Our crappy apartment

To begin this post with full disclosure, our apartment could be a lot more crappy. The location is good, the building is clean, and we haven't suffered any major problems with the utilities, the neighbors, or pests. 

It's aesthetically pleasing, with its shiny (faux) wood floors and pristine bone-white seating. The brick wall in the living room adds an ambience you don't get in most rentals, and the choice of wall colors, while a bit too dark for my tastes, certainly show an elevated style over the usual institutional white.

But the beauty of this apartment is the very definition of skin deep. It was pretty clear from the moment we moved in that the owner hadn't exactly gone to great lengths to make the property livable.

One of the first things I discovered when moving in my possessions was that the kitchen cabinets were overflowing with dishes. When I asked the landlord whether it was OK if I got rid of some of them, he admitted he had no idea they were even there. Which just goes to show where his attention to detail is. When we moved in, the walls were covered with dust bunnies and the kitchen cabinets coated with years' worth of sticky grease. (He did offer to have cleaners come in to finish their job, because apparently there were still things they were planning to do, but I think they mostly planned to clear out some clutter, which I preferred to keep—if you move into a messy apartment, at least you should get some free stuff in the bargain!).

As far as I can tell, only one burner on the stove actually lights. And the bathtub faucet spews water when the shower is running, which troubles my conservationist heart. However, I am in charge of paying the 50-dollar copay for any repairs, so I've decided to live with both of these issues. It helps that I'm not a cooking person, and the management company pays the water bill.

Whoever installed the shower curtain rod was far from a tradesman. The screws they put into the drywall were never adequate to hold the rod in the first place, since the door frame prevents it from touching the wall, so the shower curtain was falling down on a regular basis. I finally took the initiative and reinstalled the shower curtain by screwing it into the doorframe.

The day that we came to sign the lease, we nearly suffered a catastrophe when one of the dining chairs collapsed when it was sat upon. The landlord kindly offered to throw away the wobbly table and iffy chairs, but I decided I'd keep them and fix them up. I bought bolts with my own cash to convert the table from a health hazard to a usable piece of furniture.

As time went on and fall crept into winter, we learned that the apartment's insulation is in dire need of improvement. The big glass doors that are pretty much the only light source are also, it turns out, all off-kilter, leaving open spaces for air and even insects to get through. I already added weatherstripping to the place where the sliding door meets the frame next to it, but the misalignment is so bad that that's not even enough to actually seal the crack. On a chilly day, you could feel the cold pouring in from the myriad gaps all around the frame that remain unsealed. Again, I had to take the initiative and purchase a can of foam insulation to stop up most of it.

But that doesn't fix the worst problem yet! The bedroom, the place where I would prefer to spend most of my time, is the coldest room in the unit. Even with the living room being so drafty, even when I've closed all the heat vents elsewhere in the apartment, the bedroom is still a good 4 degrees colder than the rest of the apartment.

Oh, and those shiny floors that drew me in at first sight? They show every drop of water that ever spills on them, and every footprint that ever steps on them, and they streak when you try to clean them!

Yesterday, the in-unit washing machine (one of the pluses of living here) backed up into the kitchen sink, and no amount of plunging could get it to drain. The one thing that helped: running the disposal. Internet sources indicate there might be a clogged vent somewhere, which will surely necessitate the calling of a plumber at my expense, and possibly getting the building management involved.

Every day we live here, I find more things to hate about it, and the worst thing is that I'm entirely at someone else's mercy for getting any problem repaired. But for now I'm going to take a few deep breaths and hope the drain fixes itself.

Sewing ability: A blessing or a curse?

A few days ago, I took inventory of my closet and realized that probably a good third of what I own has been considerably handcrafted by me. From mending to subtle resizing to restoration of pills and fading to removal of stains to converting to something entirely new, I've done it all. But what I do the most, is sewing.

It's kind of ironic how much I sew, considering that I don't actually like to sew. I like to have clothes that fit well. I like to not let good garments go to waste because of a small flaw. I like being able to buy clothing online with confidence,  knowing that even if what I buy isn't quite right, I have the skills to fix it. But no, I don't actually like the process of sewing. 

Tangling blobs of thread, fabric refusing to advance in the machine, breaking needles, and snapping thread are regular occurrences. And, how many times have I sewn an entire seam before realizing it's inside-out! And then there's the pain! My boyfriend knows me well enough to know that when I bust out with an "OW!" while crafting, the next thing he should say is, "Did you stab yourself with a pin?" because 9 times out of 10, the answer is yes. The other 1 time is when it's with a needle. I love creating new things, but I sure hate putting them together.

But for all that it distresses me, making new things to wear is kind of my raison d'être. And sewing is kind of a lost art—one that I'm proud to practice. Being able to sew is what gives me the confidence to embark on these massive tailoring projects and enables me to create works of art (if I may indulge my self-important side) from my old clothes and those of others. But at the same time, it's given me a huge amount of work that I'll never quite be done with! 

 

Obviously I vacillate a lot between opinions on my hobby. Sometimes I think my life would be so much easier if I just gave up my refashion habit and stuck to buying new clothes. But then I look over at the tantalizing bit of floral chiffon hanging out the top of my Projects Box, and I'm like naaaaahhh. I'll never be able to resist a pretty fabric.

Super Blah

By some miracle, in 32-and-a-half years of living, I have never once done anything for the Super Bowl. I've never once gone to a Super Bowl party; I've never once watched the game at home; I've never once watched it in a bar. I've never watched the Puppy Bowl, nor the Kitten Bowl, nor the ads, nor the halftime show. I've never once watched any of it at all.

This year, though—this was the year my streak ended.

I'd like to say I went out with a bang – much like Peyton Manning is about to do (do you like how I'm working my vast knowledge of football into my prose?) – but alas, my ejection from the non-Super-Bowl-watching elite was sadly anticlimactic – much like the end of the Super Bowl was.

My big turning point was doomed to failure from the beginning. My boyfriend wanted to watch with his best friend Chris, neither of whom had any real interest in the two teams playing. The atmosphere leading up to the game was decidedly apathetic, and – to make it more difficult for me to mentally prepare myself – the plans were not solidified until about an hour before kickoff, .

They were as follows: We would go to Chris's condo, where we would watch the game in relative quiet with him and his girlfriend. Thusly, my initiation into Super Bowl culture would hardly even qualify as a proper party. At the last minute, I learned that Al's 12-year-old nephew was also joining us, effectively nixing any plans I might have had for drinking myself silly and practicing my own special touchdown dances.

The next thing that happened to ratchet down my already negligible enthusiasm was a stomach ache. In retrospect, this would have been the perfect excuse for me to avoid a lukewarm party, skip out on a boring game, and keep my 32-year record intact – and it probably was a subconscious last-ditch effort by my body to do just that – but unfortunately, it was too last-ditch, and the stomach ache didn't hit its stride until we were halfway to DC—too late to turn the car around and dump me back at home. So I instead spent the entire evening in varying degrees of abdominal pain.

