Finally, an Update

A lot's been happening the last couple of weeks, not all of it productive in the strictest sense of the word.

As of last week, I've joined a Buffy RPG game on Thursday nights. The story is set after season 3 episode 4, and I'm playing Faith. So far, we also have a Willow and an Oz, and room for two more players.

The Friday night game is going well--last weekend, we spent a "year" training and fighting in the plane of Akron (don't know if that's the correct spelling or not). My character, a ranger named Laina, gained a point of strength (for a total of 16) and lost a point of constitution because she'd been beat up so much (for a total of 12). Everybody also was given a level of dual-classing in fighter, with most of the extra stuff that comes from leveling. Next time I level though, I'm going to have to decide whether I want to be ranger 5/fighter 1 or ranger 4/fighter 2. Not much of a huge dilemma, but it'll be fun to figure out which would be best.

After we all figured out how dual-classing worked and made the necessary changes to our character sheets, we got to another plane of existence and found ourselves in Sigil, the City of Doors. We looked for a way to get back to Eberron (the world we're playing in), but it would cost us 500 gold per person, and even I'm short at least 80 gold (I'm the least broke of the party), so we looked for a job to do. This guy sent us to find some magic fungus in a cave rumored to have Medusae in it (wouldn't that be Gorgons though?), but when we got there, the Medusa was an illusion--we were actually fighting Driders instead! Laina took 10 points of temporary strength damage, 7 hit points of damage, and got stuck in a web for the last half of the combat. Then we were done for the week. I can't wait to find out what happens to us next! We still have to find that fungus.

When I got home on Friday, I watched episodes 3-14 (plus special features) of Firefly. Yes, you read that right, 3-14. I was so psyched about finally getting to watch the whole series (what little there is of it) that I didn't want to turn it off and go to sleep--so I didn't. The special features finished around 9 Saturday morning, so I put Serenity in the player and started it going. About fifteen minutes later, I was dead to the world. Good thing I'd already seen the movie.

Three hours later, Anna came over asking me stuff about Pittsburgh and New York, but since it was my "stay home and clean" week, I told her I wasn't going to come.

I went back to sleep for a while, and somewhere in there I remember eating some leftover boxed mac 'n' cheese, but I pretty much stayed asleep until around 5:30 on Sunday morning.

I layed there in bed for a while with my eyes closed, 'cause I couldn't make them stay open, then I popped MacGyver in and watched an episode before I went downstairs to get some cereal. I watched another episode while I ate, and by then it was about 7:30. There hasn't been much luck on the roommate finding front, so I started packing my movies and books. I got all of my stuff on the first floor packed up, plus a good portion of my books on the third floor, before I ran out of empty packing tubs. (I use the Rubbermaid 21.5 gallon things.)

At that point, I was kind of physically exhausted, but nowhere near sleepy, so I watched a couple more episodes of MacGyver before heading out.

Dinner at Mom & Dad's was kind of quiet, what with Anna and Kayla not there, and Kimba taking her dinner to her room. I pretty much hung out with Dad and Jason for the evening, and then after dinner we played video games. Kayla got in around 11 or so (Anna left again after dropping her off), and then I went home a little later.

Before I went to sleep last night, I watched the last two episodes of MacGyver season 2, so I can put that season in the tub now, and start on season 3 next time I watch.

I always pack my movies and books first, because no matter how much I like to have them out and organized, I know that they're actually the least necessary items in my possession. So I pack them first, and then I pack everything else with increasing necessity over the course of a month, ending with things that I absolutely need from one day to the next. And I put sticky labels on the lid of each tub with semi-detailed (but concise) descriptive words. That way, I'm not stressing about losing something, or not being able to find it later. Plus, I'll know which rooms to put which tubs in the next time I have a place to put them and I won't need a million cardboard boxes, just a dozen or two Rubbermaid tubs.

You're probably wondering where that drabble I posted earlier today came from.

Well, they added a new forum to the Haven message boards specifically for creative writing. So I suggested that we have weekly drabble challenges where someone contributes a challenge word, and anybody who wants to posts a drabble based on that word. The first word was "silver," so I got to thinking of thieves and then I thought to myself that it's pretty much a given that you should never trust a thief, but you should never hire a thief who has naught but two coins to rub together. And then I wondered if that were necessarily true, and decided to write my drabble based on the assumption that it wasn't.

