Buzzed to Death

I am so irritated. No one in this house slept much this last night. Our washer and dryer hook-ups are in the basement. Our upstairs neighbors were doing laundry late last night and had the buzzers set. Fine, right? Nope. Their machines do the same thing mine do. That is, they will buzz every five minutes until someone either comes and turns them off or gets the laundry or restarts them. But the thing is, the walls here are thin. So I have my buzzers turned off because we are liable to be doing a load of towels or jeans or scrubs at any given time. Apparently they have the same problem, but they are upstairs and do not realize that when their buzzer goes off, my entire apartment vibrates, the kid wakes up, and the dog starts wailing. Maybe I should leave them a note.

Guess What! Calculus Sucks (And Other Random Drama)

The first week of school is officially completed. Biology was okay. I managed to work ahead there, completing an asignment and handing it in a week before the deadline. Chamistry? I guess it is okay too, other than the fact that he made a 3-hour online assignment due the morning after a 12 hour shift, and there was physically no way for me to complete it on time. After a discussion with the professor, we agreed that some points were better than none, and I would complete it for partial credit, with the intent of dropping that grade at the end of the quarter. Calculus? The good news there is that I actually comprehend the lectures. But it completely sucks. I actually have to use my brain. A lot.

Maybe it is because this is a new thing to me, but the whole issue of being a full-time student, and a mom, and a wife, and a full-time RT...Well the task has been rather daunting this week. I have had no breathing room in my schedule. I keep telling myself that this is because it is still oin the old schedule, where I am not off on the weekdays. This past week was the last week I have to worry about that for awhile. Hopefully this week will be better. I work a 12 tonight, then am off for 5 days, then I go back to working just the weekends.

So what is the other drama? Our neighbors and our landlord. When John called him to make arrangements to get our rent to him, he had some interesting things to say. Apparently the other tenants have been complaining about us and the level of noise that is coming from our apartment. Doors slamming and Evan playing, and even the time I come home from work on the weekend mornings. What are we supposed to do? Evan is 7. He has to play at some point. Toy trucks are loud on hardwood floors, especially with these 12-foot high ceilings, where the sound is amplified. Yet he cannot go outside to play because the yard is full of German Shepherd crap. The doors slamming? Same effect. When you shut a door here, it echos. And Evan's bedroom doors are pocket doors. They make a horrible racket when you close them because they don't slide smoothly on the track. And me? Coming home from work in the morning, I am as quiet as possible, because usually John and Evan are still asleep. But the same thing goes there as well. You can hear the front door to the building, I am sure, because I can hear when they all come and go. But they are complaining that they can hear me enter the building at 7:30 in the morning on Saturdays when they are trying to sleep in. Am I supposed to quit my job???
They say the noise starts at 7:30 in the morning. I can see that. During the week, that is when Evan is usally leaving for school. On the weekends, I am coming home from work. But they say it has been going all day everyday this week. How? Evan has been back in school. I have been in school. When I am not in school, I have been sleeping. Or studying. I guaruntee that Calculus-study does not get me into a wild frenzy enough to disturb my neighbors. The weeks before that? I was working so many nights a week that I was sleeping all day, and under fear of death, John and Evan were quiet to allow it.
I refuse to walk on eggshells. As it is, since we have heard of the complaints, we have stopped allowing Evan to close his bedroom doors. We are turning everything off at night so as not to disturb him while he is trying to sleep in the open room. I am afraid to even leave the house or return because of this. And I have been getting on my child and husband over every tiny noise.
Yet there is Kurt Cobain upstairs (we call him this in the hopes that he will have the same demise). This guy, at about 2 in the morning, will crank his stereo all the way up and try to play his electric guitar along with the songs. Most are asleep at that time, but you know my hours. If I am home, I am studying. On two different occasions, I had to stop because I couldn't concentrate. Yet I did not complain. There are just certain things you have to deal with when living in an apartment, especially in a building that was not designed initially to be an apartment.
The dog crap? It came to my attention that not only do we have Beowulf in the backyard, but the upstairs neighboir is allowing her dog (the ugliest dog I have evr seen) to do the same in the front yard, where I tread to go to and from the house. What is wrong with these people???

So...desperate times call for desperate measures, and I made a discovery that is going to be in the next post because there is too much to tell.

Grrrrrrrr........Arrrrrgh!

We have theis really cool backyard here at the new place. It is hard to describe, and I am sure there is some sort of word for it if I were well versed in landscaping terms (terrace?). But it is like my lawn is higher than street level: a lawn on a platform of concrete, completely fenced in. I was completely at ease with my child going outside to play there when the weather is more appropriate. I can see everything he does from the window in my office that is situated on the back wall, and there is also a window that overlooks from the kitchen. It would've been so nice, but...
There is Beowulf. Beowulf is our neighbor's German Shepherd. Beowulf looks out-right frightening, as if he could unhinge the Gates of Hell. That is not the issue. He actually is gentle enough that I have found myself comfortable with Evan playing with him unsupervised. But he is enormous, and therefore has enormous...droppings. It never crossed my mind to be concerned about this. I assumed that, being that we are all living in close proximity in an urban setting, Beowulf's owners were being responsible pet owners. When one has their own lawn, one can be free to allow the dog to leave enormous piles of crap everywhere. But this is a shared lawn. And I have a 7-year-old little boy who loves nothing more than to scoot around on his knees in dirt with huge toy trucks. These two scenarios just do not mesh well.
I didn't realize this. Our short time here has basically been composed of me going to and from my car, down the front walk, as I am coming and going from work. But this morning, I am trying to sleep in a little as I work tonight, and John and Evan are in the bathroom, where John is helping Evan with his unruly hair. I hear muflled voices mumbling something, and it went like this: "HMMMMMmmm mmmmmmmm hhmmmmmm DOG POOP." Huh? What? I ask John what he was saying. "Nothing", he replies. I insist he tell me.
Apparently, my sweet son has taken his miniature version of solid white leather shoes I have provided and tread directly into the center of a pile of Essence de Beowulf. What's more is that the boys hid this from me. I don't know if I need to elaborate on this or not, as there was an entire post in days past devoted solely to the type of shoes I buy my son. As we speak, right now, John is deconstructing the shoes and placing all of the parts into my washing machine with enough Clorox that I can smell the bleach through the floorboards. I am trying to figure the most diplomatic way to address Beowulf's parents, and am wondering if gift-wrapping a Pooper-Scouper for the holidays is entirely too passive-agressive.