Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

The newest sales tool for the Raleigh newspaper? College campuses. I was walking merrily along to my office, thinking about the fact that it was Friday and that a three-day weekend was coming up and that we're going to a football game this weekend, where I will get to see friends I haven't seen in years, when I was summoned over to a little newspaper kiosk by a very disinterested looking man. Normally when someone on campus sets up a kiosk, I avoid it like the plague because for the most part, they either want me to buy a product or buy an idea and really, if I wanted a product? I'd go to a store. And if I wanted an idea? I'd go to the library.

But this time, I was sucked in by one, magical sentence: "Do you want a FREE newspaper?" Yes, yes I do. Free things are my friends. And when the free thing is a newspaper, it becomes even more my friend because newspapers are quite possibly the most fun inventions EVER. Watching the news requires for me to be able to tolerate the newscasters' atrocious grammar (which I just can't do) and reading the news online is just overwhelming. There's too damn much of it and by the time I finish a section, all the headlines have been updated again. Newspapers, on the other hand, do not require listening to people who say "good" instead of "well" and there's a finite amount of information and plus, it's really, really fun to fold.

So of COURSE, I took the free newspaper. And carried it happily across campus, thinking the entire time about how much fun it would be to get a paper EVERY DAY. So when I was walking back to the parking deck, I warily approached the man again, certain that it would cost at least about $20 per month. Imagine my surprise when he informed me that it would be $30 FOR THE ENTIRE SEMESTER. That's three-and-a-half MONTHS worth of feeling like I know at least a tiny bit about what's going on in the world. And moreover? It's three-and-a-half months worth of Sunday coupons. My scissors and I anxiously await.

I Rely on the Kindness of Strangers

My level of disorganization is inversely related to my level of relaxation. And since school started a week ago, my level of relaxation is dancing dangerously low, which is to say that my level of disorganization has reached new and UNFATHOMABLE heights. But as I get more disorganized, I also get more frustrated and if I can't think of a convenient place to put something, I just throw it away. Which becomes problematic because then, two weeks down the road, when I'm looking for that item, I have no. clue. what I did with it.

I'm currently facing this problem because at the beginning of this month, I got in the mail a new debit card. And since we were still moving and unpacking and organizing, I either (a) put it in a completely illogical spot or (b) threw it away. In either case, I can't find it. And while I'm not worried about anyone else trying to use it because it isn't activated yet, I AM worried about what's going to happen in 3 days when my current card expires and I'm left penniless.

So I decided while waiting for class to start this morning that I would set an alarm on my phone so that when I got home, it would ring and remind me to turn the place upside down to do one final search for the card. I was feeling all calm and organized because I planned all this ahead and set the alarm and everything. Until two hours later, when I reached into my purse so that I could make a call using my cell phone, only to find that--guess what!--there was no cell phone in there. Which meant that after setting this alarm, I left the phone in the classroom. The classroom that seats 300 people. On the other side of campus.

Luckily for me, there was a lost and found in said classroom and even more luckily, there wasn't a class being held when I ran back there, and EVEN MORE LUCKILY, my phone was sitting in the lost and found box. I'm sending out mega-watt positive thoughts for whoever found it and put it in the box.

Just Dancin' and Singin' in the Raaaaiiiinnnn

Today is Day 2 of The Rain and I gotta admit--it's growing on me. Why, you ask? Well...

1) I found my umbrella. Or rather, McMoose told me where he put my umbrella. Thanks, McMoose.

2) I really love my umbrella. It has two different shades of blue (aka: the best color IN THE WORLD) and is big, but not so big that you get blown away and it makes me unreasonably cheerful to carry it around.

3) The sound of rain hitting the umbrella makes me feel oddly...peaceful. And cozy. It's almost as good as walking home through brand new snow.

4) The Dog begins to resemble a very large sewer rat when he's wet, so whenever we go for walks in the rain, I get to see him looking hilariously cute. And then, he comes inside and dashes madly around and runs into the walls and furniture. And then he shakes water on the cats and they act very offended. And these are the moments that make scooping dog poop in the pouring rain a little bit more worthwhile.

5) I just Rain-Xed my windshield last weekend and it is now CRYSTAL clear. I was excited just to drive through the rain so I could admire the super-duper clarity.

