Apartment Management Tales Part 3

Hey y’all! I feel like I’ve been MIA lately. I’ve just been super duper busy at work and have been thinking about you all NON-STOP! 

I got to work this morning and had a few messages left by residents.

One message was rather snotty, sarcastic and patronizing. The resident on the other end of the line was pissed because someone keeps parking in her spot “Again…” – typically, I’ll handle these calls with a parking violation tag – if the car is still in the space when I can address it. Many times these calls come in the evenings and they leave messages and by the time I’m here the next day – or in this case on Monday – the offending vehicle is usually long gone and there is no way for me to know which apartment these offending people live in and most of the time I think they are visitors anyway.

Here’s how the message went – I’ll use italics for the snarky, pissy parts, m’kay? M’kay…

Yeah, hi. This is Katherine in unit 2501. I’m calling again, to report that someone is parked in my parking space again. I’m getting really tired of this. I’m not sure why you keep allowing people to park in my parking space when I pay for that space with my rent. It’s 10 pm on Saturday. I need you to come out here and get these people to stop parking in my spot. I’m sick and tired of it.

Did you happen to notice that almost that entire paragraph was in italics? Yeah. Me too. Bleh.

The next few phone calls and visits from residents consisted of “Little Jimmy” who has been seen pushing and shoving kids on the playground and also been caught by my maintenance guy peeing in the bushes. Well, we have laundry rooms on the property and several children went home and told their parents that “Little Jimmy took a dump upstairs in the laundry room in building 4.” I should probably share with you – my loyal followers and readers – building 4 doesn’t have a restroom in the laundry room. No. It doesn’t. What does that mean, you ask? It means that “Little Jimmy” took a dump on the floor.

Lucky me. I get to type out the notice to the parents of this child and explain to them that “Little Jimmy” is peeing behind all my bushes on the property as well as  pooping all over my laundry room floor and that he is not to play outside on our playground unless under adult supervision.

While searching my internal Thesaurus for a word to use instead of “Poop” on a rather formal and legal notice, several options and phrases came to mind…

1. “Took a dump”
2. “Pinched a loaf”
3. “Bowel Movement”
4. “BM”
5. “Do0-doo”
6. “Dropped a duece”
7. “The old numero DOS”
8. “Number 2″
9. “Dropped a load”
10. “Fecal Matter”
11. “Fudge Nuggets”
12. “Sha-poopy”

I settled on “defecate” – you know…to keep it professional.

So the dad of “Little Jimmy” just called in reference to my letter. He was mortified. I told him that unfortunately for a while “Little Jimmy” was going to need adult supervision while he played out on the play ground. Without missing a beat, the dad said, “Oh, don’t worry about that. He’s not going to be playing outside for a while.” I also requested that he take “Little Jimmy” over to clean up the mess he made, immediately. Dad asked me where it was. I told him, “Why don’t you have Little Jimmy show you. He know exactly where it is.”

There’s never a dull moment in property management, folks.

Damn you, Pine-Sol!

Isn’t it funny how you can smell something and it triggers a time of your life or the memory of someone or something? Don’t worry – the funny, profanity laden part will come…but first, let me illustrate:

I remember when I was pregnant with my first baby. My mom pampered me with a trip to one of those fru-fru smelly bath shops. It may have been the pregnancy talking  smelling, but my choice at the time was a fruity raspberry lotion/shower gel/body spray combo. I used it throughout the entire pregnancy and now, every time I smell raspberry fragrance, it reminds me of being pregnant and that comfy cozy feeling that I had when I was creating life.

On the flip-side:

When I was about 6 or 7, my mother married my step-dad. He was pretty hard core as far as being strict was concerned. We had fun and he loved me and all of that razzamatazz, but let me tell ya…we EARNED all of that fun stuff as the kids of the house.

There weren’t very many summer weekdays that would go by that you wouldn’t find us kids sitting in the sharp, piercing gravel picking weeds out of our incredibly never-ending driveway – rocks stabbing our butts and legs and hands. Gravel can kiss my ass. And so can weeds. Sometimes, we’d start at 9am and be there with flashlights in the dark picking weeds “inspection” after “inspection” only to not have accomplished the task we were given. I cried many a tear in that driveway – knowing that there was a swimming pool right next to us just BECKONING us to jump in was torture. And you know what? I’m 100% certain that when we were doing the landscaping for the house, he told the contractors NOT to put down weed barrier before they brought dumptruck after dumptruck into our expansive back yard…I think he knew there would be weeds. And I also think that he knew he had three ready-made slaves to do all of his bidding.

