Letter from the Editor.
Never in a thousand years did I think I would be living under a blizzard warning in Southern California. Mostly because never in a thousand years did I think I would be living in Southern California. Because I had never thought about living here, I never gave much thought to the climate. But there I was this week, under a blizzard warning.
It snowed here up in the hills. At my apartment, it rained and hailed. Now the area is on flood watch for two days. Water is both a savior and emergency down here.
It snowed almost a foot back in Portland. My parents sent me a picture of Jamaica the Cat trekking in the snow. Much like the USPS, nothing will stop her from her self-imposed strict schedule.
We could probably all benefit from following a schedule like Jamaica the Cat. But don't do what she does and sit on the lap of anyone within 100 yards.
I had a run-in with a cat this week. I had a neighbor across the alley who had a cat. For some reason I thought the cat ran away, especially because it had been awhile since I had heard a meow. After the cat ran way, that neighbor moved out of their apartment.
Then last week I heard a familiar meow! When I looked down into the alley, the cat was meowing on the stoop of the empty apartment. I was devastated but did nothing. What was there to do? Then I heard the cat again yesterday and I went downstairs to check out the situation. When I entered the alley, the cat ran under my building into a weird crawl space-like area with a cat bed underneath. With that information, I left the cat as it seems to have its rent figured out in this city.
I went to the grocery store last night and the automatic door did not open for me. I started waving my arms and pacing around and still it didn't open. I checked the hours posted to find I was not too late to shop. So I gave up. I walked towards something I thought was a second entry door (it wasn't!) and while I was doing that, three men from the parking lot all walked up to the automatic door and entered the store.
This is not an isolated incident for me. This is the third time in my life I have been defeated by automatic doors. I don't understand why I am undetectable. Probably because I'm so sneaky--even when I'm trying not to be.
I had family in town this past weekend! It was so wild sharing my cardboard box-ridden apartment with two other people! We had so much fun and tried so many fun places. We even saw a man puking at a brewery picnic table at 5pm on a Friday and a 70 year-old "legendary" (?) comic bomb on stage so hard he thought it was a prank on him.
Most importantly, we made a trip to Home Depot to pick up all sorts of tools and buckets for projects. On our way home from Home Depot, we spotted the find of a lifetime: a dresser.
I bought a dresser off of Facebook marketplace two months ago and it was 1) too heave to move by myself and 2) too small! With the power of three humans, we moved the free dresser that had been left for dead on my block into my room. It looks great! You can hardly tell that one of my neighbors used one of the drawers as a trash can for a bag of dog poop. And if they were going to go through the trouble of bagging their dog's poop, why wouldn't they have just thrown it away?
I could keep writing for ages about how we used the crescent wrench and how my sister and brother-in-law "didn't" stop up my sink. It just got all backed up as soon as they visited. I'll let you decide whether you think that was a coincidence or not.
In conclusion, it was great having family in town and is something I would consider doing again. Thanks for ready my essay.
Rachel
|