In which a surprising number of people fail at grade one math.

Tags

leaky condo, people are idiots, real estate, strata

We knew when we bought this place that it was better than we could afford.

Three bedrooms, two stories, multiple pets allowed, with a yard, several playgrounds and an indoor pool.

I hear there’s  even a sauna, although it’s been broken for years.

We knew there was a catch.

The reason our place was so cheap was because the place had been slowly falling down over the last 30 years. Some units (not ours) had mold. Some (not ours) had roofs caving in. The windows leak. The drains don’t drain.

In 2002, the owners were told by several different companies that the problems amounted to 2 million dollars in repairs… They voted to fix less than a quarter of the issues. When warned that the problems would snowball if ignored, they dismissed it as fear-mongering.

Estimated repair costs are now close to 6 million dollars. It would take 3 million just to get the place up to code. We knew this, coming in. It’s how we could afford it.

What we didn’t fully know, didn’t fully consider, was the sheer idiocy of human beings.

An owner has requested that the courts come in and intervene. If they do, and we don’t have a decent plan of action in place to remediate the issues, they’ll declare us a Leaky Condo, force us to cough up all 6 million immediately plus legal fees and such, or they will foreclose our homes. Today the strata council held a big meeting. We needed to make a decision. Did we want to…

• Pay the 3 million dollars to fix the really urgent problems (leaky windows, mold, drainage problems, collapsing roofs etc) over 5 years… (about $4,000 a year per household)?
• Or… did we want to fix all 6 million dollars worth of repairs in one big lump sum (as much as $60,000 per household)?

You’d think this would be a no-brainer.

But noooooooooooooo.

Asshats with the patience of two year olds were constantly interrupting the council’s presentation with “That’s bullshit!” and “I can’t afford $20,000!”

Oh yeah? Can you afford $60,000??

They wanted to know why THEIR unit wasn’t on the list of first year repairs, in front of the people whose units are uninhabitable.

They wanted to know why they had to pay when THEIR roof had already been fixed.

They wanted to know why the council was asking for money before the repairs were made.

They accused the council of trying to steal their money.

They wanted their units fixed now, and they wanted to know why the repairs weren’t being paid for by a magical money tree.

To be fair, there were rational people, who talked about our property values, and basic math. But mostly, in a crowd like that, you notice the morons. Like the weepy lady who said she didn’t dare vote at all because the council hadn’t made it clear whether this money would pay to fix her stairs. Or the guy who said “shut the fuck up!” to a weeping mother describing the black mold growing behind her son’s bed.

Ultimately, the question comes down to this:

What is more affordable, $20,000 spread over five years, or $60,000 at any given moment?

We needed 75% of people to answer this question correctly. There were 102 votes cast. 10 people abstained.

We needed 76 “yes” votes to pass the motion.

They counted, and recounted, and recounted, and recounted. Perfect Husband and I began to talk about declaring bankruptcy and showing up on my parents’ doorstep, because if the courts intervened, there is no way we could get a loan for a sum that large.

The votes were in. There were 77 votes in favour of not being morons.

Thank gawd only 24% of people are complete and utter idiots.

The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said, to Talk of Orange Popsicles

Tags

anxiety, GAD, generalized anxiety disorder, Popsicles, to-do list, worrying

Okay, first, before I write anything else, I have to ask:

Does anyone prefer orange Popsicles? I keep wondering why Popsicle companies always insist on putting orange ones in. The other flavours may be raspberry, or strawberry, or grape, or pomegranate or something, but there is always, always orange. Like, it seems like 50% of the Popsicles end up being orange in any given package. Why?? They are the least exciting flavour. They are the ones that always get left for last. People rummage for the red ones and the purple ones, and only start on orange once all the good flavours are gone. Ditto for orange suckers, when it comes to that.

Maybe it’s because they want you to run through the box faster, and buy more. You think you’re getting 14 Popsicles, but once you’ve eaten 8 or so, you realize that all that is left is orange ones, and after a couple of days of half-hearted eating you go and buy a new box. But surely any brand that sold grape-only, or red-only, would rocket to the top of the charts as the most popular brand?

