It’s Been Awhile…

That was a great song by Staind.   I saw Aaron Lewis do a one-man acoustic show at the Hard Rock a few years ago.  He’s a really talented guy.  Anyway, I digress…

It’s been awhile since I’ve written.  I have been in absolute HELL with no sign of it letting up at all.  When I discuss being in hell, it usually means I am dealing with something to do with my piece of shit condo.  Yes, it’s a piece of shit and I hate that place.  I decided to go ahead and take the hit to my credit and do a short sale on it.  I am NEVER renting it out again.  I am NEVER dealing with an HOA again.

My tenant moved out on April 30 as a mutual agreement between the two of us.  I told her I was selling and she said she couldn’t live comfortably in such a racist complex.  (Really the whole complex isn’t racist, just the fat-ass condo commando who is president of the condo/HOA association and also lives right below me. )  Obviously she is African-American, and she also has four young children – the oldest three are boys.  Generally, I had no problem with them when they were living there.  Now I do.

It wasn’t due to the fact that the place is filthy and every door in the place had to be thrown out because it was damaged.  Nor was it because strange things were gone – like the handles on the plumbing fixtures such as the kitchen sink, bathroom shower handle, toilet handles, etc.  It wasn’t even because of the permanent mildew around the tub in BOTH bathrooms.  It’s because of the ROACHES.

I’ve had pest control out every weekend to deal with the MASSIVE German roach infestation.  Those fuckers are EVERYWHERE.  Even the exterminator was skeeved out when he came.  Those things are under the rugs, in the walls, in the stove, in the dishwasher, in the cabinets and in the REFRIGERATOR!!!  How do the roaches get in the refrigerator???  It’s so disgusting.

As if the hell of dealing with the roaches wasn’t enough, my *brand new* A/C that I purchased in September 2007 stopped working.  When I had the a/c company out to look at and repair it, it was discovered that the A/C I purchased is no longer attached to my condo.  It is now located at the far north end of my building attached to someone else’s unit.  It is a 2.5 ton condenser that is on the roof of my two-story condominium building.  How does this happen?

Well, here’s my guess:  at the beginning of 2008 the HOA decided to put new roofs on the buildings.  I THINK that the roofers contracted an A/C company to move the units, and that company did not mark the units and just randomly reattached them to the condos.  Seems the most likely scenario, right?  Of course not, according to the HOA.  I notified them of what happened, and chased after them for 10 days to find out the status of their investigation.  They did very little to find out what happened, but came back and told me there was no way the roofers would move the A/C units located on the roof to re-roof the building.  Nor would they contract anyone to do this.  WTF??

So, I asked the girl at the property management’s office if the A/C fairy just up and moved the unit by itself.  You have to hire a giant crane to move these units…how else would a 1000lb piece of equipment get moved over 100 feet?  She told me this was no laughing matter (duh) and to file a police report.  I wanted to reach through the phone and bitch slap and then choke her, but I hung up on her instead.

I did file a police report so we will see what happens.  In the mean time, I have absolutely NO air conditioning in the condo here in South Florida…in June.  The unit that IS attached to my condo is completely shot – there are even parts missing in it.   So I literally can’t sell the condo until I get this crap sorted out.  I hope they totally get the CSI unit out and finger print the thing and I hope they find it was the roofers or someone at the condo association.   I wish I could make this stuff up, but no, this is my life.

 

This and That

Ma and Pa just left from their week-long visit, along with my nephew, so I figured I’d take a few moments to jot some thoughts down. I start school again this week, so writing helps stimulate my brain a little to get back into the swing of things. Life hasn’t been too particularly exciting recently – the usual grind of work and school, work and school. We painted the house. It’s exciting to see a new color on three of the four walls. The fourth wall isn’t painted yet because the pressure washer broke – the brand new pressure washer broke @#!$.

I like it when my dad comes down because he needs to be kept busy. I have plenty of things that keep him busy too. This week he helped my hubby build a shed – a really nice Rubbermaid Big Max shed so we can FINALLY clean out the garage. He also chiseled his way through the limestone underground in our back yard and hung a bench swing. We had to dig the posts and pour the cement around them so they are hurricane proof, then hang the swing from a cross beam. He also helped hubby determine that our *very* expensive ceiling fan in our living room is indeed broken. Yippeee!!

Oh – some very exciting news. I got an email from City Assure – the warranty service for my fried laptop that was bought at Circuit City. I had last tried to contact them on February 6 and finally got an email from them on April 1. They are sending me something so that I can get my old laptop either repaired or replaced. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it. I feel like sometimes I collect laptops. Maybe I’ll give it to Ma & Pa or the hubster.

I took my nephew deep sea fishing yesterday. We both hurked all over the side of the boat. The seas were really rough, and of course we came home with no fish for dinner. I caught two large sucker fish (Remoras) but you can’t eat those. I can honestly say however that I will not be going deep sea fishing again during the winter months. Last time I went sail fishing and hurked over the side too. But at least we caught a fish that time.

