2005-07-29
Moving, Uncle Dad, HBP and a surprise
Today James and I looked at new places to live. Originally, our lease was supposed to be up this past February, but then the date magically changed to September, though we both remember signing on for February. At any rate, the time has come to be looking for a new place, and I must say, it's been most discouraging. For starters, we can't live in most of the places we could afford in Atlanta b/c 99% of apartments don't allow dogs, especially large ones (we have a German shepherd). This narrows things down to privately owned places. We can only afford $700/month, and that's pushing it a little, but we need enough room for the both of us and Liger. It's exhausting. After living here for a year and making it homey, we really like our apartment. The problems? We don't have a w/d connection and it's ridiculously expensive doing laundry at a laundromat (not to mention inconvenient). Also, it'd be nice to have a backyard for Liger. That way it wouldn't be SUCH a hassle to walk him, and we wouldn't have to deal with our neighbors who are terrified of dogs (even though Liger is really well behaved). Also, these walls are paper thin and everyone hears every little sound. The walls are even thin enough that if a neighbor is cooking something, depending on what it is, the smell is quite prominent in our apartment. Kinda gross. Today we went down to the leasing office this morning to check to see if they had any apartments with w/d connections (last month we went down to see if we could look at other apartment options in our complex, and they told us to come back this month) available . . . definitely not. Not only do they not have anything opening in our price range (uh, the lowest rent coming available is $850 . . . ), but because we wanted to wait until we had somewhere to move into to fill out our leave notice, we're now going to have to pay another month's rent, even though we won't be here then. Great . . .
This week just hasn't really panned out for the best, period. I mean, until today, my attitude has been great, but it's been a pretty crappy week. Monday night, my parents' best friend since before they were married, whom I've considered a second dad to me (we'll call him Uncle Dad), called me up, drunk.
A month or so ago he called me, drunk, and told me that he'd always thought of me as made for him, by God. Before I was born, he was extremely depressed (Vietnam vet with several resulting issues) and an alcoholic at the time. Then I was born, and we were inseperable, and were always really close. When I couldn't talk to my parents about things, I always knew I could talk to my Uncle Dad. When I was sixteen and had a boyfriend who raped me when I didn't want to have sex because I was afraid it would mess up my relationship with God (it did), and I was afraid I was pregnant (I wasn't ever pregnant, but had several close encounters that mysteriously disappeared after taking herbal tea that made your period regular; mine was always regular except after Jason and I had sex w/out any protection), I knew that if I needed to, I could talk to my Uncle Dad. When I moved out with James, and I was afraid my own father would disown me for living in sin, I knew that when I got married, my Uncle Dad could always give me away. So when Uncle Dad told me he loved me like that, understandably, I was upset. I avoided contact with him for about a month, and couldn't even talk about it, not even with James, whom I can always talk to about anything. I would like to forget that conversation ever happened and talk to Uncle Dad like it never happened . . . but I can't seem to do so. I'm afraid it's always going to be really weird between us, and I wish it wasn't like that. At any rate (I've rewritten this about three times now), shortly after that conversation, Uncle Dad got his jaw broken by a guy he and his wife were letting live with them. There are different accounts of the story, so I'm not even going to try to go into it at all, but the point is that his wife, Aunt Mom, sides with the man who broke Uncle Dad's jaw. When Uncle Dad called Monday night, that's all he talked about. After listening to him go on and on about it, I told him that perhaps they should just agree to disagree and decide not to bring the subject up, if they planned on going forward with their relationship. He wasn't hearing that though, because it's such a big deal that Aunt Mom doesn't (and reportedly, never) sides with him; for Uncle Dad, it's a loyalty issue. After talking to him about it for what felt like hours (but was only about one hour), I gave up and told him that maybe they needed a break from each other, some time to see if they missed each other or just got angrier at each other. I said that in my opinion, if they couldn't let that issue go, there was no point in making each other miserable, and that they really didn't have any business staying together. I love them both, but if they really can't get over that issue and go on with their lives and relationship, I don't see what good it's going to do. I was frustrated about the whole thing, and called my mom (who was in the Mobile area - where Uncle Dad and Aunt Mom live - visiting family) to talk about it, of course leaving out the part where Uncle Dad loves me like that. Talking to her made me feel a little better about it, and I tried not to think much more about the subject.
Tuesday Dad called me at work to tell me that the car that my grandfather had bought from me from my uncle Jimmy was no good. Not only does the lack of transferred titles make it look stolen, but there's a lot of other sketchy things going on with it; for instance, the speedometer doesn't work, the trunk lock is broken - you have to stick your finger into the hole and open it that way, and the car is a four door, but you can only open the front doors; the back doors don't even open from the inside! Needless to say, I was quite downhearted about that, but I tried to remain upbeat.
