apartment hunting, dinner, and my ski legs

On Friday, I went apartment hunting with Jessica and her aunt Tink, just driving around the city and looking at places we thought were nice. We had appointments with two places and only one of those we decided was worth considering, the other was just too janky. We hit up other places without having appointments because their leasing offices were open. At first we found a nice townhouse that became the top of our list, then we found a very cheap apartment that put up a good fight, then finally, we fell in love. The funny part is that we weren’t even trying to go to the place we fell in love with, we just needed to turn around to get back to another complex we had passed up. When we saw that our turnaround was a pretty nice looking apartment complex, we decided to check it out just for the heck of it. When we got a tour, we were tickled to see a nice, spacious apartment with big closets, an included washer and dryer, a dishwasher, and a gorgeous view. The whole area is kind of tucked away off the main road with big, old trees and rolling hills. Best of all, it’s in our price range, so we left with high hopes but still an ounce of worry because Jessica needed her parents’ approval, since they’ll be helping her to pay for things.

The three of us went out to dinner with Jessica’s other aunt, Sharon, and her two cousins: Josie, 3, and Ben, 5. Going out to dinner with anyone still in the age range to do cute things is a blast, provided they don’t spend the entire time whining or crying; fortunately, these two didn’t. The place we went to served rolls, and Josie quickly found the little bowl of whipped butter. She proceeded to shove her face into and eat it plain, to the disgust of everyone else at our table, except maybe Ben, who was too busy not eating his macaroni to care. One of the aunts would stop Josie’s butter explorations but, after about the third time we’d caught her eating it, Sharon commented in a quiet-but-not-quiet-enough voice, “Honey, your poop’s gonna slide.” A waiter standing off to the side tending to another table heard her, whipped around, and replied, “Is that a dare?” Now this made us all laugh, especially Sharon who was pretty embarrassed, but in retrospect, I realize I have no idea what that meant. It doesn’t seem a logical response to a declaration of sliding poop, so I just don’t know what to make of it.

Other fun things that occurred at dinner include Tink letting Josie put on Tink’s lipstick, a deep reddish-purple affair that probably shouldn’t be allowed near kids because watching a child put on lipstick is about the same, I’d wager, as watching a chicken try to put on lipstick. Now, chickens have the inherent disadvantage of not having lips, but you’d think kids were in the same boat for as well as they put it on, smearing the stuff all over their faces and even up their nostrils.

Now this restaurant offers little desserts that come in cute little tins, and I ordered one because the desserts themselves are tasty. When it arrived, Ben got sad that he didn’t have one, so Sharon asked if he’d like some of the cheesecake that was in my tin. He said no, that he wanted ice cream, so Sharon ordered him ice cream. When the waiter brought it, Ben was still sad and we couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t want the ice cream, it turned out, he just wanted the little tin. That was easily remedied, so Ben and I made a trade: he gave the ice cream to me and Jess, who made short work of it, and I gave him my tin, which the restaurant lets you keep. Ben was so tickled with his little tin, but he couldn’t just let it stay empty, so he wanted to fill it with peanuts. This restaurant is one of those crazy roadhouses that would be a death trap for anyone with a nut allergy, because they have big barrels of peanuts sitting around everywhere, including buckets of them on each table. We had been given crayons since we had two little kids in our party, and Ben insisted that Jess and I color peanuts with said crayons so that he could put them in his tin. So color we did!

After dinner I went to Kathy’s house for the evening because next morning (Saturday, that is) we were going skiing, bright and early. I got a call from Jessica while I was there, and she started the conversation by telling me that her parents said, if we wanted it, we should go and put down money for the apartment. At this point I had to jump around and squeal like the 13-year-old tween I am not, I was so excited–we really liked this apartment, y’all. When I asked Jess if her parents didn’t even want to see it first, she told me they said it wouldn’t do any good, so apparently they realized we had our hearts set on it. So tomorrow, Jess and I will be going to put ourselves on a wait list so that we can move in around May, after she gets out of the dorm and the semester is over.

Skiing. I found out I do about as well at it as I do at roller skating, which is to say that I scrape by. The big problem I had is that the ski boots hurt like a mother effer, despite me trying on three different pairs, taking off two of my three pairs of socks, and untucking my pants from the boots. They pinched around my shins and calves, making it so that every step I took was like I had been walking in spike heels all day, except instead of my feet hurting, it was my legs. Then when I finally got all suited up and made it outside with my gear, I couldn’t find anyone in my group. I hadn’t signed up for ski lessons because the pastor (it was Kathy’s church group that went) had said he’d teach us noobs how to ski, but that of course depended on our being able to find him. I did find an instructor lady that worked for the resort, and she taught me out to put my skis on and off, but then she said if I wanted further instruction I would have to sign up on a list somewhere inside the lodge. I dreaded stomping around further in the ski boots because of the pain and the slow going, but I made for the lodge anyway. Inside, I found a girl in my group and she was able to take me back outside to find the pastor, since she knew where he was. Once I located him and made the trek to him, he set me up with his wife, who did indeed teach me the basics. She was a good teacher and while I fell down a lot initially, I eventually got to where I could go and stop on my own reasonably well. Problem was, I didn’t enjoy it and I was still in pain. I eventually just went in to get some water but ended up stopping for the day because I was frustrated with the experience. I couldn’t wait to get those boots off, and when I did, I settled down with Kathy and the other non-skiers for a game of Risk.

I’m now a mixture of sore spots and bruises, I think from skiing on Saturday, working out Sunday morning, and yoga on Sunday evening.