Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on May 6, 2009

I’m sick. I have a cold. I thought, of course, it was the Swine Flu because I wanted to be part of the party! Also, I wanted people at work to force me to go home and rest because I didn’t need to be getting the whole office infected with Swine Flu. But alas, it’s just a stuffy nose with a little sore throat thrown in. 

I was convinced I’d be the first U.S. death because of Swine Flu, but then Yahoo killed my dream this morning with this story. I guess I need to aim for something different, something better. 

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I told Bacon it was all his fault that I was sick. All his “friends” are infecting the humans with their gross disease because pigs are really dirty. Like now we know where all those sayings about filth come from, sayings like “living in a pigsty” or “you’re a pig” or “you’re as infectious as those pigs” or something. 

Bacon proceeded to laugh his evil little laugh, “Mwahahahaha! It was all part of my evil plan to take over the universe, one piece of Bacon at a time!”

So I says to Bacon, I says “well, how can you take over the universe if you kill everyone off? Then it will be planet of the Pigs.” 

And then Bacon got all huffy and was like “it is just like you to ruin my ideas! You never let me flourish! You’re always stifling me!” And then he stormed out of the room and started slamming doors and Spit Hot Grease. 

Clearly Bacon is in his angsty teen years. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I actually went to bed before 8 PM last night. I was tired and felt like I had been run over by a truck. So I took some Benadryl to dry out my nasal cavities and then was drooling on the couch mere minutes later. So I figured “what’s the use in fighting?” and I went to bed. And the sun was still out. I cannot believe I fell asleep before the sun went down. I have no idea why I find this odd since I routinely take naps on the weekend when the sun is out and blazing. But something about going to bed pre-sunset on a weeknight is weird. 

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Last Friday I worked from home at the condo to wait for the gas man to cometh. I needed full functioning appliances and hot water. Because even though I will now be paying for gas, I still would like to take showers with warm water. I am happy to announce that everything works, including the carbon monoxide detector. Because the furnace is new, when the Gas Man fired that puppy up, it burned off oil or something or some gas many-type terms and HOLY SHIT THAT IS LOUD! The carbon monoxide detector is connected to both smoke detectors, so when one goes off, they all go off. Which, yay for safety, but BOO! HISS! for when you turn the heat on the first time. 

He said it was normal and we opened all the windows and about 10 minutes later, they went off. I’m sure my neighbors already love me. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I move in a few days. I have done no more packing since Sunday. I did pick up some more tape, though. I’m getting close to being done. And I know just a few more hours of packing and it will all be set to go. Even if that packing includes shoving every last thing remaining into a garbage bag. Or a duffel bag! I have lots of those. 

I’m still freaking out a little bit, but I think I found the cause of the freaking out. See, as empowered as I feel about buying a place ON MY OWN and with no one’s help (minus awesome lawyer and awesomeR realtor), it kind of all hit me that I’m doing this all on MY OWN. Which means that projects I need done around the house, I need to have someone else do. I need to wait until my brother has some free time to install ceiling fans and a dead bolt lock because I can’t afford to pay anyone. And while I am pretty handy, I’m also not. 

And then it is just the idea of going shopping for things like blinds and fans and screen doors and furniture by MYSELF and it is all so overwhelming. And I can’t fit big things in my car, let alone carry them up to my condo by myself. So clearly what I am trying to say that I am fiercely independent and I hate having to rely on other people for these things. I also hate having to WAIT for these people to help because these people have their own things to do and cannot drop everything and come help me and WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? 

Seriously, I swear the biggest reason I want to get married is because I need someone to help me carry heavy things into my house.

Category: Land of Random | 34 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on May 3, 2009

I ran out of packing tape this afternoon. I’ve gone through 2 1/2 rolls of tape so far. I am a notorious overtaper. (Side note: Am I the only one who has to sing the Biggie song to properly spell Notorious? Same goes for glamorous.) Once I ran out of the tape, I should have gone out to get more. There are two CVS’s within walking distance. And I’m so close to being done and I was on a roll. (No pun intended.) (Totally unrelated, but I used to think that Honor Roll was On A Roll, like a dinner roll, and I couldn’t understand why that was to be applauded.) But I ran out of tape and then I collapsed. As soon as I sat down, I didn’t want to get up ever again. I forgot how exhausting this whole thing is.

