badlybent.ca

By Stevie Z

Well, it’s April 16th.  As I start to write this, actually, it’s April 14th.  I’m hoping to get a jump start so that it comes out in time.

April the 16th of 2009 will mean that I will have been married to The Luverly Michelle for exactly 4 years.   I thought it was 3, but I was corrected….fairly sternly as a matter of fact, that it was indeed 4.  Time has sure flown.  When I started my podcast and blog I decided that I was going to wait for episode 100 to divulge the entire story of our wedding.  That was about a year and a half ago though, and since I’m only on episode 17 or so, by the time I reach episode 100 I probably won’t even REMEMBER what the story of our wedding was - I’ll just publish episode 100, eat my dinner pill, fly my jet car home, and go to sleep in my capsule on Mars.  Get it?  See, by the time I actually do publish episode 100 it will be the distant future and……never mind.

Since the Ballad of Steve and Michelle could fill several blog posts, I’ll focus on a Reader’s Digest version of our wedding, give you the key points to whet your interest, and then direct you to an upcoming episode of The Sieve! (my podcast, which I assure you DOES exist)

The Luverly Michelle (hereafter in this blog post referred to simply as “Michelle” to save ink in the court transcripts which will likely follow) and myself (hereafter referred to as doofus Stevie Z)  got married in a Cancer Hospice.  Wow, even typing those words has brought back a flood.

In order for the wedding to happen as it did, a number of things had to go off perfectly, most of which should never have happened.  Caterers that shouldn’t have been able to do a smaller wedding in such a short notice were suddenly free, people that weren’t supposed to be able to attend because of out of town trips suddenly found their plans changed, ministers that weren’t supposed to be able to officiate found a space on their calender, and people that shouldn’t have been in any condition to help plan a wedding made sure that things were all lined up and ready to proceed.

By now the words “Cancer Hospice” have probably burrowed into your mind to the point where you’re ready to start skimming through this post to figure out what the hell I’m talking about.  As I said, I’m not going into too much detail here, but suffice it to say that Michelle’s mother was a guest at the hospice, and it was her situation that prompted the venue.

I’ve typed this particular paragraph about 4 times now, and I honestly can’t find the way to say what I want to say, so I will say this: perhaps some of the greatest amount of thanks and….I can’t even figure out the WORD to use, should go to the staff of Lisaard House (the cancer hospice where we had the wedding) for first of all suggesting the venue in the first place, and making sure that things went the way they should.

The next biggest helping of thanks, Kudos, smiles, hugs, kisses and Love, should go to Michelle, who was my gorgeous bride four years ago today.  I still don’t know why she agreed to marry me, I mean, I sure as hell wouldn’t have married me, but she did, and I’m thankful every day for it…..especially when she lets me buy music equipment and Macs - which, by the way, I have been informed is my birthday/anniversary/Christmas/Easter/Valentines/Groundhog Day present for the next year.

Thank you Sugar Beet Babydoll Honey etc etc.  I love you even more then I did before - 4 years more, to be exact.  Here’s to many more years of me not quite pissing you off enough to leave me.

Love ya Sweetie,

Stevie Z

It’s been a hell of a few months.  Actually, in the grand scheme of things, compared to some people’s lives, I guess I don’t have that much to complain about.  A lot of people had and have it worse off then me, so I’ll give ya’ll a brief rundown, and stop me if I start whining:

First of all, I’ve been working on home renovations.  Not huge layout-altering stuff, but over the last few months my house has pretty much been completely painted.  Top to bottom, literally inside and out.  It’s also been fixed all over the place, and decluttered like crazy.  We are now the proud renters of a 10×10 storage space that’s packed to the rafters with stuff that, for the most part, turns out we didn’t really need.

The Luverly Michelle(TM) decided that it was time we sold our house and moved.  I’ll get into more detail at some other time about why that was her call to make, but we both knew when we bought it that at some point she’d need to move.  So, we engaged the services of THE best real estate agent this side of the Pecos (we call her our Real Estate Ninja) and made the mistake of asking her for a list of stuff we should do to make the house more salable.  And, much to our dismay, she gave us a list.  A huge list.  Of course, it was our decision to do anything, but since she was the expert, we did it.  We would have gotten everything done on the list, except for a couple of things like money and time.  See, I didn’t think things through quite enough, and had relegated some things further down the list, and turns out we couldn’t do them because they were dependant on outside temperature, which was rapidly plummeting.  Ever try to paint exterior trim on a house at +3 Celsius?  Yeah, it’s a blast.

Then, while painting outside, I fell off the ladder.  Nothing too spectacular, I was only about 4 feet up, in fact, I kind of ‘jumped’ down instead of falling when I felt the ladder shift.  Guess I just landed a little bit wrong, and did something to my lower back.  You know those really annoying back injuries that just hurt enough to piss you off and keep you from doing stuff?  It was one of those.

Then after that had finally healed, I managed to whack my kneecap hard enough trying to run through a doorway (and missing it slightly, apparently) that I could barely walk for about 2 weeks, and after 2 months was still pretty sore.

Hmmm, I think I’m starting to whine now….so I’ll leave the injuries there.  Those were the major ones anyways.

Ever renovate your home with your spouse?  Well, not literally “with” your spouse - obviously you use paint brushes and hammers and stuff, but I mean alongside your spouse?  How did that go?  Yeah, it went a ton worse with us too.  Between the regular life stresses, plus extra stresses, and then the stresses of renovating a house to sell it, well, The Luverly Michelle(TM) and I were getting along about as well as two rabid marmots with PMS and hangnails, stuffed in a sack, dunked in water and then shaken vigorously.  But with less fur.  Only moderately though.

