First of all, I came home to this:
after a week of this:
Now, that should be excuse enough for me to crawl into bed and not come out for two weeks. But noooo, there's more.
While I was blissfully gazing at the daffodils in Vancouver, Number One Son and his friend finally reached the breaking point with their roommates. A little background: They have been living in another unit here in the same townhouse complex as me for the past 9 months. They shared the unit (950 square feet) with friend's sister, her boyfriend, and his other sister, who has Down's Syndrome. The townhouse is owned by friend's parents. They were paying $800 a month for a bedroom. They were not allowed to use the kitchen except for limited cooking privileges. They were only allowed to use the upstairs bathroom at scheduled times. They were not allowed to leave anything in the living room, and if they did, they would come home and find that it had been thrown away. I was not allowed to visit, unless someone from friend's family was in the house (apparently, I look a little shady--hide the silverware!). These were the rules, imposed by friend's sister and her boyfriend. And the guys seemed okay with this, for some reason or another.
However, after living in close confines with these people for a while, it became evident to everyone that sister and boyfriend were in a rather abusive relationship. Door slamming, shouting, breaking of dishes and tormenting of small pets became a daily occurrence. When the guys complained, they were told that the relationship was none of their business and sent to their room. The violence escalated, broken only by episodes of loud sex and the introduction of drug usage. The guys started hanging out at my place more and more. Any attempt to intervene was met with threats of eviction from both the couple in question and friend's parents. The family is in total denial, and the guys were blamed for the fights and damage to the property, because my son is, apparently, the root of all evil.
I knew little to nothing of this situation until the week before I left for Vancouver, when I had to go to their place to do some vocal work for a puppet show. A fight broke out and I suggested calling the local constabulary, but was shouted down by the guys, who were "on probation" for arguing with the sister about her drug use. I still regret not overriding their objections. However, the next weekend, after a marathon fight, Number One Son had had enough. He called the landlords and told them he could not stand the violence and was moving out and they could eat the overdue rent. He was told he had 8 hours to vacate the premises or his possessions would go in the trash. So he called all his buddies and they moved all his stuff into my house, in less than 8 hours. His friend moved with him, even though he was told he could continue living there rent-free. He had had enough of the crap.
So. Now I have two guys camping out in my living room. And all their stuff. And Miss Lexi came home for a visit. And Miss Julia hurt her knee playing soccer while I was out of town. And then we all go off to Edmonton for 5 days "for a little break". So who has time to blog?
Things have calmed down a wee bit now. Everyone is back to work/school. The puppet building has been moved to a local yoga studio. We have worked out shower schedules and dish duty issues with our new roomies. I actually had time to knit on the weekend, and today a warp goes on the loom. The DAAGBF sweater is coming along...
...and I'm loving the lace patterns. Now that I am into the body of the sweater, I can knit a little more mindlessly, so I don't have to closet myself away and mutter "Can't anyone see I'm counting?"
The rest of March is shaping up to be busy, busy, busy, but I figure that if I could survive the past two weeks, I can deal with just about anything. And I suspect I shall have to.
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