Last Wednesday night I brought over five boxes to the new place. That was five trips up and down the three flights of stairs and then carrying them into the condo building. Thank God that place has an elevator. And afterwards, after I got there and unpacked and cleaned up the kitchen a little, I could have passed out on the hardwoods. My arms were sore and my legs are still shaky. And then I was like “why am I doing all this when I’m going to be PAYING people to move boxes for me? What kind of idiot am I?” An idiot who also hates unpacking, clearly. Also and idiot who LOVES, LOVES, LOVES her new place.

And now I realize that my time would have been better spent packing instead of unpacking. Unpacking has no set expiration date. I could be unpacking for the next 4 years if I wanted to. But packing, well the packing HAS to be done by this Saturday. It has to be done when the movers get here at 8 AM. And why the fuck did I agree to letting movers come at 8 AM? So much for any last minute packing, unless I want to get up IN THE DARK. ON A SATURDAY MORNING. Which, as you’ve guessed, is NO.

So now I’m trying to cram everything in. And I’m feeling overwhelmed and stressed and I’m not sure it is all going to get done. And yes I know that I still have this apartment until the end of May, so God forbid if I can’t pack something, I can just come back for it. I don’t have to be out by Saturday. And really, it would not kill my fat, out of shape ass to carry some more boxes up and down stairs. I just didn’t want to have to carry EVERYTHING and have to carry furniture. Three flights is really one too many. I can make it to the second OK, but when I have that last one to go, I want to die and just live on the stairs. I would be a new kind of homeless, a person who pays rent to live on stairs because she’s too fucking lazy to CLIMB them. You would think that since I have lived here for four years that it would have gotten easier. Well, you would be wrong.

I just feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. And while yes, you would be correct in telling me that maybe I shouldn’t have spent the better part of the morning watching Real Housewives, but then I would tell you to just shut the fuck up. Because I was hung over. (But not really.) Because I went on a pub crawl on Saturday and drank for 8 hours. Straight. And then had a genius idea to make grilled cheese at 11 PM, which is the only thing that saved me come Sunday morning. (Seriously, 8 hours of drinking and all I ate during the drinkathon was a few nachos.) I felt like I hadn’t drank at all. I have invented the cure for a hangover! DRUNKENLY MADE GRILLED CHEESE! Also, drunkenly stolen Cheetos will also work.

And of course this week coming up is busy. Because it always works out that way. I’m not complaining, since I’m going to my first Cubs game of the season on Monday night, but it kind of derails my packing efforts. And then there is pub trivia and a trip to Target because oh, hi! I just realized that the new place doesn’t have a shower rod. I might need one of those to shower, once I move in. I’m not much of a bath person. Although the new place has a whirlpool tub, so maybe I won’t need that shower rod at all.

So this long rambly, complainy post is just me telling you that I feel like my head is spinning. That my life is spinning out of control and while I know all this madness will come to an end soon, it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. And I can’t wait for it to be over so I can talk about SOMETHING ELSE! Ugh. I’m irritating myself. SHUT UP SELF!

It would help if the cats could be a tad more helpul, though, and do their part. Don’t ya think?

Category: House Hunting, Whine & Cheese | 20 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on April 29, 2009

So I’ve moved a lot in my life. And most of those moves have come in the last 15 years or so. Basically from the time I moved to Arizona for college, I’ve moved a ton. Up until my current apartment, I had never lived in the same place for more than 2 years since 1995. So when it comes to packing and moving? I have it down.

That doesn’t make it any easier. Also the fact that I haven’t done it in four years and have accumulated a shit-ton of crap in that time, really makes it a pain in the ass.

You know how in your closet you have all these clothes where you’re like “I’ll fit in that again” or “Oh yeah! I forgot about that shirt! I’m so going to start wearing it again!” And then you don’t? Because there was a reason you stopped wearing it in the first place? And who are you kidding, it isn’t like you’re going to fit in those pants that are 7 sizes smaller than your current pants.

I don’t do that with clothes. I do that with stupid things like t-shirts and luggage, apparently.

So last night I figured I should do some more packing. Since I’ve booked the movers to come in a little over a week, I should really get my shit together and have it all packed and ready to go. I really want to carry nothing at all and make the men I’m PAYING to carry things do it all on their own. So I figured I could pack a lot of my drawers in my ginormous suitcase.