BUT THAT IS NEITHER HERE, NOR THERE. I’m building up the suspense of my most recent smell association, here. And you needed to get to know my dad a little bit before I let you know the real reason I started this post.

When I was about 12 or 13, my parents owned an automotive repair shop. I think they must have gotten broken into once or twice, to the point where they thought it would be a great idea to get a guard dog. We started off with Dobermans. They were alright, but then, my dad discovered the reliable and ever dangerous Rottweiler and the Dobie was sent off to a farm somewhere to chase rabbits, I assume.

We bought Spartacus. He was an adult Rott, pretty intimidating and the only real person he listened to was my dad. Spartacus would growl at me when we brought him home from time to time, and if you’ve never heard a Rottweiler growl? You should imagine a growly bear. Not only do they look like a grizzly bear…but they sound like one, too. They have 1500 pounds of jaw pressure – which was a selling feature for my dad. If someone was going to make it through the razor chain link fence to steal another car? They were going to get EATEN by a Spartacus. Plain and simple.

I remember one time, I walked by the kitchen table and Spartacus was sitting under there. As I walked by, he looked at me. Not like I was dinner, but like – “Hey, little girl. Give me a pat on the head!” So, being the lovey that I was, I bent over to give him a little pat and he instantly growled and that sunnuvabitch bit my BOOB. Okay – I really didn’t have boobs at that age…but things were changing and something was happening up there and he bit me. Made me bleed. At this point ol’ Spartacus had bitten all three of us kids and my dad decided it was time for Spartacus to go live somewhere else.

Are you keeping count here? That’s TWO guard dogs we’ve gone through in a rather short amount of time – probably a year.

Dad decided that it was time to start fresh and train up a guard dog the way he wanted it trained and it would start off as a family dog. He really liked the Rottweiler breed, so we stuck with it – only this time, we got a puppy. We named him Hercules.

Herc was the most precious little puppy and grew to be such a wonderful dog. We all loved him very much.

When we brought him home, we housed him in the garage. We started with a cardboard box and towels and a ticking clock to resemble the sound of his mothers heartbeat. My bedroom was just off of the garage and even though my brothers were probably more suited to handle the chore, it was my chore to keep the garage cleaned up. My dad showed me how he wanted it done. Once a week – usually on a Saturday, I’d clean everything out of the garage first. Clean up all the poop. Then I was told to hose it all out. Then I was to sprinkle Tide laundry soap all over the floor, scrub the floor with a brush, then rinse it out using the hose. Now – I don’t know if you’ve ever done something like this? But this task took LITERALLY 8 hours to accomplish. I don’t know if I ever got the soap completely rinsed out of that garage – EVER. After the soap was pretty much rinsed out, I was supposed to splash Pine-Sol on the floor and brush it around and do a final rinse.

Pine-Sol. 

I hate that fucking smell. It makes me instantly gag. It’s disgusting. Their motto is, “The Scent of Real Clean”. I would have to disagree. Not only did I have to use that as the last and final cleaning of the garage, but my damn BEDROOM was right next to the damn garage. That damn smell would permeate through the entire area I lived in!! DAMMIT! (Enough damn’s for ya?)

You know what made me write about this today? No? WELL, LET ME TELL YOU! I manage an apartment complex. We have common areas here and I have some people that clean the entryways around here and they have always used Pine-Sol. And…when they use it, they have to fill up the mop bucket with hot water and Pine-Sol and wheel that shit through my motherfucking office. As if Pine-Sol weren’t bad enough – try heating that shit up with hot water!!! GROSS!!!!

