There are Snakes! ON THE PLANE! *

Much is afoot. First, I know you are all very concerned about my foot. When last we left Charles and Edith, they had agreed to keep their distance via a foam earplug. About two minutes after I posted about how fantastic that was, the foam earplug stopped working. Bastard! So I was at the drugstore and the ever-helpful Saint Aardvark dragged me from the lipgloss section and showed me the Foot and Toe Care Section. I purchased a toe condom, which is really a – well, I can’t describe it better than “toe condom”. Rubbery, clear, fits over the erring toe. Thicker than a condom, obviously, but not so thick that it distorts my feet. I wear it over Charles and my days are relatively pain free.

Toe Condom
The sore is not healing
but I am not feeling
the sore,
so who cares? Until
gangrene, of course.

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A couple of weeks ago, we had birthdays. SA turned 34 and then next day I turned 32. The day after that, a former boyfriend (of mine) turned 40! Whoah! Nelly!

On my birthday we went to an open house because we have been looking at houses to buy in the lower mainland. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! No really, we are billionaires so we are looking to buy a house in pre-Olympic Vancouver. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

We started seriously looking for a place to buy in January. A couple of weeks into this searching and my practical side/nesting mechanism went into overdrive. The math went: I am pregnant. I am due June 25. I cannot, therefore, move on June 1st or for at least 3 months after the babby is born. So we must move May 1st. Which means we must give notice on our apartment April 1st. Which means we have two months to find a place. Which means that although it would be nice to bide our time and wait for the perfect house in East Vancouver, with a little yard for the puppy and a basement that is not coated with rat poop, realistically we should expand our search a little.

In Vancouver West, 900 square feet will cost you $379,000 – the cheapest place we saw, and its balcony overlooked a) the alley b) Oak Street (AKA: Highway 99) c) the air conditioning unit of the apartment next door d) the parking garage. (No, it’s not multiple choice; it overlooked all of those things which is why it had not yet sold. It had been listed 3 weeks, which is considered a long time in the VDot.)

In Vancouver East, you can get 1,000 square feet of 100 year old detached house for $439,000. This often includes original carpeting! a basement full of dead bodies! and the warm regards, er, fragrance of 100 years of pee and cigarettes. Sometimes, if you’re very very lucky, it even includes a view of the mountains – er – parking lot off Hastings St. where the guys with the drugs like to sell the drugs to each other.

In Burnaby, the Number One suburb, the houses are very nice and cost $500,000 and up. There are also some condos in Burnaby; lots near the various Skytrain stations but all with a sort of condo ghetto feel. Tall, concrete buildings with stains down the sides. Sad, identical rows of balconies.

The next ‘burb over is New Westminster, oldest city in Western Canada, home of the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame and many other oddities. In New Westminster, nice 900 square foot detached houses are $350,000 and up, the condos are $250,000 and up and it’s just another fare-zone away on the Skytrain.

So on my 32nd birthday we went to an open house in New Westminster. We expected the townhouse to be lovely, based on the photographs, and the price was right, but we knew nothing about the neighbourhood.

My only experiences in New Westminster were: a) having been raised in Burnaby, thinking that New Westminster was somehow inferior to Burnaby (which was, in turn, inferior to Vancouver: this much is true) and b) attending a handful of house parties, the best of which resulted in my finally earning the forgiveness of an ex, after he yelled at me for an hour while clutching a bottle of champagne (and rudely refusing to share), the worst of which was when we couldn’t even find the party we were supposed to be going to and wandered up and down the hills near the cemetary and the 22nd Street Skytrain station in the dark while unsavoury Skytrain station lurkers eyed our backpack full of clinking bottles.

Oh and then there was the time I took a frantic call at the crisis line from a woman who was at a different Skytrain station in New West and said a group of young men was circling her and she didn’t have cabfare or another quarter to call the police. New Westminster: Good Time City!

Anyway, we drove into this neighbourhood down a main street that felt like Saskatoon, dream city of all dream cities, past rows of beautiful, huge houses, into a development that didn’t feel all develop-y, in part because the houses are so tastefully constructed. And then we walked up the stairs and down the winding path, past houses where children played and barbeques hummed and a big white catt stared at us from his stoop. And then we walked into the front door of what would become our new home and we both sighed a little and that was It. The End.

Oh OK, that wasn’t quite it. That evening we had an exhilarating ride on the Real Estate Coaster, then a couple of days of Bungee Jumping with the Bank! and then came thing upon thing upon thing to think about. As you will. But all in all, things are working out. And we’re moving March 31st. To New Westmizzle, as Saint Aardvark has taken to calling it. Yo.

Yes, it has wall-to-wall white carpet and we have a black catt, a coffee-drinker who reads while he walks and, oh yes, a child pending. Yes, it’s on 3 levels and it will take me 5 years to get to my bedroom on the top floor. But when I get there, there will be enough space around my bed for me to walk and put stuff, PLUS a mountain view, PLUS a bathroom on the same floor, so really, I don’t ever have to leave again until it’s time to go to the hospital & get the babby. I just need a small fridge for the cheese and cucumbers.

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Speaking of babby, I have been getting quite a few jolting punts to the gut, especially when I slouch. Babbies are good for posture. Fun fact: if one’s placenta is anterior, ie: on the front of the belly instead of at the back, one will probably feel movement of one’s babby later than most women. Because of the big pillowy placenta, blocking sensation. Or, as Sarah referred to it, “the big piece of steak.”

According to the week-by-week documentation, babby is currently 11 inches long and weighs 1 pound. At my last clinic visit, I weighed in at 165 lbs and I suspect I’ve thrown on another 5 or 10 since then. I am still the same height, however my feet are, as predicted, spreading their wings & hoping to fly. I purchased a pair of shoes yesterday which rock my world. Embarrassingly, as I am not a nurse, I believe they are nurse’s shoes. And they have the “W” after the size, meaning Wide. But I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t expected to become more wide.

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This Friday, you can go to the CBC building and sit on Priya Ramu’s lap while she performs the afternoon show! Who’s in? If enough of us pile on, we could squish the cocky right out of her!

* the title of this post is a nod to Saint Aardvark who has taken the Snakes on a Plane train right past the “excited” stop to the end of the line – OBSESSION. And because sometimes I just can’t bring it when it comes to titles.