These are the things I think about.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about – why am I finding it so much harder than some of my group-mates in facing my anxieties?

The only answer I really have is that unlike some of my fellows, who are terrified of talking to their ex-wives or abusive relations, or who avoid driving because they are afraid of car crashes… I don’t have any stressful situations which I am avoiding. Instead, my avoidance is the cause of most of my anxieties. Cleaning the house doesn’t make me anxious. NOT cleaning the house makes me anxious. Writing in my diary doesn’t make me anxious. NOT writing in my diary makes me anxious. So, I’m supposed to be doing things that will make me anxious, so I can tolerate the uncertainty. But I’m also supposed to start doing the things I’ve been avoiding doing. So should I clean the house, or see how long it takes before it resembles an episode of Hoarders?

Because it’s totally all the things that I’m avoiding doing that are making me anxious. And then I begin to associate the things on my mental to-do list with the anxiety that thinking about them all the time causes, and then that makes me avoid them more. Which makes them build up into bigger problems. Which makes me… you guessed it… more anxious. Like, the more I stress about being late for work, the later I end up being, because stressing about being late for work makes me avoid getting ready. It’s really, really stupid.

When I think back to the times in my life when I have been happiest, it has been times  when my to-do list has been pretty small. I love being on trips because I don’t have to worry about cleaning the house or washing the dishes. I can just have fun and be on vacation.

But when stuff builds up like this, it becomes a vicious cycle. All the stuff becomes overwhelming, so I avoid dealing with it, and it becomes more overwhelming, so I avoid doing it more, which makes it worse. And now it’s hard to feel any kind of joy at all because the weight of all the things I have to do are pressing down on me all the time, and some part of my brain is constantly going, “don’t forget to look for that missing DVD. Don’t forget to trim your dog’s nails. Don’t forget to sweep – look at all that dog fur. Don’t forget, you have to get printer ink so you can print your resume. Don’t forget, you need to preserve those torches. Don’t forget, you still need to install baseboards around the house. Don’t forget…”

I’m supposed to write my worries, but they aren’t worries so much as endless thoughts about the things I’m not doing.

So, here they are, for the world to see. You can all help me not forget.

• Groom Beloved Dog
• Clean floors
• Throw away or organize clutter (Perfect Husband got a great start on this last weekend, when he went into the Baby’s Room aka The Room Full of The Boxes We Haven’t Unpacked Since We Moved Last August and Cat Litter) and spent a whole day sorting through the junk. You can actually see the floor!)
• Wash dish rack
• Do laundry
• Figure out why there is laundry under the bed and deal with that, too
• Figure out where that smell in the bathroom is coming from and eradicate it
• Figure out where the missing DVD went
• Buy stands for the torches
• Buy book case/entertainment unit for the living room
• Buy stuff to fix the soot on the torches because I keep worrying that it’ll all rub off
• Get house measured
• Get baseboards
• Get baseboards installed
• Finish painting the house
• Paint the baby’s room
• Buy new eye glasses
• Clean car
• Turn up the earth in the garden
• Get sod for garden
• Get outdoor planters
• Get plants for said planters
• Get small charcoal barbecue
• Pick up patio set from friends who have offered us said patio set
• Frame pictures needing to be framed
• Hang framed pictures
• Call friends who think I’m dead
• Write in diary regularly so I can worry there instead of worrying about how I need to go and write backlogs
• Write backlogs in diary
• Get hair cut
• Go swimming regularly
• Get psyched for our upcoming trip to New York
• Tell my mother about our upcoming trip to New York

That’s all I can think of for now, but I know there’s more. I’ll let you know when I think of it.

Aren’t you excited?

Finding Courage

Tags

anxiety, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Finding Nemo, GAD, group therapy, Psychoanalysis

…I didn’t do my homework, but I did spend the whole week stressing about the fact that I wasn’t doing my homework.

…What if I write down my worries wrong?