One of the first changes I wanted to make when I took over managing this property was to move AWAY from using Pine-Sol to using Mr. Clean. That fresh lemony scent turns me ON, let me tell ya. Unfortunately, there are huge gallon jugs of Pine-Sol in the supply room and instead of wasting it or returning it, we’re using it up. They just rolled through here with a steaming bucket of that shit. They mopped the floor and returned the bucket and steaming Pine-Sol soaked mop to the supply room. It’s close to lunchtime and I didn’t bring anything to eat – but remembered I had bought a big box of microwave popcorn awhile ago, so I nuked some. The supply room is right next to my little kitchen. I started nuking that popcorn just as the phone rang, so I let the microwave do it’s magic and ran to answer the phone.

I just went to retrieve my piping hot bag of popcorn and when I walked back there – the smell hit me like a fucking TON OF BRICKS! Holy shit, y’all. It’s almost TOXIC back there. Nuked Popcorn + Steamy Pine-Sol Vapors = Oh. Mah. GAH!

I can’t wait until we use that shit up.

 

Wordless Wednesday and Throwback Thursday: I don’t get it.

I tried a “Wordless Wednesday” once. I wasn’t too excited to jump on the bandwagon of this craze…but…I gave it a shot. I dunno…I guess I just consider a BLOG somewhere to actually WRITE, I guess.

And now there’s TBT or “Throwback Thursday”. I guess you’re supposed to post a picture of yourself from years past? Okay – fine, I’ll give you one:

 

Circa 1989. Notice the rad sunglasses in my front pocket.

I think my then FIANCE was into Depeche Mode or something at the time – hence the permy bang action, he’s got going. Damn. We sure look happy there. Here we are now:

A little older…a little wiser…but still frickin happy as can be!

Even though I’m sharing these glimpses into my uber rad life…I still don’t like the idea of a blog donating an entire day each week to anything “Wordless”. CALL ME OLD FASHIONED. 

Perhaps it’s the snarky satirist in me. Perhaps I just enjoy writing so much that I think it’s a waste of megabites or something…I dunno. Do any of you feel this way, too?

My Tulip Mis-Adventure

It all started with my local radio station.

“Hey y’all! You should go see the Tulip Festival this weekend at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival!” OKAY!!!!!!!

I get home, tell the hubby that it’s been awhile since we’ve ventured to the Tulip Festival and asked if he was game. We’re always willing to go on a day trip around our beautiful state of Washington. It’s gorgeous here. Green, lush…damp. But, hubby had deadlines at work that weekend and plus? It was supposed to sprinkle/rain on Sunday – his suggestion was to wait until the following weekend because we were supposed to experience a significant heat-wave in Washington.

I was a little bummed – we’ve never let the rain stop us before – and also – I was strategically thinking that if it were a little overcast that day, that it’d be okay because taking pictures of acres and acres of the colorful tulips would look cool against a grey sky and also my kids have sensitive eyes and it never fails that we get squinty pics of them whenever we want to capture that Kodak Moment. I understood, however. And agreed reluctantly to go the next weekend.

Sunday rolls around and WHAMMO – it was supposed to be like, 86 degrees that day. SQUINTY PICTURES HERE WE COME. We take off heading NORTH on the infamous I-5 towards Canada. It’s going to take us approximately 2 1/2 hours to get there. We don’t care about drives like this. We are music nuts and love to just gather playlists together and crank the tunes and sing our faces off.

So we are driving through Seattle, snapping iPhone pics the entire way…driving still NORTHWARD to the SKAGIT VALLEY which is nestled below the Cascade Mountain Range. The day was gorgeous. We couldn’t have asked for better weather. As we were getting close to the exit that would take us through the farmland to see the beauty of the Tulip Fields…I thought to myself…

Gee, it sure seems like we should have seen something by now.

Something like this:

Skagit Valley Tulip Fields

Only…that’s not what we saw. THIS…is what we saw:

Stop. Laughing. It’s not funny. BASTARDS!

Field after field was freshly plowed. Narry a tulip to be found. Apparently? They harvest the tulips shortly after the festival is over – which I found out is April 30th. SUNOVABITCH! So, my instinct to go LAST weekend, was a good one, apparently.

Shit. We practically drove to fucking CANADA to see those damned tulips. DAMMIT!!! Good thing about living in Washington? We have NO SHORTAGE of cool stuff to see – no matter where you end up.