On the way there, Al wanted to pick up chicken wings. That proved impossible, as the first place he stopped at was closed early for the game. The second place he stopped at was sold out of wings. He finally settled for pizza and sushi. All the wondering around made us late, so we ended up missing the start of the game. That meant I did not get to witness the national anthem as performed by one of my favorite singers: Lady Gaga—one of very few highlights of the Super Bowl, and I missed out on it! Of course, arriving late also meant less total time spent watching football, so I'm not going to complain too much.

The game itself was everything I could have dreamed—that is to say, completely uninteresting. I spent the first half of it paying no attention, meticulously feeding calzones and salad into my cramping stomach (the eating neither made it better nor worse, but did help to pass the time). Chris' girlfriend and her friend were there, both professing a similar lack of interest in the game, so we made conversation by talking about how quickly the time was passing. 

Perched on a bar stool in a remote area of the living room, I didn't have a great view of the screen, but what I could see of the 6-million-dollar ads – the ones that are supposed to be the saving grace of the Super Bowl for people who don't care about football – were solidly lackluster. I did pay attention to the halftime show, which instilled in me a new appreciation for Coldplay (I didn't actually realize all those songs were theirs until now), and then sat through half of the third quarter, which was dominated by a chat about our upcoming vacation plans.

At this point, Al's nephew suddenly took a rabid interest in getting to bed early for school the next day. I've never seen a kid so eager for school before, and I suspect his passion was more aligned towards getting away from the room full of boring adults and a boring football game (he likes soccer). But who am I to question his motives when they seem so responsible (and so beneficial to me!), so I agreeably packed up and shipped out. In the car ride back to his home, he and Al got into an argument about whether or not we could stop at our apartment first to pick up a ring he had left there. It was turning into quite the riot, so I quashed it with my patent Al's-scary-girlfriend sternness. Then felt guilty about it for the rest of the ride.

After we had finally dropped him off at his house (without his preciousssss) and he had stalked off without a word to his uncle, we headed for home in morose silence. Insert, for the sake of adding some kind of levity to this stretch of the tale, some joke about someone not getting a Super Bowl ring.

We did make it home in time to watch the end of the game, which I did at my boyfriend's urging, and it was everything I could have imagined. See above.

Long story short, Super Bowl 50 ended in a crushing defeat. No, I'm not talking about the Panthers. I'm talking about my 32 years of carefully cultivated disinterest, tossed to the wind in one evening of niggling failures, minor squabbles, and sweeping mediocrity.

The vegetarian's plight

It has been over 14 years since I stopped eating meat. You'd think by now, I'd have figured out a suitably concise way to describe my eating habits to others, but no. After all this time, I still struggle to find the correct word for me when it comes to what I eat.

Usually I just call myself a vegetarian, but that term has so many meanings for different people that it really doesn't explain anything at all. When I introduce myself as a vegetarian, it inevitably launches a game of 20 Questions. "Do you eat fish?" No. "Do you eat eggs?" Yes. "Do you drink milk?" No, but that's a personal preference, and I do eat foods that contain dairy products. And for some reason, because being vegetarian apparently implies a whole lifestyle of rigorous healthy choices, I almost always get asked "Do you eat gluten?" The answer is yes. You can pry my gluten from my cold dead hands.

But back to the point. It has always bothered me a little to say I'm vegetarian when my diet, in fact, includes some items that are not strictly vegetative. Ovo-lacto-vegetarian is the most technically correct term for someone of my dietary persuasion...but just try using that word in a crowd of loutish meat-eaters and see how far you get.

I have tried sometimes, instead of trying to find a word that describes everything I do eat, to simply describe what I don't eat: meat. But then inevitably someone will assume that fish isn't meat. I blame Catholic Lenten practices for this ludicrous distinction. According to Webster, meat is "The flesh of an animal used as food" – clearly including fish – but nonetheless, to many people, being vegetarian is synonymous with being pescatarian. 

So sometimes, in an attempt to take into account this non-standard but common definition of meat, I say, "I don't eat animals." I'd think that would be pretty cut-and-dried, but, believe it or not, one time I told this to a woman in the seafood line at the state fair, and she exclaimed (with equal parts revulsion and bafflement, in the manner of someone who thinks you're a complete idiot), "Fish aren't animals!"

Allow me to be a tad condescending while I remark that that the state fair is probably not the best place to go looking for a highly evolved stance on interspecies justice, but one could at least expect a rudimentary knowledge of taxonomy.

Although I am sure that none of my enlightened regular readers need this lesson, for the sake of this self-righteous nincompoop, to whom the following paragraph is addressed, allow me to set the record straight.

All living things can be divided into categories. There have been many different classification systems over the ages, but never, in any of them, have fish been classified outside of the Animals group. Here's a chart that pretty much lays it out for you. If you are unable to read a flowchart, then you really are a hopeless case.

Phew, that feels good! By the way, this exchange at the state fair happened over a year ago, in August of 2014. I had to walk away because I didn't have time to school the woman in question on phylogeny, nor did I think she would listen. But it's been weighing on me ever since. I am glad I posted this, so the next time someone dares to tell me a fish isn't an animal, I'll give 'em a piece of my taxonomic tree!

Also, by venting all my frustrations into this (yet another excessively long) blog post, I've learned something valuable: No matter how clearly you express something, your efforts are wasted if your audience has the education of a toddler ... a different frame of reference. In other words, you can't please everyone.

But you can please yourself! And for me, after considering all the alternatives, I realize that the simplest and most accurate way to describe my eating habits is to say I'm an ovo-lacto-vegetarian. Sure, it will probably confuse 80% of the people who hear it, but at least it can be explained without getting into arguments that can only be resolved with a dictionary or a flowchart. Bring on the loutish meat-eaters!

The perils of being indecisive

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there is a scene in which the heroes must, as the gnarly old bridgekeeper puts it, "Answer me these questions three," before they may be permitted to cross a certain gorge.

The questions are, for the most part, absurdly easy: "What is your name?" "What is your quest?" and "What is your favorite color?" Which is why it's funny when one of the heroes changes his mind about his favorite color mid-answer, and consequently gets tossed unceremoniously into the abyss by an invisible hand.

Funny to anyone but me. Were I to be the one crossing the misty chasm in that film, and assuming I were not asked a question about the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow (the answer is to confuse the asker with more questions!), I would be the one to utter the dreaded "I don't know that!" and thusly meet my demise.

I am deathly indecisive about my favorite color. It has changed 6 times over the course of my life—currently it's usually green, but even that can vary depending on my mood and the context.

When you get right down to it, I'm dangerously unopinionated about pretty much everything—which is a cause of great anxiety when it comes to me and the Internet. I won't even begin to talk about my struggles to complete online personality tests (which I adore in spite of my fickle personality traits); I will jump right into a matter of much greater import: login credentials.

 

When websites ask you to create a couple of security questions in case you forget your password, I am often at a loss, because all the questions want to know your favorites. What is your favorite book? Don't have one. What is your favorite movie? Don't have one. What is the name of your best friend? Well, that, like my favorite color, has changed at least 6 times over the course of my life, too. What if it changes again between now and the next time I have to answer this question?

There is only one thing permanent in this life, and that is the past. When I am allowed to write my own custom question, I use the past shamelessly. I frequently refer to one of the many nicknames of my childhood pets, because – even though I'm linking you right to a post about them (surely security at its worst), there are so many more that no one (except maybe my brother) could possibly guess the correct answer!

