Ramblings of a Princess

Tonight, the contents of my kitchen was packed into two boxes. I wish I can say I had the narrative genius to weave an interesting story about packing soy sauce and vinegar and our McCormick spices, but… I don’t think I’m that awesome of a writer. At least not tonight.

Not my refrigerator. But just as uninteresting.

So I shall tell you about another story, one is about hope, disappointment, and resolve. This is story is about finding a house and/or housemate.

The Epic House and/or Housemate Epic is EPIC

November. It is the end of our contract with Unit 1K Burbank 2. Technically, we should be leaving. We even found a unit in Dayton, one which was cheaper, newer, and did NOT have leaks (at least according to the current tenant). But the owner, asked us to stay, because he couldn’t give us back our two-month deposit. He said we could use up the deposit as rent for two months. He was practically begging us NOT to leave. I guess he liked us as tenants? At first we said no. But then the chaos began. And the unit we were supposed to get was suddenly handed off to another tenant. And the person who was supposed to be our new roomate suddenly backed out at the last minute. It was looking like God didn’t want us to leave Burbank yet. So we stayed.

December. We found a temporary roommate, which will be a great help to us, monetarily. The supposedly new roommate even said she can join us for January! And we even found a new unit to rent! And then, at the end of December, said new roommate backed out YET AGAIN. And the temporary roommate started to show unpleasant character. Uh-oh.

January.
Roommate: Karess and I have decided that we’ve had enough of looking for new roommates.

New house: One of the nice one-bedroom apartments in the area opened up, just the right size for two people, with a little bit of space to spare. The landlady there seemed nice.

Moving truck: We booked movers that were within budget. We were set to move on a Sunday, between a Saturday and a holiday.

Old landlord: We talked to our current landlord, and he finally agreed that we leave, and helped us take care of our clearance. We even got to strike a bargain with the last rent.

Admin suff: There’s a new rule in California Garden Square that moving out on the weekend isn’t allowed. But the admin office head honcho agreed to exempt us from that rule because we’ve already booked the truck. Yey for favor!

At that very moment, it looks like everything has finally fallen into place.

Bye-bye, Burbank countdown: 3 days to go

Like Stevie Wonder. But not.

We were supposed to meet our new landlady tomorrow, but it was moved up to tonight.

The agenda: Contract signing. Like a rock star.

The requirements: Karess’ IDs, a wad of cash amounting to two months’ worth of rent, and my checkbook. Like a rock star.

I’d have LOVED to say that I had everything we needed, but I had a teeny tiny problem: my checkbook only had two checks. LIKE A ROCK STAR.

This made me panic a bit–a LOT–because, to be honest, I was a follow-rules-to-the-letter kind of girl when it comes to these things. But I had a thick wad of cash, and according to everyone I asked, the cash would make the landlady happy, and it would help me get on her good side, and she would let little slip-ups slide. Y’know, dazzle her with monies.

Y’know, like a rock star.

And, waddya know: the new landlady let my little slip-up slide.

So now, receipts have been issued, contracts have been signed (though we have yet to submit it on Sunday), and the boxing is to continue. Tonight, I’m tackled shoes (all four pairs), bags (all of which actually fit in a regular grocery bag), and clothes (of which I have a LOT). At this point I think half of my stuff is already taped up and ready to go.

Bye-bye, Burbank countdown: 4 days to go.

When I first started to live in California Garden Square, I had three roommates. Estela, a very good friend of mine. Trisha, Estela’s roommate since college. And Karen, a common friend of ours from church.

One year later, Estela moved out to go back to her parents’ house before getting married. Enter Karess, an online friend of mine, who was a former housemate of one of my real life friends.

A year after that, Trisha moved out to go back to her parents’ province to work there. And year after that, Karen moved out to get a cheaper house.

Which leaves me and Karess, who is now my officemate, and a very very good friend of mine.

I got home tonight to see that Karess had begun packing. One big box and a medium one were already in our living room. Taking her cue, I also began my packing, despite the fact that I was exhausted out of my brain.

The first thing I packed was my books. Coz they’re square and solid, y’know? Easiest to pack. Also, I wasn’t reading ALL of them, and I think I can survive a few days without flipping through Persuasion for the hundredth time.

Also already packed and ready to go: my CDs and DVDs, box marked as such in big, bold letters. Although I think I still have to get me some “FRAGILE” stickers, just to be safe. My CD rack looks so lonely now.

Tonight I ended up just packing my books and CDs, not because I planned it that way, but mostly because I spent so much time smiling and reminiscing and flipping through each item I put in the box.

Bye-bye, Burbank countdown: 5 days to go

Tonight I embarked on a journey to buy used cardboard boxes. I’ll be moving apartments in less than a week, so it’s about time I started packing stuff, or at the very least prepare to pack stuff. And since it’s always best to reduce-reuse-recycle, off to find used cardboard boxes, we go.

Exactly what I need. Only bigger. And in real life.

