My Miracle Compaq Computer!

A mug filled with H2O poured onto my Compaq laptop. Two days later and am I typing this miracle blog on it.

Seriously, I think I just got a miracle. Not the Jesus kind. Well maybe the Jesus kind, who am I to say, but I am assuming Jesus is too dam busy to care about my laptop.

So why was I drinking water near a computer. That is a fair question. The answer is that while working at a former job I ate three meals a day at my computer and never spilled one drop on it, so I developed the habit and stopped worrying about it long ago. And while there are NO liquids within ten feet of my computer right now, the truth is it was not my carelessness that resulted in water hitting my computer, but a freak accident..maybe not so freak.

My brother-in-law kindly installed a retractable clothesline in my apartment for me two weeks ago. I would recommend one for any of your apartment dwellers out there. My building is old and the air quite dry and the clothes dry surprisingly fast and and much quicker than in the house I was previously living in. They are off the floor and therefore do not take up any space on a clotheshorse. They aren’t sexy though, so not for everyone though you can remove it from the wall when not in use, leaving only a couple of visible screws in your wall.

The clothesline has been great for these past two weeks of laundry but after a number of hours covered in laundry two days ago, the end of the line, with the hook, came flying out of the wall, leaving a charming hole in the wall begging for Pollyfilla. All my sheets etc. landed on my not clean floor. (I am still unpacking so cleaning is restricted to necessities such as everything that touches food.) The hook propelled itself across the room while the falling clothesline knocked a mug of water onto my computer, which was turned on and then promptly was not. Computer blackout.

I tried to dry up the water, which unfortunately I did not see until after I had picked up my laundry off the floor. I turned my computer on its side and water poured out. I left it on its side and water kept coming out in little puddles on the floor.

I panic texted my brother Thomas because I did not know what to do next. He came over soon after, God Bless him, removed the battery and removed a few compartment covers and laid it on its screen with the keyboard facing the A/C unit, so upside down , if you will. I left it in that position for a day and a half. My brother then returned today and put it back together.

He turned my laptop on and it booted up. I have never felt so happy to see the Windows logo. Freaking miracle man! I was sure the motherboard had short-circuited and the computer was dead. Why? Besides the obvious you mean? Well, because two days earlier when my brother came over, he turned on the computer at some point and it made the most awful sound like a steak sizzling on a barbeque. It was not the sound you ever want to hear your computer make, unless you are playing some scary online game.

So, thank you to Jesus and the Universe and to my brother Thomas and to whatever and whoever saved my laptop. Thank you.

Elina Grace Edwin

Easy-Off versus Baking Soda & Vinegar. Cleaning the grossest oven ever!

While I am no Martha Stewart and I am not cleaning with the regularity she suggests, there are certain things I do each spring and fall. Cleaning things.

This fall I have had to add a new one to the list…cleaning the stinkin oven.

In my new apartment, (see "It's not home, but it is where I live." August 29, 2009.) it appeared like the oven had never been cleaned. I have literally never seen something that dirty.

It is beyond me how the previous tenant used that oven in the condition it was in. She was a nurse, so I like I mentioned in "You’ll be living in the weeds for a long time", September 26, 2009.), I give her a break. Nurses, if they do their job well, are giving to people all day. I am sure when she got home at night, the last thing she wanted to do was clean the oven.

Of course I decided to write this blog after cleaning it, so I don’t have pictures of the grossest oven ever.

Where I was living until recently, there was a self cleaning oven, so all I remember was the occasional stink and the house did STINK when the oven was cleaning itself.

I am not sure if I have ever cleaned an oven until now. Did I clean one at university? I don’t recall.

Anyway, I normally do not use traditional cleaning products and oven cleaners, along with tub and tile cleaners, have the rep of being the nastiest and unhealthiest of the traditional cleaning products, so I wasn’t planning on buying a traditional oven cleaner.

The first and best piece of advice I would offer, from someone who has just finished cleaning her first oven, is to remove the oven door first.

I started the oven cleaning process with the door still attached, making the process physically much harder, especially since once side of the oven is against a wall. I worked on the oven over four days with the oven door still attached for the first two. After the first two days of carpal tunnel inducing tension, I did not know that oven doors came off but I wished aloud that they would. I then emailed my Auntie Beth and brother-in-law and asked whether oven doors could in fact be removed. My kind brother-in-law quickly responded that they did come off, but could be tricky to get back on, so I pass along that advice. At that point I did not care if I could not get it back on until the next time a strong man visited and could do it for me, I wanted that door off and that oven cleaned.

