It is What it Is

Landlords Are Crazy

From the time I rented my first apartment at 19 until about six months ago, I operated under a basic assumption: all landlords are crazy.

Apartment landlords, or any complex run by a company or management firm, maybe not so much. However, when you rented a house, it seemed to me that all landlords were nuts.

The landlord of that apartment I rented at 19 had a house he divided into an upstairs apartment, a main level that was kept in tact “for the family to visit” and a basement apartment. We basically lived above a creepy museum, and my landlord liked to work on the house shirt-less (at 70), made snide comments about boys coming over and let his son-in-law use the back of the house for his “art” at any given time – which usually translated to the hours of 10:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.

I did not like that man.

In Which The Dogs Question That Whole "Pack Leader" Thing

Unfortunately, last night was another night for deadly storms in Alabama. My thoughts are with the families who lost loved ones and homes.

You might think that you would eventually get used to the sound of weather sirens in the night, but I think most people who live in tornado alleys would second that it's always an unnerving and unsettling phenomenon.

Since I live in a house with a concrete slab foundation, our "place of safety" (the real term if you don't live in inclement-weather-prone parts of the country) is the only room in the house without windows -- otherwise known as the guest bathroom. It is also the only bathroom with a tub, so it's where the dogs get their baths. Whether it's claustrophobia or bad memories, neither pooch was too crazy about the idea of getting in there with a bunch of fleece blankets, pillows and the Kindle fire at 3:30 in the morning.

What I Have Learned Watching TV With The SO

The man in my life is into zombies. From what I can gather, this is somewhat normal. At my Halloween party two years ago, at least half the men showed up dressed as zombies. Zombies seem to have snuck into our lives over the last few years. (And please don’t get me started on what it’s been like since The Walking Dead premiered. I think it’s a fine show, but six episodes and then you take off for a year? Can we really call that a season? Really?)

Then again, I watch Lifetime and shows where women talk to dead people, so I’m sort of in a glass house here. While I don’t mind the zombies, I can’t say that I love them. The flesh-eating thing just doesn't really grab me.

Anyway, based on my recent viewings of these kinds of post-catastrophe shows/movies, there are a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up for surviving/dealing with aliens, zombies and danger at every turn.

1. There are absolutely no rules about who lives and who dies. Don’t even try to figure it out. If you’re popular and young, it actually seems like you’re more likely to be a goner. Also, your death will be incredibly unpleasant. If you have any sort of pre-existing anxiety issues, be sure to raid the local pharmacy for Xanax as soon as the looting begins.

My Hands Are Just Too Small

According to family folklore, when my grandmother didn’t want to do things, she always said, “but my hands are too small.”

As soon as I found this out, I adopted the phrase as my very own and blamed it on genetics. Learn to use the lawnmower? My hands are too small. Time to help move the refrigerator across the room? My hands are too small. Get a ladder and reach the highest shelf? My hands are too small.

(By now, you’ve probably noticed a theme here, and that theme is manual labor.)

I’ve gotten over my issues with lawnmowers and ladders, but I still find plenty of sweat-inducing tasks to duck out of with my grandmother’s infamous phrase.

There’s no time my aversion to “work” rears its ugly head as much as it does when I’m moving.

I don’t like the packing process. I either find ways to reminisce about every single thing I’m putting in boxes – “Oh my gosh, do you remember when we took this picture outside of Graceland” – grossly slowing down the process, or, when I’m tired of looking at boxes, I go to another default mode – “Can’t we just throw it away?”

I have thrown away more pots, plant stands and random papers than any one human being should have a right to. When I left Chicago, I threw away a pot that still had food in it because I didn’t want to clean it or pack it. (Lazy, thy name is Laurel.)

The Curious Case Of The Found Pants

Like most kids, I enjoyed my mystery series, with Encyclopedia Brown being at the top of the list. (It was in the ice cubes the whole time!)

Well, I enjoyed most mystery series. Nancy Drew was an exception. When my mom handed me my first Nancy Drew book, The Secret of the Old Clock, I remember looking at the cover art – which was of a girl kneeling next to a clock with a document next to it – and thinking, “There’s a will in the clock. Done.” I never read past page four, and I never picked up another Nancy Drew novel. Truthfully, I was a little insulted. (Insulted by the series, not my mom.)

I also liked to watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Nick at Nite, so I preferred my mysteries with unexpected twists – murder victims that became feed on the farm didn’t bother me at all.

