It's a different market since I last looked for an apartment here. A real different market. I know, from Nelson I would log in on my tablet, I was looking, making sure, I wanted a soft landing for my arrival.
Following The Kootenay Rave, a trip to Victoria to visit my son, repair the LadyJeep, now, time, finally, to go back to Calgary. And so I pack up, those immediate things I'll need, which - as luck would have it, are not the immediate things I'll need, so many times I've loaded boxes into the locker, unloaded them, loaded them again, that they've become all shuffled, and I'm like the lousy magician that's lost track of the ace, flipping cards at random, but I don't know this yet, I'll find out...
Arrive in Calgary - Friday, November 11. Left on Thursday, spent a cold night in a cheap motel in Fort MacLeod, then Friday morning to Calgary, hopeful that I would find a place the same day. Why not? There are hundreds of places listed in Calgary to rent, thousands even, cheap, cheap, cheaper than they've been for a long time, all immediate occupancy, and I'm hopeful...
I start making my calls. No less than 35, using RentFaster, searching for immediate occupancy, leave messages, leave messages, leave messages...
1 Lady - receptionist, answers, Main Street Equity, viewing for an apartment in Marda Loop, make an appointment, 12:00, leave my contact details...
No one shows. No one, no call, no follow-up, nothing.
This is apartment hunting in Calgary.
Another man, he answers, begins yelling, the apartment, it's advertised as immediate occupancy, I got his phone number from the ad, but I didn't understand, I'd be lucky to get a viewing in a couple of weeks, I should go back and fill in the web-form, provide my details, maybe, maybe, if he feels like it, if I'm lucky, he'll give me a call in a week or two...
Clearly he doesn't understand "Immediate Occupancy". Or maybe I don't. One of us doesn't anyways.
This is apartment hunting in Calgary, the day is done, forage for some cheap Vietnamese, then drive up the backroads of Beisiker, pull off, tuck in to sleep. The LadyJeep, she's good for that, you can push the seat right back, fold it down, pull the sleeping bag up and you're set...wake every few hours, run the motor, warm up, then back to sleep...
Saturday...drive into town, the same pattern, repeat, nothing, Nada.
And I give up on Sunday, and Monday, because it's a long weekend, and no one will be showing apartments, but I start to get some call backs...
An appointment for Tuesday. Sunalta, an old hood, and I'm early, waiting, and he shows me the apartment, it could be good, hard to tell, it's filled with the other tenants shit, he's messy, blankets, chip bags, beer cans, everywhere, it only takes a moment and I ask the landlord (or agent) - "Immediate Occupancy?" and he says no, no, December the first, and I explain, "I need Immediate Occupancy...the ad said Immediate Occupancy" and it's back to the search...
The next day he calls me, wants to know if I'm still interested, and I remind him again..."Immediate Occupancy"...I'm beginning to think there isn't a landlord in Calgary that understands what that means...
I've moved, from the backroads of Beisiker into a cheap hotel in the NE, and I've become a regular trash-panda eating at Mucho Burrito, FatBurger, 7/11 Pizza's and hot-dogs, filling my LadyJeep with 95.9 Cents per litre gas again and again, ...
More missed connections, texts, appointments not kept, it's ongoing, but finally a viewing, and then a couple of days later I'm in, a large, vintage apartment similar to the one I once had in Sunalta when the kids were young, unpack the LadyJeep, boxes of creative projects, art supplies, clothes, lie out the sleeping bags on the floor and get settled.
I've got nothing. Not a chair, not a table, a lamp, merely boxes of writing, notebooks, clothes...
The apartment, it's great. Close in, I'm in the Bermuda Triangle of Circle K's, no more than a two-block walk and I have my pick of 3. Cafe's, Restaurants, there have to be a dozen, Beano will be the favorite. Post offices the same. I can walk almost anywhere, 2 blocks to Co-op or Safeway, my choice. If you have to be here, in Calgary, this is the place to be...
The apartment hunting, it took a lot longer than the car shopping, with better results (always time gives better results), but the process was the same. An ordeal. A pocket full of cash and no one to take it.
***
Now that I'm arrived I'm sick and settled, 2 weeks on the mend, feverish, hyper-lucidity, the sleeping in the car, in cheap hotels, the stress of ever-diminishing finances, it's all taken it's toll. Everyone I knew in Nelson had it, now it's my turn, it was merely waiting for me to get settled, and I'm a week sleeping on the floor before I can summon the energy to drive to the locker and rescue the bed (tied to the roof precariously with neckties and yarn, driving stick through rush-hour Calgary with one hand out the window, white-knuckles gripping a bedpost and a prayer on my lips).
Meanwhile, when well enough I'm off finding the basics to begin life in Calgary.
2 Tables - one a desk, one for the kitchen. 2 Chairs. A desk lamp, a lamp for the bedroom, a pot, a pan, 2 plates, bowls, coffee mugs. This is the beginning. From here everything else can be rescued from the locker, loveseat, armchairs, these I'll fill in after I find work, I don't need to find work, I need to find an income, already, unpacking the locker, I'm unpacking a ton of work that needs to be done, but that's a separate post...
And explore the city. Old Calgary, a new Calgary, new shops along 17th, Inglewood, countless boutiques and cafes and restaurants, Shisha bars and convenience stores, it would seem the city is booming. But look again, look closer, a good many of the storefronts are empty, or are tenanted by shops that can't be paying a great deal of rent, a superabundance of thrift shops, consignment shops, psychics, space lent, not rent, to keep the appearance of a city.
And pop into the alley for a cigarette, every time there's someone digging through the dumpster, it's an endless parade of the homeless, at night there will be people happening by with possessions newly acquired and already for sale, a step ladder, electronics, maybe even a couple Nepalese carpets?... There's a hobo mark somewhere, maybe on the dumpster on on a fencepost nearby, because I can't go outside without being touched for a cigarette...
Calgary, I never noticed it before, has gone to the dogs. Literally, Morning, Afternoon, Evening, everyone out walking Rover, Rex, Fido, a few years ago it was puppies, the "puppy boom" of Calgary, now they've all grown up and everywhere you see them in tow, dog-walkers ridiculously being dragged by a dozen of their charges, or watching them led trotting in packs through the neighborhood...
Sirens, nightly, blazing horns, arguments and revelries for the world to hear, this takes some getting used to after the quiet of the Hwy 3A...
***
A computer, now, shop on Kijiji, find a desktop tower in Airdrie, it's been months since I've blogged, typed, comfortably surfed the web. Drive to Airdrie, pick it up, now to attach the monitor, mine doesn't work, go buy a new monitor. Buy some old speakers, they don't work, buy some more, get the internet, and it's not working, 4 hours waiting, an hours troubleshooting, it's a bum cable, and this has been the pattern, every since I arrived, every tiny thing, is an ordeal, I'm rolling the ball uphill trying to get started, to rough in the basics of a life, and every night it's the celebration of trifling victories, tomorrow I'll do it again...