If I’m Dead Tomorrow, This Is Why

I’m kind of afraid right now.  I think it’s because absolute strangers are calling me and knocking on my door.  We’ve been looking for a third roommate for a while now, and our landlord offered to help us put up some ads online and in other places.  Well, I stumbled across one on craigslist the other day.  It has a picture of our house, our address, both of our names, and our phone numbers.  On craigslist.  How creepy is that?!?!?!  Now complete strangers who have randomly found me on the internet are calling me and coming to my house.  This may sound wierd, but I don’t actually want strange men doing that.  And that’s exactly what’s happening.  I talked to my landlord today and told him to take the information off of the ads, and he said, “Oh, didn’t you want them to drive by first to see the place?”  And I was like, “no, actually we try to talk to people first and not give out our personal information to complete strangers.”

Twice tonight some guy has knocked on the door, but I didn’t open it because I was in my pj’s fresh out of the shower, and HELLO, freak stranger from the internet!  At my house!  Trying to come inside!  When I’m alone!  Luckily I had Teddy, who barked at the door.  Hopefully the wierdos will think he’s a ferocious guard dog and will back the fudge off.  But now I’m a little scared that someone could be hanging around the house sometime waiting to meet one of us.  Or worse.  Since seriously, the ad was literally - “two mid twenties girls looking for a fun roommate”, then with our address, names, and phone numbers.  How ridiculous is that?!?!  I mean, does our landlord want people to break in and rape us or something?!?!  Because that ad screams out “Hey freaks!  Come stalk us!”.  And that really, really scares me.

The Writings In The Door

Yesterday I spent some quality time at my alma mater, where a former bio professor was having a BBQ for graduating students and alumni of her classes.  Not a lot of alumni were there, but my old college roommate/best buddy flew in from Chicago to come and one of our other bio friends came too.  All three of us gals were actually on the rugby team together too, so it was nice to see them.  A couple professors were there too and it was cool to cath up with them as well.  The professor hosting the shindig is really nice and her husband is really funny, and I got to meet their little one year old boy too.  Overall I had a really fun time and I was glad to catch up with people that I don’t see anymore and tell the funny stories of the “good old days”. 

Then I came home and found this note stuck in my front door:

Cindy,

I suppose you might not be aware of this, but Teddy barks for an hour or two every time you guys go out.  Would you please figure out some way to handle that.  It is very difficult getting kids down for a nap and is especially troublesome now that K is home all day on maternity leave.

Thanks,

J and K

P.S. - Would you also please clear up all the trash out back?

Now first off, my next door neighbors spelled my name wrong.  It’s Cyndi, not Cindy.  Duh.  And I don’t have a problem with them saying that Teddy barks a lot, because he probably does.  However, two hours I think is an over estimation.  He generally barks for about 15 minutes when I leave and then settles down.  He does bark, however, when he hears people walking around outside and opening our front door, say, when someone leaves a note in it.  Since our house is a twin, we can both generally hear sounds from the other person’s house.  If Teddy hears them slamming their door and making noises, he’ll bark.  Duh.  That’s kind of what dog’s do.  I want him to bark when people are outside or at the door.  I hear them through the wall too, I hear them clumping up the steps and I hear their kids screaming, but I don’t put a note in their door telling them to get their kids to shut up.  Kids cry.  Dogs bark.  Such is life.  But I seriously doubt that their kids can’t get to sleep because he’s barking.  They have a dog too, and I’ve heard her barking, so I’m pretty sure the kids can deal with it.  Plus, in this neighborhood there’s at least one dog in every other house.  One of them is always barking at some point during the day.  So it’s not like I’m the sole person dragging down the neighborhood with my noise polluting dog.

