Author: bangscrafts

I miss Don, too.

Posted on by bangscrafts

Part of the daily excitement of my new found freedom is discovering where my mail might be located.  I have a back entrance in a converted house, and the mailboxes are in the front.  I have to walk through this closed off alleyway on the side of the house to get to the front, and then usually I just find a big wad of coupons I toss in the garbage on my way back to my door.

There have been occasions when the mail person leaves one of those “Sorry we missed you” slips, with the location of my package written on it, such as “under the stairs, “under a box behind the  garbage cans,” and so on.  It’s always an adventure claiming my mail here.

Recently, however, I got one of those slips and it read that they attempted delivery but needed a signature, so I would have to pick it up from Gate K at the Post Office headquarters.  I carried the slip around with me for a week and had to look up where this place even was.  One evening I drove there after work to realize the place closes at 5, and it was 5:04.  So I resolved I would need to retrieve my package on a Saturday morning.

I arrived with an hour to spare before I had to be at an appointment on the other side of town.  I parked and walked in confidently to what looked like the right place to go, and after waiting in line briefly, I was told I was in the wrong location.  The woman gave me some clear-cut sounding directions, and I took off accordingly.

This is when I ended up driving through a bunch of steel mills, a correctional facility, making an illegal U-turn, finding Gate F, and then finally coming up to a USPS driver, asking where in the heck Gate K was.  The man reassured me I was not the only person to have asked this question before.

I parked where he directed me to, and followed the “Customer Pick Up” signs, and arrived here:

Post office Gate K

Does this look like somewhere I’m supposed to be?!  I sure didn’t think so.

The blue door lead to a room, about 20′ by 15′, with three doors, a flickering fluorescent light, a rickety old desk chair on wheels, and a table-thing with a bunch of Post Office announcements and protocols pasted all over it.  I was waiting behind someone, and then moved up to the window in the door to the back room.  By this time an old man had arrived behind me and sat rolling slightly in the desk chair, all the while groaning and hacking up a lung.

The Post Office worker had taken my slip of paper and went to search out my package, after closing the little window in the door, leaving me in an enclosed room with this muttering man.  At one point the man got up and ambled over to me, exclaiming nearly incomprehensibly how much he missed Don.  Essentially, Don used to have all the mail all sorted out and stamped, and now he’s gone and everything’s gone to pieces.

The Post Office guy came back after about ten minutes and told me that he could not find my package, but he offered to go back and look again if I had the time.  This stumped me, because what was he doing the first time!?  At this point I had about 7 minutes to get to my appointment, so I said no I cannot stay.  He wanted to write down a number I could call so if and when it arrives back (after it’s yet again undeliverable since I’m not there to sign) I can call them directly and see if it’s there for pickup.

He wanders away with my slip of paper so he can copy it and have my information, and then five minutes later comes back and informs me that he’s having a girl copy it for him.  I’m not sure what took him five minutes if he was having someone else copy the paper!  Meanwhile, five other men have now entered and been told that they will need to wait until both the mumbling man and myself are taken care of.

A woman comes into view in the back room and hands the worker my slip and the copy, and then they proceed to argue over which number Jamie would answer, in order to give me a number to call.  I am already late for my appointment by now.  He has the papers in his hand and he starts walking back to the door, and then he walks past the door and comes back with a huge cart of parcels and boxes and tries wheeling it through the door.  The muttering man is telling him he doesn’t have the right things and he has to go through the other door, and they go back and forth a bit about the door frame.  The mutterer says as an aside “this is why I miss Don,” and I say to him, “I miss Don too, and I never even met him!”

The cart is finally through the door and off with the muttering man, and I’m handed back my slip of paper but then asked to write down my number so they can call me if the package comes back.  I spin and about to exit the blue door, when the worker calls out one more time and repeats what he just had said, while I’m nodding profusely and trying to dash out.

In my car I called my appointment to inform them I would be late, apologizing for the delay, but that I had just escaped the Twilight Zone and I’m on my way!  And, oh joy, that I know I will have to be going back….

 

Can get satisfaction, hey hey hey

Posted on by bangscrafts

Recently, a very important person in my life told me “there is a great satisfaction in being able to lock a door behind you.”

It’s funny how you can be in a brand spanking new place, be working on unboxing, hanging your pictures on the wall, boiling noodles, et al.  But you never think about your door.  You never pause when you get home, other to take your coat off once you’ve reached the forced heat in your apartment.  You just spin rhythmically, take a knee to your door to make sure it’s shut, and turn a couple knobs.

