Slide’s Sanctuary

Our apartment has developed a slightly strange slightly freaky noise at night, it’s not actually in our apartment (well there is the rattle every time we walk by the storage room but that’s another issue), this one is outside. Of course just to add to the creepiness factor is that it only does it at night when we’re sitting out side having a smoke we can hear rustling. This seams to be new problem this fall or rather it’s never been to this extent because we’ve heard similar noised before but never this consistently. It basically sounds like dry leaves being rustled about so we’ve narrowed it down to a couple of possibilities. The first one is that it’s mice running around just outside our balcony, now this sounds like a good theory except for the fact that we’re never able to actually see them mainly because we only hear the noise at night. It’s definitely not loud enough to be a skunk or a raccoon and I’m pretty sure that spiders wouldn’t make that much noise. Not to mention that if it were big spiders we’d be seeing them on our balcony as well as hearing them. Now sometimes it sounds like it does when it’s just starting to rain which leads us to think it’s water related but it’s never raining when we hear it so that theory is out. Our latest theory is that it’s a combination of the dry leaves and condensation or or some sort of ground cooling that only happens at night. One thing that does support this theory is that we’ve never had this many dry leaves beside our balcony because the previous resident managers used to rake the leaves every fall and they’ve been gone for a while now so the dry leaves have built up. On a side note the dry leaves have become and nice early warning system for skunks and raccoons making their way past our apartment so that’s why we now that’s not the problem. Every once in a while we bring the flashlight out with us and shine it around to see if we can see anything moving and we haven’t come across anything yet which is why we go back and forth debating on what’s causing the noise. Any ideas or suggestions would be welcome, any ideas on whether or not dry leaves make that much noise on their own or if mice are nocturnal and that sneaky as to avoid all flashlight beams. Until then we’ll keep trying to figure it out (and keeping our fingers crossed that it’s not mice).

Today I came to a conclusion that apparently when it hasn’t rained for several months Vancouver drivers totally forget how to drive when it’s wet and rainy with possible slippery conditions. Today was the first time I’ve ever seen the back end of a bus start to kick out because the driver was on the brakes too hard causing the sliding and the screeching toward the traffic light. He pulled it together at the end and we didn’t hit anything or go through the light but that was definitely a first for me. Then at two other points on my way to work two other drivers (cars this time not buses) did the same thing. I just shook my head and laughed at how easily we forget that sometimes wet=slippery.

On a little side note I just wanted to add a blurb to my last post. While I was sitting there waiting for the bus an ambulance went by, if this was the reason the bus was delayed then I sincerely apologize. If it’s the difference between saving someones life and me getting home at a decent hour then the ambulance wins hands down, no contest.

Today Translink decided once again to test my patience as it does on a regular basis. Today we got out of work a little late (so very busy) and so I got to where I usually get dropped off at 8:18. I thought awesome I’ve still got two minutes I should be OK to still catch the bus. Now keep in mind that the bus has been coming consistently at 8:20 for the last two weeks. Today of course it decided to come early and I got to watch it go by as I was walking to the bus stop. I’m sure the lady walking her dogs though I was nuts as I was calmly walking down the street and proceeded to yell out “Ahhh Crap!!!”, she sort of kept her head down and didn’t really make eye contact as we passed.

I knew at that point I had at least a 15-20 minute wait for the next bus but I wasn’t too upset, I had my copy of 24hrs from earlier in the day to keep myself busy. After 20 minutes of reading I put the 24hrs away figuring the bus would be there any minute and waited as more and more time went by and more and more people showed up. Then there was more waiting, and a little more waiting and at around 35 minutes I was starting to get a little peeved. How difficult is it to get a bus every 20 flippin’ minutes, apparently too tough for them this evening. Around 45 minutes Simon called to see if I was home yet and no I wasn’t, still sitting here with the waiting. Finally a bus showed up, not just one bus but two of the damn things because apparently that makes up for the waiting. I checked my watch just as I was getting on the bus and in case you hadn’t guessed by the title I had sat there for an annoyingly long 48 minutes. That’s just unacceptable people. So note for the future: no more working late, it wreaks havoc on my bus timings.

Here’s a few recent shots that would have been great had they not turned out blurry due to improper camera technique.

Taken just up the street from us at the corner of 16th & Oak

Our neighborhood squirrel who only every sticks around long enough for blurry photos, he’ll let us open the door take a shot but never give us enough time to get a tripod set up. All our pictures of him look like this.

Simon’s new Dad Gone Mad t-shirt.

Well I finally managed to convince Sweeby that it’s time to re-organize (the trick: we bought new computer desks). Last week we started coming up with ideas so with the long weekend here it seemed liked as good a time as any to actually get the work done. Last night I created a rough layout in AutoCad and we decided on a plan that seemed workable. The biggest difference is that we’re now going to divide the living room up into two basically separate areas, the computer/dining area and the tv/couch/sewing table area. We just started this evening but the biggest part that we got done was to move the couch to it’s new location which has really started to give us an idea how it’s going to look when we’re done. It looks good so far (aside from the mess) and the apartment feels a lot wider now. We’re pretty happy about how it’s starting to look, and hopeful that it will turn out as we’re hoping.

Here’s the current layout we’re working from:

I tried taking a couple of pictures to show our progress but they didn’t turn out very good so on a totally unrelated issue here’s some other recent pics.

We couldn’t find our cookie tray the other day so decided to give the old muffin tray a shot and they turned out to be the best cookies we’ve ever managed to make with the fussy assed stove of ours.

While working on my new skirts the other day I captured a neat little macro shot of my seam rippers and the current fabric I was working on.