Damned good thing I'm not Catholic or anything! Nothing going on here to explain my absence this time. Just a lack of inspiration... and the fact that my special writing chair kinda got buried in school stuff. What can I say? I am a cat lady sans cats, after all! Every once in awhile things get a little out of control around here. Teetering on the edge of madness, I tell you! Madness!
What I do love about this blogging community, though, is that people check up on me whenever I go missing. My greatest fear as a cat lady without the cats is the scenario in which I finally meet my demise through some incredibly klutzy move inside my house and nobody finds me for days.
I know what that's like from personal experience. Long ago, when the ex and I moved to Canon City, Colorado for a year, we lived on the cheap. I worked as a kindergarten teacher's aide half days and the ex taught silkscreening in night school and worked on his photography during the day. It was a great life. I'd go to school in the morning and then we'd go up into the mountains to hike or ride bikes in the afternoon.
Surprisingly, we were able to make ends meet. Because the wiring wasn't quite right in our apartment, our average monthly utility bill was $1.89. Seriously! Even at 1976 prices, that was ridiculous. We went next door to the utility company and were able to pay our bill in spare change. But it was the cheap apartment itself that made our meager paychecks last from one week to the next. Our rent was $85 a month for a three bedroom, two bathroom apartment that was half of an 19th century duplex house. A double garage was also included.
So, how does one get a large apartment at that price? When the previous tenant has died there... in August... only to be found two weeks later. Even with the best of tidying up, the smell of death remained. Not the roadkill type of stench, but the aroma of special chemicals used to eradicate the smell. Plus there was a stain on the hardwood floor in the parlor where she met her demise. Charming, to be sure and a turn-off to most potential renters. Intrepid bargain-hunters that we were, though, it didn't bother us in the least. Maybe because we were used to the accoutrements of death from living in close proximity with a medical examiner.
We would sit in the parlor at night, communing with the spirit of the previous tenant. Just to show her good will and all. Wouldn't want ghosts pissed off at us. We wanted her to rest in peace.
Funny thing, is... nobody ever wanted to come visit us. We kept inviting my sister-out-law and her husband over for dinner every week, but they always declined... suggesting that they feed us, instead. I wonder why? Somehow, I don't think it was our cooking.
Still, it was one of my best years ever. I was young and in love and living the dream of every hip, with-it kind of 70's pseudo-hippie.
Good times... good times!