There is a little town called “Anacortes” (an-uh-cort-ez) which is on the Puget Sound just about 15 minutes away from the little town where the Tulip Festival commences. I came to find out that they are the “Salmon Canning Capital of the WORLD” as evidenced here:

I didn’t even know this was a “thing”.

I also took pictures of a few other things while we were in Anacortes:

This is my little one – well she’s 12. And she’s a bookworm. She’s standing next to a bronze miniature elephant. There was a giant clock around the corner. And painted tulips on the windows of the little shops that lined the street – clearly evidence of false advertising. Not cute, Anacortes…NOT. CUTE. AT. ALL.

We hung out and went to a few antique shops in Anacortes and also a book store, where I picked up a book about the SECRETS OF MAUI! I never buy stuff from bookstores any more and when the kids went in there, I almost stayed outside, but I went ahead and followed them in. LUCKY ME! Oh – we also spent $18 on three teensy weensy cups of gelato. It was delicious. Hubby and I shared a Lemon Gelato and each of the kids got what they wanted.

After Anacortes’ charm wore off we went to a little town called LaConner. It’s another cute little town with little local touristy shops and restaurants along the water of the Puget Sound. We spent the rest of the day here and took several photos:

LaConner Channel Lodge – we’re totally going to stay here someday.

A “Rusty Orb”. I have no idea what this signifies.

Because Wi-Fi was NOT free, I assume.

On our way out of town I spotted THIS. Raddest name for an antique store EVER!

So, while the day didn’t go as I had imagined, it turned out to be a really good day after all. And in case you are ever here for the Tulip Festival, I submit to you that it occurs during the month of APRIL – April 1-30 to be more exact. And if you go the week AFTER it’s over? You’ll be shit outta luck – but, hey! At least I just gave you some pointers on what to do with yourselves if you’re ever too late.

Bleh. Blah. Blargh.

I don’t really feel like blogging right now. I’m all PMS-y. Which means I’m cranky and short-fused.

I just got back from dinner. But before we could come home, hubby wanted to hear some coffee shop music by some dude that was just a little too uh…eccentric, I guess you could say – which is probably rude to say especially since I’m a singer and should probably be more supportive. But sometimes, I’m not in the fucking mood for shit like that and I can’t TELL YOU the last damn time I had control over the music selection in the car. I mean, who cares if I’m stuck in the 60′s 70′s, 80′s and 90′s? I just want to listen to music that I can sing along to.

And it was fucking LOUD AS FUCK IN THERE! Gawd. I just walked out and sat on the patio by myself.

I don’t know how to explain how these things make me feel. It just annoys me. It’s too yuppie/trendy/coffeehousey/hipster for me. No sir, I don’t like it.

I tried to go along with it – you know – the old “take one for the team”? But, I just sort of slipped out the door and didn’t say anything and decided that I’d just wait outside until the hubby and kids had their fill.

I think they came out because they felt sorry for me or something. So we are home now. Bleh. Blah. Blargh.

The Gaybors and their Christmas Party

I’m not going to attach a picture stolen from the interwebs to this post – simply because a cursory search for “Gay Christmas Party” brought up enough images for me to get fired.

I wanted to share with you a story about the very first time I got drunk.

It started innocent enough…my neighbors “S” & “D”, who we lovingly refer to as our “Gaybors” throw two parties each year. A summer party and a Christmas party. Both are a total hoot and both can get you into equal amounts of trouble. Even if you’re straight. And a chick.

Since we live across the street, we are usually one of the first folks to arrive, so we try to help set up as much as they’ll let us…which they rarely do. “D” usually escorts us to the basement and pours our first (of many) cocktails for us to get us started.

Hindsight Rule #1: Never let a gay pour your drink.

The cocktail of this particular Christmas party was Vodka Cran. They usually have a drink theme for the Christmas party. The summer party? The sky is the limit. I’m surprised they don’t have a Scotch Fountain set up in their backyard, to be quite honest with you.

As the evening progressed, it seemed that “D” had this weird Spidey sense when my drink was getting low. I’d take the last little sip and the ice would clink in the bottom of my glass and when I turned around – there he was, “Honey…YOU need another COCKTAIL!” and he’d grab my hand and off to the basement we’d go.

