Final Farewell

I guess Tyler knew but neglected to tell me, but Rubi showed up on our doorstep again last evening. I was in the middle of putting on a vegetable curry with coconut milk. As a native of India, she claims that only people from a certain region or state of India put coconut milk in their curries. She referred to them as "demons." I LOVE coconut milk, and out of courtesy, waited for her to leave before making a proper curry. (Everyone knows you can't make a curry without coconut milk!)

In any case, there she was in our kitchen. She returned my scissors and calculator that I had chalked up as gone forever. She acted as if nothing had happened, so I felt obligated to invite her to stay for dinner.

"Let's have some tea," she said, "Where's Tyler?"

Thankfully Tyler came downstairs and talked film shop with her while I got my curry on. Then she starting rambling about Raj again. No surprise. She stayed for about an hour and then said she was meeting some friends for dinner. It's odd that she claims to have all of these friends yet she had been staying at the Days Inn since she left the house. Curious, indeed.

When she got up to go I gave her a hug and wished her a safe journey.

"I hope you guys will still come visit me in India. And you have to come to my wedding!"

I've heard this one before. She seems to have a habit of making wedding plans before there has been a proposal.

"Please come! You can stay as long as you like."

Was that a dig?

"And when I come back in six months..." she continued, "I hope that you are both out of this house and living with your new boyfriends or husbands!"

"Yes," I said, "because that is our only purpose in life..."

Some things will never change.

Her last words? "I'll be back!"

I closed the door and turned to Tyler, who said, "She went out just as she came in!"

Yes, I thought, and I'm so glad it's over...

I think this story is closed. At least for now.

One for the Horses

What a sense of relief to have my home to myself again. After a good night's sleep without Slum's snoring or stomping to the bathroom I feel renewed. I was still a frenetic ball of angry energy yesterday though. The good news is, I took it out on someone who really deserved it.

There is a "trainer" at my barn who is notorious for abusing horses. I used to ride with him a little bit until I saw his barbaric methods in action. Since then he's been on my shit list.

Yesterday he was at the barn running the crap out of a client's horse, hitting it with the lunge whip even though the horse was moving as he'd asked. The owner of the horse doesn't seem to care, so there isn't much I can do. However, he does not board a horse at the stable so he has no right to take the arena from paying boarders.

I was standing with my horse waiting. He stopped running the horse, sat on the rail and began to instruct a rider in the back arena - another poor soul that doesn't know any better. He knew I was waiting to get in the arena.

"Paco, are you finished in the arena, because I need to use it," I said as nicely as I could muster.

"No. I'm going to ride the horse now."

"Well, you don't even board here, so you need to get out," I said a little less nicely.

"Don't try to push me around."

Oh no you didn't. He had no idea that I was a walking pressure cooker about to explode after a 7 days with Slum.

I walked closer to the arena and he stepped off the rail and faced the riding ring in the back.

"You know you are a piece of shit that has been banned from every barn in this town and except this one... "

He just kept staring at the back arena, but was no longer instructing. Then he walked towards his horse and tried to mount it but every time he tried to put his foot in the stirrup the horse would move.

"Whoa! Whoa!" But the horse kept moving.

"Yea, you're a really great trainer, Paco!" I antagonized. "He doesn't trust you!! I wouldn't trust you either if you chased me around with a whip for an hour!"

I decided I should quit while I was ahead and went to complain to management about him. The barn manager came out and told him something in Spanish. From the sound of it Paco wasn't very happy because he was raising his voice and yakking really fast in Spanish. God! I wish my Spanish was better!

But he got out. I was still a live wire, so I went for a short ride to calm my nerves.

Slum left me in a negative state, but at least I was able to dump it on a piece of crap horse abuser. It was long over due.

Hmm. What will today bring...

Snap! Goes the Camel's Back

Where to begin?

I'll begin with the last disturbing comment she made that sent me into panic mode. She figured it would work out great if I took her car until she moves back from India at the beginning of next year.

"And then if there is a room available here I can move back in!"

Over my dead body.

I found myself getting increasingly agitated by her presence, and the fact that I couldn't even use my own PC freely because it was allegedly "in the shop" was making me resent her even more. Totally ridiculous, I know, but she was stuck to it like glue. At least she was leaving the house for a few hours to go to the internet cafe.

She was gone when I got home around 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I pulled out my laptop to write and then I pulled up hulu.com to catch up on my T.V. shows. I got through one and a half when I heard her at the door. I scrambled to hide the computer before she discovered my covert usage.

I should add that she has driven me to drinking and smoking since her arrival. I lead a pretty quiet life these days, rarely partaking in booze or cigarettes, but this week I've been swimming in a bottle of wine nearly every night.

The second evening she was here - the night that I got super drunk - she was snapping photos of me all night. And as if that wasn't enough she had to snap 10 -12 morning after hangover shots. I'd seen many of these unflattering photos and tried to figure out how to delete them but it's a fancy pants camera with a hard to find delete feature.

