Lagging

Yes, I am falling behind in posting regular updates.  Never have been able to keep any kind of journal consistently.  Oh well, the last thing I need is to put pressure on myself to continue doing what should be fun and come naturally.  So accept my apologies if you've been waiting impatiently for my next post.

Spring is here, and with it I have 1000% times more energy and drive to get up and get things done, all of which has led to me being relatively busy and productive.  Last week I was offered a job, finally.  It feels amazing to know that on Wednesday there is a desk for me and I will be there at 9 a.m. in a cute new business-casual outfit, ready to start sorting and labeling data.  Maybe you sense sarcasm... but no!  While I have heard horrible things about this type of job (mostly from people kvetching on the internet), I harbor hopes that somehow maybe I am more constitutionally suited to the work.  Then again, I often discover that I am far more normal than I've been given credit for.  In any case, I'm motivated.  If anything can get me excited it certainly will be having those checks start to pile up in my bank account.  It's been far too long since I had anything piling up except bills and the shame of financial dependency.

In other news, Adam managed to reinstate the car insurance from overseas.  No easy task, coordinating the paperwork when you are unmarried, living together, with no co-ownership of assets.  Power of attorney was given to one of his family members, but fortunately we escaped having to use it.  I have to say, if I had known more about what deployment would be like I think I would have pushed harder to get married beforehand.  I think a lot of things would have just been easier to deal with, and it would have provided us with benefits we don't currently enjoy (like my health insurance, see under "lack thereof").

Well, we are definitely on the uphill side of the second half of deployment.  Adam has never felt farther away.  There's really not much he can do about it either, well, not without sacrificing his health so he can spend more time chit chatting with me.  Obviously I don't want that.  It's only that it feels hard to remember what our relationship was like when we were together.  I remember being happy, having fun, being excited to see him, I know that I love him and that I want to be with him... it's just that feeling of the relationship is not actually here right now.  I suppose that's normal when you don't get to talk to someone anymore, it just frightens me that maybe the feeling won't come back when he does.  I've read that it takes work to re-establish the connection when your soldier returns, that's probably what they are talking about.

Spring!

Today is the official start of spring, although it's been creeping up on us over the last couple weeks.  Daffodils are opening up all over town, there are buds on the trees, a few days ago it was warm enough for me to comfortably wear a tank top to the park with Max.  Every year I seem to come down with seasonal affective disorder, I feel so sluggish and depressed.  When spring comes back around I get the mojo to tackle major projects (like cleaning the house of all its winter accumulation).  Last week I tackled the laundry monster that was swallowing the bedroom.  Threw out the homemade antibiotics from the fridge.  There's still a lot to be done... for some reason the harder I clean, the less routine tidying I do, which means more big messes in a matter of a few days.  Two steps forward....

I've also been going to the gym a lot more regularly, which feels a lot like spring cleaning.  They remodeled the women's locker room and added a dry sauna, which is so inviting.  I had a big stack of unread magazines, so I've been whittling down that pile by reading them at the gym and leaving them there when I'm done.  I've lost about five pounds, which is great, mainly I like how my clothes are fitting better.

I pulled out a quilt I finished piecing last year, but had only gotten about 1/8 of the actual quilting done.  I hung it up in the apartment (I tied two ski poles together to hang it from, and then hung the pole from the loft) and have been working on it a little bit each day.  It's a bug and butterfly themed picnic blanket, mainly in blue and yellow.  Now that the weather is getting so nice it will be nice to have the blanket finished.  We used it a few times last year, at the 4th of July, and when we went to see the live performance of A Prairie Home Companion, but I didn't want to use it very much until it could go in the washing machine.

So, all in all, productivity is up, morale is up, sanitation is improving... all good things.  I did get a little sad when I was tidying up, smelling Adam's shirts.  I picked up one of his berets and I got a little teared up.  I'm just trying to channel everything into health and productivity, and trusting that will help me get through the next couple months.

Two Birds

Adam and I have lived together for a little over a year (not counting the months he's been gone).  Recently I started volunteering for the condo association, to help with the landscaping of the property.  I also went to a meeting tonight to talk about adding a community bike room and some dumpsters out back.  Right now we have to keep our bikes in the living room, and trash has to be dropped out in front of the building 6:30-8:30 am, no Sunday collection, recycling* on Thursday.  It's just annoying, I took the trash out yesterday at 8:27, and missed the collectors.  I had to keep the bag inside for 24 hours... stinky.  The bikes take up a lot of room, and have to be carried up and down the stairs. I've also never lived anywhere that didn't have a dumpster, or trash cans that get dragged to the curb.  It's crazy to me that we put bags outside, right on the sidewalk, and we don't get any kind of bins (no recycling bins either).  The condo is already power-plant adjacent, I think maybe we should be trying a little harder on some of these quality of life issues -- especially the ones that are inexpensive to address.

Meanwhile, I asked about the ducts for venting the dryer.  Turns out it is not the responsibility of the condo association to clean them out, so I have a handyman coming to do it tomorrow.  After he removes the stacked unit from the closet I can get some good measurements from the inside, and maybe he can also give me some advice about which new units might fit.