6) And last, but not least, so many more people decide to skip classes when it's raining than when it's bright and sunshiny, which means that (a) the halls in my building are blissfully quiet and (b) the daily mad dash for parking spots in the morning? Yeah, I totally got to skip that today. There were no long lines of people waiting on a single parking spot, no muttering under my breath at Evil Drivers Who Cut Me Off, no spike in blood pressure. It was aaalllll gooood.

On the not-so-plus side, I did almost hydroplane directly into the side of a bus this morning. But...that kind of thing just makes life more interesting, right? Right.

An Accidental Sort of Day

Generally speaking, on the scale of dexterity and grace, I would fall towards the lower end of the spectrum. I stub my toes. I hit my funny bone. I trip over my animals. I trip over my shoes. I trip over air. That kind of thing. But today? Today, I hit a new high (uh...a new low?) Today, I reached brilliant new levels of clumsiness.

It had rained last night and the sky looked like it hadn't completely decided what kind of mood it was in this morning, so I very proactively decided to look for my umbrella. I opened the trunk of my car. It swung up and hit me in the face. Plus, there was no umbrella in there. I went back to the apartment to steal McMoose's umbrella. I opened the closet. A tennis racket fell off the shelf and on to my head. I snarled at the racket, took the umbrella, and left. By the time I got to campus, I was considerably calmer and I promised myself that I would be more careful and would have no more accidents. And as I was telling myself this, I slammed my finger in the car door.

So at this point, I was in a considerable amount of pain and my mood mirrored that of the fractious sky, so I grumbled my way across campus, stepping into two potholes and walking into a parking meter. I dropped my bag into a very ugly puddle when I was pulling out the slip of paper that I had thoughtfully put in there to remind me where my class was being held. I dropped my pen in the aforementioned class no fewer than SEVEN times. The poor guy in front of me was probably wishing he'd chosen a different seat after having to hand it back to me every 9 minutes.

By noon, I was already pretty much ready to go back to bed and restart this day, but instead, I trudged over to my office, aka my *safe place.* Where I promptly spilled a glass of water on myself, resulting in a very...unfortunately placed...wet spot on my pants. So. I've decided that this is going to be the epitome of "one of those days," and instead of fighting it, I'm going to embrace it. HEAR THAT, UNIVERSE? I'M EMBRACING THE CLUMSINESS. And also, I'm going to stay away from knives and fire for the rest of the day. Just in case.

If It Walks Like a Pessimist...

I'm going to preface this by saying that my advisor once worked as an editor for a publishing house. So when I handed her a draft of my thesis proposal, I expected to get it back all marked up. And on that front, I was definitely not disappointed. There were markings galore. Entire sentences, hell, entire PARAGRAPHS had been reworded. And really, I'm okay with that. But what surprised me were the handful of POSITIVE comments about the proposal. Because honestly? It wasn't good. I mean really, really just not good. Of course, while I was reading the comments, I just couldn't shut out the cynical, sarcastic little voice that was jabbering away in my head, so I came up with some pessimistic translations of the comments:

-"There were many fine moments in this section." = "The rest of the proposal stinks like a dead fish in August."
-"This information was new to me." = "Sounds to me like you're just making this shit up."
-"I like this sentence, but maybe you should move it to this other paragraph." = "I am astounded by your utter incoherence. How did you ever get into grad school? I'm revoking your assistantship immediately."
-"Well done, just keep working." = "A passable first try, but judging by this proposal, you can expect to graduate in about 17 years."

So since I've failed miserably in my attempt to be an unfailingly cheerful optimist, I've decided to return to my inner cynic.

The Attack of the Killer Clowns

I decided to work from home today because (a) it's Friday and (b) the project I'm currently working on is much easier to do at home. Or at least, that's what I tell myself. The real reason? The three other people who share my office were all planning to be out today and my paranoia about being alone in an office that's down a deserted hallway got the best of me. Plus, I wanted the extra sleep.