Mom called me as I was getting off work Tuesday afternoon to tell me that she and Dad had called Uncle Dad and Aunt Mom to hang out . . . only to find that Uncle Dad wasn't home, and wouldn't tell them where he was, and would only tell them he was heading west. . . . Apparently after he got off the phone with me Monday night, he took my words quite seriously, and took off. You can imagine how that made me feel, finding out about that. I felt horrible and guilty, even though I'm really not to blame for that. Uncle Dad is a grown ass man, something I have to keep reminding myself. He's older than my parents, so he's certainly old enough to make his own decisions. However, I still felt horrible, hearing that. Mom said that after finding that out, she prayed all day for im, even waking up from her nap to find herself praying. Shortly after she woke up, Uncle Dad called. Instead of saying hello, he said, "Are you guys praying for me?!" Mom laughed and said yes, and asked why he asked. "I knew it! I can't find my credit card or wallet anywhere, and I used both to pay for gas last night! Now I'm going to have to turn around and come home!" Mom explained that they weren't praying against him, but Uncle Dad was still frustrated. I'm not sure what's happened since, except I do know that when he went home, he told Aunt Mom that "everyone I talked to told me I should leave your sorry ass!" I feel horrible about all of this, even though I realize it's not really my fault. I feel especially awful for Aunt Mom, whom I'd like to call to check on, but am afraid to do so, for fear she really thinks that I'm against her, which I'm certainly not.
To add to this week's drama, I was sent home early from work Sunday because it was so slow at the shop. On Tuesday and Thursday nights I'm on call to work from 4-10pm. Tuesday I wasn't called in until 7pm, and Thursday night it was so incredibly slow (due to the stormy weather) that I wasn't called in at all. Tips haven't been great, and when I was paid last week, 4.5 hours were inadvertently left out from my paycheck (that's approx. $37), and I need every cent I can get right now. I will get my money, but manager #1 would prefer to just add it on to my next check . . . ugh. He's lucky I love him (in an admirable, respectful way), otherwise it would really be ugly.
As I've said, James and I have been looking for places to live. Last week we found a really great place in the paper, but every time we were supposed to see the place, something would happen with the woman that was leasing it, or she would want us to come see it when I was scheduled to work. We called her on Wednesday, when I didn't go into work until that afternoon, only to find out that she had already found someone to rent the place. It turns out that we can still get a place in that apartment complex, but before we can see any apartments, we have to fill out an application for the complex, and the application fee itself is $45. I wonder if there's a way to get around this, because I really can't afford to pay $45 just to see an apartment I may or many not like. Add suggestions here.
Today was my off day, and I'm quite proud to say I was very productive. As I mentioned earlier, James and I looked around at new places. And by 'looked around', I mean narrowed the places we found in this week's Creative Loafing classifieds for homes in Cabbagetown (the area we currently live),
Inman Park, and Grant Park. In case you're wondering, all those links are for each neighborhood's real estate listings in this week's Creative Loafing classifieds. Yeah, for a good time (not!), try finding a places for $700 (or up to $750 if utilities are included) with washer/dryer connections that accepts dogs. For extra credit, check out the ones that you can online . . . and eliminate anything that looks anything remotely like this. When you've narrowed your list down, call the numbers listed on the ads, and try actually getting in touch with the people. Good luck. That's what I spent last night and this morning doing, and got as many addresses as I could. I was actually even able to make an appointment to see two of the places listed (by the same person) for 7:00 this evening. After the bad news we received downstairs in the leasing office, James and I set out track down the addresses we had, and to see what we thought. It took about six hours of us driving around our area of Atlanta to look at fourteen (ten if you want to count places within the same location) of our nineteen options. Some of the people I called today and left messages for still have not called me back. This irks me a bit. Of the fourteen/ten places we checked out, only eight/four were places we might actually live, and even two of those were sketchy. One of the places, "Twn newly renov. 1&2 bdrms approx. 1900 sq. ft. T'houses 1.5ba hrdwd flrs, ceramic tiles, grt view of downtown $700/m" is right down the street from us . . . and absolutely adorable. It's a completely renovated (no, really) teal townhouse with yellow trim, with upstairs and downstairs, a nice front porch, parking in the back (as opposed to off street), and would be very handy since we have a dog. We really liked that place, but will have to wait to see it until Tuesday, since the owner is currently out of town. That was one of the first places we saw, and everything seemed to go downhill after that. There are two houses for rent that we looked at that look 'unassuming' (my word) on the outside, but I think might be a real treat on the inside. I'm calling tomorrow to set up an appointment to see those. There's a lot of trees around both of those and the yard or whatever around the house isn't well kept, and therefore there are a lot of bugs, but I think that's something we could fix. One of the houses even had a built-in bookcase in the wall (we peeped in through the windows)! That's something I've always wanted (I'm a big, big fan of shelving), so I was quite happy about that. There's another townhouse set that we looked at that's cheap, but it really looks like it's going to fall apart. I mean, you look at the place closely, and you know it's going to be torn down in ten years or so. From what we could tell through the windows, the floors are sloping, and there's a fireplace, but it's been boarded/cemented up. The roof is sagging somewhat, and there's a visible water heater right next to the tub (we saw this through the window across from the tub -- niiiiiice). Neither or us were really crazy about that place, but since we do have to find a place before the end of the month (or stay here for another year and suffer without w/d connections and with smelly walls), we're keeping it open as an option. Driving around, we also saw places we hadn't seen listed with For Rent signs; I jotted down the addresses and numbers and will call them tomorrow.
