Transition housing

Good morning, one and all. Hey look, it's already Thursday. Thor, you wacky Norse god of thunder, I'm glad the day bearing your namesake has arrived. We're cool, right? Sweet.

Keeping on the housing vibe for a little longer, I want to fast forward a few years after my experiences in "that house." I had lived with some good friends for a couple of years, and my now-wife and I wanted to find a place together. The search wasn't nearly as exciting or eventful as my previous one (i.e. no Vader impressions), but that was fine with us. Eventually, we found a very cute and very small two-bedroom apartment in a nice residential area of town. The group of apartments was different from other places I'd seen, and I can't even call it a complex. There was a long driveway with four apartments along the right side, made up of two side-by-side duplexes. We shared a wall with Apartment A, which was inhabited by a single mother, her permanent scowl, and her young daughter.

As it turned out, Apartment C was also for rent, and Dusty and The Mills ended up moving in even before we officially did. It was hilarious to us that we went from living in the same apartment to living in adjacent ones. Dusty and I would often look over our common fence and say, "Hey neighbor" before laughing at how grown-up we were. I wanted nothing more than to need a cup of sugar, just so I could go over and ask him for it. Apartment D was a couple named Kareem and Laura that we're still friends with, and the six of us had a ton of fun together (much to the consternation of Frowny McScowlerson in A). We'd often keep our front doors open, so there was a lot of chatting that went on. We got so used to just popping by to say hi that it was very weird to actually call Dusty on the phone (especially since we could hear the phone ring). It was almost like Melrose Place, and by that I mean not at all like Melrose Place.

Behind our apartments, where our washing machine and dryer lived, there was a fence separating us from other neighbors. Dusty and I were back there one day, and we heard the distinct sound of a dog trying to get more information by sniffing. We looked through a small missing section of the fence, and we saw the snout working overtime to greet us. We pet the dog, and said hi to "him" (50/50 chance, right?). Next time we were back there, so was he. The space was so limited that we couldn't tell what kind of dog he was, just that he had a black nose and seemed cute. "What's your name, big guy?" I asked. He didn't answer, which I guess was a good thing. We managed to make the most of the tiny opening and got a peek at his collar. "His name is...Rabies Vaccinated," Dusty said. We looked at the other side of the tag but still couldn't find a name. Therefore, he was Rabies Vaccinated (or Rabies or just RV) from that point on. I'd bring a load of clothes to the back and say, "Hey Rabies," and he'd sniff back at me.

Now that the dog had a name, we wanted our apartments to have one too. Our previous apartment had been on Figueroa Ave., so we affectionately called it "The Fig Pad." It was catchy, and it felt cool to say, "I'll meet you back at The Fig Pad later." It might've sounded like a speakeasy to eavesdroppers, and that was almost as cool as it could get. So with this place, we had high hopes. We lived on Arden, and originally started calling the collection of apartments "The Arden Gardens." Then we heard our neighbor across the driveway (the one with the Maltese named Bon Bon) call her place that once, so it ended almost before it began. We were brainstorming one night, and I said, "Well, my mom said that these apartments are like cute little bungalows, so maybe we can use that somehow." Someone then threw out "The Bungardens," which was so awful sounding that we all agreed it should stick. Sure, we may have been intoxicated then, but that's beside the point.

Life in The Bungardens was good. It was the perfect transition place between "just out of college" and "all growns up." I went from being "in a serious relationship" to engaged to married in that place, so it'll always be special. We made some very good friends there, and when the six of us got together for drinks and games, no one needed to be the designated driver for the twenty feet back to our apartments. We had a lot of fun, settled into more of an adult lifestyle, and had several pleasant encounters with Rabies. What more can a guy ask for in a living situation?

Onto real work now. Have a great day, gentle readers, and remember to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything. I'll be back tomorrow with a Follow Up Friday, and there's plenty of room to include your thoughts, gripes, opinions, questions, or observations.