So about 10 minutes after McMoose left for work, I hear this very loud, very startling knock on the door and for some reason that I no longer remember, my sleep-confused brain decided that it must be the cops. So off I went, still in my pajamas, mind you, to open the door. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't the cops, but was instead a man wearing the brightest pair of orange pants I've ever seen in my life. Of course, at this point, I was convinced that he's a clown with murderous intentions and was regretting ever getting out of bed, when he identified himself as our mailman. And the conversation pretty much went downhill from there.

Mailman: I have a package for you.

Me: Oh, ok.

Mailman: Yeah. Here's the slip for you to pick it up.

Me: Pick it up? I thought you said you had it.

Mailman: It's at the post office.

Me: Uh. Ok. Why?

Mailman: I didn't think you'd be here, so I left it there.

Me: But...that's...um...don't you usually just leave it at the apartment office?

Mailman: Yeah.

Me: O...kay.

Mailman: I left it at the post office instead. So you can pick it up.

Me: O...kay.

Am I the only one who's confused about this? Since when do they just leave things at the post office? And furthermore, SINCE WHEN DO THEY WEAR ORANGE PANTS?

Let's Just File This Under "Random"

My day has been moving along in a series of staccato beats, much as the remainder of this post will:

• I slept in for an extra 15 minutes this morning. As a result, I got to campus 55 minutes later than I usually do. Someone want to explain that time discrepancy to me? Because I sure as hell can't figure it out.
• When I finally did get to campus, there were three people in fluorescent orange vests directing traffic into the parking lot. Which meant that every person in Raleigh between the ages of 18 and 25 were on this campus this morning. And they were all trying to find parking spots. So I got an extra long walk this morning, which means that I can eat my cupcake tonight without feeling guilty about the sinful frosting.
• My first classroom smelled like formaldehyde, which seems foreboding, considering that it's not a lab, but an actual lecture hall.
• I asked for my lunch bagel with cheese and capers, but no tomatoes or onions. Instead, I got cheese, extra tomatoes, cooked onions, and olives. And a sad piece of lettuce. When I went back to ask for my capers, the woman tried to hand me more olives. How do you work at a bagel/sandwich shop and not know the difference between olives and capers? That's like working at a vet's office and not knowing the difference between a rodent and a reptile.
• I have two extra people in my office now that the semester is underway and one of them just brought in a set of 12 office mail cubby things. I'm very intrigued and the urge to leave cryptic messages in each cubby is almost irresistible.

Putting the Obnoxious in "Obnoxious Computer"

I have restarted my office computer a grand total of 13 times in the past 3 hours and 34 minutes. That's an average of 3.71 times per hour. And since it takes about 6 minutes every time I restart it, that means I've spent 78 minutes restarting my computer. That means I've spent 36% of my workday TURNING MY COMPUTER ON AND OFF. It's a good thing I work in a window-less hole because otherwise? This computer would've taken a 7-storey fall about two hours ago.

So you might be wondering just WHY I'm compulsively restarting my computer. Well. Apparently back when it was a baby computer at the Dell warehouse, the bogeyman told it that excel files were devil spawn, so it has a lasting phobia of them. And today? I'm trying to cut and paste data from one file to another, which means that I have TWO excel files open. TWO! And to my computer, that signifies the end of the world.

So when I first started having this problem at the beginning of July, I went and talked to the tech support people, who informed me that it barely even qualified as a problem and all I had to do was just to restart the computer. And ever since then, every time I've talked to them about any other problem that come up, I've re-introduced this particular issue and every time, they say "Oh, it's just old. Just restart it." So I'm restarting the computer. EVERY ELEVEN AND A HALF MINUTES.

Socializing + Food > Work

Since my work hours have been kind of (extremely) flexible during the summer, I decided that this week, I'd ease myself into regular hours again by making sure I stay at the office for 5 hours every day and that way, when classes start, the increased time I spend on campus won't seem as drastic. Pretty easy, right? Apparently not so much.

The plan worked great until exactly 10:18 this morning, when I realized that the new student welcome breakfast was underway. Of course, the pull of bagels was stronger than the pull of my resolution, so off I went to eat and mingle, rationalizing that after all, it is my role as an more seasoned (read: more jaded) student to go and offer my dubious wisdom. By the time I got there, all the good bagels were gone, but that didn't stop me from mingling. Ok, so that's still acceptable, right? Except that the people I was mingling with were my office mate and another friend, neither of whom qualify as "new students."

