Rachael

The little mama is already on her way home today. She just came up for one night, bless her heart, just to see my new place and the three lil kittens that Christy is fostering. I got some time in the car with her, but then I had to work. I got off a 5am, and I didn’t want her to get up, but she woke when I got home, and we rotated the bed like Bethany and I used to do. Where were those railroad hotels? Where the beds were always warm, with the engineers sleeping days and nights, just swapping off? It’s not a bad method. Especially when your sister Christy gives you high thread count sheets that you forget about until you move and can flip them on the bed because you haven’t actually washed your reg’lar sheets in two weeks. Not that I would neglect laundry that long. No. Of course not. Not me.

Mom came in to work last night for a moment because I wanted her to meet Marama, and I had this really weird moment where I said, "This is Jan, my mother." After she left, Marama said, slowly, "Her name is Jan?" She had never really thought of my mother having any name but Little Mama.

Today’s sleep: Not bad. Not long enough, but when is it? I’m up and I’ve got Things To Do. A ton of things to do. And know what? I’m having a hard time thinking about unpacking crap because I’m thinking about knitting. This is the first time in a LONG time that I don’t have a large project on the needles. I’ve finished two little sweaters recently, the one for ArtFibers, and the Rowan Denim People one (that still needs a zipper), pictures to follow of both when I get around to it. Cromarty is done, and I have NO idea what I’m going to make next. That’s a weird, good feeling. I’m making some fingerless mitts for a friend that I’d like to get off the needles before I start the next thing, but it’s fun to imagine what I’ll take off the shelves. The reclaimed cashmere perhaps? I’m thinkin’….  Colorwork, however, seems to be calling me, having had none lately, all cables, all the time. Colorwork, however, might require a purchase, and god knows I don’t need to buy yarn right now. Nope. I don’t.

I don’t! Stop that.

Do I?

https://rachaelherron.com/the_little_mama/

Jiggety jig.

Lookee! A little Mama in the house! In my house!  That’s completely thrilling. I got to open the door for her and invite her in. Oh, the fun of it. Really.

And the cats, they seem to be settling in just fine. Adah doesn’t even seem to have really noticed she’s in a new home — she just thinks I’ve rearranged the furniture. Digit, or Mr. Scaredy Pants, is being a Very Brave Polydactyl and faking it well. He’s on my stomach right now, kneading me. If he buries his head in my shirt far enough, maybe all of this will go away.

All right. No time to blog today. Drove home this afternoon with Ma and the kits, and I still have to go to work tonight. It’ll be a three-cup night, I think.

(I never, ever thought how much pleasure inviting my mother into my home would give me. I’m about to bust with house pride. Really. Oh, this is good.)

The only thing that makes it okay that this:

is parked in my backyard is this:

on my coffee table. That is Manos (yum) from Maeve, heavenly color, and soap all the way from Brazil (and I know she carried it back herself) from Jennifer, and a home Madonna from the amazing MaryB (it’s not too Catholic, dear—I put it on the shelf with my pope-in-a-snow-globe. Tell hubby).

The post could not have come at a better time, darlings.

I was a fool this morning. I had some dead stalks in my flower vase, but the rest of the them were still beautiful. I thought, Hey! I have a garbage disposal! Won’t that be fun? I shoved ‘em down and spun ‘em through. Then I watched the green sludgy water foam back up at me for, sticking out its tongue.

Damn it. Having never owned a disposal, how was I supposed to know you’re only supposed to put boiled rice and chicken broth (strained) through it? I called the Dude, who is my psuedo-husband (all the chores and none of the perks; not sure why he sticks around, but I aDORE him). He walked me through taking the disposal apart, which I am very proud to say, I did. I flex my muscles in your general direction. But the disposal was clear. That was alarming. And might I add, while it’s not too bad taking a disposal apart, it’s hell on wheels to get that fucker back together. And me in my new jeans. Only a small blood sacrifice, and it wasn’t too painful, either. But I did it.

And the sink was still backed up, gurgling up and mocking me with evil spongy floaters. Grrr.

