Changes

The last few weeks have been quite a whirlwind of downs and ups and things that would be so frustrating if they weren't a little funny.

First off, the cat and dog have been living together. Mostly unhappily...

August started with my two year anniversary with the boyfriend (aww). We went to a sushi restaurant in La Jolla that I had a Groupon for, and it was underwhelming. The atmosphere was nice, and going somewhere we've never been before was fun, but the sushi is way better in North Park. Which actually is great, because we eat at one of three nearby sushi places every week, and it's nice to know that we're getting the best without paying an arm and a leg or driving 20 minutes each way. We walked the long way back to the car and stopped at a little cafe that had cakes for dessert.

The very next day was his bff's birthday, so we went to a pizza/beer place, where we met some random southerners who were in San Diego before going to Vegas for a gay wedding. We stayed up late, ate burritos, and fell asleep on the couch until the very early hours of the morning. The day after that I was supposed to go to a meet up with my coworkers, partly because our boss was presenting, but my throat had been hurting all day and I had a mini anxiety attack when I got home from work; the thought of skipping it made me calm down. So I did and spent the evening cleaning my apartment and made one of my night-by-myself dinners. The next day I got a call from a fraud center informing me my debit card was stolen (even though it was still in my wallet). There were four attempts from Honolulu to Baltimore of someone using my card, and one was successful to the tune of $76 - at a Food Maxx in Union City. I went to my credit union to fill out a fraud affidavit (at, like, 515 on a Friday) and raced back home because my mom was in town for a visit... waiting in her car.

Over the weekend my sore throat turned into a full blown cold, but we pretty much spent the whole time at the beach and that made it a lot less severe. We hiked Torrey Pines one day and walked from Torrey Pines to La Jolla Shores the next (I stepped on a bee and got stung on my foot and got to experience seeing a whole lot of old man penis with my mother). Oh, and a pipe beneath my room sprung a leak and we came back Saturday night to discover my carpet was all wet. That awesomeness is in much more detail here.

The boyfriend and I had been talking about living together for a little over a year and had recently decided to aim for the fall, after wedding season was over and he had more time to devote to the process. The ordeal with my apartment made us decide to move that up, so we spent the next week on Craigslist, emailing our favorite listings to each other. We also took a couple nights after work to drive around our target neighborhood looking for rent signs and made a few appointments to see apartments.

On one such night I got a call from my gynecologist - I had a yeast infection (fucking antibiotics) and something known as LGSIL - a low grade lesion. This can be caused by HPV. I got the Guardasil shot series after breaking up with the first person I'd had sex with but Guardasil doesn't protect from all forms of HPV - or cervical cancer. Soooo there's that. Now I get to have a colposcopy (where they go in to the cervix with a flashlight and scalpel) and a biopsy. The chances of this being anything more than a random lump is super small, and it will very likely just go away on its own in a year or two. However, now I've had an abnormal PAP and need them every year rather than every two. It was weird though, hearing the doctor say the word cancer. She told me that most women don't know they have cervical cancer because there are no outward symptoms (I wouldn't have felt this lesion), which is why PAPs are so important.

The rest of the week was full of apartment hunting. One night we went to see a place in our second choice neighborhood, which was right by a dog park. Long-story-full-of-emails-back-and-forth-short: we loved it, applied for it and got it! Deposit is sent, lease is signed, and in a few weeks we'll be living together. I didn't expect the boyfriend to be as excited and enthusiastic about moving and living together as he's been since we got the official notice, because the next month or two are going to be much more complicated for him than they are for me. He owns his condo, which means he'll have to rent it out and all of the responsibilities that come with that. On the other hand, I'm super grateful that he's willing to do this to live with me and to live in an area that's close to my work. In the long run I believe it will be beneficial for us both (extra income and a shorter commute for him, an area I already love by work for me), but the initial effort is definitely more one sided.

Days after we got official notice of the new apartment I had my year review at my company. My boss shared with me his vision for the company, told me he wants to support those who share his vision (which I do completely), and gave me a huge vote of confidence in the form of a high profile client. After years of odd-jobs that were fun and other jobs that sucked, I'm so happy to be in a solid position in a company that is not just doing well but has plans for the future, and a company that has a future for me.

So, after more than a week of downs-that-weren't-that-bad, I had more than a week of ups-that-were-amazing. And the next month or two will certainly be stressful and life changing, but they'll also be exciting and happy. I can't wait.

A Leak

At the end of a week that just didn't want to give any breaks (and the end of 9 months of apartment issues), my apartment sprung a leak.

It was a Friday night, my mom was visiting, and we'd had sushi and wine. The boyfriend stood next to my bed and told me the floor was really warm. Unusually warm. I shrugged it off - my apartment is always unusually warm and there's a spot in the bathroom that's always really warm (the cat loves it). On Saturday night he goes to put on his pajama pants, but they're wet - and my carpet is wet. And very warm. And the legs on my wooden bookshelf have visible water damage. Excellent.

We slept on couches in the living room, the recent sinkholes in the news on our minds and the slight fear we'd wake up in a lake, but in the morning my room was still there and only slightly more damp. My apartment manager came over to inspect and let me know best and worst case scenarios, both of which included excavation. So Sunday night I took the cat to the boyfriend's, along with what I'd need for the next couple of days, and left my apartment.

This happened.

And this.

And this.

The water pipe for my whole complex, which traveled under the concrete in my room and through the footing of the whole building, had a leak. They had to shut off all water for two days and the hot water for one night, giving my neighbors zero notice. It's been 10 days and 11 nights so far for me - I stopped by almost every day to grab the mail and check up on things and ended up talking to the plumbers a few times; I learned this had happened before, apparently in the exact same spot. 

There is some discoloration next to the new concrete, which I think is the evidence of a past leak. Oh, and now I have to clean my tub because they turned on the faucet and it ran brown water and no one rinsed it out.

Also, there was a large dip in the asphalt in the alley, right behind my parking space, that had suddenly appeared. It was annoying but I hadn't paid much attention to it because the whole alley is in desperate need of repaving. But it was deep enough and at the worst angle for getting in and out of my spot that I was a little concerned I'd pop a tire. But no worries, now that's fixed.

My room? 

Still got that little hole. And this is the state of my furniture:

My bed is in three different parts, in three different parts of the apartment. 

This was taken the day after my apartment manager told me I could go back to my apartment. Um, no. Also, it still looks like this 9 days later.

It might come as little surprise, then, that I'm moving! The cat and I have been staying with the boyfriend and the dog for the last week and a half, and I kind of don't even want to go back. There is so much cleaning that needs to happen before I'll feel comfortable sleeping there again, and it'd be far too much effort to clean that much only to move in two weeks. But I will right my bed... it'll be harder to sell like that.