PART 12
PREVIOUSLY; In the first half of 2006; Another Road-Trip, another (EX)girlfriend, A job loss, and a New Job with new possibilities; A new dog & a new Home; And some new Friends & Housemates.....
Summer 2006 was an interesting time, for many reasons. I had just changed jobs again, this time out of an industry and into a new one, An industry I hadn't worked in for many years at that point. I was a part of the club scene in one of Toronto's longest running as well as largest venues. The Docks was quite a surprise to me when I started working there. It's not just a big place, it's a huge operation. Although, I started in the spring, by the time I was Full Time for the summer season, I had already lost my apartment, and my girlfriend had been gone for well over a month. If I remember correctly, she finally broke it off with me near the end of June 2006...
By that time I had been into the season, and making new friends out of my co-workers, meeting all kinds of regulars each day. So, I was very busy at work, and with my new friends, a term I use loosely with most people. Some of which actually turned out to be genuine friends... The House was a busy place, four guys living in a house.... two of us were on the lease, but we all needed a place to live, I had a dog. My landlord was always snooping around and trying to get my dog to run away, one attempt at which he almost succeeded.
I think it may have been the July 1st Long weekend, 2006. I had to work all weekend, from about 11am til whenever, by that point in the summer, I was clocking about 10 or 11 hours minimum. I had started to be able to let my dog outside in the yard, however, tied to the porch with a very long rope. She was able to reach the grass, but stay in the back yard, and sit on the porch if it happened to rain or something. I had to get her used to being alone, and leaving her in the house didn't seem to work very well at the time.... she was still young and anxious.
One day, I went to work, and what had become our new routine, I walked her for a couple hours and then fed her, then put her outside and said "goodbye puppy, see you later tonight."
For a couple weeks, this worked well.
Until, the Long Weekend, I guess my landlord came by the house, he was kind of scared of dogs and a Pit Bull was even worse for him, regardless of how friendly she was. He cut the rope at some point and she got out of the yard, and it wasn't until one of my roommates came home and noticed that I got a call. When I finally got home, I went looking for her. I knew a lady from our walks, she took care of the alley cats in the neighborhood and some other strays... She had seen my dog, and warned me about letting her off leash.... This I already knew, it was just an accident on my part. Precious was found by a neighbor around the corner and taken in overnight, the couple contacted me in the morning. I was so re leaved, I never wanted anything to happen to my dog...
From then on, we had to change our little routine and schedule, I couldn't leave her outside all the time, and I had to take her out for more walks, and find a place for her to run as well.... Pit Bulls really do get a bad rap, they are very smart and loyal, and they listen very well... all they ask in return in attention and love, which really isn't hard with a good dog.
When we lived in the apartment, our routine was easy, moving into a smaller house with more people, meant not enough room, but more attention from people. She as able to get used to being around people. It just happened that I found a place that was in the area of one of the good friends that I made that summer, we lived right around the corner from each other. Precious got to know him pretty well and his girlfriend too, so she was as much part of the group most days as anybody.... I just had to keep her behaved. As she has a lot of energy as is very excitable when being played with.... she just loves the attention.
For Most of the summer of 2006, things were going fairly well. I was working and putting in a lot of hours, as were my house mates, there was only two rooms, but we also had the basement, so there was always extra people sleeping over.... we had a few birthday parties, but nothing ever really got out of hand. Eventually, I think, we all wanted to relax. One of my housemates actually hooked up with one of our friends from work, so he ended up staying at her place a lot.
The one thing that started bothering me after awhile, was people wanting me to drive them places, and home.... after work, or what not. At first, the few people that I allowed into my circle was acceptable, at times it was a little out of control. People started to expect me to drive them home, one instance in particular later in the summer was really what set me off.
By the time the end of August 2006 Rolled around, things were winding down for the season, most of the big events were done, only some small concerts and corporate functions were left. My Full Time hours were set to end sometime in September 2006.
It was early September 2006, when my new friend that was also my neighbor received word from Calgary, AB that his brother was in trouble and needed to get out of the city before being arrested. He made a snap decision to help his brother and asked me if I would be willing to also, by driving with him out to Calgary to pick up his brother and bring him back to Toronto. We made our arrangements for some time off work, as long as we were back in time for the following weekend. I made arrangements for my dog to go to Winnipeg, as was the original plan, but I was hesitant to leave her there.