I acknowledge that sometimes he does bark a lot.  But it’s pretty much always when I’m not here, so it’s kind of difficult to fix.  I’ve gotten a gate to keep him in a smaller part of the house to keep him calmer, but within 30 seconds he jumps over it or squeezes under it, so that doesn’t work.  I have a crate for him, but if I put him in and walk out of the room then he freaks out twice as much.  I also just got him a bark collar that shocks him when he barks, but that doesn’t seem to have much effect either.  I got Teddy from a shelter, who knows what his life was like before here.  All I know is that he has abandonment issues and gets very upset when I leave him.  If I even leave the room he has to get up and follow me and be next to me all the time.  I’m trying to work on this but it seems to be really hard for him to get over.  I think my main problem with that part of the note is that I’ve asked my neighbors at least 10 times over the last year if Teddy barks too much for them and if he annoys them, and each time they’ve said no.  Plus, I see them outside all the time and they’ve never said anything to me about it.  So I think considering that it’s pretty lame to just stick a note in the door one day, like, “we’ve been ok with it for a year but now it’s annoying so you need to stop it”.  It’s like they assume that I can just flip a switch and get him to stop barking.  Like maybe if I have a rational conversation with him he’ll see the error of his ways.  Well, news flash, it doesn’t work like that.  I’m trying and I’m working on it, but there’s no overnight fix.

The other part of the note, the P.S., was actually offensive.  Because I looked out back and there is no trash except what’s in our trash cans.  There are a few small pieces of plywood from the handymen who’ve been working here leaning against our garage, but that’s it.  Plus, the trash cans and plywood are clearly on our side of the property.  There is nothing remotely near their side.  So what am I supposed to clean up?  The trash that’s already in the cans?  I think it’s incredibly rude for them to tell me to clean up something that is, first of all, unnoticeable, and secondly, clearly on my property.  I have news for you pal, if I want to throw plywood all over my freakin lawn, there’s nothing you can do about it.  Don’t tell me what I have to clean up on my own property.  (Ok, technically I rent so it’s not mine, but the landlord is in California, and since I live here and posession is 9/10 of the law then to me it’s my house). 

It just annoys me that I have been nothing but nice to my neighbors, and yet when they see me they look at me like my existence is offending them.  All of the other neighbors are really nice to me and treat me like I’m a normal part of the neighborhood.  I guess that having a couple of girls “renting” gasp! the house next door brings down the tone of the neighborhood to them or something.  I could understand if we were a bunch of rowdy college students or something, but we’re not.  We don’t have loud parties, heck we don’t have parties at all, we do our fun stuff outside of the house.  We’re clean, and I mow the lawn once a week.  I even just trimmed our bush that was pushing out into the sidewalk.  Because I’m respectful like that.  Usually only one of us is home at a time anyway, so it’s pretty much quiet all day, except for apparently Teddy barking for-e-ver when we’re not home.  I guess I’ll have to have a chat with the neighbors the next time I see them and see if they have the balls to say any of this stuff to my face.  Cause I don’t think they will.  But to make myself feel better, this is my “wish reply” that I wish I could write down and stick in their door:

J and K,

I suppose you might not be aware of this, but you are assholes.  Every time I say hello to you, you either don’t respond or give me the stink eye.  Excuse me if my very existence offends you, perhaps I should shoot myself in the face so you can have some “real neighbors”.  I am aware that Teddy barks when I leave, and I am trying different methods to correct the situation.  However, being a dog, he will naturally bark when he hears the noises you also make next door, or when he smells your foul stench putting a note in the door.  Perhaps your children screaming is interfering with his nap and he’s cranky.  The crying is especially intense now that you have a new baby and both children are home all day.  But since you seem to know so much more than me in life, perhaps you can enlighten me as to how I should magically keep my dog from barking when I’m not on the premises.  Any information you could provide would, I’m sure, be most useful.

Thanks,

Cyndi

P.S. - Would you please clear up all the trash in your personality?

