*NEWS FLASH!!!!* Snow Day!!!

Ladies and gentlemen! Step right up and see it! NYC's first snow of the season!!!

All week the news has been alerting us to the oncoming storm and this morning we woke up to our FIRST sight of SNOW in the big city!!!

HOOOORAAAYY!!! :)

It is so pretty and amazing and cold and exciting and fun!!! And... yeah!!!

WOOHOOO!!! It's SNOW!!

Like the CA newbies that we are we leaned out our apartment window snapping pics as if we were tourists.

On the street and cars below everything was dusted with a thin layer of fluffy, icy white. We could see our Super and many other men (presumably supers of the other buildings) shoveling the sidewalks. Making great progress they all worked together to clean, not just a path, but the full width of the sidewalk.

We touched the snow on our window sills and fire escape... BRRrrrr!! hehe

THEN, it began to fall from the sky. Slowly at first, floating down gently to stick to other, already fallen flakes. Then, faster and faster, whirling and swirling through the sky.

It was so fun and amazing.

To top it all off Em made us some yummy, yummy french toast to mark our first day of snow.
It has been a kick-ass morning. :) Yay!!!

Eek! A mouse!!!

Well, I guess I did not leave much mystery with this one. But, when it comes to a mouse-situation, there is no time for subtelty.

Yes, my friends, we have a mouse. Maybe two.

The other night, Em had gone to bed and I was sitting in the living room. I began to notice a faint scratchy-scratchy sound coming from the kitchen. I froze, muted the TV, and listened closely.

Was I hearing things!?

No.

There it was again!

Well, I thought, our furnaces are loud, maybe it is the pipe and its odd array of pops, whistles and whirs...

I went into the kitchen and listened very carefully, trying to discern where the sound was originating.

No, it was NOT the furnace. The sound was coming from UNDER the stove!

It MUST be a mouse!!

Great.

I shook some boxes around on the floor and suddenly... the sound stopped. Yup. There was no denying it.

I tried not to be too disappointed or freaked out that we had acquired a dirty little mouse as a third roommate. I went to bed and attempted to not think about our new houseguest. However, this proved very difficult since I could hear a scrape-scraping, wiggle-wiggling noise IN MY CLOSEST!!!

I sat up quickly and with wide eyes, holding my breath, STARED at the closet... The scuttling noise got louder and LOUDER and more frantic! AND SUDDENLY!!!

Out of my closet shot a speedy little rodent!!! He scurried hurriedly near my dresser and over to the bedroom door, where he nimbly squeezed himself through the small gap between the door and floor.

OH NO!!!!!

It was IN MY ROOM!!! ACK!!!!

It was bigger than I thought it would be. It was in my closet. It was awake and running around our house!

How did it get here? What did it want? Where was it now!?

So... here we are, we have a new adventure to deal with. The removal of the mice. I am very nervous and fearful of the normal snap-traps... I mean, I feel bad enough killing the poor, defenseless animal just trying to scrape by in life, but then having to pick up its sad, lifeless little body and dispose of it!?!? No, no way.

We are thinking of bribing our Super (with some of Em's baked goods) to dispose of any successfully trapped rodents.

I have yet to see them again, but I am sure I heard one in the wall last night. EEEEKKK!!! Wish us luck with this new trial! hehe

RUDE Awakenings...

RUDE!

It started out as our word of the week, a couple weeks back, due to the abundance of rude people and actions we had encountered. However, we are coming to find, sadly, that RUDE just may be a natural state of being that we have to deal with living in "The Greatest City in the World."

The main reasons for our awakening to the RUDE state-of-being go beyond the every day RUDE scenarios (for example, subway issues: blocking doors, blcoking stairs, not moving to the middle of the train, taking up 1.5 seats, etc etc...) and delve into the realm of "what were you thinking" actions bestowed upon us by those we trusted, complete strangers, and unknown neighbors.

For example:

In addition to the upstairs neighbors- with the baby that screams and cries in the middle of the night (often at intervals 1 a.m., 3 a.m. and 6 a.m.), followed by parents who stomp and bang around the house, as if they were fleeing a fire instead of comforting their child- my bedroom shares a wall with our next-door neighbors' living room.

I have already had issues with their late-night loud, LOUD TV watching, which I endeavor to ignore. However, this week they took it to a whole new level.

I was awoken Friday morning, at 6:45 a.m. (!!!!!), by the sound of a Hispanic band playing SO LOUDLY that it was as if the wall, between my room and their radio, did not even exist. It was as if I had the band standing over my bed blowing their horns into my ears.

GOOD MORNING!!!!! TOOT TOOT!!!!

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!? It was BLARING! It was still SO early in the morning!? Did they think no one else could hear it?! Did they think I was knocking on the wall to say "Hello" !?!

NO!!! I was saying please, PLEASE!! For the love of everything peaceful and sane! Turn it down to a dull roar! Turn it down to where I hear muffled guitars through the wall that can be tuned out!

Their "knock-knock" back to me lead me to believe, this may have been an intentional wake-up call, and they were tap-tapping, "You're welcome, neighbor!" back to me. I honestly can not fathom how they could have done such a thing UNintentionally. That would require complete ignorance of the fact that they have neighbors... and I KNOW they have seen us. I have brought them mail, held the elevator for them, and smiled at their children.

