Now Playing -
commercial radio. Bleah.
Now Eating -
nothing yet....
Now Feeling -
headachy.
Now Tweeting
- Melanie
Saturday�s mail brought a $45 rent increase. Usually they�ve sent our new lease in late Dec.-early Nov., with a note saying �Ha-ha, here�s how much we�re raising your rent�if you don�t like it, move!� Y�know, giving us at least a bit of notice to get our collective ass in gear and look for another place (yeh, like we�ll actually find one.) So the new lease arrived with a grand 23 days� notice of renewal. And a bigger rate increase than last year�s. As Huz said, what do we have to show for it? The first year, they�d put in the new windows, so at least there was some bang for our buck. This year? Mildewed caulk in the bathroom that�s caulked, caulked and recaulked by Super Man, a doorbell that still doesn�t work, cracks in the walls that were never repaired from the installation of the aforementioned windows, and the return of the cucarachas from the apartment below. My rent dollars at work.
And while I�m bitching, I�d really like to thank my boss for totally ignoring that memo from personnel that he got sometime in October. The one that said there was an amount budgeted for merit raises, and that if he felt they were warranted he should respond by November 1st. The one I found in a pile of ignored correspondence in early December. The one I then put on top of the pile, with a post-it that said simply �?�, which was promptly ignored. So I got my big 3% raise, which will now be eaten up by the rent increase, and, in a few months, by the inevitable annual health insurance price gouging.
Huz and I had already been talking about his dissatisfaction with the playing he�s been doing, and anxiety about the drop-off in his lesson clientele. So the rent increase was just icing on the cake. Nothing is more demoralizing, at least to me, than to feel that the harder you work to climb out of a hole, the more you seem to slide down even deeper into it. Is it too much to ask to get paid a decent amount? To have my big annual raise be something more generous than $23 per paycheck after taxes? To have housing at a reasonable cost? To be able to save some of what I earn and not feel deprived? I know I�m lucky. I have a job. But I just wish I could make a living wage doing something I love. And not feel like I�m just spinning my wheels.
So here�s a surefire way to ruin my Monday. Have Super Man and Wife tell me, as I�m heading to my car to go to work for my mere pittance, to get my new lease to them as soon as possible. Well, in their broken Sicilian/Albanian version of it, anyway. I mentioned that we just got it two days ago, and thanked them, as agents and representatives of the property management company, for the more-than-adequate advance warning. It was lost on them, I know. And they�ll get the damn lease back whenever the hell I feel like giving it to them.
Fuck it. So we�re on austerity. So I won�t buy anything for myself, for the house, for Huz unless it is on sale. So gift cards will become my new best friends. So I�ll work to pay off our debts. There�s gotta be a better way.
If G-d had wanted women to pee in cups, perhaps S/he would have made us equipped for it. I�m just sayin�.
Yeah, I had my annual physical last Friday, which was actually more a biennial physical, but who�s counting? Blood results should be back today (and lordy, that nurse was a wonder with a butterfly needle � I didn�t feel a thing!), but I know my doctor, and I�m not calling the office before 3 p.m. He wants me to have a thyroid sonogram, since it�s been about a year-and-a-half. Other than that, I�m guessing I�m benignly normal. Though I do have to get my ass back to the gym, before I become too ensconced in rehearsals to make the time.
And I did manage to ring in the New Year both conscious and clean. It was quite the achievement, even though it was another four days until I felt human again. I still tire easily, which makes putting off the treadmill not a difficult choice. Heh, like putting off exercise is ever a difficult choice.
I fervently hope this company makes a mint, because that is an idea whose time is long overdue. How many bundles of basil and cilantro have gone to seed in my veggie bin? Many. And I never buy fresh parsley to use as garnish because I know it�d be doomed before it ever made its way out of the plastic baggie. But little frozen cubes of herbs to plop into dishes? Genius.
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a very fine cat indeed - Friday, Jan. 17, 2014
happy new year! - Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013
this is where i am - Saturday, Jun. 30, 2012
this is how it is - Friday, Feb. 24, 2012
a very late last year's wrap-up - Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012
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