Help! I'm being held prisoner in a ...

[ed_rex]

"I understand my mother now," said my mother, "when she used to say, 'O! to be 75 again!"

And, sort of, I think I can understand it, too. My mother isn't that far past 80 — she'll be 79 in December — but she has visibly aged in the past couple of years. Her skin hangs loose where it used to be firm, her eyes seem to be permanently shrouded, almost bruised, by pouches of dark skin, lighter when she's rested, much darker when she's tired.

And I, Young Geoffrey only by vain (in both senses of the word) self-designation, am old enough to join in that conversation of complaint, what with my arthritis, my psoriasis and (maybe) my sciatica. "Yeah," I said, laughing. "Whoever it was that said that aging is beautiful can go fuck themselves!"

My long weekend — Canada Dominion Day nearly forgotten — was a good one.

It began when I picked up the rental car on Friday morning and, I guess, ended when I dropped it off this morning.

We had the car only thanks to Raven's foresight and perspicacity. Three or four weeks before, she insisted that I book the car now and, when I did, all but two of the company's locations were already out of vehicles for the long weekend. Duh, Young Geoffrey! Duh!.

Anyway, it was a good trip, and one bolstered by a phone call coming just outside of Ottawa: barring some monstrous unforeseen glitch, our apartment-hunt is over!

I don't think i've said anything about this particular place due to my atavistic fear of jinxing things, but *crosses fingers* I think it's safe to speak up now. The place is right downtown, maybe six or seven blocks from Parliament Hill. It's a (very) small two-bedroom apartment on the top floor (of two) of an old, non-descript (very) low-rise building. What the real estate agents would probably describe as cozy.

But it seems to be well-maintained, the landlord is okay with us brining in a small washer (a must for Raven) and, well, location, location, location. Raven will have about a 200-pace commute to work and while I will have another four or so kilometres added on to my bike-ride, I don't mind at all.

We are supposed to sign the lease on Saturday and move in on the 4th. Don't congratulate me yet, but feel free to cross your fingers in solidarity with mine own digits.

But yes, that call started us off on our voyage in good spirits, which we mostly maintained for the duration fo the trip. About which, really, there's not a great deal to say. I spent some time installing a new operating system, Linux Mint 13 (Mate), since Ubuntu stopped working with their (and my) printer and later versions have "upgraded" the user-interface to emulate the hideous Mac interface.

So of necessity, we didn't get much beyond my mother's apartment (apologies once more Souguy — once again, we'll have to put things off 'till "next time") where, I believe, the proverbial good time was had by all.

Our return-trip was uneventful, but for an unexpectedly delicious stop for lunch in North Bay at Habaneros Southwest Grill whose Tex-Mex food was, frankly, awesome.

Once home, cooking was out of the question, so it was out for Chinese we went, justifying it with the argument that we were still, technically, on holiday.

I dunno 'bout you, but I thought this only happened in old joke-books.