in which i do not talk about pee, poo or toilets...

MCW says all my posts lately have been about poop and pee and other gross stuff. Well no more of that shit stuff, I promise! I WILL NOT speak of such disgusting things in this post.. seriously. But I got lots of other stuff to say, so here goes...

Joe and I recently moved to a new house... not the one with the creepy sex offender neighbor. This place has a big ol' front yard for Mister Bondi, wood floors, a fireplace. Good times. We managed to convince the landlord that no non-refundable pet deposit (aka pay $500 to have a dog) was unnecessary since Bondi is so well behaved. Well it was a little awkward when we pulled up to the house to unload our first truck of stuff and Bondi hopped out right.in.front.of.landlord and ran to the first pile of dog poo and covered himself in it.

... oopsies I already mentioned poo, but I mean.. "dog poo" is NOT as bad as people poo, so whatevs.... sorry. won't do it again. anywhoodles...

Moving is a bitch... and we have still yet to unpack everything. Our second bedroom now is the designated room o' crap we are too lazy to haven't had time to put away. Can you find the puppy?

Joe and Bondi are quite comfortable in the new place. Can you tell they like each other?

So as I was saying, the new place is great. Big front yard, fenced side yard for the dogs - did I say dogs? I meant dog.. really, we're not getting another dog... truly - and lots more space.

Well it's not all sparkles and unicorns... as we quickly learned that we are not alone in the house. I should've been suspicious when the bird feeder I put out the first night we moved in was almost empty the next morning... and we had seen nary a starling. Well, on night two I woke up sometime around 3:00am to the sounds of gnawing and scurrying.

Joe... do you hear that?

<<mumble grumble>> Hear what? Go back to sleep!

THAT. <<chomp.chomp.pitter patter pitter patter. chomp. chomp. chomp>>

Oh yes, we have company... rodent company. As in, we have rats in the walls. More on that later, but I will say nothing turns me on more than the sound of scurrying rats when I'm in bed.

We also have one of these that does his thing from approximately 6am-9am right outside our bedroom window.

Such a noisy fucker beautiful bird!

I was off to New Orleans... just a few days after we moved in. I work for the family company which involves several times a year going to hardware tradeshows.

There are lots of perks to working for the family biz. Namely, I get to make my own hours and bring Mister Bondi to work with me. (Warning: here comes the sap). Perhaps the best part, though, is being able to spend so much time with my family. My parents work their freakin' asses off for this company, and they rarely take vacations. (Their 2-night getaway to Schweitzer with Joe and I was a huge deal for them...) So, going to tradeshows sometimes turns into a mini family vacation.

Usually my dad and I (along with another sales rep) go to most of the shows together, and just in the past year or so we've been to a hockey game in Atlanta, done the New York New York rollercoaster and learned to play craps in Vegas, and most recently frequented amazing jazz clubs on Bourbon Street. We saw this 500 lb dude sing his heart out one night last week.

 I desperately wanted to tell him to go on Biggest Loser, but I refrained myself. *good girl*

One of the best nights in NOLA went to the Ace Mardis Gras "Party with a Purpose" - it was a charity event with dinner, OPEN BAR, and live entertainment. At one point the host asked for several girls to join him on stage to help out with a Tina Turner number. My dad (seriously, I swear he did) insisted that I do it... I wasn't so sure, as I had only had one adult beverage and the thought of humiliating myself standing up on stage in front of 3,000 people, most of whom were prospects or existing accounts, did not sound like a fun time.

Somehow I was coerced into doing this though... and what I thought was going to be some sort of "Rolling on the River" sing-a-long turned into a full on Girls-Gone-Wild style dance competition including a very older woman who pulled her thong out of her pants. WTF??

I behaved though. Really. The wildest I got was swinging my Mardis Gras beads over my head and throwing them into the crowd. Too bad so sad most hardware folk are technologically challenged, otherwise I would be sharing a YouTube video of my ridiculously horrid dance performance. These pics from my dads phone will have to suffice.

You get the idea. Anyway...

