Home Improvement

One of the tenets of my coming back to Virginia for 2 weeks was to help TH renovate his newly acquired bachelor pad. I think one of my main responsibilities is to make sure it doesn't look like a dude apartment. No video games littering the floor, no pictures of dogs playing cards, and NO crappy pots that will inevitably hold old, old rice-a-roni for days at a time.

Things are going ok so far. We painted the ceilings last night and removed all the nails from the wall, then plastered and sanded the holes. Friday is big painting and decor day. To say I'm excited is an understatement. I was kind of made for home improvement projects. I have always been the person to move into the "fixer-uppers" just so I can paint and re-do the house in order to restore its beauty.

So last night I'm looking for a hammer to remove the nails from the wall and I find this in a shopping bag:
Ms. Fix-It. Apparently, TH is ready to beautify the house, too. You go girl.

back in the 703

I arrived back in Virginia late Monday evening. Since my return I have been heavily involved in the following two things: TH time and Jenny/Lizzy time.

It's been 4 days since school went on break and I feel like time has stopped. It's weird waking up with the feeling of "I can do whatever I want today and forGET you, school!" Seriously. I feel so unproductive and it's starting to get to me. I don't know how people don't work/school/family every day. Even vacation usually gets tiresome - after a few days of doing nothing, I get a little stir-crazy. (This is not a call for no more vacations, friends.)

So after getting into Virginia, TH met me on the train platform - very romantic way to see your Other for the first time in forever (read: 9 days). We went to DC to catch the Screen on the Green only to realize it was not going on any longer. That realization came after exiting from the L'Enfant metro stop and getting lost in a graveyard of bureaucratic building (really, we couldn't find our way out for about a half hour), so we just chalked it up to a "lovely night to walk around the city" until we both started becoming crazed with hunger and there were no restaurants in sight. Back to VA to eat. Food.

Tuesday I spent the day with Jenny and Lizzy! I picked her up and we stashed all the baby stuff into TH's car and went to the mall. El mallo. We got lizzy some cutie girl clothes and helped her become comfortable with running around in the play-area. She was really scared at first, but then just threw caution to the wind and PLAYED.

After a little while, Gramma Debdeb met up with us, and then TH later on. It was so fun to be with my family and TH! I don't see these people nearly as much as I would like to. We tried to help TH pick out an expen$ive $uit, but to no avail. Boys clothes shopping is difficult. It is an arena I am completely unfamiliar with.

The best part of the day was going out to the cars to switch all the baby stuff out of TH's car into Gramma's car. TH had not seen the taking over of the baby stuff that had happened to his precious car. Car seat, fruit loops on the floor, strollers, and a baby crib. He was like - oh...this has never happened in my car before. I think he was mildly nervous with all the baby stuff just blatantly taking over his car. Naturally.

Today's agenda? Well considering how it is 1:30 and I am still in bed, this day might not be full of much more then laying around, maybe I'll go out for a walk or something (yes, I am slowly turning into an old geriatric woman.)

So yes, I am here atleast until next weekend. Let's hang out, Virginia friends!!!

youngest sister is all married now. MARRIED.

On functioning at 25% capacity

Just about there. The first semester will be finished in about 3 hours. Wow, cannot wait.

To do before tomorrow's flight to Utah for sisters wedding:
1. Finish math worksheets
2. Return library books
3. Find apartment
4. Visit teach
5. Move
6. Pack for trip (to Utah and DC)
7. Buy a babka and maybe cupcakes

That feels like a lot of "to-do's" in 24 hours.

Side note: I am running on about 12 hours of sleep for the entire week. Seriously, grad school. You are giving me greys.

Weekends avoiding homework

Well this weekend was AWESOME. Mainly because it was full of me hemming and hawwing (yes, thats right H&H) and not studying for a final that I have in 11 hours. So here I am in the computer lab, once again wasting time and not studying for a stupid ecology final. Allow me to take a minute to tell you what I did this weekend.

Friday: Watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics!! How cool was that? I was so impressed with China's ability to look like machines. It is no wonder they are so good at making machinery devices, given that their citizens are able to organize themselves like robots.
Then later that night TH arrived on a train from DC to spend about 36 hours with yours truly. Accompanied by Jess and Josh, we hitched a subway ride to the meatpacking district to see Metric!!

She was wearing this hot jumpsuit thingy that I am having Jess make for me. In gold lame. It was sexy rexy. Me and Jess danced around like little pixies and the boys loved it, puh-lease. I forget how much I love going out dancing with friends!

I think this is me trying to be sexy like Emily Haines. I just need a jumpsuit to make the transformation complete. TH is like - hey, gnomie move out of the way, I can't see. When you get a jumpsuit I will stare at you the way I am staring at Emily Haines right now. *drool

We got home at like 4 am and died until we were reborn the next morning and by morning I mean 1:30 pm. Ha. Um, whoops.

Saturday was spent a little at school - I had a couple of group meetings to attend to, but after that we took off to SoHo to eat. While we were walking around I saw a famous person walking towards me right in front of The Whole Foods.

Denise Huxtable. AKA Marie de Salle. AKA ex-spouse of Lenny Kravitz.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you - Lisa Bonet:

She was walking with her boyfriend and carrying her baby. It was so CUTE. And she was so beautiful. She had amazing skin and her and her boyfriend looked really peaceful just strolling around in SoHo with baby in tow. It was really cute.

Sad part: TH did not see her. He was too busy checking out her boyfriends tattoo. So this happened:

Gnomie: OMG, I just saw Denise Huxtable!
TH: What? Where?
Gnomie: She just passed us! Right back there (pointing).
TH: WHAT!? I didn't see her! (look of disgust and disappointment)
Gnomie: (playing the part of super-girlfriend) Let's go back and see her! Come on, lets go!

We jog about a half block. She is crossing the street with her boyfriend and baby. She is beyond reach.

Gnomie: Aww, she's gone. Sorry TH.
TH: *Sighs. It's cool. I'm still able to tell everyone that I saw Denise Huxtable's Dreads and Ass. Her D&A.
Gnomie: Yes, thats true. You'll always have the D&A.

It was a great night. And another successful NYC weekend with TH.

The next week is going to be crazy due to the following:
1. I have 3 finals before thursday.
2. I have to move by friday morning.
3. I am flying to SLC on friday.
4. I am not ready for any of these above items.
5. My youngest sister is getting married and I am edging closer and closer to being "the last one". My other unmarried sister is ready to break any day now - she is "in love and she doesn't care who knows it". It's just good clean fun.

Well its hard to live in the city

Despite all my trepidation as of late, I really am not a wuss. Dammit. I live in a big city all by myself. It is one of the biggest cities in the world, actually the 12th most populated city according to wikipedia and the 2nd most populated urban area (includes the surrounding boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, etc.) I moved up here ALONE, mind you. No friends to speak of and I have been so blessed to find friends. Not just people to talk to, but actual friends who I want to hang out with and respect and want to call up just to chat. That's incredibly hard to find and I've found it in a couple people! Lucky. Or blessings.

So, you see - I am not a wuss. That was reason number one.

Reason number two is that when me and Iggy went to Nicaragua, I did 2 brave things. Number 1 - I swam in the open water for a LONG TIME, which never happens on account of The Things That Live Underwater and Eat People. And number two - I didn't pass out when Iggy's shoulder separated even though I had to sit down and fan myself in the midst of her primal screams. I actually still shudder remembering those screams-they were memorable. So, see? That's brave, right?

Reason number 3: I jumped off a cliff when I was 5. It was at a waterpark and I saw everyone else jumping off the cliff, so hello - of course I had to jump off the cliff, too. But man! Totally brave. You can't tell me a 5 year old cliff jumping isn't totally kick ass.

Reason number 4: Once I went caving with my friend Loren. He was all - ok, now just climb down this hole and shimmy through the opening - it will be a tight squeeze, but you'll be ok. Oh and watch out for the big black bugs. What? Big black wh---holy crap. Huge bugs. But they were just at the entrance and you had to climb through to go caving and spray the glo-stick liquid all over the walls and have an indoor constellation party. So yeah - you bet I got down in there and crawled through the nasty. I'm brave. So what.

So yes, its true. It all started as a fledgling child and I have regressed a bit in my older years, but I WILL conquer this cockroach thing. It just takes some getting used to is all. Also getting used to all the rats that nearly crawl across my feet every night. Uck. I've all but stopped wearing sandals. Exposed toes=nibbled stumps. Gross.

New York bloody New York

OMG. omg. You GUYS! So I'm sitting in my room earlier tonight, totally content having just hung up from an evening conversation with TH when I saw a black thing dart across the wall. I looked over and it was a HUMONGOID ROACH CRAWLING ALL THE HELL OVER THE PLACE. It was the biggest effing thing I'd ever seen. I immediately freaked out and jumped to the other side of the room, my eyes not able to follow how fast this thing was going.

