flat mini-tour

I am in the process of transforming my empty studio apartment into more of a home with actual furniture. It's challenging because I don't have alot of money and also don't have a car, so I must rely upon the kindness of others for helping me with big items.

So, at the moment the place is still very much a work in progress, but I can give a partial tour of the areas closest to being finished.

First, the kitchen:



I am thinking of a green color scheme here (hence the green striped carpet). What this kitchen lacks in counter space it makes up for with the cupboard space. And honestly, of all of the flats I looked at, this kitchen is one of the best. Many kitchens did not come with refrigerators, or even a proper stove/oven (instead there would be no oven and a hotplate thing for a stove). Since this kitchen had an oven, a fridge, and a double sink, it was the winner! I got the toaster oven thing from eBay for quick reheating of stuff and it even has a rotisserie setup (chicken anyone?).

Next the bathroom:


I plan to get another little drawer set for the stuff currently in the Body Shop bag. The hamper is great there since I have started doing a fair amount of my laundry by hand in the bathtub.



The little stepstool is for me to be able to get in and out of the shower without dying, since the floor of the bathroom is about six inches lower than the floor of the tub. So weird. The little wooden door in the wall is apparently access to pipes or something. I am not exactly sure why they didn't opt for a more waterproof housing for the opening, since it is in a shower oh well.

The biggest improvement that my latest trip to IKEA produced is making the bedroom a bit more private. Here is the before shot:



Notice that the door on the left is actually the front door, so when I come into my apartment, I am essentially walking right into the bedroom. This is not really the impression I want to give ALL of my guests, so I decided to get some curtains to use as a room divider, and it worked fabulously! Also I found a proper night table to replace my ghetto cardboard box one. Here is the new, improved entryway:



The only thing left for the entryway is to talk to the landlord about the ceiling light. When I moved in it did not work, and the light bulb was screwed in by a very strong person with very tiny fingers because it is practically impossible to get a grip on the bulb and actually impossible to unscrew it. Recently, the light started randomly flickering on and off and now it does work when I turn it on, but then shortly after flickers off. Since it is actually hanging from the ceiling by its wires, it is a little too dodgy for my tastes. I am hoping by using the french words for 'fire hazard' I can get it taken care of relatively quickly.

The living room is essentially bare at the moment, with an ironing board being the most prominent feature of the area. But as soon as I get paid again I will be able to start working on that area.

delayed gratification

Happy 2009 everyone! I hope that so far the new year has been fabulous.

New Year's Eve was not as exciting as I hoped it would be. My plan was to move into my new apartment in the middle of the city and then go down to the river and watch fireworks. On NYE 2007 I was in Melbourne, Australia on the banks of the Yarra sweating like a mad woman and watching the fireworks usher in the new year, so I thought freezing my ass off on the banks of the Meuse on NYE 2008 would be the start of a river and fireworks NYE tradition for me.

But alas, it was not to be. Because lots of little inconveniences all got together to make the day become the exact opposite thing to what I wanted.

First, I woke up to knocking on my door. It was the dorm people asking if I was leaving today, I said yes, this afternoon. Then I was informed that no one would be there in the afternoon so if I wanted my deposit back I had to get everything done before noon. So I knew I would have to rush around and clean and pack everything much more hurriedly than I wanted.

Next, my boss called to say she would not be able to take me to the appointment with the landlord to get the keys because there had been freezing rain overnight and the roads were really, really icy. I said I could take the bus and do the appointment no problem, since the bus company's website did not say that they had suspended service due to the weather.

So I check out of the dorm, and thank goodness they let me leave the 120lbs of luggage I have in the room until that afternoon when the ice melted so I didn't have to lug it all over town. I go to the bus and a nice young man comes to the stop and tells me that the buses are not running because of the ice.

Grr..I call the boss back and we talk about rescheduling the appointment for Friday. Not really what I want to do, but alternatives are running low.

