AAPT Looking...

Over the last few months I have really been contemplating moving out. I mean, I SHOULD move out. I live with my mom. (Thanks mom!) I am 33. Not only should I WANT to move out, I am sure mom wants a life of her own. There are major plus sides to living at home, it is really great. I think people should stay with their parents as long as possible if life at all allows it.

With that said, I have decided its time, and I went Apt looking today.

Things you need when you look for an apt. are as follows:

1) A friend- preferably one with A good sense of humor. And A set of major decent navigation skills.

2) Coffee

3) Phone

4) Some concept of where in the cuss you actually want to live

1) A friend. The friend part is VERY important. Friends help you determine if its a good location, they remember good questions to ask the manager should you forget, and if they are good at it, they entertain you.

2) Looking for apts can be tedious. Calling people, making appointments, asking the right questions...blah blah blah. You need coffee to keep you awake and alert. Plus, it just smells REALLY good.

3) Having a phone that can access the internet is vital. This way you can use awesome apps. Such as, Padmapper. Plus, you have to call the managers.

4)This one is tricky, I mean. I may THINK I know where I want to live, but then get there, and decide there is no way I want to live here, ever. The End. I die.

So today I called a guy about a basement apt I saw listed. Conversation on the phone:

Me: "hi I am calling regarding the apt for rent. Do you have time today to show it?"

LL: "yes, I can show it to you now. When do you want to move?"

Me: "in May, but no rush. Is there a deposit?"

LL: "yes there is, its $900."

Me: "$900? But the rent is only $675....

LL: "well, what do you think it should be?"

Me: "Well, most places are not requiring deposit or its $300-500."

LL: "Do you have a pet?"

Me: "no. but I want to get a small dog in the future"

LL: " Well, $300 for the pet deposit and $600 for the rent deposit."
Me: "um, thats still $900."

Apparently, he saw my math scores and thought he would see if I wasn't improved.

LL= idiot

Needless to say I did NOT rent that place.

A) It was in the basement. With a slope gravel entrance to the front door.

B) The bedroom was AQUA! no joke

C) The living room was yellow. (OMG I just threw up in my mouth.)

D) It smelled like basement. Literally.

Not sure where this adventure is going to take me.

But for now, cheers to major changes, In Ten!

xxx

AL

What took you the CUSS so long?

First off I need to apologize, mostly to myself and my sister that I have not posted a blog in FOREVER. Its been 8 weeks and to me that is a very long time. I wish I could say that I have all these hilarious things to write about but really most of them are ironic.

For instance this last weekend, I went to the most beautiful place on earth. (An absolute statement). You know it everybody, because you have read about it and envisioned it. OR, you went to the movies and saw it. Yes, I am talking about Forks, WA. As in the movie Twilight. I won't go into beautiful detail, but lets just say, its so far away from Seattle that the phone company which I subscribe to, says I was in Canada. THATS how far away it is. But it truly is majestic in all senses of the word. Beautiful lakes, the ocean, old growth forest with gigantic trees, hot springs and hiking trails

Anyway-I went on a early morning, like 10:45am, run and wanted to do some trails. My mom, was afraid I would see deer, or worse, bears! Me, not giving a cuss about bears, thinks its a great idea to head up a certain trail alone. I wanted something in an hour or so, and I chose to run up to the falls, across the river, and down another trail called "lovers lane". My first 3 miles up to the falls were so fun and beautiful. Wide trails, no rocks, lots fallen old growth trees to jump over etc. When I reached the top it was magnificent. So beautiful and refreshing with the mist from the falls sprinkling down everywhere. I crossed the river, and headed towards lovers lane.

