I remember when I first signed the lease for this apartment — the two remaining months in my studio apartment seemed an unbearable amount of time to have to wait, and yet, four years ago today I moved into this place. It’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I moved out of parents’ house, and it’s (duh) the longest my cats have ever lived anywhere. Tippy’s sleeping on my bed, Guy forced open the closet door and is snoozing on a hamper full of dirty clothes. I was idly wondering if they remember any of the other apartments we’ve lived in.
I remember once, many years ago, living at The Colony in Towson, when they were both at the screen door in the living room, looking out at the porch and the open sky and the walkway where fellow residents were passing past …
… when one of their dogs, a big nasty thing, broke free from its owner’s grip (nice job, ass) and threw himself against the screen door. Both cats broke quickly and darted onto the couch, then stood their ground as the dog’s owner grabbed his animal and wrestled him off my porch shouting “Sorry! Sorry!” as my felines hissed and hissed.
Good kitties.
Four years ago, it had been raining nearly non-stop for almost a month and a half. The day I moved, I woke up bright early in the morning and drove over to Gary’s house at 7am. I gave him the keys to my Jeep and he gave me the keys to his Ford pickup truck. I told him I’d have it back to him in the afternoon, but it wasn’t until much later that night I was able to return it to him.
I wanted nothing more than to take a long shower and have a great night sleep in my new apartment that night, but I couldn’t: the shower was broken! I was too tired to even try to figure out why it was broken and, as it turns out, the problem was that the shower knob had come loose, which I figured out and repaired the next morning literally ten seconds before the maintenace man knocked on my door to fix it. This is not the same problem I had a few months ago, where the shower knob literally broke.
The worst part was I had to go out that night to stock my fridge (well, I guess I didn’t, but I had a hankering for milk and ice cream, bite me). I must’ve smelled terrible. No wonder people were giving me a wide berth in the supermarket …
Technically, I’d started moving in the previous night. I’d talked the ladies in the rental office to give me the keys the previous day so that I didn’t have to wait until their office opened to begin moving in. There was some confusion (seems the maintenance guys had taken a while giving the apartment a “clean bill of health”), but I did eventually get the keys, and moved over a chair, a coffee table, my TV, DVD player, and my copy of “Big Trouble in Little China”, which I watched while eating an order of General Tso’s chicken (which, as the same way I spent the night I moved into my studio apartment, is my new “New Living Place” tradition).
My parents came up the next morning to give me a chest my paternal grandfather had made, and the dinning room table and chairs that had been my maternal grandmother’s wedding gift.
Now, if I could just keep my cats from sharpening their claws on that table …
Since I’ve renewed my lease, I’ll be here for at least one more year. Probably two. It’ll be interesting to see where I am then.
“Today, I told my attorneys not to appeal the judge’s decision,” Hilton said in a statement posted on TMZ.com. “While I greatly appreciate the sheriff’s concern for my health and welfare, after meeting with doctors I intend to serve my time as ordered by the judge.”
“This is by far the hardest thing I have ever done,” she said in her Saturday statement. “During the past several days, I have had a lot of time to reflect, and have already learned a bitter, but important lesson from this experience.”
Seriously, Paris, you’ve got enough cash to hire taxis. Fuck, get a chauffeur!
But this is what I really agree with her on:
“I must also say that I was shocked to see all of the attention devoted to the amount of time I would spend in jail for what I had done by the media, public and city officials,” Hilton said in the Saturday statement.
“I would hope going forward that the public and the media will focus on more important things, like the men and women serving our country in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world.”
Self serving or not, she’s making a valid point. There are a lot of far more important things going on in the world then Paris Hilton. I mean, for Christ’s sake, tonight is the series finale of The Sopranos! Priorities, people.
*I realize that it’s very ironic, then, I’m even writing this post.
I haven’t been following the show this season — don’t have HBO — but I’ve been completely unable to avoid spoilers to the point where part of the Monday morning ritual at work is getting a complete point-by-point episode break down from Greg. “Oh, right, and Bobby’s in there talking about the train with this guy, ‘Oh, uh, five thousand dollars? I’ll take it - it’s not always you find a working caboose with all the lights!’ and it’s one of those scenes that just keeps going on and on and on forever, like this monologue of mine, except this time…”
I figure, by the time I see them, I’ll have forgotten most of what he told me.
Tonight is the final episode (number eighty-six) of The Sopranos. Gary, my other boss, is most excited about the lack of those really long breaks between seasons. A few months ago, he remarked to Zap, “How long until it picks up again? I bet my kid’ll be in high school!” He’s ten. When Zap told him “Nope”, that this was it, Gary got excited and once again promptly refutted his previous position: “I’m done watching this shit!”
It’s almost too bad the Indy closes at 9pm Sundays. I bet 9-10pm’ll be a busy hour for pizza delivery, what with everyone wanting a large pizza to calm their nerves as they watch the final moments of Tony Soprano’s life.
Now, I don’t actually know that Tony Soprano will die by the end of the episode. I haven’t been actively seeking out spoilers for future episodes, only for aired episodes I haven’t seen. However, to me, it makes sense that Tony Soprano won’t survive the series. In fact, I think it’d be a damn shame if Tony Soprano survives.
The Sopranos is more than just a television show about a mobster who sees a shrink and tries to balance his life between the demands of his family and his Family. It’s a Tragedy - and the definition of a Tragedy is that a person’s actions bring about his own downfall. Tony made the choice to become involved in organized crime, and he’s certainly never tried to leave that lifestyle, despite even the risks it poses to his wife and children. He’s embraced the criminal lifestyle, and the inherent violence, and it’s a way of life that he’s proud of. What I’m hoping to see in “Made in America” is the death of Tony Soprano.
I know how I’d like to see it happen: after his wife and kids are killed by the forces of the New York Reatardo Family, Tony puts a gun to his head, mumbles something Italian, then pulls the trigger.
Meanwhile, if that motherfucker Paulie Walnuts is still walkin’ and talkin’ by the time the credits roll, I’m going to really be upset. Die Paulie, DIE!
Oh, and this YouTube Video (”Every Single Sopranos Whacking”) is AMAZING. I mean, shit, this is the stuff we watch for. (And, it’s actually not “Every Single Whacking”, only through Season Six part one).