But getting back to last night. I was in the kitchen with Tyler and Slum (yes, we're back to that) chatting. I was again using wine as a coping mechanism to get through yet another night of non-stop yak about guys. Slum mentioned that Tamiko had stopped by earlier that day when I was out of the house.

"Yea, I asked her how it was going with that other girl that her boyfriend was seeing," said Slum.

"YOU DUMBASS!" I blurted out.

I had confided in Slum the story about Tamiko's boyfriend having a brief fling with a 21 year old. He thought he'd found love at first sight. (Idiot) It was devastating to Tamiko, but she is in love with him and decided to let it go when he came to his senses and came back to her. I told Slum the story because we were talking about the mystery of why he won't just marry Tamiko so she can come live in the States again. Slum listened with wide eyes as it is her favorite genre.

"Why? Why? Why would you say that to her? That is so old and water under the bridge!! And now she knows I told you about it!"

"She TOLD me about it," she said defensively.

"No. I told you about it the other morning and you didn't know a thing about it," I insisted.

"No, dude, she told me when I lived here."

"Really? That's funny because it happened well before you moved in, and you didn't seem to know a thing about it the other morning."

If there is one thing I despise it is lying. And she does plenty of it. I've caught her in several white lies just this week, but this one took the cake.

Tyler looked at me as she made a dash for the door. "I'm out of here!"

I snatched my wine glass and headed for my room muttering about how much a hate liars.

I camped out on my balcony and got on the phone with an old friend, finished off the rest of the bottle, along with several cigarettes.

I knew that I could not possibly accept her offer of taking her car. I knew I didn't want any attachment to this toxic vampire that had holed up in my space. However, I knew that I'd been drinking and I shouldn't do anything rash.

When I went back inside she was sawing logs on her mattress. I had but one mission to accomplish. Find the camera and delete those hideous photos once and for all.

I walked around her a few times to make sure she didn't stir. Then a grabbed her purse and went into the bathroom to dismantle it. No camera. I went back to her bed to investigate further. Lo and behold she was sleeping with it right by her side. I carefully leaned over her and braced myself with one hand on the wall. I was able to snatch it up in one clean swoop. I scurried off into the bathroom like a squirrel with a nut.

I locked the door, sat on the floor and with drunken determination found the elusive delete feature. First I found the option that said "delete all." It crossed my mind momentarily, but I figured that was a lot of bad karma. I just wanted to get rid of the awful photos of me. I asked her several times to delete them, but she refused. So, one by one, I deleted about 40 photos of myself.

There were also some good ones so I popped out the chip and downloaded them to my PC. I was quite proud of myself. I put the camera back where I found it, and passed out in my bed.

I was in a blissful place. Maybe I was flying. It was a good dream until the clack, clack, clack of her shoes on my wood floor startled me out of my sleep. I had asked her not to walk around the room at night in shoes, but she would put them on just to go to the bathroom.

Argh!!

When she came back I barked at her, "Will you please not put on your shoes to go to the bathroom!"

"Ok. Sorry..."

We'd been through this before. I was wide awake and pissed. Then, like Reagan from the Exorcist I sat straight up in bed and started spewing.

"Rubi - I can't do this for another week. I need my space back."

"Okay. I'll leave tomorrow," she said as if she was not surprised.

We both tossed and turned for sometime and then I heard her shuffling things around in the dark.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm packing."

"Now??"

"Yea, I'm gonna go. I can't sleep."

"It is two o'clock in the morning. People are sleeping. You can't go schlepping your suitcase down the stairs," I said in a less than compassionate tone.

"I don't want to stay where I'm not welcome."

"Oh my God! It is all about YOU isn't it? This is exactly why you've worn out your welcome here. You are SO inconsiderate!"

"Fine. I'll come back tomorrow morning for my suitcase."

I didn't answer. It was two in the morning. Where the hell was she going to go? I decided I didn't care. She left and shortly after I drifted off into a pleasant slumber.

She returned around 8:30 for her suitcase. She rang the bell and Tyler let her in. When she came into my room I felt like I should say something.

"Rubi, I never should have agreed to let you stay here for so long. I'm a very private person, and..."

"You don't need to give me excuses. It's okay."

She was right. Why should I make excuses? She is a bad house guest that doesn't know when it's time to go.

It was such a relief. The thought of 7 more days was more than I could take. Still, there is lingering angst. It may take a day or two for me to find my balance again.

What was I thinking? Actually, the first 4 days were fine. We actually had fun. If she'd had the common sense to go stay on another friend's floor for a few nights it probably wouldn't have come to this.

Que sera.

Three more days...

I wish I could say I only have three more days of sharing my space, but that is not the case. I walked into a trap this morning. A dirty, tricky little trap. I should have seen it coming.

