The Fire

So, I had some adventure this weekend. Specifically, I had a small fire in a wall mounted space heater that required me using my fire extinguisher and calling the fire department. No major damage beyond the space heater, but it still smells smokey in here. (BTW, any tips for dealing with that? Let me know in the comments or tweet it at me.)

I will now present to you three scenarios.

1. How I Responded to this Crisis In My Head:

Yep, I pretty much just wanted to run away and let it all burn. Fire is scary!

2. How I Told Others I Responded to this Crisis:

Yep, that's totally the Official Story. 

And finally:

3. How I Actually Responded:

Yep. The fire department came a minute later, and made sure it hadn't spread to the wall. Whew. 

So, while I had the presence of mind to use the fire extinguisher (and some wet towels, which is what ultimately killed it), I also just kept shouting my street address over and over again on the phone without telling the dispatcher what town I was in.  And I put Kitty in her carrier like a grown up, instead of flinging her out the window whilst shouting SAVE YOURSELF. So all in all, I give myself a solid B+.

What about you guys - are you panickers or calm cool and collected?

Attic Squeaking

So, I’m moving this weekend, away from craptastic apartment with all its problems. Of course, the apartment has to get me one more time before I go. Now, it’s this squeaking noise I hear by my closet, where the door to the attic is.

  

I’ve decided it must be one of the following:

1. Filled with mice

2. Filled with rats

They look like bigger mice, right?

3. Shoddy piping

...I wouldn't be able to see that.

4. Filled with birds

Argh. Birds and their motherfucking chirping.

5. Filled with bats. Do bats squeak?

I think they do. 

6. Filled with demons

 Assholes. 

That last one seems more likely. Boyfriend told me to open the closet door. I said NO FUCKING WAY until all my stuff is out of the closet and I have running shoes on and a baseball bat to beat away all the things that could come attack me. Shudder.

My Apartment is Trying to Kill Me

Remember when my appliances were against me? Well, the air conditioner is broken again:

It’s making me ridiculously hot and pissy. But that’s actually not what this post is about. It’s more about the wonky electricity:

  

So, last Friday was Friday the 13^th. DUN DUN DA DUNNNNNN. What happened? Well, Boyfriend and I were hanging out in the living room.

Typical date night. 

And roommate was cooking in the kitchen.

When all of a sudden:

Living room.

Kitchen

Luckily, we had enough electronics in order to light the apartment enough to check the circuit breaker. It was fine. I called the landlord, who said we could try to get someone to come by that night, or she’d come over the next day (for your information, landlord is NOT an electrician and would be totally useless in the apartment).

And that’s how we got an electrician to come over and fix our circuit breaker at 9pm on a Friday night.

But seriously. Is it time to move yet?

My Appliances are Against Me

The apartment Roomie and I share is kind of, oh, falling apart. It’s on the older side, so at first I thought it was just that things were breaking down and needed to be replaced. Not a huge deal, right? But now I see no, that’s not what’s happening. My apartment’s appliances are systemically trying to drive me insane.

And they’re succeeding.

First, we have the air conditioning. Over the summer, it broke. As in, it was 89 degrees INSIDE the apartment. Apparently the motor for it is not big enough to maintain the whole apartment. Seems plausible, right? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. 

We sweated like beasts for a few days and got a repairman in to fix it.

Next, we have the washer/dryer. Since I started living here two years ago, it was causing major problems. It was a really old machine from the 70s, and wouldn’t really dry anything cotton (just got it all wrinkly and clumpy). Then, the dryer would randomly turn off mid cycle, so it would take approximately 6 hours to get a load of laundry dry. God help you if you were washing sheets. Mind you, this was occurring over the summer, when we were sweating like beasts. 

FINALLY, I managed to convince Landlord we needed a new washer/dryer. She’s super cheap, so she left the old, broken washer/dryer from the 70s in our living room for awhile to see if she could see it on Craigslist (yes, you read that right).

But THEN – the new washer/dryer kept making the circuit breaker pop, and we’d randomly lose power in our kitchen. And the circuit box started making a weird buzzy noise.  So we had an electrician come in back on October. To quote a previous post: The electrician told roomie and I not to worry too much, just don’t leave the apartment or fall asleep while doing laundry. Oh and periodically touch the circuit breaker box while the washer/dryer are on to make sure its not hot and there’s not, you know, A RAGING FIRE IN OUR WALLS. 

 

Yeah, that was an issue. The electrician came like two weeks ago, so we have functioning electricity now. Yaaaay.

But now, the kitchen is turning on us. The faucet is leaking significant amounts of water at its base every time we turn it on and is rusting and is probably going to snap off soon. 

I told landlord, but I don’t think she cares. You know, until it snaps off and floods the place.

Additionally, we find puddles of water outside our refrigerator in the morning. Honestly, I actually feel a little bad for the fridge, I mean its 30 years old and still not potty trained? Embarrassing. I try not to shame it, but for the love of God, STOP MAKING PUDDLES!

The other day, I found a similar puddle in front of the dishwasher. The incontinence is spreading.

Guys, these are just the main issues. I’m not going to go into the fact that the pilot light goes out in the warmer weather so during the random Halloween blizzard we had no heat for the better part of the day, or the fact that Roomie’s toilet only works say 50% of the time, or that she doesn’t really get heat or a/c in her room. 

Clearly, they’re organized, committed, and out to get me.

Wish me luck guys.  Lease doesn’t end til May.

I need a pillow fort.

Happy Hump Day!

Allie is looking as beautiful and feminine as ever:

So, I’m still trying to figure out my blogging schedule. I’m way, way too lazy busy to write/draw decent posts five days a week. I have couches to sit on things to do, jigsaw puzzle puzzles to work on places to be, and Boyfriend to snuggle with B- actually wait, that one is good as it is. Yeah. But I legitimately have important things to do this week, such as:

1. Put together a lamp so I have enough light in my living room to work on said jigsaw puzzle VERY IMPORTANT THING at night during the winter.

2. Find a way to make room for some real drinking glasses in my kitchen cabinets. Apparently my uppity Boyfriend didn’t think that solo cups and plastic tumblers that may or may not be chock full o’ BPA were good enough to sip his whiskey out of, so he got me some real glasses.  They deserve real shelf space, which will involve getting a step ladder and rearranging things. Le SIGH.

3. Come to terms with the fact that I’m probably the only 20something in the world who has never owned an iPod before and learn how to use my new birthday present.

4. Laundry. Bah! Seeing as how the electricity in our apartment is on the fritz (the circuit panel needs to be replaced) and the circuit breaker buzzes every time we turn the washer on, it sure makes doing laundry a LOT more exciting. The electrician told roomie and I not to worry too much, just don’t leave the apartment or fall asleep while doing laundry. Oh and periodically touch the circuit breaker box while the washer/dryer are on to make sure its not hot and there’s not, you know, A RAGING FIRE IN OUR WALLS. 

5. Wine drinking. See #4, living with a constant threat of raging wall fire. 

There’s about a hundred more things I need to do, but since those top the list as the most “interesting,” I’ll just shut up here. My point is that I’m not sure if I’m going to be posting MWF or some combo M/T/Th/F and a pic on Wed, or something else entirely.  Bear (growl) with me. Snicker.