out back

I took some photos of the back of my apartment building this afternoon. It was a slightly grey day today and drizzling a bit, but I really love the lighting and the way they turned out. I took  A LOT of photos, but here are just a few of my favorites.

The doorway in the photo below leads to the laundry room.

It’s certainly a unique laundry room…

Yes, that’s a tray in the ceiling. Why? I have no idea. Makes a fun picture though.

I love all of the greenery out back. It’s just lovely.

I love this place so much!

delivery girl problems

Because it’s Saturday night and I’ve had a long week, I’m just going to write about delivery customer behavior that drives me insane. Sounds like fun, right? 🙂

(Disclaimer: I actually really like my job, but sometimes people baffle me.)

1) Customers who order delivery and then go hang out in their backyard where they can’t hear me knocking/ringing the doorbell. This happens more often than you’d think. It just makes no sense to me. Do you actually want your food or what?

This man today took it a step further. I bang on the door for a few minutes with the door knocker (I seriously hate when houses don’t have doorbells — or when they do have doorbells, but they don’t work, and they KNOW they don’t work, but they don’t mention this when they order) before I give up and go back to my car, grab my phone, and dial the phone number on the receipt. It rings and rings and, oh oops, the voicemail box is full. I call again and continue banging on the door. No response. I call for a third time and continue banging. FINALLY this man shows up at the front door and is like, “oh, have you been here long?” I was pretty fed up at that point (it’s Saturday night, busy as hell, and I have 2 other orders in my trunk, so hey, you taking 10 minutes to answer the door just isn’t cute, sorry!), and I said “yep, I’ve been knocking for a while.” The man apologizes and then says, “yeah, you were calling the home phone and no one ever answers that!” I very nearly snapped at that point. Seriously, WHY DID YOU GIVE ME THE NUMBER FOR THE PHONE YOU AREN’T GOING TO ANSWER??? ARE YOU ACTUALLY TRYING TO MAKE IT AS DIFFICULT AS POSSIBLE FOR ME TO GET THIS FOOD TO YOU?? It was too much. Then he tipped me $3, which is just not a good tip at all. Sigh.

Which leads me to another brilliant customer behavior…

2) Customers who order food for delivery when they aren’t actually at home. Does that make any sense to you? Am I just crazy? If you’re already out of the house, why not just pick up your food? But no, on multiple occasions, I’ve arrived at someone’s house and had to wait for them to get home.

3) Customers who don’t turn their porch lights on. This actually makes me a bit murderous. Yes, I use google maps to look up new addresses, but you know what helps a whole heck of a lot? If I can actually see your house number! My delivery area is fairly diverse, so I can be at a million-dollar mansion one minute (I really enjoy googling customer’s addresses and seeing how much their houses are worth) and then on a dark, slightly sketchy street the next. On several occasions, I’ve called customers from my car and told them they need to turn on their porch light so that I can either figure out which house is theirs or just see well enough to walk up to their house without tripping. Cause, hey, I’m a petite young woman, and I’m not walking up to a dark house at night, sorry.

I know I can come up with quite a few more, but I’m going to call it a night.

Be nice to your delivery person, ya’ll 🙂

PS. Saw this sign at an apartment complex I delivered to today and it made me laugh.

the new apartment

My new apartment is still a work in progress, but I took some pictures of the main room today. I’m pretty happy with how it’s looking so far 🙂 So come on in…

Stella really likes hanging out in the front window 🙂

Caught mid-yawn!

The telephone nook is the perfect spot for my rabbit, right? Also, it’s a bit hard to see, but the photograph hanging above the nook is a telephone 🙂

And now for the piece de resistance… the mantle!

I’ll post pictures of the dining area and kitchen soon!

dream catchers

My neighbor has a dream catcher hanging out back, and I just love it. I can see it from my kitchen window.