*I don't know if I really believe that our recycling is really being recycled, especially since we've never gotten any instructions on sorting, bagging, tying up, or any of that.

Dimension Drama

A few months ago, before I started this blog, Adam and I bought a table.  A beautiful, carved, solid walnut table with elegant turned legs with leaf-shaped scrolls and six coordinating chairs in a lovely modern looking striped green and blue velvet.  I found it on Craigslist because Adam's oak pub table was just too small to host more than two people for dinner, and too high for comfortable sitting.

I measured the dining room, I measured the doorway.  I double checked the table's measurements with the seller.  Yup, the table was 29.5 inches high, the doorway was 30 inches wide... no problem, just turn it sideways.  Except... I didn't notice that the door wasn't opening 100% of the way, that about an inch of door was still jutting past the edge of the frame when fully open, leaving only 29 inches of usable space.

It took us about a week to get the table inside, a process which included no less than three hired men (one furniture expert and two handymen), attempts to remove both the pins from the hinges and the screws holding the hinges to either the door or it's frame, and the purchase of a new drill.  The drill was the final step, it was purchased by me after a professional handyman company quoted me a rate of over $200 just to come look at it.  We got the door off by removing the screws from the center (locked pin) hinge on the frame side, and removing the pins from the other two hinges (whose screws were stripped by the previous owners into perfect little circles).  While we were working on this problem, the table had to wait in the hallway, and we had to hope we wouldn't be fined.

Fast-forward to today's discussion of washers and dryers.  After doing all that research, picking the model we liked, I went back to measure the closet.  It's a little hard with the stacked washer-dryer combo already in there, but it looks like the whole closet is only 30" from the back wall to the edge of the door frame where the door hits.  The washer we picked is 29 3/4 inches.

I don't think either Adam or I wants a reprise of the incident of the mis-measured door.  I think we'd both like some wiggle room (literally, depending on the amount of vibrations).  I found another unit that is a couple inches shallower and has almost as much capacity.  I'm glad Adam isn't here to have to deal with all of this, this is really what I love and he hates - trying to get the most pleasant home possible, for not too much money, by doing lots of work figuring things out.  We may not get a new washer for a while though (until Adam's blood pressure goes back down).

Adventures in Shopping

It's time for a new washer and dryer set around here, and let me tell you, I am doing more research than I did when I was applying to colleges.  This is what I want to know.  Deep breath.  Okay, every single person buys a washer and a dryer.  99% of everyone buys a set.  I mean, unless you are replacing a defunct machine and have sworn never to repurchase that particular model, most people have matching washer/dryers.  Not that it's the first thing I look at when I go to someone's house, but typically you see two very similar machines sitting next to each other.  Yet Consumer Reports and all of these other ratings websites all review the washer and its matching dryer separately.  So the #1 washer is matched with the #47 dryer and vice versa.

Well.  Maybe I wouldn't care about the units matching if we had a laundry room, but we have a laundry closet, and those babies have to stack.  I'm not quite willing to risk buying an unmatched set and the potential for some unimagined problem with the shapes or dimensions not lining up.

Because we're stacking, we also pretty much have to get front-loading units.  There are some single unit washer dryer combos that have a top loading washer on the bottom and then a front loading dryer on the top.  That's what we have now.  It's really small, and I think it looks awful and cheap.  The agitator is hard on the clothes, there's no way to fit blankets, and the basket becomes unbalanced with every load and makes a loud banging sound.  I did look into a cool idea which is a washing machine with a built in condensing dryer, that way we could have the whole top of the closet to store laundry items and maybe even extra linens.  Then I read the reviews for condensing dryers, and it sounds like they take a really, really long time.  Several hours for one load.

Right now it looks like we'll get a top-rated washing machine with the matching mid-low rated dryer.  The dryer still scored "very good" or "excellent" on its Consumer Reports performance tests, and the consumers that rated it seemed to like it.  Besides, if you have to get one that's higher rated than the other, I think the better washer is the way to go.

Entirely too much thought is being put into this purchase decision.  Is this what getting old is?  Hours of thinking about washing machines?

Option 1 - #3 washer, less
expensive, low rated dryer

Option 2 - #1 washer, more expensive,
dryer not reviewed, comes in red!

Rough Night

This post officially does not count as whining, because my night was actually pretty fun.  The fact that just about every single thing went wrong is actually sort of funny.


On the whole it was good.  I went to the gym, and then I met a friend for some sushi and a movie.  Buuuut...

First I gave Benji a bath, and while I was finishing showering he jumped out of the tub and got his muzzle off.  After I dried him off, he decided he didn't like being the amount of wet that he was, and he went craaazy.  Seriously, I thought he was going to sink his teeth into my leg.  If I wasn't already giving him back next week, I definitely would be after tonight.  

