balconies for dummies

well, here’s a funny one.

i moved (friday!) into a new apartment. mostly so i could keep this dog (she is coming wednesday), but also because i was growing quite weary of bug-infested-shower-closet-garage-apartment-1/2house-dom. anyway, my rent is considerably more, but after spending some time here i am beginning to feel that is a small price to pay for what (now) seems pretty darn fantastic. it’s amazing how gaining a little perspective can completely change how you feel about a situation.

well, this deluxe place has a ton of natural light, good lighting otherwise, a real kitchen, and bathroom which is separate from the closet. you see, the other place had a shower that was kind of in the kitchen and living room (see picture below) and the toilet and sink were in, what in essence was, my closet. weird, i know. (and GROSS too if you think about how many germs toilets…i’ll stop now.) i know i sound crazy for even living there, and maybe i was, but really it wasn’t all bad. i was able to make it look pretty good. it was definitely a decorating-challenge, but i’m in the business of creative problem solving, so really, i can’t complain.

that’s the shower on the left. no doors either!

another really nice about the new place is that i have vaulted ceilings! in half of the other house i could put my palm flat against the ceiling. seriously. anyone over six feet tall would have a horrible time living there. but that’s beside the point.

the new apartment ALSO has two balconies! my outdoor space isn’t limited to a junky carport. (basically, i lived in a quasi-renovated garage.) the balconies are what brings us the funny this evening.

i have an amaryllis plant which i was never able to get to bloom. that usually is caused by the plant not getting enough sunlight, which makes a lot of sense, because it grew up in the poorly lit house. well, i put it outside and kind of tied it the railing on one of my balconies so it could heal and soak up energy for re-planting next year. during the day it was reallllly windy (of course) so the leaves kind of blew out and around, and i went outside to fix them.

there is a bar on the glass doors that lead to the balcony that serves as kind of a double security lock. if a person was able to scale the wall and get onto my balcony, hopefully the bar would keep them out of my apartment. (although i am pretty sure if they had the means to scale the wall to the balcony that they’d be able to beat the door.) i guess it’s there to keep spiderman out. or me, in this case.

i slid the door closed behind me most of the way to keep moths from coming inside (i hate moths so much) and when i did that silly security bar fell down, barring me from entering! it’s kind of hard to explain without you being able to see it, but let me just tell you i could only open the door about two inches and that bar wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how i tried forcing it. believe me.

also, i forgot to mention: my cell phone was inside, my keys were inside, and all i know of my neighbors so far is that the people below me have been blasting tejano rap that makes my floor rumble pretty much any time they are home. i could tell they weren’t in tonight, anyway. no lights, no music. all i had with me on the porch were my clothes, the aforementioned amaryllis, dirt and flower pot, some string, some skewers in the flower pot (they were supporting the leaves) and four rugs, hanging to dry.

i figured if i could move the bar just a little bit i could manage to get the door open. i used the rubberband in my hair to tether the two skewers together, stuck my arm in the 2″ space in the door frame, but the skewers were too flimsy to do anything. if my arm was any thicker, i wouldn’t have been able to do that much. i tried rolling up one of the rugs, but that was too thick to go in the door. what to do!?

i thought about jumping. ha! the porch below has a rail/wall thing that goes up pretty high, so i figured i could hang from mine and almost touch that with my feet. i didn’t have any shoes on, so i really was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. i honestly don’t even know if i could have gone through with it if i was forced to do so. i hate heights. also, it was dark, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. good because no one would see me being an idiot, bad because i couldn’t see where i was going, and if i died they wouldn’t find me until morning.

i thought about breaking the glass too. but with what? and who wants to pay for that?

so, i decided to wait it out until some people were outside. (the most humiliating and practical of the options.) thankfully i didn’t have to wait too long. some people in the building across from me pulled in and had a big load of stuff. i didn’t even try to get their attention at first. then i realized that was nuts. who cares if the husband is carrying dog food? I AM STUCK ON THE BALCONY! (by the way, if i had ended up having to sleep out there, i would have had my freshly-laundered rugs to sleep on/use for covering. i am pretty sure i would have done that before jumping.)

thankfully the guy had another bag of dog food in the car! so, when he came out the second time, i yelled to him for help.

i am pretty sure he thought i was an idiot. i mean, who wouldn’t? also, that’s what i would think of someone in that situation. i explained what was going on asked him to try opening my front door. i think he knew i was serious then. who invites a total stranger to go into their apartment? of course, it was locked, to keep the strangers out. (i live by myself!) i told him i could try to use a stick. (i guess i also could have asked for a cell phone to call 911! ha! can you imagine that!?) i couldn’t hear anything he said and wasn’t sure he heard me because he took the second bag of dog food up back up to his place. thankfully, he came back out – and with a dowel! it took some doing, but i was able to knock the silly bar out of the way. all he said was, “good thing it’s spring time. otherwise you’d have froze to death.”

the funny thing is, i have plenty of stuff on my back balcony. that would have come in very handy in that situation oh well. all’s well that ends well, right?

lessons learned:
1. always leave the door open wide enough to get back in when going onto the balcony
2. always bring the cell phone outside
3. awkward situations are probably not the easiest/best way to get to know your neighbors
4. i need to get a roommate, get married or learn to channel macgyver

this makes me really sad.

polaroids are probably going away.

