Kidnapped by model ship enthusiasts

Weirdly, the threat to shut down made the bots stop. If that’s someone I know out there, stop being weird and just email me (except you, Sam, get off my blog). My stats don’t show who’s who since vpns became standard on everyone’s devices, they just show unique vs returning visits and country code. Calm down with the shuffling vpns, it logs dozens of separate entries instead of just one and it only stands out more.

The latest word on Robert is that he didn’t have a bullet wound. The gunman shot the engine, and Rob’s last act was to maneuver the falling helicopter away from homes. He and Tish are Mormon, and believe avidly in an afterlife, so their family is finding comfort that he’s back with loved ones. I’ve been unconscious too many times to believe in consciousness after death - but then, we were all dead before we were born, and we got better. It could happen again, why not?

 

New place, new crew, new injuries

On Friday I ran into the loft, pushed Zenny into the car while she was struggling into her coat, and we peeled up to the lawyer’s office to get the keys to the house. I found two heavy old wood chairs and a flimsy card table in the shed, and carried them into the dining room. We ate Subway sandwiches, looking at the ocean and crows while I fought with a chatbot on my phone, trying to set up power service and home insurance. The house is empty, but it’s ours, and we were so excited to open all the cupboards and find the small items the sellers didn’t take with them. A dehumidifier. Two 5lb dumbbells. Adult diapers. A cat toy with treats. Two old tea cups with “Himself” and “Herself” on them in Irish calligraphy with shamrocks. Clues about a life lived in these walls.

On Saturday morning, I picked up armloads of cleaning supplies and paint rollers at Dollarama before stopping at the hardware store for floor paint. When the helpful man in a vest asked , “Looking for something in particular, or just want to be left alone?” I showed him the video of the studio floor. “Ah, you only have one choice for that, here you go, don’t get it too dark or you’ll see every footstep. That place looks familiar, where did you just move to? Ah, well you’re my neighbor! I owns the store here. Here’s a picture of my house, just up the road from you. Aw, yes, there’s my horses. And there’s my goat. Now, I’m also on the city council, and you says you’re a painter? Lots of artists here, you’ll be in good company, beautiful place to paint. Now, the council has been looking for someone to do art classes with the kids at the Model Ship Museum, try to get a bit of revenue going, is that something you might be interested in? My buddy Jim helps us run the museum, he’s a painter, too. Hey phone, call Jim. ‘Jim! I have a young lady here, just moved into town, she’s an artist, we might could get her to do some art classes with the kiddies. You gots the keys? I’ll send her over.”

I paid for the paint and the bottle of mineral spirits he recommended, feeling that it was money well spent, and drove across the road to the museum. The museum is housed in an old Dollar store, and Jim was there unlocking the doors when I walked up. He shook my hand, opened the sliding door, and turned on the lights as I stepped inside. It was huge, filled with historic artifacts, intricate model ships from all through the past century, and original art on the walls. There was a large space for classes, with a taxidermied Newfoundland dog. “He’s popular with the kids,” he said, “especially the little ones who still sees it as a doll, but myself, I don’t really go in for the taxidermy. I wouldn’t be able to do that to my dog. Maybe my nan - prop her in the corner, bring her out for holidays - but ah, not a dog.”

We walked through for about an hour, talking about art and boats and model making and Our Flag Means Death. When we made our way back to the front door I wrote down my contact information on a post-it note, for planning summer art classes. He took it and said he’d love to get the other artists together and go out to paint, once the weather warms up, and he’d introduce me to them. The other artists are a group of about five old sailors - one “very old but tells a good story” - who get together to paint, talk, and drink. Yes please, I want to be in a crew of drunk painting sailors. I got back into my car feeling like Dirk Gently. I am a leaf on the stream of creation.

At our new place, I dumped all the painting and cleaning supplies in the studio and picked up the shovel to dig out the house. Almost put it down again when I realized I wasn’t wearing my smart watch. What is even the point of exercising if you don’t get credit for it? It took me two hours, but I cleared off the patio, leaving a nice neck-breaking sheet of ice where the snow had been, and put “giant sack of road salt” on my shopping list. My list is out of control. We don’t even own forks, let alone beds and furniture, and I have to change all the locks before I’ll feel safe sleeping the night, even if I do have friendly neighbors and a murder of crows who guard the house. The crows show up every afternoon at 4:30 and watch the back door, which is another clue about the people who lived here. Zenny asked to buy a bag of peanuts, and we dragged out the big heavy bird feeder we found in the garden shed. 

We went back to the loft at supper time, ordered cheap beds and pricey locks (you don’t skimp on door hardware, get the good ones the first time), and talked to family for a bit. I slept like a corpse that night, and woke up after 7am on Sunday, feeling not-unpleasantly like I had been beaten by a bag of rocks. Bought road salt, and ceiling paint, and food for my kid (who told her she could eat while I’m hemorrhaging money?), and drove back to the new house.

I am not spending any more money until payday, I told myself. I lied. It took me two hours of cleaning and scraping and cutting myself on splinters in the studio before my spray cleaner was turning to ice on the walls and my butt was frozen. We took a sandwich break (Zenny crawled out of her closet, where she had been reading on the floor in a nest of old sheets she found in a cupboard) and we drove back to Walmart for a space heater. Once I could feel my fingers again, I unscrewed all the ugly boob light fixtures, wiped yellow tobacco tar off the entire studio ceiling, and broke my box cutter trying to chip paint off the screws holding all the cheap old shelves on the wall. More clues: while Herself was feeding crows and playing with the cat, Himself was smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and dropping beer caps down the sink with the b'ys in the shed. Instead of cleaning, he just painted over everything every ten years or so. I could trace a path of where the men stood; someone liked to stand by the window, and two liked to sit in chairs next to the wood stove, because the tar was so thick it was dripping like resin from the walls and ceiling. Their lungs must have been made of amber.

By evening, the ceiling was painted and my arms were aching. We drove back to the loft for sausages and apples in the slow cooker, and I expected to drop like a log into bed again, but I had fitful dreams and woke up at 3am. My head was swimmy all day, and at work I wondered if I was overtired or having a stroke. It's only just occurring to me right now that I might have absorbed a few cigarettes' worth of nicotine throughout the course of the day. Calming? CALMING? I feel like I ate a caffeinated weed gummy, but without any of the fun stuff. Hoping for sleep tonight, how long does this shit stay in your system?

 In case I wasn't done draining my bank account (tomorrow is payday), I stopped at the insurance office and my favorite car insurance lady hooked me up with affordable homeowner's insurance. I'm totting up all the bills in my head, and thinking I just might be able to afford internet, too, if I stop buying coffee creamer and fresh meat. You can do a lot with a potato, you know.

 

 We'll have mattresses to throw on the floor and locks for the doors in 11 days.