Beyond The Blog

Things I will not do, in no particular order (a list that can be revised at any time, though such revisions are likely to be additions, unless there’s a very good reason for removing an item):

1. Refer to Prairie as “my woman”. I do not own her.

2. Use “bitch” as a generic term for women. I reserve the right to occasionally describe someone as “a bitch” or “bitchy” when appropriate, but women in general are not “bitches” (or sluts, hos, or any other demeaning term).

3. Share any cute, funny, poignant, political, or any other kind of image on Facebook that uses improper grammar. Not that I share many images, but if they’re made without proper use of the English language, they’re not getting shared (with occasional, very rare exceptions for obviously intended humorous butchering of the language by people who know what they’re doing and why it’s funny).

4. Share any image that denigrates one body type in favor of another. I find skinny women attractive, I find curvy women attractive…basically, I find women attractive. No one body type is better than any other. As long as someone has a body, I’m good with that.

I’m sure this list will grow over time. These just popped into my head this morning based on things I’ve seen posted recently.

Dear [redacted],

I am writing to you on behalf of Prairie Brown, as she does not currently have internet access. Thank you very much for your assistance with the problems Prairie had with the unit yesterday and throughout today. Unfortunately, due to those issues and others that she has discovered, we are giving formal notice that she will be contacting you tomorrow morning (Wednesday, Jan. 5th) to make arrangements for leaving the property.

The following is a list of issues we have discovered with the property over the past 36 hours. Some we might have noticed during the initial walkthrough if we had had more time, but many, including the most serious issues, would not have been noticed until we had taken possession of the unit.

• Apartment-wide:
  • Frozen pipes (only partially thawed after 4 and a half hours of intensive work by Roto Rooter, requiring a team of three technicians and two specialized thawing units). Because the pipes were only partially thawed, water pressure is extremely low. In addition, Roto Rooter recommended leaving the apartment heat on high so that the pipes do not refreeze, making the apartment unbearably hot.
  • When water started flowing from the pipes, metal shavings were ejected along with the initial flow of water. Due to the metal shavings, the age and type of pipes, and the water quality, the Roto Rooter representative recommended that the tap water not be used for drinking or even for cooking.
  • The fuses seem unable to handle electrical loads. Four fuses blew over four hours, exhausting the supply you provided and requiring Prairie to buy the entire stock of appropriate fuses from Fred Myer to ensure she would not lose power.
  • Dust and cobwebs throughout the apartment show that it has not been cleaned in quite some time. Cobwebs even exist within the vents of the gas furnace, potentially a serious fire hazard.
  • There is no fire extinguisher provided (though this may not be an issue, as we admit we’re not positive on the requirements in this instance).
• Exterior:
  • The odd extension cord that terminates inside the main room of the apartment appears to lead to some exposed wiring near the floodlights for the parking spaces, which may present a fire hazard.
  • Though a mailbox key was provided, Prairie was not told which mailbox it belongs to.
• Living room/kitchen:
  • Once the pipes thawed, it became apparent that the pipe leading to the sprayer nozzle on the kitchen sink has a steady leak.
  • The kitchen stove top was dirty.
  • The electrical socket underneath the kitchen counter is not physically attached to the wall, and requires cautious steadying when attempting to plug or unplug anything.
  • There are no brackets for the shelves in the living room closet, so the shelves (currently laid against the wall) cannot be used.
  • The refrigerator is powered by a jury-rigged system consisting of an extension cord (plugged into the loose electrical socket) with a triple-socket adapter that the refrigerator plugs into.
• Bedroom/bathroom:
  • The bathroom window does not open.
  • The water heater is ancient, filthy, and has areas that are apparently plugged with paper towels.
  • The shower head literally fell off of the pipe when we first touched it. When we attempted to replace the pipe (to attach an extension pipe along with a new shower head), the threads of the pipe broke off inside the pipe within the wall, requiring a call to a plumber before the shower was useable.
  • The bathroom door does not close properly due to a loose upper hinge.
  • The doorknob to the bedroom closet is loose.

Due to these issues, quite a few of which seem to question the safety of the unit, Prairie was uncomfortable staying there a second night and has left to stay with a friend from work. Because she will not be present overnight, she was uncomfortable leaving the furnace set at its maximum, and left it set to 65°. She has also left the water slightly running to keep water moving through the pipes. We sincerely hope that this will prevent the pipes from refreezing overnight. She will be contacting you at her earliest convenience tomorrow to make arrangements for leaving the property and getting her rent and security deposit refunded. Thank you very much for your kind understanding in this situation.