So maybe, if websites were to start writing security questions like, "What was your favorite color the week that you started college?" (The answer is lavender), then I could feel secure in my security question. But until then, the best answer I can usually manage is "I don't know that!"

Savory Sweets white macadamia nut cookie

Before heading home from my Christmas visit to Ohio, I stopped at the Meijer gas station convenience store to gather provisions for my journey. I bought cashews and a Diet Doctor Pepper because they'd be easy to consume while driving, and a Giant Cookie because that's what I do.

It was very soft, I confirmed before I even left the store. And when I ate it, it kind of crumbled apart in my mouth...but not in my hand, so its texture was pleasant overall. The white chocolate bit was good and firm (unlike the chocolate chunks of the La Madeleine cookie), so I was quite pleased by the mouth feel of the cookie.

Likewise, the flavor was enjoyable, kind of rich, with a nice mix of salty and sweet

Actually, I was surprised to note that this lowly shrink-wrapped gas station cookie was quite comparable to a Cosi white chocolate cookie, except that this one actually had macadamia nuts. Which, if you don't recall, are an ingredient that used to be in Cosi's white chocolate cookies until they rudely switched to walnut and lost a good deal of my love in the process.

Sadly, I lost or never received the receipt for this purchase, so I'll never know how this gas station cookie compares in value, but I enjoyed it enough to be quite enthusiastic about giving it another try.

The Bottom Line

Taste:
Texture:

La Madeleine chocolate chunk cookie

Although I brought this cookie on vacation with me, I actually purchased it a few days before vacation, while breakfasting at La Madeleine. I wasn't sure if I even really wanted a Giant Cookie, but I was drawn to its lopsided shape (the others for sale were not so deformed; this little guy was a special anomaly), so I bought it and packed it in case of a dessert shortage while traveling.

I ate it the day after I returned home, and concluded it would have been much better as emergency rations.

It felt kind of dry and cakey, and possessed little flavor.

The soft center was good, and there were plenty of chocolate chunks, but they were a bit too soft. There wasn't enough variation between them and the rest of the cookie to appease my palate.

For this mediocre-in-every-way cookie, I paid 1.99$, or 1.76¢ per gram—an average price for an average cookie.

The Bottom Line

Taste:
Texture:
Price:

Down Thyme Café Monster cookie

I got a little carried away and started eating the cookie
before I started photographing it.

Vacation time is typically, for me, also Giant Cookie time. I'm always on the lookout for new Giant Cookies I haven't tried yet, and where better to do that than far away from home? But also, vacation is a time when I never know what or when I will be eating, and Giant Cookies are the perfect (nonperishable, usually durable, and delicious) treat to keep in reserve for a moment of need. Of course, vacation time is also a time when I get fed a lot of desserts, so the moment of need rarely arises.

My last trip to Ohio for Christmas yielded 3 Giant Cookies, the first of which I shall now review: the monster cookie from Down Thyme Café in Fremont. At Down Thyme Café, my boyfriend outdid himself, buying 3 desserts for the whole table, so the Giant Cookie that I espied and hoarded for myself went uneaten until the night we returned to Maryland.

The inside was exceptionally hollow, consisting of basically air, chocolate chips, and M&Ms, making for a quite candy-heavy cookie. Which I don't object to in the least. Between the multitudinous M&M's were plenty of oats and still-doughy dough, which I'm pretty sure had a peanut butter flavor.

In short, this cookie contained all my favorite ingredients in great abundance, making me quite a happy cookie reviewer!

I give the cookie five stars all around, except, of course, in price, which, at 2.08¢ a gram, was just a bit above average.

The Bottom Line

Taste:
Texture:
Price:

NuVegan Café Macaroni and "Cheese"

 

I know I swore off macaroni reviewing, but today I want to break my silence and give a shout-out to my neighborhood NuVegan Café for really doing vegan macaroni right.

If you've ever eaten vegan cheese, you know it's a poor substitute for dairy-based cheese—usually squishy, slimy, and relatively flavorless. If given the choice of never eating cheese again or substituting vegan cheese for the rest of my life, I would choose to give cheese up. 

However, the vegan macaroni from NuVegan does not gross me out the way most vegan cheesy dishes do (in spite of its somewhat questionable appearance). The cheese, instead of being a stringy ooze, is crumbly and subtle. There's even a browned top layer with bits of parsley!

Another problem I have with vegan food is it is disproportionately high in onion content (onions being top on the list of foods I don't eat). For some reason, chefs seem to think, "If we can't have meat, and we can't have cheese, we must make up for it with more flavor! What's the most flavorful vegetable I can add to this dish? Onion!" However, in the case of the NuVegan macaroni, the extra flavor seems to come in the form of some kind of spice (maybe paprika?). Which is both interesting and not too painful (a common problem with spices).

I have been wrong about onion content before. I usually learn of my error a few minutes later when I start to feel really yucky after eating), but so far I have not had any adverse reaction to the NuVegan macaroni. It was a little mushy and I probably ate too much, but on the whole, it is hands-down the best vegan "cheese" dish I've ever eaten.

Cheese and onions are the two biggest obstacles between me and a vegan lifestyle. I'm not saying I'm about to jump on the vegan bandwagon, but if I'm ever ready to take a step in a more compassionate direction, I think I would start by removing mac & (dairy) cheese from my diet and replacing it with the dish from NuVegan Café!

I rate this macaroni...
One happy noodle for being the only vegan macaroni that every made me a happy noodle!

The Mood Noodle rating system is not based on a fixed scale, but is a much more subjective system based on what makes me happy and what makes me sad.
Any number of happy noodles and comparatively few sad noodles constitute a good rating.

Bad Dog x 2

Behind that endearing face...

My boyfriend doesn't have a great track record of pleasing me when it comes to dogs. This time, he (bless his heart, don't strangle him, don't strangle him!) decided to adopt a rescue dog just a few weeks after we moved into our apartment. I had strong objections and tried to encourage him to wait until we were settled in a house again, but he ignored me.

Actually, it was a little amusing, because he kept trying to go to shelters to look at potential adoptees without me catching on. We were out on a shopping trip with a couple of friends when he started driving to this unknown location. "Where are we going?" we asked him. "Oh, there's just this thing I want to see." Turns out it was a pet store holding a dog adoption event. A week later, it was...He: "I have to go somewhere." Me: "Where?" He:"Just going somewhere with my mom." Me:"You're going to the animal shelter again, aren't you!" He:"..."

Well, despite my disapproval, he went anyway. And despite being told by the adoption agency that the dog in question (which he found online, making this into one of those bad Internet dating stories) doesn't like being alone, he decided it would be the perfect pet to spend 8 hours every day in an empty home. And despite knowing that the dog was used to being kept outdoors and wasn't well house trained, he was confident that he could teach the old dog new tricks...in my home. Are we having deja vu yet?.

He planned to give the dog to his mom eventually, but our shared apartment was to be the training grounds where the beast (we'll call him Bubalou, because that's his name, as given by his previous owner) was to learn basic social skills (in the meantime, Jack Jack was relinquished to his mom temporarily since I did draw the line at one dog per household).

