Random Traffic Through Nick's Brain

• Alex brings toys up to whatever he’s pulling up on to play with. He’ll put toys on top of other things (such as big boxes).
• He recognizes the Cheerio box.
• I have two interviews this week. Interviewing while having to manage child care is very challenging.
• Made 7 mason jars of pasta sauce. Simmered it both Sunday and Monday. Don’t think I’ve ever done a 2-day sauce before, but my memory may just be flaky. Used goat, lamb, and marrow bones. Very tasty. I skimmed most of the oil off the top, and though it’s the right thing to do health-wise, I felt like I should’ve put it to good use. Part of the problem with having Alex around is that I now cut corners around the house… I didn’t remove the bones before bottling the sauce. I figure I’ll do that when I cook the pasta.
• This was going to be one long post, but I’m too tired of the situation, so here’s the synopsis: our landlord replaced our broken fridge and stove last Tuesday. The doorway was to small to fit the fridge. To get the fridge through, landlord removed the moulding, as well as decent size chunks of the wall. Horse hair plaster dust everywhere in the living room and kitchen. We store all of Alex’s toys in the living room. I was pissed. Landlord didn’t understand why. I spent about 6 hours cleaning on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he claims that it’ll take 2 hours to fix. I leave the house with instructions that he call me if he won’t be done in 3 hours so that I can keep Alex away. No call, but the job isn’t done after 4.5 hours. Another hour of cleaning for me. On Thursday, he claims that it’ll take about 2 more hours. It takes about 3.5. Despite the promises of no dust, there’s more dust, and another hour of cleaning for me. All this time, much of our kitchen and living room stuff is in the back bedroom. Our garbage can was ½ broken… if you stepped on the foot just right it would open. At some point, landlord broke it. Landlord also dropped our clock and broke it. The battery fell out, and he was nice enough to put another one in it. Thankfully, Alex found the missing battery by grabbing it and putting it in his mouth. Landlord says that telling us about the clock and battery slipped his mind, he says it’s OK since he wasn’t intentionally a danger to Alex. On Friday, some more work. Little dust this time, so only a ½ hour of cleaning. On Monday, some painting. Overall, an utterly crappy job. We have a new (bigger) fridge and (crappier) stove. We have a slightly wider doorway. We have a broken garbage can, and a broken clock. We have a crappy looking doorway. I got to enjoy the heart-stopping visual of my kid with a battery in his mouth. I spent about 9 hours cleaning the apartment to make it usable. We had take-out 2 nights. We didn’t really have use of our living room and kitchen for 3 days.
• Our landlord doesn’t understand why we’re mad. He didn’t intend to make a mess of the apartment. He doesn’t seem to get that we were put out for days. He didn’t intend to be a danger to Alex. Alex just ended up gumming a battery. Our landlord doesn’t understand why we’ve told him that we prefer that he tell us when he’s coming into our apartment because we’d like to supervise him. He seems to think that good intentions are enough. He doesn’t seem to get that we won’t tolerate having our schedules disrupted, or more importantly, our child’s life put in danger. The excuse “I didn’t intend to” doesn’t cut it. If he intended to, the full force of the law would be falling down on his head. Since he doesn’t intend to, we’re just keeping him away from us as much as we can.

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