Stalker....

Our kitten is pretty advanced for being only around 10 weeks old. Even at that tender young age, she already has a stalker.

She hasn't quite ID'ed it yet. Every now and then she catches a glimpse of the stalker out of the corner of her eye and whips around only to find that it has disappeared. Every now and then it's a little slower to escape and she almost manages to get a claw into it.

Perhaps most startling is that, every now and then, she'll be curled up on the back of the couch and something will twitch directly in front of her nose and she realizes that the stalker is RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF HER!!! OH MY KITTY GOODNESS!!! She immediately leaps forward from her sitting position only to find that the stalker dodges off to the side and backward. She twists in the air and attempts to follow, only to find herself tumbling down the back of the couch, or - even worse - falling into the floor.

I think that so far all she has managed to reasonably determine about this character is that it's suspiciously fuzzy. One might even call it furry. And it apparently never sleeps, because whenever she's awake the fuzzy interloper is there... lurking... (See startled expression below.)

Yes, okay, I tend to dramatize silly things when I haven't had enough sleep. For some reason this blog post occurred to me around 5:45 this morning when the cat was frolicking on my bed trying to catch her tail.

KITTEN!!!

That was the first word out of my son's mouth when I picked him up from school on Monday. The conversation went like this.

ME: Hey you. How was school?
HIM: KITTEN!!!! (pause) Oh, yeah, hi mom.... KITTEN!!!!

See what he's on about is the fact that Sunday afternoon we finally brought home the kitten we've been planning to adopt pretty much since she was born in late November. The Chamaco was utterly thrilled to finally, finally have a cat again after 3 years of living in a no pets allowed apartment and then another seven months or so of me not wanting to get one because we didn't really have enough space. Moving to Milwaukie fixed that last problem, and then it just happened that a cat belonging to one of my coworkers produced exactly one kitten. Even before kitten was born we were discussing the possibility getting one of the kittens. Then it turned out there was only one to get, so we sort of got dibs.

This is Squeak when we first met her. We went over to visit her a day or two after she figured out the walking thing. It's always good to meet potential pets before you bring them home... you know, to make sure you don't hate them or vice versa. Though you just can't hate a month old kitten, really. Squeak, by the way, is so named because she doesn't really meow in the traditional sense (at least not yet). She makes more of a squeaking noise. Particularly at 4:15 AM, which she seems to think is a great time to wake up and jump on faces.

Anyway, as I said, we brought Squeak home on Sunday afternoon (or, more accurately, we had her delivered to our house). She spent most of Sunday afternoon hiding in small spaces, which I thought was a pretty natural reaction for a tiny kitten used to a small apartment with a few other cats who has suddenly become the only cat in a rather large apartment. She seemed to favor the top of my scanner under the computer desk (which, incidentally, is where she is now). Oh, and by the way, she's a little bigger now.

It's been kind of fun to watch her adjust. She spent Sunday night in bed with me, which is how I learned that she likes to wake up at 4:15 AM and chew on fingers and attack faces. Monday night the Chamaco begged to have Squeak sleep in his room. I said fine, but he had to leave the door open so she could get out if she wanted, and if she left he couldn't go get her and bring her back. She didn't leave. And she woke up at 4:15 AM and wanted to chew on his fingers and attack his face. He told me after I got up that morning that he thought maybe he didn't want her sleeping in his room anymore for a while. But Squeak doesn't like to be alone much, you see, so Tuesday night she was back in bed with me. At least when I went to sleep. When I woke up at 6:45 she was gone. I figured she couldn't have gone too far, though, so I got up and got dressed and went about my business. And when I went in to get the Chamaco up for school I found her. On his pillow. Curled up peacefully and not chewing on his face. I thought that was progress, but the Chamaco said last night that he still didn't want her in his room while he was sleeping, so I told him he was going to have to actually close the door if he didn't want her in there. He didn't love that idea... he has never, ever slept with the door closed in his entire life. I think, though, that he saw the inescapability of my logic and he let me close the door.

I took Squeak with me when I went to bed last night. She fell asleep on my head, and I had a vague recollection that at some point during the night she had been purring (which I hadn't yet been able to get her to do), but I thought maybe I dreamed that part. I guess, however, that during the night she also wandered over to visit the Old Curmudgeon, and he reported to me this morning that he also had her purring, so it seems maybe I didn't dream that part. I guess she's just decided she likes sleeping on our heads. And she didn't start chewing on my fingers and attacking my face until about 6 today, so she's adjusting.