We Left Toronto, ON on September 11, 2006. Our Destination was SW Calgary, AB. We made arrangements to stop in Fort Frances, ON at my friend's mother's place for a short rest. We did so, getting some sleep, shower and food before moving on.
Our Next stop was in Winnipeg, MB...I met with my EX briefly, and gave her the dog and her belongings, bed, etc.. I was not very impressed with her plan of where she was going to keep the dog considering she didn't have a permanent place to live herself. However, agreed to this plan long before it actually happened, I think I just caught her off guard and unprepared.
We pressed on Making it to Regina, SK around midnight, I called my friend there hours before to let him know, but we arrived much later than I anticipated which didn't give us much time to stay.... We pulled over after getting some refreshments and food, take a short breather and stretch out our legs.
Our next Destination was to get to Calgary, AB as soon as possible. We had to switch several times in our final stretch as were both very tired, and as we drove through what seemed like an electrical thunder storm over a wind farm late one night.
When we finally reached Calgary, AB we found out that we were only about 8 hours late. His brother had already been taken into Custody. We spent the night at some friends of my friends, but I was unfortunately unable to communicate with the other due to being seriously out of it....I was delirious from lack of sleep and driving.
We didn't have much time to look around or stay and visit, the very next morning we had to head back to Toronto, ON.... From Calgary, AB that morning, we drove straight through back to Fort Frances, ON.... Don't even ask me what day it was by then. We slept and she made us breakfast and then we had to be on our way home, so we said our goodbyes and thank yous.
We were back in Toronto sometime late that night, possibly after midnight. As much as I tried to document our time on the road, it becomes very hard when you lose all sense of time. I do know that we made the Round-Trip From Toronto, ON to Calgary, AB and Back, in approximately 5 days.
It was about the second week of September 2006, when we arrived back in Toronto from our 5 day mission to Calgary and back. I was only back a couple days when I received a phone call from Winnipeg, MB telling me that Precious had been through her third home since we dropped her off. I was told that if she couldn't find a home that they were going to put her to sleep, now I wasn't having that, I had been caring for this animal for the whole time we had her, and I send her away for a week, and suddenly people wanted to put her to sleep.
At the same time, my Ex-girlfriend's cousin was in Toronto visiting some friends and was due to leave the next day. I made arrangements to get her to the airport and leave with her, I boarded the flight and went to Winnipeg, MB not even thinking about it. I was waiting for two pay checks from previous weeks, as well as my current pay check. So, the whole time I was in Winnipeg I had no money, but I was able to stay at the cousin's house with my dog while I waited for my money. I had to call back to Toronto and ask somebody that I worked with to both pick up my check and put it into my bank account for me.
I stayed in Winnipeg for about a week, waiting for my check to clear. While we were there I took the dog for plenty of walks, some lasting hours or most of the day... On our last day we walked all the way to the airport to buy our tickets, and made some arrangements for how we were going to get there because the City of Winnipeg, MB does not allow animals of any kind on their transit system. I thought that was the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I got told off by a bus driver, before I even knew that too.... Just started screaming at me like a jackass.
I got back to the house to find the girls sitting there starring at me. They asked where I was all day, I told them we went for a walk and I bought the air tickets back to Toronto. That's when I got an earful from them, apparently they were planning on returning to Toronto with me. Now, how was I supposed to know that, I was being ignored for most of the week. The girls would go out at night, stay out all day, and leave the kid with me or the other guy that was living there. I had to take care of my dog, the child was a good girl and behaved fairly well too.
I returned to Toronto the day after my birthday, September 30, 2006. Nobody knew, and I wasn't telling them. My Full Time hours had ceased and the season had changed over already at The Docks, so I basically went from working 100 hours a week to nothing overnight. A few days later, the girls showed up in Toronto with the little girl as well. On her last visit, the cousin had become infatuated with one of my friends that lived in the house. I had previously told the girls that they could stay with us if they came to Toronto, but I didn't have enough time to let the guys know, only the new boyfriend of the cousin had any clue.