Then someone you know and love goes and makes the idea of a door this whole romantic thought previously never conceived.

Here I sit, behind my locked door, listening to ZZ Top loudly to drown out my dishwasher, and I do feel satisfaction.  Thank you, Anita.

“Oh there’s not too much in here,” and other dishwasher stories.

Posted on by bangscrafts

The kitchen was an oft used room in my childhood, for so much more than cooking.  My first dance parties were in that checkerboard titled room.

Our main chore was emptying the dishwasher.  Molly and I would take forever to load the 5-carousel CD player, that we knew full well only 4 CDs played from, we just never knew which CD wasn’t going to play…big mystery it was.  We’d each hold our huge CD booklet and select 2 each, and the fifth one had to be equally agreed upon.  And of course the whole lottery aspect of the player ruined our time consuming logic.

Every single time, or at least 95% of them, Molly would open the dishwasher and as she was easing the door down to the floor, she would explain (not merely say, no, exclaim!) “Oh!  There’s not too much in here!”  Because, of course, we never wanted to empty the damn thing, and when you’re a child, menial tasks take forever.  For about three years I believed she was actually stacking up memories of what the last load enumerated to be.  And then I became the wiser and realized that there was always not too much in there.

I have to say though, Molly did really try to make chores fun.  (I’ll have to go in pitchforking the woodchip pile at a later date.)  In retrospect, some of her tactics baffle me in the fact that they worked.  Such as the day she decided, “wouldn’t it be fun if we put item away at a time?!”  And then we continued to parade a fork, a bowl, the strainer, to their respective spots.

I have my own dishwasher now.  There’s a couple things I’m appreciating.  First of all, having my best friend be my sibling.  But also having literally the best sister you could ask for constantly there to make awful things awesome.  I can only hope for my future children to have a Molly.  But even then they probably won’t win as much as I have.

In case you ever wanted to have a Carroll dance party, I’ll make it easy for you:

Carroll Dance Party Playlist:

  1. The Go-Gos
  2. Backstreet Boys
  3. Shania Twain
  4. The Bangles
  5. Scorpions
  6. The Coors
  7. Pocahontas soundtrack
  8. Phantom of the Opera soundtrack
  9. Nightwish/The Ramus
  10. Bonus Track: “We didn’t start the fire” by Billy Joel (or Jimmy Bowl [another post])

You need to wear some solid-bottomed shoes, be able to pick up at least one family member, and dance like no one is watching.  Like any good Irish-person does.  Good luck, and tell me about it!

 

Be still my heart, Home Depot

Posted on by bangscrafts

Growing up, my father would always tease my sister and I about going to Builders Square conferences that would last for hours and hours.  We would chime in union with our little voices saying “no daddy, no!!” and he would giggle.  Both Molly and I really detested hardware stores.  Molly was fearful of the fork lift, the floors were so gross, there was nothing to play with because, heck, it’s all pretty dangerous to 7 and 9 year old little girls.  The only fun was found in the kitchen furnishings department, where we could play in the model kitchenettes that we were in a house…and not in a hardware store.

Builder Square ceased to exist starting in 1999, and the Home Depot replaced the location we would always frequent.  I remember us all going and my dad was pretty bummed and leery, but it turned out to be the exact same thing, just with more orange.  Molly and I were still displeased.

I remember going to a movie once and afterwards my dad said we would just make a quick stop at the Lowe’s around the corner.  Lowe’s was pretty new (at least to our area) at the time, and upon walking in Molly exclaimed “ugh this is just Builders Square in disguise!”  My mom nearly busted up from laughter.

One day, something happened.  I cannot even specify what, but I needed something “home maintenancey” and I went to Home Depot, all on my own.

Since then, I have been smitten.  I walk through those aisles, and I see all the different Dremel bits, I peruse the coarseness of sandpaper blocks, I get particle board cut into appropriate sized pieces, I ask when the next shipment of joint compound will come in, I buy a whole brick of cellulose fiber insulation.

My favorite saying of mine is probably, “I am the perfect amalgamation of my parents.  I have my mother’s beautification skills and my father’s power tools.”

There is no culmination to a story pertaining to the Home Depot and me, because we are a love story that will endure.  And not that it matters, but my favorite color is orange.