Since I cannot remove and photograph it for you simultaneously by myself, I will reference a website I just found that provides advice and include photos that resemble my experience.(see Oven Door and Door Hinge Help).   In my case it came off easily…maybe all the grease in there was lubricating it right off?!? Just kidding! It was harder to get it back on than get it off. I did panic a little, but in the end it really wasn’t very difficult.

If you are not in a rush to use the oven after you clean it, (in case you cannot get it back on yourself) then take the door off. It makes it SO much easier to get in there and clean.

I started the mountainous task with vinegar and baking soda, two things I use regularly for cleaning. I made a paste of the two, with just enough vinegar to cause the chemical reaction with the baking soda. I used a decent scrubbing kitchen sponge, the tougher more abrasive side, and scrubbed away.  

I managed to clean the bottom, sides and most of the back of the oven that way, but not the top. The top was just too awkward to clean with the broiling heating elements in much of the way.

I will say this about cleaning an oven yourself with baking soda and vinegar…it is great exercise. It wasn’t a physical struggle, in that the baking soda and vinegar worked, but it took effort and time to scrub away what appeared to be years of baked-on grease.

I eventually gave up and left the roof of the oven uncleaned, until…my smoke detector went off and then again and then again and well, you get the picture.

So last night I gave in and bought some EASY-OFF Fume Free Oven Cleaner. That is the first traditional cleaning product that I have bought in years. 

I sprayed it on the roof of the oven last night before bed and then used an entire roll of paper towels removing the black sludge this morning. I know… environmentally wasteful, but seriously that oven was so dirty you would not want to wash those rags or use them again. I’ll say this, it was much easier than scrubbing with baking soda and vinegar. It does 99% of the work for you.

I then rinsed the oven twice, first with hot water and then vinegar. I turned the oven on to 300F for twenty minutes and then on to broil for twenty minutes, so both heating elements were used. The kitchen did smell of the cleaning product when the oven was on. It was not terrible but I recommend leaving a window open and not inviting people over for dinner that day. You want them to smell only your lovely meal. I then rinsed the oven with vinegar again and repeated the two twenty minutes cycles. The smell was much better the second time and really only noticeable when the second broil cycle was on, which makes sense since I used the EASY-OFF Fume Free Oven Cleaner mostly on the roof of the oven. I might rinse the roof with vinegar once more and then turn on broil for twenty more minutes but I feel it is safe to cook in as it is right now.

  So in the battle of EASY-OFF Fume Free Oven Cleaner vs. Baking Soda & Vinegar, they were equally effective. If you do not want to use traditional cleaners, the baking soda and vinegar will work for you. If you want it easy, the EASY-OFF Fume Free Oven Cleaner lived up to it name.

I am proud of my very old but clean oven, but I get it, why self cleaning ovens were invented…laughing out loud.

Happy US Thanksgiving!

Elina Grace Edwin

I am not a monster…

I turned on the Cuisinart kettle to make my one of two daily pots of herbal tea and my one cup of green tea. I also put some leftover Thai food in the microwave to warm-up.

The kettle boiled.

Before I could make my tea…

“You broke the last kettle and you are breaking this one too. You are a monster. You are lucky I let you live with me, her mother screamed.”

Her mother picked up the kettle and shoved in her daughter’s face so that it was just luck that the millimetre distance that remained from her face was even that large. “This is where you fill it to, she screamed.”

Her daughter instinctively stepped backward away from the just boiled kettle to protect herself from getting burned.

Her mother screamed, “Don’t you walk away from me!”

Her daughter was not walking away from her mother . She had just instinctively stepped away from a just boiled kettle.

Her mother cornered her daughter in the North West corner of the kitchen and continued screaming and blocked the path her daughter was already walking.

Her daughter moved to her left to try and get past her mother.

Her mother her blocked her daughter’s path a second time.

Then her daughter’s mind went elsewhere.

How to describe that to people, I do not know. Her daughter’s mind has gone elsewhere when her mother or father abuse her for as long as she can recall. It seems to go elsewhere longer when she is being physically abused. It is a more dramatic leaving.

