The one thing that I noticed about our place was the increasing amount of property taxes. Vancouver is one of the best cities in the world to live in, but the amount of property taxes one pays is astronomical. We get taxed out our ying-yang to live here. I don't know if it's any better in the BC Interior but man, having to dish out a §1800 every three days...it's nuts. But well, we still have to keep that roof over our head, at least for the time being as we look for alternatives; maybe 100 Mile House or somewhere like that or we may even go as far as Clearwater, BC.
I've always been leery about being close by my mother, whether in the same city or the next one over. Because I don't know what she's going to do. She's always been vindictive and River and I don't need the added stress of wondering if she's seen our wealth and is making plans to try to grab it. We're keeping our fingers crossed, but I don't plan to have this city be our end-spot. Maybe we might just uproot and move to Edmonton, who knows at this point.
Of course, while in the midst of my thinking, I get this call from Rogers Tower, one of the companies there, was asking me to train one of their employees in logic. As it turns out, that particular employee was a former classmate of mine. He and I went back a ways and there was a history between the two of us - let's just say that we didn't like each other. but hey, simoleons were simoleons and if his company was paying me for the effort, I might as well. Besides, I'm sure he grew up by now. I got in my Evasion and headed out to see where he was. I tracked him down to one of the food stores in Coquitlam.
After a lengthy tutorial session with him trying to get him up a level in logic, we said our goodbyes and I hopped back in my car and headed over to Rogers Tower with a "hey, I did what you asked, so where's my money?" I got paid - good enough.
Then, it was back to the usual: sit at the computer and feel my rear-end go numb as I wrote chapter after chapter of my next book. I'm not sure exactly how my writing is going, but at least I'm getting some sales from the last few books I wrote. River at least is doing well in terms of painting; the value of her paintings are earning a good four figures now and still rising as she gains experience and earnings. That's the nice thing about paintings, they appreciate in value.
Full moon was always fun. I don't know what it is that puts us both in the mood, but well, we certainly enjoyed ourselves as far as the full moon was concerned. After making sure that Sally was inside. We went upstairs and enjoyed a little private time together.
Oh, of course, some jack-wagon decided that he was going to go after our possessions again. Needless to say, when I finished with him, he probably needed to get some medical attention. I don't know if the Richmond RCMP dealt with him, but anyhow, he certainly got his comeuppance. Maybe it might teach him to walk a straighter path in life. Who knows?
It was hard to drop back to sleep again after getting rudely woken up like that and being keyed up from the adrenaline, but eventually, we did. When we woke up in the morning, we had our usual breakfast, and I headed out to deal with the greenhouse garden. At least it kept the plants harvestable and it was warm in there. Of course, River thought I was completely nuts seeing me practically in underwear harvesting plants.
Once my playing with dirt was done, I headed down to Aleister's to pawn off a few more gemstones. Let's just say that I knew the value of my goods to the point where I could deal with the consignment shops with relative ease. I usually ended up getting about 30% more in simoleons than I would get selling it privately, so it behooved me to get to know the clerk a bit better so that I'd be able to get better returns. Anyways, it helped the sales numbers for Aleister's too.
It just so happened that Sally was out nosing out the frozen ground for rocks, so I headed to the computer to do some writing. After finishing off the book and sending it in for publishing, I headed down to the gem-cutter/smelter to cut some more gemstones, River, of course, was painting. I guess this early morning's excitement left her tired enough that she hadn't bothered dressing and was in her night-clothes. And we did whatever tasks came around till night fell. City Hall lit up very nicely, when it came to nighttime. We could see the tower spire from Richmond.
Vancouver's affordability has always been a critical bone of contention. With the increasing number of foreign investments coming in and buying up as much property as they could get their hands on, the affordability of homes was becoming a major issue as residents of Vancouver were getting the short-straw and forced to either pay-up in increased taxes or cut their losses and sell. This has always been the situation in any location that allowed foreign investment of their housing infrastructure: rising costs of living and housing unaffordability. And long-time residents of Vancouver had no choice but to uproot from places that they had lived in for many decades and move out into the interior. The migration inwards had driven up prices in those locations as well creating a trickle down effect in housing costs rising. It was going to be only a matter of time before the housing-bubble broke.
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