Including the kitchen sink

Posted on by bangscrafts

Today was devoted to unboxing, or so I said upon my waking.  Yesterday was only for finding a TV cabinet, and I did so.  So kismet is on my side, and I really want to unpack this place.

I placed my DVDs in my new TV cabinet.  I also watched a couple episodes of Friends, again, when that was not at all the plan for today.  Watching 20-somethings in the 90s be irresponsible makes me feel really great for being pretty responsible for 25 in 2015.  Ross says “you know, you reach a certain age where you’ve out grown a roommate…” and the whole ensemble looks at him glaringly.  It may be the only moment where I agree with Ross, but I really don’t want to live with some random person. And I’m not!

Today was made of good decisions, and I felt bored.  I rearranged the underlings of kitchen sink.  (My ceiling leaked this morning too, but that is a transient situation.)

Kitchen sink

Cascade.  Bounty.  Swiffer.  Fire extinguisher.  Me in my “Pirate Ride” Cedar Point T-shirt I got for Christmas two years ago.  I’m pretty much the biggest nerd.

I have made room for a table and more than one chair in my new apartment, now.  I know you’re jealous.  I am in disbelief still.

 

Araneae in my water closet

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There was a serious minute when Molly and I were kids that we realized that killing bugs is incredibly cruel.  Our mother having written a children’s story about an adorable ant named Theodore certainly had a lot to do with it.  Although, at the same time, all of our favorite stuffed animals were technically rodents, and seeing a few dead mice in the basement makes you think about things.

We began to imagine there were ladybugs living on the ceiling fan, there were spiders in the drain of the kitchen sink.  (There’s some James and the Giant Peach influence here as well, I’m sure.)

At some point I think both Molly and I silently acquiesced that there’s an acceptable death-rate to bugs that infiltrate your house.  It may not be our proudest day, but it happened.  And as unfortunate to this story that it is, we were pretty okay with doing so.

Centipedes have their own rules though.  When there’s that many legs, there’s no expectation of being okay being near such a thing.

I have dated various calibers of bug people.  The main stay in my past was once very anti-insect, but grew up to be a crazy praying mantis PH.D. biologist guy (that is not his technical title, I’m sorry Dave).

I also have a sister-in-law (an influence on my sister certainly!) who loves bugs with the passion of a gross little boy.

Bugs are not my favorite things on earth.  However I would like to state that I am no damsel in distress when it comes to them either.

I know I’ve said I’m newly single, and I think that’s important to my encounter with my first apartment spider.  Having established my alignment when it comes to bugs, my story is short from here.

My ex-boyfriend was a twerp about bugs.  He’d spend decades of minutes in the bathroom, but heaven forbid a ladybug landed in there!

I encountered a gross spider tonight.  I apologize to the spider’s family, but I would like my bathroom walls to not be polka-spidered.  Thank you.

 

4:40 and counting

Posted on by bangscrafts

Boy I love my sleep habits.  I love waking up when it’s technically still night and deciding it’s better to cut my losses and putter around making myself breakfast.  The killer part is the diner around the corner isn’t even open yet, so I truly have to fend for myself.

Cream cheese and cucumber toast later, I’m still pretty grumpy.  I think I’ll probably still get an omelet from the Big Egg when the open at 6, which is a timestamp I had anticipated waiting for in my sleep.

I was at Dave’s Market yesterday and deliberately passed up buying eggs because I thought they would go bad before I had a chance to eat them.  Great job Shannon.

In other news, I can’t even keep a battery operated fish alive.

In twenty more minutes I’m going to be ordering the most feta-rific omelet the west side of Cleveland has to offer.  If you are jealous right now, I’d like you to remind yourself you were probably fast asleep at 4:40 am.

I knew the oven was something to fear.

Posted on by bangscrafts

I have been cooking for three plus years now.  In my mind, on a professional level.  Ask my sister, she might agree.

Ask my ex-boyfriend how difficult it was to make a darn cucumber and cream cheese sandwich.  He used to insist on making them for me, based on how easily I would slice skin when trying to slice cucurbitaceae.

What you need to know is that when I was a non-descript young age, my wonderful father told me about how when he was stove-height, that the hot electric coils looked cozy, and he put his chin on them.  I’ve never seen my father without a beard, but that’s a scarring situation..

Ergo, I inherited a stove and oven fear.