I’ve wanted a dream catcher for a while, and I’ve been searching for one on Etsy, but all the ones I like are fairly expensive (of course). My friend Raquel brilliantly suggested that I make my own, so I did! I went a little bit nuts buying supplies, and I’ve made 3 dream catchers so far. They’re really fun and fairly simple to make.

The first one I made was kind of a practice one, and I’m going to “edit” it and post pictures of it later.

The second one I made for my friend Ivana. Here it is:

And this is the third one:

goodbye north central San Antonio

Well, this is my last night in this apartment! Yes, I got the new apartment! I’m moving in tomorrow! I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. I know I need to get to sleep because tomorrow is going to be a big day, but I’m just so freaking excited.

I’m going down to sign the lease and get the keys at 9 am tomorrow. My Honda is already loaded down with boxes of book and clothes, and my brothers are coming over to help move furniture tomorrow afternoon. This time tomorrow night, I’ll be snug in my little efficiency 🙂

I still can’t believe this is actually happening. I won’t be convinced until the lease is signed and the keys are in my hand.

I’m not sad to be leaving this apartment. I remember when I moved in here, I thought, “moving into an apartment with my brother will either be the best or worst idea ever.” It’s been both at different times, but, overall, it’s definitely been closer to being the worst idea ever. I love my brother, but I’ve discovered I’m just not a roommate person. I need to live alone. I need to have my own space and privacy. More than anything (especially after having lived alone for 2 and a half years prior to moving in with my brother), I need to have control over where I live. I don’t want to come home and find a mess. I don’t want to come home and find random people I’ve never met sleeping in my living room (which happened many times). For my own sanity, I need to live alone.

A lot has happened in the past 2 years. My family dynamic has changed quite a bit. I’ve gotten to know myself and those close to me much better. I’ve had some really great times here in this apartment, but I’ve also had some of the worst moments of my life here. Looking back, 2013 was probably the messiest year of my life. It was incredibly emotional and frightening, and I’ll be very glad to bury it. Just being in this apartment brings up so many memories, and I’m ready to start over and make new, more positive, memories in 2015. Moving into this apartment is my real New Year’s celebration.

Well, it’s late, and I need to sleep, so I’ll say goodnight.

update on apartment & things

(This is Marwan’s facial expression every time he realizes a camera is pointed his way. It cracks me up so much! He just freezes and stares at himself.)

It’s been a long day. I usually don’t work Mondays, but the backup driver is out of town, so I took his shift (extra hours! yay?). Antonio left around 6 this evening, so I got to close again (YAY). I really like closing. There’s something so peaceful about being the last person at the store, counting and writing the deposit slip, closing out all the tickets, and locking up.

Anyway. Apartment update: sent my application and authorization to check my rental history to the owner of the building. I was meeting up with Raquel at Press Coffee (It was my first time there and it’s so cool! If I get the apartment, it’ll be in walking distance from me!) when and my phone rang. It was the owner of the apartment building with some interesting news…

[On a side note: I absolutely love spending time with an old friend and how there is NEVER enough time to discuss everything. That can’t be just me. I think every time I hang out with Raquel, we talk and talk and talk, but there are always more things to discuss. That must be a true sign of friendship :)]

One of his tenants from another property has had some sort of emergency with her apartment, and because she’s a long term tenant, he offered her the apartment that I was shown. He said he would hear back from her by the evening and would let me know. If she does decide to take the apartment, there’s an upstairs one bedroom coming available at the end of this month, and he said he would rent it to me for the same price as the efficiency, even though it’s larger and he typically charges a higher rent for it. Well! I really had my heart set on that efficiency, but he sent me a couple pictures of the upstairs apartment, and it’s gorgeous. As long as I get an apartment in that building, I’ll be thrilled.

I am so excited about all of this. Not only do I just love this area of San Antonio, but I have a very sentimental attachment to it. I started going to SAC when I was 17, and I’ve wanted to live in this area ever since. It’s been 6 years, and I think my dream is finally coming true.