Another Weekend, Gone

Saturday, I gave Jason my arrows. He was playing a Nintendo DS game with his friend William at the time, so he didn't say much except, "Thanks."

Then, I talked to Dad about the roommate/place to live situation. For those who don't know, the situation stands thus:

• Kayla's old room has been vacant since January or February.
• I have looked in many places, and posted many ads to the effect that the room is available. I've had a few interested parties, but they were either a) not currently in Frederick (I won't offer the room to someone unless I've met them face-to-face, for safety reasons) or b) didn't get back in touch with me after seeing the house.
• Our lease is up on June 30, 2008, less than three months away.
• I don't know if Jenn, Amit and Stacie want to renew the lease or not, but
• If Kayla's old room doesn't get filled, the point is moot anyway and we're all screwed.
  
• If they don't, then I'm pretty much screwed unless I find somewhere to live by mid-June (so that I have time to pack up and move out before the end of the lease).
• I can only afford to pay a total of about $550 per month total for rent, internet, water, power, heat, cable, and phone (if I have a land line).
• Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Frederick does not go any lower than $750 or so, and if I go to where rent is only $550, I won't be saving any money, because then I'll have to pay even more for gasoline.
• I can afford to buy a house which costs up to about $60,000 or so, but none of the houses in Frederick cost less than $150,000.

Dad suggested I might be able to live in a mobile home park. There are four or five in the city that we know of. We went to see if there were any vacancies at four of them on Saturday, but the offices were closed for the weekend (where we could find the offices anyway).

The way I figure it, if the site rental, plus the monthly mortgage payment on the mobile home itself (the model I like would be about $24,000 total), and utilities such as I've listed above is less than $550 a month, then I can afford to live there. I could also do without the phone (I have a cell), and even the cable, if my family will TiVo shows for me. Since I mostly watch the shows that Anna watches anyway, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Dad said he would go to the offices today and ask about costs and stuff like that. He also said he would ask if there were any of the mobile homes available for rent, or if I'd have to purchase one myself to put into one of their vacant lots.

After the trips to the mobile home parks (to see if there were any vacant lots and look at the quality of the "neighborhoods"), which was during a grocery trip, Dad made dinner. We didn't do too much after that though, except watch Sydney White and What a Girl Wants on the projector screen.

Yesterday, Anna, Kayla and I woke up, then we played Halo on the projector for a bit. After that, Anna broke out the Clue boardgame I'd gotten her for Christmas but she hadn't opened yet. We played two games (with Jason)--Anna won both times.

Then I setup my old desktop computer for my dad to check out and possibly fix. It wasn't fixable, since it's a Pentium III reporting as a Pentium II. So, we cannibalized it for parts, and I'm going to take the harddrive, the zip drive, the ethernet card and the memory sticks back to my house to see if I can use them there. I might be able to add the first three to Kayla's old computer so that it will run faster, and I might be able to put the ethernet card into my laptop dock. I'll still need to purchase more memory for my laptop though.

After the computer mayhem, Anna, Kayla and I watched the first season (plus some of the second) of Red vs. Blue, which I had never seen before. It's hilarious so far; we got to the part where Lopez and Sheila have decided to make their own army, and the Blues are supposed to be surrenduring both to them and to the Reds at 0600, but by then it was 12:45am, and the second season had been going for about an hour and a half. I thought it would only be an hour, so I asked to watch season two at 11:15. Turns out, it was longer, and since I had to work today, we turned it off before I started to fall asleep. I didn't want to miss any of it, so I was trying to stay awake as long as I could.

Verizon and New Roommate Update and a Little Common Sense

Unfortunately, Verizon does not offer FiOS service in my neighborhood, so we're getting DSL instead. Not too shabby. I've signed up for the e-mail update when they do offer it. Also, since we can't get FiOS, we're not getting the new TV--it was part of the FiOS triple-play bundle. Bummer. Guess I'll just have to fork out a couple hundred in the next month or two so we can get a new TV for the living room (the one there now is Kayla's, and is leaving with her).

The phone line is officially working. We just need to get phones set up around the house. Kayla's leaving the few phones she has for us, since she won't have a line in her room at my parents' house. I might pick up a couple more at Wal-Mart after my next pay check comes in. I looked for phone jacks in my bedroom, but the dresser, the bed, and the nightstand were in the way and too heavy to move, so I couldn't see certain parts of the walls. I'm hoping that there is a phone jack in there somewhere, but if not, it's no big deal.