I go back to the dorm and they let me stay 2 more nights there. But, then boss calls and says she's going to try to make the appointment. She is my hero.

Then, all of it becomes moot because the landlord's agent calls and says the previous tenant missed her appointment and did not give back the keys yet.

So, my glorious celebration of the new year was in the crappy dorm room, hearing the echoes of the fireworks down in the city. The flashes of light in the sky behind the tree line reminded me of a WWII TV show or movie, probably because I was in the concrete bunker dorm room. I called some friends and family to wish them happy new year and then went to sleep in the early hours of 2009.

Turns out that the previous tenant had a small fender bender on the icy roads that morning. I got the keys and moved in on Friday. I am loving my new apartment, even in it's current empty unfurnished state. I have more drawers and cupboards than I have stuff to fill them, but I am sure that will not last too long. Turns out the post-Christmas sales here start on Jan 3 and last until the end of January, so I am sure these rooms will be full and my bank account will be empty before I know it.

hurry up and wait

I was hoping to be posting today from my new place in Belgium, telling all about the new job, the people, and my lame attempts at becoming fluent in French.

Instead I am in the living room of my friend's house in the U.S. chewing gum loudly and watching BBC America.

The employment contract is taking its sweet time moving through the proper channels in Europe, so I was unable to get my visa to go and work in Belgium. So we are waiting for the paperwork to go through and instead of starting on Nov.1 I will be starting Dec. 1. I thought about just going and trying to do the paperwork over there, but when I talked to people at the embassy about that option, they were quite adamant about that not being entirely legal. So, I called the airline and have the ticket held until everything gets sorted out.

It's disappointing because I am ready to go, I have everything packed, I have all the papers I am supposed to have from my medical certificate to my FBI background check. And, while I love staying with my friend, I am ready to get back into the swing of things with working and living independently.

So I am trying to look on the bright side, and think of the positive things that will develop during this extra time at home.

A couple of weeks ago, when I thought I was leaving last week, I sold my car. I didn't get as much as I wanted for it, and it was so pretty after I got it all detailed.

But, the rental car I am currently using to get around from day to day has satellite radio, so I have made my car a French zone, and only listen to the French-speaking radio stations in order to get accustomed to the language. Every day I understand more and more of what they are talking about, which eases my stress about adjusting to the language change.

I will get to spend more quality time with dad gathering bread and other food for charity in the mornings. It has been nice to spend time with him doing good things, especially after the drama of having to move out of his house. Every day on the bakery run is interesting, we never know what we are going to get. Apparently life in the bakeries is tough, because one day I found these 2 notes in the carts with our loaves:



I have been able to spend time with childhood friends that I probably would not have been able to do had I left on schedule.

I will get to finish the scarf I have started to work on from my super bright! yarn


I can go through my luggage again to see what I absolutely positively must take with me, because those bags are way to heavy for me to drag around airports and train stations.

civic duties and lapsed memories

I got my ballot! Yay! I'm sending it in before the end of the week.



Today I finished going through 2 and a half giant boxes of high school and college memorabilia and condensed it down to 1 box. I packed those boxes a good 10-12 years ago, and have just moved them from my dad's storage unit to my own storage unit. So I decided to go through them.

It is so interesting what we decide to keep forever when we are 20 because it is so important, and 10 years later I have no idea where it came from. I was surprised at the number of birthday and holiday cards from people I have no recollection of were in those boxes.

I saved the obviously important things, like my yearbooks. The 8th grade book from 1991 was a spectacular example of teenage insanity and angst. Apparently I was filled with some serious hate for some of my classmates, since I WHITED OUT both their names AND their pictures. Wow. I am so glad I grew up.

Luckily the other years' books were not as horrible.

Of course I found my mortar, and guess what? It still fits! woot!



I decided that since I have gotten 2 more degrees since then, I could part with the mortar.