October 2006, 1 Dog, one 3-year old, 2 women, and 4 guys in a two bedroom house (Main floor & Basement). This was our accommodation for the next month. Since My EX had left in such a hurry when we were together and I jumped into a new job, there was still some unresolved feelings that were never dealt with, mostly on my part I guess. We were trying to be friends, but I had opinions, about what she was doing - Everybody, lol...
She was OK with it, I just thought she was taking some unnecessary risks. I was trying to find a new job, taking some odd jobs throughout the month... Near the end of the month, I ended up going back to driving a forklift. This time in a warehouse, in the north end of the City aka North York.
Eventually, The girls gave up on there idea of moving to Toronto. They never really tried too hard anyway, but they ended up leaving on October 31, 2006 and the very same night I worked my first Full Time night shift at the warehouse.
November 2006, I became a FT employee at a company that manufactured floor vents. It was a good job for the time, I hadn't worked in a long time, and the wage was back to something I was more used to. I spent the first couple weeks getting acquainted with the duties, and the next few weeks getting used to being the only person in the warehouse that spoke English. At the time, everybody on my shift was Mandarin and spoke nothing but, only myself and my supervisor were English speakers. It took over a month for us all to become friendly with each other.
December 2006, As we got to know each other and I became used to the job, it was just a job.... I was already bored, I just went home in the morning and took my dog for a walk, fed her and we went to bed... when I woke up, I would take my dog for another walk and prepare for my shift. I was unable to see many of my friends by that point, they had different schedules than me, but we tried to keep in touch. Most of the people who had stayed at The Docks were starting to struggle in the winter months. The summer season really allows more earnings as tips are much bigger and more plentiful. Even around Christmas, the company wanted us to work. With only the three main days off, we just kept going.
It was 3 weeks before Christmas, when I decided to look into going back to school. I figured I could work at night and do my classes in the daytime. I was right and it worked. I completed 2 classes before Christmas, for a total of 3 weeks then I had 1 week off.... it was the few days between Christmas and New Years that I was hired on permanently at the Warehouse. Again I had to changed the routine I had for me and my dog......
TO BE CONTINUED ...... JANUARY 2007 & Beyond
PREVIOUSLY; In the first half of 2006; Another Road-Trip, another (EX)girlfriend, A job loss, and a New Job with new possibilities; A new dog & a new Home; And some new Friends & Housemates.....
Summer 2006 was an interesting time, for many reasons. I had just changed jobs again, this time out of an industry and into a new one, An industry I hadn't worked in for many years at that point. I was a part of the club scene in one of Toronto's longest running as well as largest venues. The Docks was quite a surprise to me when I started working there. It's not just a big place, it's a huge operation. Although, I started in the spring, by the time I was Full Time for the summer season, I had already lost my apartment, and my girlfriend had been gone for well over a month. If I remember correctly, she finally broke it off with me near the end of June 2006...
By that time I had been into the season, and making new friends out of my co-workers, meeting all kinds of regulars each day. So, I was very busy at work, and with my new friends, a term I use loosely with most people. Some of which actually turned out to be genuine friends... The House was a busy place, four guys living in a house.... two of us were on the lease, but we all needed a place to live, I had a dog. My landlord was always snooping around and trying to get my dog to run away, one attempt at which he almost succeeded.
I think it may have been the July 1st Long weekend, 2006. I had to work all weekend, from about 11am til whenever, by that point in the summer, I was clocking about 10 or 11 hours minimum. I had started to be able to let my dog outside in the yard, however, tied to the porch with a very long rope. She was able to reach the grass, but stay in the back yard, and sit on the porch if it happened to rain or something. I had to get her used to being alone, and leaving her in the house didn't seem to work very well at the time.... she was still young and anxious.
One day, I went to work, and what had become our new routine, I walked her for a couple hours and then fed her, then put her outside and said "goodbye puppy, see you later tonight."
For a couple weeks, this worked well.
Until, the Long Weekend, I guess my landlord came by the house, he was kind of scared of dogs and a Pit Bull was even worse for him, regardless of how friendly she was. He cut the rope at some point and she got out of the yard, and it wasn't until one of my roommates came home and noticed that I got a call. When I finally got home, I went looking for her. I knew a lady from our walks, she took care of the alley cats in the neighborhood and some other strays... She had seen my dog, and warned me about letting her off leash.... This I already knew, it was just an accident on my part. Precious was found by a neighbor around the corner and taken in overnight, the couple contacted me in the morning. I was so re leaved, I never wanted anything to happen to my dog...