Monday night, I set up our voicemail, plus a sub-mailbox for each of us who are staying. I also typed out instructions for each of them to set up their sub-mailboxes, and on how to check the voicemail.

The DirecTV people are supposed to set up our house for service on Friday, if I remember correctly. But the DSL service won't get setup until the 19th at the latest. They've shipped the equipment necessary for it, but we're not supposed to install the equipment until they e-mail me and tell me that the service is ready, which hopefully won't actually take until the 19th.

We haven't found a new roommate yet, but there's a girl coming tonight to see the house, and we've had a different girl come to see it with her social worker who liked it, but I haven't heard back from her yet and I wanted to meet her before deciding whether or not she should move in. I'm hoping either the girl with the social worker or the girl coming to look tonight will be able to move in.

Somewhat-funny story:

Friday or Saturday night, I was sleeping, right? Well, Kayla was bored, so she decided--at four o'clock in the morning--that she was going to try and take her bed apart so that she could move it out of the house. She sleeps on the couch most of the time anyway, so she won't be needing the bed until she moves into my parents' house.

She woke me out of a sound sleep, and I couldn't get back to sleep either. You'd think she'd realize that since taking a bed apart makes noise, you shouldn't do it at four o'clock in the morning.

So, I decided I wanted to read, but in case I started getting sleepy again, I didn't want to turn on the main light in the bedroom.

Then I remembered the book light I'd bought a few years ago. I thought it was either in my desk, in the storage tub in my closet, or in the storage container on the floor at the foot of my bed--no dice. So, I just grabbed my flash light out of the desk and read with that.

I got half-way through my grandma's book (The Chimes of Resdorn by DonnaLee Wheeler) by about 6:30. Considering I was probably less than a quarter of the way through when I started, that's saying something.

I guess I'll just have to buy another book light.

S-T-R-E-S-S

So, a couple of weeks ago, two of my roommates decided they would try to throw out the third one . . . without any sort of civilized discussion. They only thought to "inform" me after they'd given her a letter telling her to be out of the house by a certain date in the middle of September.

I'd been hearing about the issue the whole time though, and they really weren't being fair at all. They said that they "didn't want to get me involved" because they knew I didn't really have much of a problem with her, but what it really amounts to is that they were picking on her behind my back the whole time and didn't want me to object.

They raised a few points about this one roommate, and I admit that she does have a few habits that are irksome, but the other two--instead of sitting her down and explaining their reasons calmly--were constantly snapping at her. And while she does admit that she isn't blameless, this is a case where the delivery overpowered the message.

In the hopes of maintaining peace in the house, I suggested a meeting between the four of us where I intended to be a moderator-type person. The meeting got rescheduled twice, and then the other two just decided that they were going to leave. And then they had the nerve to say that we had to find their replacements if we wanted to stay in the house!

Luckily, Anna knew someone who was looking for a place to live. Kaety's sister Jen S. (how ironic is that, one Jen replacing another?) and her husband Amit (plus his daughter Neha) moved into Jen C's room a couple nights ago. I had to ask Amit to write the big rent check, because it was too close to the end of the month for the smaller checks to clear if I'd deposited them into my new account and written it myself.

At one point, the situation got so stressful, I spent a whole week not checking my e-mail, just vegging out with fanfic so I wouldn't have to think of anything. But eventually, I had to crack down because Kayla doesn't really know how to go about this sort of thing (truthfully, neither do I, but I seem to be handling it a little better now), and I really don't want to move again--not that I have anywhere to go. I mean, my old room is going to be Anna's as soon as she's able to get to re-working some of it again, and her room is much too small. Not to mention, I like being able to spread out like this--cramming a bedroom, a library, and a personal home office into one single space just isn't conducive to flowing, healthy thought patterns.

Jen R's room is still empty. I had to use my whole savings (all two months' worth--$400) to cover the room's rent before Amit could write the big check. However, I also looked up a couple of roommate-finding sites online. I've contacted a few people from each site, and one of them has been quite interested. She's coming to look at the room/house tomorrow night, and if she likes the room then she'll move in on the 7th, and I'll be getting my $400 by the end of September, and then I'll be back on track to getting my late-winter vacation to Arizona. I hope she does take it. I can't take much more of this stress.