Really I've missed having a cat. I had forgotten how much having a kitten is like having a toddler, though, in the sense that they wake up really early and want to play, and they sometimes get so wrapped up in play that they don't realize they have to pee until it's too late to make it to the potty. Oh, and the whole needing constant attention thing. 

Oh, and Squeak has a Hitler mustache. I'll try to get a decent pic of her face one of these days.

Song o' the Day: "Kitty" by The Presidents of the United States of America

Dumber than advertised...

And with that title, I am of course referring to... myself.

Every now and then, life has a way of teaching you that you're not as smart as you thought you were.

We got a new stackable washer/dryer unit in December (after our last one croaked on day 31 of the 30 day warranty). After examining it extensively, the Old Curmudgeon and I came to the conclusion that new dryer did not have a lint trap. It seemed odd to both of us... don't they have to have those? But no, we (two former TAG kids, mind you) could not find it, thus it did not have one.

Over the last few weeks of steadily decreasing dryer performance, today I resolved to look up the user guide on the internet. Sure enough, there's a lint trap. Right there in the back of the dryer. Old Curmudgeon and I had looked right at it and passed over it, not realizing that those two little holes there were intended to stick fingers in for the purpose of removing said lint trap from the rest of the dryer. I guess we thought they were just vent holes.

Anyway, I cleaned out the trap and this is what I turned up:

The larger chunk of lint on the left, by the way, is almost two inches thick, about nine inches long, four inches wide and fairly solid. That's what was in the trap itself. The rest I cleaned off of around where the trap is supposed to go. It is an absolute miracle that we morons have not burned the place down around ourselves in the last month of not cleaning out the lint trap because we didn't believe it existed.

I submit this experience as proof that something you don't think exists can still affect you. Or even kill you.

Oh, and for those that care, we're slowly feeling better. I made it through a whole two hours at work yesterday... gonna shoot for three today. ;-)

Song o' the Day: "Rain Over Me" - Pitbull featuring Marc Anthony. Why, you ask? Because Zumba class has gotten it stuck in my head, that's why.

UPDATE, 11:50 AM 1/31/13: The next load of clothes I put in the dryer after cleaning the lint trap got dry on the first go. The dryer wasn't malfunctioning after all... we're just morons.

Mongolian Death Flu...

My household has been suffering the Mongolian Death Flu for almost two weeks now. (Please note, "Mongolian Death Flu" is just a name I made up and is not the name of an actual epidemic as far as I am aware. Please do not panic and/or call the CDC.) We're being a good family and taking turns with it, but at least one of us has been sick at all times since January 18th. It's a lovely virus that starts with fever/chills and lack of appetite/energy and then transitions seamlessly into coughing up various internal organs while not being able to breathe or speak. It's also a deceptive little virus, as we've recently learned, because just when we thought we were shaking it off, we all relapsed back to square one (fever/chills, etc.).

I'm planning on going to work today for the first time this week, and honestly I have no idea how good of an idea that is. I'm feeling about 60% of normal capacity today, which is the highest I've been since Friday evening (today is Wednesday, by the way). Sunday I was at about 10-15%. What that means is that I slept all night Saturday night, slept almost all of the day Sunday (I was awake maybe 5-6 hours total, but not all at once... my longest stretch of consciousness was 3 hours between 8 and 11 PM), and then slept all night Sunday night. I texted the Old Curmudgeon this morning to see how he's doing, and he told me he had given up on work today and was going home. Already. At 8:30 AM. Not encouraging.

So if anyone has been wondering why you haven't seen us out and about for the last couple of weeks, this is why. We're all over here trying not to die, with varying degrees of success. The Chamaco has been going to school, albeit with a bad cough, and he's doing the best so far. I'm going to leave and have a go at the going to work thing in about ten minutes here, so wish me luck...

Song o' the Day: "Sick" by Evanescence (relevant in title only, given that it's not actually about disease)

Yesterday... (a reflection on 2012 inspired by my boss)

(Today all songs included in the blog post will be by Lacuna Coil in honor of 1.19.)

(Swamped - Lacuna Coil) Yesterday I got one of those lovely visits from my boss at work. Something about my office sliding down the hill thanks to TriMet. (Ramon jokes that I should tie a rope around my waist and tie it to something in the main office just in case... such a kidder!) This has happened before, mind you. (My boss visiting me, not my office sliding down the hill.) Usually it's an unremarkable occasion... she usually finds at least one or two things she wants done this week, I write it down, and done... she goes back to the corporate office. I made two mistakes yesterday, though. I did my hair and wore makeup.