Sincerely,

Michael Hanscom and Prairie Brown

So, as those of you who read my last note know, Prairie and I are in the midst of a major upheaval, part of which includes getting Prairie moved to Ellensburg on a moment’s notice. This has rapidly descended into a particularly hellish experience.

Last week, when all this started, we started looking for one bedroom Eburg apartments for Prairie, searching real estate websites and Craigslist from our place in Kent. Since we were calling around on Christmas Eve day, we weren’t terribly surprised when we couldn’t get ahold of many offices, but we were able to get ahold of one of the most promising looking places: a 1-bedroom unit, half of a duplex, that was listed on Craigslist. The landlord sounded decent on the phone, and was willing to do a short-term four-month lease, so we set up an appointment to look at the place while we were in Ellensburg so that Prairie could have a few meetings about the transition to her new job.

We got there, and while it’s an old building and the place looked kind of funky (in a fun, quirky kind of way), it was actually quite a bit bigger than we expected, and we agreed that it would fit our needs perfectly. We signed the lease, got a key, put the utilities in Prairie’s name, and (after the work meetings) came back home to pack for the move.

Yesterday morning, with the help of Prairie’s dad, we schlepped all the stuff she’d packed out to the new place…and it wasn’t long before things started to look a little pear-shaped. There’s an extension cord sticking out of one wall that can be plugged into one of the few interior outlets, and leads outside, apparently to the floodlights for the parking spots, but it doesn’t seem to actually do anything. We’re not entirely sure why that is, but Prairie’s dad looked at it and said that it looks like there’s some disconnected and possibly exposed wiring. The electrical socket in the kitchen underneath the counter is kind of falling out of the wall, and because there’s no other socket close to the refrigerator, there’s an extension cord (just barely long enough to reach) with a plug doubler on the end running from that socket to the fridge (I added a power strip to the mix so that the cord wasn’t quite so stretched, and so that we could plug in the toaster and microwave). There are cobwebs in a number of places around the apartment, indicating that it hasn’t had a good cleaning anytime recently. When we touched the shower head in the bathroom, it literally fell off of the pipe. Initially, this wasn’t a big deal, as we were planning on putting a newer shower head on anyway, but when we tried to remove the old pipe, the threads broke inside the socket, rendering the shower unusable. However, even the unusable shower paled in comparison to the realization that the pipes were frozen, and there was no running water.

So, by noon yesterday, we’d had electrical weirdnesses, cleaning grumbles, broken plumbing, and frozen pipes. We called the landlord, and I (reluctantly) left Prairie to wait for calls from the plumber and Roto Rooter (since the plumber doesn’t have the equipment to deal with frozen pipes) to let her know when they would be arriving, and Prairie’s dad brought me back home to Kent. That evening, Prairie let me know that the plumber made it out that afternoon to fix the shower, but all she’d gotten from Roto Rooter was a statement that they’d “probably” be out to her place between 8 and 10 this morning, though they wouldn’t actually make a definitive statement.

By 9:30 a.m. this morning, Prairie’d heard nothing from anyone, and was justifiably pissed. After filling me in, she made another round of calls to Roto Rooter and the landlord, and Roto Rooter finally showed up just before noon (perhaps coincidentally, but perhaps not, just before the 24-hour window where landlords are legally required to respond in instances where apartments lose water or heat). As the Roto Rooter guy started to try and work, he wasn’t sure where the pipes came into the building, so Prairie called the landlord…who didn’t know. The Roto Rooter guy went over to ask the neighbors in the other half of the duplex, who weren’t sure about where the pipes were, but did say that frozen pipes is apparently a pretty regular occurrence for the building. Great.

So, as the Roto Rooter guy got to work, Prairie went off to the store to find space heaters, as one of the things tenants can do to avoid problems it to keep space heaters near the interior pipes during cold weather. She gets back home with the heaters, plugs them in…and not much later, a fuse blows and the entire place loses power. And, of course, these aren’t circuit breakers, but old screw-in style fuses. So, another call to the landlord…and that’s when I put out the question about whether there is such a thing as the rental equivalent of a “lemon law” or “buyer’s remorse” clause. At this point, it was looking like if things didn’t improve fast, we’d be better off just getting out while the getting was good, and finding Prairie a different place.

