Landlords

We all know I don't like my landlord. He's started leaving notes on the door: "[Captain Underpants], call me" which would be okay if it weren't totally obviousl that we were home at the time and he coul have knocked, or called us. ANyway, he's creepy and I don't think I've mentioned this before, but he looks EXACTLY like George Costanza's dad from Seinfeld. He is a snowbird who spends his time extre mega absentee-ing in Florida all winter.

Our fridge has just broken again, we just lost all our freezer food, and I am composing a song about our deal landlord. It is sung to the tune of 'dreidle dreidle dreidle'. This is how it goes:

Landlord landlord landlord, your clothes are all in beige
Landlord landlord landlord, you fill me up with rage

I know there's more to the song but I don't know it and that's all I've got for lyrics, though I think lots of other stuff about him. Not much of it rhymes, except for the obvious repetitions of the eff word. You know, whatev. I haven't been this worked up about some jackass in a long time though!

Hmm, other than that, things have been hectic like mad getting out crap together to move and go on this trip. That's same old same old, I guess.

Oh yeah! Today we went for lunch at the convent associated with the cathedral R worked for. One of the nuns, Sister Yvette took a shine to R and invited us for lunch and a tour. Man, the freaking convent! Is huge! 6 stories tall on Sussex (!!) and it's modern (a full clinic/hospital with machines and nurses) a 'chapel' tat's got to be one of the nicer churches in all of Ottawa, and lots and lots of cool spaced. All spotless and filled with smiling, cute, waving nuns. It was really sweet. They all looked sort of older and really sweet and they're all, "ooh, you're going to Australia! How nice! I'm flying out to Africa for three years tonight. Oh you know, Malawia and Zambia, mostly. Also, I just turned 65. But Australia aounds nice! Are you doing any projects while you're there?"

And then I feel like a jackass because these 65+ year old nuns are going to live in Camaroon and Lesotho to tend to the poor and I'm going on a joyride to surf with wallabees and complain about jock itch or whatever other trivial issue happens. (Sidenote: do girls get jock itch? Interesting fact: I had a girl-jock for tae kwon do as a kid and they were basically inch-thick underpants. It didnt catch on, because, really, inch thick panties?). Anyway. They were way cool and it was pretty fun to check out the convent, another place in Ottawa that seems like it may be an out of the way deal. Cool experience, for sure. It was funny because Yvette wanted to know if I'd ever been in a convent, and I totally totally have, though it was generally a way spookier experience...

Backstory: I had two great aunts whp were nuns, one, coincedentally called Yvette, and another, Marcelle. Yvette (the great aunt, not the cutie R worked with) was the...evalengelical type, the brimston and hellfire, how-did-you-serve-god-today type that made for awkward visits for a child. Marcvelle, on the other hand, was the soul of kindness and we loved to visit her. She showed us love and was the embodiment of helpful and loving faith that I think most religions strive for. She lived and worked for a convent/hospital for nuns with no family nearing the end of life. She was continuing her life's work right till the end. Anyway, the creepy part came in because lots of the nuns in the hospital were suffering dimensia of some kind, and the nurse nuns would park them in the hallway to get some exposure to people. So to visit Marcelle (yay!) my family had to run the gauntlet of sick and confused nuns lining the halls, who would actually reach out and try to grab us as we went by (boo!). My parents ran intereference, and then we'd see Marcelle, who would give us hugs and kisses and hand knit dishclothes, all she had to give away, really. She was wonderful. Anyway, then, more gauntlet, and on to the next relative.

It was refreshing to be amongst the heart of the Catholic church, aaway from the offices and the business and the scandal and the weirdness, and in with the people who started off this whole idea of serving others with a clean heart. Pretty cool, when I think about it.

I guess it was a pretty good day!
xoxo