Uptown Apartment Archives - Page 4 of 5

BWE 11: So not slacking

April 6, 2010

Oh, I am a terrible hypocrite!

I encourage the 1Ls to blog, especially when they are busy. “The busy times are when it is most important to blog!” I say. “You’ll thank yourself for writing!”

So of course I don’t condescend to blog when I get busy. Do as I say, not as I do right? I feel like a governor…

Luckily the free-for-all that is “discussion time” in my family law class is the perfect time to blog! I am so not slacking at this…

So, what happened last week?

Well, the most exciting thing about last week was the heat! I think it got to 80 degrees one day, but maybe I’m exaggerating… maybe it was 90 degrees, or 100…

Regardless, it was warm, and the grass came out:

2L Spring Summaries / dogs / Judd / Minneapolis-St. Paul / my legal space / pictures / Uptown Apartment

BWE 10: My week in pictures

March 28, 2010

What a busy, hilarious week. There is too much to write about, so I am settling for pictures and captions. This is choppy, but appropriate given the state of things…

This week featured a massive iced-tea spill at the office. Amber is cackling as I run to fetch napkins:

Law School / on the record / Uptown Apartment

I was leaving my apartment building this morning when I saw a man run across the street. He clutched a soda and started shouting at me:
Sodaman: “Hey, can you hold the door for me?”
Me: “Uh, sure.
Sodaman: “Thanks. I live in apartment #45…just don’t want the police to come and…”

dogs / humor / Uptown Apartment / Whittier / Uptown Minneapolis

Bubbles and the Junkie

March 23, 2010

My apartment building is old and decrepit, aka vintage, so bathroom wall leaks in odd places. This isn’t new.

Two weeks ago I had a mysterious leak from my medicine cabinet. The landlord eventually came, fixed the leak, and said, “OH MY GOD! Look at the water damage to the paint in your bathroom! We need to fix this!”

Turns out that the paint in the bathroom has had water bubbles and stains since before I moved in a year ago…

After a week of scheduling, the painter arrives. I leave the painter (hoping he doesn’t rob me) and walk the dogs around the Lake of the Isles.

dogs / humor / Uptown Apartment / Whittier / Uptown Minneapolis

How to get postal service

March 11, 2010

I’m walking the dogs when I run into my mailman:

Mailman: “Eek! Those are huge dogs! Makes a mailman wanna piss himself! Are they friendly?”
Me: “Oh, most of the time.”
Mailman: “Heh. Huge all the same. What apartment do you live in?”
Me: “53B.”
Mailman: “53B?”
Me: “Yes.”
Mailman: “I’ll make sure you get your mail on time then.”
Me: “So that’s how to get service!”

Uptown Apartment

The flood

February 3, 2010

I asked Eric how to describe this, and he said: “Make a funny reference about how you’re doing your laundry and the water isn’t in the tub.”

I think the pictures stand alone:

This will be used to contest any rent increases.

Joel / Take Three / Uptown Apartment / Whittier / Uptown Minneapolis

We gotta bambulance…

January 14, 2010

Joel and I went to a Vietnamese restaurant¹ tonight.

We have not seen each other in about two weeks and needed to dish about our trips.² Joel brought back a cookie from the Carnegie deli, which is apparently a famous something-or-other from up yonder.

I dropped Joel off, and when I turned onto my street I found it blocked off by an ambulance and a police car. Of course the ambulance was for downstairs neighbor, and the police were pounding on his door when I entered the apartment.

I don’t understand what is going on. The police and ambulance left, and now downstairs neighbor is blaring music…what the hey? This better not mark a repeat of last summer…

dogs / Uptown Apartment

Glass, bleach, and the mouse

November 29, 2009

Harley was excited to see me after work today. I let him out of the kennel and his tail launched a candle from a coffee table. Glass shards rained over the living room, and I was unamused.

I re-kenneled the dog and cleaned up the mess. I then let Harley out and he followed me to kitchen, to throw away the shards.

Harley’s tail caused more chaos in the kitchen when he knocked over a bottle of bleach. I shoved the dog out the kitchen and tried to control the chlorox typhoon. I stripped my clothes¹ and cleaned the mess wearing boxers and white flipflops.

I mopped the kitchen and then decided to clean the cabinet under the sink. I first removed the 40lb bag of dog food, not noticing the little hole nibbled in the corner, and then reached for a blue IKEA bag.² I lifted the bag AND A MOUSE FLEW OUT OF IT!

I screamed, then roared. The mouse landed in the corner and somersaulted behind the stove.

I was livid. This mouse was going down and it was on like donkey kong!

What was followed was 30 minutes of me attempting to trap the mouse while not slipping on the bleach-soaked floor… all in boxers and flipflops. All that was missing was the Tom and Jerry sound effects.