CATS!

Last night I was given the opportunity to experience a “Memory to last 9 Lifetimes” – that is, a free ticket to see CATS, the musical.

For the most part I really enjoy musicals. The Sound of Music, Peter Pan (a la Mary Martin), and Mary Poppins (is that considered a musical?) were staples of my childhood. (and admittedly, I still love them.) I like West Side Story, the Wizard of Oz, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (ok, that one is cheesy.)

I haven’t seen many musicals – well, professional musicals – live. Growing up in Amarillo, attending TEXAS! (the musical) was probably my most legit experience. I only saw it twice, but it’s kind of a big deal in town. If TEXAS didn’t exist, there would never be interesting images for the phone book cover. It’s impressive. It’s outdoors, in a really big canyon, and it includes fireworks and horses.

The only musical I’ve always despised is CATS. There are a lot of things I have never understood about it. (I guess there’s something to be said about hating things because you don’t understand them.) Are they cats or people? Is CATS actually an acronym? (it’s always capitalized.) How could cats possibly be that interesting? I have a pretty big imagination. CATS has always seemed like a far stretch.

To begin with, I suppose it should be noted that I’m not particularly a “cat” person, and I think that makes a difference. I think the experience a “cat” person would have during CATS has the potential to be a lot more significant than a person like myself. I don’t hate cats, I’ve just never had a good experience while owning one. When I was very small my parents had a cat named Zach. We have a recording of me telling the story of how Zach jumped into the Christmas tree. (I don’t remember this.) I think Zach was evicted when he peed in the house. (I don’t remember that either.)

When I was a little older, we found a cat at the church where my Dad worked. I coaxed my parents into letting me keep him, and named him Gabriel. (It’s only fitting to give a bible name to a cat you found at church.) Unfortunately, Gabriel was less than holy. He liked to attack my brother, who was pretty young at the time. I started to develop a hatred for him after my mom started to play jokes on me by packing bags of Tender Vittles in my lunch box. Gabriel eventually went to live with someone else – without children.

In middle school I befriended Sassy, one of the neighborhood cats. I lobbied for her to get come into the house, and when she moved in, she liked to sleep on my head. Then, she started freaking out, running around the house and…she also peed in the house, which, of course, meant she had to move back outside. She disappeared a few months later.

None of my friends had very nice cats either. My best friend, Megan, hated her sister’s cat so much that she put her in the freezer from time to time. Apparently Megan and Dwight Schrute are kindred spirits.

Then there’s the musical. I hadn’t even seen/heard all of it until last night, but the song “Memory” has been in my memory for quite some time. CATS came to Amarillo sometime in the early 90s. (I’m guessing 1991.) They showed a clip of one of the cats singing “Memory.” You’ve probably seen it. Something about that commercial stuck with me. I was like, SIX YEARS OLD, and I have never been able to forget it. Then, my Mom started playing “Memory” on the piano on a regular basis. Then, “Memory” became the “it” song for talent show auditions. I can’t think of a year that went by in choir where someone didn’t sing it for some type of audition. Look it up on youtube. You’ll get the idea. I HATE that song, and, since it’s like the main focus of CATS, I obviously decided to hate the musical.

Well, the truth is, it wasn’t that bad. I got to go with one of my good friends, who understands that I like to make fun of things. I think we had the complete sensory experience, because the couple sitting behind us smelled (strongly) of litter box. At first I thought it was civic center must, but when they came back after intermission, the smell was worse. I think they had their cats in their car or that she had one in her purse.

Our seats were kind of awful (they were free, after all), but after the first two minutes I was incredibly thankful we were sitting in the balcony. The cats came out into the audience! That kind of thing makes me so uncomfortable. What are you supposed to do in those situations? Pretend like they aren’t there? And the costumes! I think the CATS commercial made such an impression me because these cats are basically in clown costumes, minus red noses, plus tails. SCARY.