I woke up bleary eyed and PMS addled to realize that it was not, in fact, all a bad dream. There she was - sleeping on my floor for the 7th morning in a row. While we've made peace and I don't hate her - it is difficult to share a room with anyone I'm not having sex with, and even then, it is a challenge for me.

But what can I do? She's so clingy and needy. I guess I kind of feel sorry for her. Besides, I thought, she's due to leave on the 14th. That's just around the corner.

She must have sensed my foul mood and attempted to cheer me up.

"You know, girls like us really need to have good sex from guys all the time. Then we would be happy and nice."

Girls like us? I could not bring myself to respond to such an asinine comment, so I got up to make coffee. Once I had a nice, hot cup of java in my crabby little hands, I crawled back in bed with it and listened to her prattle on about men, and sex, and then... her car.

She's been storing it someplace in San Francisco and planned to drive it back to deposit it before departure for India.

You should just leave it with me," I said, half joking.

"Really?"

"Sure, I could sort of lease it from you for a very small amount."

She went nuts over the idea saying that the current arrangement in SF was not ideal and that she'd feel better if someone was using it.

A part of me thought it was a great idea. I mean, it can get super cold on the back of a Vespa sometimes, and it does limit my mobility in the evening hours. But a part of me felt a string being attached to my soul.

"I'll call my insurance company today and see how much it will be to add you as a driver. This is so great!" she squealed. "Now, I don't have to leave on the 14th to go to San Francisco. I can stay here with you until the 17th!"

Fuck!!!!

Ghosts

I'm taking refuge in a local Starbucks as I type. As I suspected, things are getting a little too close for comfort. And, she has driven me to lying. I despise lying and I rarely ever even tell the whitest of lies, but she has been dominating my PC non-stop since she arrived, obsessively checking email and Facebook for signs of Raj 2, who frankly seems to be a replica of Raj 1. Both are imaginary boyfriends as far as I can tell.

So, back to the lying. I told her my PC crashed (knock on wood) and that I had to put it in the shop. That means it's living in my Vespa and I have to go to a coffee shop to use it. It's a nice break for me. Only 5 more days to go now. I feel a little bad about it, but my laptop is very personal to me. I didn't mind her checking her email, but when she's on it for hours without my supervision, it puts me a little uptight. What if she went into my internet history and found this blog??

It hasn't been all bad, of course. In fact, we've had quite a lot of fun. The evening after our shopping day we ended up drinking the night away. Well, actually, I drank the night away. Tyler had a couple of glasses of wine, and Rubi got a contact high.

The three of us were sitting on Rubi's mattress on my bedroom floor having a heated debate about, what else, why Rubi has been unable to lasso a man, when we heard what sounded like a herd of chatty elephants coming up the stairs. We all stopped talking and raised our eyebrows in WTF? There was a knock on my door.

I opened the door to see Tamiko, a past roommate, and her boyfriend standing there. I was drunk and shocked, feeling as if I had crossed into some strange altered reality, so I grabbed her and hugged her.

"Oh my God! What are you doing here?"

"It's a surprise!" she said with a big smile and Japanese accent.

Tamiko had moved back to Japan about a year ago. We've maintained contact via email since she left her cat, Ode, with me to babysit until her boyfriend makes an honest woman of her so she can move back to the States.

"I didn't know you were coming!" I screeched, my head still swimming in too much wine and confusion.

"Nobody knew," she said. "It's a surprise!"

Obviously.

She and her boyfriend visited with her cat for a while, and then they split as quickly as they'd arrived. Perhaps the three ring circus they'd stumbled into scared them away.

What are the chances of two past roommates, both living in faraway lands, to descend on the doorstep of the old house at the same time, without ever talking to each other? I was having a twilight moment for sure, with or without copious amounts of wine. It was as if the house was calling the ghosts of roommates past home. If Mariana had shown up at door I would have truly lost my mind.

More to come... Stay tuned.

She's baaaaack

The last few days have been a surreal blur. My adventure began on Wednesday evening when Rubi (a.k.a. Slum) showed up on my doorstep with her suitcase. She asked if she could stay with us for a "few days" while she was in town taking care of tax stuff. Apparently, to her, a few days is actually 2 weeks. If we had an extra bedroom it would be no big deal, but she's sleeping on my floor!

Determined to make the best of it, I invited her along on the previously arranged plans I had for the evening. My girlfriend, CeCe, was to arrive with a bottle of wine to add to the raw food meal I was preparing. Rubi arrived first.

I opened the door and we greeted each other with huge smiles and a big hug which still seems so odd in light of all that happened in the past. I was genuinely happy to see her, and she brought me a beautiful silk scarf from India.

When CeCe arrived she popped open the wine and we had a toast to Rubi's homecoming. Then CeCe helped me finish chopping the veggies for the raw veggie spring rolls to be served. Rubi and Tyler sat at the table dipping pita bread into homemade garlic hummus, chatting and catching up. I noticed Rubi watching me and CeCe.