I eventually gave up, but luckily, I bought poison mouse food blocks on tonight’s Wal-Mart trip. Anything remotely edible in my kitchen is now in a glass or plastic container. The poison is out. This mouse is going down. I just hope I don’t have to smell rotting mouse in the morning…

¹ I have too many bleach spots on clothes not to do this.
² The supposedly green bags… the only problem is I NEVER remember to bring the bag and end up buying a new one every trip…

dogs / Uptown Apartment

MICE! or pigs…

October 20, 2009

I have mice in my apartment!

Well, either that or my upstairs neighbor started raising pigs…

I swear I saw a mouse dart across my kitchen floor a few days ago. I was mortified. As a Miamian, I am used to roaches and lizards, but not mice.

Que disgusting!
And loud!

At least roaches don’t scamper about and squeal. The noise has kept me up all night. I wake up to squeals from the kitchen, but of course the dog is useless. Bullmastiffs were OBVIOUSLY never used as hunting dogs.

I used to have a Dachshund. My dachshund would wake up if he heard anything squealing in the middle of the night, growl, and then hunt it down like a monster from Pandorum.

But no, not my dog.

First, he cannot hear anything over his snoring.
Second, when I do shake him awake like “OH MY GOD DO YOU HEAR THAT?” he opens his eyes, keeps snoring with his eyes open, and then rolls over like “bitch, I’m sleeping.”

USELESS! Absolutely useless!

So I tip-toed to the kitchen – where all the commotion is coming from – and I swear it sounds like Jerry Springer is holding a mouse session in the ceiling: squealing, slapping, and chairs being thrown… All of it.

But because the sound seems to come from the ceiling, I cannot rule out the possibility that my upstairs neighbor has a live pig or something in her kitchen. And no, that would not be strange in this apartment building…

Anyhoot, I am going to try to go back to bed. In the morning I may have to invest in some mouse traps, or get over my cat allergy…

dogs / Life / pictures / Uptown Apartment

Harley the Ripper

October 8, 2009

I heard the scratching, but couldn’t get to the bed before the sheets were ripped:

Uptown Apartment

Covering the walls

September 15, 2009

I ran into one of those corny poster-sales on campus and realized that I could probably find something cheap to cover my large bare walls.

Ta-da!

The poster of the woman is actually huge (4×6 feet) the guy with the camera is the generic Target-picture that came with my poster frames. I just cut out the ad-like bottom portion.

The picture that caught most of the flash is of a couple sitting at an all-night cafe.

I also have a print of Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott above my desk to keep things fancy:

The pictures definitely make the apartment look cozier, but Harley has not commented yet…

dogs / the cases / Thomson Reuters / Uptown Apartment

Oh, the horror

September 8, 2009

I read a lot of animal hoarding and cases at work, but last Sunday I came across a case that was so horrifying that I almost went home.
The case involved the typical hoarding situation: a house stuffed like Noah’s Arc and caked with feces. The description of the house so gruesome however, that I just wanted to speed home, shower, and bleach my entire apartment.

My standards for cleanliness have definitely changed over the past few years. I have a lot of plants, a pet frog, and Harley.

Crumbs, dog hair, and dead leaves are now a fact of life. I clean on a biweekly basis but there is no way to teach the dog to stop shedding, or keep the apartment perfectly sterile.

Only three people have seen my apartment, and they would probably agree that it is relatively clean. But when I read the case last Sunday my kitchen trash was full, the dishes piled, and the laundry unfolded. I was so absolutely disgusted that I devoted all of yesterday to cleaning. The case is after the jump.

Uptown Apartment

Prep

September 7, 2009

School starts tomorrow so I’m scrambling to get all my supplies and cleaning done for the semester.

This involved yet another furniture move – which is the last one for the semester, I swear.

Oh, and although I’m no Rachel Zoe, I do have a little wall of shoes going on.

There’s actually a bit of a back story to the cleaning frenzy, which I will explain later.

1L summer / Uptown Apartment

The Window

August 30, 2009

My bedroom window was stuck open for most of the summer.

I was too lazy to call the maintenance people, but this wasn’t a big deal because my apartment is not air conditioned and my windows are open most of the time.

I only had the urge to close my window in the middle of the night when there was thunder or police drama outside. These midnight fix-it attempts always failed because there is only so much wrestling I can do with the window before I remember that I’m exposing my underbritches to the entire neighborhood.¹

So, I would give up, and forget about the window problem.

The low point was a few days ago when there was a huge storm that blew directly into my window.

1L summer / Uptown Apartment

Exasperation

August 27, 2009

I got frustrated today and decided to stop moving furniture.

