It was pretty neat, actually, and probably something we'll have to do twice a year as maintenance. According to our tenant, the house has historically needed roto rooting 1-2 times a year.

I did a little research and found the following on invasive roots and how to deal:

• 5 Steps to Dealing with Invasive Tree Roots
  
• Sewer Line Replacement Procedure - This narrative takes it a step further than we needed (fingers crossed) but it's interesting nonetheless.
• Q & A on invasive tree roots with Reader's Digest's Handyman
  

It seems like periodically reaming the pipes is not a bad option. Roto Rooter man also recommended the following: once a month, fill all sinks and tubs in the house with water. At the same time, release the plugs and then a couple seconds later, flush the toilets. He says this should clear out the sewer line fairly well. I'll keep y'all posted.

Any other experiences out there? Has anyone tried the chemical solution (i.e. copper sulfate crystals)? Share in the comments please...

Scenes from Talent Nite!

Last Sunday, our house hosted its 1st annual Talent Nite. It was awesome. What was intended as a small, neighborly event quickly grew into a larger showcase so if you couldn't/didn't come this year, be on the lookout next time!

In preparation for the event, a stage was constructed Sunday afternoon. Steve and our long-term house guest/friend Harrison were subject to my insane hostess cleaning mania--another sign of my lovely mom's influence!--but they forgave me when they saw that I bought gummy bears for snacks.

The winners of each category, as seen above, were as follows:

1. BEST USE OF BODY PART BELOW WAIST - Kevin, "Amazing Moves"

2. MOST HILARIOUS - Jack, "Dino"

3. BEAUTIFULEST - Whitney & Steve, "Tonal Poem with Interpretive Dance"

4. MOST LIKELY TO GET YOU ARRESTED IF DONE IN PUBLIC - Jack, "Dino"

5. BEST USE OF MICAELA - a tie between Erin & Zoe, "Mind reading" and Liz, "Pageant Rules"

6) CLEARLY SPENT TIME REHEARSING - Anthony, "Mayor meets Motley"

7) POOR PILGRIM PITY PRIZE - Jewel, "A Night Without Armor"

8) BEST - Jack, "Dino"

All pictures can be found here: TALENT NITE set on Flickr.

My mother's daughter

Yesterday, with help from our house-guest and friend Harrison, I rearranged the two common areas in our upstairs apartment (read: the living quarters).

We'd had the bookshelves and two chairs in a room that's really more conducive to couches and coziness, and the couch and comfy chair in a space that's kind of an entrance room. I hatched the plan to switch them a couple weeks ago and finally got around to it yesterday.

IT IS AWESOME.

As both Steve and Harrison have pointed out, I have completed my transformation and am officially--as if there were every any doubt--my mother's daughter. You might remember from my tales of our painting party how my mother repeated her love for the color of the walls no less than a thousand times. Well, as I sat on the couch yesterday, surveying the rooms post-rearrange, I kept repeating over and over, "I love this, this looks soooo much better." And on and on.

To top it all off, as I was planting bulbs in my front yard today, my friend Micaela told me that since I'd bought a house I turned into a "granny." I suppose she was referring to my gardening, and my tapered sweatpants, pink gardening gloves, giant fleece jacket, and sensible sneakers. And maybe the fact that they all went out last night and I stayed in to knit and catch up on some much needed sleep.

So maybe buying a house does change you but I want to go on the record with this: I was definitely an early-to-bed girl before the house, as well as a knitter, a secret-lover-of-decorating, and my mother's daughter.

Anyway, pictures soon!

Scenes from last week...

Before he left for Kenya, my boyfriend was basically staying with us. Below is a Sunday morning breakfast I made, isn't it cute?

Also, check out scary Steve in the camo poncho my dad lent to Sean for his trip. He didn't end up using it though because he wants to try to blend in or at least pass for Canadian--sorry Dad!

Doesn't he look like a wax figure?