Sometimes I relapse...

I am, in general, opposed to much of the Romantic movement. I love nature as much as the next person, but I love it as a wild thing to be cared for but not trusted. Nature can be as brutal as her creatures. But sometimes I relapse into a romantic attitude toward simple things.

My roommates are both gone for Thanksgiving, so I have the house to myself. This meant I got to get up late, watch the first half of the Ohio State-Michigan game in my pajamas, shower on my own schedule, and come back and watch the Buckeyes win. Now I'm curled up on the futon in long underwear and my Ohio State fleece vest, reading Krister Stendahl and Nils Dahl while my laundry runs downstairs, with the Penn State-Michigan State game in the background and a cup of tea at my elbow. And I'm actually excited about spending the day reading for my thesis, something that hasn't happened all fall. Maybe I'll even make some soup tonight - I'm pretty sure we've got stock, potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions at least. Maybe there's even some barley around.

It's a very cozy way to spend a very November day.

Have I mentioned that I like having a kitchen?

I do. I like it that an hour before my housemate has class, we can say "Hunh. What do you want for dinner?" and she can commission me to do something with couscous and asparagus, and I can go throw together whatever we have* and make a delicious dinner in time for her to eat before class.

Someday, our kitchen will have in it a working oven, and then we will be happier still - but there's a lot you can do with a range. Yay cooking.

*Tonight: asparagus and tomato sauteed lightly with onion, garlic, basil, and oregano, and topped with toasted pine nuts, over a bed of whole wheat couscous.

Um. Hi.

Ok, I have no real excuse for not blogging. I've had time for other things, like West Wing and Buffy. And dinners! Yay cooking. And setting up a Facebook account, as promised. But I'm out of the habit, and haven't had much to say. So, um, hi. I'm doing really exciting things like getting a room ready to paint and cooking and looking for things in boxes. Oh, and I have two wedding sermons to write soon. So I'm not really sure how much I'll be around at all. I'm not really in the mood, and I'm not really doing much to speak of. Maybe I'll be around more again when classes start and I have more need to procrastinate.

Guess what I have?

A kitchen!

In celebration of which, I'm having dinner guests as often as possible. Tonight's menu: spaghetti with asparagus, tomato, and lemon. Next time we'll add a little more seasoning, but there will be a next time. 'Twas good.

We now return to our regularly scheduled cleaning.

Apologies...

... to my roommate. Apparently I stole ("borrowed," I like to say) Kay's soul today. I spent the morning cleaning the chapel. Then I came home around 1, and since I had momentum and it was my weekend, I cleaned the bathroom. Only first, I thought I'd clean the pile of dishes I had, before I cleaned the sinks. And then, I realized the fishbowl needed cleaning, so I figured I should definitely do that before I cleaned the sinks, so I did. And since I was in a cleaning mode, I did the floors in the common room. And then Jenny Jo got really excited at the idea that I might finally wash the exploded champagne off the coffee table, so I did that, and while I was at it, I washed the doily that lives on the coffee table. And then I realized that the bathroom sinks were really clean, so I did some hand wash. And then I took a shower myself. And I came into the common room and found a piece of dust on the floor that I'd just cleaned, and, sadly, took it across the hall to Jenny Jo, jumped up and down, and said "I JUST CLEANED THAT!!"

Thankfully, then it was time to go get dinner and watch basketball.

For what it's worth

I really thought that a nice benefit of not being an undergrad anymore (at least not officially, Les) would be that I wouldn't have to deal with 3 am fire alarms any more. 3 am fire alarms are among my least favorite things in life. They do very little to make me well-rested or to reduce my general fears that Bad Things Will Happen to those I love.

For those of you who are sleeping comfortably in the apartments, get a nice few hours. You're about to wake up to no heat again, in which we dorm-dwellers will be joining you this time. Hurray for pipes bursting.

Having voiced these objections, I'm going to try for a few more hours before I have to finish writing Sunday's sermon. Which will apparently be something I do from a coffee shop or something. (Here's hoping that the pipe break/heat shutoff at my field ed parish is fixed before Sunday....)

[Later: Ok, there seems to be heat after all. Apparently they were wrong about it killing the heat, or they fixed it really fast, or I imagined it all in a sleepless haze. I don't much care - I'm just glad to have the heat.]

Sunday afternoon

I'm pretty sure I live in the only suite anywhere where the conversation about the purpose of the cleaning rota goes like this:

Beth: Kay, did you clean the bathroom this weekend?
Kay: Well...
Jenny Jo: Kay?
Kay: I only cleaned part of it.
Beth: Kay! It's not your weekend!
Jenny Jo: That defeats the purpose of the rota!
Kay: But I had a few minutes on Friday, and I had these new Mr Clean erasers I wanted to use.
(Beth and Jenny Jo exchange looks.)