To My New Blogfriends

Since I met a lot of new people at TequilaCon and some are actually reading my blog now (woohoo!), I thought I’d take a second to fill new readers in on who I am and where I’m at in life.  And stuff.  So here’s things about me that I talk about alot or tend to assume that people know about me:

• I’m 25 years old and live outside of Philadelphia.  I’ve lived in PA for my whole life and it’s my home.  That being said, I’d love to live out west and in other states and countries!
• I LOVE to travel!  I’ve spent a lot of time in England and some in France, since my college friend’s boyfriend lives in England.  They invite me over to stay with them and then take me all over the place.  It’s pretty sweet.
• I’m a bibliophile, I love to read and collect books; I especially love that book smell, mmmmmmm.  Because of this I’m in grad school right now for Library and Information Science.  I’m hoping to someday work in archiving taking care of really old books in the Library of Congress or Bodleian in Oxford.
• I love animals.  Last summer I adopted my first dog from my local animal shelter, Teddy.  He barks too much, freaks out when I leave him, and pulls the leash out of my hand so he can run around the neighborhood.  But he loves me wholeheartedly no matter what, which is what counts in a dog.

• I used to work in a cancer research lab since my bachelor’s degree is in biology.  But my boss was an asshat, so I left.  Since I needed a job until I finish grad school, I’m working as a nursery school teacher for a Montessori school.
• I like to bake, watch movies, and rearrange the Shakespearean magnetic poetry on my fridge.
• Some of my academic loves outside of bio include anthropology and archaeology, specifically Egypt, Greece, and Rome.  I also love languages and studied German, Latin, and Attic Greek.
• I’m single and I’m doing online dating.  So far nothing worthwhile has come of it, but as I still have a subscription for like 6 more months, I’ll refrain from judgement for a while.

I guess those are the main points right now.  For more random info about me, check out my “100 things about me” tab up top.  Now all you newcomers can be up to speed in my incredibly boring fast paced life!

Just So You Don’t Think I’m Always Bitter

After the last post, I figured I’d show the other side of my job that is actually pretty awesome.  I teach kids.  Little, little kids that you think aren’t capable of much.  Until you see them in action.  It was amazing to see a 3 year old girl show me the quantities of 1-5 and finally put them in the right order, because - I taught her that.  It’s amazing to see that when one child drops his cookie and starts to cry, another child will pop up and say, “You can have mine.”  It’s amazing that when I goof around and hop onto a swing, children run up to give me a push, “because”, as one little boy said, “you push me.”  It’s amazing that kids fight over who gets to sit next to me at circle time.

I try to remember these things when I get frustrated.  I try to remember that the sometimes incredibly difficult to give kindnesses are very much appreciated.  I try to remember that these are good kids that sometimes just need some hugs and attention (even though they all seem to need it at exactly the same time!).  I try to remember the smiles and excited “Miss Cyndi!”s that start off the day.  Because when I think about it like that, it’s definately worth it.

Kickin It Old School

My job is stressfull.  Perhaps not end of the world, push-the-red-button-and-we-all-die stressfull, but still it’s tough.  The other teachers that I work with are nice to my face, but pretty much everyone talks about everyone else behind their backs.  It’s uncomfortable.  It’s pretty much to the point where whenever you see two teachers talking together you’re concerned they’re talking about how much you suck at your job.  The boss even held a meeting to discuss my co-teacher’s behavior … with everyone present but that particular teacher.  That’s pretty bad.  So there’s that. 

Also I’m surrounded by dozens of 3-5 year old children all day (I even have to eat lunch with them and I get no breaks at all) who are constantly shoving papers into my face (”see what I did!”), relentlessly tapping, hitting, and pulling me to get my attention, or just screaming my name repeatedly across the room.  Plus the majority of them are generally doing something they’re not supposed to be doing, whether it’s playing with their work materials or kicking each other in the head.  So there’s that too.

