Hurray for Jose

Perhaps you've seen my previous entry about the deplorable conditions of my current apartment. Well that was then and this is now, and I have to give all the credit to our new fix-it man Jose. Shortly after moving in I called my landlord, just to make sure he knew about the ever growing hole in the bathroom floor. My landlord then sent Jose over to appraise the damage, and that's all it took. Since then Jose and his sons have completely reworked the place.

The bathroom floor that was rotting away below our feet - replaced.

Bathroom vanity that was slowly disintegrating into itself - replaced.

Toilet that required ninja-like balance to prevent its banging against the wall when you stood up and sat down - fixed.


Drippy kitchen faucet - fixed.

Ancient relic of a range/oven - replaced.


Screen door that had lost it's spring and simply banged whenever the wind blew - fixed.

There are still some major issues, such as the basement that quite possibly houses the creature from the black lagoon,


and our upstairs neighbors who epitomize the term white trash (they asked to borrow $30 before introducing themselves to me, and let's not forget the large chewed up couch that sat on our porch for a month), but thanks to Jose I can actually call my apartment "home sweet home" without choking on the sarcasm. Yes indeed, Jose is my hero. Hurray for Jose!!

Forgotten Friends

Facebook is a wonderful invention. Thanks to that networking site I am connected with 320 friends and family, many of whom I haven't seen in years, if not decades. It keeps me up-to-date on their relationship statuses, birthdays, and any new developments in their lives. But today it got me thinking a bit about forgotten friends.

There are friends of mine that I will never find on Facebook because I've forgotten more about them than I can remember. These are people that at one time or another were my good friends. I can tell all sorts of stories about about the river rafting, camping, and road trips we went on. I even have pictures of many of them, but I'm missing the most vital piece of information.......their names.

Here's a few of the more memorable amongst the forgotten friends:

• CTR Tattoo boy - The only person I've ever met to have a CTR tattoo on his stomach. Besides throwing me an awesome 21st birthday party (which included freakshow entertainment), we used to talk for hours upon hours about......who knows what. No seriously, I don't remember. But we did have a lot of fun doing silly things together like catching frogs at the church camp-out.


• Donalee - we used to commiserate over the curse of curly hair and our frustration with guys. When she got engaged I went to all her wedding showers and her wedding reception, but I can't remember her maiden name, let alone her married one.


• Red-haired Crush - I was 18. He was 24. He was my crush, and I was his trusty side-kick (much to my chagrin). Regardless, we had a lot of fun together. I seem to recall our leaving a toilet on someone's doorstep in the middle of the night. I wonder if that was legal? Anyway I can't tell you his name, but I know he that majored in Park & Recreation.


• The Misogynist - This self-proclaimed hater of women who became my most trusted counselor. We would talk together at length about our dating conundrums. Because of this, I had the privilege of being privy to how his now wife managed to melt his stone-cold heart simply by being herself.

I really wish I could contact these forgotten friends. I want to know what happened in their lives. Are they living in the states or abroad? Did they marry? Did they have kids? What are their careers? In short, I may not remember their names, but I still count them as my friend. I just hope that someday I'll bump into them on the subway or at the grocery store, and perhaps it won't be too awkward when I ask them to remind me of their name.

Blessed With Work

I have found that being unemployed is a rather heavy burden. It drags you into a pit of misery and, in economic time like these, the pit is filled to capacity making it hard to see a way out. That was the condition I found myself during the last few months. Fortunately a blessing fell from the sky this week, and I got a 6 week temp job as a receptionist at a software company.

Already they love me. In fact I could sit like a rock all day long, never moving, and they would still love me. You see by doing nothing, I am NOT stealing. Their last temp robbed them blind. She took home boxes of paper, tape, Advil, mugs, bags, candy, Splenda, and she may have tried to take the kitchen sink. I've never met this woman, but after having been faced with the dearth of job opportunities out there right now, I want to smack her upside the head and say, "Are you crazy?"

Here she was in a temp job that pays a decent wage, and she threw it all away because she chose to lug home large amounts of office supplies. What is the benefit of that? Even if she sold all that stuff on eBay, could she possibly make more than she her promised salary? Me thinks not.

But perhaps I should think twice before bad-mouthing this poor woman. After all it is because of her blatant lack of good judgement that I have this opportunity to be blessed with work. So crazy woman, wherever you all, I thank you. And God, thank you for blessing me with work.

Home Depot Junkie

I..........am...........a............Home Depot............junkie.

You can ask my roommates. I go there almost every day, I know the layout of the store, and soon I'll know all the sales people by name. It's bad, it's real bad.

It all started when I moved in to this illustrious apartment. Some of the former residents had left some odds and ends, which us current roommates sold on Craigslist. This gave us a little mad money that we earmarked for the bettering of our living situation.

As I have the misfortune of being unemployed and happen to be stuck in charming apartment all day, I started to get the fix-it bug. I figured if I'm going to be stuck here I'm might as well make it livable, so using the allotted apartment fund I got to work starring with a simple repair to the broken blinds in my room. When the guy at Home Depot gave me the part I needed, free of charge, I was hooked.

I then decided to hang up a couple Ikea racks in the kitchen for hanging pots and pans. This of course required that I purchase a drill, drill bits, and anchors (at Home Depot). Then I realized that I could change the shower head (purchased at Home Depot) with the help of a crescent wrench and Teflon tape (purchased at Home Depot). Then I had to put in splash guards (attempted to purchase at Home Depot, but had to get at Bed Bath and Beyond) on the bathtub so that the water wouldn’t leak down and damage the water-logged, tile-less floor. This required I get some extra caulk (from Home Depot). I also had to get a new aerator (from Home Depot) for the kitchen sink since because the old one had what appeared to be wood chips lodged in it.

And that my friends pretty much used up the last of the apartment fund, but does that stop me from going to Home Depot. Oh heavens no. I’m a junkie remember. Now I just got to tour the appliance section and drool over the gas ranges. You know ones where you can actually SET the appropriate oven temperature. There’s a 10% off sale of all GE appliances right now, and I’m trying to figure out how I can get my landlord to buy the most basic model. Maybe I could sell a kidney or better yet sell my landlord’s kidney. Do you think he would notice?