This time her daughter’s mind went elsewhere for only short while.

Then it was back.

Her mother was still blocking her into the North West corner of the kitchen and screaming at her.

Her daughter stepped to her left again and tried to get past her mother.

Her mother blocked her path again.

Her daughter could not run away from her mother as she had in earlier years, because she now had a muscle disorder and used a walking stick.

This last attempt to get past her mother seemed to enrage her mother as she got right in her face and continued screaming.

Her mother did this when enraged, got right into her daughter’s face and pressed her forehead and nose against her daughter’s , shoving her face if you will, screaming ear splittingly loud and spitting into her daughter’s eyes. The spitting into her eyes was always so humiliating.

The daughter did not know what had changed in that moment, though truth be told the next moment was more of the reflex than a decision…

The daughter’s number one goal in life, for as long she could remember was “to be nothing like her mother ”. Part of this goal meant not treating anyone like her mother did and certainly not being abusive in any way. Her daughter thought she had mastered staying unmoved by her mother’s rages long before this day.

Years earlier she had given up trying everything, including admitting guilt or attempting to have a conversation with her mother when she was enraged over this hour’s transgression, but it had not mattered what option her daughter chose. It did not bring peace. It did not stop the abuse. So, for many years now, she had just remained silent and endured until it was over. It was probably pretty silly ever thinking she could have a reasonable conversation with someone who was raging and abusive anyway, given that it was all about her mother using her daughter as a dumping ground for the emotions she refused to take responsibility for. But it took her daughter decades to figure that one out.

…but in that next moment, while her mother was shoving her with her face and spitting in her eyeballs, while enraged and ear splittingly screaming, her daughter apparently could not be her mother’s victim any longer and so her daughter put her left hand on her mother’s shoulder area (her right hand remained on her walking stick) and pushed as hard as she could trying to move her mother off her. Her daughter cannot tell you where exactly her hand was, as her mother was right in their face, but it felt like her shoulder area.

Her daughter’s efforts were futile. She did not manage to move her mother an inch. While she was trying to move her mother off her, the phone rang. Where her daughter’s efforts had failed, the phone ringing had succeeded.

Her mother said, “why did you do that” and then turned and walked toward the phone.

Her mother answered the phone. Her daughter does not know to whom her mother was speaking only that her mother was immediately laughing and smiling as though she did not have a care in the world.

Her daughter made herself tea, hands shaking, and proceeded to carry her tea pot upstairs.

When her parents physically or emotionally abused her, her muscles would shake uncontrollably for a time afterward.

Her daughter came back downstairs and retrieved her warmed-up Thai leftovers. Her mother was still on the phone. Her daughter took her food upstairs to her room.

Her daughter returned downstairs once more to retrieve her mug filled with green tea.

Her mother was no longer on the phone.

Her daughter picked up the mug balanced on a side plate, her muscles shaking uncontrollably.

Her mother was at the kitchen sink, facing the window, not facing her daughter.

Her daughter turned, from the same west direction that her mother was facing, east, to walk toward the staircase leading to her bedroom.

Her mother screamed, “you are an animal”.

There was nothing shocking to the daughter about being called an animal. She had been called names by her mother relentlessly throughout her life: “stupid, worthless, useless, irrational, defective, disgusting, selfish, beyond help, animal” and “monster” were among her mother’s favourites. The one name her father called her that her mother had not was “stupid bitch”.

In spite of how not shocking being called an animal was in that moment, every so often the absurdity of her mother’s behaviour left her in disbelief for a moment. So, in that moment, the daughter turned toward her mother and shaking her head in disbelief and as she turned, the mug precariously balanced on a side plate went flying off the plate and crashing to the floor.

The daughter knew this would only further enrage her mother so she did something she was not proud of and left the mess in the kitchen and went upstairs. She intended to come back down and clean it up once her mother had left the kitchen.

The daughter went to her room and tried to wash off the ugliness of her mother’s words and deeds. She repeated a mantra, “you have handled this before; you can handle it again”. She tried to think of pleasant things, positive things. Her tomato seedlings that she intended to pass on to her nieces and nephews came to mind. She decided to email her brother-in-law regarding passing them on.

