The final countdown

What is 4 x 24? Fewer hours than I have to purge two years of living from my apartment, that's what.

In four days, a French PhD student will be sleeping in my bedroom. Actually, she'll be doing whatever she wants in there, and I suppose she'll do it anywhere she wants, just like I did. She might even do it on my sofa. I won't be here to stop her. No matter what she does, I'm sure I did it better.

Ninety-six hours to transience and my house is still full of furniture, art, cookware and crap. You'd think losing all your belongings and mooching off friends would be easier. Don't people do it all the time?

Yesterday morning, I signed a contract with movers who've agreed to transport my antiques and irreplaceables back to Nova Scotia where my parents will reluctantly, but thankfully store them. Then, the new tenant arrived to see what of my furniture she'd buy, and last night I hosted a giveaway/livingroom sale I called, 'Dinner and Dibs'.

Basically, I sorted through all my things, lured some close girlfriends to my house with the promise of a home-cooked dinner and gave them first pick of everything I'd rather not pay to store or transport to England. Whatever they didn't want, I forced on them, like an annoying salesgirl working on commission. "Oh, Pyrex cookware is timeless, and would go so well with this sailor's cap!"

I'm stuck with a few dining room chairs, which I rescued (read: pilfered) from the basement of this building. At the time, I wondered why anyone would abandon something so nice, but now I see that furniture fate is inescapable and, chair by chair, they're going right back to where I found them so someone else can wonder the same. There are also some leftover books, deceivingly titled and disappointingly academic, from my university years: Pornocopia and Public Sex (among the less scandalous untouchables, Anthropological Theory and The Mass Media in Canada). Most everything else is claimed and awaiting pick-up.

Perhaps the greatest marker of the evening's success is having finally uncovered my house keys – one of life's little conveniences – which have been missing beneath the chaos for nearly a week.

The crumbs I'll be donating to the local mission today, and by Sunday, all evidence of my life here and my ongoing battle with mice and my creepy neighbour will be completely gone, save for bits of furniture the new tenant bought, that red paint I spilled in the sink, and the stack of papers that fell behind the fridge. These little accents will add to those left by the previous tenants: the good luck charm bolted into the oak frame of the doorway, unidentifiable trinkets lodged in the radiator, and little poops left by midnight visitors – the furry rodent kind, not the freaky weirdo sort.

Ninety-five hours to go...

Death, lies and dinner

When I was small, my parents lied to me all the time. "It's beef," they'd say, and drop a plate on the table. Sometimes, I'd refuse to eat, convinced I'd heard them slip a barely audible "just like" between the "it's" and "beef". It was inhumane, I thought, to hunt wild game and (at that age) equally inhumane to force me to eat vegetables as the alternative. My parents were cruel, and I was right not to trust them.

Several incarnations of Bambi's mother and his philandering father have joined us for dinner, as have Thumper, Donald Duck, Winnie the Pooh, Jaws and various anonymous guests, sometimes in a medley of murder my mother liked to call 'stew'. Children's stories, cartoons, movies and Teddy bears did not serve me well in a family of naturalists, hunters and fisherfolk.

Not until I fully understood the horrors of industrial farming, and tired of my diet of pasta and frozen chicken nuggets while studying at an out-of-province university, did my views on my parents' eating habits begin to soften. By then, I cared more about what food wasn't (pasta or mechanically separated meat), than what it was.

Not until I'd travelled throughout Southeast Asia and Latin America did I begin to actually appreciate my parents' choices. As it turns out, a lot more can be considered food than I'd initially thought, and the horrors of my mother's cooking weren't, comparatively, so terrifying. Travelling, I learned to find my happy place, which allowed me to politely choke down whatever lovingly slaughtered, hacked and salted ungodly creatures I'd been served. They won't eat me from the inside out, I consoled myself. Even if the heads are still on? asked my little voice.

While I maintain my belief that food should not be able to look back at you, I've learned to appreciate dead, cooked versions of creatures, so long as I have nothing to do with their death or any stage postmortem/pre-meal.

Among life's greatest motivators, however, (pain, necessity, a full bladder) is the desire to look tough in front of one's peers, and this is what got me to both kill and cook one of Earth's most hideous, head and all: a lobster.

I watch my parents do it every year on Christmas Eve, and, with the help of my happy place, I was pretty sure I could pull it off for my mostly urban, English, fruit-and-salad-loving boyfriend. On this, his first visit to Canada, my family had already introduced him to bear stew, moose sirloin, vampire-repelling dill and garlic pickles, pierogi and three batches of Mom's cookies, and it seemed a shame to have him leave Nova Scotia without eating something from the sea, especially since he'd never tried lobster.

My greatest realization, in cooking the beast, was that I truly am becoming more like my parents. Here I am, carrying on the tradition of lying to people who are reluctant to kill for dinner, while my boyfriend screams, "It's ALIVE! It's ALIVE! OH, EFF! It's still ALIVE!":

Putting the 'pet' in petulant

It's dead under a stool in my kitchen right now, and no, I am not going to do anything about it. Not until my visitor has come and gone. He's due in about ten minutes, and I'd hate to be caught red-handed, heartless and with a body on my conscience. Once he leaves, I'll roll it up and carry it at arm's length to the basement – the logical place to stash a corpse. Until then, I'll just act casual.

