aaack!

so we finally got approved for an apartment. that in itself was drama, since most complexes out here require verification that your income is over 3 times what the rent will cost. which sucks because it's EXPENSIVE to rent out here, and the YMCA doesn't pay a bajillion dollars an hour. so we had shaggy's boss write a letter that said, if we moved closer, he could take on more clients, thus earning more money... and the complex decided that was good enough. so i happily call our manager here to let them know, and make sure everything is going fine with someone from their "list" of people being able to sign a lease for our apartment - thus enabling us to move out before october. "oh, well we don't have anybody yet."
excuse me!?! and now there's another one bedroom apartment coming open, so unless somebody signs here by friday, we can't sign for the new place (and risk paying two rents for four months).
so then we would lose the new place, and i so do not want to go through this whole process again. how do stupid/lazy people get apartments?
on a more fun topic: last night i was introduced to the game left, right, and center and won a cool $30. i can buy a half-tank of gas on that moola...

cherries are awesome!

so i got myself two rather large bags of bing cherries the other day. vons was offering a significant price reduction on them, and i was able to save a whopping $22 on my purchase (i said rather large bags...). they are soooooooo yummy. and not that i don't love spitting cherry pits, but i do wish some of them came pitless so i could eat 'em at work without making a mess. if i get tired of eating them before they're gone, i'm gonna freeze some. mmmmmm, frozen cherries...
hobbes has been pretty intrigued with the whole eat, spit, eat process. i think he's jealous that i'm allowed to spit all i want, yet when he throws up while running across the room, i get upset at him...
and i saw nacho libre!! i can't believe i haven't blogged about it yet. someone had freebie sneak preview passes they couldn't use, so devon and i got to go a day early. can we say pretty freakin' good? the movie actually had heart, yet was ridiculously funny at the same time - which is very hard to do, so congratulations jared hess and co.! i very much recommend watching the movie when you're in the mood for more than just fart jokes (not that the fart jokes aren't there, there's just other stuff too). jack black was great, and so was hectorwhassisname ("esquelito"). sorry, i don't remember the dude's whole name, but i remember that his lips are made of elastic, and he rivals austin powers for gross teeth.
and my boss is going on vacation for a week, which happens to be the same week her boss is going on vacation, and that boss is our executive director - meaning my cohorts and i will have no direct supervision for days on end. ahhhhhhh, bliss.
man, these cherries are good!

housing

i visited some apartment complexes today... the first one has an interesting vibe - the cats are cool there, the manager is a chain smoker with two cages of small birds in the office, two large birds that screech at her from her balcony if they see her walk by, and a large, fuzzy orange kitty, who lounges around by the side of the pool. There's also another person there who walks their cat on a leash (i saw her). plus it's relatively cheap, plus it's only 4.5 miles from work. the downside? it's dinky. i mean din-keeeeeee. we'd have to get rid of more stuff (not that we have too much to begin with), and get really creative with the cat stuff (there's no litterbox closet, not much floor space, etc.) and the workout stuff (i have no idea where we would put any of it). of course, we are limited on options right now, since every other place we've tried has something very wrong with it (specific pet rent- meaning they would count the pets, gargantuan deposits, waiting lists, whatever). so we might head on over to the dinky maya linda apartment in a couple of weeks. yeah, it's really called that.

not quite so moving, and brainy kitties

so the condo thing fell through. now we have just under 3 weeks to find a place and move in. i went through the classifieds, and the pennysaver, and the internet, and the forRent.com booklet, and called a few people, and will be visiting 2 complexes for sure tomorrow, possibly a third, to scope them out. the manager of the first complex told me "cats are cool" - definite potential there!
the second complex is rather nice, and very conveniently located, and the third is kind of farther than i want to be from work, but it is quite cheap. so we'll see. we also have two people scouting for us who are due to report tomorrow (a real estate person, and a ymca member who thinks we'd make decent neighbors). so, by tuesday, we ought to have some idea of whether or not this moving thing will work out.
and on the crazy cat front: i have been helping a lady named cathy in trapping the various ferals living around her mobile home. within the last week she has trapped an entire litter of 5 kittens, just about 3 months old, and very tameable (she has since been able to hold all of them). the mom and dad of this bunch, however, remain at large. cathy has 4 traps, and is constantly re-baiting, re-setting, and re-moving them, to no avail. she's even tried bringing some of the kittens out in a carrier, and setting traps around them. when the kittens meowed, the mom approached, assessed the situation, and leapt to the top of the carrier, where she meowed back to the kittens for a while, then settled down for a nap. i love that cats are smart, but some of them are way too clever for their own good!

karma

yesterday shaggy asked why i always seem to get sick at the "most inopportune times". i have often wondered this myself - why my system seems to invite in germs, viruses, etc. whenever we move, if it is christmas, if there is something really cool about to happen such as a marathon i would like to watch... although generally when i'm ill i'm uncomfortable/miserable, and not completely incapacitated. so, under normal illness circumstances, i would have been able to drag myself out of the house for a few hours in order to at least swing by the marathon, see shaggy finish, and perhaps take him out to lunch later. "ha ha" says fate.
so he's running (or was, he ought to be done by now) and i'm doped up on whatever that drug was i took, and wishing it was tomorrow, since they tell me the bug that's going around is a 24-hour one. blah.