Tweedledumb just called.

The Cake Eater Pad sold yesterday.

And the new owners want us out by the end of March.

As in they want our apartment to live in---because it's the nicer of the two---while they rent out the downstairs unit.

Fuck.

Pray for a miracle. Please.

UPDATE: Well, just got done chatting with the Cake Eater neighbors downstairs. Yesterday we got a call from them telling us that they'd put an offer in on the house. I wondered if their offer had been accepted, and they wanted our apartment to live in.

Turns out their offer was rejected. They hadn't been called by Tweedledumb yet. And they showed me their new six month lease they'd signed with the Great White Hunter landlord and there is a provision in it that if the house sells, well, the lease is terminated.

Which is a new one.

Not only wasn't that clause in our previous leases (we looked), but also Tweedledumb had promised us that any new lease we signed with the GWH would be honored. So we have duplicity on their part. Not like this counts for us, because they never sent us a new lease to sign---even though they'd promised they would, repeatedly--- so it looks like the downstairs neighbors are screwed as well. Even though they haven't gotten a phone call yet.

Sigh.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:19 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 229 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Ohhhhhhhhhh crap. I'll be begging for a miracle for ya, Kathy.

Posted by: sadie at February 26, 2005 02:10 PM (4CLu3)

2 Wait a sec...do you have a current lease under which you are operating or do I understand that the old lease expired and you are operating month to month under the old lease? It does make a difference. I'm with Sadie and am begging for a mercy for you. ; )

Posted by: Christina at February 26, 2005 03:05 PM (zJsUT)

3 Our current lease expires at the end of February. Perfect timing, no?

Posted by: Kathy at February 26, 2005 08:11 PM (Tosbv)

4 We just went through that a few months back. The owner of the house we'd rented for nearly ten years decided to sell. First, she said we could stay till the house went on the market in 2005, but then decided we had 6 weeks to vacate. Still getting over the stress of that one. I'll send good vibes your way.

Posted by: Ith at February 26, 2005 08:23 PM (+80Iy)

5 I'm sending my good karma vibes your way.

Posted by: silk at February 27, 2005 05:48 AM (W2z8L)

6 Kathy, I'm so sorry. That really sucks! However, maybe you'll find something nicer with a better landlord, one who actually fixes things!

Posted by: Phoenix at February 28, 2005 11:04 AM (4N2f4)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

So, I had to call the cops this morning.

This really isn't my favorite thing to do, but living on a busy street, where accidents have been known to happen, my fingers have done the walking more than a few times. I learned this morning that I can dial '911" without looking at the phone keypad. Woohoo for me, eh?

Fortunately, there hasn't been an accident, but rather some truck driver has decided to park his eighteen wheeler/semi/tractor trailer out on the main drag we live on. His engine is still running and he walked away from it.

Now, I don't know about you, but this makes me nervous. We live in a residential neighborhood. A residential neighborhood with a lot of traffic, I'll grant you, but eighteen wheelers generally do not use the streets around here as a truck stop. Which I'm pretty sure is what this guy is doing. I saw him get out of the truck and walk toward our little downtown area a little over a half hour ago and he hasn't returned.

Neither have the cops shown up. Which is irking me.

If I haven't explained the weirdness of our locality before, let me explain. We live in Cake Eater Land. Directly across the street, however, is the Minneapolis Province of the People's Republic of Minnesota. The boundary line between the two cities, apparently, is the divider line in the middle of the street. I call 911 and I am routed directly to Cake Eater City's Emergency Response Line. They listen to my schpiel and when they find out the truck is on the east side of the street, they immediately transfer me to Minneapolis. Where I have to repeat my story to a woman who, surprisingly, takes me more seriously than the Cake Eater City woman did, and promises to send a car out. (The Cake Eater City chick seemed disappointed when I told her there wasn't an accident involved.)

Forty-five minutes later....no cops.

And great, the truck just drove off. Fantastic.

