I forgot to mention one very odd, out-of-the-blue incident that happened yesterday. I checked my cell phone messages, as I generally do every couple of days, and found a message from a fellow named Chris. Heturns out to be the step-grandson of the man who lived with my Nana in the last seven, or so, years of her life. He was phoning for information regarding Nana's death. Chris's step-grandfather, John, had passed away in the summer, something that was a surprise to us, though something of a sad one, and he'd left the condo he'd bought for Nana (in Florida) to Chris. Because Chris was adopted, the Kings County folks in the records office, wouldn't release the death certificate that proves the initial heir was dead.

I phoned him back and spoke to him for a bit, then decided it would be better to hand him over to Mom, who had a little more recollection of events, at least the ones from my earlier childhood. This led to me going into the creepy cold-storage room in the basement and digging out a records box that had been sent to us after Papa's death. It mostly contained photographs that had been in Nana's hands and had passed to Papa. Naturally, this meant that I had to go through just about every picture in the box, which must have been hundreds. To make a long story short, I dug up the records of Nana's death, Zaida's death, various report cards of my father and uncle, their own certificates, Zaida's military service documents, and Nana's original immigration papers from Russia, which I absolutely cannot read. I learned her last name was Belanski (I think that was how it was spelled), but upon naturalisation into the U.S.A., it became Bell. Interesting stuff.

Mom called Chris back, and promised to mail him a photocopy of Nana's death cert. and ended up talking to him for quite a long time. There's a very sad story of his mother (John's daughter) breaking contact with John, which led to Chris losing contact with John for 18 years. It's a real shame how stupid families can be. John was a wonderful man, and while he was never a replacement for my Zaida, he was as good a man as I could have as an almost-grandpa.

I'm actually in Toronto now. Imagine that. I got the tire fixed and Mom was generous enough to pay for it, even though she's only marginally more financially able. Frigging strike ! I have to get a job. A real job. I can't go on like I am; June will see OSAP knocking at my door for payments, and I'm dreading it. I applied to the job in Montreal, which meant writing a covering letter for the first time in ages. Thanks to a little tweaking on the part of Mom, it stopped being a so-so letter and became an awesome letter. Thanks Ma ! I attached it, and my resume, to an email that I wrote in French (since the job description is in French and the job is in Montreal), that required just a little help from the old bilingual dictionary, and sent it off. Hopefully, I'll hear something. I don't imagine that I will. But I'd really LIKE to hear from them. :)

Anyway, on a final note, Willi is having some trouble acclimatising to the new home. This is to be expected, of course, in that this is neither Mom's house or the old place on Manning (which is presently being rented for $1500 a month !). She walks around and yells a lot, sometimes calling out for the other cats (I suspect), and sometimes to located me. She's very unsure of herself, that is certain. Hopefully, she will get used to the place quickly and together we can start thinking of it as home. It helps that I got a bit of art onto the walls tonight and started to seriously fix up the kitchen - even if the microwave stand came with two (B) panels instead of an (A) and (B). Good thing Mom leant me her wonderful drill. Willi's currently half sleeping on my bed, so I think I'll go join her and we can both fully sleep.