A few weeks back I began noticing the occasional ant in my bedroom. Then two weeks ago when I was unearthing my apartment from the mess that had accumulated as I finished my book, I found that ant carcasses strewn across the floor by my bedroom windows. I promptly vacuumed up the nasty buggers and went out to buy some ant poison. With ant poison in place, I figured it would be only a matter of time before the ant colony dwindled and the queen herself was infected.
The ants were certainly attracted to the bait, and after a week or so, I began to notice the bodies piling up once again. This time I attributed it to the poison.
Melissa: 1
Ants: 0
Last night I vacuumed up the ants again. Perhaps 20 minutes after doing so, I noticed an ant craw out of the windowsill corner, carrying a dead ant. It walked around the ant poison, edged up to the ledge, and dropped the body down onto my clean carpet. I felt like it was his little ant way of sticking it to the man, so to speak.
Melissa: 1
Ants: 1
When I went back again that evening, that same ant was at it again, dropping dead bodies off of my windowsill onto my carpet. It's like he had been assigned to clean all the deceased out of the ant nest. I decided that he didn't deserve to live long enough to let the poison do him in, so I dedicated a Kleenex to the task.
Melissa: 2
Ants: 1
I think my next plan of attack will be to notify the landlady and let her deal with the ant problem in the building. The ants are not allowed to score another point in this battle. Victory will be mine!
Showing posts with label apartment living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apartment living. Show all posts
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Monday, June 22, 2009
monday night memory
This evening in the midst of a conversation with Rochelle, I stumbled across a memory that had long been buried in the farthest back recesses of my mind. Hidden in the far left corner under piles of old papers, childhood toys, layers of dust, and cobwebs was a beautiful memory. I will share it with you. Consider this my late-Monday night gift to you.
At some point when we lived together, we decided that we really detested the color of the vinyl on the kitchen floor. It was a lovely combination of mustard yellow and orange that really fit quite nicely with the whole 70s domestic look we had going between the floor, the hand-me-down dishes, the ugly couch, and the brown shag carpet. During some conversation we came up with a solution, at least for the kitchen flooring.
We decided that a perfect fix for the ugly floor would be to cover it with a patterned contact paper, like the stuff you would use to line drawers and shelves. It would be so simple and inexpensive. We would only need a roll or two, less than 5 minutes, and voilà -- shiny new floor!
I'm not sure that this idea ever came to fruition. I vaguely recall determining that the floor might end up being too slippery with the contact paper on it. Whatever actually deterred our innovative home decorating solution, it's probably good that this particular "genius" idea of ours was never fully implemented :)
At some point when we lived together, we decided that we really detested the color of the vinyl on the kitchen floor. It was a lovely combination of mustard yellow and orange that really fit quite nicely with the whole 70s domestic look we had going between the floor, the hand-me-down dishes, the ugly couch, and the brown shag carpet. During some conversation we came up with a solution, at least for the kitchen flooring.
We decided that a perfect fix for the ugly floor would be to cover it with a patterned contact paper, like the stuff you would use to line drawers and shelves. It would be so simple and inexpensive. We would only need a roll or two, less than 5 minutes, and voilà -- shiny new floor!
I'm not sure that this idea ever came to fruition. I vaguely recall determining that the floor might end up being too slippery with the contact paper on it. Whatever actually deterred our innovative home decorating solution, it's probably good that this particular "genius" idea of ours was never fully implemented :)
Sunday, January 04, 2009
icy
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you left the ice maker in your freezer on for 2 weeks straight while you were out of town? No? Me neither. However, I have the misfortune of having the answer for you anyway.
What will happen is the ice maker will make ice and ice and more ice until your freezer is full to the brim of identically shaped ice cubes. Then when you unsuspectingly open the freezer door after 2 whole weeks of glorious ice making, ice will pour out of the freezer all over the kitchen floor.
You will then use your trusty dust pan to scoop up all the ice off of the floor and out of the freezer, depositing it safely in the kitchen sink to melt (see picture below). After removing all the ice, you will discover that nearly everything that was safely frozen in your freezer now has freezer burn and promptly discard the offending items.
Then you shake your head at the irony of it all because you never, ever use the ice maker when you are home. Plus, if you hadn't been responsible and cleaned all of the nasty, freezer-burned items out the freezer prior to vacationing for 2 weeks, the ice maker would never have accidentally been turned on.
What will happen is the ice maker will make ice and ice and more ice until your freezer is full to the brim of identically shaped ice cubes. Then when you unsuspectingly open the freezer door after 2 whole weeks of glorious ice making, ice will pour out of the freezer all over the kitchen floor.
You will then use your trusty dust pan to scoop up all the ice off of the floor and out of the freezer, depositing it safely in the kitchen sink to melt (see picture below). After removing all the ice, you will discover that nearly everything that was safely frozen in your freezer now has freezer burn and promptly discard the offending items.
Then you shake your head at the irony of it all because you never, ever use the ice maker when you are home. Plus, if you hadn't been responsible and cleaned all of the nasty, freezer-burned items out the freezer prior to vacationing for 2 weeks, the ice maker would never have accidentally been turned on.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
at long last
Somethings are just a long time in coming. Two of those things would be the sidewalk in front of my apartment and a journal article I wrote with one of the English professors. Both are finally complete :)
After two months of ducking under ever-fading caution tape, I finally have a nice new cement sidewalk leading up to and past the front door of my apartment. Happy days! I'm still slightly irritated with the management that it took two months (TWO WHOLE MONTHS!!!) to lay 15 feet of sidewalk, but all griping aside, the new sidewalk is lovely (if sidewalks can be such a thing).