This is the second time this guy has done this. It's the same rig. The first time was a week or two ago. The guy just parked his rig, left it running, and walked away. He's not delivering anything. He's just parking there for whatever reason. I'm high-strung, I know, but this makes me nervous. While I'm sure it's probably nothing, that the guy just wanted to get some breakfast or something, even if it's harmless, I don't want eighteen wheelers parking across the street from my house! They're stinky and they're loud. Besides, it's tacky as all get out.

The Cake Eater neighborhood has undergone a tremendous renovation since we moved here. A couple of blocks away, in the little suburban downtown area, there used to be a gas station and a little tobacco shop on one of the four main corners. They bulldozed these buildings and put in a little mini-mall/office building and ever since construction was completed, traffic has gone through the roof. It's jampacked every day during rush hour and during lunch. Backups galore. And that's when it's not snowing. It used to be quiet around here in the evenings. You could count on it. But no longer. It's noisy all day long and doesn't quiet down until well after ten p.m. Add to this the problem we have with speeders, because once they get through the nightmare that is the little downtown area, they jam on the gas and blow through this residential neighborhood at anywhere between forty and fifty miles per hour. Ever since that damn mini mall went up, well, traffic has become a bitch---including a huge increase in truck traffic---and because of our lovely little jurisdiction problem, there apparently isn't anything anyone can do about it, either.

I called the cops about the speeders this summer. Of course, I talked with someone over at the Cake Eater Cop Shop and he said there wasn't anything they could do about the speeders on the east side of the street. Because that's Minneapolis, and they've protested before, claiming the Cake Eater City Cops were poaching on their jurisdiction. The Cake Eater City cops, accordingly, don't bother with that side of the street. If I wanted to do something about that, he said, I had to call the Minneapolis Police Department. I also chatted with him about huge increase in truck traffic, and he said there wasn't anything he could do about that, either, because, technically speaking, the road is owned by Hennepin County and that's their jurisdiction.

AIEEEEEEEEEEE! It's turning into a nightmare. This used to be a quiet neighborhood. Now it's a throughway for commerce! While I'm a free trade kind of girl, this is annoying me. Furthermore, it seems as if I'm going to have to become one of those City Council meeting cranks if I want someone to do something about this, because, currently, no one cares.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 834 words, total size 5 kb.

So, I took yesterday off.

I had a few things to do around here, the least of which was spot cleaning the office carpet. For some strange reason, the spot right where the husband's feet rest whilst he surfs the computer was positively filthy. As in it was two shades darker than the usual beige. Gross. We rarely wear shoes in the house, so I don't know why it was so filthy, but I have my suspicions. I think it might have something to do with his pipe ash. That stuff is positively toxic.

Smoking a pipe is a high maintenance event: it takes a lot to keep one going, and then there's the added fun of cleaning out the bowl, when ash will scatter, no matter how careful you are. The husband is very careful: the man is anal-retentive, so I know he tries his darndest to keep things nice and neat. It's just that the pipe defeats him. I smoke and ocassionally a bit of ciggie ash will flitter down to the carpet, but the vacuum always takes care of it. Pipe ash, however, is a whole different story. If a biggish chunk of ash hits the carpet, well, it melts the stuff. And, no, I'm not kidding. I have a feeling, though, that the occasional flitter of ash adds up to one big stain on the carpet.

After many shots at it with the Resolve Carpet Cleaner, it's now back to normal, but it was yucky.

I also managed to clean the sofa upholstery without ruining it, so I've got that going for me. Hand me a can of Woolite Upholstery and Fabric cleaner and, apparently, I'm your girl. Laundry was also done, so that pretty much knocked out the entire day.

Anyway, as soon as I get caught up, something will inevitably set me en fuego and there will be new posts for your enjoyment. However, until then, GET THY ASSES TO THIS POST AND GIVE ME SOME RECOMMENDATIONS, PEOPLE! Don't let Goldstein walk away with the Literary God award. Make him work for it.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 359 words, total size 2 kb.