"That house"

After being wildly unsuccessful at finding a place to live, I got a break on the job front. A department on campus needed someone to fill in for several months while they re-classified , re-opened, and re-hired for that position. With that in the bag, I had a new bounce in my step as I approached a beautiful Victorian house with a room for rent just a couple of blocks away from my girlfriend's apartment.

I met the owner of the house, a woman in her late 50s named Joan. She lived there along with her daughter who was around my age and a renter named Bill who was a couple of years older. I chatted with Joan for a while, and we both agreed that I would move in at a given date. It was slightly different than what I had expected to find, but everyone seemed nice so I was excited to move in. The only thing that worried me about the house at the time was that there was no family room or den with a tv in it, but with one in my bedroom, my girlfriend's apartment very close, and my friend Dave's apartment not too far away, I knew that would be fine.

I moved in and began my time in "that house" (as it would later be called). Bill and I shared a bathroom, and although he seemed to always get in there to shower thirty seconds before I wanted to, that was working out fine. My first problem was that it was extremely lonely there. Everyone seemed to hang out on his or her own, and without a common area to chill in, I'd usually make food and bring it back to my room and sit there alone. I spent a few nights a week at my girlfriend's place, but my situation was weird enough that we rarely spent any time together at mine. I got used to it though, and things became routine fairly quickly.

Then the holiday season started approaching. You know, around frickin' October! Joan told me that she "liked to decorate the house for Christmas," but that's like saying Wilt Chamberlain "liked to have sex with women every once in a while." Words can not describe what this woman did for Christmas, but I shall do my best. There were two adjacent rooms that both served as dining rooms in the house. Joan created what can only be described as "a fake snow mountain" in each of those rooms. Starting in one corner of the ceiling and coming down and out about six feet was a big, white, fake-snowy mountain in each room. On each of them, there was a snow village. They had what you might expect in the way of little trains, people, and quaint shops, but they also had houses. Not little cute houses, but size-of-my-laptop-screen cottages, and a shitload of them on each mountain. What constitutes a shitload? Well, there were over 70 of these rather large cottages amongst the other scenery and modes of transportation, so that qualifies in my book.

The yuletide spirit wasn't confined to these two rooms by any means. There were three (yes, three) Christmas trees in the house, ornaments hanging from various ceilings, and lights all over the place. I got home one day from work and had a box of icicle lights at my door with a note asking me to put them on my window since it faced the street. I decided not to play my Jew card since it would've come off as a Grinch card, and I put up the lights. Because honestly, what do icicle lights really have to do with Jesus anyway? Apparently, I didn't do a good enough job though. The next day, I came home and saw that they were neater and hung more professionally, meaning someone came into my room to do that without asking. That pissed me off, but being a master of nonconfrontation, I managed to avoid a conflict. I told everyone about the ridiculous amount of decorating, and yet everyone who came over was still floored by what they saw. I'm telling you, I am limited by the boundaries of language to describe this level of overkill. I got through it, and on January 2nd I found a box at my door and a note asking me to please put the lights back in there. I did that part fine.

In addition to Joan, her daughter, and Bill, there were two pitch black cats. One was named Bill, which led to me calling him Bill the Cat and the roommate Bill the Human. The other was named Athena, and she had these haunting yellow-brown eyes. Very frequently, the first thing I'd see when leaving my room in the morning was a black cat crossing my path. "Oh, that's nice," I'd sarcastically say to myself each time. Neither cat was particularly affectionate or playful, but maybe they were for cats and I'm just not used to them. Still, I said hi to them and pet them when they were close enough.

One afternoon, I was walking down the stairs from my room to go to my girlfriend's place. Out of nowhere, I heard a little girl's voice. "Who are you?" it asked. I looked toward where the voice came from, and there sat Athena, motionless but fiercely staring directly at me. "Um, I..." I began. Then the little girl's voice started laughing. I opened my eyes a little wider and took another step down. There, sitting on a couch behind Athena was a little girl I'd never seen before in my life. One of Joan's friends came in right then and introduced me to her granddaughter, the owner of the mysterious voice.