When he first arrived in our apartment, I had to admit he was cute. He was a puffball of fur and energy, and he had an adorable face with a wide-open smile.

Bubalou in his favorite position: Standing behind his favorite person. You can catch a glimpse of our housemate's dog hiding back there as well.

As soon as he was set loose, he began running around the place, panting, sniffing everything...and trotting into the kitchen to pee on the washing machine.

This uncivil first impression would have been bad enough on its own, but the substance that the dog emitted was like no urine I'd ever seen. It was brown. And it reeked to high heaven of something resembling mushrooms. I was so confused, I wasn't even sure he'd actually peed. But within a few minutes, he had done it again on the door to my bedroom. And within a few minutes more, he had vomited on the floor from overexcitement.

If I hadn't been certain before, I knew now that getting this dog had been a very bad idea.

The next day, while I went to work, Al stayed home to help the dog acclimate to his new environment, during which time he apparently imprinted on Al, becoming so attached that from that point on, he could not be out of Al's presence.

Staring adoringly at his true love

The next few days, we kept him in Jack Jack's crate (too small for him), from which he sprayed his urine all over the surrounding floor. After that, Al put an old shower curtain under the crate to protect the floor. Bubalou, in his fierce anxiety, managed to claw the shower curtain into the crate, and proceeded to chew it to pieces. Then Al purchased a heavy-duty tarp, which met the same fate. The neighbors left a note on our door claiming that our dog had been barking for hours, and could we please do something about it. I began to fear we would be evicted.

Meanwhile, Al took Bubalou to the vet, where we learned that he had a stone in his bladder the size of a marble, which explained the constant urination and brown color (old blood). To treat the urinary stone, Bubalou would have to be on a special, acidifying, diuretic dog food and not allowed to eat anything else until the stone had dissolved, which could take months. Let's read that again. Months. On a diuretic. This dog was destined to be peeing on an hourly basis for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately for me, when I first had the inkling that we might have to be moving into an apartment, I had made a deal with my boyfriend that if he wanted to bring his problem dog Jack Jack (who's actually a little angel compared to Bubalou) with us, instead of making him stay with his parents, he would have to be solely responsible for taking the dog out to go to the bathroom. And the same rules would apply regardless of who the dog was. So when Bubalou gets his midnight urges to empty his bladder, guess who has to crawl out of bed, put on his shoes and coat, grab his keys, and walk out to relieve the dog? Not me! That doesn't mean I enjoy getting woken up in the middle of every night (because I still do; it's kind of hard to ignore a frantic dog walking all over you); it's just a small consolation that things could be worse.

And at least I'm not bearing the financial burden of this dog. As soon as I learned about the bladder stone, I told Al this dog was way more than he had signed up for, and there would be no shame in returning him to the rescue home. After all, I had already decided that an apartment was no place even for a rabbit (let alone an incontinent anxiety-prone dog) and I had given Hansel up to a rescue family (that's right; the rabbit is gone).

But Al was more stubborn; he felt a sense of duty; and he has not yet learned the joys of spending a whole month's income on an ungrateful pet. But he will. The initial vet bill, even after pet insurance, was over 500 dollars.  His teeth need a deep cleaning, which will require anesthesia and big bucks. After the note from the neighbors, Al was forced to put Bubalou into doggy day care, for 35 dollars a day. The prescription dog food is 40 dollars a bag and lasts about 3 weeks. To help Bubalou overcome his separation anxiety and get properly toilet trained, Al had to hire a dog behaviorist at a cost of over a thousand dollars.

Al also invested in some stylish doggy diapers to keep Bubalou from flooding the condo and the office
(where he gets to spend the day when the boss is gone).

I will stop now, but I'm sure this story is far from over. Prepare yourselves now. In the book of Badly Behaved Dogs, Bubalou's chapter has just begun.

 

'Ment to be apart

This weekend, I renewed my lease for another 3 months. Much to my disappointment. 

 

I so wanted to have found a permanent home by the end of December, but now it seems I'm stuck in my apartment until March at the earliest. Although I have definitely lived in worse places, I have come to realize that I never had it better than when I was living in a house. Apartment living is just not for me. 

Apartment living turns pet ownership from a pleasure to a major hassle. I actually relinquished my rabbit to a rescue home within the first few weeks of living in my apartment, because it was too difficult to feed him, exercise him, and especially keep his cage clean without convenient access to the outdoors and a good strong water hose. And that was just a caged rabbit! Can you imagine the trials of living in an apartment with a dog? Especially a neurotic dog? Well, if you can't imagine, I am about to tell you...in a future post. For now, just suffice it to say that keeping a crazy, needy dog in an apartment is a tribulation of great proportions.

You know what else is a tribulation in an apartment? Keys. Want to get into your home? Be sure to grab your keys—first the keys that get you into the building, then the keys that get you into your unit. Want to get your mail? Be sure to grab your other keys, then wrestle your letters, wrinkled and crumpled, out of the tiny steel box they place them inside. Want to take out your garbage? Be ready to walk down several flights of stairs and out to the dumpsters...and don't forget to bring your keys! Forgot your keys? Got locked out because your door shut itself behind you when you ran out to catch your dog who was running away? Well, there's no hope of hiding a spare on the premises, so you'll have to call your boyfriend from a neighbor's phone and have him bring his key home from work.

Apartments are no place for a solar-powered being such as myself, because they only get 1/4 the natural light of a freestanding house! I never considered how much this would bother me until I moved in, but basically we get full sun for about 3 hours every morning. Even during those 3 hours, because the sun is only coming in one window, it doesn't even reach the back wall of the rooms. We have a triple-wide glass patio door, which keeps the living room acceptably well lit for most of the day, but even that patio is shaded by the patio above it, so we get half as much light in there as we might if we were on a top floor. Altogether this equals less happiness and higher electricity bills.

Apartment living also means that washing... anything other than yourself... is a major undertaking. In many apartments, doing laundry would mean paying several dollars for the privilege of using one of 3 machines that are shared among dozens of units. In our apartment, we're lucky enough to have our own washer and dryer...which are so tiny and inefficient at drying that one load of laundry (or what would have been one load at my old abode) takes 3-4 hours. Bonus! We do have a dishwasher, about which I have no complaints. But as for washing your car (something I've always done at home), you have no alternative but to pay for an automatic car wash to do a sub-par job, and if you want to vacuum, your only option is the gas station vacuum, with nozzles so big you can't get into any of the cracks.

Living in an apartment is also a terrible struggle for those who like to travel by bike. Most apartments do not have bike parking, so you must keep your bike in your unit. This chews up your available storage space like nothing else, and heaven help you if you live in a walk-up. You'll be getting plenty of exercise lugging your bike up the stairs, but you'll also be getting plenty of chain grease on your clothes and plenty of injuries wrestling it through all those doors (that require all those keys!)

