The weekend did not quite go as planned, mostly because I need to remember to always deposit my check through the ATM and not in the bank or Wells Fargo will hold my money hostage. The line at the ATM was eight cars long, but making my deposit Friday after 4 meant that as of now, late Sunday evening, my deposit still has not posted. This meant that I didn't have enough cash on hand to pay someone to move my bed and sofa. I have someone lined up for tomorrow, however; I'm picking the spawn up directly from school and he's going to help me move the rest of my items out of my storage unit as well. This means that tomorrow I will be officially residing in St. Paul, and am I ever thrilled.
Have I told you about my new place? I can't wait to unpack and sort and organize and rearrange. I have the lower level of the house, which consists of one very large finished room that includes a built in desk area, wet bar, and fireplace. There's an unfinished room to one side that's used for storage, though there's not much in there, and I am thinking that I'm going to get a couple of big rugs and eventually move my bed in there just to have a more private sleeping area. There's another room on the other side that houses the kitchenette and laundry and has a little alcove that's just the right size for a futon or twin bed, to give the spawn his own more private sleeping area. There's only a shower in the bathroom, which is fine by me, as I haven't been anywhere with a decent tub in years anyway. There is also vast amounts of built in shelving for the ridiculous amounts of books and dvds that I own. I'm within blocks of Buca and less than a mile from the Ford Parkway/Cleveland Avenue retail area that has a Lunds, Barnes and Noble, Half Price Books, Chatterbox Pub, and many other establishments, as well as less than a mile from both an Anytime and Lifetime Fitness. My fat ass is so going to be joining a gym.
My now former roommate's daughter is a rather... let us say, challenging child. My friend tries very hard to be a good parent but often has trouble with reinforcing rules with consequences. Her daughter got a pair of mice for her birthday, which she is utterly besotted with. She likes to take them out of their cages and play with them, building elaborate "houses" and mazes for them, but is easily distracted and leaves them unattended, forgetting that they can easily escape. She lost a mouse once this way, but we were able to catch it. The next week, she let it escape yet again, and this time we haven't been able to get it. My friend got another mouse, not for her daughter's sake, but because mice are very social and don't do well alone. She told her daughter that if she left them unattended again, she would take them away. Last Thursday, I got up and while eating breakfast, heard a rustling noise. Upon investigating, I found a mouse - in the open bag of Doritos on the coffee table. Thinking this was the escapee, I caught it, but when I went to put it back in the cage, realized that there were no mice in said cage. As soon as I came back in the living room, I spotted the other one running around the coffee table and put that one back in the cage, too.
Well, she still has her mice, because, so much for follow through on that, eh? In the meantime, a few days ago, I turned on the oven to make a cake and shortly after the entire house was enveloped in a horrible, putrid odor, like the inside of an outhouse. I was afraid that the escapee mouse had found its way under the stove and died and what we were smelling was its now roasting corpse. Friday morning, I hear yet again a scratching sound, seeming to come from under the stove. I opened the drawer under the stove, thinking the mouse was in there, but it was empty. Still hearing the noise, I opened the oven door to see if I could pin point where the noise was coming from - to discover a little brown mouse running around inside the oven. Ew. Despite my attempts, it managed to escape down a vent. I called my roommate and told her that it was probably imperative that she buy one of the humane mouse traps and we catch this little sucker as soon as possible, and that in the meantime, I was going to clean the oven. The oven that I will never, ever be able to actually bake in again.
When I went to get the keys to the new place on Friday, I had the spawn haul some things in for me and then we went to dinner at India House, where I am known and loved. Normally I am not a fan of paneer, but we had an appetizer platter that included fried paneer that I actually liked, so maybe I'm okay with it in that form. Their portions are very generous, so we both weren't able to even finish half of our entrees. The beauty of leftover Indian and Thai food is that it actually tastes better when it's reheated later and the flavors have had some time to meld. My friend needed the yard raked and leaves bagged, so on Saturday I dropped some more things off at the new place and picked up the spawn. Once we got back, my hardworking boy spent the next four hours filling twenty-three lawn bags. Good kid, that one. Today, he impressed the hell out of me by actually managing to wrangle my extremely heavy 32 inch television into the car and down the stairs into the new place. I think I may need to give him a raise.
Brown Sugar is terribly busy preparing for a competitive event next weekend. I asked him if I could come and watch, but was told I could only watch part of it, as he didn't want me to see him "get his ass kicked." Adorable, that one. I'm taking part of next weekend to hang out with the lovely Erica and get mehndi done at the Somali mall where the Luscious Lexi had hers done for her birthday. It's been ages since I've had it done, but $10 can't be beat. Bring on the girl pampering!