Now, this trail started out wide, easy to navigate, clear path. Then a few feet in, it got confusing, which way do I go? There were 3 trails! I went with my gut and decided to follow the one that looked like it went along the river. So far, choose your own adventure is going OK! Yeah! Then as I keep going, I see the trail becoming much more narrow, and now it has rocks. Like, sharp slatey kind of rocks that make it impossible to run on, so I have to slow down. I keep going, more rocks. More narrow trail, wait a second, it diverges again! Which to choose, again I go with common sense. It works! Thank the Lord or I would be up cuss creek. I end up going farther along, and it dawns on me! I know exactly why this piece of cuss trail is called "Lovers Lane"! Its all rocky, hard to find your footing, muddy, and diverges all the time and you have "figure out" which way to go!! Much like "some" peoples love lives. ;)

I still choose love.

xxxxx

AA

Friends rock

Recently I posted about going to hospital for a surgery. What I didn't talk about was how great friends are when you go through something like that.

I have a long, long time friend who is SO busy. She was so sweet to drive me to hospital on the morning of my surgery and this lovely lady has 4 kids under the age of 4. Are you kidding me? I am so proud of her. She also prayed for me in the car before I went in, which was so nice as I was a "tiny" bit anxious about the experience. So she dropped me off and without missing a beat, my friend DJ showed up to distract me and make me laugh while I waited for pre-op and then waited longer with me before I rolled under the knife.

It is funny how people come into your life at just the right time. DJ had offered to come to the hospital with me and I thought, "oh no thats so boring you would hate it!". But instead I said, "sure!". Why? I don't know , but I am so thankful I did. I needed a DJ there. Now DJ and I have known each other on paper since kindergarten or 3rd grade we aren't sure which it is. Mostly because neither of us can remember that far back, actually thats not true, we both remember. We just do not remember each other. We did not have our first class officially together until 3rd grade. A lot happened that year in 3rd grade, BTW. We read "Where the Red Fern Grows", learned about Jewish holidays, DJ stuck his finger in a pencil sharpener and bled everywhere and then fainted (wuss) and my mom made me cut my hair, (still traumatized by that FYI)- but that is another post.

But the coolest thing about having a friend like DJ, is, he gets it. He spent the good part of his 20's making a lot of decisions that created a difficult life. So, suffering is something he knows a thing or two about. He has since changed his life and made better decisions, and so when I talk to him, I trust him. When you have someone in your life that you can absolutely be vulnerable with and honest with amazing things can happen to you. DJ is a person that you know will be there if you are so happy, or if you had the worst news, but he is also someone that can just, be. I also trust him because he pursues himself. He is constantly asking why, how or how to. That is so cool because you actually see him change. Right when I thought people don't change at all, I was wrong. Which is good! People like this are WAY contagious and they will indeed influence change in your own life too.

Friends are blessings...be one too.

GTJ Sometimes life is SLOW

Yesterday was my first experience at hospital. It was all very routine, and kind of what I would expect.

But the best part was AFTER the surgery, on the recovery medicine. Yeah, you know what I am talking about don't you?

After I get discharged, mom and I go to the drug store to fulfill my PX. I am high as a kite at this point because of just waking up from my "procedure" as nurse Lynsey calls it. At the drug store I can barely walk and my mom has to hold me up to turn in my Px's. We turn around and all of the sudden there is a mad rush of geriatric shoppers edging to get to the one section of eye drops right by mom and I, and we can't move. In my happy state, I laugh out loud and say "geriatric traffic jam!" and just about wet my pants laughing so hard. I think this is hilarious!

My mother, completely mortified, starts telling people, "so sorry about my daughter, she is on drugs".

Like these people can,

A) Hear and

B) care. I am stating the truth! Geeze. This, in turn, makes me laugh even harder because she is so aware of me and peoples reactions and I am so numb I don't care about their reactions. I laugh so hard, I have to sit down in a chair, but I can't really sit b/c of my surgery I have to kind of lay sideways.

Now I am in bed and still on pain killers and still laughing. I really like this state of being.

Worst. Date. EVER.

So, earlier this week I went on a date with a guy I had met the week before when I was meeting with a girlfriend of mine.

This guy was a nice guy, talked for a couple hours at the bar, and then he asked for my number. a few days went by he texted me, and we ended up making plans for the following week.

