People are idiots.

Including me, of course. I just got back to wifi, so here's an entry I wrote about 4 hours ago. It's not very funny. I need to work on that...

****

Ah, the joys of moving and the utter idiocy of people.

So, I'm sitting in the only reasonably great café near Deep Cove. It doesn't have wifi. It *does* have cinnamon buns of the extremely-gooey-top-and-bottom-are-crisp-with-crystalized-sugar-middle-perfectly-balanced-between-doughy-and-well-baked-I-could-*die*-for-these variety, and espresso so smooth and rich I can drink it straight or in a cup of steamed milk. Needless to say I very rarely stop here.

But, I'm ticked off and annoyed, and not sure if I can go home for a bit, so I'm wasting some time and writing a blog entry (in vim). So, maybe now is the perfect time to explain *why* we're moving.

Once upon a time, not too many weeks ago, we had a delightful normal life living on campus, a couple blocks from one of Elizabeth's offices and about 8 blocks from Misha's school. Now it should be noted the townhouse we're living in is a recent construction; we were the first people to live in our unit. And the owners were also new to the business of being landlords, and hired a management firm to manage the details of the job. The townhouse is part of a "strata", which is the legal entity which all the townhouse owners are a part of and which sets the minimum rules for everything from the color of the exterior furniture (only black or dark olive green deck table umbrellas) to the pets policy (small dogs less than 20lbs, 24" at shoulder, cats, fish, small birds...)

So, when we moved in we were just over one year here in Canada. We read the contract pretty carefully, asking questions about this and that, including the pet policy. The lease didn't allow pets, but the management team assured us (since we're cat people) that it would be no problem to allow a cat sometime in the future, when we felt like getting one.

Fast forward two years; we're about to sign the lease for year three. Misha falls in love with a kitty. I fall in love with the kitty. So does Elizabeth, thinking it's perfect timing. We'll just add the cat to the lease before we sign it. We get the kitty, the toys, the scratching post...

Then the management says, uh, actually, we talked to the owners and they've changed their minds. No pets.

Blink. Look at kitty. Look at nice 1500 ft^2 townhouse so conveniently placed. Look at the ton of books. Look at wife and kid...

So, we start looking for a new place, with, oh, about 1.5 weeks to come up with a solution or a new home for the cat. Of course we didn't tell the management co. we already *had* the cat... that would officially be in violation of our lease.

Vancouver is not a pretty place to find housing. There's more people trying to move here than there are landlords or places to put 'em. Many places never advertise; quite a few buildings have waiting lists. Some of them have waiting lists measured in years.

Anyway, we searched, we toured, we balanced details and services... but basically I looked at every single advertised place within our budget and a couple that were outside it a bit. And I found a new place, out in the 'burbs, which was brand new (actually, not even completed), had 3 bedrooms, and a gas stove. It has a few "extras" here and there too, and it's only just a bit outside the budget. I hate the idea of the commute again, but I couldn't accept the gorgeous view sub-penthouse in a neighborhood so scary Misha would have becomep a virtual prisoner in the place. I seriously would not have allowed him outside. If I didn't know better, I would accuse the Vancouver movie industry of creating that area as a set for gritty city movies.

Anyway, getting back to the idiocy of people, or at least property managers... The contract says they can show the place after giving us 24 hour notice. Fine, I have no problem with this. They gave us notice they wanted to look the place over. Swoop the cat, all cat gear, off to the boat. It's only on the other side of the city, I can spend a night or two living aboard.

Then they want to show the place. Fine. Spiff it up a bit more, spend more nights aboard. In fact, I pretty much moved aboard, commuting to the house to pick up Elizabeth in the mornings and drive her to work, back to the house to work on getting things ready for the move, taxi Misha and Elizabeth about, back to the boat... I spent a month doing that. Then there was a lull in the showings. Maybe they found someone to move in?

Doesn't matter, by this point it's mid September, moving day is the 26th. I have an insane amount of stuff to get scheduled before moving day. Plus we're using movers who charge a flat hourly rate - I'm doing as much pre-packing as I can to keep that number of hours as low as possible. Over the weekend I move back to the house and work like a madman to clear out some projects in the storage locker. On Monday morning bright and early we get an e-mail from the management; they have showings for Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, 9am, please don't be there.

Blink again. Look around the room at boxes of files and books, the cat marauding the tissue paper. We're *moving* on Wednesday. So we shoot back a message saying no way, we have boxes everywhere and we'll have movers in the place on Wednesday. Wait wait wait. Spend the day trying to convince the cable/internet/soon-to-be-phone people that there really is a house where we want to move. By evening we still have no response from the management folks. We leave voice mail.

Still no answer by morning.

So I pick up all the cat gear, brief clean the house, and scoot. I have no idea if they are at the house now or not, but this is *really* pissing me off. I can't pack or close up the project in the locker (a tiny stitch and glue dinghy.) I can't get rid of the junk we aren't planning to move with us. This is totally nuts. And this café *still* doesn't have wifi.