First she wanted to look at me, which involved staring pretty intently at my general head area for a long moment, then she had to feel my hair, comment on my new haircut (thanks Adrianne!), comment on my new highlights (thanks me!), and then commence the gushing.

"You're just a knockout! A knockout! You've just blossomed since you've been working here!"

"Well yeah," I said. "That's because I had to get an entirely new wardrobe after I started working here. This time last year I was auditioning for rock bands and most of the clothes I had were more suitable for that than this."

"WHAT?! You never told me about that before! What do you play?" (Senzafine - Lacuna Coil)

"Actually I was auditioning to be the vocalist."

"WHAT?! (If you knew my boss, you would recognize this noise, BTW.) You can sing??"

I shrugged. "Well, I'm not 'operatically trained' like Christine but I do what I do pretty well."

"But that's a totally different thing!"

And just when I was beginning to think she might make me sing something one of the machines outside my office window started violently shaking the office and she got distracted and apparently forgot all about me ever being anything but her employee. Fair enough. But it was enough to get me thinking about it.

A year ago Monday I did something I'd always wanted to do but had always been too scared to do... I auditioned to be the vocalist in a rock band. Some of you may remember my post about that (or you can go back and find it if you want). (Cirle - Lacuna Coil) I'd actually made the appointment to do it sometime in late December and actually managed to forget about it for nearly a month, then about two days before I remembered and commenced to freak out. I almost thought I was still too scared to do it, but I did it anyway.

For those of you who don't remember, it was one of the best experiences of my life. Even though I wasn't chosen, I had done something I'd always been too chicken to do even though I really wanted to do it, and the outcome had been pretty positive. One of the guys in the band told me that I definitely had talent and even if they decided to go with someone else I should "definitely keep doing what I'm doing". And they gave me a bunch of the band's stickers and a demo CD and a t-shirt for the Chamaco (this was a band that had actually been offered a record deal before with their previous vocalist, who I think is actually back with the band now after the band had a brief run with the guy who got picked over me). (Aeon - Lacuna Coil) Overall, though, it was a really positive experience for me and got me thinking... if I can do this thing that scared the crap out of me and have it turn out so well, what else that scares me might I be able to do?

I was pretty much feeling invincible after that, and I remember trying to explain the feeling to my mom on the phone. And it was that feeling of power following that experience that led me to audition for a couple more bands and start throwing out job applications left and right, for once sure that someone would give me a chance to prove that I could be something more than I was currently being. (I Don't Believe in Tomorrow - Lacuna Coil)

One of those applications led to me to be hired as an apartment manager, which caused me to leave behind all that had been familiar for the past 19 years. So if you think about it, really, much of what I am and what I have today can be directly linked to the fact that at this time last year, I auditioned for a rock band. (My Spirit - Lacuna Coil) So I still have a special place in my heart (and my iTunes) for Still Measure, even though my only connection with the band now is that I'm friends with the lead guitarist on Facebook.

These thoughts have led me to think about where I was a year ago. I was still working for Head Start, still living in a HUD subsidized apartment in Molalla, still living paycheck to paycheck, had just about given up on men entirely (except as potential bandmates, naturally) and was spending more time in the stories I was writing than in my real life because the stories were way more interesting. Fast forward to now... I have a totally different career, am living in the second new apartment I've had within the last 12 months, I generally have $300-400 still left in my bank account when I get my next paycheck (this is unheard of... I used to be vigilantly trying not to overdraw my account), (Comalies - Lacuna Coil) I have a boyfriend who I'm pretty sure will be around long-term because he was/is my best friend, and I don't have time to write anymore! (Aside from the occasional blog post, of course.)

Do I think I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing now forever? No. But I definitely will keep doing it until the next better thing comes along. I think actually Lacuna Coil is saying it best in the song that just came on:

Today I'm gonna fly
There's nothing that can keep me on the ground
Touch the sky
I'm free inside

I'm free to do what I like, I'm celebrating my life
I'm free to be what I like, I'm celebrating my life
I'm gonna get what I like, I'm celebrating my life
(I Like It - Lacuna Coil)

And for those that wonder, Lacuna Coil has a song from one of their earlier albums called "1.19". Why on earth it's called that I don't know (I'm sure the story is out there if you care enough to dig for it, but I don't), but now 1.19 (January 19th) is Lacuna Coil day. : )

Song o' the Day: I Like It by Lacuna Coil. See/hear it here. It's a pretty funny video, actually. Watch it.

Panda Epiphany....