…I spend so much time worrying about the things I’m not getting done. Why can’t I just do them?

…What if they never get done?

…What do you mean, worrying about stuff and thinking about stuff are two different things?

…I’m worried about how much I’m worrying.

…Yes, of course worrying means you care. How can you care about someone and not worry?

…What if my child stops breathing?

… If it’s bad news, then I can handle it. What I can’t handle is not knowing.

…What if I can’t handle it and everything goes wrong?

…I’m so tired all the time. I don’t have the energy to face the world.

…What if I feel like this forever?

Every Wednesday, the people at my GAD group meet, and talk about their week, and cry. All of our stories are different, but the same thoughts and feelings fill the room like echoes. Sometimes, the room will fill with chuckles, as we recognize ourselves in each other, and share a laugh at our own expense.

What if I forget to lock the front door, and someone breaks in? What if they take everything we have? What if the insurance doesn’t cover it and we have to go into debt to replace our things? What if we end up so deep in debt that we lose the house? What if we end up on the street? Maybe I should research how to keep warm when living in a cardboard box.

We are all slaves to that ancient proverb:

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.

For want of a horse, the rider was lost.

For want of a rider, the battle was lost.

For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost.

All for the want of a horse shoe nail.

Wikipedia says the point of this rhyme, which has reverberated in my mind since I was a child, is that the consequences of tiny events can only be seen in hindsight. But Wikipedia is wrong. A person with GAD  would have fretted over that nail, and probably invented all of the consequences within seconds of the shoe dropping off of the horse. Surely, the people in my GAD group would say, the rhyme should include “For want of a worrier…” because we would have caught it.

Or would we?

The leader of our group assures us, even as we look at her suspiciously, that people with GAD actually end up with more problems, because they tend to stress so much over tiny ones that they avoid dealing with them, and thus the problems become bigger and worse. In other words, the rider with GAD was so stressed over losing that nail that he never got around to re-shoeing his horse, and hence the kingdom was lost.

We’re supposed start recording our worries, and start facing them. We are supposed to start exposing ourselves to uncertainty. They want us to start with small things, like only checking the baby TWICE while it’s sleeping, or letting someone else do the laundry, or tackling some of the mess in our bedrooms.

We hate the idea. We are all like Marlin in Finding Nemo. We want to be sure. We would rather not have anything happen to us, than risk something bad happening to us. We want to double check, and triple check, and maybe even check a fourth time, before we even leave our anemones. Any scenario presented immediately starts a train of thoughts leading to disaster.

Marlin: They’re going to the drop off?? What, are we insane? Why don’t we just fry them up now, and serve them with chips?

…

Marlin: It’s a fish we don’t know. If we ask for directions, it could ingest us and spit out our bones!

…

Marlin: Hey, that snail was about to charge.

…

Dory: Everything’s going to be all right!

Marlin: How do you know? How do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?

Dory: I don’t!

Now, I realize it was good for Marlin’s anxiety to go out and almost get eaten by sharks, and jellyfish, and whales, and sea gulls, and pelicans. I realize that it generally improved his attitude towards life, exposing himself to all of those horrible things and living through it. I realize all of this intellectually. In fact, we have a couple of Marlins in our group who skipped the only-checking-twice-before-leaving-the-anemone stage and went right to jumping into pelican’s mouths. They are the ones making the really impressive progress. They come to group each week looking more encouraged, more empowered. They did it, and it wasn’t so bad. Their world is being handed back to them. They are blooming before my eyes.

I’m not even up to doing my homework, yet.

Just call me Sally Sad Sack

Ob Gyn again today. Everything went fine, and they found the babby’s heart beat this time! 160 beats per minute. He/She kept darting away from the doppler. Weird to think there’s something moving in there that I can’t even feel. Even weirder that I found further proof today that the baby is healthy and moving…but don’t even feel excited.