After getting ready and dealing with Benji, I missed the bus.  I was texting my friend on the way there, and we couldn't decide where to eat.  Finally I just said okay that place you suggested, I'll meet you there.  I got there and she wasn't there so I called her and she said I don't think we have time for that place meet me at this sushi place, it's right inside the theater.  I said I didn't think the theater had any food inside but she said I couldn't miss it.  So I quickly walked the five or six blocks from the restaurant I was at to the theater, where, of course... no sushi.  So I called her back, and she was at another theater back where I had just come from!  Arrrrh.  By this time it was 9 and I was starving because I hadn't eaten since lunch and I had gone to the gym.  So I ran back and I met her at the sushi place.  It was a convayer belt place, and all they have is shrimp and eel (I don't eat those).  So I order a la carte.  They're also out of almost every single beer.  So instead of asking what they don't have I just point to the beer of the guy sitting next to us and I'm like, just make it one of those.  It was actually okay, but we don't have time to finish them because our movie is about to start, we leave half full bottles.

So they're sold out of our movie.  We decide to see another one, about an hour later.  Meanwhile we go for another beer.  That part was fine.  

I missed the previews waiting for popcorn (I was still a bit hungry).  The theater is completely full and we have to sit in the second row, craning our necks.  As I'm walking down the aisle to our seats I trip on the rubber strip on the edge of the last step and I fall on my face (my knee actually) and my popcorn and soda go splat.  I am able to get up, and I start walking back up the aisle to tell the manager about the spill, and I stumble over the third step and go down again on the same knee.  I wasn't tipsy, I think the first fall just sort of dazed me.  The manager replaced my snacks and we sat to watch the movie.  My friend fell asleep.  

I got a cab home because I couldn't deal with walking in my heels and with my banged up knee.  When I got home, Max and Benji had somehow opened the cabinet where their treats are, and ate an entire large box of dog treats.

Oh yeah, and I got another prank call tonight just before I got to the sushi place, but I couldn't really hear well because I was on the street.  I just hung up on them anyway.  I guess I'll call the police tomorrow and make a report, since it's the third time.  I don't know if they can do anything, but it's somewhat frightening and definitely upsetting.  It's mostly just annoying, how old are we?  12?  What kind of passive aggressive jerk makes dumb phone calls to harass someone?  

All in all, after watching the Adjustment Bureau I wonder if someone was trying to adjust ME.  Well, if that's the case, I could use a bit gentler handling, and would be grateful if you'd be a bit more help before I do something rather than in the middle of me doing it. It really makes me miss Adam to have a very fun but also in some ways sucky night.

Benji

Adam and I were thinking of adopting a friend for Max, to keep him company while we're gone for work.  I thought it would be better to adopt an older dog, since Max isn't that fond of puppies, and it would save us the hassles of puppy training.

I found Benji on Petfinder.com, and exchanged some emails with his foster mom.  He was so cute, with his little puppy face.  She mentioned that he was a handful, and that he has a definite sense of what he will and won't allow.  I arranged for Max and me to meet her and Benji in December.  Pretty much right away I had a lot of reservations, the biggest one being that Max didn't seem interested in Benji.  Right behind that, Lisa mentioned that he had nipped her a few times, and that she kept him on a short leash in the house so that she wouldn't have to put her hand near his face in order to control him.  Since Benji is only five and will probably be around for the next ten years (during which I hope to have children) nipping or biting is not acceptable.

I agreed to keep him for a day, see how it went.  Benji had been abandoned and then abused, so I was hopeful that he had some issues that he could work out once he felt safe and comfortable.  I realized right away that Benji also has a barking problem... inside, outside, basically whenever he senses someone or something he doesn't know.

I really knew that Benji was not right for us after the first day.  Between Max's disinterest (I think Benji actually stresses Max out also), the incompatibility with children, and the behavior problems, really there didn't seem to be any aspect of Benji that was right for us.  But Benji was stressing Lisa out also, and she had a house full of other foster dogs too, since a local trainer had recently passed away and all of his dogs needed rehoming.  I agreed to take him as a foster for a while.

I've had Benji for about six weeks now, and I have seen some improvement. He does seem to like me a lot, although I'm not sure he really sees me as being someone with the right to control him.  The barking... well, he doesn't bark at everyone he sees now, it's down to about 30%.  He's nipped me twice, never breaking the skin.  The citronella anti-bark collar seems to work well, but it's also not working for some reason (gave up?).   But it's just getting harder.

Benji wakes me up several times every night, in the middle of the night and in the early morning.  Either he hears something he has to growl at, or he decides I have to wake up to snuggle with him.  I'm embarrassed when he barks at people we see on walks, and it hurts my ears.  Both of our hearts are racing after these incidents, his from the stress of meeting these strangers, and mine from frustration and resentment.  Lately Max has started barking at strangers as well, and for me, I think this is where my patience runs out.

Benji is not a bad dog, he's a good dog that has gone through some hard things.  He can't trust people to protect him, so he needs to protect himself. The fact that he just wants so much love I think proves he has a good heart.  I don't know what will happen to Benji after I send him back to Lisa, and I feel terribly guilty for not having more strength to "hang in there" for him, to rehabilitate him until he can find his forever home.  Aside from the patience that it takes to help an abused dog, I think that he needs more training than I can give him.  I also don't want to make anything worse by being short-tempered with him or to make him feel less secure or threatened.

Benji - Puppy Face!

Nice antlers