But that was only for twenty minutes, so I might still have been able to pull off my resolution. Except that this afternoon? There's a new student lunch. Which I have been invited to. So that I can mingle and offer wisdom. And while it would have been easy to turn down the invitation via email or even phone, I'm very bad at saying no to these things in person. Which means that today? I will have worked a total of 3 hours. And my resolution just went down in flames. And along with it go all my hopes for a shorter day on Friday.

Heal My Heel

Since the campus has been filled with the noise and dust of construction all summer long, it was a welcome change when I was walking around today and it was quiet. And clean. With newly paved roads and freshly cut grass. And the 59 "Road Closed Due to Construction" signs were all gone, which means I can go back to enjoying the scenery during my walks from point A to point B instead of having to devise new and increasingly creative walking routes all the time. So since I didn't feel like I was in a perpetually shifting obstacle course this morning, I began to let down my guard. I hummed a little tune. The sun shone and the birds sang and not even Walt Disney could have improved upon it.

So when I felt a slight, shooting pain in my heel, I barely even noticed. But by the time I had reached my office and the euphoria of walking around unencumbered faded, I began to realize that with each step I took, my left heel hurt just a little bit more. So I pulled off my flip flop and checked my heel, only to find a lovely shard of glass sticking out of it. Apparently, the construction people did NOT clean up all their mess because if they had? I WOULDN'T BE SITTING HERE WITH A SESAME STREET BAND-AID ON MY FOOT RIGHT NOW.

So (a) next time, remind me to remove the glass BEFORE it embeds itself into my foot and (b) why are there sesame street band-aids in my office?

The Number Game

I was very excited to find certified copies of McMoose's and my marriage license in the mail today, so I decided that since today is the last day before I have to go back to work, I would take care of as much of the name change thing as possible today. Wanna know how it went?

5: the number of times my alarm had to go off before I was able to drag myself out of bed.
30: the number of minutes it took me to drive to the social security office.
0: the number of available parking spots at the social security office.
3: the number of people who tried to cut in line to check in and get a number at the social security office.
2: the number of hours I waited for my number to get called.
2: the number of MINUTES it took them to process my request once they actually called my number.
30: the number of minutes it took me to drive to the DMV headquarters.
0: the number of available parking spots at the DMV.
3: the number of blocks I parked from the DMV.
20: the number of seconds it took the guy at the service desk to inform me that there at the DMV headquarters? They don't process driver's licenses.
20: The number of minutes it took me to drive to the driver's license office.
4: The number of times I had to circle the block because the driver's license office is INSIDE the AMTRAK station. Good to know.
6: The number of people in line ahead of me.
40: The number of minutes we waited for THE FIRST PERSON in that line to get called.
20: The number of minutes we waited until a customer service woman came to make sure that everyone had the right documents.
19: The number of hairs on my head that turned gray when the customer service woman informed me that since I just went to the social security office this morning, they wouldn't be able to do the name change for my driver's license until Monday.

The Great Escape

The Dog staged an elaborate escape today. He started by convincing me that even though it was McMoose's morning to walk him, McMoose had forgotten all about him and that he was just dying to go out. Since I had nothing better to do, I decided that I'd take him out again, just in case McMoose really had forgotten. And that was my first mistake.

Which brings us to my second mistake: the harness. When McMoose and I were in India, we had left The Dog with some friends of ours and apparently, we didn't make it entirely clear that The Dog did not have to wear his harness 24-7. As a result, when we got him back, he had a giant bald spot on his back and his harness was missing what is apparently a very important part. Up until now, we've continued using the harness even though it was a little bit loose and there have been no huge mishaps.

Enter the FedEx truck. Aka The Dog's arch rival. Apparently, seeing the truck gave The Dog super-canine powers and he very deftly slipped out of the harness. For a dog that spends most of his life in hibernation, he's got fast little legs. You know how I remember my neighbors by their quirks? Yeah, anyone who saw me today is going to remember me as the girl who had to trap her dog in the tennis court so she could re-capture him.