I had an epiphany last night. At the Panda Express on McLoughlin. And yes, it was slightly painful. But let me explain first how I wound up at Panda having epiphanies in the first place.

See, Friday night is usually date night for me and the Old Curmudgeon (which is my new blog name for my significant other... he'd get a kick out of that, trust me. Also "Mr. Cranky-Pants", which is what I usually call him to his face, is harder to type for some reason). The reason date night is on Friday is that the Chamaco generally spends Friday nights at my mom's house, and it's cheaper to eat out when there are only two of us as opposed to three. Yes, we are jerks like that, thank you.

Anyway, the Old Curmudgeon had a burning desire to go to Panda. Something about Shanghai steak. Me, I can take or leave steak, and I was sort of "meh" about the idea of going to Panda, but I didn't have a strong inclination to go much of anywhere else either so I figured I'd humor him and went along. This is called "keeping the peace", and I don't think I had much of a knack for that a decade or so ago when I was last in a serious relationship. Of course, I was 19/20 then as opposed to 29/30 too.

So anyway, back to Panda with a minimum of side trips now. (Hopefully.) I got the 2 entree platter, and I had fried rice, mandarin chicken, and honey-walnut shrimp. Anyone who has been to Panda ever can now probably picture exactly what was on my plate. On a whim, I got 3 potstickers as well. (Usually I get the chow mein instead of the fried rice, but I was feeling a little weird last night anyway, which maybe should have been a warning about the epiphany.) We filled up our drinks, sat down at a table, and started eating.

I compartmentalize, and tend to eat one food at a time for some reason. So I polished off the mandarin chicken and was probably about halfway through the honey-walnut shrimp when I had the epiphany. I felt a slight nudging in my cerebral cortex (or somewhere in my brain anyway) and looked around to see what was going on. My digestive system timidly raised its hand and cleared its throat. "Excuse me, Lord Brain," it said hesitantly. "We're... we're all full down here. We actually sort of don't need to eat the rest of that."

I paused in my eating to listen in on the conversation as my brain sputtered about in surprise for a moment, took a quick peep out through the eyeballs to survey the contents of the plate, then bellowed, "Nonsense! The shrimp isn't gone yet! That stuff costs an extra dollar, you know!"

"But... but... there's... no more room in the stomach!" my digestive system stammered. Clearly it was terrified of incurring my brain's wrath but for once had decided to stand up for itself.

"We haven't even touched the potstickers yet! And the shrimp's not gone!" the brain said firmly. And it ruthlessly shoved my digestive system's voice back to wherever it had come from. And just to spite the little upstart for daring to speak out of turn,we finished the shrimp. And the potstickers. And the fried rice. Because we are a fat slob, that's why. And no, we didn't feel too great about it afterward.

I bet you're wondering where the epiphany was in that. Well, I don't know if conversation was just sparse since the Old Curmudgeon was busy filling his face with Shanghai steak or what, but this was the first time I'd actually heard that conversation take place between my brain and my digestive system. And yes, I dramatized it, but that's what they would have been saying had they been speaking with words. I assume this conversation happens pretty much every time I eat a meal and I never do hear that voice, which is why I'm as big as I am. It wasn't until I was lying in bed last night reviewing the day's events in my mind that I thought, "You know, if I paid more attention to that voice, I might not be as fat as I am." (This was ephiphany #2.) And I resolved to start trying to listen for that voice.

So this morning after I climbed out of bed around 10:00 (hey, it's Saturday and I don't have to work until 1, so there), I took a bath (again, Saturday, don't judge) and wandered out into the kitchen to find foodstuffs. I am not real fond of breakfast foods in general, and I tend to have either fruit or something more lunchy for breakfast. Today it was the latter, as I settled upon a can of Campbells vegetable soup. Maybe you will all think I'm a disgusting fatso after reading this, but I generally have no trouble putting away an entire can by myself. With cheese and crackers. Today I heated up the soup, put some crackers in it (decided to skip cheese) and headed for the table.

I was eating in rather contemplative silence (Chamaco is at my mom's, remember?) and sure enough, just about halfway through the bowl of soup I get a weird sensation in my stomach and a little nudge in my brain again. "Hey... we're done down here. No more!"

I took one more bite, which I chewed very thoughtfully for longer than was probably necessary, and looked down into the bowl and contemplated the soup. No, I decided, it actually didn't look as appetizing as it had ten minutes ago. And if I really thought about it, it didn't quite taste as good either. I have read before that these are both signs that you're done with the eating thing, so I put the bowl off to the side and reached for my laptop.