I figured if I couldn’t come up with a better layout for my apartment during the summer, then it’s not going to happen during the semester.

Uptown Apartment

Mystery solved!

August 20, 2009

There was a notice posted on the front of my apartment building for several weeks. It was from animal control. Someone’s dog and cat had been impounded.

Exactly which neighbor had their pets confiscated was a mystery until yesterday when I ran into Maggie.

Maggie lives down the hall, right next door to Yesina. Maggie is always aware of all the building gossip so of course she knew whose pets were taken:

Maggie: “Oh, that was the guy who lives above me. You didn’t know?”
Me: “No…”
Maggie: “Yeah, he was this morbidly obese guy who would never walk his dog. It was a sad, deranged looking thing. He would only let it pee and poop right in front of the building and never let anyone pet it or touch it. It was strange. Well, he died. And god knows how long he was in there because they had to go in with hazmat masks and everything. I think the pets were in there with him for several days. I called the animal shelter to make sure that the poor thing wasn’t going to be put down but some rescue group had already snatched him up…”

Oh my goodness.

dogs / Uptown Apartment

The bullmastiff-sized surprise

August 17, 2009

Yesterday, I got home from work around midnight.

Working long or odd hours usually isn’t a problem for the dog, unless he has an upset stomach.

So of course, when I open my apartment door I immediately smell that this is one of those nights where Harley made a bullmastiff-sized welcome home surprise.

I let the dog out of the kennel and he skips off to his food bowl. I then grab a trash bag, paper towels, and the bleach.

The little kennel-disaster made me forget about my parking situation: I parked in the nearby business parking lot again because the plan was to just quickly get the dog and move the car.

Now, some of you remember that the last time I parked in that lot, I saw a shooting and had to run from the shooter. And you’d think I would have learned my lesson, but I didn’t. Obviously.
So I finish scooping all of nast out of the kennel and stand up just in time to see a tow truck flying down the street towards my car!
I drop the trashbag full of dog-mess, grab Harley’s leash, and then flee the building like I just saw bejeweled crocs. I run across the street with the dog dragging behind me, waiving my arms – “STOOOOOOOP DON’T TOW MEEEEEEH! I’M A POOR LAW STUDENT!”

I look pathetic enough for the tow truck driver to let me off the hook.

Tower: “I didn’t have you hooked up yet, so you can go.”
Me (gasping): “Thank you, I was just getting my dog……and uh, thank you!”

The tow truck driver’s girlfriend glares at me from the truck. I wink.¹

The closest parking space is a few blocks away. I park, walk the dog back to the apartment, chuck the trash bag of surprises, and then decide that it is a good time to go to Wal-Mart since my apartment reeks of bleach and dog poop.

So Harley and I walk back to the car, and go to Wal-Mart.²

What I really needed from Wal-Mart was canned food. I eat mostly fresh food, but once in-a-while I use canned vegetables. And canned vegetables are one of those things best bought in bulk, from Wal-Mart, in the middle of the night…sort of like tiolet paper.

So of course all of the canned-food isles are “closed for waxing” and I was the guy randomly buying nothing but dog treats at 1 a.m.

At least Harley didn’t seem to mind…

¹ Now who the heck called my car in at midnight?
²Wal-Mart is by my job actually, so there was a LOT of backtracking that night.

overheard / Uptown Apartment / Whittier / Uptown Minneapolis

Yesina gets the boot

July 31, 2009

I went to drop off my rent check at the property management office¹ and ran into my landlord in front of the building:
Landlord: “Hey! How are things? How’s the building?”
Me: “The building is nuts. I feel like I live in an episode of Cops.”
Landlord: “It’s Yesina isn’t it?”
Me: “Yes. She was arrested two weeks in a row!”
Landlord: “I’m really sorry about that. That woman is a fucking idiot. I am trying to kick her out, but these things take time – you understand that don’t you? I’m not even going through a normal eviction because she’s got to go!”

So it looks like Yesina’s days are numbered. The question is: will she leave with a bang?

And: can I convince some sane law students² to take her place?

¹ It’s on my way to work. I always hand deliver my rent because no one ever believes that the rent check was lost in the mail.
² Total oxymoron.

1L summer / Uptown Apartment / Whittier / Uptown Minneapolis

Yesina gets arrested, again

July 22, 2009

So, it’s midnight. That means it’s officially Wednesday – aka, the day my neighborhood loses its damn mind.

I hear a car running outside. When I look out of my window, I see two police cruisers in the street and an unmarked cop car on the side of the building.

1L summer / dogs / Uptown Apartment

Cower

July 10, 2009

Harley is afraid of fireworks and gunfire-like popping noises.

So, he’s spent the past week cowering in the bathroom because it’s the only room in the apartment without windows.