Apartment living means you're never truly alone. Of course, we've taken on a roommate to help pay the bills, but even if we were alone in our unit, we'd have our neighbors upstairs and downstairs. The ceilings in our building are what I believe is commonly referred to in the construction industry as "weaksauce." I'm afraid to work out because 1) The floor is suspiciously springy and 2) I worry I'll be thundering on the tenants below us. The ceiling certainly transmits every footstep from the unit above. And I have actually heard conversations through the floor in my closet (though I could only make out a word or two).

Because moving forced me to re-evaluate my priorities, get rid of a lot of junk, and organize the junk that remained, having enough space really isn't as much of an issue as I thought it would be. But I still do miss my space-hogging collections—especially the extensive array of shipping supplies and things I planned to sell on eBay (and the extra income it brought in) and my eclectic collection of odds and ends for crafting. Whatever am I going to give people for Christmas if I can't make something from scratch?

Woe is me, to have sacrificed so much! But the one thing that I'm grateful for, in the midst of this less than delightful living situation of mine, is that I have finally answered a question that was weighing on me. Should I consider the possibility of buying a condo? Finally, I can say with confidence that I should not.

Going for Broke

I'm still not quite sure how it happened, but in the middle of the night a few Sundays ago, I hopped out of bed to turn off the heat and somehow landed, not on the sole of my foot as is right and proper, but on the tops of my left toes. My foot and ankle did an extreme backbend, and, finally registering that something was wrong but unable to recover from my awkward position, I relieved the pressure in the only way I could—by tumbling to the floor in a noisy heap (Good 3AM, downstairs neighbors!). I then proceeded to writhe around on the ground for a minute or two because of the pain!

Returning to bed (but only after hobbling over to the thermostat to finish what I'd started), I spent the rest of the night with my injured foot on a pillow, sleeping fitfully and dreaming of attending a fancy event where I had to crawl on my hands and knees in a beautiful dress because my foot would not support me.

In the morning, I soon learned my dreams had been quite premonitory, as I could not put any weight on my foot at all... But, fortunately I guess, I did not have any fancy events to attend. I borrowed my boyfriend's ankle brace and rapidly learned that I could get around the house by hopping on my hands and good foot like a three-legged rabbit. And as the day went on, never one to let a minor disability stand between me and watching a spectator sport (do you feel the sarcasm?), I accompanied my boyfriend to Applebee's to see the Ravens game, hopping about on one foot much to the puzzlement of citizens everywhere.

Over the next few days, my condition improved pretty rapidly. By Monday, I could hobble around on two feet again, and I limped to the doctor's office to confirm that my injury wasn't too serious. On Tuesday, I retired the ankle brace. On Wednesday, I realized my ankle was doing great, but my shoes were all pinching my bruised toes, so I cut a slice into my oldest pair of sneakers to give them a little more space. Soon I was able to walk normally, then get around in a standard un-mutilated shoe, then I re-learned to walk fast enough that I'm again overtaking all the pedestrians in my path! It was a big moment for me when, a week and a half after my accident, I wore a boot with a three-inch heel!

The joy was short-lived, though, because 2+ weeks later, I am still in pain! On Thanksgiving morning, I was poking around at my injury when I noticed my left fourth toe was a little puffy compared to the same toe on the other foot. I decided to pinpoint the problem by bending it up (not bad), bending it down (a little painful), and finally twisting it left and right. Ayoooooo! I felt a crunchy sort of resistance, almost like my toe was made of densely packed wet sand and I was slowly molding it into a new shape. Yuck! My newly aching toes refused to forget that stupid move for the remainder of the day.

Let me tell you, when I say this has been agony, I do not exaggerate. The proof is in the way I scream whenever I unexpectedly move my foot the wrong way. Of course, there is psychological agony, too...the inability to move faster than a off-kilter jog, which is seriously cramping my workout style...the torment of having 2/3 of my shoe collection off limits (including 4 brand new pairs that arrived in the mail the day after my injury!)....For all these indignities, I feel like I deserve some compensation, and that compensation is...yes! An injury upgrade!

I hereby declare I have broken my toe. Possibly both the fourth toe and the pinky toe. I probably won't be going to get them X-rayed, because I don't imagine that there's anything I can do about them even if they are broken (except maybe lay off the gratuitous twisting!), so I'll never know for sure, but I'm gonna claim it as truth.

Part of me is thrilled I finally have a real, crippling injury to call my own. I've reached an important milestone in life—getting to join the Broken Toe Club (I have met two people in the past day who had broken toe stories of their own to share), yet deep down inside, another part of me wishes I had acquired this trophy in a less ignominious way than falling out of bed. 

2 Wawa giant cookies

Wawa Rainbow Cookie

These cookies don't earn any points for durability. I've actually purchased 2 (both times forgetting to take a picture), and they fall apart before I even get them home.

This could mean, at least, that they don't have the constitution of a brick, which can only be good, but it also could mean that they are too dry. But why speculate when you can just eat one and find out?

This cookie was fluffy and airy and pleasantly soft in the middle, graduating to crispy and still airy (thus fragile) around the edges. It wasn't my favorite texture, being rather too inclined to crumble, but not the worst either.

Where this cookie really failed was in the taste department. It had that signature flavor of a mass-produced cheap cookie—a little too much sweet and not enough substance. The chocolate candies did nothing to add to it, since they were also a little too sweet. This is one case where bittersweet chocolate would have really made a difference... but of course in a cookie clearly made to appeal to children, that's a lost cause.

While you can't go wrong with the price (whaaaat? 99 cents? That's just a little over 1¢ per gram, or, very affordable!), cookie connoisseurs out there will probably want to pass this one up.

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Wawa Chocolate Chip Cookie

After my somewhat disappointing encounter with the rainbow cookie, I was ready to swear off Wawa cookies for life. But then, at a late night trip to the gas station to pick up a sandwich, I saw the appetizing-looking chocolate chip cookie and decided to give it a try. 

At the same price of 99¢ for 96g, the chocolate chunk cookie is a steal as far as Giant Cookies go...and, I discovered much to my relief, a real treat to eat!

Unlike its candy-cookie brother, the outside edge was not a brittle crumb factory, and in fact, the cookie was chewy and tasty right clear through! If I had one complaint, it would be that the chocolate chunks were a little too gooey at room temperature, but overall, the texture was perfect. I even detected some nice crunchy granules of sugar in the mix!

The flavor as well was everything you could ask for in a chocolate chip cookie—sweet, salty, chocolatey all in one. I think I've found another winner, and I'll let my friendly neighborhood Wawa be my new solution when a cookie craving comes to call.

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Goldilocks gets the tables turned

I'm tired. I have spent the last 4 months on a housing roller coaster, looking for roommates, looking for a new rental, giving up all hope of ever doing either, and then repeating! All because I decided to buy a house.

The Hyattsville House

It all started in July, when I found what looked like the house of my dreams in a neighborhood near the Prince George's Plaza Metro. Things got off to an un-reassuring start when I had to offer 25,000 dollars higher than the asking price to beat out other offers. It only went downhill from there, as I continued to meet resistance from the seller's agent for every little repair or financial compromise. A week or so into the process, I began to question whether I actually liked the neighborhood and wonder why I was agreeing to spend so much money on a deal that I wasn't sure about. I canceled the sale, but only after I had already notified my landlord that I'd be moving out.