RUDE!!!


Another, WONDERFUL, example also occurred this week and requires a little bit of background info:

The neighbors across the hall are two college-age guys. We can hear them playing instruments from time to time: trumpet, violin, drums. LUCKILY (for THEM.) they choose to play them at decent hours and never for too torturously long of an interval. We have seen the back of their heads going into their apartment (through our peep-hole as we try to catch a peek of who our neighbors might be), but up until this week had yet to meet them (well, I have still yet to meet them, but if they want to avoid verbal backlash it is in their best interest to avoid me).

Em rushed to unlock the door the other evening because she thought she heard me coming in and wanted to give me a hand. As she flung the door open she came face-to-face with our neighbor, not her roommate. (The sounds in the hall are very tricky and it often sounds like someone is coming into our apartment when they are really going into their own.)

She explained her reason for bursting out the door at him and introduced herself. She found out that they guys used to live in our apartment, but moved when the landlord was redoing our floors. Also, they both attend Columbia.

Now, the fun begins.

That same night, we have some ring us from the front door buzzer. Having few friends, and even fewer who come to our house, and not having ordered any food, we were confused and startled.

Em used the intercom to ask who was there, and the garbled reply was something about... his brother from Columbia saying the girls from California would buzz him in.

Well. The NERVE. I mean, we did not mind at all, we were not doing anything and... it is not a big deal to buzz someone in... BUT you just BARELY met... ONE of us. What makes you think you can pawn someone off on our (very loud, startling buzzer) without even giving us a warning first? Just ASK. Thanks.

So, Em buzzes him in and we hear him unlock and go into the apartment across the hall. Ok, good: he has keys... so they must actually know him.

The next night, our across-the-hall neighbors joined the ranks of my Neighbors I Can Not Tollerate list and here is why:

It is 1:30 a.m. and after struggling to fall asleep (as I have been lately) I am suddenly awake and confused: did I just hear something? was I having a dream?

No answers to those questions arise so I try to drift back to sleep again.

WAIT!! There it is the noise! SHIT! What was that? An alarm? What!?!?

OH!!! The door buzzer!!! Crap. Was that OUR apartment? A neighbor's!? (Since you can hear EVERYTHING, even phones ringing, this was in no way a stretch.)

I'm laying, on edge, in my bed. Trying to listen. Trying not to freak out... when...

OH NO!!! IT IS OURS!!!!

Who is rining our buzzer!? Why?! We do not know that many people! IT MUST BE SOMEONE CRAZY!!!!

I jump out of bed and sneak into the hall, coming face-to-face with Em. She had heard it too. We were both alert and alarmed. (Like I said the buzzer is STARTLING, I wish you could hear it and jump out-of-your-skin like we sometimes do when it rings.)

We do not know what to do, and do not want to talk down to a CRAZY PERSON. Who buzzes two, young, unknown girls at 1:30 in the morning!?!?

We creep over to the window where, as we have learned waiting for food, you can see our building's front door by looking at the reflection in a window across the street.

There is a man. A boy. A boy is buzzing us! A stranger! A creepy, night-time stranger! What do we do!?!?!

He is white. He has short hair, a little curly or wavy on top. Maybe it is the same guy who knows our neighbors? Em thinks it might be. We wait.

We see him making a call on his cell phone. We step away from the window, perplexed... annoyed... pissed at being awake and freaked out by some person. The buzzer rings AGAIN!!!

CRAP!!! We hate that thing! We decided it must be the neighbor's brother. We do not want to let him in. We do not think we should reward his bad behavior by letting him in.

We decide to go back to bed. I go to the bathroom. We barely close our doors when...

BUUUZZZZZ!!!!!!!!

PISSED. SO PISSED!!!!

I go back to the buzzer and SHOVE down the "talk" button.

"What do you want!? Who are you looking for!?!"

"Uh, my brother Tim? He lives here?"

"He lives WHERE!?! What apartment!?!"

"Uh... 57? Or 56? 57."

"WELL! You are BUZZING 57 and TWO GIRLS live here!! We do not appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night BY A STRANGER and would not like to buzz a MAN into the building who we DO NOT KNOW!!"

"Oh. Well, my brother Tim lives..."

"DID SOMEONE BUZZ YOU IN LAST NIGHT!?!"

"yes...?"

"WELL! That was my ROOMMATE. We will buzz you in AGAIN. THIS TIME. But do NOT buzz us AGAIN!!!!!!!!"

BUZZZZ!!!


What was he THINKING!?! Did your brother MOVE apartments!? Yes. He did. And what apartment did you go into last night!? 56. Why would you buzz 57!?

WHY would you buzz it FOUR TIMES!? Depsite the fact that NO ONE was answering!?

WHY would you think you buzzed the RIGHT apartment when a GIRL answered!?!

RUUDDDEE!!!!!


Sigh. So, yes, we have learned that people in this city (and nearby counties...):
a- Do not think.
b- Like to bug others.
c- Are RUDE!

No excuses or apologies. They just are and they do not care. End of story.