From then on, we had to change our little routine and schedule, I couldn't leave her outside all the time, and I had to take her out for more walks, and find a place for her to run as well.... Pit Bulls really do get a bad rap, they are very smart and loyal, and they listen very well... all they ask in return in attention and love, which really isn't hard with a good dog.
When we lived in the apartment, our routine was easy, moving into a smaller house with more people, meant not enough room, but more attention from people. She as able to get used to being around people. It just happened that I found a place that was in the area of one of the good friends that I made that summer, we lived right around the corner from each other. Precious got to know him pretty well and his girlfriend too, so she was as much part of the group most days as anybody.... I just had to keep her behaved. As she has a lot of energy as is very excitable when being played with.... she just loves the attention.
For Most of the summer of 2006, things were going fairly well. I was working and putting in a lot of hours, as were my house mates, there was only two rooms, but we also had the basement, so there was always extra people sleeping over.... we had a few birthday parties, but nothing ever really got out of hand. Eventually, I think, we all wanted to relax. One of my housemates actually hooked up with one of our friends from work, so he ended up staying at her place a lot.
The one thing that started bothering me after awhile, was people wanting me to drive them places, and home.... after work, or what not. At first, the few people that I allowed into my circle was acceptable, at times it was a little out of control. People started to expect me to drive them home, one instance in particular later in the summer was really what set me off.
By the time the end of August 2006 Rolled around, things were winding down for the season, most of the big events were done, only some small concerts and corporate functions were left. My Full Time hours were set to end sometime in September 2006.
It was early September 2006, when my new friend that was also my neighbor received word from Calgary, AB that his brother was in trouble and needed to get out of the city before being arrested. He made a snap decision to help his brother and asked me if I would be willing to also, by driving with him out to Calgary to pick up his brother and bring him back to Toronto. We made our arrangements for some time off work, as long as we were back in time for the following weekend. I made arrangements for my dog to go to Winnipeg, as was the original plan, but I was hesitant to leave her there.
We Left Toronto, ON on September 11, 2006. Our Destination was SW Calgary, AB. We made arrangements to stop in Fort Frances, ON at my friend's mother's place for a short rest. We did so, getting some sleep, shower and food before moving on.
Our Next stop was in Winnipeg, MB...I met with my EX briefly, and gave her the dog and her belongings, bed, etc.. I was not very impressed with her plan of where she was going to keep the dog considering she didn't have a permanent place to live herself. However, agreed to this plan long before it actually happened, I think I just caught her off guard and unprepared.
We pressed on Making it to Regina, SK around midnight, I called my friend there hours before to let him know, but we arrived much later than I anticipated which didn't give us much time to stay.... We pulled over after getting some refreshments and food, take a short breather and stretch out our legs.
Our next Destination was to get to Calgary, AB as soon as possible. We had to switch several times in our final stretch as were both very tired, and as we drove through what seemed like an electrical thunder storm over a wind farm late one night.
When we finally reached Calgary, AB we found out that we were only about 8 hours late. His brother had already been taken into Custody. We spent the night at some friends of my friends, but I was unfortunately unable to communicate with the other due to being seriously out of it....I was delirious from lack of sleep and driving.
We didn't have much time to look around or stay and visit, the very next morning we had to head back to Toronto, ON.... From Calgary, AB that morning, we drove straight through back to Fort Frances, ON.... Don't even ask me what day it was by then. We slept and she made us breakfast and then we had to be on our way home, so we said our goodbyes and thank yous.
We were back in Toronto sometime late that night, possibly after midnight. As much as I tried to document our time on the road, it becomes very hard when you lose all sense of time. I do know that we made the Round-Trip From Toronto, ON to Calgary, AB and Back, in approximately 5 days.
It was about the second week of September 2006, when we arrived back in Toronto from our 5 day mission to Calgary and back. I was only back a couple days when I received a phone call from Winnipeg, MB telling me that Precious had been through her third home since we dropped her off. I was told that if she couldn't find a home that they were going to put her to sleep, now I wasn't having that, I had been caring for this animal for the whole time we had her, and I send her away for a week, and suddenly people wanted to put her to sleep.