He was pretty nice about my backflip, agreeing to let me stay on in his house as a month-to-month renter, as I had been for the past 2 years, but the seed had been planted, and it was only a month before he in turn notified me that I'd have to leave. He had decided he wanted the house for his mother-in-law to live in. I still wonder, if I had just kept my mouth shut about my impending real estate deal, if he would have let me stay on indefinitely. But alas, that is water under the bridge now!

I spent the end of August and early September searching, increasingly desperately, for an acceptable rental. It is astonishingly hard to find a place in this area that's big enough for 2 and allows pets and short-term leases and isn't a ridiculous luxury apartment. I needed a short term lease because I was still trying to buy a house.

The Short Sale

I was, in fact, waiting for bank approval on a short-sale that I had bid on back in August. Although everyone had warned me that short sales involve a long process that frequently ends in failure, at the time, I felt like I had all the time in the world, and the price was wonderfully low, so I was willing to wait. It was then, at that particularly inopportune moment, that my landlord gave me notice, forcing me to scramble for a new rental without knowing if I would even need it once I'd signed the lease.

Finally finding an apartment that met all my specifications in mid-September, I signed a 3-month lease ending at the end of December. Originally, I had planned to sign for 4 months, but originally, the plan had been for us to split the apartment with another unknown person the landlord had found, who subsequently backed out. I agreed to pay the whole (too-high) rent, thinking that I could survive on sporadic Airbnb income until my real estate deal went through (by this time, the bank had responded to my offer and we were engaged in some final price negotiations, so I felt like the end was in sight!).

But then, within 2 weeks, my offer was declined (the seller became current with their payments) AND my new landlord informed me that I may not rent the room via Airbnb. I started looking for a housemate, which I can now say from experience is nearly impossible to find on short notice for such a short period, especially at such a high rent in such an inaccessible area. But I decided to keep plugging away. I had a couple months.

The Fakeout

There was another house on the market I liked, with a newly finished basement that would make it a breeze to take on a few housemates/guests to help with the mortgage. I made an offer, it was accepted, and everything was going peachy keen. Third time is the charm, I thought. I stopped looking for a housemate. We came in for our home inspection at the beginning of November, and things went rapidly downhill. First, the inspector turned on the heat, but nothing happened. Then he found termite damage in a beam supporting the main floor. The kicker was the crack and bulge that ran along the entire foundation wall, which he estimated could cost up to 100,000$ to fix. I declined to continue the inspection, and found myself back at square 1, albeit 200$ poorer.

By now it was a week into November, and I still had no clue where I was going to live at the end of December. I called my landlord to see if he'd allow us to stay on after that, renting just the single room we'd almost ended up with at the beginning, but he had changed his tune. He said that would be too much work for him, but he'd let me renew my lease for the full apartment. Well, without any housemate to help with the rent, that seems like the last thing I'd ever want to do! So I'm back to looking for roommates or a new (smaller!) apartment.

The Last Resort

Over the weekend, I visited another house that would work for my needs. The asking price was high, but still within my limits, and it had no offers after 43 days on the market and 2 open houses, so I placed a lower offer and waited. And waited. And waited.

In my first 3 experiences with bidding on a house, the seller had always responded within a day. Finally after 3 days, the seller responded with a counter offer that doesn't suit my thrifty nature. So, while there's still a chance we can come to an agreement, it's getting slimmer by the minute.

If this doesn't work out, I am finding a nice cheap apartment with a long-term lease and taking a break from house shopping. The last four months have been the most stressful, suspenseful months of my life. I first began this process because I'd decided that buying a home would be a more economical choice than renting for the rest of my life, but if there is a single lesson in these four failures, I would have to say it's that I'm not destined to be a homeowner.

Cavalcade of Costumes

It's almost time for the best dress-up day of the year, and I'm embarrassed to admit I only have one costume planned. One costume is not enough! You know me, I never like to wear the same outfit twice, and the same goes for Halloween costumes. In recent years, I've done up to three separate costumes for all the different events I go to in one season, and although I only have one event on my calendar this year, I expect that number to rise significantly as the big day approaches! And (gasp!) I have costumer's block!

I lay part of the blame on my high standards for costumes, for which I credit my parents, who once went to a Halloween party dressed, respectively, as a dining table and a microwave (or was it a flashlight?). Those oddball (and entirely homemade!) costumes set the bar pretty high for my future Halloweens.

Nowadays, I feel like I've failed if my costumes don't meet certain standards. They have to be handmade or thrifted—nothing from the costume store will serve! They have to be something that's not too overdone—you don't want to be the 7th Where's Waldo at the party! And, when I can, I particularly enjoy doing a costume that's a bit of a joke.

Meeting all these criteria is hard enough, and it doesn't help that my recent move and possessions-purge have deprived me of much of the vast stockpile of clothes and crafting supplies I once possessed, so I've had to be more creative with even less stuff.

Add to that that, after 32 years of living, I'm running out of costumes I haven't already worn before! Every time I come up with an idea, I remember that I've already done it! So, since I'm thinking of them anyway, I might as well take a break from the search for the best costume of the future, and spend a moment to share some of the costumes of the past!

Cat. I realize this is not high up there on the novelty scale, but it was entirely home-made, with my mom's help, so I was the most unique-looking cat (made out of a man's chenille shirt) in my class!

Statue of Liberty. Through most of my youth, I had an obsession with the Statue of Liberty, so at least twice in my life, I mortalized (Neologism by Valerie!) this inanimate object with a Halloween costume.

The Phantom of the Opera. Another obsession that ran its course during my elementary school days, I had to play the Phantom for Halloween. I remember we made the mask with papier-mâché so it could be an exact replica of the mask worn in the off-Broadway production!

Carrot. After I decided I needed to up my creativity game, one of the first off-the-wall costumes I invented was the carrot. With a leafy top constructed of a baseball helmet, some tissue paper, and an artificial plant, I proudly stepped into a bold new era.

Snowman. Boy, was I glad I was wearing this costume, made of a full-body furry jumpsuit, when I went trick-or-treating! because it was coooooold outside, but in my snowman, I was as cozy as I've ever been on Halloween!

Christmas tree. I remember doing this costume in high school. This year, I was tempted to repeat it, but ultimately I decided that the artificial tree I found in my new apartment would be better donated than reconstructed into a (no doubt very uncomfortable!) costume.

Toilet. Possibly the one worn the last time I went trick-or-treating, and undoubtedly a feat of engineering, the toilet had a bowl that actually flushed candy! It confused people, but it entertained me!

Fairy. For a few years during and after college, I don't remember wearing any kind of costume whatsoever. To usher me out of those dark ages, I made a fairy costume out of a bridesmaid's dress and some wings out of curtains in 2009. And then I caught a cold and spent Halloween huddled in bed, never to bring my fairy to life (OK, fine, I wore the costume a few months later to a baby shower, much to the awe of every female under 7 at the party). Also my first costume since the advent of digital photography, which is why there are no pictures of the prior costumes!

Unicorn. The first (successfully worn for Halloween) costume of my adult life was a fairly simple affair, with a horn made of paper, mane and tail made of yarn, and white clothing. I thought it was a pretty great costume until Fall Fairy (with her leaves and blinking lights) totally blew me away. I knew I would have to do better the next year. And the next year was... 