People Watching

Since this is the last week of summer break, my very kind advisor, who is also my very kind boss, decided to give us the week off. Which has meant that I now have the time to get to know my neighbors. Not by introducing myself to them or anything crazy like that, but by quiet observation. Aka: spying. There's the afraid-of-dogs woman, who has provided me with endless entertainment, first by running away from my dog, then by speaking loudly on her cell phone while walking around outside, and finally by spilling some form of food or drink in her car EVERY. TIME. she gets in. I think that so far, she's by far my favorite neighbor.

Then, there's the couple who owns the Very Sad Mercedes. In fact, I think that between the two of them, the Very Sad Mercedes might be the only car, which is very sad indeed since it has been out of commission for a while now. About a week ago, I was woken up by The Dog, who was barking furiously. So off I went to the window, only to find a tow truck pulling into the parking lot. After an initial period of panicking that it might have come to tow MY car, I realized that it had not been called by apartment management, but rather by the Mercedes couple. And for the past week, I've noticed its absence in the parking lot and then yesterday, it got towed back here. A week in the shop and the thing had to be TOWED back. And right now? I'm really glad I own an easy-to-fix Toyota.

And last but not least. I woke up this morning to a burnt smell. My first thought, of course, was that I had left the oven on last night and the building was now burning down as a result, but once that not altogether unlikely fear was put to rest, I convinced myself that I was making it up in my head. Turns out I wasn't in fact making it up and that something was burning--just not in my apartment. When I took the dog for his morning walk, I walked down the stairs only to be assaulted by the burning smell again. And there, outside the door of the apartment below us sat a still-smoking bag of charred popcorn.

So that's three out of the 15 families that live in my building and I am oh-so-excited to find out about the rest.

Who You Gonna Call?

About a year ago, we got a new Vonage phone because my previous internet phone company went out of business rather suddenly. And the phone works great. In fact, the only problem we've ever had with it had nothing to do with the service, but rather with the fact that the woman who had our number before us was Very Annoying. And also, very much in debt. As a result of which her debt collectors called us night and day in an attempt to reach her. The way that I dealt with it was to ignore the calls, delete the messages and go on with my day. The way that McMoose dealt with it was to pick up the phone, return the messages, and explain the situation. As it turned out, his way was slightly better in the long run because he was able to actually end the problem instead of just pretending it didn't exist. Imagine that.

So at the time that we had 14 messages from debt collectors on our phone every day, I was sure that it would be the MOST annoying phone problem EVER. I was wrong. Because ever since we moved to this place, we've been getting 5 or 6 phone calls each day from NO ONE. And this? This is far worse than the calls from the debt collectors because at least those were real people and could be reasoned with. This is just nothing-ness. It's not a person. It's not a machine. It's just dead air. And each time, the caller ID says "Receivable VESPR." Um...what?

And I can't even ignore the calls because every time I try, this little voice in the back of my head taunts me by saying what if it's an actual phone call? If this doesn't stop soon, I'm going to strangle that damn voice.

Cynophobia, or The Irrational Fear of Dogs

Before we go any further, I'd like to ask you to look over to the left. See the picture of The Dog? See his meek expression? See how he's about as far from aggressive and intimidating as it is possible to get? Most of the time, when we're out walking him and we come upon someone new, their reaction is (a) to ignore him altogether because he's approximately the size of a body building ant or (b) to exclaim "Aww, puppy!" and pet him and generally fall in love with him.

Until this morning. This morning, I witnessed something so completely bizarre that it defies all logic. It actually boggles my mind. We have this neighbor who lives in our building and who, up until now, seemed pretty sophisticated and worldly. She's always on her cell phone sounding very confident and commanding. She dresses like a pro. Oh, and did I mention? She's a grown woman. And as it turns out, she's a sophisticated, worldly, confident, commanding, grown woman who is DEATHLY AFRAID of dogs.

The Dog and I were just heading out on our morning walk when she was entering the building. Now mind you, we were a good 15 feet away from her front door and given our slow and meandering pace, she could easily have unlocked her door, made it into her apartment, and re-locked her door before we ever even passed her. But irrational fear being irrational and all, she chose instead to emit a very high squealing noise and then run out onto the grass in her high heels. At which point one of her shoes got stuck in some mud, so she left the shoe. In the middle of the lawn. Then? She LEAPED over the hedge and ran onto her porch and--I'm not even joking--she HID IN THE STORAGE CLOSET. From my dog. My little 19-lb, fuzzy, not-at-all-threatening, cute and cuddly dog. Mind: Boggled.