I ended up going to Topway Mart along Boni Avenue, a grocery store that was probably where I’ll be buying stuff after the move. *sigh* No more oh-so-conveniently-close Robinson’s Supermarket. *sniff sniff* Okay, so it’s a small, low-budget grocery, but man, it was PACKED. Buyers everywhere, sellers everywhere, merchandise everywhere, shouting EVERYWHERE. Goodness, it was hard not to step on something, even when you’re looking.

And it was because of this atmosphere that I, a Topway Mart newbie, ended up being rushed to get the nearest set of cardboard boxes I could get my hands on… which ended up being too small for my needs.

*headslap*

The next time I’m going, I’ll be ready. With a gameface of steel and sharp eyes at whoever will look at me as if I didn’t know what I was doing. Never mind that I actually didn’t know what I was doing.

The only upside to this was that the boxes were cheap. Three pesos each. And I guess they’d be useful, one way or another.

Tomorrow, I’ll try again.

Bye-bye, Burbank countdown: 6 days to go.

…is what I thought tonight when I slapped on my cleaning gloves and armed myself with cleaning tools and solvents.

My ammunition for the night looks a bit like this.

In a week I’ll be transferring apartments. Which means that today is going to be the last day I clean my toilet and bath (not counting moving out day). I know it sounds so unglamorous but at this moment I’m feeling all kinds of sentimental because, y’know, we ALL need clean CRs, so this is kind of an important chore, and I like my current one, and this is going to be the last time I’m cleaning it…

To tell you the truth, when we first looked at my current condo unit four years ago, one of the things I liked about it was the toilet and bath. The unit itself was pretty cheap (14K for a 2-bedroom, 2-bath mezzanine unit is pretty good, y’gotta admit) so I thought I was going to get an itty bitty little room, and a matching itty bitty little bath. Instead, I got a unit that had a cozy living room, comfortably-sized bedrooms, and a T&B that was reasonably roomy and (dare I say it) homey. And it has that water guard thingy that I didn’t see in the other apartments.

I’d considered okay apartments, but California Garden Square’s T&Bs sealed the deal for me. After all, we all care a lot about our water closets. Just look how our love for restaurants is affected by the quality of their toilets, and how we like hotels when their bathrooms have good mirrors and nice bathtubs.

This is the last week I’m going to be able to use my nice washroom. I’m not going to get something as nice as this in the new apartment, so I plan to enjoy having it while I can.

And now, my bathroom is now clean, sparkly… and a tad bit emptier.

Bye-bye, Burbank countdown: 7 days to go.

Today at lunch break, my Starbucks gave me milk in a red to go cup. Now, I have nothing against plain ol’ milk, as a matter of fact it was delicious milk, but I ordered coffee.  And it was just wrong for me to pay P140 for a glass of milk. And from MY Starbucks, where almost all of the staff already know me.

I had no desire to go back—I had work, you know—so I just picked up my phone and called them up, just to let them know what happened. I only got to say three sentences: “Hi, this is Sarah. There wasn’t any coffee in my coffee. It’s just milk.”

I didn’t have to say anything else—rather, I wasn’t able to say anything else, because the barista on the phone said, with passion:

“Oh my golly gosh!”—I kid you not; and this actually made me smile already—“I’ll bring you a new drink, is that okay? You work in Every Nation, right? Is your drink today the short warm non-fat toffeenut latte with no whipped cream?”

FIVE STARS FOR ACCURACY.
An additional star for remembering that I had another usual drink.

My drink, exactly the way I like it, arrived at my office not 10 minutes later, and with an extra complimentary drink ticket attached.

Needless to say, I am very much impressed. I wasn’t even going to demand that they give me new drink, much less ask to have it brought to my office.

So THANK YOU, Starbucks Market! Market! Ground Level for the excellent service. Thank you for going the extra mile beyond remembering my name, greeting me with a smile the moment I walk through your door, continuing the 1-minute conversation we had the last time I was there, and getting my two usual drinks right every single time. Yes, every single time, because today’s little booboo doesn’t even count anymore.

And it’s not because of the new coffee, and not because of the complimentary drink ticket. It’s because you actually care. I’ve seen it in flyers, but now I can say that I saw the Starbucks love in action, first hand.

So thank you. And see you again soon!

Many thanks to Jay-em for the quick response, and Gio for bring my coffee. Hello also to Elis, Connie, Cris, and Angel!

Last weekend, at a pretty awesome web design conference, I was tasked to choose music to be played over the house speakers. (On the first day of the conference the venue soundtech was playing bossa nova, which, beautiful it may be, did not exactly match our attendees, nor the event theme.)

It’s pretty awesome. <3
photo by WishBone Media

Making a fitting playlist to fit certain occasions has always been a challenge and a joy, but since I had about 30 minutes before the event started, it was also pretty daunting that day. As I rummaged into my library I thought I was able to make just a not-so-distracting selection of background music to eliminate dead air–but I was pleasantly suprised to have people asking me about the playlist, how I came up with it, and what else was on it. Thus, this blog post.

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