I need to name the gnome

I finally broke down and bought a new wallet today. I’ve been looking for a new one for about two years now and never bought one because none were exactly what I wanted — or so I said. The truth is that I have a habit of developing strange attachments to objects, such as my utiliwallet, and then feeling like I am betraying an old friend if I replace them, even if they’re in shreads.

Exhibit B: my old wallet. I bought is the spring of my senior year of high school (read exactly four years ago) because it was a big wallet that could also hold my passport for my summer trip to Europe. Despite fraying and losing a strap, the wallet has served me faithfully and held all my stuff since forever.

Exhibit A: my new wallet. The photo is bad but it’s really, really cute. It’s German-esque, or possibly Dutch-esque, and has a cute gnome, two squirrels, some mushrooms and tulips, and pretty hearts and leather and all that jazz. It’s really cute, however it holds considerably less than my old wallet.

I should have taken a picture of all that was in my old wallet, but I didn’t think of it until I’d already transfered everything over. It included a two-inch thick pile of cards, three currencies, subway/rail passes for Croatia, Hungary, New York, London, Boston, plane tickets for London and Prague, movie stubs, fortune cookie fortunes, and so on (it also used to hold my check book, but since I’m between banks, I’m waiting for the new one . . .)

Now the wallet swap has happened, but I keep looking at the two of them sitting beside each other and feeling like I have stabbed an old friend in the back and went for some newer, cuter, hot young thing. Poor old wallet. I’ll probably keep it in my apartment at least until I move. I know within a week or two I’ll get used to the new one and be glad I got the new one, but right now I feel sad about the change. I mean, it’s for the best I can no longer carry my passport, stamps, or checks with me in the event my wallet gets stolen, but still . . . what’ll I do with my passport when I travel now?

Strange how someone who likes to travel so much, and hates long-term committment, and doesn’t even like to make plans more than a day in advance in case she changes her mind, is somehow still so against change about weird things like new wallets, new furniture, etc.

(Also, still brainstorming names for the gnome, but so far I’ve got Otto and Kurz)

Furious

So I’m going to write about this because I’m FURIOUS.

Three weeks ago, I opened new bank checking and savings accounts with Bank of America in order to make my life easier. I went through all the steps, waited the week to receive every single thing piece by piece in the mail. Then, checks in hand, Frank took me to the bank to make my first deposit, which included checks from two of my roommates, two from my mom, and a big check I wrote to myself from my other account (the savings portion of which I’ll be keeping open). When I looked at online banking later that day, it informed me that my money would be available to me on Jan. 27th, which was like a five day wait, but I figured because of the size of one of the checks.

Then, Friday night, I go online to see about my money so that I can write my rent check that’s due Monday. Apparently, for some unknown reason, Bank of America put a hold on my entire deposit on the 26th. It doesn’t say why, it just says, basically, “We took all the money out of your account and we’re keeping it because we’re a terrible awful crappy bank and want you to be late on all your bills and we’re going to SNAIL MAIL you an explanation.”

Okay, well, I don’t always even get my snail mail, and never quickly. So I called at the crack of dawn this morning and what help was the woman I talked to?

“I can’t tell why the money has been put on hold. It doesn’t say. It just says the money will be available on February 9th. You’ll have to call back Monday and see if they can figure out what the hold is for.”

WHAT?!? How does that make sense. I gave them my money. All of it. Now they should put it into my bank account. THAT IS WHAT BANKS DO. She said perhaps there’s an extended hold because it’s a new account and I don’t have a deposit history. WHAT? So then shouldn’t they be even faster in depositing my money so I don’t get pissed (like I am right now) and close the account and slander them all over the internet?

Basically, they will have kept my money from me for three weeks. For no reason that the woman on the phone could figure out.

I have $40 to my name right now. My rent is due Monday (and should have been in the mail three days ago). The following week my student loan money (I may have already payed for this month) and credit card bills are due. All of this occurs before I will *supposedly* get my money. But if they didn’t hold to the first date, why would they hold to the second? Plus, my credit card is american express and not accepted everywhere.

Don’t sign up for Bank of America. This is the ridiculous way they treat new customers, and you’d better believe they’ll hear it from me when I visit them in person on Monday to yell and cry and kick their shins.

