Signori e signore we have a HOUSE

Okay, so we went a little crazy and rented this 5 (really 4) bedroom house by the fairgrounds.


2, count 'em, 2 bathrooms! Plus library, big living room, appliance garage in the kitchen (note appliance garage at the corner of the counter and the awesome '50s decor)




But there's also some weird stuff, which might explain why it's so cheap:

Upstairs room, lots of light, dead bird in crawlspace ... What the? Oh wait, it's a bird made of wood. Wooden bird in crawlspace? What the?

And then there's this photo. This is our living room. In the top, center are (according to "Most Haunted") light anomalies. (The patchy blotch on the left is a patchy blotch left by the last tenants, so it doesn't count.)











There's another one in my bedroom. If you concentrate, you can see it in the right corner of the picture, just above the line where the ceiling starts.







Ghosts? whoa ... cool...

Nonrebel With a Cause

I'm starting to get really, really aggravated over the house situation. There is f-all going on in this town that doesn't already have 30 college kids arm-wrestling over it. We're reaching the point where I'm going to have to cry on the phone to the landlord and ask for another month and I'm tired of fecking crying on the phone to landlords! wahh wahhh please rent to us. wahh wahh she's just a small cat. I can't believe that it's harder to find a house in Eugene than it was to find an apartment in San Francisco. That's really weird to me.

In 20C Lit yesterday we started watching "Rebel Without a Cause" because it features the weakening of the American male after World War II (which, honestly, you can get from just about any Nicholas Ray film) and when Jim tells the cop and future Chief of C.O.N.T.R.O.L. that he "just wants to hit something" I thought ... yeah ... me too ... Although I suspect that if I tried to beat up a desk (or loaf of bread) my reaction would be the same as Jim's

only more so.

Pet(s) Okay?

Still no house yet. We have to wait until Tuesday for a final answer on the second house we looked at (the more expensive one ... payday is coming soon ...). The first one ... well ... we have to wait for 2 other people to say they don't want it or that the property management place doesn't want them. Maybe I'll call on Monday if I've got any confidence saved up.

Consulted a different psychic after getting crossed out by the one at Saturday Market. Most of the reading was about what I expected (I'm bored ... I should stay in school ... I need to eat healthier), but then there's this excellent paragraph:

I also see around you a white dog with black spots...not a dalmatian its smaller than that but a dog I can't quite pinpoint and I feel like this is a creature that came into your life by accident/surprise (or will soon) but he just grabs onto you and it feels like you are this animals confidante – it immediately trusts you and becomes your shadow.

Yes! Somehow I don't think Cat will be as excited about it...

G-A-N-K : Gank

Fecking students keep getting into houses before we do. We looked at a second one today and were told that a list of people had seen it ahead of us. These are places that only just opened for rent -- the one we looked at yesterday had only opened up YESTERDAY and we were already behind 2 other sets of renters in the approval process ("If they decide they don't want it, we'll give you a call.")

I offered to throw a wad of cash at the landlady in this second house. She seemed both shocked and excited all at the same time. I felt dirty.

The place is big and spacious, but apparently a herd of rhino just moved out. I'll still claw, beg and shell out $3200 for it though. Why?

Forced. Air. Gas. Heat.

fecking paradise in Eugene, man.

ABC - Always Be Closing

Aside from buying a new paper towel holder (why is that always necessary?), the worst part of moving is the dough you've got to fork out on move-in fees.

We're looking at a house today and if we like it here's what we have to come up with to seal the deal:
$925 1st month
$850 security
$300 pet (dude, she's just a cat)
$125 cleaning
$75 carpet
cha-ching: $2275 / 2 = $1137.50 ea

Which will, in short, empty my bank account. We get $200 ea back on this place, but I'm sure we'll need that to buy a new paper towel holder.

So, to my friends and family who have not received birthday presents or only received a card at Christmas, I want to say thank you for giving me a roof over my head. My lack of time management ("what? it's your birthday today??") with regard to birthdays/holidays/important occasions has made this move possible.