"How do you guys know each other?" Rubi asked.

"We used to work together," said CeCe.

"Yes, we worked together at at law firm another life time ago..." I added.

"Has she ever threatened to break your fingers?" Rubi asked facetiously.

"No," said CeCe, "Did she threaten to break yours?" As if she didn't know the story of my PMS rage that drove me to threatening bodily harm on a roomie that was a daily thorn in my ass.

"Yes, she threatened me..." said Rubi.

"What did you do to her?" CeCe asked.

She paused and thought for a moment. "Her Dishes."

At that we all burst into laughter. It wasn't funny at the time, but it has brought a lot of laughter in retrospect. I believe it went something like this - "If you put your filthy paws on my dishes again I'm going to break your f***ing fingers!"

Once we sat down to eat the "guy talk" started. Rubi's entire life and existence revolves around chasing guys. After she talked incessantly through the entire meal about the new Raj, or "Raj 2," I was beginning to regret the whole visit. She claimed that she had gone to India to make a film, but in truth it was to chase "Raj 1." Now here she was going on, and on, and on, about a new Raj. Tiring. Really tiring.

However, I know that I will be asking the same favor of her later this year when I go to India, so I made the decision that I will make the best of it. Now is the time to accept what is and practice my patience. Practice. Practice. Practice!

Besides, so far, so good. She got out of bed a the crack of dawn, still feeling the jet lag. I got up not much later because it's tough for me to go back to sleep after I've been awakened by an Indian woman shuffling around my room in the dark. I had the brilliant idea to make pancakes. Yum! Pancakes! It was truly selfish motives that got me out of bed. To my surprise she'd left the house. I made pancakes anyway. Blueberry. So good.

A few hours later she returned. She'd gone to the gym for a swim and showered there. This, I thought, was a good thing.

We had the whole day ahead of us.

"What should we do?" I asked.

We discussed seeing a movie but then agreed that it might be better to wait for a rainy day over the weekend.

"Let's just get in the car and go," I finally said.

She was waiting for me at the front door. As I started to descend the stairs I heard her say "Slumdog..." My heart sank. Had I left my PC open to the blog? Quickly I realized that she'd opened my Netflix mail. I had just ordered Slumdog Millionaire, which I have not seen yet.

We ended up at Vroman's bookstore in Pasadena. I can spend hours in that store, but she ended up in the attached coffee shop writing in her journal. I reunited with her after about an hour of perusing the store and finding a few bargain buys.

One of the items was a writing kit. A game to help spur creativity. It certainly spurred it in her.

"Dude! We should start writing a screenplay together while I'm here! Yes! Let's sit down and brainstorm. We'll come up with 50 ideas, then pare it down to just two."

"Sure. Yea. That would be fun." Although, admittedly, I'm not as excited about screen writing as she is.

We left the book store and had Indian food for lunch at Akbar in Old Towne Pasadena, and then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in all the stores on Colorado. The most fun part was trying out cook's knives at Sur la table. I think the idea of me wielding a sharp knife put her on edge a little bit.

She bought a pair of Dolce & Gabana sunglasses, and I bought two cheap t-shirts and sunglasses at H&M. It was a fun and girlie afternoon. Little did we know we had a pretty exciting evening ahead.

To be continued...

Horror in the kitchen

Horrified is the only word that can sum it up. I really didn't want to go into the kitchen because I could hear all the commotion. But... my desire for chocolate soymilk won the battle.

As I walked into the kitchen I saw Francis in her gym clothes making herself some dinner, and Grant sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of Seagram's and Seven Up, watching American Idol.

Grant is a 37 year old male.

"Drinking on a Tuesday night?" I inquired.

"Well [some female pop-star] is on tonight, and if I don't have a drink I think I'll explode! I don't normally watch American Idol, but I looooove her!."

"Who?" I needed a repeat, but I still can't remember.

"You don't know who she is??" He said, aghast, and then started to belt out one of her songs - which, by the way, sounds like some teeny bopper pop crap, like Britney Spears or something.

"Um... no." I said.

"Get out! You don't know that song?? Get out!"

Oh, I so wanted to get out.

"I'm not into pop music." Lameass.

"C'mon!"

"Dude - I don't have a radio. I'm not a part of pop culture." Because I have much better taste than that, Mr. Pabst Blue Ribbon drinkin, t.v. dinner eatin, baseball hat wearin, mini truck drivin, baboon.

To which he replied, "C'mon! You're a... SUBCULTURE!"

I grabbed my soymilk and got the F out of there before he started singing again. It was bad enough that every time she came onto the screen he had to screech "Oh, I love you!" like a pubescent 13 year old.

Damn chocolate soymilk...

Square Peg

Things are pretty quiet and calm in the house. No cat fights, no slamming doors, or threats to break fingers (ah, the good ole days...). Grant, however, seems to stick out here like a sore thumb. It really makes me wonder why he answered an ad seeking a female roommate to share a house with yoga minded, vegetarian leaning, cat lovers.