And this is where I sit right now. At my kitchen table, half-eaten bowl of soup to my left, laptop directly in front, and glass of water to my right. (Glass of water, by the way, was refilled 3 times during the course of eating half a bowl of soup, for some reason. Am I dehydrated as well?) And I don't quite know what to do with said half-bowl of soup. No one else is around to offer it to. Throwing it out seems kind of wasteful, but I know that if I cover it and put it in the fridge, it will probably just grow mold and no one will eat it, and then I will throw it away. (The Chamaco, for whatever reason, does not like to eat leftover anything.) However, I do not really want to eat it just so it doesn't go to waste, because my stomach told me pretty clearly that it didn't want anything else. (Traitor.)

So maybe I've stumbled upon a breakthrough in my lifelong (and by "lifelong" I mean, "since I was about six") struggle with food and weight. Maybe I've just got to listen for the little voice that tells me, "Hey! No more of that, jerkface!"

The Old Curmudgeon and I have been spending some evenings lately watching a British TV show called Supersize vs. Superskinny. Basically the premise of the show is that they get one hugely obese person (usually close to 400 lbs. if we calculate out how many stone that is, because they do weight funny in Britain) and one underweight person (usually 110 lbs or less... lowest I've seen so far was 85), and they put them in a house together for five days. During those five days, the fat person can only eat everything the underweight person would normally eat (which is sometimes nothing at all for some meals), and the underweight person has to eat everything that the fat person normally eats at every meal (or give it their best go, anyway). It's sort of a mutual learning thing... usually by the end of the 5 days the fat person has learned that they can get hungry and they don't actually die, and they have learned by watching the skinny person attempt to choke down their meals that they have been eating WAY too much. The skinny person, meanwhile, usually learns to try new foods (the skinnies tend to have extremely limited diets like only fruit, or even in one case only chocolate... generally there is at least one food group they've eliminated completely) and eat somewhat larger portions. It's sort of weirdly fascinating, even though having watched most of two seasons now I'm sort of getting to the point where I want to see someone fail... come back after the 12 weeks of following the doctor's eating plan and not be fatter/skinnier than they were before and glowing with good health. Of course, I'm a jerk like that.

I'm also doing karate classes with my son on Tuesday nights and have finally found a Zumba class that mostly works within my schedule (I have to go there directly from work, but I can do it). I've already got the exercise piece falling into place nicely, so maybe if I can figure out the stupid food part, I might start seeing some changes. Who knows?

Song o' the Day: "End of Time" by Lacuna Coil. The video for which (viewable by clicking on the song title over there) was cleverly released right before December 21st, 2012. Not on the 21st, of course, because if the world had actually ended nobody would have seen it. Can't take that chance! This is a slower song for Lacuna, and definitely not their most exciting video, but I still like the song.

A perk of not teaching anymore...

... is that this is the first time I've been seriously sick since I quit teaching on April 6th. Odd, no?

For any of you who missed it, which is probably 4 of the approximately 5 people likely to read this, I had a go at going to work on Wednesday, gave up, and came home early about 2 o'clock because I was primarily staring at the stuff I needed to do and trying not to go to sleep. Didn't seem like a productive use of time to me. Yesterday (Thursday) I just didn't even try it at all. Stayed home. Played Cake Mania and The Sims 3 all day and did nothing at all productive until about 6:30, when I finally decided to fix dinner. And then I had to go let in a guy who locked himself out who lives on the 3rd floor, and that about wore me out and I did nothing else at all productive yesterday.

I'm planning on heading in to work today, but I still don't feel well. What I've got, for the curious, is a nasty head cold that I'm hoping will do me the favor of NOT turning into a sinus infection, since I don't have health insurance anymore. But it is still somewhat amusing to me that I went from April to December without getting a cold. Could not have done that while teaching, I promise you!

What is blog-worthy about this, you ask? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. I'm just trying to get back into the habit of writing since I've been doing it very infrequently in between April when we moved and August, and almost not at between August and now. I think it's good for me... it makes me introspect a little, and I don't like to do that. :-)

Song o' the Day: "End of Time" by Lacuna Coil. Perhaps it's fitting that they chose to release a video for this song just days before the "impending apocalypse". The video itself is pretty boring by LC standards, actually, and a lot of people are annoyed that it only has Cristina and Andrea in it. People get annoyed about strange things. The song, on the other hand, is really good (despite having Andrea in it!).

The changes FOUR years can bring....