Oh, and in a note of celebration, I made two (two!) phone calls this morning they were both normal and straightforward and did not make me hate the world. To borrow a catch phrase from McDonald's, I'm lovin' it.

Bee Happy

There's a wasp party going on out on my balcony right now and I am NOT PLEASED. Three of them first arrived on Wednesday, so we sprayed bug spray all around in the hopes of destroying any nests they may have built in the cracks. I was hopeful because yesterday, there were only two flying around out there. And today? There are six. On the plus side, they are kind enough to leave my balcony and go back to wherever they come from in the evenings, which is the only time we ever go out there. On the not so much plus side, I feel like I live in a beehive and it. is. HORRIFYING.

I fell asleep on the couch for all of 20 minutes this afternoon because every time I closed my eyes, I could hear the buzzing echoing in my ears. Ok, granted I can't actually hear them with the balcony door closed, but I have been blessed with an (overly) active imagination. Plus, the cats? Yeah, they're going NUTS. They've been sitting by the door all day long and every time one of the wasps flies a little too close to the glass, they throw themselves at the door. And I'll admit, watching them crash into the glass was pretty entertaining, the first 15 or 20 times it happened. But they have now done approximately 8,729 times and the entertainment value? IT IS GONE.

Overthinking the Wardrobe

Things I learned as I was looking through my closet this morning:

-I have a total of 6 white summer shirts. One of them is brand new and has never been worn or washed. Out of the five remaining ones, three have pink stains on them from being washed with red things, one has a marinara sauce stain on it, and the other one is now eight years old. You'd think I'd have realized by now that I should just stay away from the white genre of clothing.

-The cats have been using my dresses as a scratching post. Bad cats. Baaaaad.

-The last time I threw out/gave away a pair of pants? Probably in high school. Seriously, I have an ungodly number of pants. Except that at least 50% of them are too small. And then, there are the ones with the holes, the ones with the paint stains, the ones with the broken buttons and zippers. Leaving me with a total of maybe 8 pairs of usable pants. And yet, I have about 30 sitting in my closet. Why?

-I also have an ungodly number of sweaters. And yet, all winter long, I rotate among the same four. WHY?

And as a result of all this early morning pondering, not only was I late to work, but in my hurry, I also tripped and fell down a flight of stairs. Gold star for me.

Shopping in the Hallway

Since it's almost the beginning of (yet another) school year, all the professors and grad students and administrative staff have cleaned out their offices and have left unwanted furniture out in the hall, in the hopes that at some point, the surplus people will come and take it away. We are also all hoping that until that happens, there is no fire in our building because all those desks and bookshelves that are sitting around aimlessly? (a) They would make great kindling and (b) they would block our escape route and probably cause a stampede.

Of course, until the surplus people come, all this stuff is a free-for-all so my officemate and I decided that today would be an excellent day to go out and scavenge us some new furniture. As a result of which, I have a BRAND! NEW! DESK! Except that by "brand new," what I really mean is "manufactured three decades ago." And I think at one point in its life, it used to be part of a bigger desk, but right now, it works perfectly. It's the right size. It's made of wood. There aren't too many scratches on it. AND it has three semi-functional drawers. "Functional" because they are big and you can put things in them. "Semi" because they don't close. Or rather, they don't STAY closed. And after I spent my first 45 minutes at this desk closing drawers that immediately sprang open again, I decided that my sanity would best be preserved if I taped the damn things shut.

And all was well. Until I needed to get a file out of one of the drawers and in the process of taking the tape off the desk, I ended up pulling out two screws and the drawer collapsed onto my foot. And tomorrow? I'm bringing in my tool set and challenging the desk to a duel.

Going Red, Going Green

A couple of nights ago, McMoose and I went a-wandering around our new apartment complex in the hopes of coming across the recycling bins. Needless to say, the search was in vain, so the next day, I called the apartment management to see if they could help me out.