After the Christmas party, which was smashing, the two of us stayed up until 5:00 a.m. debating the existence of God. I was on God's side. Turns out, he doesn't believe in God. And his thoughts on yoga? "I just think of yoga as an hour of trying not to fart." Ugh!

Don't get me wrong - I don't think he's a terrible person. And the fact that he doesn't believe in God - Not my problem. He's the one going to hell after all... But when he's hacking and coughing at midnight because he's allergic to cats, it makes me wonder about his decision to not only move into a house full of them, but adopt one of his own. At moments like that, I think he's an idiot.

Last week he decided to go on a diet. He's a little on the hefty side, and it is the new year, so he went out and bought massive amounts of carrots, yogurt, pre-cut apples in a bag, and Healthy Choice frozen dinners. All of this food prompted chaos in the refrigerator.

Tyler was the first to complain to me that she had nowhere to put any food if she decided to go shopping. Being den mother, I sent out an email to everyone saying we need to section off the fridge, so we all have our own little fourth of it.

Grant thought it was all about him. Of course, his overstuffing the fridge did spur me to do something that was long overdue - but it was not about him.

Tyler, perpetually afraid that someone is going to get more than she does, was making it a federal case of it, and wanted to deliberate on who should get what shelf for a few days. Finally, I'd had enough.

"Look, this is my drawer, and this is my little shelf," I said pointing at them, "You all can work it out amongst ya-selves," I said in a very New York accent in an attempt to smooth the edge of my tone a little bit.

"Oh whatever!" She huffed and walked away.

Francis and I just looked at each other. We were the ones actually trying to clean out the old jars and condiments left by past roommates, and all Tyler had to do was sit back and complain.

Then her knight in dull chrome armor came into the kitchen. He probably heard all the fuss from his room.

"Oh, hey, yea, you should get in on this..." Tyler said to him bitterly as she left the room.

For Christ's sake! It's just a bloody refrigerator! I could not understand why Tyler was getting so huffy.

Grant walked in and said to Francis, "You know what. Why don't you just leave my food where it is and I'll take it all to work tomorrow."

What an upstanding guy, huh? Clearly, this whole thing was all about him, and with one command it would all be fixed. Francis starred at him blankly.

"Um, Grant, this is more about a long term solution," I said flatly.

Since then, we all have our own little sections and I think everyone is much happier, but wading through the ego to get there was rough.

The fact still remains that Grant is the square peg here in the house, but if I've learned anything since I started this blog, it's that nothing ever stays the same.

Big Christmas Soiree

Tyler insisted on getting a Christmas tree, so as much as I’ve tried to resist this holiday it looks like we are having a big Christmas bash here on Saturday. I went out and bought some things today and then left a note for the others with suggestions on what they could contribute. Grant seemed to be the most enthusiastic about the whole thing even though he doesn’t have any confirmed guests.

“How much beer should I get? I can get a bottle of whiskey and mixers too,” he said cheerfully from his favorite chair in the breakfast nook.

I was carefully folding my laundry as I took it out of the dryer.

“Um, I don’t know… maybe a just a twelve pack and a bottle of whiskey? Other people are going to be bringing stuff so there’s no need to go overboard.”

“Ok. Well, that’s the other thing… All of my friends are bartenders and they work on Saturday nights, so I really don’t have anyone coming,” he said.

“Oh, well don’t worry about buying a lot of stuff if your friends aren’t even coming.”

“Oh, no I didn’t mean that… well, I was thinking of inviting these guys that I hang out with sometimes, but they are like … DRINKERS,” he said with wide eyed expression.

“We will certainly have a few of those here…”

“Yea, but we like, play beer pong and stuff,” he said.

I have no idea what beer pong is, but it sounds like something you do in a frat house.

“Are they going to break stuff?” I asked facetiously.

“Oh no! And they won’t start a fight or anything!”

Famous last words. This party should be a very interesting mix of folks.

Cat Fight

Grant lives on T.V. dinners. And his room looks like a bomb went off in it. A musty stink bomb from the smell of it. The floor is littered with dirty clothes and empty pizza boxes (I guess he does eat more than T.V. dinners after all). I only know this because I went into his room to check on his cat that had been jumped by my cat on Sunday afternoon.

I was just waking up from a nap in front of the T.V. in the living room when I heard the commotion. Hissing, spitting, yowling, and then CRASH, BANG, BOOM… they were tumbling over the floor, the littlest one just trying to make her escape, but my girl wouldn’t have it. I had to take a nose dive under the piano to break up the fight with my bare hands. I came out of it without a scratch on me, just bruised knees from hitting the floor.

Grant, who’d been watching football in the other room hobbled in on a gimpy foot.

“Is everything okay?”

“No. You should check your cat to see if she’s hurt,” I said out of breath with a pounding heart.

