I am in line at one of the many Starbucks in the Mall of America.
In front of me are two African women. In front of them is a middle aged woman. She’s soaked with sweat.
Of course she turns around and addresses the African women:
I am in line at one of the many Starbucks in the Mall of America.
In front of me are two African women. In front of them is a middle aged woman. She’s soaked with sweat.
Of course she turns around and addresses the African women:
Whenever I get frustrated proofing this Physical Evidence Paper, I just watch the Winnebago Salesman.
This was the week of shit. The dogs kept breaking into my 3-tiered plastic food shelf, gorging themselves, and then crapping everywhere.
I would come home to find a chocolate rendition of the Bavarian Alps in my living room, and the dogs passed out in the kitchen. The dogs also figured out how to open the toilet lid and drink the blue-water, so they had the runs most of the time.
The steamer and cleaning spray barely kept up. I spent most of my week flustered and disgusted. Ick.
And although I finished moving to the new apartment last week, I had yet to clean out my old apartment because I thought that I had until August 1st to move out.
So I was horrified when my landlord left me a voicemail: “I showed your apartment today. It’s trashed. I’m also showing it tomorrow. Can you clean it, you filthy slob of a man?”
As a rule, any unexpected entrances into my apartment happen on the ONE day that it is trashed, so I should have expected that call.
One of the first things I noticed about my new apartment was the fruit flies. The apartment was clean, and there was no exposed food in the kitchen, but the fruit flies were everywhere.
There were even fruit flies in my bedroom closet! I don’t even want to think about why…
So I turned to my blackberry, googled fruit-fly trap concoctions, and set my trap.
The fruit-fly trap was a glass of pear juice with a plastic cover (with holes) stretched over it.
A few days later Alesus was over, and I told him about my trap. He noted that there were no fruit-flies in the kitchen, but there were also no flies in the trap. Hm.
I didn’t figure out what was going on until today:
In May, I finished finals and managed to survive the relentless hanging out with my law school people before they went off to their summer clerkships, study abroad countries, and odd family vacations.
June was all about reconnecting with the non-law school friends I neglected in May. And birthdays. It felt like every-other-day was someone’s birthday. I ran out of cards. Oh, and there was some dating too…. a pride parade, and some business about music production.
July started with loud-ass fireworks, my birthday, and heat. Lots of heat. And thunderstorms. And tornadoes. And hairspray (this is all very dramatic.)
There was also the epic move to the downstairs apartment and a dozen trips to Ikea, Target, and Home Depot. You can call me Tim Allen. Where’s Pamela?
In addition to drilling and the crap-load of cleaning associated with moving, I also became the building caretaker. That means I have to field the craziest phone calls from people who want apartment showings.
I took this during Pride, but forgot to post it, which is a shame because she’s fabulous.
And, for additional randomness:
We had our annual company picnic at Blackhawk Lake. Lawyers playing trivia is always amusing.
The lake itself was kinda bland, but hanging out with the coworkers was hilarious.
Moving to my new apartment consumed the past two weeks. My move can be summed up with two quotes:
“The more things I threw away, the more I found.” – Jack Gladney, White Noise.
After drilling fixtures into my new apartment, I confronted all of the crap that I accumulated over countless trips to Wal-Mart and Ikea. I have a lot of random packs of garbage bags, travel-sized tissues, and cords for things I chucked a long time ago.
I made major progress on my apartment. Most of my rooms are finished. I figured out how to make the internet work and double-secured the window bars, und und und.
This blog needs a redesign. I have more unfinished laundry than a women’s penitentiary. My bike, rollerblades, and gym shoes feel neglected.
I am one check-in from becoming mayor of McDonald’s. (My love handles don’t lie.) My progress on my album is underwhelming. And, and and.
Moving is like1 losing your keys or your cat dying: an all-consuming time suck that is completely uninteresting to everyone else. All of my free time this week was spent hauling things downstairs, dusting, carpet cleaning, standing in line at Home depot, and constructing things.
I took off work yesterday and spent about 9 hours drilling. I probably have lead poisoning from all that paint. I think I’ll develop a cough that will earn my some street-cred at my local VFW.
The drilling was necessary because my apartment was almost completely devoid of fixtures like kitchen hooks, shelving, toilet paper holders, etc.
Just when I thought I hid the dog bones from them…
I am exhausted.
I decided to move to the garden level apartment in my building. It is a two bedroom apartment with carpet and a huge kitchen.
The apartment does not have air conditioning or fans, so I keep the windows open. Open windows make a garden-level apartment far too easy to burglarize, so I installed protection bars on all of the windows.
Of course installing the bars was not as simple as getting the bars from Home Depot and putting them in.
My landlord approved of the protection bars, but then had fire-code concerns, so I went to the Minneapolis development/permit office to figure out what the rules were.
Last night Alesus, Eric (of TCS fame), and I went to W. Night at the Townhouse.
W. Night means dollar beverages, lesbians with short hair, pretty black girls, hip hop, and hot messitude.
Oh, and midgets:
My physical evidence class had a field trip to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for a presentation on arson.
The presentation was punishingly boring. The forensic scientist did not tailor his presentation to his audience, so we got a science lecture. I did not understand a third of the words, and the expert’s charts were incomprehensible.
And of course certain gunners students asked questions.
Lots of questions.
One of my classmates asked over 10 questions, about the science lecture. I’m not one to hate on the intellectual curiosity of others. Good for them.
But it was ridiculous.
I asked one question: “How does your forensic work come into play during trial?”
The scientist balked at the question, said he was getting to it, and then did not give a straight answer when another student re-asked that question at the end of his presentation.
Fail.
After the presentation we got a tour of the bureau. Here are some pictures!
So, this was going to be the miscellaneous Twin Cities 2010 Pride Pictures post… but turns out that these are some of my favorites!
In addition to the Out Front Minnesota gay marriage crew, we have some deliciously awkward moments. Behold:
Apparently I had a second folder of pictures of the Minneapolis Gay Pride Parade. Woops.
We have Senator Al Franken:
Didn’t I just do one of these week in review posts? I did. But the last review post was late. I promised to get better about it. This is me fulfilling that promise. Hi.
This week I officially became the caretaker for my apartment building. This means I have a set of master keys and get to explore all of the super-creepy storage areas in the basement.
Most of the rooms are straight out of a horror movie – spider webs, dust, filth, former tenants’ abandoned belongings…old dolls…
Lush is one of my favorite bars in Minneapolis.
I believe that Lush is a converted body shop, so the front garage-door area of the bar opens up during the summer. This means that the occasional feline visitor appears:
