The Dog-gate Scandal

When my fiance and I first looked at our apartment and fell in love with its cave-like qualities, our landlord took us on a short tour of the highlights, which included in-unit laundry, a dishwasher, a great deck, and a free parking spot in an actual garage. This place was stacked! (But dark and a bit dank, hence the whole cave reference above). We were just asking the landlord if we could have pets as we were headed into one of the bedrooms.

"No" was his difinitive answer right before he opened the bedroom door...and the door ran smack into a rather large mesh cage which held a rather large bunny rabbit inside.

"Oh...well, I guess we allow rabbits," he stuttered.

At the time I found it funny, and we agreed to the "no pets" rule since we had no plans to get one and the apartment was a pretty sweet deal in a great neighborhood. I have since retracted that feeling due to some rather interesting events that transpired in the last few months.


Event #1:
I miraculously convince my fiancé that we need a kitty in our lives, despite the fact that we aren't allowed to have pets. This consisted of talking about it casually, whining about it incessantly, guilt-tripping him about it on occasion and finally taking in a friend's cat for a week to show him just how awesome it could be. It worked! He finally agreed it would be fun to have a cat! Less stress than a dog, and soft and cuddly for petting when you're stressed out. Yay.


Event #2:
Our landlord decides to put our home on the market. Lucky for us, it is not selling as of yet and we get the chance to renew our lease again. We decide that since we have been such stellar tenants, and he is selling the place anyway, and there was that rabbit incident and all, we will ask him nicely if we can have a cat. Adam does so and is shot down right away. We are mildly annoyed but understanding of our landlord's stance, and we drop the subject and sign the lease with another "no pets" rule attached.


Event #3:
The upstairs apartment above us had been vacant for a few months (and we were certainly not minding the quiet over our heads one bit). Early one Saturday morning, I walk outside to head to yoga class and see a giant dog in my backyard, along with a huge family that would put the Von Trapps to shame. There are toddlers all over our backyard, smacking our wind-chimes with their tiny fists and climbing all over the flowered trellis and generally being crazy kids. The dog barks and me, and the mother of the brood smiles broadly and says, "You must be the downstairs tenant! We are looking at the apartment up top to rent!" I have a flash of what life would be like below these people--basically like living under a herd of feisty elephants wearing combat boots--and I wonder if she can see the panic in my face. I also make a mental note of the dog's presence in the situation, since clearly no pets are allowed around these parts. 


My landlord comes over and we chat out of earshot from the large family in the backyard. I ask him how many kids they have, and he reassures me that only two are their actual kids, the rest are cousins. (I immediately assume that these "cousins" will be coming over daily, based on their appearance here today. I mean who brings a billion children to an apartment viewing unless these children are around all the time? Am I right?)


My landlord also makes a point to apologize for the fact that he could not okay our request for a cat. I tell him it's cool, we understand he has to do what he has to do. "Although," he adds, "If I end up renting to these people and they have that dog, I suppose you should have the right to get a cat at that point."

I am taken aback. Wait...what? You say no pets, yet might rent to a dog owner in which case then we can have a cat? WTF? I am obviously very irritated with his double standards, but keep quiet. Ultimately, he does not rent to the wannabe Duggar family and my fiancé and I are happier with that outcome than we are sad at the loss of a chance to have a cat. No feisty elephants!


Event #4:
We settle into our "no pets" lifestyle for one more year, knowing that after we get married next year, when our lease is up again, we will make a point to move to a nicer, less cave-like place that allows pets and has nice light. 


Then the new neighbors move in upstairs a few days ago. And I get a text from Adam that says, "I think there is a dog upstairs." I am shocked. I reply with "CAT CITY!" to express my joy at the possibility that we could call the landlord out about this and get him to retract the "no pet" policy for us. Adam sniffs around some more to see if maybe it was just a friend's pooch visiting or something, and encounters the pup sitting at the doorway of the apartment upstairs like he owns the place. He is very well behaved, and we never hear him barking or running across the floor up above. But so far all signs point to yes, our new neighbors have a pooch. Obviously, we are still waiting till we get complete definitive confirmation of this fact before bringing it up with the landlord.


Our plan is to introduce ourselves to the new neighbors and bring them some little welcome gift like a bottle of wine (which we would do anyway, because of course, we are nice neighbors after all) and see if we get invited in and can confirm that there is in fact a dog living up there. If that is the case, then it is ON! 


Kitties of Chicago--get ready! We are coming for YOU!

