Eviction waffles

Did I really type the words "now that I am on top of everything...?" Was that really yesterday? Well, I obviously was missing some information, such as:

Thing 1

My roommate's sister is having boyfriend drama, therefore I might get evicted. WHAT? Well, my roommate Essie's sister Ginny used to live in the room I currently rent. (She's the one who left the pile-o-shit in front of my entrance.) She moved out to live with her boyfriend. Things aren't going too well with the bf, so now she wants to move back in. Key piece of info: Essie and Ginny's aunt is our landlady. To make things worse, my stay in this room is made bearable only by the fact that the room is slated to receive a professional makeover this Friday. But now that I am on eviction standby, I have been advised not to make any changes to the room.

To complicate things further, I have friends coming into town from Washington, D.C. the weekend after scheduled room makeover. I was counting on having a nice, inviting place by then, but it looks like it's just going to stay the stinkhole room that it is, with the rank ashtray-smelling carpet laid over cement and the giant holes/stains gracing the walls.

Not to mention I just cleaned the fridge, swept, mopped, vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom, dusted, made the windows see-through again, took the towels to the laund-o, scraped the caked-on food from the stove top and scrubbed the soap scum and rust from the shower. (I did all of this before school in the morning or after work at night.) Just trying to pitch in. What was the damn point in that then?

To make matters worse, I received this alarming information via text message as I was on my way to class and my battery was dying, so there was no way to call Essie and actually talk about it.  I was intending to just speak to her at the house before work but then...

Thing 2


When I stopped off at work on the way home from school to get some coffee, I was informed that my coworker for the night (currently in Australia) didn't get his last shift covered. There was no one to work the shift with me. It was starting in an hour and I was working it...alone. What's worse, it wasn't just any shift which I might have been able to handle; it was Waffle Night, which is by far the most demanding and, in my opinion, needs three workers at least. I spent my free hour making calls from the work phone and trying to get someone to help me. I got a lot of "Ohh, I can do 7 to 9.30..." but no one would work the full shift with me at such short notice. Guess who filled in? My sister, Heather!

Did I mention my sister just got hired at Linnaea's?? I mean literally just got hired days before? She had not done any training but since she and I have been working in coffee shops together since the dawn of time, we figured we would wing it, and we did. 

By the way, usually trainees start by doing a half shift at a slow time, like Sunday afternoon, and someone takes them by the hand and guides them through everything and makes it nice for them, saying, "Now this is called 'espresso.'"

Well, that's not exactly the initiation Heather got. Linnaea's on Waffle Night is scary. However, we pulled through, served a million damn customized waffles, and were out of there before 1 a.m., which is better than the trained employees sometimes do. 

There was no time for dinner that night and since my sister is allergic to wheat and couldn't even nibble on waffles, I felt awful and took her to Mexican afterwards.

So then it was after 1 a.m. when I got home, so no chance to have a chat with the roomies tonight re: looming threat of eviction. Tomorrow maybe, if I get a free moment. I am scheduled to work tomorrow with nobody again, so that will be an adventure.

Only sustaining thoughts:

1. 5 more shifts until no more shift work. And no more food service. Ever. I LOVE Linnaea's but...
2. San Louie liked my child leash article; Ashley said it was "genius" and she "couldn't be more honored" to print it in her magazine. That was nice.

Left at the burned frat house....

Okay, so IDPEM has been really busy lately. This post has been in drafts since the day I moved in. Inappropriately, this writer, blogger and late-night streamer of Firefly moved into a house sans internet. WHAT? I know. This post was drafted by stealing the City-County Library's WiFi while draining the last of my Eeee!! PC's finite battery supply while waiting at the bus stop. Ghetto. This is as far as I got before I had to board the 12A Northbound:

I've moved in today!! Freedom! 

I don't have much these days.

Veggie garden, complete with Technicolor zebra.

View from the front.

The burned-out former frat house on the corner serves as an amusing and accurate landmark.

The place is cute and in a good neighborhood, but until I put forth some serious decorative efforts in my renovated-garage bedroom, I am going to be super depressed every time I walk in there. The carpet, which is really foul and reeks of cigarettes, is laid over concrete. The walls have curiosity-arousing stains, and my sweet private entrance is sort of spoiled by the last tenant's large pile of crap, which is apparently our (roomies Essie, Taylor and my) responsibility to sell/give away/make disappear.

I am ripping up the carpet next weekend, painting, and doing something frightfully clever with fabric on the walls (to make up for not being trusted to paint fun colors). This weekend I am getting a pile of soil and some plants and doing a bit of small-scale landscaping in an attempt to prettify the dry, empty ditch separating my entrance from the pile-o-shit that is not mine.

Despite these sort of forced projects to bring my living standards up to normal, it is SO wonderful to live in the downtown area. Even when I wake up in my smelly room on my mattress that someone probably expired on I am happy to be with minutes of cafes, shops, grocery stores...other people...

My life has been packed, with work every day, two exams, an article deadline for San Louie magazine and moving. (Plus there's something incredible that's just happened, but that deserves it's own post.) 

Life's intense!

In my bedroom, my sole oasis is a Dali painting complete with a sunset on a barren landscape, elephants with stilted legs, and lots of misplaced breasts. When I go in there I just try to keep my eyes fixed on that.