Hindsight Rule #2: If you like throwing parties, don’t set the bar up in the basement of a circa 1920′s house.

To say that “D” was a little heavy handed with the vodka, would probably be the BIGGEST understatement of the century. It was like, “Ice, VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, *cran*. ” Not. Even. Kidding.

So let’s say, for arguments sake, that we arrived at their place around 6. And let’s also say that “D” seemed to be following me around for 3 hours – consistently filling up my glass whenever the dreaded ice made that clinking sound when there was no more liquid to stop it from seemingly slamming into the bottom of the glass.  And let’s say that I was walking through the house with the hubby and I’m pretty wobbly but feeling great. Then we go downstairs and “D” sees my empty glass and said *again*, “Honey!! You need another cocktail!!” At which point my hubby as all, “I really think she’s good, D.” and then D was all, “Hey! This is MY fucking party and if she LOOKS like she needs another cocktail, then I’m gonna GIVE her another cocktail. Now, shut the hell up!” I should say that if you don’t have any gay male friends of your own, that most gay men – the loud and proud ones, anyway – mean no harm whatsoever when they talk like this and their comments are met with side-splitting laughter. And with that, the next 1/2 hour was sort of a blur.

Hindsight Rule #3: Always trust your spouse when it comes to your threshold for consuming alcoholic beverages.

I knew that I was certain my glass had floated from my hand to D for a refill. Hubby had grabbed my hand, in what I can only assume to be his attempt to get me upstairs and out of the basement before my next cocktail was poured for me – only, unbeknownst to him, it magically floated through the crowd behind his back and landed in my free hand as we started up the stairs. And…I’m not sure if he knew it or not, but all I can say is that it was gone by the time we reached the top of the stairs. And I know this because I remember my husband exclaim after he heard that little *clink* of the ice cubes: YOU FUCKING DRANK THAT ALREADY?!?!?!?!

The next few minutes went by rather quickly.

I somehow decided that it was a good idea to show a room full of gay men how I could take my bra off without taking off my shirt. Someone snatched my bra and I had no idea where it went.

The room started spinning and I remember my husband calmly finding me a chair to sit on – in the formal living room – the one with all the nice furniture. And then…

I puked. I puked so hard.

The next few things I remember clear as day. I remember that it’s like the gays are so used to this type of thing happening that they have, what I call, the “Puke Patrol”. There were a team of people that just spring into action and are there to take care of everything.

We had 2 people show up with towels almost immediately to clean up, someone to help ME get cleaned up, someone else showed up with a plastic bag in case I kept puking, someone to comfort my hubby – naturally. Then after everyone had swooped in to clean up the mess it was time for someone else to help the hubby walk me back across the street and back home.

The thing is? I was fucking PROUD of myself. I had waited 35 years to get Puke-Drunk for the very first time. I had no shame.

I spent the next two hours at home cleaning out my system., I’ll leave that process up to your imagination…all I’m going to say is that my husband must rrrreeeeeeaaaaaaaaallllllllllyyyyyy love me.

When it came time for the actual Christmas Holiday, we were trying to figure out what to get “S” and “D”, since we figured we owned them something.

I got this crazy idea to get them a really nice bottle of scotch. And along the same lines and to sort of make a nod to my party foul, I thought it would be funny to get them a can of Scotchguard.

We wrapped the presents and put them on their doorstep one night. Being the cool people they are, they waited until Christmas morning to open the gift.

On Christmas morning, our phone rang and all we could hear on the other end of the line was HYSTERICAL laughter. Apparently, they opened the gifts…and they got the joke.

That’s the beauty and unconditional love of friendship. I totally barfed all over their beautiful living room and never ONCE did they make me feel bad about it. Not. Once.

S & D came over later that day with a gift of their own. A pretty little bag that contained: My bra. Ever since then, I only wear my PRETTIEST bra to their party…you know, just in case.

A Poem: Ode To The Hot Flash

This is my first poem. Do. Not. Judge. Me.

Hot Flash

Damn you to hell

You keep me awake at night

I sweat so much I smell

You enrage me

You make me out of control

I toss and turn nightly

I get out of bed to take a walk

I do not recommend you highly

You make my face break out

You make my mood freak out

Hot Flash *mic drop*

Peace