For the literally ones of people who read this tripe I type up on a regular basis (or to put it in Fry and Laurie terms, "the viewing several"), I decided not to disappoint this year. Since 2009 I have been doing an annual review of what has changed in my life since the previous year. Some of the changes this year are interesting, and some of them some of you might not actually know about yet, so this should be fun and informative. In keeping with past years, I've decided to copy/paste the previous year's entry so you can go back with me all the way to 2008. (The original post in 2009 compared 2009 with 2008.)

Here we go... TIME TRAVEL!!!



2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!
2011: We still live in the same apartment. I have an eye toward moving before the end of the year, though, because I'm close to being able to afford to at this rate.
2012: We have moved twice in 2012. The first time was to Gresham (in April) for a new job, the second time was to Milwaukie (in October) for the same company.

2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!
2011: I now work FULL TIME for the first time since 2001. I adore the people I work with, but I like teaching less and less. Looking to move on (and when I do that apartment change thing will probably shortly follow).
2012: I am now a full time, salaried property manager. Which sort of explains how I have moved twice this year, no? And look up there and see how psychic I was in 2011! I knew something was coming, just didn't know what... lol. Anyway, not only do I get free rent on a 1,200 square foot apartment, but also I am salaried for more money than I've ever made before in my life. I've had years where my total yearly income was barely $8,000. This is not one of those years.

2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.
2011: Again, no change! What can I say? I like Wal-Mart.
2012: Haven't done any shopping yet. Could I shop somewhere else? Yes, probably. Will I shop somewhere else? Eh... maybe. But it's hard to beat Wal-Mart!


2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.
2011: I don't even get food stamps anymore. (Well, $16 a month, but that hardly counts, now does it?)
2012: Virtually no change from 2011 here. I do technically still qualify for the minimum amount of food stamps, but I often forget to use them. The only reason I'm still signed up is because I do it at the same time as the Chamaco's medical insurance (which I'm keeping, since I don't have health insurance myself to add him to). 

2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time
2011: My kid turned 10 this year. I can still pick him up, but I can't carry him much of anywhere. I realize that the only reason I can pick him up is because I routinely lift up to sixty pounds of child at work. He clocks in at about 74, last I knew.
2012: The boy will be 11 next week. And I can still pick him up, but only barely.

2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.
2011: My kid can stay home by himself for increasingly long periods of time (I haven't yet pushed it past an hour and a half). He has a cell phone. As long as there is a microwave and a stocked freezer, he can feed himself indefinitely. This works out well for me going to Zumba classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
2012: All this moving and new job stuff has created the necessity for the Chamaco to stay home alone for up to eight hours a day if he's not in school. Somehow, against all odds, I have raised the sort of responsible, independent kid that can handle this just fine so long as he has a microwave and internet access.

2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that  always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)
2011: Loads of new people in my life this year. Some of them are even male... lol.
2012: With the new job comes a new social circle. I must say I like working with a mixed group of men and women again... lol. The estrogen levels in my life were approaching critical.

2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)
2011: Still single! But I did actually go on ONE date in 2011. Which is one more than in the previous eight years combined, so I guess that's progress... ha ha ha!
2012: I am... not single*. Haven't been since September-ish. (Don't ask me exactly when, because I don't know!) Here's the funny part: Internally, I have always said two things... that I wanted to date someone I didn't date in high school (because all previous boyfriends and my ex-husband I dated in high school), and that I wanted to date someone who was my best friend (obviously, this required finding a male best friend). To which, I presume, God said, "Okay then... how about your best friend from elementary school? That's not high school!" You will never convince me that God doesn't have a sense of humor (as well as a keen sense of irony), but I am still very grateful to have Andrew back in my life after 19 years of absence.

(*Edit: Seemingly some have taken this statement to mean I am now married. I assure you that is not the case. I'm just in a reasonably serious relationship, is all.)
Well, that wraps it up for this year, kids!

We Have Moved.... Again

I see that I haven't posted anything since July, which is going to make playing catch-up rather difficult. I'm not sure I even know where to start, aside from maybe starting where I left off in July. I don't exactly remember where I left off, but judging by the date I will say it was probably something about how cool it was to have my best friend from 5th grade back and stuff like that. That's still cool, don't get me wrong.

We, in fact, hung out pretty much from Friday afternoon through Saturday night (and sometimes on Sunday afternoons too) every weekend straight through July and August. And pretty soon the Chamaco became involved, joining us at the river on Sunday afternoons. (He simply isn't around Friday night through Saturday night because he goes to my mom's and/or his dad's.)