It was good to come home. Bondi is a total mess when I'm gone... like OCD to the nth degree. He is already a ridiculously neurotic pup... (click thru "neurotic pup" to see him hiding in the tub!) and when his routine changes he goes a little bonkers. When I leave him at my mom's that usually involves him repeatedly locking himself in the storage closet downstairs... for reals. And this last time, he decided to bite all the hair off his bum.

It's slowly healing, but we may have to break out the cone if he doesn't knock.it.off.

Since it's Friday... I'll leave y'all with this precious pic of my pup from last night.

*no words*

Hoping to be back to my regularly scheduled musings, funnies and other garbage next week...

love thy neighbor

Background Info: Our apartment lease is up in a couple weeks, so Joe and I have been looking for a house to move to... with a yard... so we can get Mr. Bondi a little brother/sister that Joe will insist on naming "Homie"... which I think is the worst name for a dog ever, but I digress. 

We just found a place that is dirt cheap - I won't even tell you how cheap cause I don't want to make any Manhattanites cry. And really, it's perfect for us - well, except for the fact that it's really a really old house and has a strange odor, a little bit like what I imagine crack would smell like, and umm... then there's the sex offender neighbor and the stuttering landlord.  

Red flags? No, we'll just work around these little issues. So Say I.  


Friend:  did i hear you and joe signed a place??

me:  not yet

we did FIND a place though

and we are meeting tonight to potentially sign

Friend:  sweetness - where's it at?

me:  need to determine if the neighbor is a level i sex offender or just a sex offender "dabbler"

i'm gonna knock on his door and bring him cookies 
Friend:  and children?

haha sorry bad joke

me:  no seriously, on the king county sex offenders list, the address DIRECTLY next door is listed as sex offender, so i studied the pic and im gonna go knock on the door - check him out.

Friend:  haha creeepy

me:  WELL... the landlord legit said on the phone to me, "there's just the problem of the neighbor. he's a little cranky. But if he gives you any problems, just call us and we'll get a restraining order"

WTF

Friend: uhhhhh

me:  but actually the landlord stutters, ALOT, so it was more like, "we-e-elll thah-ah-rrS ju-ju-just the"

me: So maybe we just have a cranky neighbor and then somewhere close by a sex offender. Probably best if the cranky neighbor is the sex offender, that way we kill two birds with one stone?
Friend:  hahahah

me:  place is right behind kangaroo and kiwi pub..

like 2 blocks from greenlake on 99

it is an OLD house

but has a lot of character

each room has different color walls haha

big basement with space for beer pong, etc.

and if i felt so inclined, i could decorate it really vintagey

Friend: i'm a big fan of old houses - i think they have a lot of character missing from today's housing

me:  yeah.. well theres the problem of no dishwasher but joe fancies himself a handyman and thinks he's  gonna install one :-)

im going to point and laugh.

So here's what I got:

***LOCATION                               

PROS: Easy access to freeway for commuting, 2 blocks from Greenlake, Across the street from my favorite Pho restaurant, stone's throw from one of my favorite pubs, and directly next door to a great pizza place. On second thought, that might be a con.

CONS: Directly next door to a pizza place, "cranky neighbor" that we potentially need to get a restraining order against?, sex offender neighbor possibly (hopefully) same person as cranky neighbor.. But since little kids don't like cranky men, probably he wouldn't have been a very successful sex offender. So probably not. Oh, and if you're thinking he might not have been a 'child molester' sex offender, he was. I saw.. on the creepy and addictive find a sex offender near you site.

***LANDLORD

PROS: Lives over an hour away.

CONS: Has serious speech impediment. Conversations take 3x longer than humanly necessary.   

***HOUSE

PROS: Spacious, new carpets, big rooms, big basement, washer and dryer...

CONS: Smells funny, possibly like crack. Not that I would know. Every room has different color walls. No dishwasher. 

Thoughts??  Besides the obvious, that I have Mad "Paint" Skillz. Have you ever tried to use that program? It is less user-friendly than those grocery store Self Checkouts. I think I'll stick with Photoshop.