 

Big and Shiny

I just went outside to shut off the sprinklers and there is an almost full moon. I don’t know if it’s waxing or waning, but it’s so bright I could read a book on my patio. I love a good moon…

 

Cats Don’t Like Roofers

We are getting a new roof today.  I would say that the flushing sound you hear after that statement is our money going down the toilet, but I guess its not REALLY going down the toilet since a roof is one of those necessary things.  However, insurance isn’t paying for it and we’ve been saving our $20’s (not pennies for this giant expense) for a long time so we could pay for it.  Here in South Florida, a roof aint cheap.  I think its because we have to buy a certain wind rated type of shingle for hurricanes that can withstand being blistered in the sun 350 days a year.  My parents put a shingle roof on their house in SC for 1/4 of the price of what we’re paying.  Anyway, my point is that it sucks writing a check for that much money to buy something that you can’t do anything fun with.   It’s kind of like flushing money down the toilet.

The roofers are up there banging away, and my normally outgoing and vocal cat, Kirby, is no where to be seen.  We’ll see a flash of orange every now and then — like when they started cutting the roof for the ridge vent zooooooooooooooooooooom — but that’s it.  I decided to do a little investigation and this what I found:

There they are…Fraidy Cat #1 and #2.

 

Coach Snobbery

It’s no secret that I am a total Coach whore.  And if you don’t know what Coach is, and you are a woman, then SHAME ON YOU!!  I am fortunate enough to have an outlet store near my house, so at least I don’t spend as much as I could spend when I have my little binges.

I’ve been looking for a Coach iPhone case for my phone.  Would you believe that they haven’t made them yet?  I went in to a real Coach store in the mall (opposed to the outlet store) recently and inquired about a case.  The lady told me that if she had a dollar for every person who’d asked her about it, then she would be a rich women.  I turned around and told her that she needed to get on the horn with Corporate and tell them to start making them.  And then, in the snobbiest tone I could muster up, I said:  “Juicy has them.”  All this while I’m standing there in raggedy blue jeans, a t-shirt, and flip flops.  Some nerve!

The hubby gave me a Coach gift card for Christmas this year, and I found something online that equally excites me:

If you know me, you know how much I LOVE piggies!  I collect anything piggy, so this will hold me over until they finally start making iPhone cases.

Weeeeeeeeeeeee weeeeeeeeeee weeeeeeeeeeeee!!

 

My Cat Will Do Anything For a Treat…

Isn’t he cute?  Target is now selling cat outfits.  I couldn’t resist:

 

 

Dating for Zombies

This is fantastic:  ZombieHarmony.

Now I know that when I die and become a Zombie, there’s somewhere I can go to meet other Zombies.  “Because the apocalypse doesn’t have to be lonely.”

 

My Husband Has Tourettes

Not really, but if you spent a day in my house while he’s playing a video game or trying to do some sort of home improvement, you would begin to think he did have it.  He is so funny, too.  He is the most mild mannered man 97% of the time.  However, when something isn’t going his way the internal mercury inside of him rises and he pops.   I hide in another room somewhere and usually laugh my ass off when he’s screaming and cursing over something really ridiculous.

I think my first experience with his “tourettes” was when we first started dating and the condenser for his air conditioner broke about a week after he had just replaced the coil in the air handler.  The a/c wouldn’t run, and after checking the thermostat we went outside to look at the unit.  He started screaming and cursing at the thing and then he KICKED it.  I was in tears laughing…I couldn’t believe my eyes.  It wasn’t like he was kicking it to see if it would start working again.  He full on kicked it like he was trying to punt it through the uprights to get a field goal.

The next time I saw an outburst was shortly after Wilma, and we had to put our generator together so we could get our FEMA rebate.  My poor hubby, he just wasn’t good at putting stuff together back then.  (He is getting better but still needs to learn how to read that little piece of paper called “Assembly Instructions” when he puts stuff together.)  So I’m in the living room which backs up to the garage, and after hearing various outbursts I finally hear about a 30 second long tourettes fit followed by a clank clankity clank and a KA-BOOM.  This time he had thrown the wrench down and punted the empty generator box across the garage.  It was like the dad in “A Christmas Story” when he was trying to fix the furnace and Ralphie was sitting there with his eyes all wide next to the vent.  I laughed so hard…in the house of course where I couldn’t get kicked if he saw me.

Another good story that is by far the best to me, is when we went up to see SC vs. Florida up in Gainesville.  This was his first ever college football game, so I (being an experienced college football gamer) wanted to make sure he got the full experience including tailgating.  We had our little smokey joe grill and made burgers and had a few beers.  When it was time to head into the game, Carlos wanted to clean up the grill which included cooling off the coals and emptying out the grill into the trash.  He’s such a good little citizen, right?  That plan backfired, of course.  He filled the grill up with some of the bottled water and ice that we had, which turned the coals into a soupy mess.  When he tried to empty it all into the garbage, it spilled all down his shorts.  He was so pissed and I will never forget him picking up that little smokey joe grill and kicking it a good 30 feet into the woods.  Subsequently, he should have been on the field as the kicker during the game.  My beloved Gamecocks kept getting their field goals and PATs blocked by that damn 7ft tall Florida player.  I bet he wouldn’t have been able to block Carlos’s kicks though.

