I learned something yesterday

"An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure" is an adage the applies to letting either of Ivana's parents have a say in anything, especially her mother.

We went looking at a house in North Van yesterday. After we looked at it initially she called her father to get him to come up and take a look (since he will be living in the basement). Her mother was also at her house and Ivana's idea was that her mother would watch the kids while her father came up and looked at the house. But they *all* showed up. It verged on a boondoggle and between her mother's absurd questions and her father wanting to bargain on extremely reasonable rent, I feared the deal would be soured. Last night I was kind of choked about it (and with everything said and done I missed both the teaparty and Mike's birthday at Sanctuary. I woke up resigned to losing the house and resolved not to defer anything to either of those two ever again. Nonetheless I took charge of the situation today and spoke with the landlord in my own way... I'll be signing the lease tonight.

And with similar resolve I decided not to wait for my computer to be handed over to me and simply took the computer from my predecessor's office today. Now I have a real monitor and keyboard, which makes my life *so* much better.