Vegas ... well, this leaves me about $34.50 for gambling in Vegas and lots of opportunities for hanging out at the pool. Allora...

the heave-ho

Landlord sent us a note today. He's selling the house in June and we have to be out by the end of May. The sweet pea I just planted is starting to shoot, my anemone has risen from the dead of winter and is showing signs of new growth, the daisies I put in last year have doubled and Golden Showers has 4 times as many roses on it than it had last year and the white fly hasn't come back to eat it yet! Cahhhhhhhhh we'll have to move the remains of the boonie, Sarafina, lovingly put to rest in the back yard.

It's daunting and painful, although I'm not as panicked now as I was at noon today. But, feck! I'm going to miss this place. It's wee and cold in the winter (cold right now in fact), but it's been home for almost 4 years and I've gotten used to it.


[So it goes.]

email of the day

Looking for /boorum & pease
Standard # 12 Record Ledger
500 pages.margin line.
Last ledger purchased in 1866.
now in need of 2nd volume.

psyche!

Saturday Market started today, which means fresh parsley in the tortilla rolls tonight (whoo hoo). And I finally worked up the nerve to put my name down on the waiting list for the psychic next to the sushi station (or is it the crepe place ... non lo so ... anyway). She looks like she knows her business and doesn't have "Affirmation Station" or angel voices advertised on her booth, so I figure she probably rates a little higher than the other ones. My time was 11:20. I get there at 11:10 and her customers from 11:00 leave, but there are some friends who have stopped by to chit-chat, so I wait, and some woman walks up and I think she's with the chit-chatters, but she's not because she stops at the list and picks up the pen ....... and then she sits down. And I wait a bit and psychic starts to flip her cards and she asks woman "remind me when your birthday is again" and it's a feckin' reading. So I check the list and my name has been crossed out (!).

Dude, if she's not psychic enough to know that I was muscled out then she clearly isn't psychic enough to tell me anything worth $20.

yin and yang

the english class is going to be okay, so far. we're watching movies and reading books and i can dig that, so everything was balancing out from the emergency on monday and then my cd rom is broken in my history book and i can't find the effing receipt to effing return it and half of the effing class is on that effing cd and i've emailed my gtf to see if i can burn his disc, but i feel like i'm asking him to rob a bank or something even though it's not like i didn't buy the book and want the material, i paid my money and the book is fecking defective, so it's not against the law but it feels like it's against the law and i was a dork in italian today, which is not unusual in and of itself because it happens lots of times, but it was glaring and idiotic and that doesn't go well with me and it makes minor irritations like this monumental and i cry like the little boy in "parenthood" ("MY RETAINER!").

so where's the good luck? some year of the pig. it's all gone downhill and pear-shaped so far.

cah ... i want some ice cream.

CRAP

Just now realized that the sign language class I'd registered for was ADVANCED sign language (the syllabus had information about interpreting myths on video -- what the?). There was a pre-requisite of CDS 169. Yeah. I haven't taken that class -- Why the hell didn't the system stop me?!?!?!? So I had to scramble to find something to fill the spot: 20c Lit ... we're reading The Bell Jar and Malamud ... and Hiroshima ... dear God. I'm going to need some Prozac.

I don't hate kids, I just don't respect them. It's not the same thing.

Okay, so I was totally irritated on Saturday. It can all be brought down to one obnoxious kid in Old Navy, but that's all it takes when you have low blood sugar. I came home, had some left over #20 Special from Vietnam, bitched about it in the blog, sang along with "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" and everything was suddenly all better.
And, yes, I was behind that one obnoxious kid in Old Navy. He shouted "MINE" at his mother throughout the store-- in the dressing room (where it was actually "NO" and "I WANT it!"), in the aisles, in the line to check out ... and his mother's response was always an inefficient "shh shh shh -- hey, [fill in sister's name] these are on sale." So, when I was waiting behind them in line to check out I gave him a look that showed how he was becoming the camel that broke the straw's back. He quickly shut up, but the bitter aftertaste clearly remained until I got home. Feckin' hell, why do I have to shut up other people's children?

Today is the first day of school. I did nothing of worth during Spring Break (except buy 4 tank tops at Old Navy -- they actually had the nice colors in size Medium for the first -- and probably last -- time ever) and now I'm going back into the books for another 10 weeks. Bene. Allora.