There were tons of notebooks and planners filled with my daily activities and gossip with friends. I was a pretty active traveller in high school, going on as many school trips as my parents could afford, and kept every single little bag and brochure I found. Because at 16 riding on the Washington DC subway is new and interesting so I had to keep my metro ticket. At 31, on the other hand, I've been on many metros, and DC's metro several times. I can throw away the ticket.

Some of the doodles in my notebooks gave me a chuckle before tossing them in the bin.



My naive younger self also felt it was crucial to keep citizenship award from 1991, my driver's manual, a tiny plastic ballerina, a high school memory book, a champions for Jesus sticker, and a wooden dowel.

Because, you never know when you could use a dowel.

The straw that broke the camel's back

I am livid.

After spending a long weekend at BFF's house, I returned to chez hamsterdad for the week. I took a deep breath and headed back to this horrible place, hoping all would be well.

I drove home, and then parked the car on the street near the driveway. I had barely gotten out of my car when stepmonster asked me to move my car further away so halfsister could park there.

While my first instinct was to refuse and say that maybe walking the extra 15 feet to the door would loosen the stick up halfsister's ass, but then I decided that I did not want to fight within 30 seconds of my arrival home.

I went inside and there was a guy on the main computer (stepmonster's computer). I thought maybe he was here to fix the wireless internet connection, since none of the passwords that I was given ever let me get on the house's internet connection. Sadly, that was not true. Apparently stepmonster's computer got a virus, freaking everything out on her computer and somehow erasing the past few days of stuff she had done. So he was reinstalling the OS and retrieving everything. I asked him about the wireless connection, if when he was done, he could make sure that I could get on the internet.

To me, this did not seem like an unreasonable request, but stepmonster was highly agitated.

"No one is going to have wireless access except me" she said.
"You mean, I can't get on the internet to do my work?" I said.
"No, I don't want this [the virus thing] to happen again, I don't want anyone to have access to my computer using the wireless" she said.
"I don't think that's the way it works. I can't get to your computer from my computer on the wireless, I can only get to the internet from my computer and whatever I do on the internet would only go to my computer, right?" and I looked to computerguy for confirmation of what I already knew was true.
"She's right, her computer wouldn't communicate with your computer, it just communicates with the router here" he said as he pointed to the router.

Stepmonster looked at us, and then got up and walked out of the room.
Computerguy looked at me like 'that was weird' and I looked back at him like 'tell me about it'.

Then when I left the room dad came down the hall telling me not to mess with the computer stuff.

I told him I wasn't messing with any stuff, I just wanted to get on the wireless internet, so I could have a decent signal and actually get stuff done that I needed to get done.

"Why do you even have wireless? Stepmonster's computer is linked to the router directly, she doesn't even need to use the wireless." I asked
"So halfsister and I can use it" he said.
"So halfsister and you can use the internet and I can't?" I asked.
"No, no one can anymore" He said.
"Are you kidding me? Whatever happened to stepmonster's computer is not related to the wireless connection, and I need to be able to get online for my work." I said
"I thought you said you can get on the internet" he replied
"yes, I can but there's 2 things 1) I'm stealing it from your neighbors so it's ILLEGAL, and 2) the signal is very low so I can't upload or download large files. Like when I uploaded my flickr pictures, it took 3 days to do it on the low connection, but on a good connection it takes like 20 minutes."
"Why are you uploading such big files?" he asks (because it's so unreasonable that I would like to use the internet in ostensibly my own home)

And so on and so on.

It was just so frustrating because spotty wireless internet connection is one of my biggest pet peeves. Plus, I do need the internet to get my work done, I have to upload and download articles from the internet as well as submit papers for publication online, so I need a dependable high speed connection for that.
And, above all, letting me on the internet is NOT A BIG DEAL AT ALL. So WTF?

It's ridiculous! Now he expects me to go to his office to get on the internet, so I would have to set up my own wireless network there since all he has is an office network of desktops there.