Little known facts about having a birthday on Halloween

• It is usually really tough to try to have a party on your actual day because everyone else is, also.
• For the first 12 years of your life or so, everyone gives you a present for your birthday--CANDY!
• You are allowed to dress up every year until you die. 
• You are required to dress up every year until you die. 
• You feel obligated to dress up every year until you die.
• You feel wrong and funky when you don't dress up every year until you die.
• People never forget your birthday and then you feel extra bad when you forget theirs.
• You are often asked if you are evil or a witch. 
• You always really really really want to carve a pumpkin each year. It's an uncontrollable urge I can't explain. 
• You often receive Halloween cards instead of birthday cards.
• If you do not receive a Halloween card, you receive 8 copies of the same Birthday-Halloween card that everyone found at Walgreens and felt was really special and unique.
• You feel really old on your birthday because all these kids are running around having fun in the neighborhood.
• There is an intense pressure you feel to make this birthday the most special because there should be so many interesting fun things to do for Halloween. But the weird thing is that usually you end up searching for something to do that night last minute.
• This last minute thing also applies to your costume-creation timing. Which leads to a less than stellar costume. 
• Usually you spend your actual birthday at another person's Halloween party with a few friends.
• Overall, it's pretty cool. Could be worse. It could be Christmas. (No offense, Jesus)

Fish out of water

So today I attended an interesting event where business owners spoke in front of other business owners about what is most important when owning a business. It was interesting overall but the audience seemed to mostly be filled with eager networkers hoping to connect with someone big. There was a hunger that was palpable. You could smell desperation on a few people who even tried to connect with me, only to realize I know nothing and no one that can benefit them.

Speaking of hunger, I just need to throw out there that that I was fed at this event. A lot. First it was sausage and breakfast burritos with homefries for breakfast. Then it was Caesar salad with chicken and rolls, followed by a giant piece of double chocolate cake. Are you kidding me, event people? My future wedding dress body thanks you for a load of nothing.

So once the salads came out and it was time to address which utensil to use, I suddenly found myself reaching for the tiny three-pronged fork resting horizontally above my plate. Luckily, I paused right as my etiquette brain rang a warning alarm. Abort mission! This was not my salad fork! This was to be my dessert fork, when the time was right to wolf down a whole lot of chocolate cake!

Thank goodness I caught myself and found the proper fork to use before the bigwig I was sitting with noticed my incorrect intuition. I already felt like an ass for various self-conscious reasons (including my constant struggles with networking and small talk in general, which were truly put to the test today, let me tell ya). I really did not need to add "formal dining etiquette moron" to the list.

Does anyone else have trouble with such (in my opinion) trivial things that suddenly seem like the most important thing in the world at the time? I mean, as a rule, things like which fork to use just seem like such a waste of time for me to care about. But when it comes to impressing people, especially people I don't know well, I just turn into this uber-concerned, overly cautious and insecure idiot due to things like that. It is such a completely opposite personality trait of mine that only comes up in weird formal situations like the one today, and when it does, I get so furious at myself later for caring.

I did use the small spoon meant for coffee to stir sugar (lots of it) into my ice tea. Does that count for easing up on these rules and not being so hard on myself about it all? I say yes. But mostly just to make myself feel better about being such a tool about things sometimes. It helps...I think.

Those Gourds are Gorgeous!

Finally fulfilling a longtime dream of mine, I bought some gourds today in honor of autumn's arrival.

Gourds, dudes. I got them. I did.

Adam and I had been joking about getting some gourds this season, because that seems to be what people who actually decorate their homes fall back on as a key purchase when Autumn comes along. Everywhere I look, at every store I step into, there are gourds to be had. Big ones, small ones, all in various colors and shapes and levels of pimply-ness. It can be overwhelming for people who are not used to purchasing fall decor, like ourselves.

Today at the Jewel, I spotted an orange net bag of small "polished gourds." And my, were they shiny. And pimply. And divine. It was my chance at last to be decorative for the Fall season. And I pounced. "One four dollar bag of gourds, please." Voila! Instant Autumnal decor!

Truth is, we came home and threw all 5 gourds into this small bucket decorated with pictures of gourds that someone had given us last year. Somehow now it seems like the real gourds and the artistic rendition of gourds sort of cancel each other out, leaving me with yet another lame attempt at decorating gone awry.

I did have a lot of fun running around the house exclaiming "My, those GOURDS are GORGEOUS!" So I guess that makes the whole thing totally worth it.