I know it doesn’t look huge, but it is. The top of it comes up to about my hip and I have like a 36-inch inseam. Which will only mean a lot to those of you who know what your inseam is. Trust me, it’s a big suitcase. I think I used it once. I bought it because when I would come home from SF to Chicago for vacations, I never had enough room in my suitcase. So I bought this about 6 months before I got shitcanned from the 49ers and moved back to Chicago.

Also, it is kind of heavy when it is empty, so you’re guaranteed to pay the over 50 pounds fee if you actually fill it.

Anyway, I pulled this out of the closet last night and it was HEAVY. And I’m like “what the hell is in here? Something I’ve clearly not used in FOUR YEARS.” So, crucial stuff clearly.

It was a shit-ton of duffel bags and smaller suitcases. I’m not kidding I was like Mary Poppins pulling bags out of that suitcase. It was like a magician who keeps pulling on that handkerchief in his pocket and it NEVER ENDS! It was a clown car for duffel bags! See?

I know what you’re thinking, that’s not that many duffel bags. Well these duffel bags? Are stuffed with duffel bags! Six years of working in the NFL and all I have to show for it is 17 duffel bags! All of which are large enough to hold dead bodies!

They are nice for moving (which is clearly why I hung on to them), but they will be going to Good Will. So some murderer can buy that Training Camp 2002 duffel bag to hold pieces of that hiker they chopped up in the forest. (That was morbid.)

But clearly I have a hording problem. Exhibit B:

That is a lot of glasses. You must be thinking that I have a lot of large parties and only will let my guests drink out of glass cups. You would be wrong.

These? Are all the beer glasses I’ve stolen in my life. Well, basically in the last 10 years. And actually, almost all of these came when I lived in San Francisco. It was a problem. But one glass was always cooler than the next. And now I have quite a collection. A collection that sits in the cabinet above the fridge to never see the light of day. But I can’t get rid of them. I EARNED those. And some of them are sentimental, including the one with the American flag on it that some dude was going to FIGHT me for because while he didn’t work at the bar, he didn’t appreciate me stealing.

There are about 30 in all (actually one less since my Gordon Biersch one broke when I was loading the dishwasher at my new place tonight.) (So Lori, we need to go to Gordon Biersch next time I’m there so I can get another one.)

One day, when I have a house larger than a shoebox, I plan to have a cabinet built to display all these glasses. Because I cannot get rid of them. And what else am I going to do? Drink out of them?

The only fun part of packing, besides the upcoming unpacking in my new HOME, is torturing the cats by sticking packing tape to their heads and sticking them in boxes that they can’t jump out of. I will try and capture this on video with my new camera. Because I’m sure this is exactly the reason my realtor bought me one.

Category: House Hunting | 20 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on April 27, 2009

I actually had an interesting weekend, this past weekend, besides the whole becoming a homeowner thing. Because that was really just Friday and I’ve kind of forgotten about it. Since I don’t live there yet.

But then I remember when I notice all the things I have yet to pack. How can you spend a whole day packing and have very little to show for it? I mean yeah, I purged a lot and I packed, but how come it still looks not empty in here. I’m going to just open all the empty cabinets and closets. It’s like the house version of a poor man walking around with his empty pockets hanging out.

But then if I did that, the cats would sleep in the empty cabinets and well, I don’t need another place to clean up cat puke.

Anyway, speaking of moving, I got a call from my apartment complex this past Saturday. It was a little after 10 AM. I remember because I was in my car on my way to get my hair done. Which meant I was up, showered and out of the house! That never happens!

The apartment lady called to remind me about the showing of my apartment. I’m sorry, what did you say apartment lady? Oh right, par for the course, they scheduled someone to come look at my apartment and only told me AN HOUR before they were set to come. Look, most weekends I’m still sleeping at 11 AM. And you damn well can be sure that if I was sleeping at 10 AM when they called, I would have IGNORED the call. And then SURPRISE! Who’s the slovenly chubster in the bedroom? Please tell me she doesn’t come with the apartment.

I voiced my displeasure with her. Which she acknowledged and then did nothing about. Much like the many complaints of pot smoking and LOUD NOISE I have made in the past year. And then I told her “well, it isn’t clean and there are boxes everywhere.” She said that was fine. I don’t think she actually understood how messy and dirty it was though. I hope they didn’t look at the bath tub.

