It's Going Swimmingly

When we were looking for new apartments a few months ago, one of the things I especially looked for was new appliances in the kitchen. And by "new," I mean "manufactured within the past two decades." Obviously, I felt that the appliances at our new apartment complex passed the test. Turns out, I was wrong. Granted the dishwasher at our old place was loud and not so pretty and didn't do a particularly spectacular job, so we had to essentially wash all of our dishes by hand and then run them through the dishwasher so that McMoose could feel that they were effectively "sanitized." And that was a pain. A big pain.

The new dishwasher is quieter and newer and it seems more effective. But also, it leaks. A lot. Luckily for me, I was not the one to discover the leak. Unluckily for McMoose, he was. The first time he stepped in a puddle, he blamed me. The second time, he blamed the dog. The third time, he opened the dishwasher and lo! And! Behold! The drainage pipe must be backed up because the water just pools in the bottom and then spills out of the door instead of going sensibly down the pipes.

So yesterday, I went to talk to the apartment people and ask them to kindly come fix the darn thing. They informed me that the wading pool in my kitchen does not constitute an emergency, but that they would be happy to fix it when they get to it. Translation: 1 week, minimum.

The Very Disappointing Day

Reasons I was excited to come to work today:

1. My office mate, who was out of town for the past two days, was scheduled to come back so I no longer had to obsess about whether there were serial killers on the loose in the building.
2. I knew I would get to play with my statistics program all day.
3. If the statistics program started doing strange things again, I knew I could go to my office mate, who is a statistical genius.
4. I was supposed to have lunch at a Very Good Restaurant with some Very Amusing People whom I haven't seen in months.

Reasons why I'm no longer excited to be at work:

1. My office mate decided to work from home today, which means that (a) I'm still obsessing about the serial killers and (b) there's no one to help me with the stats program.
2. The stats program? Oh, it hates me. A lot. And it takes a great deal of pleasure in telling me things that DON'T MAKE SENSE. And then I have to turn to Google to answer my questions, and the answers I get are something like this: "In order to complete the factor analysis, you must determine whether you want an orthogonal or a oblique rotation. Then, set the analysis scale based on the elbow of the SCREE graph." And then, I hang my head and cry giant tears because graphs should not have elbows. And what the hell is a rotation? AND WHY, OH WHY, DIDN'T I PAY MORE ATTENTION IN STATS CLASS?
3. I'm hungry. Tragically and woefully hungry. And lunchtime is still an hour away.

Going Postal

Have I mentioned that I'm rather fond of the fine art of procrastination? So keeping this fact in mind, of course I would wait until two days before the end of the month before going to the post office to change my address, even though we've actually been in this apartment now for almost 10 days. But the post office kind of reinforces all of my procrastinating ways because it always provides oh, such a dreadful experience.

McMoose, being the productive and intelligent being he is, promptly changed his information online AND took great and perverse pleasure in informing me that had I changed my last name two months ago like I was supposed to, he could have changed my information online too. But of course I haven't changed my name yet, so I had to do my own. And furthermore, you can only do it online if your bank already knows your new address, which mine (surprise, surprise) did not. So off I went to the post office.

And stood in line. And stood in line. And STOOD. IN. LINE. And after about 20 minutes of that, I finally got called up to speak to a Very Ornery Man who, oh, by the way, was also Very Hard of Hearing:

Me: Hi, I just need a change of address form.
Man: Do you have a yellow slip?
Me: Uh, no...I need a slip for a change of address form?
Man: You need the slip that the postman left you, or you can't get your package.
Me: *pause* O...kay...I don't have a package. I need a change of address form.
Man: Ma'am, without the slip, I can't give you the package.
Me: No. There is NO package...
Man: I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't help you. Next person in line please!

Ok, so do you see? Do you SEE why I put these things off for as long as I humanly can?

Merry Christmas in July and Happy New Years in August

Um...what's with the Christmas in July thing? The local radio stations were doing Christmas in July giveaways. There were ads on TV for Christmas in July sales. Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if I walked into CVS and found a row of Christmas in July cards. Before this year, the only time I had really even heard the term was in random books or movies. Now all of a sudden, it's this legitimate not-quite-holiday. When did that happen? And, AND. If all that wasn't bad enough, this morning as I was driving to work, I heard an ad on the radio for an "After Christmas Sale." At which point I yelled at the announcer that IT'S NOT CHRISTMAS and the person in the car next to me gave me a very strange look.