I’ve been feeling really, really low the last couple of days. Poor husband is all worried and sad because I am all listless and sad. I’m so tired, and I don’t even know why I’m sad. I’m still happy about the baby. But I feel so fat, and so useless. My pregnancy nose overwhelms me with disgusting smells ekeing from mysterious places in my house. I have a long list of stuff that needs doing which I continue to not do because I’m so tired all the time. Clearly I’m not competent enough to take care of myself, let alone a child. I keep gaining weight, but the only things I seem to be able to eat are things that make me gain weight. Eating meat makes me feel sick, so I live on carbs. But if I don’t eat at all… I feel sick. So I keep getting fatter. Even maternity clothes shopping isn’t really fun, just a struggle to find something that doesn’t make me look like a big fat pilgrim.

I’ve looked forward to being pregnant since I was a kid, when I would stick a stuffed animal in my Oshkosh B’Gosh overalls and pretend I was having a puppy. I always anticipated with glee the day when I would be shopping for maternity clothes, giggling at the fake bump pillow and enjoying finding things that showed off my belly after years of trying to hide the damn thing. But I just felt tired and fat all over, and as if it wasn’t even worth trying to find something flattering.

I should just put on a voluminous muu muu and accept that I will be one of those people who look like bloated ugly bags of mostly water during their pregnancy, instead of looking vibrant and glowingly gravid. The baby will probably take one look at me, and say “put me back in.”

Welcome to my life

I just spotted a lump of poo underneath our bed.

You must not be from Halifax

Whoever found my blog by searching “donairs are a travesty”: Either you are not from the East Coast, or you ARE and you meant “West coast donairs are a travesty” or you don’t know what travesty means.

Tired

I’m so tired.

I’m tired of having to go in to work, when “work” now means “fiddling around in the office being a secretary while other people train my dogs and people pretend that I never had anything to do with that side of things because it’s awkward and they don’t know what to say”. I want to just stay home and recuperate from the shock. But if I go on EI while I look for another job, it comes out of my maternity leave. So I had to take the pity offer my work gave me and do work well below my qualifications for the sake of a paycheck.

I’m tired of having to pick and choose what I can eat each day.

I’m tired of feeling hungry, but not hungry, all day long.

I’m tired of smelling crepes in the morning when I wake up. WHERE DOES THAT SMELL COME FROM AND WHY DON’T THEY SHARE WITH ME?

And yes, I’m tired of complaining, too.

But I’m so tired.

I’ll feel much more happy about the unbearable pain, now.

I was anxious about meeting the obgyn last month. You go in to meet somebody like that, and you start thinking about the horror stories women tell. Like Perfect Girlfriend, who was forced against her will to lie on her back for labour despite the fact that she found it excruciating. Or my mother, who insists that she was given an epidural against her will and hated it.

What to Expect suggests that breastfeeding works best when you are allowed to do it immediately after birth, and that you should ask your obstetrician about whether this particular hospital will even allow such a thing. It warns that hospitals will sometimes give babies bottle sugar water in the nursery, to make the baby stop crying, which will both sabotage the baby’s latch and reduce the baby’s desire to suck at all, thus diminishing your milk supply. It recommends putting a sign on the bassinet warning people not to give your baby a bottle ever. It tells you that some hospitals allow your baby to stay with you through the night, as though access to your baby was a privilege and not a right.

Naomi Wolf’s (Misconceptions) tells horror stories of routine episiotomies that can make tearing even worse, and of doctors preventing the labouring mother from moving around and finding a more comfortable position. It discusses the high c-section rate and why many c-sections are so unnecessary. It warns you that the stressful atmosphere can halt your labour, and the doctor will give you pitocin just to hurry you up, resulting in pain so excrutiating that you practically beg for an epidural. She talks about them pushing the drugs on you, because US hospitals try to keep a quota of an 80% epidural rate just to keep up income. Of course, these are American, for-profit hospitals, but still… how many Canadian women do we know who have chosen a midwife for fear of just this kind of thing happening to her? My friend’s story, my mother’s story… those are Canadian hospitals. So I can’t dismiss my fears with mere patriotism.