Here's the thing though: When I thought the cat was talking to me, my first thought wasn't, "Holy shit, that cat's talking to me!" It was, "Holy shit, the cat's been able to talk all this time and I never formally introduced myself!" I don't know why I thought that, but if the little girl hadn't laughed, she would've heard me say aloud to a cat, "Um, I...I'm sorry I never introduced myself. I'm Peter." And she'd be writing that story somewhere online today and making people laugh at the weirdo who thought he was Dr. Doolittle.

A couple of months later, two of my best friends moved back to Santa Barbara and we found a place together. I gave Joan my 30-day notice, and she seemed a little pissed that I making her go through the whole rental process again. About a week before I moved out, I woke up one morning and started toward the bathroom (before Bill the Human could snag it). I saw an open door out of the corner of my eye and glanced over. There stood Joan's profile, completely naked, looking in the mirror. Immediately, I turned back and pretended that I was practically sleepwalking to the bathroom and didn't notice anything. Some people have suggested that she was making a strange pass at me, but I'm sure one of the cats just nudged the door open or something. Regardless, I was glad to be getting out of there. I didn't want to see another naked woman in her late 50s until I was also in my late 50s.

I didn't see Joan again for years, and when I did one final time, it wasn't even in Santa Barbara. Quite differently, it was on Kauai during our honeymoon. She was at a nearby table at a pizzeria playing Scrabble with her friend (the talking cat's grandmother), and I managed to avoid her line of sight for the whole meal. And do you know what the weirdest part about seeing her there for me was? Watching her eat. I realized right then that although I lived with that woman for a few month, those were the first bites I'd ever seen her take. I guess I was too busy hiding in my room and not introducing my pets. Live and learn, live and learn.

Adventures in would-be renting

After graduating from UCSB, many of my friends moved back down to the Los Angeles area. I stuck around though, mainly because my girlfriend was going to stick around. She's now my wife, so I think I made the right call. I stayed with my future wife in her apartment for a couple of weeks as I simultaneously applied for jobs on campus and looked for my own housing.

To save a bunch of money, I just wanted a room in a house or apartment instead of my own apartment. I looked around, and it was a very interesting experience. The first place I went was located right by Santa Barbara City College, and it was a dump. There were two bedrooms, and I was met by three people. They explained that one of the men and the woman would use the room at night, and since the other guy worked the graveyard shift somewhere, he'd use the same room to sleep during the day. The other room would be mine. So basically, no one was moving out, and they just wanted to pay less money. I was pretty sure that they were high the whole time I was talking to them, but it wasn't until they started asking me questions from their list that I was 100% sure.

The first question was, "What's your best Vader impression?" "As in Darth Vader?" I asked. I was pretty sure that that was the only thing they could mean, but I still have to ask. "Yeah," they said, giggling uncontrollably. I'm normally pretty quick and effective with witty retorts, but I was so taken aback (and not feeling like I wanted to impress them) that I barely managed a meager, "Luke, I am your father." It was probably a better James Earl Jones than they were used to, but I would've wowed them more with, "What is thy bidding, my master?" instead of a line that anyone off the street would've known.

The second question, somewhat predictably, was, "Do you smoke weed (giggle giggle)?" "Uh, not really," I said. They nodded unconvincingly, as if they were still cool with me even if we had different hobbies. There were a couple of more questions, and then they said they'd let me know in the next couple of days. Fortunately, I never heard back from them, so I didn't have to let them down easy. I clearly remember walking back to my car and being pissed at myself for shaving before going there, for they weren't worthy of my smooth cheeks.

