Believe in the Flowers.

Carol of the Zombie Jesus!

So.. It turns out that I have a lot to talk about. Let's see how much of it I successfully get through.

First, the apartment. The heat around this part of the nation has been astronomical - we've been some twenty degrees above average, meaning that our 75 degree days have been topping out over 90 on more than one occasion. I suppose that if our situation was a little different it wouldn't be such a problem, but consider this: we live in the attic - third story - of a building. The living room is our main room and also the biggest, has a vaulted ceiling (but also has the shorter walls with low slants, as one might expect from an apartment like this), and - oh yeah - has no windows. None. The nearest "window" is the door down the stairs that leads to our apartment, and since it has no extra screen door and is oh SEVEN FEET TALL there is no way we're leaving it open. Also our downstairs neighbors are untrustworthy, creepy people. Mind you, we have central air. We're the only apartment in the five apartments in this building that is so lucky. Because of this, we lack any easy way - okay, ANY way - to install window units. And of course, because our AC unit has gone unserviced and is trying so hard to cool off an apartment three floors away with huge ceilings, it's overheating itself and thus is doing no good. Fans don't help, even if the windows are open - although sometimes it isn't worth opening them. So we swelter - two adults, a one-year-old, and two cats. Our thermostat's thermometer only goes up to 90, and it's always pushing that mark, so my assumption is that it's typically between 85 and 100 up here if one ignores the humidity, which always makes things worse.

So we and our meager budget are apartment searching. We naturally can't afford to pay more a month than what we're paying now, which is tough to beat in this area without delving into the slums/government housing and I just don't feel safe down there. We've spent the last two days and one night at my mom's house, which despite its caving-in back roof, has working central air. It's kind of a defining factor. It makes sleeping on the floor on an air mattress and putting up with her on-edge attitude almost worthwhile. Better than not sleeping and being unable to cool down, which is what I was doing the day before we decided to go stay at Mom's a while.

We have an apartment that we were looking at, one owned by a local bank. It's a nice place, considering - an unfinished basement with washer/dryer hookups that we have sole indoor access to, a dining room, two bedrooms, a living room, and a very small bathroom with a pathetic wanna-be shower. It needs touchups, some new curtains, and a good cleaning, but also has dedicated parking out back and a small area where we could put a grill - and a front deck that we could put chairs, or at least a plant, on. It's also on the first story, as opposed to the third. Oh, yeah, and IT HAS WINDOWS EVERYWHERE. The fact that it doesn't have central air isn't such a problem, since we technically own two window units - a large one that could probably cool half the apartment, and a smaller one that could take care of the other half - that are "in storage" at Aaron and Kellie's. Meaning, of course, that we left them there as we've no way to transport either and have nowhere to put them, ah ha ha. Ha.

The problem is that while this awesome new much-wanted apartment would be the same price as what we're paying now - DEAR GOD - it was already applied for by another person before we even went to look at it. There's a possibility that their application will be denied for whatever reason, but even if that ends up being the case, ours may well be denied too. We both have horrible credit and I don't have a job yet. We're hoping, but not getting our hopes up too much.

As for jobs, that too is a "rant" in and of itself. I have had an offer from a hiring company that hires out for HP - yes, Hewlett-Packard - that wants me to work at Best Buy - ha ha! - and potentially somewhere else as a product rep. At $15 an hour and only working weekends for 13 to 14.5 hours, it's a steal of a job, but not enough to actually help us get ahead on our bills. I'm hoping to hear back and be told that HEY I HAVE A JOB NOW, but I would have to get a second job on top of that, which I'm also working on. It would probably only be a minimum wage job, but the amount of money that would be coming in total would be well worth the effort in the long run. We could get ahead and stop having the immature, worried, guilt-fueled arguments that we've been having recently. It would be one thing that would no longer be a nervous concern, and the best part would be not having to worry about our electricity being shut off, or having to avoid our lurking landlord because he's looking for overdue rent from last month, much less THIS month, that we still don't have.

So that's it. This is a Friday that Mom was supposed to take Gabe, and she did, so he's assuredly sleeping peacefully in the cool breeze there while we're sweating our asses off up here, trying to figure out how to spend our baby-free evening. The worst part? We're probably just going to shut everything off, open the windows, and go back to Mom's in hope of cooling back down and getting a couple of hours of well-deserved sleep. Colin has already stated his dislike of this idea, though only because he doesn't feel well (too much Mountain Dew) and thus doesn't want to leave the house again, but I know that getting back out of the heat will probably help him cheer up a bit, if not feel even better. It was a little warm at Bobb's house as it was, and we weren't in the car long enough to have really gotten the cool down that we so desperately needed.

Mayhaps tomorrow I'll share a little insight to the 2 AM tornado warning we had a few days ago, and the subsequent hail-ridden car ride to the hospital. Not because anybody was hurt or sick, but because we have no basement access here, and that's the nearest safe place for us to go where we won't have to beg for admission. For now, however, Colin's already asleep on the sofa, so I'm going to see if I can't wake him up and get him to put his pants back on. I think I'll be driving.

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