I won't pretend I didn't get a sense of satisfaction from the kill, maybe even a little adrenaline. I am entirely capable of killing again. The deceased should've known better than to enter my home uninvited, sneaking around at night, stealing bits he thought I'd not notice and presumably defecating in miniature throughout. I wouldn't accept that behaviour from a person, it's just not polite. For a mouse, that behaviour is punishable by death – preferably the quick, sudden and immediate sort.

The entire scenario feels as though it might've been orchestrated by a higher, comic power. Just this week, my boyfriend proposed getting a hamster – a sad interim replacement, I think, for the cat he can't have thanks to his roommate's allergies – to keep in his own corner of the house, his bedroom.

He seemed surprised by my disgust with the idea, perhaps having seen me as the quintessential Canadian, in tune with nature and with love for all animals. Likewise, I expected more of him. He's English, after all, and you'd think the Black Death would've been enough of a lesson.

I said everything I could to deter him, short of threatening to never spend the night again and letting him imagine the horror of that on his own. I spoke of pee and wood chips, pet shop odour and the relentless whir of exercise wheels. A bedroom is no place for a rodent, and I think both Richard Gere and most gerbils would agree.

Faking my best heartlessness, I resolved to tolerate his particular rodent, but only as fodder, until it came time for us to move in together and I'd get a cat and let nature take its bloody course. You know, like Darwinian selection for pets. I was mostly joking.

Still, when I saw a mouse in my house yesterday, I set traps straight away, with delicious canapés of dried fruit, cheese and whole wheat muffin crumbs. One bite for me; one bite for the undead.

Before long, the mouse enjoyed its last nibble and now I am faced with the only thing more disgusting than a rodent scurrying unchecked about my house, and that's a dead one.

Breaking up with my apartment

The last time I moved from an apartment, I walked in on strangers having gay sex in my living room.

Apparently, there'd been a miscommunication (read: no communication) between me and my recently "exed" boyfriend concerning when the new tenants could have the keys and start moving in. That's the difference a day makes.

Our relationship was a recent fatality, having ended with style and force usually reserved for collapsing mine shafts, atom splitting and revolution quashing, as most long-term relationships do. Everyone involved scrambles for their lives, there's screaming, and no one makes it out unscathed. Still, when it's all said and done and a new day comes, it's a bright one.

More than simply packing up, we'd had to negotiate seven years' worth of mine vs. his. Through clenched teeth and the staccato of monosyllabic reluctance, we still managed to negotiate divisions of things like dinnerware: Three plates for me. Three plates for him. A holy travesty.

The car was his. The furniture was mine. The apartment and its gorgeous patio would soon be for someone else. The hate was initially his, but we soon managed to ensure there was plenty for everyone. Eventually, all I wanted was 'out'.

I'd arranged for movers to come when I didn't think my Ex would be there, the cheap kind that arrive late and try to buy weed from you when the move takes longer than expected, because they can't call their regular guy after 11 PM. It doesn't occur to them that you don't smoke weed and don't know where to get any, so they become annoyed, and you end up tipping them more than you would have otherwise. They know where you live.

The final and more delicate remnants of my three years in the old apartment were still there come midnight. Returning in a taxi to gather them in a last run, I'd romanticized that perhaps the night would end with one final moment of silence for that era of my life, and with a deep breath I'd both symbolically and literally lock the door behind me. Saying that I felt like I was reluctantly saying good-bye to a beloved, but toxic friend would be a good analogy, if that wasn't exactly what was happening.

When I arrived, all sentimental and melancholy, I remember turning the key and slowly pushing the door open, expecting to be struck by the vacant space that was once my home. I remember just as clearly how instead there were two svelte, naked bodies humping in the dark on my living room floor.

Oh my gawd, I gasped and gawked, too shocked to avert my eyes and still not quite understanding what I was seeing. Initially, I'd thought my Ex was exacting some sort of revenge, and had arranged to have me catch him doing the dirty with some poor martyr or hussy. Moments later, I realized both bodies were of the male variety. Oh my gawd, my sense of wonder renewed. Then, I realized neither belonged to my Ex.

They scrambled for pants and sheets, all the while apologizing and urging me in. Blushing and gathering my things, I knew I wouldn't have that final moment of closure I'd romanticized, just as the new tenants' first romp in their new home didn't quite go as they'd imagined.

That's a lot less likely to happen this time, I think – as I pack, sell and donate my belongings before my next big move – but I can't wait to see what will.

Reason I love to travel #2

If I put on a brave face for the camera, even if only for a few seconds, someone will snap a photo that will make me seem tough for all eternity – not because I like to eat bugs.

Costa Rican Crunch, originally uploaded by Kate Savage.