Zeo's Thoughts and Wanderings

Well, we ALMOST got caught up on two week's worth of Sci Fi Friday yesterday morning. All we have left now is last week's BSG, and now yesterday's episodes. Sunday morning Sci-Fi, here we come.

We have new downstairs neighbors. In the just-over-a-year we've been in this apartment, we've had downstairs neighbors for just a few months. They had a short-term lease in-between houses. They were okay. I'm not so sure about the new ones. When you can hear the bass from the stereo through earplugs.... Plus, one of them has a license plate that reads "Da Frog." I really don't know what to make of that.

I went to bed last night around 11 pm. It's now 11:30 am, and I'm just now getting up. Although, part of me is tempted to just get something to eat and go back to bed. I slept in the guest room because Matt was being hot, sweaty, sticky and taking up most of the bed. We're all entitled to nights like that (I seem to have more than my share), so I just moved beds. Got some of the best sleep I've had in a while. Although, the guest room was really, REALLY cold.

That leads me to another small rant. Is there such a thing as a home thermostat that automatically senses whether the furnace or the a/c needs to be on, and switches between the two automatically? Ours, you have to manually select whether you want heat or cold, and if you have a sudden temperature drop (like we had the other day), you're screwed, because the a/c will shut off, but the furnace won't kick on, so you wake up a popcicle. Or in reverse, you wake up a little puddle of goo because the a/c won't kick on.

Ugh. The food-and-back-to-bed option is sounding better and better. But I did map out a fluffy little fic this morning, so maybe I'll type it up real quick before I lose it. There's just something about the old 'shipper standby, the motel in the middle of nowhere with only one room available. It's like everyone has to write their own take on it. But it's okay, because it's almost an initiation rite. Throw in freakish weather as a reason to take clothing off, and woohoo!

(hangs head in almost-shame) I dreamt in message boards last night. I really need to take a break from Shipper Central at TalkCSI.
Maybe I really do need to go back to bed.

Chris moves out this weekend. I've been making a mental list of things I'm looking forward to once it's just Matt and me in the apartment.

1. Knowing where all my dishes, pans, silverware and utensils are. My kitchen is the only thing I'm neurotic about organizing, and despite being here 8 months, he still can't remember a simple thing like "Mixing bowls go under the mixer." He keeps putting them with the pans!

2. Being able to walk around the apartment in my underwear (or naked, for that matter!). The way it stands now, even if it's just something as quick as making sure the door is locked, I have to find clothing to cover myself.

3. Being able to dance like an idiot around the apartment with 90's dance tunes turned up LOUD. Hee, I just burned a disc for this express purpose. Only new song on it is Pon De Replay (or however it's spelled).

4. Being able to make out (or more) with my husband in the living room. :-D

5. No more high-pitched children's shrieks early in the mornings. Don't get me wrong, I like his girlfriend, and for the most part, her kids are okay. It's just that, well, they're children (ages 4 and 6). They have high voices...and they can be loud or piercing.

6. No more coming home to surprise guests.

I'm not looking forward to the increase in expenses. He paid a third of the rent and utilities. But, with one less person, the water and electric bills should decrease some, so maybe it'll balance out a little? I can hope.

This weekend, we helped a neighbor move from a two-bedroom apartment to a one-bedroom apartment. She bought us pizza last night, and subs today. We also got her couch and corner desk. Which means Matt and Chris moved furniture in the living room. We got rid of two chairs, and totally rearrainged everything. So I'm still not sure about it.

I'm not one fond of clean. I like clutter, it makes me feel like I belong. But our roommate doesn't. He's starting to date again, and he wants a place he won't feel embarrased bringing people to.

I was planning on cleaning the kitchen tonight after I came home from getting cat food. Instead, I walked in and....he'd cleaned. The kitchen. The living room. The dining room (sort of). I kind of freaked, whispered a stunned "Thank you," and barricaded myself in the bedroom.

Matt had cleaned the living room yesterday, just testing my limits of comfort. But Chris...he just sort of removed EVERYTHING to the point where it looks like a hotel room, and I start to shake and have nervous breakdown.

If you've seen Benny and Joon, and remember the scene where Sam's cleaning and Joon freaks out? Kinda like that.

Clean is NOT NATURAL. Hospital-sanitary is not normal in a house with three people and three cats. It makes me queasy, makes me want to throw things. Makes me feel....like crying, like I don't belong there, that they're just tolerating me and soon they're going to break and ask me to leave, that they can't stand me there, that I'm useless, not doing anything to help, too much of a hassle.

This is my apartment, too. My name's on the lease. Why won't anyone listen to me?

Well, this past weekend a friend of mine flew down to visit. So, a recap of the past few days.

Thursday: Jess calls me around 4 pm. Her plane, which is supposed to leave Columbus at 5, is still in Raleigh. Mechanical problems. Long story short, she finally got in at 9 pm. We stayed up talking until midnight, at which point I had to crash.