Christmas recap

I don’t really have much to say, except that I am a productive machine during the week, and then spend my weekends bemoaning that I spent all day Saturday and all day Sunday accomplishing absolutely nothing except sleeping a lot, reading a little, and watching movies. However, during the week, the amount of reading and writing I get done –not to mention cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. — is quite impressive. I’ve finished reading all but one of my books for one of my lit classes, and I’m working steadily on my thesis, so that despite the fact that this will probably be the most stressful semester of my schooling career, I’m going into it with good morale.

Christmas was wonderful this year, I’ll say now since I haven’t blogged about it (or anything, really) in so long. Frank came home with me and succeeded in receiving more presents than any single other member of the family. It was a first Christmas in lots of ways for him, including his first stocking and first Santa, and he seemed to have a great time, which meant *I* had a great time. We spent the holiday at Grandma and Grandpa’s in Longview, TX, though ventured further East to Jefferson and Caddo so Frank could see the swamps –which I got a lot of crap for, for wanting him to see them, but ideally I want him to see them in the SUMMER so we can go fishing. Regardless, it was a bit of history for him, and I’m always happy to see East Texas. Christmas Eve we stuck to our tradition (I enforced it with an iron fist) of everyone opening one present, and Frank has pretty much worn his pajama pants I gave him nonstop except for going to work since then.

This is a bit funny: So I was quite sick over Christmas (and stayed that way for three weeks; ugh), but I was trying not to make a fuss and so denied that I was sick. Mainly I just had a really high fever, which eventually settled in my lungs and turned into a bronchial lung infection for which I was given antibiotics that have never worked for me and didn’t this time . . . anyway, Christmas Eve, everyone was asleep. Brittney and I were sharing the back bedroom while Thomas and Frank got the two beds in the front bedroom. I woke up suddenly around 4:30 in the morning –which was unsurprising because I never sleep well on Christmas Eve. So I went to the living room to read (I read 8 Holocaust books over Christmas break . . .) and drink some Lipton Ice Green Tea. Unfortunately, I frequently struggle to open bottles –not because I’m not strong enough but because the ridges really hurt my hand and I’m a baby. So I struggled with the lid for probably five minutes, including popping all the little plastic links with my nails, but I still couldn’t get it open. So at 5 in the morning I crept into Thomas and Frank’s room and woke Frank up with, “Can you open this for me?” Turns out he couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards and so we watched a Muppet Christmas movie until it was time to sneak into the other room so Santa could come.

We also just bought a video camera, so there are lots of videos we made. Every little thing like that helps make up for all that I lost in the robbery, though I still can’t get back into the habit of my personal diary. The videos are all funny though because it’s basically just me bossing Frank around and scolding him for shaking the camera all the time. Poor guy.

Anyway, so yes, Christmas was wonderful, and I loved having Frank there with my family. I also took him to Gameworks (a huge arcade) and we saw Avatar in 3-d at the imax (I TOTALLY just typed that “iMax”; what is apple doing to us all?), spent some time with my dad, and that was about all we had time for. Truly one of the best Christmases I can remember (and not just because it was me and my boyfriend this time instead of me and my cat . . .)

Chef Jessa

So there are a few areas in which I feel like Frank hit the girlfriend-jackpot with me, and one of those is my cooking. I’m a good cook. Not the world’s best, not professionally trained or anything like that, but I’m a good cook, and I LOVE to cook. If I had the time and money, I would go to culinary school just for the fun of it. And *I* hit the boyfriend jackpot in that there’s little short of tin cans (or brussel sprouts, mac’n'cheese, cream or seafood pastas) that he won’t eat. And even when I’m not crazy about a recipe, he’s supportive. That’s good in a boyfriend.

Anyway, I realized I should be keeping better tabs on the recipes I make and whether we like them, because living in an apartment where I have an actual KITCHEN gives me the space and resources to really cook. Plus, cooking for yourself just isn’t the same as cooking for someone else.

So I cooked for Frank several times over the summer to impress him with my cooking prowess. Then last semester and this winter, we’ve had a standing Wednesday dinner-and-a-movie date night (since I rarely worked and never had classes) where he comes to my place after work, I cook him dinner, and we watch a movie. This coming semester, we’re hoping to keep the tradition going though we’ll have to move it to Thursday to fit my class schedule.

Anyway, here is the current list of things I have cooked for Frank. We’re missing a couple things, at least three, that I can’t for the LIFE of me remember, and I’ll add them when I think of them as I’m falling asleep tonight, haha.