While emailing her brother-in-law, her father started pounding on the door in a manner that suggested that he was trying to knock it down. Her father must have just arrived home from London, ON where he had been overnight. Since 100% of the time that her father had previously pounded on the door in that manner, his daughter was then hit by him, his daughter knew at that moment that she was going to be hit again.Yes, her daughter was a grown woman and her father was about to hit her…again.

For the last three years her father seemed to have given up abusing his daughter, for whatever reason. He no longer hit her. He no longer called her names and he seemed to be choosing to not get pulled into his wife’s lifelong abuse of their daughter. While he had not taken any responsibility for any of his abuse or apologized for any of it, he had stopped. Until the day of this incident, his daughter had given him credit for that. It may seem pathetic to you for a daughter to give her father credit for not abusing her, but her father was getting older and was seemingly incapable of much change. He even once spoke out against her wife’s abuse of his daughter, for the first time in 40 years, on one occasion during the last couple of years. His daughter does not have the date of that incident at the moment, but a doctor does. During that particular incident her mother seemed to be attempting to get her daughter to simply evaporate from her mental, emotional and verbal abuse. It was that horrendous. Her father started shaking, like her daughter had shaken for decades. Her father yelled, “Wife! Enough! I can’t take it anymore. I think I am having a nervous breakdown”. Yes he did not speak out in support of his daughter, only himself, but his daughter was still shocked that he spoke against it. His daughter was very deeply concerned about her father’s physical and mental health at that moment and the weeks that followed. In that moment, he physically looked like a layperson might think someone would look if they were having a heart attack. His daughter was watching to make sure he did not grab his chest. He looked that in physical distress. Her mother’s head flipped back and forth between her daughter and her father at a rapid speed, like she was trying to decide whether to stop. She continued to verbally abuse her daughter but not long after slowed down and then stopped. As her daughter watched her mother seemingly trying to decide whether to stop, even though her husband looked so dire, her daughter literally felt like she would throw up. Her father looked very unwell for weeks that followed and his daughter paid close attention to him.

The daughter had decided at some point after her Dad had stopped hitting her, that she was no longer going to be hit. No matter the consequences, she was no longer going to be hit. As a result of this decision, she responded to his pounding on her door not by opening the door, but by putting on two sets of earplugs, foam ones and then ones that go over your head. She did not hear anything he was screaming. She then, with great effort, using her back as a lever, pushed, inch by inch, both her dresser and then when that did not seem enough of a safety against his attempts to get into her room, her drawers against the door, in order to keep her father from breaking down the door. At one point the pounding stopped. The daughter took off her two sets of ear protection in order to hear if he was gone. Her father then screamed, “you better open this door or you are not gonna like it!”. She knew if she opened the door that she would be hit. The daughter didn’t know what was to be worse than that, but she had already decided that she was not being hit anymore no matter what, so she put both sets of sound protection back on. The daughter does not know how long he pounded, but eventually he broke through her two door locks and got his head in the door. The daughter saw this hideous from rage contorted face looking at her. The look on her father's face made the daughter fear that if her father managed to successfully break down the door that he might kill her. The daughter was hiding in the corner farthest from the door. She happened to be sitting next to a basket that had exercise equipment in it. She picked up a hand weight. She was terrified. She had ran away from her father and then gotten hit for a lifetime, but she had never tried this hard to prevent him from being able to hit her. When her father continued to try and get into the room and when he saw his daughter pick up the weight,(the first time she had ever tried to defend myself against him in her life. Normally she would just cover her head and try to protect her eyes) her father screamed, “you think that will protect you?” When he could not break through the two pieces of furniture he eventually left.

For many years, the daughter had an emergency bag packed that hung behind her bedroom door, always at the ready. When she knew, or thought, that her father had stopped hitting her was when she finally found a pair of Pyjamas that her sister-in-law had given her that she could not figure out where they had disappeared to. The daughter found them inside the emergency knapsack. She had not needed the bag for a while, so she had not seen the clothing in the bag for as long.

The daughter’s plan was to wait out all her father’s attempts to break her door down and leave once her parents were asleep, as she had done many times in the past. As she said to her brother-in-law by email that day, she could pee in the garbage can if she had to, as she had to do in the past. Yes, it is humiliating to be the victim of abuse. Her brother-in-law indicated by email that he had called her dad. Soon after her wireless internet connection went dead.

