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Another reason I won’t miss our old apartment? On Thursday, we deduced that our keys were not working in our driver’s door because someone had jammed something in there in an attempt to break in. Because suddenly neither one of our keys open that door and there is a strange mark that looks like a screwdriver was forced into the lock, we are pretty sure someone wanted to break into our car. Since our car is parked at home 90% of the time, this most likely happened at our complex. We can still open the door with our car remote or by opening our passenger door, but still, this is incredibly annoying.

This is the last night in our craptacular apartment, the crappy apartment we were so happy to get when no one would return our phone calls during our desperate apartment search last July. Just to put it in perspective, at the end of September, I remarked to Danny, “Well, only four more months until we move. Is it too early to start looking for new place?”

So, in honor of you, shitty apartment, I’ve made a list of things I won’t miss about you.

1. Your broken kitchen faucet that must be touched gingerly or the handle pops off.

2. The ill-fitting window screens that took the maintenance man one month to procure. Unfortunately, that month was August.

3. The clogged shower drain that never become completely unclogged.

4. The loud knocking that accompanies a faucet being turned on or off anywhere, anytime.

5. The broken, white, two-door car that has been parked outside our front door for over a month while it slowly deteriorates.

6. The constantly overflowing dumpsters.

7. Having our front door egged three weeks after we moved in….in August.

8. Stairs.

9. The flooded parking lot.

10. The screaming fights that start outside around 6pm on weekends AND any other night of the week.

11. And last, but not at all least, the screaming, unsupervised, foul-mouthed, popping-out-from-behind-the-overflowing-dumpster-as-we-drive-by horrible, horrible children. They and their trashy parents have made me seriously consider getting my tubes tied.

This is part of the yelling match that just went down in the parking lot outside of our apartment. Just for fun, we’ll call them GB (gangbanger) and SB (stupid bitch).

GB: I didn’t f*cking do nothing!

SB: Yes you f*cking did! You hit me in the eye and then you spit on me.

That’s all I could hear and really, isn’t that enough?

Last night, I was feeling quite industrious. I decided to vacuum at 11pm. I know that that’s late, but since I’d stayed up until 4am the night before and had subsequently slept in that morning, it was only about 6pm my time.

Anyway, I was vacuuming and feeling pretty good about how well my new little canister vacuum could suck when I heard two loud knocks at the door. I went and peeked out the peephole and saw nothing. Danny came downstairs to ask what it was, and I told him I didn’t know. We left our porch light on and hung out for a few more hours before going to bed.

When we woke up today, I opened the door to find eggshells and runny egg yolks running down our door and onto the doormat. Shit. That sucks. At least they weren’t rotten eggs, but it really pissed me off. Who could I have angered in the short time we’ve been here? There are tons of crappy little unsupervised kids running around our parking lot, so it could have been anyone of them. On our way out today, we looked around to see if any other doors had been defiled, but we didn’t notice anything out of the peeling-paint, shitty facade ordinary we’re used to seeing.

When we got home tonight, we got a bowl of soapy water and some sponges and cleaned off the egg. It wasn’t too gross but it was annoying. We can’t wait to move out of our complex. At least we got a six month lease. Even if we have to move out in the freezing, wet-cold of January, I think it will be worth it. This place sucks.

So how do I know I’m back in school? Crappy neighbors: check. Cheap apartments: check. Little kids shrieking and screaming from sunup to sundown: check. I guess at UT, Danny had more drunken frat dudes to listen to late at night, but I’d almost prefer them over the crappy kids in our complex. Yes, I hate children. It’s that simple. Wait. I actually hate the no good, worthless, crappy, preoccupied parents who let their little brats run around the parking lot at all hours of the day.

I feel old. Get off my lawn or I’ll take a switch to yer hide!

I got my car licensed today. Yay! It took an extra call to the leinholder on my car but they finally faxed over a copy of my title. Hey, the third time’s a charm, right? Now all I have to do is get my new DL. This shouldn’t be too hard. I just need to be patient and wait for my passport to come in. We’re going on 6 weeks now. Tick tock.