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Also this past Saturday, I met Scarlet and her sister! Scarlet and I have been blog friends since I first started blogging. She was my first non-family/friend blog reader. And we’ve been friends ever since. We regularly text and email. I honestly felt like I had already known her forever, and we had never met in person.

She was in town with her sister for a graduation. I met them out downtown and we had pizza at the original Uno’s and we drank beer and laughed and told stories. It was awesome and I’m so glad we finally met!

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Sunday was supposed to be a BIG day. I was supposed to go up to Wisconsin with my brother and his family with my nephew’s Cub Scout den to a race track. I was going because there is this guy that my sister-in-law has been trying to set me up with. He’s the uncle of one of Noah’s friends. My SIL saw photos of him and got the scoop a few months back and has been trying to figure out a way for us to meet since February.

So this dude (I don’t remember his name) races cars. So he was going to be at the track and I was going to get to meet him and we were going to fall in love because wouldn’t that just be perfect? Can you imagine an easier way for the President of the Lazy Club to get betrothed? I mean, I met my ex-boyfriend at a wine festival for Christ’s sake.

Well, we had nasty storms here. Some of the weirdest weather I’ve ever experienced. The temperatures fluctuated like 10-20 degrees in a matter of minutes. At one point, it was in the upper 30s in the north suburbs, 47 at the lake, 67 at Midway and 80 in the south suburbs. We’re talking a span of like 100 miles. It was nuts.

Anyway, the race was cancelled so I didn’t get to meet him. (His name is Chris! I remembered! Only because Chris and Kris? Totally not lame.) So there will be another meeting planned, I’m sure.

But, I set the alarm and got up in the morning as planned because I didn’t find out it was cancelled until closer to the time I had to leave. And that is when I had to call the police.

I set my alarm, but I actually forgot to turn it on. Thankfully, some asshat rang my apartment buzzer at about the time I needed to get up. Figuring it was friends of the pot heads, LIKE ALWAYS, I ignored it. I snoozed a bit, for like 10 more minutes, when the buzzer went off again. I finally was like “fine! I’ll get up!” and went to get in the shower.

At this time, I noticed that I didn’t hear the door slam. No one let Buzzer McGee in. “Hmm,” I thought. “Maybe it wasn’t friends of the pot heads.”

Just then the buzzer rang again and I pushed the TALK button and was like “WHAT?” And this jackass is all “can you let me in, I locked myself out?”

Being the most untrustworthy person ever and always expecting someone is going to come in and kill me, I asked “what unit do you live in?” And he was all “this one.” So I give him another chance “no, which NUMBER?” And he’s all “3B.”

Nice try fucker. But our units aren’t numbered like that. Also, you should have noticed it since you pushed the button that was clearly marked with a number in the 20s. We really give you all the information you need on the button you’re pressing.

So I didn’t respond to him and then got in the shower. And then when I was in the shower, Gloom and Doom came to meet me and was like “WHAT IF NO ONE ELSE ASKS HIM THOSE QUESTIONS? AND THEY JUST LET HIM IN?” So I freaked out.

I jumped out of the shower and called the city’s non-emergency number. I was like a dispatcher’s worst nightmare because I have no idea what he looked like and had no information. But they were sending a cop out anyway.

I heard the police come a few minutes later, but I’m guessing by that time, sketchy dude was long gone.

So that was my exciting story of the weekend. I am surprised that the first time I’ve ever called the police in this apartment was not because of the pot smokers.

Anyone else have any exciting stories to share from their weekend?

Category: A Day in the Life of Me, Rants & Rants | 14 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on April 26, 2009

So this seems like old news, but for those of you who do not follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, maybe you haven’t heard: I CLOSED ON MY CONDO!

I know! Can you believe it? BECAUSE I CANNOT! I was convinced that this whole thing was jinxed and that writing about closing was going to make the whole thing fall through!

Well, and up until I signed the documents, I was actually thinking that OHMYGOD! THIS WHOLE THING IS GOING TO FALL THROUGH! And why would I think that, you ask? Well, because my lawyer and my lender got into a pissing contest over email about ONE HOUR before I was set to close.

Oh yes, the drama with this purchase went right up until the last possible second.

I worked from home in the morning because my closing wasn’t until 1 PM. At about 10 AM, I got an email from my lawyer and he was perturbed, to say the least. The paperwork for the loan STILL wasn’t done and I wasn’t going to have final figures for my closing costs until after 11 AM. My lawyer voiced in this email exactly what I was thinking, which was “this is inexcusable. We’ve shown this lender more than enough patience with this whole thing.”

