Aaaaand We're Back! With A Centipede Drama.

Remember how I told you that you might not hear from me for a week or two? Well, make that a month apparently. We're officially all moved in and mostly unpacked. Not so bad! It's actually starting to feel like home. There's always those things that you find after you move into a new apartment, though, like the fact that we don't have lukewarm water (we have cold, hot, and boil your insides), or that all the faucets are backwards, or that all the floors are crooked, or you don't actually have an address. Generally, I think that our house was built by a left-handed Pollock. Also, there's bugs. There are bugs in my house, you guys.

They aren't adorable, handsome bugs like this guy, either.

 Where's Allie Brosh when you need her? I need a hilarious MS Paint picture of me cowering in a corner with a bottle of Raid.

When we moved in, there was a considerable amount of webs and bugs and things, but I figured that it had been empty for a month...these things are bound to happen. Well, this is what I thought until that fateful day...

I mean, it's not like we have an infestation, but one bug is seriously too many. Last Friday, Adam and I are hanging out in the office (which I have not yet used for blogging, BTW), watching True Blood, having a glass of wine, and generally relaxing when here comes this Goliath of a centipede racing across the floor. And I mean RACING. Holy shit are those bastards fast. So, at this point, I start screaming at the top of my lungs and pull the classic "dumb bitch in a horror movie". I run INTO the corner because for some reason I think that's a good idea. Now, I don't have any recollection of this part, but I can thank Adam for filling me in after I got my heart to stop beating out of my chest, I start screaming, "Stop" and "No" at it, obviously expecting this centipede to speak English and cease it's running directly towards me. Well folks, I'll inform you: Centipedes do not speak English. At this point, I'm cowering the in the corner using my easel as a shield, because THAT'S appropriate, and this thing is still hell bent on crawling on my feet (I just know that's what he was thinking), so I use the only weapon at hand, and throw my easel at it. I threw an easel. At a centipede. It's like the adrenaline rushed mom lifting a car off of a baby. Except it's me screaming like I'm being murdered throwing an easel at a centipede. I cannot even begin to imagine what the neighbors thought. (Sorry, neighbors!) I only succeed in hitting Adam with the easel and the centipede gets away. Five days later, I still won't go into the office without a chaperone. So then, yesterday, I'm reading about how to get rid of/prevent this situation from happening again, and I read that they can live for THREE TO SEVEN YEARS. I hope that little bastard found his way out of the office. Please, oh please, oh please, let him find his way out of the office. Or hopefully I scared the living shit out of him and he had a little centipede heart attack somewhere behind my bookshelf.

Scariest picture on the internet. The centipede in my office was a cross between this thing and King Kong.

 We do have spiders in the basement and on the porches, which can be expected, and tiny, tiny millipedes. The millipedes are actually kinda cute. They're just like little black inchworms. And I can't see their legs, so we're cool. Also, I'm starting to be okay with the spiders. As long as they're not huge and/or hairy or on me, we're cool. They eat other bugs, such as said centipede, so as long as they do their fucking job, I won't kill them. After Friday's incident, I did kill a few on the porch to set an example. Tell your friends, spiders.

Also in my research of creepy crawlies yesterday, I found this stuff, Eco Exempt D. It's eco-friendly, all natural, and will apparently kill just about anything including ants, centipedes, cockroaches, crickets, firebrats (whatever those are), fleas, millipedes, pill bugs, scorpions, sowbugs, spiders, hornets, wasps, bees, and yellow jackets. Mother fuckers are going down. I just ordered it on the internets yesterday, but I can't wait for it to get here. I gladly fronted the $40 in exchange for Adam spraying the house. He can do the gross boy jobs, thanks. Once we get it sprayed, I'll let you guys know how it works out. Hopefully, it doesn't kill my cat either. It's good for six to twelve months, too, which is pretty cool.

Oh, the adventures of moving. Sheesh.

Moving: A Drama

So, tomorrow's the big day! I'm moving, and not just the blog this time. I'm moving me and a husband and a whole house full of things. What an adventure this has been already!

