Last week I went ROTC—run off to Canada, in 1960s parlance. Back to the terre de nos aieux for a weeklong visit to Halifax, the city where I lived for most of the 1980s. We were helping our daughter move from a second-floor walkup to the second floor of a high-rise apartment building. Labour Day weekend is the busiest moving period of the year in Halifax, so I reserved a U-haul two months in advance.
Then, the night before our 6 a.m. flight, we find out that everything’s changed. The move-out has to be finished 12 hours before I was scheduled to pick up the truck, and the move-in couldn’t take place until 30 hours later. Given the time difference to Atlantic Canada, there was little we could do until we actually got to Halifax the next night. Even then, most of the big movers were closed. I did manage to talk to one helpful gentleman, the former president of the east coast movers association. He told me the big movers had all the rental trucks rented to cover their own demand. My best bet—the classifieds for amateur, unbonded movers. We found two who were available on August 31st (“Ha!” another responded. “September 31st, maybe.”—we weren’t swift enough to counter that there are only thirty days in September, one of those instances where the perfect comeback doesn’t come to mind until hours later.) We settled on one guy who sounded a little wishy-washy, but not nearly as scatterbrained as the other guy. Turns out we picked a pro. He brought along some labourers and he knew exactly how to pack the truck to get everything in, and it was a tight fit.
Of course, the only time it rained all weekend was while we were waiting behind the new building. Fortunately we were fairly close to the loading entrance, so it wasn’t terrible, but we could have done without. We had to wait for the people in the apartment to finish relocating to another floor (three labourers on the time clock, tick, tock) and then we got the clearance to move in—except the elevator was reserved so we had to take stuff up the staircase. Only one flight of stairs, but it was a twisty flight (three turns). Again, fate smiled on us even if the sun didn’t and the elevator came up free so we were able to take the heaviest stuff up that way. Total moving time: 5 hours from when the truck arrived until we sent them, uhm, packing.
It was nice to be back in Halifax, though I quickly rediscovered how much I dislike driving in that city, with its narrow streets narrowed even more by curbside parking, and the aggressive pedestrians. Of course, when I’m not behind the wheel, I turn into one of those aggressive pedestrians. On a couple of days I had to keep moving the car around from one two-hour zone to another to avoid getting ticketed, but not on the long weekend itself. We ran a lot of errands, had some great meals on the waterfront and elsewhere, visited My Father’s Moustache several times for a beer and a break. The apartment complex is demolishing and rebuilding the parking lot, so the jackhammerers showed up yesterday morning. They must be union—you could set your watches by their schedule. At 8 a.m. I heard someone yell out “start the generator” and off they went. Silence at noon. Hammers at 12:30. Silence at 3:00. Hammers at 3:30. Clockwork, I say.
We also had some excitement the night after the first full day in the new apartment—a fire alarm at 4:30 a.m. We dithered a bit then decided to go down the one flight to the lobby. Smelled smoke. Turned out to be a real fire. Reportedly someone fell asleep smoking. The entire apartment was gutted, but thanks to 1960s construction, there was not smoke, fire or water damage to anything around the fourth floor apartment. We spent maybe 45 minutes on the sidewalk and then were allowed back inside once the air was clear.
I watched Fractured with Anthony Hopkins on the flight up to Canada (I figured out the gun trick the minute it happened) and Ocean’s Thirteen on the way back, though I missed some of the banter on those lightweight headphones you get on airplanes. We watched Men in Tights one evening recuperating from moving and unpacking and took a walk down memory lane by watching the Will Vinton Claymation feature The Adventures of Mark Twain. I started reading Dead Man’s Song, the follow up to Jonathan Maberry’s Ghost Road Blues but didn’t have nearly as much time to read as I thought I would. I actually took four books along and only read 150 pages of DMS.
Got caught up on Big Brother yesterday after we got home. I’ll be intrigued to see what happens on tonights double-elimination episode. Should shake things up. The Closer was good—love the ambiguity about whether it was really a murder and if so, did their suspect do it, but wasn’t prepared for “to be continued.” Also watched two episodes of Eureka, both nice, and the “Exiled” episode of The Dead Zone. I found Johnny’s actions in the bar completely unmotivated, though necessary to the plot. I like Jennifer Finnegan in this part much better than in Close to Home. Hopefully she’ll come back again. I guess we’ll finally find out the answer to the Walt plot in the last couple of episodes of the season.
