Money don't get everything, it's true

You know what comes after that: What it don't get, I can't use, which isn't entirely true, in my estimation, because there's one very important thing that money do get. The most important thing, even: peace of mind.

I tried to explain my sudden, nail-biting stress to my colleague, Karen, over a pint at The Loft the other night. She was great — she listened, and she sympathized, but then she had to leave. So I called first Nadine, then Sparky, to see if they wanted to join me.

The Loft is my local, now, like The Banknote used to be. I've ordered another Stella Artois, a beer that in Canada is my despised last resort, but that here in California is often the only non-American, non-British beer available on draught, and until (and unless) either (or both) Nadine or Sparky arrive, I'll tell you about what happened, Gentle Reader.

You should know that last week I got an email from my agent in Toronto telling me she'd found a tenant for my condo. Not just any old short term tenant, mind you, but someone who, god bless them, wanted to take it for a year A WHOLE YEAR, beginning July 1, and who was willing to pay the full price, which means this: it's enough to cover the agent's monthly percentage; it's enough to cover all the utilities, even if they crank the A/C and open the windows in the middle of July; it's enough to cover the increase in my mortage payments that I'm going to be hit with next month; it's even enough to provide a few hundred dollars extra at the end of the year, in case I need to buy a new microwave, say, or get someone in to fix a loose curtain rod.

What it means, simply put, is peace of mind for a year.

So you can understand, I hope, why I was so relieved. Why I was positively celebratory. Why I had started to MAKE PLANS for the summer.

(For the last two months, every time someone asked me, "So, what are your plans for the summer?" I wanted to scream, I HAVE NO PLANS BECAUSE PLANS INVOLVE SPENDING MONEY AND I CAN'T SPEND ANY MONEY UNTIL I KNOW I DON'T NEED TO SAVE EVERY PENNY IN CASE I NEED TO CARRY MY CONDO FOR THE SUMMER SO FUCK OFF AND DON'T ASK ME THAT QUESTION!)

I planned to go home for the last week of June.

I planned to see my dad.

I planned to go to Kickass Karaoke.

I planned to plant flowers in the bare pots on my rooftop patio.

I planned to spend a week IN MY HOME, sleeping IN MY BED, for the last time for a year.

I planned to enjoy every minute of my time in the place I think of as Home, capital H. It would be the best vacation ever, and it would make having to spend the next twelve months in a foreign country, living with foreigners, where everything from the rules of the road to the peanut butter is, well, foreign, bearable.

So I booked my plane ticket, then switched to my email to collect my confirmation, and there it was, a message from my agent saying that the tenant had changed his mind and he wouldn't be taking my condo after all.

* * *
There's no happy ending to this story, at least not yet, so I'll give it a day or two before I tell you the rest.