Holiday Toast

I came home from work the other night to find my boyfriend in the living room playing videogames. Next to the toaster.

Me: "What are you doing?"
Him: "Playing Crackdown."
Me: "Why is the toaster on the living room floor?"
Him: "I was going to toast a bagel, but the toaster caught on fire."
Me: "Fire?!"
Him: "Well, not really....a little bit. I pushed the bagel down and the instead of heating up, a puff of smoke just came up. I unplugged it and thought I could just leave it, but the little fire kept getting bigger, so I brought it into the living room so I could keep an eye on it."
Me: "You couldn't stay in the kitchen and watch it?"
Him: "I wanted to play Crackdown."
Me: "Oh."
Him: "You need a new toaster."

So, hopefully Santa will bring me a toaster. :-p

Road Conditions

When I moved to New England in July of this year, I had to do quite a bit of adjustment to my driving style. Rather than making eye contact to merge, I had to start fastidiously avoiding eye contact and instead barrel into traffic with no regard for life or vehicle. Another huge adjustment was lane demarcation. I came from Alabama. Home of dirt roads. But at least in Alabama when a road is paved, it has lanes clearly marked. Here you can be driving down a 4 lane road, and all of a sudden, there's no lane paint. Where's my lane?!?? Who knows. I've learned to just follow the car in front of me and hope for the best (the best being that they get hit first and I have time to slam on the brakes.) So far that strategy has worked...everything's cool.

But now it's snowing. Well, not actively snowing right this minute, but there is snow around. Meaning that the width of the roads has markedly decreased. There are still no lines telling you where your lane is, but now sometimes when you're in what would usually at least be functioning as a lane...all of a sudden you're looking at a 4 foot wall of snow. Merging becomes necessary at a moment's notice. It also doesn't help that cars parked on the side of the road are now jutting out 4 feet farther than usual and pedestrians are using the road as a sidewalk.

So now the roads are 10 feet wide trying to accommodate two cars and pedestrians who are dressed to climb Everest (not that I blame them, but it makes them extra-wide.) I kind of hate driving up here right now. And as I'm braving the elements earlier, I hear this on the radio: "tonight, lows in the single digits! And tomorrow, we could be getting another 1-3 inches of snow."

Bring it New England.

Everybody Ready?

It's time for another tirade about my landlady! Woo!

So, about a week and a half ago I wake up at 7 AM to my entire house shaking. Shaking. I go downstairs to figure out what the heck is going on and there it is. The now familiar sound of men yelling at each other about construction. Look out the window- the front porch is gone. Could I have walked out the front door and fallen 5 feet to my death? Sure. If I was deaf... or uninquisitive beyond all reason. But I'm neither of these and therefore was forewarned of the danger outside my front door. Did my landlady call to let me know this would be happening? Of course not. My parents' suggestion was that next time she does unannounced construction, I just take one for the team and then sue the crap out of her. That is looking more and more appealing by the day.

So, that day was the day before I left for my vacation in Alabama. I was getting everything ready to go- the plan was for Tom to come over whenever he wanted and drop my rent check off in my landlady's mailbox when we regained mailbox access. He would also have my car keys for the week in case he needed to drive my truck, or my landlady needed my truck moved (as happens usually at least once a week.) So, the night before I leave, my landlady calls. Keep in mind, this is about 10 PM.

Landlady: "Hey Sam, just wanted to call and let you know that they're working on the porch."
Me: "Yeah. I figured that out."
Landlady: "Yeah, I just needed to call and let you know...you know...officially."
Me: "Gotcha. Very helpful. Thanks. Oh, and just to let you know, I'm going out of town for a few days, but Tom will bring you the rent and if you need my car moved just give me a call cause he'll have the key."
Landlady: "Oh. Well, if I need your car moved, I need it moved right then. I can't be waiting for him to come over and move it. Why don't you just put your car key in my mailbox and that way I can move it whenever."
Me: "Yeah, I can't get to your mailbox cause there's no porch, and also I want Tom to have the car key so he can use my truck if he needs it."
Landlady: "I've been meaning to talk to you about that."
Me: "About what?"
Landlady: "We need to talk about Tom."
Me: "Excuse me?"
Landlady: "We need to talk about Tom and the amount of time he spends there."
Me: "Why?"
Landlady: "Well, technically, he's a tenant."
Me: "No, he's not. He doesn't live here, so he's not a tenant."
Landlady: "Well, technically the amount of time he spends here makes him a tenant."
Me: "No it doesn't. He doesn't live here, so he's not a tenant."
Landlady: "Well, don't worry about it right now, we'll talk about it when you get back."
Me: "Um....okay."