After a time, the house grew quiet. The daughter could then smell that her parents were cooking dinner. Later on, the daughter then realized her parents were eating dinner on the balcony. The daughter decided to try and open the door as quietly as possible and see if she could find her emergency knapsack in the hall closet. When she got open the door she found that her dad had broken the trim off the door in his attempts to get to her.

 

  

The daughter reconsidered her decision and locked herself back into her room again.

 

The daughter then sat back down in the corner farthest from the door on a stool and prayed. For comfort, the daughter held on to two pictures of loved ones who had passed, a stuffed animal and a framed saying entitled “Integrity”.

The only person the daughter expected to come through her bedroom door that night was her father and then someone was breaking threw the two locks and two pieces of furniture. All she could see was a flashlight aimed at her. Three police officers came threw her door. The daughter did not know what was going on. She was on shock.

The three officers approached the daughter and then Officer #2 said, ““She is non-verbal. She can talk but she refuses to”. The daughter did not know what was happening or why he was labelling her that. She had never used that term or heard anyone use that term. She was not non verbal. She spoke every day, but she was very quiet. The daughter spoke to Officer #2 later at the hospital, so he later discovered that label to be untrue, but not before he had used it several times at her home and then at the hospital. She would love to know why he was calling her that.

The same officer then told the daughter to stand up. I did and then he proceeded to take away her walking stick. She instinctively sat back down. Officer #1 then instructed one or both of the other officers (She am not sure) to find something to cover her up with. The daughter was given a fleece top to put on. She was told to stand up again. She leaned on something as she stood up in order to aid herself (the window she thinks), in absence of her walking stick. She was then handcuffed, behind her back. She did not know what was happening or why anyone would be handcuffing her. She was then expected to walk, when she had been walking with a walking stick, without one, while handcuffed behind her back. She struggled to balance and to walk. The officers led her out of her bedroom and down the staircase to the ground floor. She eventually sat down on the bottom step. When she was sitting on the bottom step, Officer #1 informed Officer #3 that the manner the daughter was walking in “Could be interpreted as resisting” and that he and his partner, Officer #2 would have to decide that for themselves. Officer #2 was in the kitchen at that point in time. That was a very disturbing moment for the daughter, hearing Officer #1 say that. Three police officers had broken into her bedroom, while she was trying to stay safe from her father, had taken her walking stick away and handcuffed her like a criminal, without telling her why and were now using the phrase “Could be interpreted as resisting” because she struggled to walk in a normal fashion, while attempting to walk without her stick while handcuffed behind her back. As she descended the stairs she kept trying and failing to hold onto something with her left hand as she had been accustomed to holding onto her stick. She was in shock.

She fully cooperated with the officers from the moment the police officers came through the door until the last time she saw Officer #2 at the hospital many hours later, without incident. The daughter likes to believe that when Officer #2 later removed the handcuffs at the hospital, his judgment told him she was a threat to no one. The daughter does not understand that comment “Could be interpreted as resisting” in any way. She would be grateful to understand why Officer #1 said those words. She prefers to give the officers the benefit of the doubt and has considered that maybe Officer #1 was training Officers #2 and #3? The daughter is not familiar with police practices or training. Until that evening, her experience with the police consisted of calling them if she thought someone needed their help.

The daughter realizes that police officers enter situations every day in which they do not know what to expect in terms of safety and that they important and dangerous work, but the daughter feels that no reasonable person would have considered her in any way threatening, let alone against three armed police officers. She hopes that each situation that officers find themselves in is judged on its merits. The officers found her sitting on a stool in the corner of her bedroom farthest from the door

Officer #1 later indicated that the daughter was reading, when they found her in her bedroom. She was not. She was trying to comfort herself, by holding two pictures of loved ones, a stuffed animal and a framed verse that is deeply important to her: ”The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the full light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny…it is the light that guides your way.” – Heraclitus, Greek poet, philosopher

and she did everything they asked of her. If they had allowed her to walk with her walking stick, she would have walked to their car just as peacefully, if instructed to. They did not, nor even bring it with them to the hospital, so she walked like someone would who had been walking with a walking stick, would, without one, while handcuffed behind her back.

