Garbage, trash, rubbish

Since living in Sackville, D and I have had some difficulty figuring out what to do with our garbage. In previous places we have lived, the rules have been pretty simple and similar from place to place. In previous places (Vancouver, Surrey, Austin) glass, plastic, cans, and paper products can be recycled, and everything else goes in the regular garbage.  In Sackville, garbage is separated into wet and dry. The first day we got to our house, we found this nice laminated list of trash items that are wet, dry, hazardous household waste.

You would think it would be fairly straight forward, but honestly, I don't think anything has ever caused us this much confusion in our lives. First we had to go get the appropriate coloured bags. Green for wet and blue for dry. Then we had to try to remember which one was which. When I first set them up in our dual garbage cans, I put all of the wet stuff in the blue (dry) bag. So then I had to take the blue bag and put it in a green bag. There was no threat of fines if we got it wrong, like I have seen in Ontario, but I was still worried we might get arrested by the garbage police. Okay, so we had our bags and we had the colour system figured out. Then came the debates over pretty much every thing we put in the garbage.

Some things were obvious. Paper goes in dry. Banana peels go in wet. What about a juice box? The dry list said, "Dry waste must be clean to ensure it can be recycled."  A juicebox could not be rinsed out because the hole was so small and there was usually a tiny bit of juice left behind. So it wasn't really dry and clean. But D was convinced that the wet garbage should only contain compost materials, so he wouldn't let me put it in there either. He thought that there must be a third type of bag that we should use for non-compostable and non-dry garbage. I looked it up online, and it seemed like there were only 2 categories - wet and dry.

Every time we went to put something in the garbage for the first few weeks we had to check the list. Old socks?  Dry.  Paper towel? Wet. Broken dishes? Dry. Pencil shavings? Wet. Tim Horton's coffee cup? I say wet, D says dry. You can see how confusing it might be.

The other day at school, I saw a sign that clarified things a bit more for me. It said, "If you wouldn't put it on your head, it's wet waste." Ha! I have been using that as my reference point. And it does seem to help...a bit.

Town events

I have decided to take a break from complaining about customer service in order to talk about some of the more fun stuff that goes on in Sackville. There are a surprising number of festivals and events throughout the summer, and I am trying to take advantage of them - especially the free stuff!

On Canada Day there were two different concert venues set up around town. During the day we went to the kiddie stage at Bandstand Park.

There was also a stage set up around the corner for night time, big people music, but we didn't last that long.

Right now the Festival by the Marsh is happening in and around Bandstand Park. We have gone down to a couple free music events, and meant to go down to see Much Ado About Nothing that has been playing almost every day, but I just realized right now that today is the last day. Whoops. Tonight we are going to the Campbell Carriage Factory Museum to see a concert and a movie - weather permitting. Lots of the Festival events are "pay what you can afford," which is nice.

Tomorrow is the beginning of OK Quoi? - an arts festival. I am planning on attending several of the movie events, and some other stuff as well. I like it because most things are free! At the end of the week is Sappyfest, an indie music festival. I was really hoping to be able to attend, but the cost may prevent that since I am pretty broke. There is always next year!


Overall I am pretty impressed with my little town.

The (lack of ) customer service Pt 1.

I hate waiting. I think I hate it more than the average person. Even if I am violently craving ice cream, if there are more than 2 people in the line at the ice cream shop, I will not wait. I have considered not going to see bands or entire music festivals because I don't want to stand in line for the bathroom or food. I plan trips to the amusement park around the days I think the lines will be shortest. You get the point.

Here in New Brunswick, especially in small-town Sackville, however, waiting is the name of the game. When I came here for my interview, I stayed at an inn/B&B. I had read online that they had unbelievably bad service in the restaurant, but I had no idea how bad it could be. On my first morning, I was nervous, but didn't want to go without eating. I decided to go into the restaurant to get some toast. I allowed 45 minutes for this excursion, assuming that would be more than enough time. When I got to the restaurant, I stood beside the "Please wait to be seated" sign for about 5 minutes. Finally I asked one of the two other people sitting in the restaurant if anyone was working. The man said, yes and she should be back soon. So, the owner comes in and seats me, asks me if I want coffee and then wanders away for another five minutes. She comes back, drops the coffee and then disappears again. Ten minutes later she comes back out, and I call her over and ask for some toast. "Oh," she says, very surprised, "You don't want to see a menu?" Well, maybe 20 minutes ago when I got here I might have wanted to see a menu, but now I just want to leave. I finally got my toast and then had only about 5 minutes to get back to my room and get ready for my interview.

