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Remember the pee-pee smell of my carpets and me accusing the previous tenant of owning a dog and not telling anyone he did?  Well, my apartment complex insists that the previous resident insists he didn’t have a dog.  So, I really wanted to say: So what you’re saying is the previous resident himself peed on the carpets, because I certainly didn’t do it. 

But anyway, that’s beside the point.  So… the previous resident claimed he didn’t have a dog.  Well, that previous resident really should have had his mail forwarded.  I checked my mailbox for the first time today.  The box was so crowded with mail I could barely get it all out, and only three letters were for me.  The rest were for Ryan Dugan.  Let’s see, I got bank statements, credit statements, investigative reports… and oh, a reminder that his precious dog is overdue for his rabies shot, please bring him to the clinic soon.  Thanks.   Busted!

I think I’m going to take that to management and see if they’ll discount my rent or pull up the carpets.  I doubt it, but I wonder what they’ll say anyway. 

Tomorrow is my first library program at my new job.  I’m kicking off the Teen Writers Group, and I had some teens say they were interested in coming.  Wish me luck on my first lesson.  I hope the kids like it and will want to come back.

 

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Yes!  I have cable, phone and… INTERNET!  I will never take having internet in my home for granted again.  I don’t know how other people do it.  I felt so disconnected.  Getting online at work is just not the same :(. 

My apartment feels a little home-like now.  Maybe I’ll be more comfortable once the rest of my stuff gets here, I build the furniture I bought for the office, get something for the living room, and maintenance comes to wash the smell of urine from my carpets.  I was so embarrassed when the technician from Comcast had to sit in the living room with that pee-pee smell trying to get my internet to work correctly.  I had to tell him that the previous tenant must have had an animal that peed everywhere and didn’t report it to the apartment, so he wouldn’t think that I was nasty and I had peed on the rug.  And I was glad I did, because once I did, his expression changed.  Oh, man… lol.

So… just wanted to give that update.  Today is my day off from work, but I have lots of errands, and maybe even handiwork to do.  By the end of the month, I’m hoping I will settled in and less homesick.  I never thought I’d say this when I finally got out of the Lonestar State, but… I miss Texas with its cleanliness regulations, normal streetlight configuratons, HEB’s, and Krogers….  I miss real suburbs where police officers don’t get into shoot-outs with their neighbors and gated communities meant rich people didn’t want you on their grass.  Here, it means the neighborhood is bad and manned gate is to keep the thugs from getting in… or getting out, without being seen. 

Oh well, I’m sure in a month, I’ll be singing about loving the Sunshine State… though there sure hasn’t been much sunshine since I’ve been here.  Oh, and the horror stories.  Florida has CREATURES.  Hurricane Andrew blew down a serpent zoo and released boa constrictors that eat alligators in the swamps.  There are iguanas the size of dogs that live in trees.  Hares, not rabbits, that attack, and raccooons that play in your swimming pools.  There are lizards that look like little alligators with curly tails and child-sized opossums.  Oh, and we can’t forget if you go out in the Sticks, they’ve got people who keep lions and tigers and ostriches as pets and let them roam the land, checked only by fences that they can easily leap. 

We’ll talk about yellow water next time :).