Animals of many kinds...

We live in 'luxury' apartments...I suppose they are luxury. We have a pool during the summer, a nice clubhouse with a big screen tv, pool table, poker table, kitchen, weight room, and fitness center. Our apartment itself is nice too. I love the kitchen/living room set up (though we lack cupboard space). HOWEVER we can hear our upstairs neighbors walk, run, do laundry, and up until a few months ago their dog which we assumed looked like this from all the racket he made:



But actually looked more like this:

(ok imagine something like a german shepard in color but really only about 20 pounds) NOT what we thought before seeing it.

Speaking of dogs. I am not a dog person. They are usually too big and scare me or are unpredictable and stinky (yes, without an owner that bathes them A LOT... they usually stink). Not that I have anything against dogs or dog-owners...I have met many dogs I like. I just like cats more. One of the arguments I hear a lot in favor of dogs is that they greet you at the door. Maybe my cat is unusual in this, but she greets me and Jif every time we come home. She runs in and mews, falls on her back and rolls around waiting for us to notice her and pet her. She has so many fun little things...

So anyway, our 'luxury' apartment has no soundproofing in the ceiling... at all. We learned to live with this for over a year. We tried to contact management for a noise complaint to add some sort of padding or something... but they needed to hear it before they would do anything. Seriously, how can 2 working adults predict when exactly this dog is going to go crazy while the office is open. Thus we were left with over a year of 'earthquakes' when they decided to play ball... 'thunderstorms' when the dog and humans would play chase... and 'trainwrecks' when they would simply walk around. Of course, this would happen in the bedroom, at 12am, during evening movie-watching. It was so much fun!!!! >:-(

Jif was a little more perturbed than myself... knocking/beating on the ceiling when they pulled late-night stunts or were just SO LOUD. I, on the other hand, worked up the courage (had enough to drink, perhaps...) to go up to their apartment one night to confront them (I heard them above me so I knew they were home). Heart pounding... I walk up the stairs and knock on the door. No one answers... they left to go on a walk before I got up there... what luck... I never worked up the courage again.

These neighbors have also left evidence of being lazy and disgusting dog owners... as evidenced by the yellow snow on our patio a handful of times.... seriously inconsiderate.

If you haven't noticed, I was talking in the past tense... as of Christmas, the dog is gone! (Jif and I hope to a better place... like something with a yard.) The two humans don't do half as much running around. They do laundry every single day, but you know, in comparison, Jif and I were jumping for joy for 3 whole months!

Guess what the human-animals upstairs have purchased now??? You'll never guess...

A rocking chair.

OH.

MY.

GOD.

I can't tell you how annoying it is to try to do ANYTHING with that rocking chair upstairs. Jif is also going CRAZY (his threshold is lower than my own) but I am going CRAZY too!

Guess what the human-like-animals upstairs did last night in the chair... 'breaking it in' so to speak... take a guess... yes... THAT! I was luckily not home for this atrocity... Jif was... and had to leave the room it was so bad...

WOW. I can't wait to buy a house (which is hopefully within the next few months). Jif and I haven't even considered a condo or townhome or duplex... we can deal with NO MORE ANIMAL/HUMAN NEIGHBORS sharing our walls of any kind.

Crazy dream...

Here is a good example of the strange way my mind works. I have crazy dreams (usually because I like to push the snooze timer... a lot...)

The Dream:

This morning my cute little kitty Gweny (short for Guinivere, though she has many names really...) had kittens. My mind suddenly says, "But she's been spayed, I really need to call and complain to those humane society people!" (my kitty also has an illness, FIV, which is much like HIV but for cats... there is no way the humane society could have known before I adopted her... and she's likely to live a very long healthy life). Anyway... she, who has no contact with other cats... had kittens.

My fiance, Jif, woke up before me and didn't feel the need to tell me about the surprise occurrence. (this is where the dream gets kinda scary) Some kittens didn't survive and are in the apartment (thinking 'lucky' from 101 Dalmations... but not so lucky) but Jif shows me the one that did make it. There's also a huge mess that he didn't feel the need to clean up (leaving it for me!?! my mind is very upset with this!)

The mess is made worse by the fact that my cell phone is sitting in... it. I pick up the cell phone and start to clean it off. It suddenly opens up and I find a whole host of things stored inside my cell phone... two extra face plates, and more that I can't remember. (this is while I'm still in the kitty dream... anyway...) It opened much like the cell phone in the transformers movie that became a transformer... and all of its special insides fit neatly back inside or could be opened again. I abandon the cleaning mission...

I find that, unlike what Jif initially thought, there are 3 living kittens from my Gweny's litter. (the cutest little fluff-balls you can imagine) I also find the kitty-daddy roaming the apartment (I just notice him roaming around, he had no other role...)

In my dream I am suddenly sad. When there was one new kitten, my mind felt we could keep it. (Yay!) It wouldn't be in danger of getting FIV since it would have inherited it (which is why we won't be able to add to our real-life kitty family). But since THREE kittens are there, there's no way to keep them all!

And with that, my dream ended and I decided to wake up and not hit snooze (for at least the 7th time... yes I hit snooze for over an hour this morning...). Happily when I woke up, my real-life Gweny was sleeping under the covers right next to me in her oh-so-cute way.

Blogging...

I've never done this before but have recently been introduced to the witty and fun directions that blogs can take. I used to keep a journal but now I think this will be so much more fun! So stay tuned to see what 'meanderings' my mind will take!