I figured that this place was an anomaly because it was owned by an older couple and it was an independent establishment in a small town. What I wasn't expecting was for even the chain, fast food restaurants to operate at a snail's pace. I have worked at a fast food restaurant, and I know that head offices are constantly trying to make things better and faster, and implement new systems whenever they come up with something that is faster. One example of this speed in action is Tim Hortons. (Why is there no apostrophe in the name? It drives me crazy.) Most people go to Timmy's for coffee and most locations have their coffee providing system finely tuned. A few years back, they even developed a new system where your order comes up at a little counter away from where you ordered it. This way, you move along and do not block the next person who orders. Also, most Timmy's don't take debit cards in order to avoid slowing down the line by having someone typing in their PIN.  (In Canada debit cards cannot be swiped like a credit card, you must always enter your PIN.) Tim Hortons is always really fast, even when you order food. NOT IN SACKVILLE!

Oh my god, it makes me want to gouge my own eyeballs out with a spoon every time I go there. First of all, they do not seem to be understaffed, but they do not follow the established Tim Hortons system. The person who takes the order seems to be the person who also makes the order, and that can take a very long time if food is involved. There always seems to be an excessive amount of staff hovering around the drive-thru window, but they don't seem to be doing much either. So for people like me, who don't have vehicles to use in the drive-thru, the only option is to stand in a really long line for coffee and try to keep our heads from exploding.

I just don't understand how it can be so slow. Tim Hortons is busy ALL THE TIME. That is why every other Timmy's on the planet has developed these really efficient ways of getting people their coffee. It can't be that hard!

As I am writing this, I am realizing how much I am acting like my father. That's scary.

I do try really hard not to show my impatience when interacting with the Tim Horton's employees. I don't want to look like some obnoxious city girl, and I assume that everyone else here doesn't notice how f&@*ing slow the service is. Perhaps if I stay here long enough, I will get used to the slower pace. Perhaps I will even enjoy it, and then when I go to the city I will say things like, "Wow, people sure are impatient here." But probably not. I am my father's daughter after all.

Full Status Newbie

Friday was a sad day for me. It was the day I traded in my Texas driver's license for a New Brunswick license. My plan was to just lie and say that I had lost my Texas license because I really wanted to keep it for sentimental value. Unfortunately, my illegal plan was foiled.

Becoming a full status Newbie caused a lot of rage for D, and I got sucked in too. It all began when I was at work and D went to register his van that he had imported from Texas. At Service New Brunswick (SNB, where one goes for all of their New Brunswick needs), he was told that he had to have insurance on the vehicle before he could register it. He then went to an insurance agent where he was told that he couldn't get insurance without a NB driver's license. So, he went back to SNB to get his license. Apparently they have a system that is connected to all North American DMVs and when the woman at SNB entered D's driver's license into the system, it said, "cannot find a record" or something like that. Apparently, if there is a problem with the system, it usually says "system down." Because it was not saying, "system down" the SNB woman became suspicious that D's license was fake. She told him that he would have to get Texas to fax confirmation of his driving record. D called the Texas folks who are responsible for such things and the woman told him, "We do not fax to Canada." Really? There isn't even a country code involved. Just dial 1 and the fax will go through!

This is when I get a furious phone call from D spewing obscenities. I suggested that we both go in together, with our matching driver's licenses and our driver's abstracts that we had gotten from Texas before we left. That would perhaps make her believe that his driver's license wasn't a fake. She entered my license number into the system and it also came up as "cannot find record" also. I guess this was a bit more reassuring since both licenses were not coming up in the system. Our driver's abstracts were dated for May 25th, which was 5 days before we left Texas. This was also not acceptable because "anything could have happened between then and now." She suggested we get Texas to fax new ones. We explained that the Texas folks "do not fax to Canada." She could tell we were getting really frustrated, so she called the head office to see if the abstracts were acceptable. After about 20 minutes and several transfers of her phone call, she got the approval to issue us new driver's licenses. This information was conveyed to us with the very stern warning "When the system is back up and they investigate your licenses, if there are ANY issues, your NB licenses will be revoked immediately." She made us feel like criminals. WELCOME TO NEW BRUNSWICK!

After our marathon session at SNB, we went to get insurance, and then came back to SNB to register the vehicle. The whole process took about 5 hours from start to finish, but now we are official Newbies.

Also, can I nominate NB for the worst license plate slogan in Canada?