I immediately knew the date was downhill when I picked him up, he smelled like alcohol but denied it when I asked him if he had a few earlier. We go to the restaurant and the conversation was like pulling teeth. You know what I am talking about, we have all been there. You can't decide if the person is REALLY, really boring, if they aren't into you or both. So I spend a good 80% of my energy trying to get through the dinner portion. The weird thing is, I think he is actually enjoying himself. After dinner we go to the same bar we had met at since we knew the bartender, and I am racking my brain on how to politely exit this horrifying experience.

I fail and I am STILL on the worst date of my life. Now, at the bar, this guy downs 5 drinks I have two. Over a 3 hour period. Oh and at dinner he has two beers in 45 minutes. So you can kind of see where this is going. He gets blasted. Basically. Nightmare. I say I have to leave, and tries to kiss me, no joke. I laugh because I am thinking there is NO way I would EVER kiss this guy. And then he gives me the whole, "I am going to call you". "Please don't", I mutter under my breath. Within 15 minutes this guy has called me three times, and proceeds to text over the night. I of course, ignored his calls/texts. The next day I get a passive aggressive text of, "whatever". That was, so far in my life, the worst date. Ever. Why would I want to do that again?

This year I committed to to run two half marathons and one marathon. I want to commit to more however, I am not sure if I will lose my motivation if I do. So, I decided that was a good number to start with.

It will be my first, so a lot of anticipation and expectation are going into that race. In my new effort to achieve this new goal, I have decided to greatly cut back my intake of beer. Or, alcohol in general. A couple reasons,

1) it makes me really tired.

2) It makes me lazy. Or I choose to be lazy, not sure which. Either way, its not working so hott for me. Yes thats hot with t-t. Get over it.

I also recently committed to run in the Northwest Passage Ragnar Relay. This race is kind of ridiculous if you haven't heard of it. You have a team of 12 runners cover in "relay" 184 miles. All day, all night.

When I was 9 we lived in Egypt and I ran on a similar relay team and the event was called the "24 hour marathon". It was held at the Cairo American College literally on the track. So each team would camp out in the middle field in tents and each runner had to run a mile, and pass the baton to the next runner. I remember being SO exhausted eating a ton of candy and junk food imported from the USA special for this event, and bands played all night long. And basically it was a ton of French, Greek, American, British, and Swedish consulate and oil people. I think my team was one of 2 kids teams. I cried at the end when my dad tried to take my picture. I still have that picture on my shelf, along with the medals from that event.

Really hoping I don't cry this year.

If this sounds cool/fun to you here is the link. http://www.ragnarrelay.com/northwestpassage/index.php

can you see?

I went running today, actually for my side job. Its something I love doing but I haven't put the actual time and money into it to make it what it should be. Knowing this, I made a conscious decision for the year Ten, to focus attention in my spare time to this business. Right now, its shoe money. Which, ya gotta love.

I had the coolest couple book a tour. They requested their run be an hour or a 5 mile run. No problem! See some water, see some Space Needle, see some more water and thats a wrap. But, when I met them they requested a couple more sights, making my planned 5 miler an actual 10 miler. I had these people running all around this city and it was one of the best times I have had in a long while.

Seeing Seattle through their eyes was brilliant perspective and I often forget where I live. I found myself wanting to explore more of Seattle and create new memories in this city.

The other day I went to get my eyes checked and to buy new glasses. I went to shop/optometrist that a friend recommended I try out. Now this particular shop is run by a greek guy named Mario. Hmm....sounds Italian to me, but who am I to judge. As I am waiting for my eyes to uncomfortably dilate I am walking around the shop looking at glasses, trying them on etc. Its almost the WORST time to do just that because you can't actually see anything. Your eyes are dilated. Anyway, its getting really warm in the shop and I take off my jacket. Mario says to me, "its hot because I am Greek". "excuse me?" , "yes, you are hot because I am Greek!". Um, at this point I am pretty sure I am hot, because its warm and I am wearing a down jacket. "No, I think I am warm from the temperature". "Yes, because I am Hot, like Greek". I have NO idea what Mario is trying to convey to me right now other than blatant narcissism. So I laugh in a "omg, you have to joking because no one is ever this serious", kind of way. And I put my jacket back on. Because, this guy, is creepy.