And, thanks to my grandmother’s love of Murder, She Wrote, my favorite murder giveaway goes something like this:

“I can’t believe poor Mrs. Winters was shot to death.”

“I never said anything about Mrs. Winters being shot. How could you know that? Unless …”

[Insert slow clap.] “Well, I guess you’re onto me now, aren’t you?” Or, for the more sympathetic criminals, there were doe eyes and, “She was going to ruin me Jessica! Don’t you understand? She was going to ruin me!”

The Laurel Tour Of Homes

 The Top 5 Things I'm Excited To Do On My Alma Mater Weekend, #2: Revisit my old residences.

I am one of those people who really likes to visit places she used to live. And, yes, I also stand there and say, “Everything seems so small now!” [Read more]

 

Laurel, The Very Bad Volunteer

When I was a sophomore in high school, a friend and I decided to volunteer with a local, health-related non-profit. (I’d like to say it’s because we were moved by a presentation during one of our school’s “development days” – when we were supposed to learn more about ourselves and the community, or something like that – but it probably had more to do with the fact that sophomore year was the time people started talking about “college applications” and “extracurricular activities” and “standing out.” Also, in fairness, I should probably only implicate myself in the resume-building motive. My friend was probably much more pure-hearted.)

Anyway, the volunteer job we ended up with involved delivering meals to homebound patients. And while this job probably sounds easy enough, we were pretty terrible at it. I blame two primary culprits:

1. My complete lack of direction in neighborhoods I’d never visited before and
2. Naked people.

Storm Damage And Sequin Shoes

We had quite the storm here in Birmingham on Sunday night. I, of course, was catching up on Friday's Medium while the SO was away, when I heard pounding against the side of the house that sounded like an invading army wanted in. In actuality, it was hail.

Hail rained down on the house like I haven't seen in years. (It looked like someone had taken garbage cans full of that rabbit pellet ice and dumped it all over the yard and driveway.) It was one of the loudest storms I can remember.

The dogs stuck pretty close to me, but other than that, they seemed to be handling the stress OK. However, when I went to the back room of the house to look for Kitty Cat Jones (he knows how to use the dog door), I realized he had not taken refuge from the storm, and I was going to have to go out there.

In Which Laurel Learns That Not Everyone Will Extend Her A Line Of Credit

We all have our low moments financially. (At least, I assume we all do. If you've never had even the slightest embarrassment caused by money, you're probably not reading this blog anyway. I don't know what an only-recently-underemployed Hyundai owner would really have to offer you.)

There's the first time you forget your wallet. "I'm sure it's here somewhere," you say, while standing at the register rummaging through a bag that contains old receipts, gum, lipstick, mace, ticket stubs, perfume samples, an emery board ... everything but your wallet, any cash or even a spare credit card that might get you out of the store with your purchases. Also, this will never happen when there are not at least three people in line behind you, one of which is an impatient mother with a screaming child and another of which is a large man who thinks his sighing alone will make you give up the ghost.

But, at least when you only forget your wallet (because you might have forgotten to pick it up from beside the computer where you left it while you were online shopping, but you were already late because you needed to see the end of Law & Order: SVU even though you'd watched the episode before but still had no memory of the ending and your hands were already full with a Diet Coke and your car keys, but whatever), you seem absent-minded.

When the credit card is declined, it ranks a little higher on the humiliation scale.

The French Connection

2003 was a rough year for me, and it had nothing to do with a boyfriend or a job or even poor fashion choices I'm forced to relive in tagged Facebook photos. 2003 was particularly rough because of our feud with the French.

You see, while as an adult I can't say I really have strong feelings about the French in any way, shape or form, being forced to order "freedom fries" did remind me of my desperate childhood obsession with the French. (Did we go so far as to call it "freedom kissing"? I'm just curious.) And while I shouldn't have cared anymore, the little girl in me really, really wanted to make up with our beret-creating European neighbors.

When I was little, I wanted to be an actress, a lawyer and French. The first two were going to require more education and resources than I had access to at the time, but I figured the latter might be something I could actually work towards.

I knew there wasn’t much I could do about actually being French in the present, having been born in Alabama and all, but I was willing to settle for French ancestry. Also, after the disappointment of learning that my middle name was not actually "Fame," I figured Fain might be able to work for me in other ways.

“What are we?” I asked my mother one day. I was hard at work on a first grade family tree project, and she was trying to get dinner ready.

“We are a family,” she said.