The journal article was written an entire year ago and just made it into print last week. Those of you who are friends with me on Google Talk would have seen the random link all last week. I was just a bit slower getting that announcement to the blog. The article is very academic. Heck, it has the word pedagogy in the title. But seriously, this is me we're talking about; it can't surprise you. If you're interested in taking a look-see at it, I've put the citation and URL below.
Bankert, Dabney A., and Melissa S. Van Vuuren. "Stranger in a Strange Land: The Undergraduate in the Academic Library. A Collaborative Pedagogy for Undergraduate Research." CEA Forum 37.1 (2008). http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/371bankertvanvuuren.htm.
I am fairly positive that you should be able to access the article from any computer because the journal is open-access. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
In other news, I still haven't dropped the ESL class. I know deep down that I really need to, and I convince myself that I'm going to do it each and every time I spend an entire evening prepping for the class. And each and every time I tell myself that after I get home from class I'm going to e-mail Deb to tell her I'm stepping down. But then class happens, and I see how eager the students are to learn and how grateful they are and I chicken out and don't send the e-mail. The thing is that I do enjoy it and definitely see the value in it, but the time commitment is just too great. Sigh.
After two months of ducking under ever-fading caution tape, I finally have a nice new cement sidewalk leading up to and past the front door of my apartment. Happy days! I'm still slightly irritated with the management that it took two months (TWO WHOLE MONTHS!!!) to lay 15 feet of sidewalk, but all griping aside, the new sidewalk is lovely (if sidewalks can be such a thing).
The journal article was written an entire year ago and just made it into print last week. Those of you who are friends with me on Google Talk would have seen the random link all last week. I was just a bit slower getting that announcement to the blog. The article is very academic. Heck, it has the word pedagogy in the title. But seriously, this is me we're talking about; it can't surprise you. If you're interested in taking a look-see at it, I've put the citation and URL below.
Bankert, Dabney A., and Melissa S. Van Vuuren. "Stranger in a Strange Land: The Undergraduate in the Academic Library. A Collaborative Pedagogy for Undergraduate Research." CEA Forum 37.1 (2008). http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/371bankertvanvuuren.htm.
I am fairly positive that you should be able to access the article from any computer because the journal is open-access. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
In other news, I still haven't dropped the ESL class. I know deep down that I really need to, and I convince myself that I'm going to do it each and every time I spend an entire evening prepping for the class. And each and every time I tell myself that after I get home from class I'm going to e-mail Deb to tell her I'm stepping down. But then class happens, and I see how eager the students are to learn and how grateful they are and I chicken out and don't send the e-mail. The thing is that I do enjoy it and definitely see the value in it, but the time commitment is just too great. Sigh.
Friday, August 15, 2008
um, welcome home
One of the things I got to come home to was a ripped up sidewalk and caution tape right in front of my apartment entrance. Oh goody!
Evidently the tenants of the three other apartments on my level complained of hearing water running continually in their apartments. I never heard this in mine. One of the three tenants is the property manager, and you can bet that she was all over getting the problem fixed.
Lucky for me the water main happened to run right under the sidewalk in front of my apartment. So in the midst of my travels, workmen came and tore up the sidewalk to get to the water main. Either they haven't yet fixed the problem or they're just lazy about finishing jobs because for about 2 weeks now, this has been what the entrance to my place looks like.
Not only is the work not complete, but since I've been back, I haven't seen a single workman come to even glance at the mess they left. I've called the property manager to see when the sidewalk will be repaired. According to her, she has no idea and didn't seem terribly concerned. I think she actually said, "Well, you can still get into your apartment." Umm, yes, by ducking under yellow caution tape and walking over construction rubble. Why should I be bothered by that?
While it's irritating for me, I'm more concerned for my downstairs neighbor, the only other person this "inconvenience" affects. She must be 97 at this point and is rather shaky. I think she uses a walker cane or a small cart to keep her steady. I can just imagine her falling and breaking a hip or worse. I would imagine then the property manager would see how this is more than just a little inconvenience.
Evidently the tenants of the three other apartments on my level complained of hearing water running continually in their apartments. I never heard this in mine. One of the three tenants is the property manager, and you can bet that she was all over getting the problem fixed.
Lucky for me the water main happened to run right under the sidewalk in front of my apartment. So in the midst of my travels, workmen came and tore up the sidewalk to get to the water main. Either they haven't yet fixed the problem or they're just lazy about finishing jobs because for about 2 weeks now, this has been what the entrance to my place looks like.
Not only is the work not complete, but since I've been back, I haven't seen a single workman come to even glance at the mess they left. I've called the property manager to see when the sidewalk will be repaired. According to her, she has no idea and didn't seem terribly concerned. I think she actually said, "Well, you can still get into your apartment." Umm, yes, by ducking under yellow caution tape and walking over construction rubble. Why should I be bothered by that?
While it's irritating for me, I'm more concerned for my downstairs neighbor, the only other person this "inconvenience" affects. She must be 97 at this point and is rather shaky. I think she uses a walker cane or a small cart to keep her steady. I can just imagine her falling and breaking a hip or worse. I would imagine then the property manager would see how this is more than just a little inconvenience.
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