We've found an apartment!

We have found an apartment. Thank God. Here is a picture of the outside. And here is our checklist from before, and how we did!!!!

new_apt

*sunshine, and lots of it check

*windows (to help with above said need) check

*Air conditioning, because a year without it was NOT fun check

*PARKING (This is one of the most important) check

*more than a walk-in-closet sized kitchen —check

*bathroom that isn’t “old” or cracked or otherwise gross. (Jeff also is not keen on weirdly tiled sink, a commonplace in some places here) check (although there is tile.)

*hardwood floors (I hate carpets, and Jeff also hates them from the dining area, and its seemingly all or nothing here) — check

*A landlord/manager ON SITE that speaks impeccable English. (We’ve have difficulties in the past.) check

*something NOT on a hill, as Jeff DOES bike to work, and would be very appreciative if he could get to and from work in ease. — check

That being said, we’re looking mainly in the Los Feliz and Franklin Village areas, so we might not get lucky with the hill…We’ll see. Meanwhile, things we do not want:

*carpet

*a parking space that is exposed (Jeff worries about dings)

*A place that doesn’t pay water/trash (common place in LA, and some apartments we saw yesterday didn’t have the basics)

*a ground level apartment

*something too far from the 101

*A spot in an apartment complex with lots of children and/or college students

Also, we have created a “things that would be nice” column:

*A place that has an area to store a bicycle check

*A pool

*An option for a second parking spot

*A bathtub and a shower without a door but rather a rod. kind of check (shower stall and separate tub)

Something I should have never admitted: powdered potatoes.

I did it. It was me. I promised myself I never would. I scoffed at the idea. But then, standing in my kitchen after cleaning the counter of rotted potato juice, damning boxed Pasta Roni to hell since we’ve been eating it once or twice a week lately, and wondering what on EARTH would fill my ever-hungry stomach, I realized it was time.

To make the bag-o-potato that Jeff had purchased once upon the time he claimed was delicious. I reasoned with myself–it was here, I shouldn’t waste, there ARE children starving in Africa, Asia, South America, and probably down the block from me. They are edible, and they have potatoes in them. Plus, as we are moving in a few weeks, I shouldn’t allow them into our new home. Right? We should just use them up…now. RIGHT?

bag_potatoes

This is the bag. The bag full of offensive powdered-potato. But I had exhausted my other options for sides. I had no choice. So I opened the bag, to investigate.
insidebag

The inside seemed OK. It was powdered, but smelled like potato. I wasn’t sure how large the potatoes would get, so I had to guesstimate which bowl size I would use. This one seemed to be the right size. I wasn’t sure how large powdered potatoes got. But I have seen those amazing meals they give to people in the army, when you add water and it becomes so hot you can’t even hold it. So I knew there was magical things that could happen when it says “Just add water.” Like sea monkeys. Just add water, and soon you have a family.

inbowl_potatoes

Anyways, I waited for the water to boil. I made a list of reasons I was justified in my head, and I when the water boiled I poured it into the bowl. The bowl, of course, DID burn my hand, because I wasn’t thinking that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to hold said bowl as I poured the water. But that’s another story. Then I poured the potato powder in and Voila!–

Potatoes.alldone_potatoes

I must say, they were not as bad as I thought they were going to be. I guess I have to take them off the “Absolutely not” list and put them onto the “Only in an Emergency” list.

Dually noted.

A list of lists.

I was making my “Life to do” list I make once every two or so weeks and realized half the items on the list required their own lists. So here we go:

* Become a California resident

*Make a doctor’s appointment

*Make a list of Christmas gifts/people

*Chose a recipe for Thanksgiving turkey

*Map the oven plans for Thanksgiving day (to see who needs to have what in the oven when)

*Find an apartment

*Begin packing/tossing things from old apartment

*Figure out New Year’s Eve plans

*Send out mail

*Christmas card list — keep to under 40 people

*By “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” for book club — due Thanksgiving

*Figure out what I can do to help Prop 8 be defeated.

*Dinner this week/next week

Those that are bold need their OWN lists.

Yikes. I’d better get started.

Itch!

My boss today told me that she was very itchy because she has some poison ivy. I told her what my doctor had told me once: that itching was the lowest form of pain, and she should take one acetaminophen (Tylenol) or one ibuprofen. It’d curb the itching, and save the pain of scabs later on. I thought this little bit of wisdom was a gem: it has always worked for me. I figured it’d be something interesting to blog about, until I did some research to prove it was true and allow my blog readers to decide for themselves. And I discovered it isn’t true-it’s not a form of pain at all! But, what I found is worth sharing.

I quote, from the article: “But how, exactly, itch works has been a puzzle. For most of medical history, scientists thought that itching was merely a weak form of pain. Then, in 1987, the German researcher H. O. Handwerker and his colleagues used mild electric pulses to drive histamine, an itch-producing substance that the body releases during allergic reactions, into the skin of volunteers. As the researchers increased the dose of histamine, they found that they were able to increase the intensity of itch the volunteers reported, from the barely appreciable to the “maximum imaginable.” Yet the volunteers never felt an increase in pain. The scientists concluded that itch and pain are entirely separate sensations, transmitted along different pathways.”

Here is a link. Who knew!

The Itch, by Atul Gawande