So I went to the hardware store, where my new best friend Joe told me all about plumbing. I love Joe. I really, really do. I bought a drill from Joe, just because I wanted to keep talking to him. Laurel Hardware on MacArthur, people. Joe rocks. He sold me a snake and told me how to use it (not like that. Dirty minds). I took it home, opened the plumbing back up and snaked it out.
This is what I ended up with.

Ew. Ew ew ew ew. Still backed up. I did a number on that one, I tell you. I actually think I made it worse, because after I snaked it, NOTHING would go down, and before I had a slow drain, at least.

Opened the yellow pages, hoped that I wouldn’t get burglarized again, and called the ones who advertised they’d be here in forty-five minutes. They were, they’re just finishing up now, and apparently not only did I clog it, but they found that the pipe is broken about twenty feet out. At least that’s not my problem – that’ll be for my homeowner’s insurance to fix. Thank god. But not today.

Today, as soon as they leave, I’m getting on the road to go pick up two cats and a little mama. She’s coming up for a short day visit to see the new place, and I can’t WAIT to show it to her.

Okay. I have to go pay them. Sheesh. It’s like a test. Own a home! Break some things! Pay out the nose!
(But one of them just asked me for paper towels so he could clean up under the sink. That’s totally cool.)

I’m sure I’m the last person in blogland to catch this, since I’ve been a bit busy lately, but you’ve seen the Gansta Knitter video, right? Thanks for the link, Michelle.

https://rachaelherron.com/im_sure_im_the_/

I have the best readers in the whole world. The. Whole. World. Really. Your readers might be very, very good, but I have the BEST ones.

You’re right. You’re all right. No guilt. Not my fault. The dude broke into MY place, leaving doors and windows open, leaving me liable for any damage/vandalism/theft that might have arisen from other criminals taking advantage of this fact. And Ryan, well, she made the best point. What if my cats had been there, instead of at Grandma’s house?

Oooooh, I’d like ta…. Lemme at him.

I called the manager again, who said the owner was at Stanford all day having his chemo treatment. I can accept that. I’ll wait. I will talk to the owner. That’s all I really want at this point. I thought about reporting them to the Better Business Bureau, and then I decided to check them out. Turns out my threatening to do that won’t mean much to them, because they already SUCK at the BBB. It teaches me another valuable lesson: Research FIRST, not last.

Anyway. All’s well. All is, in fact, very well. I have the best bathtub in the whole world. This weekend I will finish moving out of the old place and work on unpacking (I still have a lot of that to do, believe it or not). After I do that, I can PAINT, and I’m getting more and more excited about that. I’m going to TSP. I’m going to use joint compound. I think that’s for holes in the wall. Or my knees. I’m not really sure, but I know it’s official sounding. I’m going to cover things with dropcloths just so I can say I did. Oh, yes, I’m dropcloth-ing today. Very different from drop-clothing, you know. Almost as much fun.

We have a ten mile run this Sunday, our last short run before the practice 26 miles the next weekend. Practice. Sheesh. That’s a marathon, people. That’s what I think, anyway. Call it what you want, but even with the word Practice in front of it, it’s freaking me out. And hey! Go congratulate Rebecca for finishing her marathon! Amazing girl! She IS supergirl.

That’s about all I can think of. I’m tired. (Lala’s at my house right now, manning my TiVo without me. And her blog is flirting with mine, I think. That’s adorable.) (See? Mine is flirting back.)

Happy weekend, all! MWAH!

I am terribly grumpy. And it’s not just because of who our president will continue to be. (That couldn’t be called grumpy, anyway. That’s more like shell-shocked. Despondent.) I am not feeling eloquent enough to even try to address that. Go read Lala’s take. I may be prejudiced, but I don’t think that’s why it made me feel a tiny bit better somehow.

