Ever since we moved into this condo complex, we've noticed how small the parking spots are and we're constantly getting dinked on the left side, since it's a guest parking spot and there's no specific person to blame for dinks.
The thing is, Peter and I are ultra-sensitive about dinking other cars. Sometimes, I literally have to hold open the door so it doesn't swing open because, of course, the parking lot is on a little bit of a hill, so it's easy for the door to just careen out and dink the next car.
I'm super-nervous about this because our neighbor is CRAZY. Okay, she may not be crazy, but she hates us, and by us, I mean me. I'm a friendly person, so whenever I see her outside, I say, (in a super-cheerful voice), "HI!" She pretends she didn't hear me and continues on her way.
This may have something to do with the fact that right before we moved in, we had painters and carpenters and floor installers fixing up this place. Oh, and our mover's truck whacked into her car bumper trying to get into our parking spot. And yes, one last thing, we have two dogs, and they sometimes decide that 2 a.m. is the ideal time to start wrestling. But I feel that none of these things are reasons to hate your new neighbor.
The other day, Peter said, "I think our spot is smaller than other people's."
Of course, this is exactly the sort of injustice that I WILL get worked up about, so yesterday, I got out the tape measure. Here is the finding:
Parking Spot # -- Width of Parking Spot in inches
13 -- 151
12 -- 103
11 -- 102
10 -- 103
9 -- 102
8 -- 102
7 -- 102
6 -- 102
Guest Spot -- 102
Guest Spot -- 105
Guest Spot -- 94
5 (OUR Spot) -- 93.5
4 -- 115
As you can see, our spot, and the guest spot next to ours is teeny-tiny. Why? Did the parking spot line painters just decide that the people in Apartment #2 just didn't deserve to have a decent sized spot?
We wouldn't have made a stink about it, but there is a substantial difference. Why should spot 13 get a huge palatial parking spot? Their spot is practically double ours. So we've written the management company. Peter doesn't think that they're going to do anything about it, but I'm optimistic that they will.
I guess the problem is that Peter's a realist (I call him a pessimist, but he says it's realist) and I'm an optimist. I always think that people will do the right thing, and then when they don't, I get angry about it. So we'll see. If the management company doesn't do the right thing, I'll probably buy a cheap-o motorcycle and park it in the guest spot next to ours. Permanently.
Is that really spiteful? Will that send me to Parking Karma Hell?
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
A Strange New Growth
Married people share a lot of things, and one of those things requires having your spouse check out something on your body that you can't really see, and give you their opinion on it.
Many such conversations in our house start out with:
Me: Is that a mosquito bite, or a pimple?
Me: Is that a pimple or an ingrown hair?
Me: Is that an ingrown hair or a tumor?
Whenever I say, "Can you take a look at this?" Peter instantly freezes, pretends he didn't hear me, and walks slowly out of the room. Much the way Rocky, the Siberian Husky, acts when he sees me heading toward him with the doghair brush.
Today Peter said, "I have a bump in my mouth."
Me: So floss!
Peter: I did NOT say I had something in MY TEETH. I SAID I had something in MY MOUTH. I think it's some sort of bump.
So we go into the bathroom where the light is better, and he uses his fingers to hold his upper lips and gets down on bended knee so I can see. And even though he's in this ridiculously precarious position, I crack up and say, "Of course I'll marry you!"
He starts laughing and said, "I was going to say 'Whii yuh mawrrehh meh'?"
When a couple gets married, the priest should really say, "Do you take this person, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, and will you check out any strange new growths that will appear on his body?"
Many such conversations in our house start out with:
Me: Is that a mosquito bite, or a pimple?
Me: Is that a pimple or an ingrown hair?
Me: Is that an ingrown hair or a tumor?
Whenever I say, "Can you take a look at this?" Peter instantly freezes, pretends he didn't hear me, and walks slowly out of the room. Much the way Rocky, the Siberian Husky, acts when he sees me heading toward him with the doghair brush.
Today Peter said, "I have a bump in my mouth."
Me: So floss!
Peter: I did NOT say I had something in MY TEETH. I SAID I had something in MY MOUTH. I think it's some sort of bump.
So we go into the bathroom where the light is better, and he uses his fingers to hold his upper lips and gets down on bended knee so I can see. And even though he's in this ridiculously precarious position, I crack up and say, "Of course I'll marry you!"