Sermon prep

8:55 AM: Roommates to class.
8:56 AM: Decide to drink the last cup of coffee. Open fridge to find soy milk frozen.
8:57 AM: IM Tripp to ask about the wisdom/possibility of microwaving frozen soy milk for my coffee.
9:00 AM: Microwave frozen soy milk for coffee.
9:01 AM: Power blows on my side of the suite - a first.
9:02 AM: Pour coffee.
9:03 AM: Convince computer to restart on battery power.
9:04 AM: Wander downstairs to find receptionist.
9:05 AM: Call maintenance from receptionist's desk, since own phone is plugged in to charge.
9:06 AM: Maintenance promises to check breaker.
9:08 AM: Return upstairs. Open sermon file.
9:12 AM: Power comes back on.
9:13 AM: Wireless comes back on.
9:14 AM: IM Tripp to apologize for cutting out mid-conversation.
9:15 AM: Close conversation in a civilized manner.
9:16 AM: Begin to learn sermon.
9:17 AM: Maintenance and buddies come upstairs to test suite's fire alarms.
9:18 AM: Fire alarms begin going off.
9:20 AM: Fire alarms stop going off.
9:22 AM: Fire alarms go off again.
9:25 AM: Fire alarms stop, maintenance leaves.
9:27 AM: Yodabeth blogs to ask, Does this mean God doesn't want me to preach without notes tomorrow after all?

Because you care deeply about these things...

I have been instructed to inform you that our trash now contains three or four Starbucks/Peet's cups in addition to the half-pound or so of coffee grounds.

You Might Be a Grad Student If...

at least 50% of your apartment's trash is coffee grounds.

Addicted? Us?

Thanks to Barnes & Noble's current 2-for-1 TV box sets sale, our suite has drastically increased our stash. Kay acquired seasons 2 and 6 of Gilmore Girls, completing her set of the series (so far as it's been released.) Jenny Jo acquired season 3 of West Wing, completing her set. And I acquired seasons 5, 6, and 7 of West Wing, completing my set. We're now prepared both to supply our own addictions and feed the rest of the campus's - indeed, my new season 7 has already left the premises, so that Les and Kristin can finish watching the show and join Jenny Jo and me in mourning and overanalyzing. Hooray!

If I had a hammer...

... I'd hit construction workers over the head with it. Except not really, because I don't do that, and they're often wearing hard hats anyway, though probably not the guys who are up here now.

But it's 8:20, and I have yet to get access to my bathroom this morning. I got up and Roommate 1 was in there; then she came out but the Construction Men came up into our hallway, so I decided to dress first instead of going out in my pajamas; then as soon as I was dressed, Roommate 2 got in the shower. I am hoping that she's a very quick showerer, but I suspect I will not get access before Morning Prayer starts at 8:30. I'm not opposed to using one elsewhere in the building, but that one won't have my toothbrush and toothpaste in it.

I am trying to remember that I am glad the construction workers weren't fixing these fire alarms during GOE's, rather than getting angry that they had to start doing so at 7:30 this morning.

Out of straws

Some of you may recall last Thursday's cockroach sighting in the common room. The truly attentive may even remember last year's tempest in the teapot, so to speak. Last year, we traced them to the utility sink in the stairwell, and the maintenance crew disposed of them. Last week, I let it go since I only saw one once.

Tonight, I turned on my bedroom light and - another? the same? - cockroach ran between my legs and under my bed.

I remind my readers that bugs do not, as a general rule, bother me all that much. But cockroaches do not belong in my indoor quarters. Especially not indoor quarters which I've cleaned top to bottom at least once, and in some parts twice or more, in the last ten days. (Though I've been advised that the men's suite which shares a wall with mine is not so clean as mine - and there's a door between the two suites which is only blocked up enough to keep humans from passing between.)

I, myself, am unsettled. Unsettled and thoroughly displeased.

But the worst part is that tomorrow I get one new suitemate and Sunday I get another. They're new to Seabury altogether, and while I don't know that the roach(es) have made it to the other side of the suite, I suspect it won't be long, at least. It is thoroughly unfair and inhospitable to subject new residents to roaches.

So tomorrow, although it is Saturday, I will make some phone calls and arrange for someone to do something about the situation.

Perhaps it's a good thing that this happened the night before I have to get up at 5 anyway. It's not like I was planning on sleeping in....

Spring

has definitely arrived. Today I saw an inch-long cockroach on the stairs on my way to morning prayer, and now a Japanese beetle is flying bopping breakdancing around my room.