It seems the youngster had no problems at all, but my old cat required a trip to the vet to be pumped with pain meds and antibiotics. I guess she’s not the hell raiser she used to be.

In the meantime, Tyler and I had our own passive aggressive cat fight going on. We’d both signed up for this “yoga” workshop that turned out to be more of a Hare Krishna recruiting session. It was meant to be a weekend long “bootcamp for the soul,” but after a full Saturday of horse shit and incessant chanting of “hare hare hare,” (har-ray)I decided to duck out on Sunday. Tyler made it passive aggressively clear that she was unhappy with me.

“I think I’m going to pass on bootcamp today,” I sent via text in the morning.

She never bothered to respond and when I crossed her path in the evening I only got a surly “hey” out of her. So I just ignored her for a day and now we are speaking again. We were instructed by our guru to chant “hare hare hare” for eleven minutes straight everyday with arms stretched overhead. I’ve been listening to see if she’s going to do it, but I haven’t heard a peep.

When he gave us the instructions I looked at her and said “Our roommates are going to think we are soooo weird!”

“If they don’t already,” she said.

Hmph.

So Long Mr. T.

Yesterday was a very somber day in the house. I drove Tyler to the vet first the in the morning because her cat, Mr. T, had totally lost control of his back end the previous evening. While it seemed there was still hope because his head was fine, she made the decision to put him down. He was 19 years old.

It’s hard to know what to say in a situation like that, so the ride home was pretty quiet. It was still raining pretty hard. Once we got home we just hunkered down in front of the T.V. in the living room.

We will miss his precious little face and his demands for better food. So long Mr. T….

Novel Plans With Slum

This morning I was IMing with my BFF, Slum, and she said that she was starting a writing project – a novel instead of script. The idea is to commit to writing for two hours everyday. I gave her the thumbs up when she extended an invitation.

“Why don’t we both do it?”

“Like a co-writing project or each write our own novel?” I asked.

I was hoping for the latter because I don’t know what to write about “crazy sex crazed Indian guys that work in IT…”

“We’ll each write our own.”

“That’s a great idea! Sure! Let’s do it!”

I’ve never really had much interest in writing fiction, but what the hell? Why not give it a stab? I have tons of nutty ideas all the time, so I’m going to pick one and stick with it. We’ve given ourselves a 6 month deadline. Seems fair enough.

I immediately left the house and hit the hiking trail to ponder my subject. I have found that being alone in nature, on foot or horseback, is the best way for me to find inspiration. I think I was presented with a story idea that Oprah will love! And everyone knows Oprah can make or break a new author...

What a great idea from Slum, but I’m starting to feel a little guilty about referring to Slum as “Slum." I mean, we're pals now. She's no longer the bane of my existence. It's funny how much I love her now that she's on another continent. I will add her to my long list of successful long-distance relationships. Seems to work better for me... but I digress... So, I’ve thought of switching back to “Rubi,” but I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Thoughts? I know there are at least two religious readers out there. Throw me a bone?

P.S. The no coffee rule on my detox lasted about two hours. So sad... But otherwise I've only eaten blueberries, salmon, and greens with olive oil & lemon juice for two days. My skin looks great!

DETOX

The last round of PMS and housemate drama has left me feeling a little depleted. Yesterday I had an overwhelming desire for salad greens. Luckily I had some dark leaf baby greens in the fridge I had picked up a few days a go. I put them in a bowl with a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a touch a sea salt. It was the best thing ever! This got me wondering what my body might be missing, so I started googling “craving salad greens.” (What better way to spend a Sunday?) Before I knew it I was reading about the Dr. Perricone Diet that was big a few years back. For me, I just want to do the 3 day detox.

Instead of coffee I have green tea. This is the biggest sacrifice for me. I LOVE coffee! For breakfast – whole oats with blueberries, and then for lunch and dinner – salad greens with olive oil and lemon juice, and salmon. It’s the salmon with its omega-3’s that is supposed to work its magic on my skin, and as Dr. Perricone says, the skin is the biggest organ in the body and a reflection of what’s going with the rest of the organs.

Yes, I realize I’m straying from the subject matter of this blog, so here’s a little bit of weirdness for you: On Friday night, the night I’d had too much to drink, I went downstairs for a little midnight snack before bed. I could hear Grant knocking around in his room and I hoped to get back to mine before he came out. No such luck. I heard him in the hallway.

“Who’s in there?” He yelled from the hallway into the kitchen.

“Um, me… I’m about to leave. Should I leave the light on for you?” I said.

“Yea, um, wait… I’m putting on my shirt.”

I stood there for a moment in confusion until he came into the room.

“Hey, I just shaved my head. Can you check the back of my head for any missed spots?” He said as if it was the most normal request in the world.

“Ok… Um… Yea, it all looks good to me.”

I was sans contacts or glasses so the fact that it “looked good to me” meant very little, but he seemed to be happy.