At the same time, my Ex-girlfriend's cousin was in Toronto visiting some friends and was due to leave the next day. I made arrangements to get her to the airport and leave with her, I boarded the flight and went to Winnipeg, MB not even thinking about it. I was waiting for two pay checks from previous weeks, as well as my current pay check. So, the whole time I was in Winnipeg I had no money, but I was able to stay at the cousin's house with my dog while I waited for my money. I had to call back to Toronto and ask somebody that I worked with to both pick up my check and put it into my bank account for me.
I stayed in Winnipeg for about a week, waiting for my check to clear. While we were there I took the dog for plenty of walks, some lasting hours or most of the day... On our last day we walked all the way to the airport to buy our tickets, and made some arrangements for how we were going to get there because the City of Winnipeg, MB does not allow animals of any kind on their transit system. I thought that was the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I got told off by a bus driver, before I even knew that too.... Just started screaming at me like a jackass.
I got back to the house to find the girls sitting there starring at me. They asked where I was all day, I told them we went for a walk and I bought the air tickets back to Toronto. That's when I got an earful from them, apparently they were planning on returning to Toronto with me. Now, how was I supposed to know that, I was being ignored for most of the week. The girls would go out at night, stay out all day, and leave the kid with me or the other guy that was living there. I had to take care of my dog, the child was a good girl and behaved fairly well too.
I returned to Toronto the day after my birthday, September 30, 2006. Nobody knew, and I wasn't telling them. My Full Time hours had ceased and the season had changed over already at The Docks, so I basically went from working 100 hours a week to nothing overnight. A few days later, the girls showed up in Toronto with the little girl as well. On her last visit, the cousin had become infatuated with one of my friends that lived in the house. I had previously told the girls that they could stay with us if they came to Toronto, but I didn't have enough time to let the guys know, only the new boyfriend of the cousin had any clue.
October 2006, 1 Dog, one 3-year old, 2 women, and 4 guys in a two bedroom house (Main floor & Basement). This was our accommodation for the next month. Since My EX had left in such a hurry when we were together and I jumped into a new job, there was still some unresolved feelings that were never dealt with, mostly on my part I guess. We were trying to be friends, but I had opinions, about what she was doing - Everybody, lol...
She was OK with it, I just thought she was taking some unnecessary risks. I was trying to find a new job, taking some odd jobs throughout the month... Near the end of the month, I ended up going back to driving a forklift. This time in a warehouse, in the north end of the City aka North York.
Eventually, The girls gave up on there idea of moving to Toronto. They never really tried too hard anyway, but they ended up leaving on October 31, 2006 and the very same night I worked my first Full Time night shift at the warehouse.
November 2006, I became a FT employee at a company that manufactured floor vents. It was a good job for the time, I hadn't worked in a long time, and the wage was back to something I was more used to. I spent the first couple weeks getting acquainted with the duties, and the next few weeks getting used to being the only person in the warehouse that spoke English. At the time, everybody on my shift was Mandarin and spoke nothing but, only myself and my supervisor were English speakers. It took over a month for us all to become friendly with each other.
December 2006, As we got to know each other and I became used to the job, it was just a job.... I was already bored, I just went home in the morning and took my dog for a walk, fed her and we went to bed... when I woke up, I would take my dog for another walk and prepare for my shift. I was unable to see many of my friends by that point, they had different schedules than me, but we tried to keep in touch. Most of the people who had stayed at The Docks were starting to struggle in the winter months. The summer season really allows more earnings as tips are much bigger and more plentiful. Even around Christmas, the company wanted us to work. With only the three main days off, we just kept going.
It was 3 weeks before Christmas, when I decided to look into going back to school. I figured I could work at night and do my classes in the daytime. I was right and it worked. I completed 2 classes before Christmas, for a total of 3 weeks then I had 1 week off.... it was the few days between Christmas and New Years that I was hired on permanently at the Warehouse. Again I had to changed the routine I had for me and my dog......
TO BE CONTINUED ...... JANUARY 2007 & Beyond
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