There are definately times where I want to just start screaming and shoving children away from me, like when Will Ferrell gets darted in Old School.  But, like a good person, I don’t do that.  I try to take a second to remind myself that, yes, they’re really annoying and aggravating and doing stupid things.  But they’re 4 years old.  And as such, you kind of have to give them some slack.  But in these situations I end up holding in all of the stifled screams and stress.  And since I have no breaks, I don’t get a chance to release it.  I think this is making me more stressed out and easily upset.  And I don’t like that.  I don’t like not being able to fall asleep because I’m worrying about random stuff from work.  I don’t like having dreams about kids mobbing me because they want something from me. 

I want to find a way to get rid of everything that I’m carrying around, but I don’t really know what to do about it.  Generally I just carry it inside and it eats at me until I blow up at someone.  But that tends to not be the best course of action.  So does anyone have any ideas of things that I can do either during the day or when I get home to release all of this stress and tension?  I’m thinking that I may just need to invest in a punching bag for the basement so I don’t have a screaming fit in the schoolyard.

When Stupid People Call Me Too Much

Brace yourself for this one, it’s epic.  Perhaps not so much in importance, but definately in length.

I want to punch my landlord in the face.  And if he didn’t live in California, I would.  Yes, my landlord rents out a house in the Philly suburbs while living in LA.  Intelligent?  Not so much.  Because shit like this happens:

A housing inspector came by in November and found a bunch of things that Landlord needed to fix to be up to code for renting out a house.  So Landlord went about getting things fixed.  He had one month to get everything done before the inspector would be back to check things out.  If everything wasn’t fixed, Landlord would have to pay a hefty fine.  Long story shorter, it’s bazillions of months later and everything is not fixed yet.  And Housing Inspector wants to come by and see what’s going on.  This is where the problems come in.

You see, back in November, I was unemployed.  I was home everyday.  I was here to let Work Man and Housing Inspector in when they needed to come by.  But that was 6 months ago, and thankfully, I am employed again.  And so is my roommate.  Which means that no one is home all day except Teddy.  And as you can imagine, a dog is not such a fan of letting strange men into his house. 

So Housing Inspector, Work Man, and Landlord have all been talking about when HI and WM (I’m abbreviating now cause I’m tired of typing fake names that are long) can both come by the house to check things out.  But, since no one is home most of the day, HI told us to leave our house unlocked so that he can come over sometime over the course of two days.  So recap - we’re being told to leave our house completely open so that an absolute stranger can come in and walk around sometime, whenever he wants, over the course of two days.  Does anyone else feel that the township can’t force you to do that?  Cause I do.  So we didn’t do that, for the millions of reasons including:  I don’t let complete strangers come into my house when no one’s home,since I don’t know who the fuck you are and I don’t trust you in my house; gosh, maybe someone else could just walk in and steal all of my shit, which my renters insurance won’t cover since I left the door unlocked you asshole; and I have a dog, who will either run out the door (and who will cover if he’s hit by a car or lost or taken??) or attack the HI, since that’s what dog’s do to strange men who enter their homes.

So needless to say, we haven’t left the house unlocked.  Duh.  Now I’m getting flack from Landlord that he’s going to get a fine because we won’t leave the house open for the Inspector.  Well, if Inspector would give us more of a time frame than “sometime over the course of two days” then perhaps I or my roommate could actually be home to let the guy in.  Crazy how that logic doesn’t work on some people.  This brings me to my second main beef: my landlord is retarded.  He chose to live in LA and rent out a house in Philly.  And he chose not to keep up on the house.  And he chose the work men.  Clearly this is his responsibility, not mine, and it pisses me the fuck off that he’s calling me 5 times a day and telling me that if I “want a place to live”, then I’ll do whatever the Housing Inspector says.  Because this is not my problem, and it’s not my job to fix it.

On Monday I was told that they wanted to come by Tuesday sometime after noon.  So my roommate and I arranged it so one of us would be here all afternoon.  And you know what?  I get a call in the afternoon that the Inspector came by in the morning and the house was locked.  Well no shit, Sherlock, you told me you’d be there in the afternoon, you asswipe.  So now I’m getting flack againg that this “needs to be done in the next 4 days or else!”, the or else being that Landlord gets a thousands of dollars fine.  Well Landlord, maybe you should have thought of that before moving to California.