Bridezilla. If there had been a costume contest at the venue I wore my Bridezilla costume, I'm sure I would have won at least something. Alas, an ingenious costume wasted on a contest-free party! Never again! Now a costume contest is a requirement for any Halloween party I search for.

Spiderweb. You probably remember this one from my other blog or Facebook, because I proudly announced it as the first (and only...yet!) costume that ever won me a prize—and it won me two! I guess my rule of never repeating a costume was a good one to break.

The Sea. Also appearing in my blog last year, this costume was something I threw together at the last minute, but it involved one of my best hairdos of all time!

The White Rabbit. As one of many people masquerading as characters from Alice in Wonderland, I chose the White Rabbit because it would give me an opportunity to wear my white furry boots (for what ended up being the last time—R.I.P)!

Thirteen costumes! What is there left to do? Well, I have a lot of ideas, but most of them will have to wait until next year when I am better prepared to construct them. In the meantime, I just hope I won't have to settle for one of the boring Big 20.

"The Brownie Baker" cookies from Las Vegas

I once was told they make the food cheap in Las Vegas, because they want to lure you in so you spend all your money on gambling. Well, in my experience, that just isn't true! I found two Giant Cookies while in the city (probably my second-best find next to the 100-dollar bill I discovered under a roulette table!), and each was priced 2.99$ for 156g. Of course, I did find them in a convenience shop, which are not known for having the best of prices, but still, that averages out to be 1.92$ per gram, or a bit above average.

Let's see if the quality was above average to match.

Chewy Caramel Cookie 

I started with the Chewy Caramel Cookie, which did, indeed, live up to its description of being  chewy. That said, it was baked in some kind of mold, so it had the shape of a muffin top, and the outside edge was very crumbly because it was thinner than the rest. The inside held together better and was a good consistency.

The caramel chunks inside were a novelty (I've never had a cookie with actual pieces of caramel in it!). They were chewy and gooey. They were also the only part I could taste. Overall, the cookie was fairly devoid of flavor. The saltiness of the caramel pieces was probably its best aspect. There were also a few chocolate pieces, equally soft. I would have preferred if they had given my teeth a little more resistance.

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Peanut Butter & Brownie Cookie

Since these cookies were made by The Brownie Baker, I had high hopes for this particular flavor.

But, if anything, they were even worse than the caramel cookie. The chocolate was bitter, which is not unheard of, and can even be somewhat pleasant if done right, but I detected a note of caraway seed, which definitely isn't what I look for in a chocolate cookie.

Oddly, this cookie was even more chewy than the caramel cookie. Biting into it was almost like biting into taffy. And taffy is not my favorite candy. On the whole, I found this cookie highly disappointing.

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But can you pronounce it?

Thanks to reading voraciously throughout my young life (and semi-voraciously throughout my adult life), I have a prodigious vocabulary (so they say; I personally would never be so vain). Finding just the right word for a thing that I need to describe satisfies some primal need deep inside me. 

Yet for all the words I bandy about in my writing, there are some of them that I admit I have never heard spoken aloud. There are some words that I read regularly but would hesitate to speak aloud myself, because I have no idea how to pronounce them! 

Today, I'm going to set the record straight and finally learn the correct pronunciation for some of these less-uttered words.

Respite

I'm sure I heard this spoken at some point in my childhood, because I attached a rather unintuitive pronunciation to it in my mind: "RES-pit." But my confidence in its pronunciation was shaken when a friend in high school  (a fellow voracious reader) spoke it as "Ree-SPITE." So after all these years, I'm finally consulting the dictionary...and it says in America, you should say "RES-pit," although in British English, it is apparently common to pronounce it "RES-pite" which is an odd hybrid pronunciation that I never even imagined.

Glower

It's a very useful word to describe the facial expression of someone who is quite angry, in a sulky, not shouty way. But how do you pronounce it? My money is on "GLAH-wer." The dictionary says: I'm right!

Grimace

Another negative facial expression, this one I always assumed was pronounced "GRIM-iss," much like the McDonald's character. But the same high school friend (I think; it might have been someone else) pronounced it "Grim-ACE," so it's back to the authorities to find out the truth. The correct pronunciation is: either one! Although my way, with the accent on the first syllable, is usually listed first. So far I'm 3 for 3!

Confluence

This is another word that I always thought was pronounced with the accent on the first syllable until I heard someone else pronounce it differently, making me doubt myself. Is it "KON-flu-ence" or is it "Kun-FLU-ence"? In this one, all the dictionaries seem to agree it's the former... except maybe Webster's, which, if I'm reading their phonetical notation right, indicates that the latter is an acceptable alternative. 

Debacle

This word has come up so frequently in fiction, I am almost ashamed that I still don't know how to say it out loud. Although I'd guess "Deb-OCK-l" if pressed, it's such a strange spelling that I would hate to have to guess. Fortunately, it looks like all dictionaries clearly indicate the OCK as second syllable to be correct, though opinions vary as to the exact vowel sound for the first. 

Archetype

I've always been puzzled by this word. I think it's pronounced "ARK-e-type," but one can never be too certain with CH's. Phew. The dictionaries once again have my back.

Apogee

I know this word from the software company that made Commander Keen back in 1990. But I never bothered to confirm how to say the name...until now. It's, just as you'd probably think, "AP-uh-jee."

And that concludes my list of written words I was hesitant to pronounce! As it turns out, my hesitation was pretty unfounded, because my instincts (or suppressed memories) for each word proved to be correct. So the moral of this story is, If you're uncertain how to say a word, just go ahead and say it. Because 7 times out of 7, you'll get it right. 

Moving (again)

After 5 years (to the day) in my adorable rental house in College Park, I have finally moved on to other digs. I probably won't be posting an entire photo album of my new place on Facebook because, no, I didn't finally buy a house of my own, as I've been going on and on about for the past 6 months. I was forced to move out because of factors beyond my control, and I consider the current place to be but a waypoint on my journey.

Months before I moved, I pondered whether I could actually live in an apartment. Well, I am about to find out. As it happens, after jettisoning much of the excess baggage that I accumulated during those luxurious years of living in a house, my boyfriend and I fit quite comfortably in a 1-bedroom condo (it's actually 2 bedrooms, but we've reserved the extra bedroom for a future housemate).

Moving was nothing less than absolute torture (some highlights: being obliged to sell or give away about half of my possessions, backing a pickup truck into my housemates' car, spending an entire morning getting rained on while carrying furniture without assistance).

To help myself have a positive attitude about the whole thing, I'm focusing on the annoying things about the old house that I've escaped.

I won't miss being an Airbnb host. I do love the extra income, but having to be cheery and welcoming to a new batch of strangers every couple of days has taken its toll on my introverted self.

I won't miss yardwork. In however many months I'm paying the exorbitant rent on this apartment, I can console myself by thinking of how I'm not wrestling a lawnmower up a dew-slicked hill, raking leaves until my shoulders burn and my fingers blister, or dooming myself to an armful of itchy welts from all the plants I touch while weeding.