So, we found this apartment Memorial Day weekend and all of my friends laughed at me for starting to pack that weekend. "Oh Amanda, you're so funny with your neurosis and OCD!!!" Well you can fuck straight off because I'm still not all packed. It's amazing how much shit you can accumulate within five years in a very small apartment. Where did we get so many...things? Absolutely useless...things. Granted, they're pretty things, but things nonetheless. Things that need wrapped in 1000 pieces of newspaper and put in boxes that then have to be lifted and moved. Jesus, who thought this moving thing was a good idea?

Also, no one seems to know the address of the new apartment? Who moves into an apartment with two addresses? I do, that's who. If you talk to the post office, it's one, if you talk to utilities, it's the other. Which is awesome, because it's been insane moving the utilities. Wednesday, I called Verizon...I wanted that shiny new Fios package. We talked to the people in the other apartment in the building and I was pretty sure that they told me they had Fios. So, I call Verizon and they tell me that Fios is not available in my area. I told them to check the other apartment number, they tell me that it's not available there either. So I tell them to check the other apartment's service, and the representative tells me that they have regular Verizon service, not Fios. So I spend 40 goddamn minutes on the phone with this guy setting everything up. We went with the phone and internet (DSL) service that we have now and that comes bundled with Direct TV. I've never had a problem with them, so I figure, hey, that's fine, completely forgetting that this is a rental unit. So, I email the landlord to make sure that they're okay with us putting a dish on the house and they reiterate that the other apartment has Fios! So I call Verizon again, and they tell me that yes, Fios is available at the ONE address, but not the other! How could you have service at 437 but not at 435 when it's a dead end street?! So then, I spend another 40 minutes on the phone canceling the old order and putting in a new one. Sheesh.

So, long story short, I'm now getting Fios in my non-existent apartment. It's a way better deal and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm pretty excited about the new apartment in general. While I will miss the apartment we're in now and the neighborhood, I'm eager to have a fresh beginning. It was always the running joke that if my apartment had one more room and two more closets, I'd live there for the rest of my life. Well, this apartment has one more room and four more closets. Hooray for lucking out! We'll have a real, live office for me to blog in, now. (Even though usually I post at work, shhhh!) Maybe it will inspire me to not be such a slacker.

It's been insanely busy in work and life though. Ever since we went away on a three day conference and the beginning of June it's just been impossible to get caught up. I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, however. What amazes me is how people do all this shit and have other obligations and families and whatnot. I would have torn my face clean off. I'm overwhelmed now, ferchrissakes, I can't even imagine throwing other things on top of it. Some good, hard work never killed anyone, but damn. So, when you don't see me for a week or two, you'll know why.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July weekend and just hope I don't go on a homicidal rampage. In honor of this day, check out this super sweet video:

Bitter:Sweet

Okay, I think by now we’ve established that I heart trip-hop. These things happen. Also, things like Bitter:Sweet happen and they make me realize just how much I love trip-hop. Yet another find on Pandora, they were a pleasant surprise in a Supreme Beings of Leisure playlist. (Kiran Shahani is part of the duo, along with Shanna Haligan, the vocalist.)

Unfortunately, I’ve only heard the few tracks played by Pandora and the sparse selection on their Myspace, but what I have heard, I love. Especially “Trouble”. It makes me want to wear suits and drink martinis and possibly become a super-spy. I’d give Chuck a run for his money…and quite possibly a few other things, but that’s a story for another time.

They’re also another one of those bands who are just popping up everywhere from TV shows to commercials to movies and everywhere in between. So far, they’ve been featured in The Devil Wears Prada, Grey’s Anatomy, Lipstick Jungle, Smallville, L&O: Criminal Intent, Zune commercials, and more including German and UAE shows. It’s incredible.

Actually, what’s more incredible is that they’ve released two (and 3/4, more on that later) albums and I’ve never heard a peep out of them before yesterday. I was super late on the awesomeness that is Bitter:Sweet. They technically have three albums and one on the way, but one is a remix album of their debut, The Mating Game.

Bitter:Sweet is a glorious blend of electronic, trip-hop, jazz, and big band, and I highly suggest you check them out.