I told him that I would help him with his home organization stuff by selling his extra stuff on ebay or craigslist. But, guess what? That needs an internet connection, so I guess he's out of luck because I'll be damned if I have to go out of my way more than I already am to please his wife.

So I think it's really time to pack it in and move over to BFF's house. I know that she totally doesn't mind if I stay there, but it makes me sad and angry that I have to do it.

Angry because if I leave, aren't I just letting stepmonster and halfsister have their way?
Sad because hamsterdad is completely incapable of seeing my point of view on this at all. The attitude I get from him is that I just need to do what they want.

So tomorrow I will call BFF and talk to her about the situation and spend the rest of this week getting everything completely out of this godforsaken place and into my storage unit.

Because, you know, when I am at BFF's I can do all of these things without causing anyone to go off in a huff and slam doors:
1) shower
2) laundry
3) watch TV
4) get on the internet
5) talk on the phone
6) walk into or out of a room
7) breathe

getting on top of things

It has certainly been a trying time getting all of my stuff packed up in PA and then moving across the country to hamsterdad's house.

I haven't lived with hamsterdad for about 20 or so years. My parents got divorced when I was about 9 or 10. There was the usual divorce drama (dad was sleeping with my friend's mom, and knocked her up, it was quite a soap opera). In the end, hamsterdad wanted joint custody, he wanted to be a part of my life, which is a great thing, considering other people are not so lucky.

So, the plan was that I would spend night's with hamsterdad (my mom worked the graveyard shift), and then days at Mom's and weekends were split or something, I don't remember it much since it did not last terribly long. Turns out stepmom was not happy at all with the arrangement, she was mean to me and constantly yelling at my dad about the living arrangement. After one particularly traumatic morning where stepmom yelled "you are not her babysitter!!!" to my dad, I had enough. On the way to school, I told my dad never to bring me back to that house again. He asked why, and I told him "Because she treats me like shit and you don't do anything about it".

It was the first time I had ever sworn in front of my dad. I was 10 years old.

And I never set foot in the house again until a couple of years ago when I came to visit Vegas on vacation and I couldn't stay at my friend's house that week.

Now that I am an adult, I can look at the situation from a different perspective. I now understand how difficult it is when relationships end and how hard it is to build new ones. I can see that stepmom had her own issues with her divorce and the fact that her ex basically disappeared from his daughter's (my stepsister's) life was not fair to anyone. I have alot of sympathy for her at that time, and I can understand that she was in alot of pain.

But that doesn't make her behavior acceptable. I did not cause any of the drama in her life, and it was not appropriate for her to take out her frustrations on me. Nor was it appropriate for my dad to sit idly by and let the emotional abuse occur.

20 years is a long time, and in that time I worked through the issues that were born from that time in my life, and I feel that I have forgiven both my stepmother and my father, and also have forgiven myself. Nobody is perfect, and I have grown and changed and learned, and so I felt that I could move into my dad's house temporarily no problem.

Unfortunately, stepmom and halfsister appear to see it differently. I have repeatedly tried to put a forward a friendly face and lend a hand, etc, but have received essentially nothing in return. Things are not quite hostile, but they are no where near civil. Today, I said good morning to stepmom, and she started talking to her dog, not even an acknowledgement. I just don't understand it.

All I can do is keep on truckin' and being friendly, and perhaps eventually they will loosen up. If not, at least I know I only have to put up with it for several more weeks, and I can escape to friends' places.

There is a bright side: Larry the Cat is quite affectionate and appears to love having me here. He especially seems to love me most when I start trying to work on my computer on the couch. And he leaves tons of cat hair on me to make sure I know how much he cares all day long.

Today I am getting a storage unit, since there is not enough room in my tiny room and the cluttered garage for all of my stuff, and I won't be taking all the stuff I brought here with me to Belgium. Not having to step over boxes to get around my room will make me feel much more comfortable.