“Great! Thanks!”

He bumbled back to his room.

Odd, indeed.

Missing My Slum

Never in a million years would I have guessed that Slum’s voice over a crackly connection from India would be music to my ears. We’ve been communicating via instant message since she left well over a month ago. Tonight she found me a bit tipsy (ok… drunk) IMing about “boy” problems. It’s her favorite thing to do – give counsel on relationships, so she picked up the phone and called me.

We were on the phone for at least an hour discussing the politics of love, and all the game playing that seems to be involved. She had me laughing my ass off. It’s hard to believe I threatened to break her fingers just a few months ago. She wants to me to come visit her in India. It’s been at the top of my list of places to travel for a while now.

“I have a two bedroom, two bath apartment here! What are you waiting for? Buy your ticket!!”

“Are there ashrams nearby where I can meditate and purge my demons?”

“It’s India! Your demons will instantly disappear!”

I want to go so bad… cheaptickets.com?

As a side note, I ran into Grant on a beer run to the fridge. He was sitting at the dining room table working on his screenplay. We had a nice conversation which involved bashing on the Scientologists. Maybe he's not all bad...

Good in the Hood

Tyler and I have kissed and made up. We had a really nice thanksgiving with friends. We didn't talk about any house issues, but just let it go. Although there was a football game on t.v. and she made a comment about the referee's outfit.

"Where do they get these outfits??"

"I don't know, but I think we need one of those guys in our house!" I joked.

"Ha! No doubt!"

We have plans to go get a Christmas tree and possibly have a little holiday soiree in the house.

I haven't seen Grant. I've been gone for a couple of days, but it seems that he is hanging out in his room more. Hooray!

My PMS pills have arrived and I've started the dose of two capsules per day. I can't wait to see the results.

The Apology

Hey,

I thought I'd run into you by now. I'm sorry I lost it on Monday. I know you were just talking to me like a friend, wanting support and I AM sorry that Grant is bugging you and you're uncomfortable with his presence.

Tyler

Vacationing in the 90210

A house sitting gig in Beverly Hills is just what I needed to get away from the house drama. I feel like I'm on vacation. I arrived yesterday afternoon and numbed my brain with four back to back episodes of the Oxygen reality show, Bad Girls' Club. It makes the conflict in my house look like child's play. Later I enjoyed a hot bubble bath with a cup of tea, which sent me into a blissful slumber in a nice, quiet bedroom.

I really feel so relaxed, like I'm on vacation. Unfortunately, I have to return to the house daily to check on and feed my cat. I don't really feel comfortable asking Tyler to do it, and now that I think about it, she always seemed less than thrilled to do it in the past.

Last week I invited her to attend Thanksgiving dinner with me at some friends' house, but now it seems a little awkward. I really feel like she has betrayed me by participating in Grant's bitch fest, yet making me feel like I'm insane for wanting peace and quiet at night when I'm trying to sleep. I'm not sure how that will pan out. I'm not going to dis-invite her. Hopefully she'll just bow out. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the sweetness of my current digs and forget about it.

Tyler’s On The Shit List Now

Considering Tyler didn’t seem to have a problem listening to Grant’s hissy fit the other day when apparently both of them were unaware of my presence, I thought I would consult her this afternoon about the most recent ruckus in the night. She was sitting in the dining nook having some food as I was making some tea. After she was finished complaining about a bad shoe shopping experience I made my move.

“Grant is driving me crazy. Did you hear the loud crash last night around midnight? It woke up me AND Francine and I was in a dead sleep.”

“No,” she said, “and I don’t want to be in middle of it.”

“Well, after he had his hissy fit the other night I’m reluctant to approach him again.”

This is somewhat true – I thought since they seem to be so chummy she could mention it to him and he might take it better from her without having a complete fucking meltdown.

“Hissy fit?” She said with a dear in the headlights look on her face.

“Yea, you know, the other night when he was bitching to you?”

“Oh, you heard that…?”

“Um yea, I guess he didn’t think I was in the house.”

And by her reaction she didn’t either because then she started babbling some stuff about it not being okay to leave notes like that but she told him that it was between him and me. Clearly more was said than that because it went on for quite sometime, and now she was feeling sheepish. Of course her voice doesn’t carry like his, but judging by her reaction she had said some things she hadn’t intended for me to hear.

“Now I have to go out and buy and fucking white noise machine and put felt pads under all the fucking chairs so I can get some sleep. I haven’t had one good fucking night’s sleep without sedating myself into a stupor since he moved in!”

I continued my rant “He lies!! When I interviewed him I asked him specifically what his habits were because there have been problems with past roommates making a lot of noise late at night and he told me ‘oh, yea, I stay up late but I’m just in my bed writing on my laptop.’ And that shit about him not being able to get the internet in his room? Bullshit!!”