So now apparently they fixed a time for Friday morning from 10:00-10:30 am.  You got precise now, didn’t you bitches!  Where was that last month!  This time, since we won’t be home, my mom has said that she’ll come over to let the guys in and make sure Teddy doesn’t run out the door or attack them (although at this point I might consider seeing if Teddy actually would attack them).  And if this doesn’t work, I’m telling Landlord to grow a pair, get his ass on a plane, and take care of it himself.  Douche.

I think I’m done ranting now. 

Stuff I Did This Weekend

Hey all, I’m back again!  Like I said this morning, last night Bre and I hit up the blog convention TequilaCon ‘08 down in Philly.  Bre had registered or whatever and was “on the list”, so she had a specially made up name badge/lanyard and actually knew people.  I on the other hand was not on the list, so I swiped a spare badge and clumsily wrote my name on it and hoped that I would blend in.  Luckily, the people were nice and actually talked to me.  Only one gal, Bellaventa, had actually heard of me, but that’s still one more than I ever expected!  I also made friends with the super cool Libra Girl, and the funny Bubblewench, who were fun to talk too.

Everyone who I talked too seemed really cool, and some people had brought fun swag like buttons and magnets with their blog names and pictures on them.  I exchanged blog info with a bunch of people, they mainly typing mine into their phones and blackberries, and me copying theirs with my super advanced pen and notebook.  Everyone who’s info I wrote down has been added to my side bar over myah –> so check them out when you get a chance, they’re cool people!

 

In other news, today I had a mini family reunion with part of my dad’s side of the family.  The whole “how we’re related” explanation is freakishly complicated, and even I don’t understand it all, but basically they’re cousins of various degrees and remove-ages.  They’re people that live in the city but we really never see unless someone dies, so it was nice to get to know them again under happier pretenses.  Everyone was really nice and welcoming, oozing over how I was all grown up and how beautiful I was.  So right off the bat I loved these people.  The whole thing was really last minute, but I was really excited when I heard about it and decided that I was definately going to go.  My immediate family is really small now, and sometimes I miss not knowing my other, more distant relations.  I have all these relatives out there and I wouldn’t even know them if I passed them on the street.  So I’m really hoping that I can see these guys on a more regular basis and get to know them better.  I’m also going to try to make more of an effort to track down and get to know my other distant relations too.  Especially since some live in the Poconos and some near Disneyland, hee hee hee.

Hello The Internet!

I’m alive!  I know I haven’t posted in forever, so, sorry about that.  I guess I’ve been avoiding posting and the outside world since I’ve been having a rough patch.  Well, the good news is that the rough patch is somewhat over!  Well, not totally, some stuff is still tough, but I guess the real news is that I’m now tough enough to handle it and cope with it without crying myself to sleep going crazy.  Yay for me!  I’m back!  And I’m going to really try to blog a lot more often, since once a month is barely worth it!  To put myself back in the blogging groove, I tagged along with Bre last night and hit up the blogging convention TequilaCon 08 in Philly!

Although I wasn’t on the list and knew, um, absolutely no one, I had a good time.  I met a lot of fun blogging peeps and a few times I thought I was having celebrity sightings, like - “Oh my god, it’s you!  I’ve read your blog!”  One gal even said that she had read my blog before, which was pretty amazing to me, since this here blog doesn’t get crazy traffic.  I’m a little crunched for time right now, I’m off to a family reunion, but when I get back I’ll post up a couple pictures and link up to all the cool blog people I met!

Sigh

Somebody up there hates me.  Recently in these last months I feel like I’m a walking Murphy’s Law, and that everything that could possibly go wrong for me will.  Today, it was all because of a key.