So I did what any logical girl would do. I called my boyfriend. When boyfriend did not wake up to get my emergency call (for which he could've done nothing to help the cause. It was just comfort, man.) I ran to the living room for a breather. I realized I'd have to take matters into my own hands. I threw open the closet door and looked for Roach Exterminator Outfit. I found a heavy long trench coat and a bike helmet. Perfect. I put it on and timidly stepped back into my bedroom. I searched the walls...nothing. I searched the ceilings...nothing!

*GASP* The roach was in my STUFF.

I started freaking out and to make a long story short, ended up moving almost everything out of my room and into the living room. No roach. I sat down on the couch and tried to breathe. Then I saw it DART across the living room floor. Screams and shaking began again. I threw my shoe at it!! SO BRAVE! It missed. Dammit. The roach ran back into my room and it was gone again. I decided to get the super.

Super comes in, surveys the room, takes apart the heater, searches the coils...Ahh. No roach. It must have left, he said. It must've crawled out the hole in the floor, he said. B.S. I knew it was still here and I knew I wouldn't be sleeping if it didn't die tonight. I thanked him, as he is an sweet older man from some eastern european country who doesn't speak english very well. As he left he said "If the roach come back, you kill with shoe. No scared. Use shoe! Is ok." He really is so cute. But I'm thinking 'like hell im going to kill that radioactive beast'.

About 3 minutes later my roommates walk in the door. They'd been out at a movie and just returned. I was like YOU GUYS WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!?! I had texted them about the roach so they knew it was here and they were freaking out with me and I was like yeah I have no idea where it went and walked into my room and IT WAS RUNNING UP MY WALLLLL. Ughhhhh, you have no idea how big and disgusting this thing was. I felt like I was on fear factor or something.

Picture this: 3 girls screaming at the top of their lungs, me yelling GET THE SUPER! GET THE SUPER!! Super comes running in, tells me to kill it, and I say NO! YOU HAVE TO DO IT!! I hand him the broom and my chuck taylor shoe and tell him to go for it. He sees it and gets the broom and starts going for it. It falls on the floor and runs out into the living room where all 3 girls are standing. I am on the couch, jumping up and down like Tom Cruise holding my ears shut so I don't hear the roach and the other roomies are freaking out and crying. We are screaming so extremely loud and being the biggest girls I've ever seen. We should've all been ashamed and embarrassed, but we didn't have TIME to think about that. The super had a determined look in his eyes and started stomping, stomping, STOMPING!

SQUISH.

Dead Roach.

Girls screaming subsides. Loud breathing. Roach peeled off shoe, put in napkin, thrown away in the super's trashcan. Roach dead in trash outside my apartment.

Now maybe I can actually sleep tonight.

Except now it is almost 4 AM and I have to get up in 3.5 hours. I might just pull an all nighter and chalk this one up to a city night. THANK GOD FOR THE SUPER. He is Of Good Report. I owe him my happiness.

I can't wait to move away from the roach room, as it will now and forever be known.

Getting off the island

Emergency! Emergency! If a huge monster attacks Manhattan I have no way of escaping!!!

Last night I stupidly watched a horror movie about Manhattan being attacked by an alien/monster creature. Cloverfield. Pretty dumb movie and totally improbable plotline, but still encourages one to be very aware of the dangers of being on a heavily populated island. This monster attacks the city and every person in manhattan clamors for the nearest bridge or tunnel. Herein lies the problem. I live in what is probably the worst neighborhood for escaping the island in that there are no bridges or tunnels within a 50 block radius.

See - I live around 110th on the upper west side. All the bridges are either north of 125 or south of 60th. I'm totally screwed. I would be quickly consumed or crushed by the monster. I think the quickest way off the island would be to cross the Triborough Bridge that crosses over the craziest island in America, Wards Island.

Here is a description of Wards island via our friend wikipedia: The island is home to several public facilities, including Manhattan Psychiatric Center, Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center (which serves the criminally insane), and a New York City Department of Environmental Protection wastewater treatment plant.

Oh great. This is just where I want to be when we are bring attacked by aliens. On an island with crazy people and all of new yorks poo supply. Sick.

Regardless or irregardless, I will be preparing a 72 hour kit this week filled with the following:
1. headlamp
2. granola bars and cans of vienna sausages
3. water
4. an extra ipod
5. madlibs
6. crossword puzzles
7. a cute puppy

What else should I pack? I'm thinking I already have all the essentials, but I welcome your feedback and suggestions. In all seriousness, I think its so important to have one of these kits lying around and I can't believe I've procrastinated it for so long.

I'm also going to prepare escape routes from the city, depending on where I might be during an attack. I'm also going to read up on how to quickly fashion a makeshift boat in the case that I cannot access a bridge or tunnel.

See the monster get me NOW.