Maybe by the time I start school, I’ll have the car stuff taken care of. Today, I got an emissions test. That was easy and fairly painless. However, when I went to register my car, the folks there informed me that I did not have a copy of my title, but instead had a copy of my title application. Ugh. This was the only piece of paper my credit union sent me when I asked for a copy of my title. Therefore, I have to wait for them to find the ACTUAL title, make a copy, and fax it to the licensing office. I doubt if this will be finished by today. Argh. I knew this was going to be a pain but I never imagine that it is ALWAYS THIS much of a pain. Plus, I’ll still have to deal with the shock of actually PAYING to register my car. In TX, it cost about $60. Here, I’ll be lucky if it’s less than 200. Yuck.

So, I wasn’t able to get my new driver’s license or car registration. I’m stuck in sort of a catch-22. Well, not totally but it’s still frustrating.

I couldn’t get my DL because I could only provide two forms of valid ID with my married name: my CA DL and my SS card. I also had my birth certificate, but they would not accept this because it had my maiden name on it. They would have accepted my marriage license, a passport, or a credit card with my new name on it. I don’t have any of these additional items because my marriage license is at the passport office. Once I get my new passport, I’ll get my marriage license back. I also don’t have a credit card with my name on it because I can’t change that without my marriage license.

To look on the bright side, I don’t need my new DL just yet. I just have to get my vehicle registered sometime soon and that doesn’t appear to be a problem; no passport required! Whoohoo. I also don’t have to retake the written driver’s test like I did in CA. That was an unpleasant surprise. Bleagghhhthhh.

We made it. We’re in Seattle.

After spending three lovely days in Portland with Rodney and Laura, we packed up our stuff, our cats, and drove up to Seattle. We got to our apt on time to get our keys, but we were informed that our unit was still being painted. WTF? The landlady assured us that the paint dried quickly and that we could start moving stuff in that night. Irritated but not at all surprised, we went to check out our unit. The maintenance guy was still there and seemed really nice. Even though our apt isn’t finished, at least we have a competent handyman.

We unloaded some of our stuff then went to pick up the rental truck. Long story short, we rented a trailer to haul our stuff to Seattle. We then got a uhaul-type truck so we could go pick up our stuff at the trailer place. It was a little bit of a pain but it was really cheap.

We got our truck, got some supper, went to Target to get some necessities, then drove our rental truck south of the city to get our stuff.

We loaded our stuff from about 10:30 to midnight, and then hauled everything into our apt from 12:30-2:30. Around 3am, we were starved. We went looking for an all night restaurant and finally made it to Denny’s around 4am. We were beat but all of the heavy lifting was finished. We went home, showered, and crashed around 6am. The sun was already coming up.

This morning, we woke up periodically to see if the cable guy from Comcast had called. At noon, we called him. It turns out that despite having set up an appt 12 days prior, they would not be able to set up our cable or internet for 2 more days. This really really made us angry. We have limited internet access now, but we cannot take care of stuff we needed. If there were any other alternative to Comcast, I would use it.

Despite the frustration, we have been enjoying setting up our new home in a new city. The weather is lovely and the service is friendly. I’m exhausted though and it’s time for bed now.

Danny and I are moving to Seattle next week. That means that we have three days to get our stuff in order before we load the truck. I think we’re ready but still, this is a major pain in the ass. The other thing we have to look forward to is that this weekend is probably going to be the hottest weekend of the summer. It is supposed to get up to 96 degrees on Sunday. For those of you in Texas, you’re probably thinking “Ah! That’s nothing!” And to you I say, is it nothing if you have no air conditioning?

It’s time to sweat.

Danny and I are in Seattle right now. We’re looking for an apartment and aren’t having any luck. Our idea of coming to Seattle over a holiday weekend has backfired on us. Everyone, including apartment leasing offices, decided to take a four day weekend. We have had few responses other than “come check out our place on Thursday.” This does us no good. On the bright side, we know more than we ever wanted to know about getting around the campus area. I didn’t think the leasing situation would be this dire right now. I guess we got really really lucky when we rented our last apartment in two days.

We’re keeping our hopes up, but we’re almost willing to take anything with a door and a window that isn’t 30 minutes from campus. Stay tuned.