urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:nomad_kate nomad_kate nomad_kate 2038-01-19T03:14:07Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:nomad_kate:18366 2038-01-19T03:14:07Z 2038-01-19T03:14:07Z So most of you know that I've moved up to Ottawa and into my own apartment. I was worried that I would be scared or lonely living alone, but it pretty much rocks. Once I install blinds in my living room and can return to a pants optional policy, it'll be pretty close to perfect.<br /><br />I did have a momentary scare though, shortly after moving in. I had purchased this crazy piece of Ikea furniture that is a chair by day, a spare bed by night and required assembly. It had many pieces, and the Ikea pictograms that served as directions (sidebar--swear to GOD, these things are nuts. They have no words so that they don't have to translate them for different markets, but they look like some sort of crazy cave drawings or those Dick and Jane books. See Man. See Hammer. See Man use Hammer. Man needs help; see Other Man. Neither Man can build furniture; call Magic Phone That Connects Directly to Ikea.). I had the stupid thing nearly put together when it accordioned from bed to chair WITH ME INSIDE IT! As I was trying to extract myself, I had a momentary vision of a newspaper heading reading something like "Brilliant Singleton Crushed by Crazy Furniture and Eaten by Alsatians".<br /><br />I quickly realized this wouldn't happen because<br />a) I am not, in fact, Bridget Jones and<br />b) I have a cat, not an Alsatian.<br /><br />But it was a scary couple of minutes.<br /><br />The previous tenant left some weird stuff in the apartment that I've been working to get rid of. She had quite the collection of sports bottles, a crazy huge picture of herself (that was seemingly stuck to the wall using MAGIC a la Harry Potter) and a huge, heavy, broken German washing machine from the '70s. The picture was ripped from the wall and thrown away, the landlord removed the ancient washing machine (allowing me to move MY washing machine, which had been sitting in my living room like some sort of weird art installation, into the bathroom where it now sits), and changed the plug back to a standard North American 120V plug, BECAUSE THE PREVIOUS TENANT HAD CHANGED IT TO THE SHAPE AND VOLTAGE FOR THIS ANCIENT MACHINE. Who does that? Who does that, and doesn't fix it when they move out? Seriously. I'm also going to repaint the hallway and bathroom as pumpkin orange isn't really my thang.<br /><br />It's all worked out though, and once I finish unpacking, it'll be a pretty cool place. So, come and visit y'all!