Here's how the conversation SHOULD HAVE gone:
Me: Hi, I'm new to the community, and I was wondering if there are any recycling bins on the property.
Apartment person: No, we don't, sorry.
Me: Okay, thanks for your help. Good-bye.

Since my phone conversations are NEVER that straightforward, here's how it ACTUALLY went:
Me: Hi, we're new to the community, and--
Apartment person, cutting me off mid-sentence: Oh, welcome! How are you liking it?
Me: Um. Fine. Thanks. But the reason I was calling was--
Apartment person, cutting me off AGAIN: Oh, were you wondering about the pool? We always have new people asking about the pool.
Me: Nooooo. I was calling to find out if you have any recycling bins on the property.
Apartment person: We have a valet trash service, so if you put your trash outside your door, they'll get it for you.
Me: Uh, yeah...do they get your recycling too?
Apartment person: No, just the trash.
Me: O-kay...is there a recycling bin then?
Apartment person: We have a trash compactor, so if your trash gets filled up on one of the days when the valet trash service doesn't come, you can take it there.
Me: Right. I know. But what about RECYCLING?
Apartment person: We're in negotiations.
Me: You're in...negotiations? Ok...so...does that mean you don't have recycling bins right now?
Apartment person: We're a recycling friendly community and we used to.
Me: But you don't have them now, right?
Apartment person: We're in negotiations.
Me: Yeah, ok, thanks for your time.

I'm starting to think that maybe this person should go back to DARE so she can learn to JUST SAY NO.

Firestarters

Last night, for the first time since we moved, we went grocery shopping. Which means that for the past two weeks, we've had no food in the house. So at some point last week, when I wanted to fry some chip-like things and discovered that we had no oil, I decided to improvise by baking them instead. I mean, it's healthier, it's less guilt-inducing--I had nothing to lose. Or so I thought. As it turned good, some cookie batter had dripped into the oven during my baking frenzy of the day before and as a result, we had a fire in the oven. A small fire. But a fire nonetheless. And I walked around for a week feeling very foolish because seriously. Who over the age of 8 starts a fire in the oven?

But today, for about 10 minutes, I stopped feeling so bad about myself. Because today? My office mate nearly started a fire in the microwave. Apparently the container that her lunch was sitting in wasn't so much microwave safe and as a result, about 20 seconds after she turned the microwave on, a sickeningly sweet smell began wafting into the office. By the time she got to it and turned it off, the container looked like something that belongs in the Museum of Modern art and the crab cake? Let's just say it looked...well done. Very well done. So I walked around feeling mightily cocky--until I remembered the time a few years ago when I started a fire in my microwave by burning a bag of popcorn. A fire that was so bad that the interior of the microwave was turned permanently brown.

So now, my office smells like burned plastic AND I feel foolish again.

Cat Wrangling

Being the optimistic person I am, I made sure to put Yellow Cat and Black Cat in the bathroom this morning, just in case the maintenance people happen to have some free time on their hands and decide to come take a look at our pool/kitchen. Yellow Cat (aka my sweet, loving, friendly, beautiful kitty) was highly cooperative, as he always is, and allowed me to capture him and carry him to the bathroom, where he promptly jumped into the linen closet and fell asleep on a towel. Note to self: wash towels. Again.

And then, there's Black Cat. Aka McMoose's mean, manipulative, not-at-all cute monstrosity. Black Cat and I have a very love-hate relationship and most of the time, it's smack dab in the middle of the "hate" region. The only two times when we're ever in the love region is: (1) when I first wake up in the morning and she follows me around and sometimes permits me to pet her and (2) when I let her eat leaves from my plant. Needless to say, the Capture of Black Cat was an epic tale involving bloodshed (mine), hair loss (hers), and bruised feelings (both of ours). In the end, I finally managed to lure her with a cat treat, trap her in a closet, wrap her in a pillowcase and wrangle her into the bathroom, where she threw a temper tantrum and kicked every every piece of bed linen off the shelves in the linen closet. Note to self: wash bed linens. Again.

Meanwhile, the dog took all the chaos as an opportunity to get into the pantry and gorge himself on cat food. Which means that he'll probably throw up in his cage and I'll have to wash his blanket. Again.