However, things do seem like they’re improving…or at least on the way to improvement. Roto Rooter hasn’t succeeded in getting water flowing yet, though they are certainly trying: as of the last update from Prairie, they’ve gone from one guy to two vans, three guys, and a “big scary machine” working on the pipes. More importantly, though, when the landlord came by with more fuses, Prairie was able to get him to agree that after all the problems, if the water doesn’t get going soon (by tonight or tomorrow morning) then he will be willing to let Prairie out of the lease so that she can find another place. We’re still hoping that it won’t come to that — there are enough good aspects to the place (location, price, size, the short-term lease, etc.) that we’d rather keep it if it’s livable, and the process of finding another place (quickly) and moving (quickly) again isn’t terribly appealing — but at least we’ve been assured that we won’t be locked into a lease on an apartment that isn’t actually livable.

Once again: Wish us luck! We need it!

You weren’t expecting that, were you?

This is the short version of a longer story that will go up as soon as I can post it. For the moment, though, we’re restricting the news to Facebook friends and contacts, rather than an all-out, full-public post.

So, here’s the short version.

Prairie’s boss at the Central Washington University Writing Center just accepted a new position at another school, leaving the directorship of the CWU Writing Center open…and last week, Prairie was offered the spot! It’s a huge boost for her career, so she took it, but it means some big changes for us.

First off, Prairie’s new position requires that she be in Ellensburg, and it starts with the winter quarter, beginning January 3rd. This means that over these two weeks, in addition to dealing with Christmas, New Years, and her sister’s New Years Eve wedding, we’ve suddenly had to cram in suddenly moving Prairie to Ellensburg, complete with finding an apartment for her. We’ve managed to get it all done, but it’s been a pretty crazy process.

I won’t be moving to Ellensburg immediately, as I still have my last quarter of school to go, and we won’t close out the lease on our current apartment until the end of April. So, for the next three months, Prairie will be living in a little one bedroom in Ellensburg and I’ll be living at our place in Kent; after March, once I’m done with school, we’ll take April to get all of our stuff either moved or put in storage, and I’ll join Prairie in the one bedroom in Ellensburg.

Her position is technically an interim position for the first six months, through the winter and spring quarters, as CWU is required to do a formal search. We’re optimistic that she’ll end up taking on the full position at the end of the search process, though, at which point we’ll find a house and get ourselves permanently set up in Ellensburg.

For myself, this means that rather than graduating and going into the job market, I’m going to be looking into the master’s degree programs that CWU offers on the main Ellensburg campus, and spending another few years as a schoolboy and getting a master’s degree.

It’s all pretty exciting stuff, and I’m thrilled to be able to let all of you know about it. There are a few more details in the full post, but we’re waiting on making the public announcement until next week sometime, after Prairie’s set up and has her new contract all signed.

I’ll still be making trips into Seattle from time to time — the monthly Norwescon planning meetings help with that — and I’ll do my best to continue to head out and hit the clubs from time to time when I do. Considering that school and life has had me busy enough that I haven’t been doing that much more than once every couple months as it is, though, this really isn’t going to be that much of a change…it’ll just mean a longer drive to get to Seattle!

So, that’s the big news that I’ve been itching to tell all of you for the past week. Wish us luck!

Facebook’s really ticking me off. This is my fourth attempt at getting this written without losing the whole thing. Argh.

Okay.

Here’s my tentative schedule for finding and visiting with friends while I’m in town.

Today (Thursday): Lunch with my folks and Andrea (done!), dinner with James and Stacy (and perhaps Marc and Laura if they’re free) (done!), random drop-in visit with Royce and Stephanie (done!).

Tomorrow (Friday): Dinner with Marc and Laura (done!), late-evening/night high school “lunch bunch” get together with Royce, Tammy, Laurie, Bryan, Jenny, Jen, possibly others (too bad you’re in NY, Jill!)… (done and mayo-riffic!).

Saturday: Burlesque at ‘Koots with Kirsten (done…more done than I expected!), then bouncing around at Myrna’s with Kirsten, Krystal H., possibly others (Lydia, Kathy, Reed, anyone else? As far as I’m concerned, it’s an open invite)…? (done!)

Sunday: Hanging out with Krystal V. at some point in the afternoon/evening (done!).

Monday: Lunch with Reed and Krystal H. (done!), dinner/evening hangout with AnnaMaria (done!).

For those of you I didn’t get to see while I was here, I’m very sorry! I’ll try to find you next time I come through (whenever that might be), otherwise, come down to Seattle at some point and say hi!