So is this just a new gimmick to get people shopping? Because I understand the whole we're-in-a-recession-and-people-aren't-buying-as-much extravaganza, but...um...when I go into Target or Barnes & Noble or Best Buy? It isn't exactly deserted. And even with the sky-high price of gas, it isn't like morning traffic has gotten any lighter. And the drive-thru at McDonalds is still just as long and annoying as it ever was. So is it really necessary to invent a holiday that falls THREE WEEKS after the 4th of July just so people will go buy stuff? And also, what's next? Hanukkah in September? Kwanzaa in April? National Beekeepers' Day in February?

Painting-palooza

I was beyond thrilled when I found out that we could paint the rooms at our last apartment. And as soon as we moved in, one of the first things I did was paint the bedroom and the office. And for the past year, I've felt like I lived at the beach because the rooms were beautiful. And then came today. And as much as I've enjoyed the beachy rooms for the past year, today I almost wished I had never painted those rooms to begin with. Because today? Today, I got to begin the long and unpleasant process of painting those darn rooms back to the institutional apartment white.

Since HGTV was one of the very few channels we got at our old apartment, I spent a good portion of my last year watching shows about painting, so when the time came, I headed out to Lowe's to find a good primer. After about ten minutes of staring blankly at a Very Tall Wall of Primers, I picked the one that said "Perfect for drastic color changes with just one coat!" Plus, it had a picture of someone painting a blue wall white, which is exactly the situation that I find myself in. Feeling like I had the whole painting thing under control, I pranced on back to the old apartment to begin the process.

Turns out that people who make paint are BIG, FAT LIARS because the room that was blue? Yeah, it's still blue. I mean, it's a slightly lighter blue, but it's blue nevertheless. So. Maybe....this is MAGIC primer and when I put the actual paint on top, none of the blue will show through? Right? Ok, good.

Feeding the Addiction

One of the things I didn't like about our new apartment complex before we moved in is that we were forced to get cable. I felt that it was being forced on me and that I shouldn't have been forced to pay the extra $50 a month for a bunch of channels that I would rarely watch. And I still think it's ridiculous that it's required for all residents. And it's true that most of the channels go unwatched, partly because all they ever play are re-runs of Judge [insert name of sarcastic TV judge here]. But. There are those two or three channels that I now watch NON-STOP.

So it occurs to me now that the real reason I was opposed to this whole mandatory cable thing was not so much because I was being forced to pay for something I didn't want, but rather because I was being forced to pay for something that I DID want. Desperately. TV is my addiction and I now have unrestricted access to it. ALL THE TIME. And you know what? Those documentaries about orphaned tigers? And about people growing all their food in a compost pile? And about people who believe that god lives in their right shoe? Yeah, all those documentaries are still just as good as ever. And I am LOVING IT.

A Physical Impossibility

When we first moved to Raleigh, we had very little working knowledge of the city, but we knew we wanted a place that was close to McMoose's office and also to my university. So we ended up at a place that was 35 minutes away from my university AND 35 minutes away from McMoose's work. Which might not sound too bad until you consider the fact that McMoose's office? It's about 40 minutes away from the university.

This time, we were more jaded and fore-armed with the knowledge that apartment managers will tell you ANYTHING to get you to sign a lease, so we very carefully picked out communities that we knew were closer for both of us. And we were very excited when we found our new apartment because it's almost exactly half-way, in terms of distance, between McMoose's office and the university.

Turns out I got excited a little too soon. See, the distance I'm traveling each day has, in fact, been cut in half. But. I used to drive on the highway, where 65 miles per hour was considered slow. Now I drive on regular roads with traffic lights that seem to be programmed so that as soon as one turns green, the next one turns red, so you have to stop every 100 feet. Plus, the moronic people who drive this road seem convinced that anything over 30 miles per hour is Reckless and Irresponsible. So end result? My 10 mile drive takes the same 35 minutes as my 20 mile drive used to take. You know why? BECAUSE GOD LIKES TO MOCK ME.