And then I was all “Boo yeah, lawyer dude! I could kiss you!”

So what I didn’t notice was that the lender was copied on that email. So the lender fired back at my lawyer. And he was all “thanks for the comments, but basically you’re an asshole. There was this issue and this issue and this issue and we forced the developer to do this and we did this, yada, yada, yada.” Basically it was a whole host of things that had delayed the loan. THINGS THAT NONE OF US HAD HEARD ABOUT UNTIL THAT MOMENT.

I was pissed. I mean, really, had we known these things and how hard my lender was working, we wouldn’t have been calling him all the time. Not that he ever called any of us back or returned our emails. The dude fails at communication skills. Fails with a capital FUCK YOU.

I was just about to fire off an email to my lender to say “this information would have been nice to know THREE WEEKS AGO!” And there probably would have been an F bomb or two and it would be insanely incoherent. But right before I did that, my laywer fired back. And he eloquently was like “Hey lender jackass, this would have been nice to know THREE WEEKS AGO! Also, you said you did like 10 other loans in this building, why didn’t you know about those issues? Also, why are you such a ginormous tool?” (No, he didn’t say all that.)

And I was like “RIGHT ON LAWYER! YOU TELL HIM!”

Meanwhile, lender sends back another email in response and the only thing I remember about that was that he mentioned that my mortgage rates expired on April 22. And instead of filing an extension (which would cost me money), he just let them expire and re-locked them in on Thursday, April 23, which was why there was a delay in the paperwork being finished on Friday. Which, yay for no added costs. But…

Um, what? MY RATES EXPIRED AND MY FUCKING LENDER DIDN’T EVEN ALERT ME? They changed. Not by much, but they did change. When I read that, I was pissed. Because at the time I figured they probably changed A LOT and not for the better. (Seriously, he’s so lucky they didn’t. And how hard is it TO TELL ME THESE THINGS?)

But I didn’t have time to think about this because at this point, it was noon. And I was still waiting for my closing costs and I still had to go to the bank and I still had to you know, like, go to the closing.

I finally heard from my lawyer at noon with the costs. And then he apologized for throwing the hammer down with lender dude. And I was like “oh, no need to apologize. He needed to be told those things. He is the worst communicator I’ve ever met.” And then my lawyer was all “I was tired of his horseshit excuses.” And then I decided that the $500 I spent on my lawyer was the best $500 I’ve ever spent. On anything. Including my laptop. (Sorry, Lappy.)

The closing went fine. I signed a lot of papers, just like you all warned me. Except I signed double because I had 2 loans. I forgot my middle initial on most of the papers and had to go back and add them in. I don’t think my signature was the same twice. But I got everything signed and we all laughed about how smart the lender was for not showing up because he probably didn’t want to be kicked in the balls by me. (Although I did joke that because I do not like him, if he did show up, he was going to be 35, hot and single and I was going to have to get all flirty and tell him I’d like to discuss everything over dinner and thank him properly.)

Oh! And my realtor gave me a gift. I figured it would be a candle or a picture frame or a bottle of wine. I mean, normal housewarming type stuff, right? I mean, even that Canadian chick on Property Virgins comes by with some awkward gift basket. So when I opened the gift, I was NOT expecting a FLIP VIDEO CAMERA. How fucking awesome is that? I seriously think I had a very wrong response because really? A Flip? I’ve so been wanting one! And I think I was so in shock that my already AWESOME realtor could get any more AWESOME! HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!

After I signed my life away, I went to my new place. I twirled in a circle in the empty living room and unpacked a few boxes that I brought over. And then I turned on the air conditioning, BECAUSE I COULD. And it was glorious!

In addition to boxes, I brought over a beer because THIS EVENT NEEDED TO BE CELEBRATED!

And as I was sitting on my granite countertops, drinking my beer, I started crying. I was overcome with emotion. It had finally happened. All the worry and the stressing and the acid eating a hole in my stomach, it was ALL WORTH IT! I did it! All by myself! I bought a condo, a HOME, a place I am so happy about that I cannot wait to move in.

I couldn’t be happier. Well, that’s a lie. I’d be happier if the boxes packed themselves.

Category: House Hunting | 61 Comments »
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