Then I was destined to be in a relationship where I was forced to make food.  Up to being 22, I avoided the oven like the plague.  But how do you just sit idly by when the person you want to be with is only heating up circular bread with pasta sauce?  Especially when that’s one of your least favorites?!

My first meal cooked was something out of an easy cookbook Molly gave me.  My third recipe, I swear to god, were these veggie pesto eggrolls that my entire family hold me accountable for now.

I just want to remind you that I was initiated in the land of food by a horror story from my young father.

My mother can tell you much better about my fear; she would ask me to get things out of the oven in attempts to save me from what my fate at that time was sealing.

I suppose it takes dating a baby to realize how much of an adult you are.  Ex-boyfriend guy wanted to make a frozen pizza every night.

This post isn’t about him actually.  You know who it’s about?  It’s about me, and this great new person in my life named Otto.

Jims words

It’s actually mostly about the fact that I didn’t realize that my “warming drawer” is essentially just a drawer to being 400 degrees.

But I would also like to mention that I am clumsy as fuuuurrrk.

This amazing person I literally just met nearly took care of my finger better than I ever could.  First of all, how cool is it to meet a person who wants to do that?

Second is, how cool is it that you do not need help to live?  You just thrive on loving those who want to help you, and you wonder how you got so lucky to meet them.

Don’t place your chin on a stove.  Don’t finger hot hot pans.  Do be careful when you’re cutting gourds.  I am a great chef.  Please ask me advice on how to cook and not how to be hurt.

 

Those cheese slice papers are a metaphor for something….

Posted on by bangscrafts

Late lunches for me mean dinner will be an afterthought, or just a few beers.

I’m still up and dancing in my kitchen, the eleventh hour chimes, and as a video game character, my life bar just plummets.  Blearily, I fall out of my leggings and Star Wars shirt, envelop myself in flannel and four blankets, lay my head down and BANG.  Hunger strikes.

As a newly single, fantastic-cook, apartment-renter, I of course had a few things in my fridge.  The story behind that is the burrito place I set my sights on for that late lunch was closed, and feeling like everyone was looking at me thinking “Wow look at that weirdo girl meandering around,” I bee-lined it for the supermarket around the corner, instead.  (Side note: I have a stubbornness with a vengeance when it comes to choosing those hand held baskets instead of carts….”oh yeah I only need a few things….” Typical Shannon.)

Needless to say, I bought sandwich-makings.  Sandwiches are the universal equalizer, so you probably know the pieces parts.

So I went to bed.  I was swaddled in blankets and warmth.  But then my stomach protested in a way I could not ignore.  I’m a firm believer in NO FOOD IN BED (do you put salad dressing on your pillow….no? Well then duh, don’t eat in bed!)

I made a sandwich.

As a millennial, I would like to testify against Subway as the sandwich makers.  You haven’t met me…I AM the sandwich maker.

I have bread.  I have cheese.  I have protein (I’ll take this moment to introduce myself as a vegetarian.  Get used to it.) I jumped out of bed knowing what Shannon was capable of.

I’ll remind you here, I’m a new apartment renter, and I have a lot of boxes.  I can tell you one thing; I can navigate boxes well enough to sandwich-away my hunger.

I realize how simple it is to stack bread and cheese.

Pleeeeeease.

All week I have been playing box-dodging acrobats in order to make myself some version of dinner.  I’m beginning to see the word “Uhaul” in my sleep because of how many boxes I’ve been living with.  I don’t care to admit it, but some of them have bested me at times, and I might have a bruise or two.

And I did so I began stacking.  Starting at 11:56 PM.  I was so ready for this sandwich, I was ready for the bare minimum in sandwich arts.

(As a vegetarian I decided to buy the newest Tofurkey “deli meat” option….bologna.)

Stacking whole wheat, Havarti, and Tofurkey bologna is really something to be done in the light of day apparently…

I took a big bite.

First instinct was that Tofurkey should not make bologna.  I’m nearly fighting this damn sandwich.  It’s tough as hell….and as a vegetarian, processed fake-deli meats aren’t usually very tough at all!

Lesson learned at the end of this day?  Havarti, as a very soft cheese (of course) comes with those cheese papers….and I ate a good deal of them tonight.  I would like for you to know that they tasted awful, but mostly they were an inconvenience to my teeth.

Being an adult means sometimes eating cheese papers.  Try to tell me otherwise, my friends.