I won't miss the stupid toilet seat that's always coming loose, or the guest room door that's always falling off its hinges, or the idiotic drainage system that turns the driveway into a swamp in the summer and a treacherous ice slick in the winter. I won't miss the gate on the right side of the house with the latch that's too tight to close, or the gate on the left side of the house with the latch that's too loose to close, or the rock I have to kick aside every time I want to open that one.

I won't miss having to spend half my commute time at a certain traffic light on my trip home every day.

I won't miss my neighbors across the street who yell instead of speak, and I won't miss my neighbors on the left who gave me the evil eye every time I come home. My neighbors on the right were all right, but I won't miss the man's horrifying winter cough that should be coming back any week now.

I'm sure that as time goes by, I will grow to hate this place too, as is right and proper, but for now, I will enjoy the things I have gained. To wit, a bigger bed, a bigger kitchen, and walk-in closet!

Pet Names

I enjoy naming things.

I have a name for every houseplant that survives over a year. Despite having no intention of ever becoming a parent, I still keep a list of human names that I would enjoy naming a child (so, future parents out there, consult me first if you're struggling for a name for your little one). Sometimes I won't publish a blog post until I've cooked up just the right witty title (like this one—don't miss the double meaning that will become clear as you read on!).

 

I once spent a week and a half mulling over what to call my rabbit. It had to be the perfect name, because after all, you only get to name your rabbit once, right? Wrong. The thing that occurred to me today is, I cannot seem to stop myself from serial nicknaming every animal that walks into my life. 

I name pets after their species – Hansel is, accordingly, "Rabbity Boy" – and their obvious attributes – "Fur Boy" – and then when I get bored with these elementary appellations, I start adding suffixes — like "Rabbitrocious."

I name pets after their names—Hansel is also "Handsome," Jack Jack is also "Jackelope." Junior became "Jujubee"; Pumpkin, "Sweet Punky Doodle"; Tierra, "Erra-erra-erra," and on it goes. 

I have a whole arsenal of nicknames based on traits that I find annoying. Hansel is also known as "Piglet," thanks to his enormous appetite. Jack Jack, who is a holy terror, gets the special title of "Little Stupid Stupid," inspired by a hilariously censored radio version of a Big Sean song (sadly, I could not find that version on the Internet).

I name pets after the sounds they make (Past ones were "Gromble", "Yomble", "Chuffles," and "Squee", for example) and then go on to develop variations (including "Grombeezler," "Yombat," "Chuffle-uffagus," and "Peebles & Squeeps").

I even nickname my friends' pets. My former housemate's cat, Nox, was, to me at least, all sorts of things including "Mr. Knick-Nox." And my current housemates' dog, Petey, is (only in my mind), Peetricia.

I just can't seem to stop. Whenever a word for my pets pops into my head, I feel compelled to adopt it into permanent usage. For every one of the innumerable pets I've had over the years, I probably have at least 3 alternate names. 

Weirdly, I never give nicknames to people—I rarely even use accepted shortened names. Even my boyfriend doesn't get anything except the most tame variations of common terms of endearment. You can't nickname a person without risking the possibility of causing offense, so I think the main reason I keep my indefatigable nickname engine restricted to animals only is that, unlike people, a pet won't object no matter what you call it. Remember "Booger Kitten," anyone?

Probably not. I don't think most people (except my family, who probably had a hand in creating many of the nicknames mentioned here) know of any of these names...so, I wonder if this is really something everyone does—hoard a secret library of alternative names for their animals, that only get used behind the safety of closed doors?

What do you say, readers? Do your pets get new aliases every month like mine? And if so, what are they?

The writings on the wall

Every so often, they will appear, unannounced and unbidden, upon the stall doors in the bathroom at my office. They're not really passive-aggressive notes so much as patronizing messages, from the mysterious and unnamed mother-figure who apparently watches over our building.

Did you remember to wash your hands?

Ladies please remember to flush when you're done

All female hygiene products must be placed into the recepicle —Someone helpfully inserted a T into that particular misspelled word, but neglected to replace the errant I with an A. I shake my head. The responses to any syntactical error on our restroom PSA's are always merciless, and frequently entertaining.

Last year, the message was a long diatribe about bathroom courtesy and how we should pick up any paper that we happen to drop on the floor, culminating with a preachy "It was harder to get into UMD than that!" and though I unfortunately have forgotten the exact words of the replies, a long handwritten conversation followed, mainly regarding the author's failure to use proper English.

I don't know who comes into the bathroom armed with a pen (I guess a lot of people, if they happen to be students carrying backpacks), but I don't, and sometimes I feel the sorrow of missing out.

Today, when I was unable to dry my hands because of a lack of paper towels in the dispenser, I was tempted to add my own little question to the mix: Did you remember to wash your hands? Yes. Did you remember to stock the paper towels? I would etch it out using the residual wash water that still soaked my fingers--my own little way of writing in blood. But sadly, I didn't think my hand would stay wet long enough, nor would my message fit on the remaining open area of paper. Or last long enough to really be appreciated.

Alas, I am doomed to be ever the observer in the grammatical battleground that is the ladies' room, my smug redactions and wry observations never to see the light of day. Except here. Enjoy them.

Money on my mind

It is unusual, for a strict grammarian such as me, to willfully flout a syntactical rule, but I do, almost always, position the dollar sign after the numbers in my writing (e.g. 20$), rather than before it (e.g. $20), as we are technically supposed to do. I was scanning laboriously through my list of blog posts, looking for an explanation, but I couldn't find one. I can't believe I've never written on this matter before, but on the chance I really haven't, here's my reasoning.

When you read a price, the word "dollar" (or substitute any type of currency) comes after the amount. e.g. "This pineapple costs four dollars."

When writing a price symbolically, I say you should follow the same structure as when spoken. Thus, "This pineapple costs 4$."

The traditional way of writing said sentence would be, "This pineapple costs $4," which would logically be spoken, "This pineapple costs dollars-four," and we obviously don't speak like that!

There are lots of illogical things in the English language, and I'd be inclined to let this particular one slide, except that it introduces even more complications when working with big numbers. 

Consider the following sentence: "The construction is projected to cost six-hundred-million dollars."

Naturally, you don't want to have to write out all those words, so numerals and symbols come to the rescue! A newspaper might write out that sentence as "The construction is projected to cost $600 million." Now, because of the grouping of numbers and the separation of the word million, it is very easy to misread that sentence as "...to cost six-hundred dollars...million...Oh, I mean six-hundred-million-dollars." Having to reread a sentence is a minor inconvenience, but becomes more than an inconvenience when you're only skimming the sentence, just see the numbers (because they are logically grouped and also larger than your typical letters, they stand out) and get a completely inaccurate notion of the real price. All this trouble could be avoided entirely by reordering the words to "600 million $"—a bit odd-looking, but only because you're not used to that construction.

I've been annoyed by this backwards representation of numbers enough times that I vowed to do something about it. Granted, I have little clout in the evolution of language, but I will still try to make a contribution! You don't have to follow my system, but if it makes sense to you, maybe you should! It only takes a spark to get a fire going. Maybe, one day, everyone will follow this syntax...but until then, at least you know why I do.