Interesting side note: People really don't change a lot between ages 10 and 30. I mentioned before that I remember Andrew (who will need a cool blog alias) as the kid who could draw every US state from memory. Well, we were sitting on the bank of the river one  Sunday afternoon watching the Chamaco jump around in the water, and suddenly Andrew elbowed me and pointed at the sand and asked, "What's that?" Naturally he has drawn the outline of a state in the sand. I forget which one he started with. But he did a few states, and when it became clear that wasn't going to stump me he moved on to European countries. My point here is that we were nerds in 5th grade and we pretty much still are. And clearly whatever odd chemistry made us work as friends when we were 10 is still effective 20 years later, even though now we are old and have money and cars and don't have to whine at our parents to take us places anymore.

Anyway, sometime in mid-August he was griping about being a broke college student and having to pay whatever he was paying to live in a bedroom of somebody's big fancy house, and I was like, "It's too bad I don't have 3 bedrooms... I get free rent! I wouldn't charge you to live here." He insisted he would want to pay something to help with utilities and stuff, and it sort of didn't come up again until about a week later when he realized that he was going to have slightly less income for the month of September and almost no income for the month of October. See, he gets paid a certain amount per day for days he actually attends college... this is how his Air Force thing works. And the school term ended in late August and wouldn't start up again until September 24th or something like that. So he was losing a week for August (paid in September), and then losing almost all of September (paid in October). He worked it out and realized he was only going to have about $600 for the whole month of October. Rent for him was almost all of that, and he still would need to buy gas to get to school, food, etc. And suddenly we were revisiting the idea of him moving in, which he was only willing to do if it was okay with the Chamaco. And he jokingly said to me, "Tell your boss she needs to build a 3 bedroom apartment at Highland!"

I believe it was the next day I was talking to my boss on the phone about moving him in with me and what would be necessary, and I said, "Oh, and he says to tell you to build a 3 bedroom apartment at Highland." And we had a good laugh.

A few days later, she called me back and asked, "Did you really want a three bedroom apartment?" I was like, "Well yeah, it would be nice, but there aren't any here."

"So how would you like to move to Springcreek?"

It was then explained to me that the property I was currently living/working on was up for sale. There were no offers on it yet, of course, but at some point it would be sold and then whatever manager was on that property at the time would need to be relocated. And since at that point I was the only manager living on-site, they sort of wanted to move me to a property they were keeping. They also sort of wanted the manager who was currently at Springcreek to take her sales talent over to a property that was struggling a bit more. So, the day before Andrew was set to move in with me anyway (and he hadn't much liked the idea of moving to Gresham, mind you), I called him and said, "So... how would you like to move to Milwaukie?"

The initial reaction, of course, was "why?" followed by a rant about my job's seeming instability and doubt about whether he should move at all. I told him I had asked for a day to think it over. That night I went out to dinner with Sammich, determined to forget about this impending decision for a few hours. And then the text messages from Andrew started coming in. "Springcreek is within walking distance of _______." "Milwaukie Elementary was rated 7 out of 10 stars." (Yes, he was even checking out the schools for the Chamaco." And by the time I got home from dinner that night it was beginning to sound like Andrew was not at all opposed. The Chamaco wasn't really opposed either... he didn't like the school in Gresham anyhow (which according to Andrew had only gotten 3 of 10 stars on that same site), and liked the idea of moving back to a smaller town perhaps more similar to the one we'd left when we came to Gresham.

So Andrew moved in with me anyway on August 30th, and I temporarily cleaned out half my closet to give him a place to put his clothes and essentials, and he put other stuff in a storage unit across the street (a steal at around $100/month compared to what he'd been paying before for rent). The idea was that we'd somehow coexist in a small space for a month or so, then we'd move to Milwaukie and he could have his own room. Both of us were looking forward to this. Him because the closet was really crowded, and me primarily because he snores.

Somewhere in September my emotionally retarded brain finally caught onto the idea that the vibe between us had turned fuzzy, and somewhere toward the end of September we became official enough that he told his friends. Not something I was expecting, really, but I wasn't opposed either. We moved to Milwaukie on October 13th (pictures of new place to follow, naturally), and now he has a room for his stuff.

So yes, I live with my boyfriend. I feel I must point out that those were not the terms when he moved in, and given the current financial situation (and also the fact that I like having him around) I'm disinclined to give him the boot now. It's now been about 2 1/2 months since he moved in and we still don't hate each other. I find this fact amusing, because my ex-husband didn't move in with me until after we got married, and it only took me about 2 weeks after that to start reconsidering the idea. Now that Andrew is working and going to school and I'm working full time I pretty much only see him in the evenings, but the really cool part is that dishes get done as if by magic and reasonably often, since he gets home first, he has dinner going by the time I get home. And, as he points out often, he does his own laundry. Can't beat that.