While she was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, Officer #2 went into the kitchen and called someone on the telephone telling them, among other things, that “She is a huge burden to them and they just want her gone’. No one has told her until that moment that she was not welcome to live there. Until 3 1/2 months ago her brother had been living there as well. Officer #2 repeated that phrase several times that night. While sitting on the step, he also admonished her out of an apparent belief that she attacked her mother, without asking her a single question, and referred to it as “not okay”.

With all due respect to Officer #2 (and to each of the three officers who did not ask her what happened that night), there would never be a need to lecture the daughter on “not ok” physical contact, she assures you. The daughter could go into schools and teach a course on it. She could assist the ten year old in understanding that if daddy is dragging you upstairs by your ear or the hair and then throwing you against your bedroom wall as a warm-up to hitting you, when you are ten, then it is not ok. The daughter has been determined her entire life (seriously, since she was a child) to never treat anyone in the abusive way she has been treated by her parents.

After being taken to the hospital and while sitting in a chair next to the triage nurse, Officer #2 said, among other things:

“I bet if we looked, we would find skin under those fingernails”. The daughter offered up her fingernails twice for whatever test he wanted to run. He declined.

and

“she threw her to the ground” (meaning that the daughter threw her mother to the ground). The daughter let out a gasp when she heard that. She knew her mother had a serious truth telling issue, but until that moment it had never occurred to her that her mother would also lie to the police.

The daughter repeats that she did not throw her mother to the ground. She put her left hand on her mother’s right shoulder area (she cannot tell you exactly where as her mother was too close to her for her to be more accurate than that) and she tried to get her mother off her. She failed in her attempt and could not move her at all. She had no intention that day of being within 10 feet of my mother, if at all possible. As she said, she broken her roughly six year old personal rule of being outside a locked area (her bedroom) with her mother, while her father was out of town.

Her mother obviously decided to take advantage of this situation to accomplish two things: first to get rid of her daughter and second to brand her as something she is not, all the more repugnant given who is the true perpetrator and the true victim. The daughter is not someone who goes around putting their hands on people in any, to reference Officer #2, “not ok” fashion. In fact, she is very conscious of the manner in which she puts her hands on everyone, especially anyone physically weaker than her. Physical abuse of power and physical abuse to her are crimes, because she was hit by my father until a few years ago, each time effectively ordered up by her mother.

Her parents believe that they have a right to physical confine their adult child, for the purpose of either physically or verbally abusing her. The daughter believes she should have the human right to walk away from that abuse. She does not believe she should have to stay there and be abused; they think otherwise. She does not know what the law says about that, but if what she did is not considered self-defence, then it should be.

A personal thought from the daughter to the three officers involved. Maybe next time, you shouldn’t make assumptions without questioning both parties. The person barricaded behind a door with two locks and an alarm might just be the victim, not the perpetrator. That being said, the daughter thanks you sincerely, because even though you treated her like a perpetrator, you were actually rescuing a victim.

“Thank you”.

From the daughter to her parents:

I am not stupid, worthless, useless, irrational, defective, disgusting, selfish nor beyond help. Nor am I a stupid bitch, an animal or a monster. And I am not “she”.

I am your child. You created me and then you abused me.

Goodbye.

Elina Grace Edwin

“You’ll be living in the weeds for a long time.”

I am grateful for my Auntie Beth, my mother’s sister.

Auntie Beth emigrated to Canada from Scotland after we did. I am not sure how long after, but I think it was only a few years. She has been a constant presence for as long as I can remember, except for the time when some combination of she and her husband had a falling out with some combination of my parents. That was a few years ago and lasted a while.

   I realized in the last couple years not only how fortunate I was to have her as my Auntie growing up, but in particular how my parents did not teach us to be grateful for all her love and generosity. We are not her children but she treats us like we are. I wrote her a card not that long ago, in order to tell her how thankful I am to have her in my life.

Recently my Auntie Beth helped me move into my apartment. My brothers Henry & Thomas and my sister Beth found the apartment for me. They looked at lots of places while I was in shock and then presented me with a handful from which to choose.