Friday: Spent morning talking until it was time enough that I could go to S&K and pick up my 3-day paycheck. So, we wandered around the Prime Outlets for a while. When I get to S&K, Franc, the manager, comes out and apologizes, saying payroll just mailed the check to my house instead of the store. Grumble, as that check was to be my spending money for the weekend. So, moneyless, Jess buys me lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, a soup-and-salad buffet in town. It's a limited chain, so there aren't any in Columbus. She loved it, and I think that turned out to be the high point of the visit. :-P Friday night was Battlestar Galactica's season finale. Now, Jess doesn't have cable, so she didn't know much about the series, but what she saw of it, she thought was okay, and I'd explained a lot of the backstory for her.

Saturday: Went to Latte Da!, a "retro cafe" and coffee shop for lunch. It's fairly new, and they've just started carrying sandwiches as well as their pastries, cheesecake, coffee/tea drinks and smoothies. It's a teenytiny cafe, and I really love it. It's a comfortable little shop to visit and the owner and the other girl that work there are really friendly and love to chat with the customers. After lunch, we went with Jay and Cyn to the $1.50 theater that just reopened. Saw Finding Neverland, which we all enjoyed, then went to Cici's Pizza for dinner ($3.99 pizza buffet). Later that night, she and I went to Jay and Cyn's to watch the second Bridget Jones while Jay went over to our place to watch Star Wars Ep 2 with Matt and Chris. Bridget Jones was a painful, painful movie. I'd have preferred seeing Star Wars. :-P

Sunday: Matt made honey-wheat waffles for breakfast, and I made a cinnamon syrup for them, since we were out of maple-ish syrup. Also had hot chocolate. He and I went to meeting from 12-2, Jess stayed at the apartment, talked to her parents on her cell and watched Animal Planet. We were going to try to go to one of the museums here with a butterfly room, but most closed at 4. So, we ended up just watching Animal Planet and talking most of the day. Matt and Chris went grocery shopping, and somehow it wound up that we went to Ash and Ryan's for dinner, which Matt cooked. Cheesesteaks, mmmm.

Monday: We sat around and chatted for a few hours, walked over to the office so I could pay rent and sign up for the community yard sale. I'm still shocked that it's only for three hours, 7 am to 10 am. I'm used to all-day yard sales. Go fig. But Jess decided she wanted to go for ice cream, so we went to Maggie Moo's. It's similar to a Coldstone or Marble Slab Creamery. I got the dark chocolate ice cream with cookie-dough mix-ins, and she got the raspberry sorbet with chocolate chunks and coconut. And she found out that yes, there is a Maggie Moo's in Columbus. ;) Then, she had to go to the airport, as her plane leaves at 3:25. And she's warned me that if the plane is 3 hours late again, she's not coming to visit again; we'll have to go visit her. :-D

All in all, it was a really nice, long-overdue visit with Jess. For some reason, Chris was telling her all the good points to moving down here, like he was trying to recruit her or something. We've decided it's just become second-nature now. And now I have a week to recuperate before my parents come visit. o_O

I just want to thank everyone who helped out the last two months while Matt and I were out of work. He's working at University Ford in Chapel Hill now (go buy cars!), so hopefully we should be getting back on our own feet.

First day of diet went well. Didn't feel overly hungry too often, and the constant peeing from all the water I'm drinking wasn't too annoying. I have to go to the grocery store today, buy more "real" vegetables (all we have in the house is "starch" vegetables), fruit, and some meat (most likely a bag of frozen chicken breasts).

Since it's raining and yucky out, I doubt the wireless guys will be here today. So it's back to the waiting game. I'll go for a walk with Cyn and her dog Candy, and that'll be two miles or so.

Maybe I'll do some sewing today. I need to draft out a pattern for someone, see if I can get what's in my head to translate onto the page.

Plus I saved most of the meat drippings from last night's beef, so I can go de-fat that, and make a nice gravy for dinner tonight. I'm thinking beef with noodles and gravy. Hey, I'm allowed 4 fat servings a day, and that gravy's going to be one of them!

Now, to have oatmeal....

Remember when we had no water? Turns out the reason Maintenance didn't get back to us (and that the mailbox was full) was this: a T1 line went down at BellSouth. So the techs weren't getting their pages. They didn't know anything was wrong.

Oh well.

We have no water. We had water before I went to the store around 5:30pm or so. When I got home around 6, I was informed there was no water. We called the office, left a message on the emergency maintenace thingie. Nothing. Called again around 9, left another message. Called the water department. No answer. At wither of their numbers. Around eleven, called maintenace again, the mailbox is full.

Now mind you, we'd invited friends over for dinner. So while we were cooking, we couldn't wash our hands. While they were here, they couldn't use the bathroom. They invited us over to use their water to brush our teeth, use the potties, etc.

We are not amused.

Still haven't totally unpacked. The spare bedroom is a mess of boxes, most labelled "misc. crap." Plus one of the cats threw up in there today.

Sigh. I need a cookie.