In no particular order:
Hawaiian burgers
Beef and veggie stew
Chicken spaghetti casserole
Beef-and-chicken stuffed tomatoes
Mexican pizza
Beef and potato gratin
Fiesta chicken
Rotisserie chicken (okay, I actually just bought this, but I made sides!)
Jambalaya
Red beans and rice with kielbasa
Baked rosemary chicken
Stir fry (non-college edition, haha)
Apple glazed stuffed chicken

Plus the usual meals of no consequence: eggs, spaghetti, baked potatoes, etc.

Dessert-wise, we’ve done chocolate pie, blueberry pie, chocolate chip cookies (which got RAVE reviews), holiday peppermint fudge, marble bark (half coconut, half pecan), strawberry birthday cake, homemade ice cream, and those 21 cinnamon loaves I made post-robbery.

Anyway, that’s the current list. Growing all the time because I LOVE to cook. The stuffed tomatoes were dinner tonight (and leftovers tomorrow night!) and took me a little over an hour to make (pretty complex French recipe) and it was so much fun. Not only do I have a couple cookbooks I flip through (one of which is random recipes I’ve collected from magazines and books), but Frank also got me a game for my Nintendo DS that’s basically a recipe book with recipes from around the world, so we’re slowly going to work our way through those (although some of them are REALLY strange and I’m not so sure that we’d actually eat them . . .) But here’s to happy days of cooking to come!

[and yes, I'm going to start keeping up my blog again.]

Soon

It’s been a long, rather rough road to recovery for me since the robbery, but the semester is almost to a close, I’m in a better place mentally & emotionally, and I can see the end in sight as far as being behind in school work.

Posts will resume soon. This weekend, I think.

Random things

I just organized my fridge and it looks beautiful. My roommate, however, thinks I’m a nut. Did I mention that for some reason we don’t have the veggie drawer or shelves that go on the fridge door? The landlady can’t figure out why in the world they would be missing, but it sure takes away a lot of storage space!

Oh, I also bought 22 cans of vegetable BECAUSE they were on sale: 5/$4!!! Usually canned veggies are 2/$3 which I find absurd; $1.50 for a can? But this way they were just under a dollar a piece, so I went crazy: 5 corn, 5 carrots, 5 green beans, 5 mixed, and 2 BIG cans of peas which were 2/$3. I’m quite pleased with myself. They were heavy to carry home, though. Making sweet and sour stir fry tonight. My cinnamon bread last week was a big hit. Tonight will be meal . . . five? Six? that I’ve made for Frank. I quite enjoy cooking and that, thus far, he has loved everything I’ve made. Italian baked catfish, apple glazed chicken, Maui burgers, fiesta chicken, jambalaya, cookies and cinnamon bread, blueberry pie!, and maybe something else I’m forgetting. It surprises me how few girls my age actually know how to cook; I love it! I guess Frank is lucky — at least in that regard, haha.

Days are getting cooler here. The wind is savage today and kept almost knocking me over on my way home from the grocery. An elderly doorman at a hotel was hunched over in a weird position, holding the handle of a bay carrier, and explained to some passersby he was babysitting. It was pretty cute.

I got three cavities filled on Monday, and I go back for another two and some other check ups in a couple weeks. One of the cavities was on the possible-root canal tooth, and sure enough the cavity was right around the nerve. She went ahead and filled it and we’ll just wait and see if it acts up — could be weeks, months, years, or never. Even though it’s been a couple days, my teeth and jaw are still hurting quite severely, and an occasional tingling and numbness in my jaw means something is up with the nerves. It has me worried the back tooth is already reacting badly, but I’ll wait a few more days before I call my dentist; she had said it might hurt for a day or so.

Anyway, it’s already almost FIVE and I’ve gotten basically NOTHING done today except grocery shopping, so I’m going to go try and get some homework done. I hate feeling like I’ve wasted an entire day . . .

Finally!

I got a mirror and a desk chair today. The desk chair is just a wooden folding chair the same color as my desk, $20, just what I was looking for.

I hung the mirror by myself. I knew I should have waited for Frank to get back into town but I was impatient and I like doing stuff like that. So I hung it, using the . . . what’s it called . . . floor molding? Floor paneling? Anyway, I used that as my guide . . . Only to discover that the paneling is CROOKED and therefore my mirror is crooked. Obviously crooked. But I’m too lazy/tired/frustrated to rehang it right now. I’m trying to convince myself that I can just live with it like that and it’s not a big deal, but my OCD flairs up really bad at crooked hanging things. I give myself two days or until Frank gets tired of my complaining about it and helps me redo it, which is probably for the best anyway.

