If you give a mouse some bread ... nothing happens

Critters. If they are in their space, fine.  But once they get into my turf, it is SO not fine.  The past 24 hours have been critter-tastic in my apartment, and I am not okay with it.

As you know from the adventures of Rupert & Wanda, spiders have always been the top of my to-eliminate list.  Or, more like the to-let-others-eliminate-for-me list.  However, now that I've moved into my own apartment, I find myself lacking in macho men to squish my least-favorite friends. I live in a basement, so the population of spiders down here is not favorable at all.  The first few weeks here were real rough.  However, I can say that I have toughened up.  I have pretty much discarded my belief that upon killing a spider it will reincarnate to 3 times its size, find me, and eat me.  In fact, I have killed more spiders in the past 4 months than I have in my entire lifetime, and can now do it with only a slight twist of the stomach and the little scardy-dance.  Except for the time I got one with my hands in a tissue, and when I squeezed, something cracked.  I felt it and heard it.  AHH. No more hand-killing for me.  So for the really big, ugly ones, I have chosen to co-exist with them. I let them stay and spin their webs into corners, and then they'll leave, and I don't know where to, and I'm okay with it.  So really, the existence of nasty spiders serve as the undertone for the rest of this entry, because they are everywhere.

First, a moth entered my apartment and has been following me around since yesterday.  I first found it in the shower, and then I got out and went to my room and it was there, perched beside my bed.  Wake in the morning, still there. Back from work, still there.  To the shower, now it's there, hanging out and taking in the steam with me.  Out of the shower, back to the room.  Moth is back in the room. I seriously think this moth is tailing me.  Does this mean I have a moth pet?  I'll name it Mandy.

Only now has it occurred to me to see if the is actually two moths that haven't moved in two days.  It is.  So, that story just died.  Can we just pretend I have a moth friend named Mandy who thinks I'm awesome?  Okay, thanks.

Tonight, I was sipping on my vino and thoroughly enjoying the premiere of So You Think You Can Dance, I started hearing strange sounds from my kitchen area.  Like someone grinding teeth.  After checking for a dripping sink or something falling over in the fridge, I ignored it.  And then it appeared.  Only for a second, but long enough for me to know.  A mouse. A tiny, 3-inch mouse, alternating taking refuge from under my minifridge and between my oven and the wall.  Cue freak-out. After leaving a message with my landlady, I wasn't sure what to do.  Taking some bad advice, and thinking that it was worth a shot, I laid out a trail of breadcrumbs from the mouse's hiding spot to the door, and then sat with the door open, hoping to lure it out.  After about 3 minutes, I realized this was a terrible idea for many reasons: a) There is no way this mouse would follow a long trail, in the light, with a human present, all the way out the door.  b) I was letting in a gazillion bugs, and  c) I now had a trail of bread crumbs on my kitchen floor that I have to clean up.  Bad idea all around.  Even my supportive mother laughed at my attempt. "You're not dealing with Hansel & Gretel here," she told me.  Got it, mom.

So I'm thinking to myself, we're geting some traps in here tomorrow morning, so I only have to deal with the mystery of the wandering mouse for one night.  It's not going to hurt me and will most likely lurk in dark corners anyway, so I'm not really bothered by it.  Then my land lady told me, "well, if it's that small, that probably means there's a momma mouse somewhere."  Okay, more bothered.  Aaaand look, there's a mouse turd on my sheets. Awesome.  Definitely bothered.

And just to top it off, as I am washing my sheets, I just chased down a mosquito in my bedroom that was, no joke, the size of a half-dollar. I no doubt let it in during the bread crumb debauchery.  At first I thought it was a daddy-long-leg bouncing from a web on the ceiling it was so big. Thankfully he didn't last long--his size greatly effected his agility to escape the wrath of my sandal.  Sucker.  Literally.  Get it?!

I wish I was joking about all this. But I'm not.  I'm off to bed, where I'll probably be cuddling with a mouse all night.  Sweet dreams, everyone! Considering my track record, the bed bugs will probably bite tonight me tonight.  Hope they stay away from you.

MONDAY (5/30) NOTE: We're having so much fun already, why not add a grasshopper? Again, wish I was kidding.  And this guy is way too fast for me to catch.  Guess he's gonna join the party. Maybe they are forming some kind of secret society like in A Bug's Life...

"Food Blog"

This photo entry is dedicated to my mother.  When we found out I was moving away to my very own apartment, she, with a look of slight lack of faith, frequently reminded me that I was going to have to cook for myself.  Well, mom, with one week down, I hope I did you proud:

Pasta & Pesto chicken.

Patty melt.

Wegmans Super Pasta.  Okay, this doesn't really count, but I actually tried it voluntarily, so points for that.
However, I don't think it still counts as "super" since it's smothered in mozzerella cheese ...

It starts.

I keep trying to start this entry but I am so distracted by the renewed presence of cable TV in my life,  I have had this "new post" page up for 45 minutes.  It's the third episode in a row of SVU... thank you USA! 

Okay, let's go! (2 hours later) ...

