Mice, Meece, Moose

Today, Sunny kept saying that his office smelled. Now, him being of the 'pizza box in my car for three years, laundry in my backseat, bottles of hot sauce sitting on the corner of my desk" mentality, we ignored (and mocked) his claims of hovering death.

"Doesn't your office always smell this way?"

"Face it Sunny. It smells like your old car"

"Is that your underwear in that pile?"

"Sunny, why don't you clean everything before we start tearing apart the ceiling?"

We lit candles. He cleaned. The hallway smelled overwhelmingly of orange cleaning oil. And still, he sat there with a discontent look on his face. Crinkling his nose. I rolled my eyes at him, and told him maybe he was like Pig-Pen with odor instead of dust.

We were all being super nice.

Imagine our chagrin when the building maintenance came round, climbed a ladder to look above the ceiling squares, and pulled out four decomposing mice.

Soylent green is CROCS

My morning was made when Bill sent me this Newsweek fashion article. The focus? CROCS, and the author's flabbergasted abhorrence of them. I never caught the CROC train. I work in a land of biologist and gardeners where CROCS of many shades abound and I live in fear of actually seeing the fur-lined CROC in practice. Apparently, in their last gasp for air, the CROC manufacturers are branching into high heels.

There are barely words. Most of them are guttural.

A conversation, if you will.

Me: Oh my god. Look.

Bill: Whoa.
Me: Oh my god. Look!

Bill: Whoa. Imagine if it was summer and you were in, like, a hot stuffy car with that guy. Do you think it would smell sweet?

Me: Oh my god. Ew.

When ordering old-fashioned-like, disclose nothing

While at the 2nd ever Savory Cocktail night at Alembic bar on Haight, I overheard the most disturbing, but possibly thoughtful(?) comment. Mulling over their newly acquired pre-prohibition drinks (the theme of the night), one young rough looking man says to his likewise leather clad friends, "I'd give you guys some of my drink, but I totally have this cold sore right now."

Informative, sure. Considerate, definitely. But I couldn't help thinking there were a ton of of other ways he could have avoided drink sharing than promoting mental images of sores.

All things considered

The rat is dead. It was messy and gross. Fortunately, my neighbor found the actual massacre first and disposed of it; I cleaned the aftermath. Yes. Ew is the appropriate response.

***

Since I've been keeping an eye out for cool, new apartments for others, I have become a craigslist stalker for new digs of my own. With this stalking has come the startling and apparent realization that I can never move into a larger apartment, at least not into a place sans roommate. Rents went up over 9% in the city in 2007...enough to bump out of my price range.

This morning, during my normal gander at new listings, basking in the "what if," and "maybe today," I found a posting for a one-bedroom in my building. I consider my rent reasonable (if not awesome) for my wee studio, and my landlord has always been my last hope for potential upgrades, given my wonderful tenant status and his penchant for not charging out the ear.

Till now. The apartment is over twice the price of my studio! And while the place really does sound lovely, $1700 is just way too much. Having laid the price out, city dwellers will scoff at my cheapness, which shows how far we have come; he will completely get the full 1700 smackaroos.

They don't even know about the sneaky, plumeria eating rats.

***
Me, lately:

rat-i-fied

My apartment building wraps around the corner; it's a small thing, about three stories high and only having about 8 units. A cheese store used to be in the first floor space, so the occasional mouse down by the trash bins is fairly common. The wee rodents usually stay down by the laundry and recycling. But....

lately, the rodent droppings have been larger. And oh so plentiful. Littering sticky traps in mock. I was disgusted but only became thoroughly grossed out when I saw, up on the garden shelf of my kitchen window (on the third floor of the inner stairwell), evidence of a savage feast on my plumeria. And rat droppings. That night, at 3am when I went for a glass of water, I flicked the light on in the kitchen to see a rat butt pushed against the window and the rat chowing down on the greenery. Sleepily, I banged on the window. The wee bugger whipped around and stared at me, eye to eye. He only fled when I waved my hands at him, a silly dance.

Ew.

The landlord has declared war, apparently. I came home to an absent plumeria plant, and in its stead, the largest snap trap I have ever seen in my life sitting on the shelf of my kitchen window. Instead of his most favorite snack, this rat fellow is going to find something else.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I hope I don't find the carnage. I hope it doesn't happen as I snap peas.