Normally I keep a spare house key in my jacket pocket for when I walk the dog.  This way I don’t have to carry my huge key … conglomeration with me all the time.  I always have it in my jacket pocket, or in my pants pocket when I don’t wear a jacket.  So imagine my surprise when I’m standing outside my door at 7:30 this morning, having come back from Teddy’s morning walk, and there’s no key in my pocket.  Or in any pocket.  In fact the only thing in my pockets is a small paper clip.  So now I’m locked out of my house, with my dog, and I have to leave for work in 5 minutes.  I didn’t even have my cell phone, not that it would have helped terribly since it would probably have taken forever for my roommate to get home with her key.  As you can imagine, I was pretty low at this point.

I threw myself at the front door, cursing it for those many times where it didn’t shut all the way and I could just push it open again.   Of course today was not one of those days.  I tried to pick the lock with the tiny paperclip, which of course didn’t work.  Figuring I had no other options, I decided that I was going to have to find a way to break into my own house.  Luckily Teddy’s tie out was outside so I clipped it onto his collar so he wouldn’t be able to run away while I found a way inside.  Not to go into too much detail (some of you know where I live! :P) I managed to MacGyver sideways through a small window and then throw myself against a door until the latch worked its way loose.  Once back inside I went out and got Teddy (who was surprisingly sitting patiently on the lawn) and brought him back in.  I managed to only be about 10 minutes late for work, where the other teachers gave me a motherly, ‘wow, you’re having a rough time’ reaction when I told them the latest happenings in my life.

I swear that if I listed out everything that’s happened in the last few months, I think even homeless people would agree that I’ve been having a tough time.  But what can you do but put your nose down and keep going, right?  And keep hoping that things will improve.  I guess that’s all I can do.  Sigh.

This Is Not An April Fool’s Joke

This morning began like any other: wake up (unwillingly), walk the dog, eat some breakfast, and head out the door to work.  Then it all went to shit.  I was driving down the highway when my car started clanking, shaking, and making a noise like a honking goose caught in a band saw.  Having pretty much no idea what was going on, I debated with myself whether or not I should try to pull over.  But it was pretty obvious that a shaking, noisy car is not to be trifled with at 60 mph speeds.  So I pulled over as best I could (luckily I found a wide shoulder) and prepared to call AAA and tell them that my engine was busted.  Just after I pulled over, another car pulled up ahead of me and a 50 something man got out.  He started walking towards me and I somewhat panicked, having been told my whole life that people who try to help you at the side of the road may just be trying to kill you.  So I rolled down my passenger window a smidge, and the man said, “Hey, I saw you pull over, do you have a spare?”  I replied, “Oh, is it my tire?  I wasn’t sure what happened.”  The man walked around the back of the car and looked the rear tire on my side, then came back to the passenger side and said, “Yeah, that’s one of the worst one’s I’ve ever seen.”  Super.  He asked if I had a jack and I told him that I was just going to call AAA.  Then I assured him that I’d be ok and thanked him for stopping, and he wished me luck and left.  Whew.  At least I didn’t get murdered.

So I called AAA and my mom, who both said that they were on their way to help.  Oh, and did I mention it was raining?  Yeah.  I sat in my car in the rain, waiting for help and hoping that no one would pull over and kill me in the meantime.  45 minutes and a few tears later, the AAA guy came and changed my tire without a problem.  Luckily I had a full sized spare so I can at least drive around without a problem until it’s fixed.  Then the AAA man put my blown up tire in the trunk, said he hoped I had a better day, and went on his way just as my mom pulled up.  She insisted on following me in her car until I got to work to make sure that I wouldn’t have any more problems on the way.

When I finally got to work, all the other teachers wanted to make sure that I was ok, which was nice.  I tried to salvage the rest of the day and make the best of it, but alas, it was not to be.  For some reason most of the kids today were even more hyper and psychotic than usual, hanging onto my legs, pulling my shirt, and just being plain annoying.  So my day pretty much blew.

Oh, and just for the record, I took a picture of my tire when I got home:

Yeah.