Well, yesterday started out badly with a visit from the landlord to demand that I move my car out of its parking space. He said that Carly and I had to put our cars together in one driveway, and give the other one to the woman upstairs. Now while there is physically room for our cars to sit side-by-side in that space, there is not room for us to get them there--not in the winter, anyway, with the permanent ice on the very steep lane. Siro does not have snow tires, nor do I have the money to buy any, and so fancy maneuvering on ice is not something that I can do--especially when failure to maneuver properly means that I hit either A) a pole, B) a brick wall, C) a low wall made out of rocks, or D) Carly's car. And if by some miracle I missed all of those objects, I could slide off the lane into a ravine. Nice.
The landlord didn't care about any of that, though, and so I now have to park my car on the street. You're not supposed to park on the street long-term. (The signs say 1 hour is allowed.) But I really don't have any alternatives. And I'm trying to be very calm and mature about this, really I am, telling myself that no one is doing this because they want to inconvenience me personally, that the woman is just looking for a place to put her spare car, etc., etc., but damn is it ever hard.
But things got better. Much better, actually. First, there were cupcakes, and then I went to a party at Rob Sawyer's house. Despite never driving to Rob's place from my apartment, the drive was actually pretty straightforward and easy (no getting lost--woohoo!). Sarah and Nathaniel were already there by the time I arrived, as were many others, and a vegetarian pizza.
As
Sarah says, the biggest surprise was seeing Rick Wilber there. Apparently he’s moved away from Florida and now lives within driving distance of Toronto. Since we missed each other at Worldcon, it was great to be able to chat for a bit. And I got some good news, too: my Asimov Award submissions did reach him in time, and I’m still in the running. Cross your fingers for me everyone!
It was a fun party, with many lovely geeky moments, SF television theme songs and much amusement thanks to Batman (all three of them). It was a pity, though; when I hoped for cute, young, single males to be at the party, I
meant ones who were older than five. Just goes to show, I should be specific next time.