“Yea, that’s a little weird,” she agreed. “But, this has been a problem for you in the past and you know you’re sensitive to noise, so it’s obviously you, and you have to take responsibility for it.”

My mouth gaped open.

“Oh, okay, so I should be okay with this,” I slammed the kitchen door, “at midnight?? And what the fuck is going on in the dining room? The chairs are all over the place and there’s a drill on the table. What is this, a fucking garage?”

I was indignant.

“Nobody even uses that room, so what does it matter?” she argued.

“It matters because it’s fucking inconsiderate! If you move something, put it back the way you found it!”

This was the first time she and I had ever had “words,” so I had no idea what the hell was going on. We go to kirtan and yoga together – we’re pals, or so I thought.

“It is unreasonable for four people to live in a house and expect that a chair can’t be left askew!”

Now she was just being a bitch. There is a big difference in a chair being askew and having all of them scattered all over the room as if it is his personal romper room.

“Okay, Tyler. I’m just going to leave it, ok?”

I picked up my tea and started for the stairs to my room. She slammed her spoon into her plate and let out an exasperated sigh.

Bitch.

New Year - New Plan

It’s never too early to start thinking about New Years Resolutions. The New Year will be upon us in a few short weeks. I’ve already decided to put “be more patient” on my list. Wait – before you laugh yourself off your chair – I have a plan. I just put in an order for this stuff called Femal by Flora that is a non-hormonal, homeopathic treatment for PMS and menopause. I sent some of this stuff to my big sister a few months ago. You see, horrific PMS runs in the family, so she was sort of my guinea pig. Lo and behold it seems to be working for her. Surely it will work for me too!

I do understand that this might take a little bit of the fun out of your reading. I mean, if you read regularly it’s as if we are sitting side by side on the hormonal roller coaster. The good news is it takes about two months for the stuff to get into the system and start doing its thing. It will probably be another week until I get the package, and then a good 6 to 8 weeks from there to see any real results. That means you’ve got about 9 weeks of mood swinging fun ahead of you. And let’s face it, it doesn’t come with a magic wand. My sharp tongue and acerbic wit are likely here to stay. The goal is to practice patience, not roll over and play dead.

Drama Queen

Friday night my beauty sleep was, once again, disturbed by Grant dragging furniture across the floor under my room. When I got up yesterday morning I skulked down to the kitchen, tired and cranky and saw the furniture in the breakfast nook in disarray and the table actually splitting down the middle – no doubt from rough handling. I was pissed. Like, what the fuck is he doing?? So – armed with a marker I started scrawling on the sounding board:

Can we please handle the furniture a little more gingerly? Chairs sliding across wood floors make a lot of noise. And what’s up with the table coming apart - ?

Then I left for my busy morning, which I was late for thanks to asshole sleep robber.

When I returned home I went straight to my room. The house was quiet. I put on some music and went about my business until I heard loud voices downstairs. It was Tyler and Grant. Well, mostly Grant ranting about ME! Of course I turned off the music to listen.

“It’s just everyday there’s something new. I don’t need it!” He whined.

Well, my advice is to get the fuck out then… And the everyday something new? 2 days in a row is more accurate. Day one he left the lights on downstairs overnight (again) and Day two he got a long overdue reprimand for making so much fucking noise late a night.

I listened to him rant like a girl, playing the victim, for what seemed like forever. I could only assume that he was unaware of my presence in the house. When he was done, I pumped up the music so there was no mistaking my presence in the house, got in the shower to prepare for battle. A girl needs to look good when she’s about to kick some boy ass. Besides, I was going out for the evening anyway.

Cool as a cucumber I sauntered down the stairs to find him sitting at the dining table at the bottom of the stairs. I had no intention of going for the jugular unless provoked.

“Hey, what’s up?” He said.

“Nothin, how are you?” I said as I walked over to the table and leaned forward, resting my forearms on the back of one of the chairs.

He started talking but he wouldn’t make eye contact, just kept looking at his computer screen.

“So, I don’t understand what’s going on with the notes on the board, and it’s like, I’m so sick of having some new complaint everyday…”

“Well, you know, the reminder to turn off the lights could have been for anyone. It was not directed at you,” I said coolly.

“Oh. Ok. I guess that’s a good point,” he said, still not looking at me.

“And the problem is this…” I dragged a chair across the floor to demonstrate and then pointed at the ceiling, “My bed is right there.”

“Ok, well, I’ve calmed down now, but I just feel like it’s something new everyday.”

Ok, so I see you’re attached to this and not letting go… and I guess I should be grateful that you’ve calmed down? YOU better be grateful that I’VE calmed down…

He continued, “But I’ll try to be quieter.”

“Great. I appreciate it.”

What a turd (or a tard). I can’t believe he whined to Tyler for nearly half and hour, like a DRAMA QUEEN! If he’d just stop dragging the damn furniture across the floor at midnight and filling the fridge with Pabst Blue Ribbon, maybe we could all be Rodney King-like.