That pretty much sums up most of the crap.  I’m glad that 2008 is over with, and I’m really looking forward to 2009.  Of course, a guy who keeps getting kicked in the nuts would probably appreciate a punch in face, just for something different…..

I’ve actually got big plans, social medially speaking.  Look for The Sieve! to be back in full force in the next couple weeks, along with the possible launching of a NEW podcast.   The Sieve! Monthly Song Challenge will be back up and running in the next couple of weeks too, and I’ve tweaked it a bit based on some comments I’ve received from people.  I’m hoping to really get people writing some great stuff too - in times like this, with economic uncertainty, plus all the other crap that’s going on in the world, it’s always a good thing to create inspiring and amazing art.

I’m also helping a couple of people in getting their online presence up and running as well.   Hey, I guess I can start calling myself an expert now!  Neato. 

I’m also going to be re-launching my band that a friend and I had last year, new direction, new sound, new songs, and I’m starting to write and record again.  It’s amazing the stuff that you can accomplish when you’re not spending every spare minute and dime working on a house.  Go figure.

 So, I’ve missed you all…..well, okay maybe not ALL of you - some of you I didn’t miss one bit….and you know who you are…but the rest of you I’ve missed a lot.

Looking forward to a prosperous 2009!

Stevie Z

As a lot of people know (because I’ve bored almost everyone I know) I am in the process of moving my living room and office downstairs.  Half of the basement of our house is “finished” and half is “utility”.  By “finished” I mean that it is done in Retro 70’s Early Cheese.  Not because it was decorated like that on purpose,  but it was last decorated IN the 70’s.  Cheesy brown faux-wood panelling matched the cheesy bright-orange-and-brown almost-but-not-quite shag carpet.   And don’t even let me get started on the lamp/ashtray that was down there.  I’ll post a photo of it when we’re done, because, well, you have to see it to believe it…..

So we primed and painted the panelling (it actually looks pretty cool, with the grooves adding a nice effect), and I re-tiled part of the ceiling and then we primed and painted that, and steam-cleaned the carpet since we couldn’t afford another $800ish for a new floor.

That was when the fun really began.

We had noticed it was really cool in the basement, but had never noticed that it was slightly damp.  Then, The Luverly Michelle steam-cleaned the 26 year old carpet, and the humidity level shot up to roughly ‘tropical rain forest’.  Seems the crappy ole’ carpet had a backing that was, apparently, made of sponge.  90% of the water that the steam cleaner put down, stayed down despite Michelle’s best attempts to suck it back up.  We could have hydroponically grown pot plants in the carpet if we’d so desired….and would have if we would have thought of it earlier…..I’m kidding Mr. RCMP Officer.

So, a workmate of mine, from work, mentioned that he had renovated his basement some time ago, and the first thing the contractor told him to do was put a dehumidifier in as soon as the work was done.  A little light went on in my head. 

$200 and a trip to Canadian Tire later (it’s a department store in Canada that specializes in automotive and household hardware, tools, fixup stuff, etc) I had a nice Whirlpool dehumidifier.

So I plugged it in, turned it on Maximum everything and went upstairs and had a beer or 3.  A couple of house later I came back down and checked the water catch basin.  There was over a gallon of water in there.  Already.  Yikes.  We’d already moved the computer and recording equipment down there - I can’t imagine what kind of damage another 2 weeks in that humidity would have done to all the electronics.  Yikes again.

 On a somewhat-related note, here’s how much I love my wife…..or how whipped I am, either/or…

We have been using the spare bedroom in our house as an office/computer room since we moved in 4ish years ago.  During that entire time I’ve been bugging The Luverly Michelle to let me convert it entirely into a recording studio.   Nothing major, just some sound absorbent stuff on the wall, get rid of the TV in there and the bookshelf…you know, minor stuff.  Every time I brought it up I was met with the argument that “we really can’t spare the space because then we’d have to move the office somewhere else, like downstairs, which isn’t finished”.  Not being a big fan of arguing, I’d lay off the idea for 2-3 months before raising it again.  Turns out, one of the main reasons that Michelle wanted me to get cracking on the whole ‘finishing the basement’ project wasn’t just so we could move the living room downstairs ( we don’t have an air conditioner, so it’s usually about 28C in the summer upstairs, but about 8 degrees cooler in the basement) but also so we could move the office downstairs and she could have the old office for a sewing room!  Well, she outsmarted me there…which isn’t that impressive actually - my cats outsmart me on a regular basis.  So, I moved the office stuff downstairs as well, and then moved her sewing desk, cutting table, etc upstairs.   We also moved and hooked up the ancient computer upstairs as well.  I was gracious and let Michelle have the computer speakers that I was using for the new ‘puter too, cuz I’m such a nice guy.

Here’s where it gets good though:  I think I ended up with a much better deal then my wife.  I’m not worried about her finding this out - she never reads this blog.  She actually has a life and stuff, and therefore better things to do.  Plus she doesn’t think I’m entertaining…..unless she watches me playing squash….that she thinks is heeelarious.

Anyhoo, here’s great thing is that I got to go out and buy a new set of ‘puter speakers.  And I picked up a fantastic pair of Altec Lansings.  Also, from what I’ve been able to determine so far, the acoustics downstairs are amazingcompared to what I was dealing with before.  Conditions for recording couldn’t be better!  Yay me!

So I guess the morals of the stories are these:
A) Dehumidifiers are your friend.  But, and this is so important that it was in BOLD type in the first page of the dehumidifier manual: DON’T DRINK THE WATER FROM THE DEHUMIDIFIER BUCKET.  YOU COULD GET SICK!

2) Always give your wife what she wants…but only if you have more to benefit then she does….

Of course, I’m Just Sayin’…

Stevie Z