And as I sit here typing I’m laughing my ass off.  He just looked at me and asked if I was writing something about him.  He knows…there are so many other times he’s had his fits.  Today he hung drywall in the guest bedroom, and as usual it was quite a treat.

 

The Week in Review

I don’t usually post about what I’ve been up to, but I feel the need to update my blog and I don’t have any creative ramblings at the moment.

Last weekend Dina & I went up to Ohio to visit with Melanie and her family.  We had a great time up there in spite of the really cold weather.  However, it was nice to see snow and we went snow tubing!!  That was such a blast.  Carlos hates to ski or even go to a ski resort, so I’m hoping now with the alternative of snow tubing we’ll be able to take some winter vacations.    I know that he would absolutely love it.  Whenever we go on rides at amusement parks all I hear is him beside me laughing like a little boy.  I know he’d be doing the same thing zooming down the hill on a tube at 40 mph.  Anyway, it was so good to see Mel and meet little Lulu.  I am glad that we were up there for 20 degree weather rather than 0 degree weather like this weekend, though.

On Tuesday mom had her knee replacement surgery.  I feel bad for her…that is a really traumatic surgery for someone’s body.  She has had a great attitude throughout the recovery process, and I feel like she should be on her feet again like normal very soon.  The hospital let her go home a day early so that is a positive sign.

I’m still sticking with my New Year’s resolution and using it as a motto for daily living and minding my own business.  I feel like people try to interject their issues into my life and I just don’t want anything to do with it.  I have a life of my own and with my husband.  He is my best friend, and I would much rather spend my time with him than anyone else.   When I am not busy with work or school, then he is my focus.

So anyway, maybe a little venting is included in this post

TTFN

 

Farewell 2008…Helloooo 2009!!

No one I’ve talked to seems terribly upset with the passing of 2008, especially me.  I have had some really bad years in the past – usually “medically” related.  I ended up in the hospital four times in 1998 along with catching the chicken pox of all things.  In 2004 I bought a money pit condo, which I still own and am nearly ready to light a match to once I get renter’s insurance, AND I ended up in the hospital.  That was a fantastic trip – went in for possible appendicitis and they forgot to put an IV in me on the surgery ward.  I was no food or drink  (nothing by mouth) since they were going to do an endoscopy on me the following morning.  They woke me up at 4AM to give them a urine sample, 28 hours without food or water, and I passed out while trying to flush the toilet and hit my head on the toilet.  Spilled pee everywhere and had a giant gash on my forehead that required plastic surgery and 30+ stitches.  Idiots.

And then there is 2008.  What a year.  I don’t know if its because I’m getting older, but January started with terrible terrible migraines.  Weekly…then daily.  I started seeing a neurologist but nothing would relieve the pain – no Imitrex, Relpax, Maxalt, and now Treximet.  Then the cat got cancer.  I have never been one who deals with death well, but I went into some sort of denial with the cat.  I obsessed over trying to cure him with natural remedies, which in the long run has increased my knowledge of cancers and what causes them to a great degree, but it wore me out.  And the migraines got worse.  Then I caught on fire.  Yes, I am married to a firefighter and I caught on fire.  Because I was up all night with a migraine and too tired to pay attention to what I was doing when I was trying to relight the coals on the BBQ smoker, and got lighter fluid all over my hand, and it lit up like a piece of nylon when the smoker exploded.  Ooooooooh the pain…like nothing I can describe and none of you women who birthed a baby can compare it to.  The one shining light of that experience though is Darvocet & Percocet.  They get rid of my migraines!!  Then, that damn condo HOA sicked their lawyers on me to try and kick out my tenant because she is black.  Months and months of lawyers and letters and stress and more migraines and the cat who was sick and dying and more stress and failing classes in school and work stress…just too much for one person to handle.  I will forever look back on 2008 as the year I’d like to forget.  To the people who say they had a bad 2008 and they want it to be over, I ask:  Did YOU catch on fire?  No?  Then I don’t want to hear it.

I don’t really make “resolutions” for new years, per se, I just set goals or make promises to myself.  Last year’s goal, or promise, was to quit chasing after “friends” who don’t make the effort to be my friend.  Take a hint, Pam – they’re not really your friend.  Relationships I thought I’d be sad to lose were really no skin off my back.  Some people are just caught up in their own little world, which means I can get caught up in mine, right?  That is one of my goals for 2009 now:  to focus on my own issues and problems before I get caught up with and try to solve other peoples issues and problems.  I found a quote in a magazine that sums it up perfectly:  “I refuse to let the dysfunctional people in my life cause my life to be dysfunctional.  I will help as I can, but I will no longer allow their issues to control how I live.”  Amen to that.

The only other real goal I have for 2009 is to FINALLY finish grad school.   I was supposed to graduate in December 2008, but as you can see from above I had a few set backs.  I have 3 classes left so I should be done in August.   Then I have to figure out how I’m going to pay back my $90,000 in student loans.  That will be my goal for 2010.