Sometimes I make the krakens wait just for the fun of it.
A little water-cooler gossip…
Jill: “So Jack is dating Britney now?”
Me: “Yep.”
Jill: “Which one is Britney again?”
I bought a Schwinn bike from Target during my 1L year.
I had no car, lived in the Gamma eta Gamma house in Dinkytown, and biking seemed like the collegy thing to do. $150 felt pricy… but I bought the bike and used it until winter came.
The bike came back out this summer and last week I biked over 100 miles. Most of the biking was to work, which is 15 miles out in the suburbs.
I also somehow managed to break the bike. A pedal snapped in half. The kick stand unscrewed halfway. The handlebar was bent. The seat hurt my butt.
It was a disaster.
So I went to Freewheel bike shop, which is by campus, under the shadow of the Stacks:
I’m the caretaker for my building. Part of the caretaker job is showing open units to the ghetto and the crazy, most of whom don’t show up for their appointments:
Me: “Hello, I’d like to speak to KeKe.
Old Lady: “What? Why? Who?”
Me: “KeKe. We had an appointment for an apartment showing at 1pm. It’s 1:15 now…”
Old Lady: “Oh, THE GIRL! Lemme find her…”
KeKe: “Yea?”
Me: “Hi Keke. This is Dennis from the Whittier Apartment building.”
KeKe: “Okay.”
Me: “…uh, well, we had a showing scheduled today for 1pm. It’s 1:15 now. Do you need directions?”
KeKe: “Oh I couldn’t find it.”
The krakens and I surprised one of the apartment maintenance guys:
Maintenance guy: “Woah!”
Me: “Sorry.”
Maintenance guy: “Those are some big ass dogs!”
Me: “Yeah, I moved to the garden level apartment, so they are necessary.”
Maintenance guy: “Two dogs and a shotgun for city livin’. That’s what I say.”
So true.
And the krakens finally earned their keep re: the city livin’ part!
Gertrude knew the vet visit wasn’t for her. She was just there to laugh.
This is the, “Am I in trouble or what?” face.
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:
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 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.