He starts laughing and said, "I was going to say 'Whii yuh mawrrehh meh'?"
When a couple gets married, the priest should really say, "Do you take this person, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, and will you check out any strange new growths that will appear on his body?"
Thursday, September 20, 2007
No, Not Pregnant!
Every time I talk to someone I haven't spoken to in awhile, they ask me if I'm pregnant.
The other day, I was telling someone a story, about how my mother is FREAKING Out over the fact that I'm not pregnant yet, and I said:
"The funny thing, is that there's something that happened last month that I haven't told her about..."
Before I could finish my sentence, I heard through the telephone, loud enough to shake the plaster down on the walls of my apartment:
"You GOT PREGNANT!"
After a long pause, I said, "Uhm...NOOOOOOOOOOOO..."
I mean, that doesn't even make any sense. I feel like all people hear from me these days is, "blah blah blah, blah, blah blah blah blah." They're just waiting to hear the "P" word.
Kind of like my dogs, except their magic word is "food."
The other day, I was telling someone a story, about how my mother is FREAKING Out over the fact that I'm not pregnant yet, and I said:
"The funny thing, is that there's something that happened last month that I haven't told her about..."
Before I could finish my sentence, I heard through the telephone, loud enough to shake the plaster down on the walls of my apartment:
"You GOT PREGNANT!"
After a long pause, I said, "Uhm...NOOOOOOOOOOOO..."
I mean, that doesn't even make any sense. I feel like all people hear from me these days is, "blah blah blah, blah, blah blah blah blah." They're just waiting to hear the "P" word.
Kind of like my dogs, except their magic word is "food."
Saturday, September 08, 2007
10 Years!!
September 5th marked the tenth anniversary of the day I first sat down next to Peter and said, "Hi! I like your glasses!"
I heard a report on 20/20 that our bodies regenerate all the cells on our bodies every ten years - at this point, Peter and I are walking around with an entirely new set of cells. So I guess that makes us entirely different people now.
The very first time I met Peter, I was wearing green cargo pants, a nylon neon-orange-and-neon-yellow camouflage tank top, and the extremely ugly Mephisto sandals my mother bought me because the salesperson at Nordstrom told her that they would mold to my feet, which was apparently something he convinced my mother was VERY IMPORTANT.
I know NOW that this is a hideous outfit, but for some reason, I looked at myself in the mirror and went, "I look TERRIFIC!" (Keep in mind, I had just spent a year in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For over there, anything not pre-worn by someone else was high fashion.)
A friend of mine brought me to see a coworker play guitar at a bar/club in the city. He pointed Peter out to me and said, "That's the guy who knows Beck."
At the time, I had just moved back to NYC from Ann Arbor, and I would take the 18-hour train ride every month or so to visit my family. On my portable CD player (remember those, guys?), I listened to Beck's Odelay over and over - my theme song for that summer was "New Pollution." So of course, anyone who knew Beck would be instantly cooler than anyone I had ever met before in my entire life. And boy, I was so right.
I heard a report on 20/20 that our bodies regenerate all the cells on our bodies every ten years - at this point, Peter and I are walking around with an entirely new set of cells. So I guess that makes us entirely different people now.
The very first time I met Peter, I was wearing green cargo pants, a nylon neon-orange-and-neon-yellow camouflage tank top, and the extremely ugly Mephisto sandals my mother bought me because the salesperson at Nordstrom told her that they would mold to my feet, which was apparently something he convinced my mother was VERY IMPORTANT.
I know NOW that this is a hideous outfit, but for some reason, I looked at myself in the mirror and went, "I look TERRIFIC!" (Keep in mind, I had just spent a year in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For over there, anything not pre-worn by someone else was high fashion.)
A friend of mine brought me to see a coworker play guitar at a bar/club in the city. He pointed Peter out to me and said, "That's the guy who knows Beck."
At the time, I had just moved back to NYC from Ann Arbor, and I would take the 18-hour train ride every month or so to visit my family. On my portable CD player (remember those, guys?), I listened to Beck's Odelay over and over - my theme song for that summer was "New Pollution." So of course, anyone who knew Beck would be instantly cooler than anyone I had ever met before in my entire life. And boy, I was so right.
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