From what I can tell, CATS really has no plot. At least the musicals I like have obvious story lines. That makes up for the cheesy, right? The Sound of Music has Nazis! West Side Story has gangs! Apparently, CATS is based upon a collection of poems by T.S. Eliot. I don’t remember much about his writing, but he obviously must have been cat-obsessed. Throughout the whole performance I was trying to figure out if any other single type of animal has the reputation that cats do. Can you imagine a musical about cows?

There was one cat, the “Rum Tum Tugger” who definitely took acting/dancing/singing lessons from David Bowie. It was repulsive. Aside from that awkwardness, there were some really impressive acrobatics (acrocatics?) and the singing, was really fantastic.

Most of the time, I couldn’t really figure out what was going on. I don’t know if this group of cats – the “Jellicle” cats – are in between lives (they have nine, you know), if they were trapped in some sewer, or if they just have this annual cat meeting – the Jellicle Ball – where they celebrate their heritage. I was dreading hearing “Memory” the whole time, but was also (unsuccessfully) trying really hard to figure out where or how the song fits in!

The character that sings “Memory” is, from what I understand, a social outcast (outcat?), who somehow wins over the rest of the Jellicle cats (I still don’t even know what Jellicle means!) and gets to go somewhere at the end. Thankfully, she was a fabulous singer. She made that song – that wretched song- sound really great. You could say, for me, it was a CAThartic experience. I guess that’s why she gets to be transported.

Obviously, I didn’t really get it. But, I guess it all comes from not being cat person.

ha!

what’s my least favorite musical EVER?

CATS.

which “Broadway in Abilene” performance did i score 4 tickets to?

CATS.

there will probably be more about this later.

ah, bats

˙ʎɹǝןןɐƃ sɹıɐʇsdn ǝɥʇ uı ƃuıןıǝɔ ǝɥʇ uo ʇno ƃuıƃuɐɥ ʇɐq ɐ pǝɹǝʌoɔsıp ǝʍ

‘ʎɐpoʇ ʞɹoʍ ʇɐ ʇsןıɥʍ

since everyone had left for the day except for sarah, one of the interns, and myself, we were forced to take matters into our own hands.  sarah called one of her animal loving friends, who warned us that all bats fly at sunset. with sunset fast approaching, we didn’t really want to find out if that is actually true. thankfully, we are both avid fans of the office, and knew exactly what to do (or what not to do) in this type of situation.

what we really did was catch the thing in a box. actually, sarah did all the hard work because (we all know) that i would freak out and mess something up mid-capture, provoking the poor creature to cause all kinds of chaos, and causing me to act much like angela. it really was exciting. the little guy (or girl) started making bat noises. i have heard bats before, but never at such a close range. i bet that in enchanted forests, bats get to be responsible for alerting the forest friends of smoke and carbon monoxide detection. they are also responsible for sharing rabies.

apparently, we aren’t the only people who have dealt with this problem before:

 

keeping bats so fresh

bats on the ceiling really suck.

holy bat-trap!

we managed to keep it in the box and make our way outside to the alley (which, of course, is the main bat place.) he/she clung to the side of the box for a few good minutes, and then flew away! at sunset!

i might be what the swedish armed forces needs!

i’ve always been better at things that don’t really matter than at things that do.

this website has a six tests (i think…four categories, two have sub-categories) that supposedly evaluate if you have what it takes to become an officer in the swedish armed forces.

i’m not even going to blame my lower marks on the fact that i am using a touch pad instead of a mouse, or the fact that all i could think about when the test administrator was talking was rolfe from the sound of music…

the test says you need headphones, but your speakers will probably do. so, have fun! (oh, and i skipped the little real-life scenarios in between tests…)
TAKE THE TESTS!

what i’m thinking about:

new puppy! gotta name her soon, but i can’t keep her until i move next month.

+++++++++++++++

genuine buffalo nickels! dixie! little people living inside jukeboxes!

(of course, all i can think about when i hear “yankee doodle dandy” is full house. unfortunately i can’t find that one, but i did find this one. and this is one of the weirdest things i’ve ever seen.)

++++++++++++++++

those turned out to be really cute.

++++++++++++++++

and another milligan project.

my brother.

ice cold.

this is what i’ve always dreamed of

i read about the lippi selk bag today in the newspaper. i usually feel like the gadget guy’s column is kind of lame, but i think this invention is something to celebrate.

of course there’s already something funny about yellow suits:

can’t ever get enough of that!

i really love their marketing: “it’s FUN, COMFORTABLE and MOBILE!” and “whether you are trekking in the mountains, cosying on the sofa or simply desire to be the coolest cat at a music festival” the selk bag is for you.

the only think i’d be nervous about is getting all the zippers stuck. i already have a problem with regular sleeping bags. oh well. i wouldn’t care, because i’d be in good company with this guy:

kind of reminds me of bananas in pajamas.

new postcard

for MilCo.