Really? She wants to talk about the amount of time my boyfriend spends here? She leased the apartment to me only having met him! I *told* her he would be here all the time! In the end, I parked my car at Tom's house for the duration of my vacation so that it wouldn't be spoiled by her calling me. I've never let her drive my car- despite her numerous requests- and I have no intention of doing so in the future. It really makes me miss living in apartment complexes. I hate sharing a wall with my landlady. Especially one that's as nosy as mine. Ugh. And she's seen Tom a couple times since I've been back and is yet to call me for a discussion about him. Too bad, since I consulted with a lawyer while I was in Alabama. (Aww....C, you're such a grown-up.) Actually I had a margarita or two with a lawyer, but she emailed me laws that I can use against my stupid landlady. So that was helpful. And margaritas were delicious. :)

So I came back to about 3 inches of snow on the ground and my landlady outside shoveling the driveway. My lease states that I have to share in the shoveling responsibilities. If she were a nice person, I would've gone inside, gotten a shovel and helped. But I hate her and therefore went inside so I wouldn't have to talk to her. She shoveled the entire driveway, and then I guess she went in the house. Did she lay down salt, or sand, or some sort of salt-sand-absorbent-hybrid? No. The next day was my driveway one giant sheet of deadly ice? Um, yes. Did it remain that way for 3 days? Yes. You see, my back porch light doesn't work....because she won't fix it. Instead she fixed the lighting problem by turning the motion sensor on the garage to the direction of my back door. This is great when I actually get to the door (assuming she hasn't turned the light off- which she does on occasion- she might actively be trying to kill me) but on the trip from the place where I park (a snowy bank to the side of the driveway) to the door, there is no lighting. So tiptoeing across a giant sheet of ice in the dark becomes my sad reality. Immediately following one of these death skates, I called her.

Me: "Hey, I just came in from my car and I was wondering- are you going to put down salt or sand or something because I'm totally going to die out there."
Landlady: "Oh, well, it's supposed to be like 30 tomorrow..."
Me: "Ookay? So salt...?"
Landlady: "I mean 40, it's supposed to be 40 tomorrow."
Me: "So you're saying it's going to melt tomorrow anyway, so you're not going to put anything down."
Landlady: "Right. Well, when it freezes like that the salt can't penetrate or anything so it wouldn't do any good. But, yeah, that's my responsibility to take care of putting stuff down out there, so don't worry about it."
Me: "Um...okay."

I don't know anything about salt for the purposes of winter, so I just go with it. Tom comes over and informs me that yes, duh, she should've laid the stuff down when she finished shoveling, but apparently my landlady is an idiot and she should go out there now and put something down. I go with the "it's gonna melt tomorrow anyway" defense and move on with my life. It's been over a week now, my driveway is yet to thaw- and last night there was freezing rain, which was a real treat when I walked outside at 7 AM. Driveway is slicker than ever. And now, the snowy bank parking has become icy rut parking. Tom had to push me out of my space this morning.

It's going to be a long winter.

Oh Christmas Tree

As in, "Oh my God it's falling over again."

Those familiar with my previous blog will remember my family's past Christmas tree follies. Specifically last year's "principle tree" which consisted of my entire family pretending that a tree that looked as though it had the mange was actually quite beautiful- just to punish my father who deliberately chose this specimen so that Mom would cave and let him purchase a tree rather than finding one in a cow pasture. (It's Alabama people- that stuff totally happens.) So last year's wasn't great, and this year was going to be different. Actually it started out not being different- my mother and I initially climbed into my Dad's 1995 Chevy AstroVan with a saw and two pairs of gloves and headed for my grandparent's pasture. However, logic prevailed and rather than let my grandfather sit in a chair unbuckled driving through a pasture to find a cedar tree that would invariably die prior to Christmas, we decided to drive to Home Depot and buy a tree.

Behold! The glorious store-bought tree!

This tree was magnificent. Much shorter than the trees of the past (topping out at a measily 8-9 feet rather than our customary 12 ft. and wired to the rafters.) But it was full...and with the childhood ornaments of 5 kids, fullness is a plus. We loaded this tree down- every square inch has something hanging- and it looked great. I think it was the prettiest tree we've ever had. Of course, about 24 hours later, everyone heard a crash and half the ornaments were gone and the entire tree was on the floor. So now, the tree is redecorated with a minor addition. There's now a giant rope tying the tree to the fireplace. But Jo hung some stockings along the rope, so at least it looks festively tacky :-p Unfortunately there are no pictures of the tree's McGyver-esque support. However, there are plenty of pictures of the rest of the evening's festivities. Including the traditional hanging of the "Christmas Germ", the decorating of Bear the Christmas Tree, and a visit from Santa.
You can see them all on my flickr set. Merry Christmas!

I'm so proud

Apparently you guys are pretty smart. :-p