About halfway into our search today, we stopped at the Midtown location of The Flying Biscuit for breakfast/lunch. We had an extremely forgetful blond waiter, and once again, James somehow found crunchy bits (last time it was broken glass) in his potatoes, but I was drained and just happy to have their chai tea that I didn't care much. When the check came, I was quite surprised to see that the total was only $20.41, since it should have been much more; the waiter didn't add our drinks (James' Coke, my two chais, one with espresso), but I think he was trying to make up for making so many mistakes, so instead of reminding him, I just tipped him largely. It cheered me up, at any rate.
We went to our 7pm appointment, which wasn't so bad. It was a house with separate apartments within walking distance of the shopping center that's recently opened in our neighborhood (which, as anti-shopping centers I am, I have fallen in love with). The shopping center is quite large, very pretty, and has Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, Target, a very posh Kroger, and some other things in it. The first apartment we looked at (the bottom one) was an immediate no; though it was a relatively the windows had bars over them, the ceilings were extremely low, and you could tell that if it rained a whole bunch, it was going to flood into the apartment. The upstairs apartment that we saw was much better, though. Instead of carpeting, it had gorgeous dark wood floors and higher ceilings. You walk in, and there's the living room, then French doors open up to what I'm assuming they refer to as the bedroom area (though I thought it was more of a sitting room/dining room), then another set of doors opens up into the kitchen, and the door to the bathroom. I thought it was really cute, but didn't love the idea of having to go through my bedroom from my living room to get to my kitchen. Also, there wasn't really room for a dining room table, not even for one as small as ours. I'm thinking we probably won't get that apartment, but I'm still glad we went to see it. I'm dead set on seeing all of my choices, that's for sure.
Now onto the other stuff that's been going in my life lately . . .
As you know, I'm a tad obsessed with Mr. Harry Potter and his accomplices. I finally stooped to the super-geek level and even went to the midnight release party for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I updated about this in my livejournal. However, a few hours after I did so, I received an anonymous comment saying that '________ is the Half-Blood Prince' and '__________ kills ___________'. I was enraged by this, but mark my words, as my lj logs the IP addresses of any and everyone who leaves a comment, they will get what's coming to them. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Since I was so afraid of someone else ruining the book for me, I have been on a frantic mission to read HBP as soon as possible. In fact, Misty, if I didn't like you so much and feel so bad about not updating sooner, I would be curled up in my bed, drinking my nonalcoholic version of Butterbeer (it's in the books) - diet cream soda with butterscotch, melted together - and reading the book as quickly as possible to ensure that nobody else can ruin it for me, because I'll already be done reading it! Why has it taken me so long to read it since the book came out two weeks ago, then? Because the day it came out I decided to do the right thing (though not necessarily the wise thing) and reread Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in its entirety, all 870 pages of it, before I opened Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so I would be able to remember everything I read two years ago and link it to this installment of the story. Impressive, no? It took me about a week to read book 5, and now I'm finally reading book 6, though I will say that I'm halfway through it now, and I've been working like a madwoman lately, so that's gotta count for something. As a result, I think mostly in Harry Potter terms. Example: We have customers who will buy a bottled drink, and then will take up a table for four hours, sucking up the wireless internet, buy nothing else, but take up space so that potential customers can't be seated. The other day I actually thought, "Hm, maybe we should put a hex/charm on the chairs that shake people off them after an hour and a half of sitting and not buying anything else." Yep, it's gotten that bad. That's how I think these days. "Man, after today I'm likely to react like a Blast-Ended Skrewt!" It's sad, but true.
Other news . . . for a while now, Elliott (or E., as you may know remember him) has been popping up in my dreams and in conversation and whatnot, but nobody I've talked to has any idea of where he was or anything. I emailed him, but wouldn't receive any sort of responses, not even "I'm not interested in talking to you, leave me alone." The last time we'd talked was online, and I was feeling a bit spiteful at the time, and was nasty and snide to him. I felt horrible about it later, but it didn't change what had happened. He was never on AIM, and I'll admit, I even went so far as to make another screename and use that to see if he was online, but had blocked me (no dice). Then a friend told me about whitepages.com, and how you can search for people there. In a few days, voila! I had his mom's number (it took me so long b/c she was accidentally listed under her middle name, which I remarkably remembered), and then she gave me his cell number. We don't talk often, but it's nice to know that if I want to talk to Elliott, I can. I'm glad we're in good standing again. I was very proud of my sleuthing skills, by the way. The first number I called after days of searching and sure enough, it was the right one! I'm proud. What's interesting is that he's back at school in Tuscaloosa. Wonders will never cease.
On that note, I'm making myself a chai and curling up in bed with my book!
Lurve,
Lauren
aigre-douce at 1:19 a.m.