Apartment Pics

For those of you (if there are any of you) who haven't seen the apartment yet, here's a few pics of what we've done with the place. And by 'the place', I mean 'the kitchen'.




Destined for Pesto.

MacGuyver, my Man

So while I've been puttering about the internet, looking for vegetarian alternatives to chicken salad &c., my DBF has been busy unpacking books, exchanging lamps from one room to another, and fixing doors.

Yes. Fixing doors. The doors. . . dare I say it? *Close* now. The cat will be very confused when he realizes that a closed door will no longer open to the pressure exerted by his delicate gray paws.

Anyway, this repair took metallurgical prowess, a scary appreciation of pliers, and actually scraping wood out of the doorframe. Yes, the apartment fix-it-up-chappies installed doors that not only didn't have working springs, but *couldn't possibly interact with the hole in the door frame, by as much as a few centimeters!*

And now it's better, and I'm smug.

Apartment To-Dos

I need a teakettle. Boiling water in a saucepan takes longer and is harder to pour into the teapot, let alone a cup. Having boiling water available will help with making bouillon for soup, seitan, etc. as well.

And sweet baby Moses in a basket! We need bookshelves on which to put these books. Boxes and boxes of books. Most of the West Parlor could be cleared if only the books were put away somewhere. Probably in the West Parlor, but at least it wouldn't be boxes. I am tired of boxes. Not as much as I am tired of rented trucks and car-carrying hitches, but quite a bit.

I need to obtain or make oven mitts. So far it stands Me: 1, Oven/Stove: 6. Even with me flying solo against a tag team, that's still not very good.

I also want to line the drawers and cupboards. They are clean, but I always am sure that the dishes will stick to the paint. A bit of contact paper and a few hours of swearing will greatly ease my mind on that account.

And I feel I should make myself an apron. But I have no sewing machine and no ambition to become a hand-sewing virago of awesome.

Apartment: The Greening

. . . yeah. I read too much World of Darkness stuff, and am a huge geek to boot. (Please don't boot the geek! I'm really rather nice!) So the Noun: the Gerunding form is familiar, and promises hours upon hours of fun, either running or playing a game, simply reading the book, and in the case of some lines, mocking it mercilessly (Promethean: the Mocking).

So as you drive into California, there is a place where you have to stop and inform the nice gentlemen that you are not, in fact, a desperado verde, smuggling foreign plants, soil, insects, parasites, and diseases into the Golden State. "Yes, we have no bananas", you sing in your head, so as not to annoy the poor man, who is, after all, just doing his job, with something he no doubt gets all the time, to the point where it's in no way funny anymore. As such, I will not be bringing my houseplants with me, and since there is no native vegetation already in existence in the apartment, I'll have to step up and remedy the fact. Enter the Greening.



Preliminary research indicates that I may be capable of keeping orchids, and definately have the skills (and hopefully, the patience) for herbal topiary, forming lavender and rosemary into miniature orangeries, rocking the Versailles look.



No, not that one. This one. (Though I dig the quill pen accessory. Very Bas Bleu Barbie of la Princesse de Lamballe, I think.)



Though now I come to think of it, what's the point of living in California if one can't grow one's own Meyer lemons? Or limes?



I think the phrase "Whoa, there!" may be appropriate. Before I turn the place into a jungle. The cat would like it, as would the other beast, but humankind was not meant to live in a knee-high rainforest. It would be like a Lilliputian Amazon, dense undergrowth at the feet, then mostly clear until the canopy hits your lower thigh. Hm. Yes. Best to not.