The next place I went to was a nice house up in the hills. I missed a turn somewhere so it took me 45 minutes to get there instead of the 10 it should have. Fortunately, I'd allotted an hour to get there because it's in my genetic code to do so. They walked me and about 15 other hopeful renters through the nice house and then showed us the outside area. It was a very pretty place with great views of the city. We then followed them down some stairs along the side of the house, and there was the room they were subletting. Not a bad size, but I didn't think I'd ever get used to having to walk outside, along the length of the house, upstairs, inside, and through the kitchen to get to the closest bathroom. Call me a little princess, but I like to be able to get to a bathroom in less than two minutes. With the way other would-be renters were fawning over the couple that lived there, I didn't even end up leaving my info.

The following place was in a different area of town, and it was an ok-looking two-bedroom place. On the phone, the guy who lived there sounded pretty old and really boring, so I didn't have the highest hopes. I walked up and was "greeted" by a guy in his early 40s (I was 22 at the time, so that was pretty old for a roommate). I say "greeted" because it was more of a groan and head nod than anything else. He listlessly showed me the main room, pointed to the doors where the bedrooms were, introduced me to his two cats, and offered me a seat to chat for a little. He was a weird and boring guy, so I was curious to see what he did for a living. His response: "I teach traffic school, comedy traffic school." That was the last thing I expected to hear from this guy. He could've told me that he wrestled alpaca for a living, and I honestly would've been less surprised. We chatted a little more, and the whole time I kept thinking about how incredibly awkward it would be to watch this guy attempt to make traffic school fun for eight hours straight. Then he flatly asked, "So, do you want to move in?" I had made up my mind already that I didn't want to live there, but I chickened out a little and told him I still had a couple of other places to look at before I could make my decision. I thought about blurting out, "Aw, hellllll no!" but that may have come off as rude.

The next day, I walked just a street away from my girlfriend's apartment over to an old Victorian house that had a room for rent. I met two other boarders there, both guys a couple of years older than me who seemed pretty cool. They showed me the room, and it was a tiny box that felt tinier with the large built-in dresser I'd have to work around. In the room, there was a door that led to part of an attic that was at least as big as the room itself. The guys said that could be an office or something, and I started thinking about the possibilities.

I went downstairs and met the owner (who didn't live there). He was nice enough, but pretty pompous and insisted on being called Dr. Mike (or whatever his name was), even though it was from a PhD in something like Economics. He seemed to like me though, and he asked what I thought about the room. "It's nice," I said, "and I really like the extra attic space there. It could really come in handy for work stuff or if someone from out of town was visiting me." He nodded, then said, "Yes, yes. Although, technically that area is not zoned for inhabitation. Therefore, I would be both upset and legally responsible if there were ever a fire in that room and a friend of yours died. So I would caution against having people sleep in there." I fought myself off and didn't make the "did-you-really-just-say-that face," and told him that I would also find that troubling. It wasn't too hard to shake off that bizarre statement since this was hands-down the first place in my search that I could see myself living.

Dr. Whatever told me that there was one other person he had to interview, and that he'd call me after that. One of the roommates spoke up: "Well, if it's up to us, we like him." "I told this other gentleman that I'd meet with him, so it's only fair for me to do so," he responded. Then, turning back to me, he said, "I'll call you tonight." I felt pretty good about it, and jogged back to my girlfriend's place excitedly. Once I got there, I told her all about the place and then called "weird-boring-cat-traffic-school-guy" to officially say no. He was either heartbroken or ecstatic, I couldn't tell.

That night, Dr. Whatever called to tell me that they were going with the other guy instead of me. He didn't elaborate, and I didn't ask. It upset me, because I felt so close to being done with this heinous process. But after a minute, I got over it; I knew I'd find something else soon - and something better than that place. I was right too, if "better" means "full of stories that will later be deemed blog-worthy." Tune in tomorrow, gentle readers.

*Remember, please email ptklein@gmail.com with any thoughts, questions, likes, dislikes, or...well, anything really. It makes me feel loved. You want me to feel loved, right?