In other news, I bought five new movies to watch tomorrow afternoon since I’m getting five cavities filled. But remember, no root canal, so that’s good! After this, I’ll have to probably get a crown on the cracked tooth because I’m almost entirely convinced now that it’s what makes my mouth hurt, but then that’s all the scheduled work I’ll need unless the other cavities get worse. Hurray! Now the big challenge tomorrow will be getting myself from Somerville to my South End apartment (about 45 minutes of travel) via the subways while I’m goofy on laughing gas and all swollen and slobbery with Novocain.

I’ll post pictures of the apartment soon, now that my room is finally nearing done. I still need a few more wall hanging thingies, and if I ever find a SUPER cheap surface rug that’d be nice . . . but otherwise, I’m done! Hurray!

Question

For all my domestics out there: how do I keep my bottom sheet from riding up? The clingy one keeps trying to sneak up off the corners and WILL NOT stay down in the middle. This drives me insane, so I put a safety pin on each side, but it’s still not really doing well, and I don’t want to have to put five pins on each side (though I will if I have to). Any suggestions?

Frank and I had our 6-month on Wedneday. Went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs — which was SUPER funny and I definitely recommend it. Then went to the Melting Pot where the food is excellent and we were very well taken care of. The staff even signed a “Happy Anniversary” card for us. Wrapped up the night with some slow dancing lessons. Truly a wonderful anniversary.

Today it is raining super duper hard and so I refuse to the leave the apartment, even though there are plenty of things that I need to get done out in the world today. I still do not have a mirror, and I’m trying to decide whether it’s worth it to me to get a desk chair or not since they’re SO expensive. I may shop around on craigslist a bit more.

I took the A/C unit out of my window because it’s consistently cold now, but my room is still quite chilly. I’m probably going to have to get a space heater unless the central heating just really wows me when it ever gets turned on.

I’m going to go update my wishlist, and then try to get homework done I guess so maybe I can go get errands done tomorrow when it hopefully will not be pouring. Figures the first free day I have to get stuff done, it’s raining too hard.

Figures

So this past week, I had a lot of homework. I needed to read six short stories, workshop a classmate’s short story, write a book review, and write a short story, all for my fiction class. I also needed to read and respond to two scripts, and write a four-page outline for my own script idea for my screenwriting class. My fiction class is Monday nights and my screenwriting class is Tuesday nights.

I wrote the script outline Saturday (it took me at least 4 hours) and also have already done the scripts and responses. For my fiction class, I’ve still got to write my own short story and write the book review, and it’s already 11pm on Sunday night.

Guess which of my classes just got cancelled?

I’ll give you a hint: it’s not the one that I’m prepared for, nor the one that’s furthest away.

Grrrr.

Family pets and crosses

So the other day (well, like two weeks ago) me and Diana were sitting in the living room, talking. The lights were off in the kitchen. As she was talking, I noticed a movement on the floor in front of the fridge and my initial thought was, “Oh, that’s nice.” I then recalled that things shouldn’t move on their own, and just as I pointed out, “Oh, there’s a mouse!” he scurried back behind the fridge.

Personally, I think mice are cute, and the idea of killing him appalls me. Alas, I have not seen him since; I suspect he is being much more careful since he knows he’s been spotted.

Regardless, we’ve named him King Xerxes. This was selected via the Bible we’ve got on our mantel. I suppose I should explain that this is because the guys in my room left a crucifix nailed to my wall. I took it down, but then Diana put it back up, and its currently still over my guitar until I find time to take it to a Catholic church or something. It it was just a wooden cross, I would keep it, especially if it was all natural looking and made of sticks. But it’s not, and I’m sorry if it makes me a bad Christian, but crucifixes make me uncomfortable in a home setting. But one can’t simply throw a crucifix away.

Anyway, in response to this, Diana had put her Bible on the mantel in the living room, because she was possibly bringing a date back and the plan was to also put the crucifix out there. Unfortunately, a few days ago, I walked into the apartment, began complaining about my day, the Bible fell FOR NO REASON off the mantel, and it kind of freaked us all out, so all Bibles are now safely on bookcases.

But when we were needing to name our mouse, Diana suggested it be the first name we found in the Bible when she opened it randomly. I told her to go Old Testament because those are the best names. First she saw Jacob which is too normal, and then two other odd names we didn’t like, so the FOURTH name we found was King Xerxes, and I knew this was the one.

Coincidentally, that is now also the name of our wireless internet.

-Oh, and I suppose I should also mention that Diana and Fidan are my roommates, so that’s while you’ll see their names popping up.