A big part of my attachment to this area is due to Colton. I met him the summer before I turned 18 in an English composition class at SAC. I remember the first day of class when I first saw him. I was immediately crushing. It was a summer evening class, so we met once a week (if I remember correctly – it might have been twice a week). As the weeks went by, I noticed that he was gradually sitting closer and closer to me. Then, one night, at the end of class, he came up to me and handed me a slip of paper, then rushed off Napoleon Dynamite style. Six years later and I still have the note he handed me that night. He lived near SAC (only a few streets away from my hopeful apartment), and we spent a lot of time at his place that summer. It was one of the happiest times of my life. We were so young and silly and hopeful about everything. I actually remember us making plans to elope when I turned 18.

Obviously, those plans didn’t come to fruition, but I have nothing but fond memories of that time. Actually, I have nothing but good memories of my time at SAC. I loved it. I loved the area, the people, the classes I took, the weirdness of it all. As odd as it may sound, I think attending SAC won me over to San Antonio.

So. That’s why I’m so excited about this apartment and so anxious to hear “Yes, you’ve been approved! Let’s sign the lease!”

Sorry for getting all sappy. I just can’t help it. I’m too dang excited that my dream of living in a wood floored apartment is most likely coming true.

apartment hunting

The apartment hunt has begun! (And hopefully ended… more on that in a minute.)

Apartment hunting in and around Alamo Heights is a nightmare. If you find a decent apartment, it’s probably way too expensive. If you find a decent apartment at a decent price, it’s probably in a slightly sketchy area. If you’re on a budget, you just can’t win.

So I was shocked when I saw a Craigslist listing for a studio apartment smack dab in the middle of Alamo Heights, only three streets over from my work, for only $500 a month. On paper, it was perfect. It was too good to be true! And yes, it turned out to be too good to be true.

I called the realtor on Thursday afternoon, and she told me the apartment was open and that I could just go in and check it out. I took my coworker, Valerie, along, and we went through the apartment.

It was very cute. The building was built in 1965, and it had a cool retro feel to it. But the longer we looked around, the more things we found wrong with it. Valerie pointed out the cracks in the wall near all the doors and windows, and said it was probably an issue with the foundation (she lives in AH, and her house is old and has foundation issues, so she knows all about it). Then we noticed that the floor seemed to be sinking in a bit towards the middle. She pulled out a tube of mascara and set it on the floor, and sure enough, it rolled toward the middle.

(I love this funky paper in the bathroom medicine cabinet.)

We left the apartment, walked downstairs, and started going around to the side of the building to see where parking was and all that. Well! We turned the corner, and oh yeah, there was definitely an issue with the foundation. The back half of the building appeared to just be floating there. I’m serious. It was propped up here and there by concrete blocks, but there were huge gapes of just… nothing. I honestly don’t know how that building is standing up. It looked like it could have fallen over at any moment. So, we solved the mystery of the super cheap rent!

Then we decided to stop by an apartment complex in Mahnke Park. The neighborhood in that part is a bit sketchy, but the apartments themselves looked like they were newly renovated, and I figured we should give them a shot. We walked up to the leasing office, but there was someone having a meeting inside, so we just hung around outside waiting for them to get done. We’d been standing there talking for a few minutes when an apartment door near us opened. A man’s head appeared in the doorway. He looked at us and said “ohhh”. Valerie took charge and asked him if he knew about the leasing office. He said he did, and came out of the apartment. We couldn’t quite tell if he was just a resident or someone who worked at the complex. Valerie told him that there was someone inside the leasing office and that we didn’t want to be rude. The man said, “Well, I’ll be rude”, then proceeded to open the office door and stick his head in. The woman waved him away and said “I’ll be with you in a minute”. He shut the door, turned to us and said “There you go!” and returned to the apartment. Valerie and I exchanged glances. “Do you want to leave?” I asked her, and she gave me a look. So we sauntered back to my car and took off.

Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling very optimistic about the apartment situation.

Later that evening at work, I was glancing through Craiglist housing ads on my phone, and I found something. Something too good to be true. An apartment fairly close by, in my price range, with gorgeous pictures. I emailed right away asking to see the apartment. The owner emailed me back today and I went to see the place before work.

OH MY GOODNESS. I can’t believe this place. It’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect. Everything about it. Wood floors. A fireplace. It’s in a charming old building in a nice neighborhood. Covered parking in the back. On site free laundry. A ten minute drive to work. I filled out an application, and I’m emailing it to the owner tomorrow. He told me that I’m the only person he’s showed it to so far, and since he’s going to be out of town all weekend, I’ve definitely got a headstart on any competition. I really really really want to live here. I took a few pictures, but they don’t do it justice. Hopefully this is the end of my hunt!

to the indignant old man in the Starbucks parking lot this afternoon

I watch through the window
as you rush to the aid of your shiny red Beamer,
a wad of scratchy brown napkins in one hand,
your cane in the other.
You circle the car, dabbing vigorously
at the pearls of bird droppings
dotting the candy-apple paint,
pausing every few seconds to glare up
into the branches of the tree above you.

I half expect you to shake your first
like an angry cartoon character,
begin calling down curses on those pesky birds.
You dispose of the napkins,
get into your car,
move it over two parking spaces.

I laugh as I watch this scene play out,
remembering how
when I got my new car last year,
I washed it three times the first week,
frustrated by the fresh stains
I found every morning.

Maybe you’re an old fool,
or I’m just lazy,
but I wash my car once a month now.
There will always be more shit.

new developments at work

So, of course, after I wrote about what an easy, chill night I had delivering on Friday, I had a very frustrating night delivering on Saturday.

Let me back up to Saturday lunch. I always work noon to 10 pm on Saturday, and Marwan usually works with me all day (the rest of the crew comes in at 5 pm, but before that, it’s just the two of us). He’s been sick though, so Angel (the other newish cook, who doesn’t speak much English) worked with me instead. I got to work at noon, and Antonio, Angel, AND Carmelo were all there. Carmelo is Antonio’s friend from Naples, and none of us at work are really sure why he’s here, but he shows up occasionally. He does speak English, but his accent is hard to make out. He’s extremely into customer service, and he’s obsessed with opening doors for people. All in all, he clearly means well, but he typically just gets in the way.

Lunch at work is never busy, and it was a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon, so it was completely dead. Antonio left around one, but Carmelo hung around. Antonio had told Angel to close at 2 if it was slow, so we did.

Valerie, another of my coworkers, had texted me and asked if I wanted to go have lunch with her, and I said sure. So when we closed, she came and picked me up, and we went to this odd little Chinese restaurant called Golden Bowl. It’s off of Austin Highway, in a sketchy looking strip mall. We were the only customers in there for about 10 minutes, and then a group of 6 walked in. It was a man, two women, and three kids. The man was drinking out of a red solo cup, and immediately wandered off to find a trashcan to dispose of it. (Strange?)

They sat at a table near us, and I kept glancing at them, thinking that they looked familiar. At one point, the man and I made eye contact, and I realized that they were regulars from our work! He seemed to be trying to place me as well. I mentioned to Valerie that they were our customers, but she didn’t recognize them.

After a little while, the man came over to our table, and asked where he knew me from. I told him where we worked, and he started talking to us about the owners (he knows them), and our old manager Eder, and so on. It was pretty funny. I still can’t think of his name though, and it’s bugging the hell out of me!

Anyway, I went back to work, and everyone else showed up at 5, including Antonio. And then it was just a mess. We have a new guy, Jonathon, and he was helping me with deliveries. In theory, it would have been a good idea, but there was a ridiculous amount of miscommunication between the person taking the orders, the people cooking, and the people delivering, so it just ended up being a nightmare. We had multiple complaints, and some orders took WAY longer to deliver than they should have.