In the end I chose a landlord as much as an apartment. It was down to two choices. The first had two great amenities, a dishwasher and a microwave. I was so overwhelmed at the time I was making the decision that those two things seemed like the holy grail to me and not choosing them felt like I was forfeiting a gift. The apartment was in an old building that was being renovated. I really liked the landlord but the apartment was on a very busy road in an area that will be under massive construction for years to come. The second alternative was older, with a smaller kitchen, no treats of a microwave or dishwasher, but on a quieter main road and had I thought an equally cool landlord. Cool meaning someone that will help you when something goes wrong with the apartment. So I chose the latter and my Auntie Beth along with Thomas, Beth and Thomas’s wife Susan helped me clean, paint and move in.

The apartment was very dirty. The previous tenant was a nurse. I am a bit of a germ freak, not in the can’t accept that there are bacteria crawling all over me sense, but in the freaked out about public health hazards (people) who do not wash their freaking hands. A nurse with a dirty apartment freaks me out a bit. Yet, at the same time, I can forgive the nurse, because her job, if done well, involves giving all day long to people who are ill and therefore needy, so I can imagine that cleaning is not high on a nurse’s list after giving to everyone else all day.

 So far we have painted my bedroom green. I have wanted a green room for along time, but have been afraid of my choice being too green, whatever that means. It looks good I think, though the colour is more muddy than on the paint chip. Paint chips are hard eh?

Next we will paint the living area, but I have to unpack and purge what we have already moved in, because I have more stuff in storage yet to come. I am hoping to paint it red. Something warm and happy, but all the reds on paint chips just aren’t right to me. I see them in magazines and they look lovely but I never seem to be able to find the paint name of the really cool red in the magazine.

My name is Elina and I am a member of pack-rat’s anonymous. It is hard being a pack rat. Other than the moments when you are going through your stuff and ouwing and ahhing at the memories, your stuff is mostly just taking up lots of real estate. I am not aware of any of the psychological reasons for being pack rat but for me it is having a sentimental heart. Everything has a memory attach to it and being sentimental I cannot throw it out. I also do not like to waste things, so I keep it because one day I will want it. I am jealous of non pack rats like my sister Beth and brother Henry. They seem to have no sentimental attachment to anything as far as I can see. Thomas on the other hand is a pack rat as well. He understands.

Moving is overwhelming. Yes you will likely read that word a great deal, at least for now. Moving from a larger place to a smaller place when you are a pack rat is well ?!?!?!. So I am going through everything as I unpack it and trying to keep less and pass stuff on.

In the midst of the first  unpack on moving day, with Auntie Beth, Thomas, Beth and Susan helping, my Uncle Campbell telephoned to speak to his wife. My Auntie Beth got on the line and calmly repeated, “I think we will be a while”. I broke out laughing and then so did everyone else. It was quite the understatement.

But a while…a long while…or not, Auntie Beth worked all day that day to give me a place to sleep in that night and when I explained the longer term plan of unpacking and purging, she said, empathetically, “Oh you will be living in the weeds for a long time”.

Back to the weeds I go.

Elina Grace Edwin

It’s not home, but it is where I live.

  “There is no place like home, nothing like sleeping in your own bed,” my brother-in-law said as he drove me back to my apartment just now. He was talking about himself, as he has just returned home from a week away.

My apartment is where I live now, as of a few weeks ago, but it is not my home. In my apartment I feel lonely, sad, scared and overwhelmed. Home should not feel like that.

I am not homeless in any true sense of the word. There are millions of people who would be grateful to switch places with me. Knowing that does not make me any less lonely, sad, scared or overwhelmed.

I left what was my home two months ago, very quickly, without warning, in a shocking and disturbing manner that I was powerless to prevent, after someone who has been cruel to me for a lifetime was cruel once more. I soon after moved in with my sister’s family for a month, something I am very grateful for. I slept in my nephew’s bed, in his jungle room as I have taken to calling it, surrounded by animals of all stuffed, printed and stickered sort. By the time it came time for me to leave, I did not want to. I felt safe there, an unfamiliar feeling that I did not want to relinquish. I knew that if anyone ever broke in to my sister’s home, my brother in law would handle it or perhaps even my sister would go mother commando to protect her kids. I wasn’t alone.

I had arrived at my sister’s home still in shock, even though the shocking event was almost three weeks earlier. Sometimes, I think I still am in shock. I am definitely still feeling the emotional fallout.

 

This is all I know for sure right now. The place that was my home, for decades, is no longer my home. I can never go back to it and I will never go back to it. Others related to me will, but I will not.

Elina Grace Edwin