Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

Before I get to the apartment, a couple lessons I learned while packing:

1) Moving isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I wanted to move out of my current apartment long ago, but I thought moving would end in tears and me driving my car off a bridge out of stress. It's not fun, but it 100% is doable.

2) A grocery cart/basket/wheeled thing makes all the difference. Not the kind you use at the store, but this one:

Instead of three or four trips between apartment and car, it gets reduced to one, plus it's still a lot easier. I bought one for about $13 on Amazon. Cheap as hell, but it's been more than worth it so far.

Now, on to the apartment. I hadn't been able to see the inside of it, since they were renovating it and construction was going on. We looked in through the windows, but that hadn't shown much. So today was my first good look.

It's much smaller than my current place. Enough smaller that even the little bit of furniture I have will be an issue. My current place has a large living room, large bedroom, medium dining area, and small kitchen. New place has a small living room, small bedroom, small kitchen. No dining area/no place to put my kitchen table other than in the living room (which will be full of my living room stuff -- a sofa, TV stand, and desk). The ceilings are surprisingly low too, which makes it feel even smaller.

The patio is nice, though being on the first floor isn't private at all. The sliding glass door is wonderful. The ceiling fans do wonders to keep things cool! (I never had those before.) Lots more windows + sliding glass door + ceiling fans = less AC use, I hope.

The bedroom closet might have been a deal-breaker, if I had known about it ahead of time. It has no rods for hangers, just shelves. Never in my life have I had a closet without a rod. I have a metric crapton of clothing, I really have no idea how I'm going to deal with this. (Even if I get a stand-alone rod thing, where would I put it?)

The shower might have been the other semi-deal-breaker, though I won't know for sure until I try it. It's even smaller than my current one (which is really small), and I'll need to buy a shower curtain (my current one has a sliding glass door to get in). I don't like shower curtains. :/ At least the rod has a curve in it, so the curtain will be out away from the tub a little/less likely to try to get busy with you while you're wet and naked.

Tons of outlets (electric, cable, and USB). The washer seems nice and new, though the dryer seems older than I am. Luckily I don't use the dryer much.

At 11 AM, there was a surprising number of people around. Lots of kids (very young, 5 and under), lots of dogs. The apartment across from mine has a yippy dog who barked every time I went by, but luckily once I closed my door I couldn't hear it. Some people had multiple dogs, including big ones. I can't imagine having more than a cat in these little apartments.

I've always said I had more space than I need in my current apartment, so less space in the new one shouldn't be an issue. (I just hope I won't trip over the cat box in the bathroom too often...) And, even with the lesser space, it does seem like the apartment is more aimed towards the higher end of things, which is nice. The stovetop is that kind with the smooth glass top -- no burners! Alas my new fridge is no bigger than my current one, and might even be a little smaller. The front is a nice brushed metallic color though.

So, all in all, I think it's an okay apartment. Once I have my furniture in place I'll have a better idea how I feel. However, thanks to Lesson Learned #1, I will certainly move out if I don't like it. (I'm paying a good deal more than I am in my current place, and after buying my car funds are suddenly tighter, so I wouldn't mind moving someplace cheaper.) My lease is only one year.

Edit: I think we need a new game. Porn Movie or Awkward Stock Photo/akwardstock? ( Click to see -- implies NWS. )

Three things make a post!

1) Awkward Stock Photo, akwardstock, continues to amuse horrify. At least this image is free to use?



2) Swimming depresses me for a small reason: Usually I'd love a summer like this: Temperatures in the low 70 with a cool breeze. That's great for everything... except swimming in an outdoor pool.

It's still leaving me exhausted. I spend the couple hours between it ending and bedtime staring blankly at the TV. zzz I need to do a few more checks, but it seems to be doing really good things for my blood sugar though, so YAY.

3) While looking around online for something totally legal and innocent, I stumbled upon something interesting. Iron Man XXX and The Avengers XXX movies. Two porn parodies! I have the next couple days off, so I'm intending to watch them and post reviews. The Iron Man one stars Dale DaBone -- that name tickles me endlessly.

Here's the trailer for the Iron Man XXX one. Surprisingly it's work safe (except two spoken curses).


The Avengers XXX trailer is funnier and even more safe for work (no cursing that I noticed). I snickered at the Hawkeye abuse!

In random order!

* As ever, Awkward Stock Photos made me blink. Cut-off human breasts frozen in a giant ice cube? Oh wait, no, it's just nuts...
( Breasts or nuts? Or maybe mini-hotdogs? Not really NWS, but cutting because first impression seems so. )

* A warning, in case you never tried it and come across it in the store: Uncured bacon tastes nothing like bacon. It tastes like very bland ham. I ate the test pieces I cooked, but threw out the rest uncooked. What a waste of money.

It's too bad, because it was sliced nice and thick. I had high hopes for it. :/

* Book #13 of 2013: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. I spent most of Saturday reading, so I got through it faster than I usually would.

Between Shades of Gray tells the story of a young Lithuania girl and her family who were deported to Siberia by the Soviets. The characters were interesting and fully believable, the dialogue was perfectly realistic, and the story was unbelievable -- unbelievable in a "I can't believe people actually lived through that sort of thing" way.

It's odd to finish a book and not have a list of complaints about it. After the last two books I read, it almost feels like having a list is the norm. There were only two quibbles I had about Shades. One could be explained by this being a YA book instead of one for adults: If thousands of people were under the control of military overseers and were though of as sub-human, I'm sure there would be a lot more rape and forced sexual servitude going on. In the book there was only one woman. The second was the ending. I wish the author had gone more into the rescue and what came after... without the "happily ever after" epilogue (though maybe that was because this was a YA book, too).

It feels strange to say I enjoyed a book about a horrible period of time in which people were abused and killed, but I did. The characters were well written (even most of the bad guys were human, and one of them I wish I knew a whole lot more about). The story was interesting. Most importantly, I learned from this book. In this case, I learned how little I knew. I believe in my entire life I never gave a thought to Lithuania, and barely any more thought to what the Soviets did under Stalin. It was before my time and outside of my interests. I'd like to read more, but it's hard to find books that both look interesting and are available as ebooks...

Ummm. What exactly is going on here? Is that carrot, um... Should I have marked this as NWS?

Dare I ask what the white stuff is on the carrot's forehead? Have the leaves on the carrot somehow turned into eyes?

And, as I so often ask of the images on Awkward Stock Photo (akwardstock), what sort of newspaper story would require buying this graphic to run with it?!

Edit: And I didn't even spot until now that the carrot appears to have balls...