I’m just grumpy because of a carpet cleaner. I had a company send a guy out to clean the one carpet in my old apartment. He was fine, and did an okay job. He left his file folder in my apartment, and called to ask when he could get it back. When I got the message, I was on the way to drop Bethany at the airport, and then I had to go to work. I told him I’d go to the old place at five in the morning after work, get the folder and leave it on the front porch. He could come pick it up any time after that. He said that was all right.

I got off work yesterday at five. I’d been up at that point for twenty-two hours. I got to my old apartment. Bethany had confirmed that she had seen the folder in my place when we had left, but she had assumed it was mine and hadn’t said anything about it.

The folder was nowhere to be found. I thought, huh. It must be somewhere else. I was cleaning the tub when he had me sign the charge slip: maybe he had left it in the bathroom. I checked. Nope, no file folder, but the window was open, the sill was filthy, and the screen was on upside down and partially open. I then checked the living room — the sliding glass door was unlocked, and the back gate was standing wide open.

Erg.

Now. Okay. I wasn’t technically living there anymore, and the only thing missing was his file folder. I can understand the motivation. Perhaps he was scared of getting in trouble at work if he didn’t have his files. But it was a major lapse in good judgment, since now he’s REALLY going to be in trouble.

And therein lies my Rachaelish problem. I called the cops and had them make an incident card. This is documentation, but less formal than a report. I didn’t want to press felony burglary charges against the guy, since, as stated, I could understand the motivation and no damage was done.

But what I wanted was an apology from him. (I think I was a little naive about that — someone who breaks in doesn’t normally apologize later.) And not having to pay the carpet cleaning bill would have been nice, too. I was furious that someone had entered my old home (still full of the stuff that I’m not sure what to do with) without my permission, through the bathroom window. So I called his company and told them what had happened.

The manager was horrible. I really think she could have made it all go away by saying, “I’m so sorry. We’ll figure out what went wrong, and we’ll get back to you. I’m sure there’s an explanation. But in the meantime, I’m so sorry.”

Instead, she said, “So what you’re saying to meeeee…. [Long, acrid pause.] Lemme get this straight. Someone broke into your house. And the only thing stolen was the file folder YOU say he left in your house.”

“HE said he left it in my house.”

“Whatever. What makes you think it was our employee?”

Golly, I don’t know. It’s true, there might be a horrible Oakland criminal on the loose who ransacks homes for cruddy-looking old file folders. Terrifying, isn’t it? Fer fuck’s sake. I believe that’s just about what I told her, too (although I didn’t swear). She said the owner would call me. He never did.

The cleaner dude, however, did call me. And that just made it worse. I answered, mistake number one. I should have let it go to voice mail. Mistake number two, I asked to know what he had been thinking, breaking into my home. He pled his innocence so well that I actually almost fell for it. He sounded so sad and offended that I would consider him able to commit such a crime that I got off the phone and drove to my old place to see if the files had fallen behind the bookcase. Of course, they hadn’t. Then I just felt stupid. And taken.

But now my main problem is guilt. And while I know you’ll all sigh and send me comments telling me I’ve done the right thing, really I’m not sure that I have. There was no damage to my place. He probably considered it vacant. He took nothing but his own property. Had he called me and said that it was imperative that he get his files back or his boss would kill him, I can see myself telling him to try to break in. Now he might lose his job, and I’m picturing him with four small kids in dirty clothes, and a crying wife who has to now work 19-hour days instead of the 14-hour ones she’s been doing recently. Plus, he’s sober and this will depress him enough to fall off the wagon onto a four-day binge. And his sick mother needs the operation he’s been saving for. And his brother just died, leaving him responsible for his widow and nine more children.

You know, something like that.

It galls me that he lied to me, baldly, on the phone. It pisses me off that he broke into my place. But in the larger scheme, this doesn’t really matter, and perhaps I just made someone’s life really rough, for very little reason, because I was too tired to really think it through before making phone calls. I think that’s what’s eating me up.

Bah. Blerg. Ne’er a dull moment, nosireejimbobarooney. Bleha. (Try it, it’s much more effective than a simple bleah.) Now, to get in my (MY) bathtub and swim off the grumps. My house! Oh! Yay!