I have to run to work now, so this post will end a tad abruptly, but I'll try not to go another 4 months without posting.

Lies Tenants Tell...

So, I've officially survived 3 1/2 months managing an apartment complex. It hasn't done much to improve my already somewhat bleak outlook on humanity, that much I can tell you. It's made me feel rather House-like, in fact.

I've already touched on my House-like tendencies before (I believe the post was titled "I want to be an evil genius too!", and may have been on my old MySpace blog, but it could be here... I'm too lazy to go hunting for it). Now I've taken it a step further by adopting a new operational theory of the universe that can be summed up as the following:

Tenants lie.

Here are some of their favorite lies to tell...

#1) "I didn't know that!"  - Pssht. Yeah, right. The fact is that we take an hour (or longer) out of our lives to sit down and go through the lease with you so you know what the rules are, and then you get a copy of every single document you signed, and you seriously are claiming that you didn't know that you couldn't do that? What "that" is varies greatly, but I've even had people become greatly perturbed at me when their car was towed because they parked in another resident's parking space or because they parked in the non-reserved parking without a parking tag. In neither case did I instigate the towing, and I'm certainly not about to call the tow company and demand they return your car. Besides, they wouldn't do it anyway.

#2) "But _____ said that it was fine!" - In this case, ______ can be any one of the most recent five managers of this place, though some of them can remember even farther back than that. And the "it" that is "fine" can be anything from "borrowing" extra parking passes from the office, to having someone not named on the lease live in your apartment while you go live elsewhere, to growing marijuana on your balcony. A variation of this one is "But ______ knew about it!" This was the line used by my marijuana-grower, and according to him every manager previous to me has known about it. Well, there was nothing in the file and nobody told me, so maybe they all have some great psychic bond that I do not share. Or you're full of it.

#3) "I'll pay it on _______." - Now, see, I would have liked to believe this one. I'd like to be able to be understanding and go, "Oh, well, since you don't get paid until the 5th, it's okay to bring your rent payment in on the 6th." Unfortunately, it's due no later than the 4th. And real grownups who know they aren't getting paid until the 5th pay the rent out of the check they got on the 20th (or thereabouts) of the previous month. Granted, some of them actually do pay it when they say they will... but it's still late, and they're still paying an extra $75 a month by paying a late fee every month. One resident, who should serve as a shining example to all others, gets paid only once a month. On the 15th. She pays every month on the 15th, but she pays for the coming month, as in bringing me August rent on July 15th. This is how you do it. But fairly often they don't pay when they say they will anyway. My former account rep whom I miss dearly (the new one does not banter as well... or indeed at all) told me not to believe any of their stories and to stop caring so much. Good advice, I think.

#4) "I used to manage apartments...." - Oh boy... this one is my favorite! This is the sentence usually used to preface telling me what I'm doing wrong and how bad I suck at my job. Man, if I had a nickel for every time a resident told me they used to manage apartments, I could quit this job. I wonder how so many of them ended up living here on housing assistance if they have management skills, first and foremost. Perhaps they manged apartments and really sucked at it? Also, even giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming they did "used to" manage apartments, they probably weren't doing it recently enough to know that there were like a zillion changes to landlord/tenant law in 2010 and everything they think they know is probably now wrong. My marijuana grower "used to manage apartments" too, and he was pretty furious about the 30/14 he got for having 19 pot plants on his balcony. Because when he used to manage apartments, you gave a warning first. Ha ha ha... that is your warning, silly! It's a warning that you have 14 days to get the pot plants off of your balcony! (Or 30 days to find someplace else to live, your choice.) What more warning do you need?? I think people just get all riled because it says "30 day notice of for-cause termination" at the top, and they don't bother to read the bit about the 14 day cure date. If there's a cause, there might be something you can do to remove that cause... the one you need to really worry about is the "no-cause termination" notice. That's the "pack your things and go" notice.

Anyway, this post was sort of a rant. I'm out of major lies now (though there are more minor ones) and this is just a subject that has been kicking around in my brain for a while, so I'm purging it. I promise my next post will be a great tale of adventure, as the Chamaco and I had one of those today.

Song o' the Day: "I Miss the Misery" by Halestorm. For no reason other than it's catchy.