Welp, this is it. The starting of the next pod of life.  Up the hill I go.  I packed up my life into boxes, said goodbye to the home in which grew up, and drove my car to new city to start an internship at an organization I know very little about.  The adventure began right at the start.  After a drudge-like drive on a snowy route 15, we arrived at my new address.  And there was no light to be seen. Yep, there was no power in the house due to the snowstorm.  So, we carried my boxes, bin of shoes, bags of clothes, and more bags of clothes into an apartment that I still hadn't seen.  That was a little unsettling, but it seemed nice in the dark.  With the possibility of a cold night ahead of us, we took a drive around the neighborhood and wound up driving down Capitol Avenue, with the Capitol building right in front of us.  Pretty cool.  Then the Washington and Jefferson monuments showed up.  This is when I realized that I really was living in Washington DC.  It was a pretty crazy feeling (spending the next day walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, taking the bus and metro, and perusing dinosaur fossils at the Smithsonian helped too).  And when we arrived back from our drive, the power was back!  The warmth and lights returned and I was able to take a real look at the place, and it is beyond adorable.

And now here I sit, in a cozy, colorful, and well-decorated basement apartment that is the perfect little perch for a girl like me.  And ironically, like my last apartment, the walls in each room are painted a different bold color--my bathroom is purple, bedroom is yellow, and my kitchen is a lovely, smokey blue.  I even have fancy wood coat hangers, foldable closet-style doors to my bathroom, a lap table for TV dinners, and a red teapot.  Totes adorbs:

My entranceway.

Fancy hangers, paper lamp, coats, & boots.

Kitchen.

Tea & dinner tray.  I'm a grandma.

Cash Cab is on!

506 Key Holders: Spiderwomen

I really love living on my own in my very own apartment, with my very own bed and very own kitchen and very own keys. The past few days have reminded me that life in the real world is not always all late nights with a beer and loud music, getting mail addressed to me and my own address, and lounging around in my underwear. Therefore, I have begun this new section of my blog: 506 Key Holders: The Adventures of an Apartment Newbie.

Here's my first entry. Soon I'll figure out how to get it in a separate tag (help?).

The most ridiculous ordeal just went down a few minutes ago. Hands down. THE most ridiculous. So, my roommate and I just got home from a BBQ with neighbors. As we are standing in our kitchen (which is orange, by the way!), I look up and see two GINORMOUS spiders chilling on the ceiling. I'm talking e-freaking-normous. Like, with its legs spread out, the size of a ... vanilla wafer. Yeah. They were the same kind of spider that we found getting comfy in our bathtub a few days earlier, which had taken much effort (and assistance from our manly man friends) to eliminate. They wouldn't drown!! Anyways. My roommate and I, both TERRIFIED of spiders, froze. One spider was moving at a fairly decent pace (for a spider, anyway), exploring the way around our stucco cieling. The other one was dead still. But not dead, unfortunately. It was the worst situation. Especially since the manly-man friends/neighbors we could call on to help us with this dilemma were all still at said BBQ. Hence, after the initial freak out, my roommate and I stand in the doorway to our kitchen, which is the farthest from the spiders we could be and still see them, for 30 minutes. Yeah, a whole half an hour watching them and assessing the situation and entertaining our options, all while stomach churning in our most-girly squeamishness. At one point we sprint downstairs to see if the neighbors have gotten home yet, to no avail.

After extended discussion, strategy, and practice, we decide on the swiffer method:

1) bring flat part of swiffer head to the ceiling, close to target

2) flatten swiffer to the ceiling and determine best position for ideal leverage and strength in squishing

3) slowly approach and then shadow target

4) press, press, press. squish like hell.

... and somehow I get the guts to carry out the mission. As moral support, my roommate begins to tell me stories about the spiders. I learn that the first spider target, the one who is crawling around, his name is Rupert. He is aged and lived a good life, he loves a good read, and has a dog named Periwinkle who he likes to take on walks in the park. One might find it odd to see a spider walking a dog, she says, but Rupert was one of a kind. He's also going blind. His lover and life-long companian, was sleepy Wanda.. Wanda had a rough childhood and therefore has never slept well, so she was prescribed sleeping pills later in life. She used to run a weaving business until she retired to spend more time with Rupert and Periwinkle. They were great lovers and they always dreamed of dying together. And tonight, they did.

Rupert went first, and quickly and painlessly. Wanda slept through the pressing-the-life-out-of-her-lover, but she was not so lucky in the quickness of her exit. She actually landed on our kitchen counter, face down with legs spread, not dead, but wounded. At the biggest length I could muster I swept her onto the floor and squished with the now coined dance/spider-killing move "the sweep and squish." It's kind of like the motion of sauteeing. Anyway, once they were dead together, with shaky hands we swept them onto a piece of paper and fed them to the birds in the cider shoot (I'll get to that in the next entry).

Now, in the aftermath as I cool down, my stomach is cramping from the muscles tensing up. It was that intense.

If anyone had heard/seen this, it was the most unusual thing. My roommate told fabulous stories about Rupert & Wanda's life together, which oddly comforted me as I practiced and eventually carried out my swiffer-squish, and we screamd Bloody Mary. The whole thing took over 45 minutes. For two spiders. Absurd. Though after all that time I was even getting fond of our friends as I squished the life out of them. RIP Rupert & Wanda.