The kicker of the evening was this: I got back from a delivery, and Antonio was gone. Huh. I asked where he was, and everyone told me that he had gone home, and that he’d said I should close out the register. Oh really. Well, I’ve never closed the register and I don’t know how to do that. I texted Marwan, and he said to call him when we were closing, and he’d explain how to do it.

So at the end of the night, we had finished up cleaning, and I was about to call Marwan. Angel had the key to the front door, and he clearly wanted to leave, so I told him to give me the key, and I’d lock up (another thing I’d never done before). Angel took off, leaving me with the key, alone in the store, and I called Marwan and quickly learned how to close the register and finalize the batch. He told me to check everything, I checked it all, turned off the lights, and locked up. Done!

It was quite fun.

Marwan worked on Sunday, but he still wasn’t feeling well, so he asked if I would close again (umm yes!!), and took off at around 8:30. So, again, I closed the register, checked everything, and locked up.

I’ve been angling for more responsibility at work (I’ve been there for 2 years, after all), so hopefully this is the start of something new…

silly kinda friday

Stella has been hanging out around my brother’s money tree lately.

She’s even been sleeping on it. My only theory on this is that she’s actually trying to plant herself. Silly cat.

I woke up around 6:30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I wasn’t feeling too great, and just hung out in bed watching Friends for a while. I was really feeling kind of “woe is me”, moping around, and not looking forward to the day at all.

I went to hang out with Tony in the afternoon, got lunch, went back home to change for work, and my brother was here taking pictures of his furniture to sell on Craigslist (we’re moving out of this apartment at the end of next month; he’s moving in with my dad and I’m getting my own place huzzah!).

When I got to work, I had a raging headache, a ton of deliveries, it was cold out, and I was cranky as hell.

About an hour later, my headache subsided, and I was starting to be amused by the ridiculous amount of deliveries I had. Delivering pizza can be such a chill job. You just drive around, listen to music, look around, and get paid for it. It’s really kind of cool. You have a lot of time to think about stuff. Most of my deliveries are to regular customers, and I could find their houses in my sleep (I pay more attention to physical details than to actual house numbers, which can be impossible to see in the dark, so I’ve ended up with an interesting system).

I didn’t have any crazies or angry people tonight, so that was a plus. There was a pretty creepy guy who was just standing in the parking lot of an apartment complex. I pulled up, parked, put on my hazards because I wasn’t in an actual parking space, and headed up to the apartment. The guy shouted after me, “What kinda pizza is that?” I was halfway up the stairs, and decided to just ignore him. When I came back down, he started up again. “Do you work for a pizza company?” I said yes and started to get into my car. “What’s it called?” What the hell? I called out the name of a nearby Italian restaurant (not the place where I actually work) and shut the door. Dude continued to just stand in the parking lot. Okay.

I also had the most adorably helpful customer tonight. I can’t even describe how much I love customers who try to make my job easier and who are just pleasant in general. This lady had said to call when I got to the address, because she lived in an apartment behind the actual house, and it might be confusing for me to find it. So I call her when I get there, and she runs out to meet me, is apologetic about making me stand out in the cold, and chats with me as she’s signing the receipt. Honestly, I appreciate customers like that so much that I want to tip them.

Anyway, tonight was crazy busy on deliveries – 17 in 4 hours, which might not sound like a lot, but believe me, that’s a ridiculous amount. It also meant very, very good tips!

I’m glad to be home, just hanging around. Smokey is doing his Smokey cat thing and knocking my stuff off my bureau and meowing at me.

I tried to get a picture, but it’s blurry and he looks possessed. ha!

“Does this hat make me look like a hipster?” I found this in a drawer earlier, and I’m oddly delighted by it, and I wore it all night at work. It kept my ears warm anyway 🙂