It's been a busy few days for me. With the non-infested roommate on vacation in Greece (sailing on a yacht from island to island... must be nice ;) ), I've been given the responsibility of supervising the moveout of the infested roommate. This means no beach house for me this weekend so that I can prep the apartment for the move-in of our new (hopefully bug-free) roommate. (I trust him, I think he'll be ok.)
So I've been cranky because of that and because it's becoming more and more clear that this chick needs to get out NOW but she's being purposefully difficult. (I also think she's leaving drunk notes on the refrigerator white board that she thinks are insulting/sarcastic but really just don't make any sense. She has made me completely confident in my assessment that the majority of people who attend ivy league colleges for undergrad are D-U-M-B).
Then to top it off, I discovered on Wednesday night while out for happy hour drinks with co-workers and former co-workers that the evil office manager is trying to get me fired. This comes after a big to-do on Tuesday during which she repeatedly screamed at me that I was a
"TERRIBLE PERSON!!!" and "SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF [MYSELF]!!!!" because I try to generally avoid contact with her in any form. She is an evil hag, but rather than similarly behaving like a lunatic, I bit my tongue and did not say anything in response other than "Calm down." and "Grow up." My coworkers were completely taken aback by her major flipout, which apparently only stopped when my boss arrived. I hate that work has become so miserable because of this woman, but my annual review is next week and I plan on using that forum to forcefully state my grievances.
This brings me to yesterday. I spent the day getting sweaty and dirty out on Long Island finishing work on the Cemetery Project from Hell, thinking the whole time about how the roommate was moving "most" of her stuff out that morning but had not yet given me her definitive time of departure, or the confidence that she would not be walking off with our stuff. I came home expecting to find the apartment in a state of disaster, but instead it was relatively neat and devoid of all her things (except for 2 bags. WTF? she couldn't be bothered to move the last 2 bags and leave the keys so I could be completely rid of her and enjoy my weekend in peace???). The smelly garbage she had filled up was gone and there was a perfectly polite note saying that she would be out "by early evening Friday." At least she is finally communicating soberly/coherently, even if she is not responding to emails. Oh well, can't win them all.
But then I saw sitting on the kitchen counter was a package... for me. From my Secret Pal. Suddenly all thoughts of crappy roommates, evil office managers, hot sweaty workdays in cemeteries, and lack of labor day beach house action were gone. All I could think about was this:
Now, we should first note that the hands that were about to open this package looked a little something like this:
Gross!
So there was some heavy-duty scrubbing in order which took about 10 minutes. I was not about to touch anything wrapped in tissue paper with those grubby mitts. Good lord, my nails look horrible. Time for a trim.
Once I had properly washed and moisturized, I tore into that tissue paper like a kid at Christmas and this is what I found:
Awe-some.
A plastic egg with the most ingenious row counter I've ever seen: It's a bracelet. It's a row counter. It's a bracelet row-counter! Now if only I remember to stop knitting long enough to move the beads and keep track of my rows, I won't continue to mess up all of those cabled projects that are currently on the needles.
A pristine used copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac to initiate me into the world of lace and Elizabeth Zimmerman. And lord knows I love me some used books. Thank goodness I bought that extra bookcase at Ikea.
A bottle of Kookaburra Woolwash (because goodness knows I need it), a goat's milk soap (so frikkin cool), and YARN!
A skein of Malabrigo lace weight in Emerald and Garden Tweed (a cotton/linen blend), both in such gorgeous colorways I can't even stand it. Thank you, Secret Pal for completely making my day!