All of these fears and more went through my mind on our way to that first obgyn appointment. Would they treat me like meat? Would they pooh-pooh my crunchy ideas of immediate breastfeeding? Would they force me to lie on my back?

I found them caring and concerned, and because they couldn’t even feel a heartbeat I felt it was premature to start berating them with questions about episiotomies. But I still felt reassured.

Going through the massive pile of pamphlets and leaflets that they loaded us up with, I feel my concerns draining away. This hospital tells you flat out that they don’t approve of nurseries, and your baby will room-in whether you like it or not. Not only are there five different pieces of paper urging you to breastfeed, but if you DO choose to formula feed or even just mix-feed (like allow the hospital to give your baby the occasional bottle between times), they make you sign a paper which essentially says;

“I choose not to exclusively breastfeed even though I have read the literature which clearly informs me that baby formula is pure poison that will result in my baby being fat, stupid, and exposed to the risk of bacterial infections. I am aware that this makes me a bad mother and that by choosing this option my doctor reserves the right to shoot me in the knee caps (sign here)____________”

They also tell you that they encourage you to try breastfeeding as soon after birth as possible, and their written description of their labour practices certainly doesn’t sound like Naomi Wolf’s version of things.

I’ll be allowed to move around, it says, and I can take a warm shower or bath if I want to.  They offer a variety of pain relief options besides epidural. They’ll give my baby to me, instead of whisking it away. Maybe it’s all lies, and I still have to tell them that I do NOT want an episiotomy. But I am soothed.

YES

Driving home, I passed a truck with the following blazoned across its sides:

MEN IN KILTS

Gutter and Roof Repair

NORWAY’S PANTS… and reflections on Sidney Crosby

Tags

curling, gold medal, hockey, introvert, norway's pants, Olympics, Vancouver 2010

Perfect Husband came back from the Gold Medal hockey game understandably wound up. After a couple of hours of him shouting incomprehensible things loudly every few minutes, he began to settle down.

“You know what I think? The more and more I watch Sidney Crosby, the more I think he’s an introvert,” he said to me as we watched the Closing Ceremonies.

I opened my mouth to say that no one who ever played hockey could possibly be an introvert. But a mental image of Sidney Crosby flashed into my mind. Sidney Crosby, sitting quietly and thoughtfully on the bench while the other hockey players around him punched each other and grinned toothless grins. Sidney Crosby, so often accused by his detractors as entirely lacking in charisma, and called “wooden” or “bland”. Sidney Crosby, who has single mindedly dedicated himself to hockey since he was two, with a level of concentration that defies most people… while maintaining top grades in school.

“I think you’re right,” I said. “That… actually makes a lot of sense.”

“Well, I watched him getting the gold medal,” said Perfect Husband, “and I realized that whenever I see him in social situations, he always looks so awkward.”

It makes so much sense. Introverts make up a high percentage of the “gifted” population, and when it comes to hockey, Sidney Crosby is certainly generally considered gifted – either with natural hockey finesse or an impressive amount of dedication, depending on who you ask. Introverts have better concentration. They can have excellent social skills, but they rarely take the time to develop them, since dealing with strangers is so exhausting in the first place.

I think he’s an introvert. I think Perfect Husband is dead right.

GO INTROVERTS! GO FOR THE GOLD!

Speaking of which… the medal winning throw by Kevin Martin:

I loved the spontaneous hugs by the team when they realized that they had won. Kevin Martin looked SO happy. They all looked happy (the Canadians, anyway), but Kevin Martin was clearly over the moon. I actually saw him brush away a tear on the podium. We love you, Kevin Martin.

But let us not forget… NORWAY’S PANTS! Only they wore the red ones for this game. We were sad. They aren’t quite as awesome as the white ones.

Oh, and some women from the Canadian women’s hockey team were sitting behind us!

I asked them to hold my teddy bear, Timothy. He has been to the Eiffel Tower, and to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He has been to the Toronto Zoo, and the Vancouver Aquarium. He’s an active little bear. But holding the gold medal… that was definitely a high point.