Oh, the humidity!

One of the reasons I was excited to move from Texas to New Brunswick was to have an enjoyable summer free from stifling heat. When we first arrived here, it was pretty damn cold, and I was pretty damn excited about that. Now it is not so cold. In fact, it is pretty warm, and coupled with that warmth is an extremely high level of humidity (between 94-99% over the past week). Combine this warm weather and high humidity with a lack of air conditioning in both my house and office and you have a summer that is so much worse than Texas!

First of all, I am just sticky all the time. Second, because we have to have the windows open to cool the house down, EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE IS WET! The bed is wet, the clothes hanging in my closet are wet, and in the garage, the floor is wet. Papers and wood are curling and warping, skin is constantly perspiring, and I cannot even explain how disgusting it feels to crawl into a soggy bed at the end of a sticky day. Ugh.

I was so excited to live without an air conditioner and be able to feel the nice breeze through my open windows. And at first, that was nice. I almost wrote a blog post about how much I love opening the windows in the house and feeling the fresh air blow through. I am glad I didn't because right about now I would sell my right pinky finger for some central air!

I am sitting in my office right now, dripping with sweat. My formerly straightened hair is frizzy and wavy. I look like Monica from the episode of Friends where they go to Barbados and her hair turns into an afro. My co-workers tell me that this level of humidity is not normal, and that it will be better soon. Somehow I doubt that in a place where we are surrounded by water. Sackville is on the Bay of Fundy, has the Tantramar River running through it, is surrounded by marshland, and is also home to a decent-sized lake. According to various sources that I found by googling "Where does humidity come from?" it depends on the source of the humidity as well as various other weather factors. All I know is that right now, it is gross.

I am off to purchase a fan for my office and several dehumidifiers for the house and garage.

Some Pictures of Sackville

I posted some pictures of Sackville around my neighbourhood on my running blog http://bicoastalrunaholics.blogspot.com/2010/07/some-sackville-scenery.html

Yes, it is true. I have no life.

Style crisis

I desperately need a hair cut. And a visit to the esthetician to keep my Hamilton eyebrow under control. But I am afraid of what might happen to me if I get beauty treatments up here in New Brunswick. I know that sounds horrifically snobby, and I am sure anyone who lives in New Brunswick and sees this will tell me I am ridiculous. And it is ridiculous because I am certainly not very stylish myself, but I don't want to be meeting new people rocking a mullet and red splotches all over my face from a bad wax job. I am not basing my fears on anything real or anyone I know (although one of my neighbors has a serious mullet). My fears are mostly derived from the show Trailer Park Boys, which is actually based out of Nova Scotia. But it is rural, and it is in the Maritimes, and people look like this:

My fears also stem from the decor in some of the houses we saw in the real estate listings. Flowered wallpaper, flowered couches, and wood panelling abound. It is like people are in a time warp to the 70s and early 80s and not in a cool, vintage way, but in a scary, it-wasn't-even-fashionable-then way.

I am going to ask for recommendations from people I know. And I am sure it will be fine. I just wanted to express my concern in case I do end up with a mullet, so you will know it was not my choice. 

Decorating by D

For the most part, D and I both liked the way our new house had been decorated by the previous homeowner. One thing that D hated, though, were the quotations stenciled on the wall. I thought they were painted on, but they were actually just decals and so easily removable.

D's first act of decorating was to remove all of these decals because they did not fit with his manliness. I was able to snap some pictures of them before they were destroyed forever.

McLobster? Really?

Really?

I saw this sign while getting gas, and had to run over an take a picture.

Happy Birthday Jenni! (and Canada)

My favorite running buddy, awesome friend, and new blogging partner Jenni turns the big 3-0 today!

I hope you have an awesome day Jenni!

Her birthday is very easy to remember because it just so happens to coincide with Canada's birthday as well. Since this is my first Canada day being a Canadian resident again, I feel oddly patriotic. I even cried while watching this Tim Horton's commercial http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/tools/a-coffee-all-our-own.html

I came across that commercial while looking for a picture of a Canada doughnut from Tim Hortons. I have been planning all week to get a Canada doughnut from Tim Hortons on Canada day (yes this is how exciting my life is now), but I already went there and COMPLETELY FORGOT.

Edit: I went to Timmy's after dinner and got coffee and a Canada doughnut. Crisis averted!

Happy Birthday Isabella!

My new niece, Isabella Joy, was born June 30, 2010 at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. I can't wait to meet her!