Our smaller, tortoise shell calico, Nuht ("Noot") named for the Egyptian Goddess of the sky, sits in my lap and purrs away. Our bigger, (mostly) white and grey calico, Epona sleeps on her stand by the window.
Simply closing my eyes and thinking of the beings around me brings peace to my mind, calms and warms me. It's about 15 degrees outside, a chance of snow tomorrow being my only hope for warmer weather in the immediate future.
Yesterday was one of those horrible, awful, very bad, good-for-nothing days. Our landlord came in to get the rent at one point in the afternoon. He was pissed because I'd seen his wife at a party and gently asked her to say something to her husband about fixing our kitchen faucet. It's been leaking for so long, a friend of mine who lived there three years ago remembers it being the same way.
When he came in complaining about having to bug us to get the check, instead of us using the drop box, I told him he wouldn't get the rent check until he made arrangements to get the faucet fixed.
He argued that he thought it was fixed, even though the last time he stopped by, I tried to explain that a friend had temporarily fixed it, key word being temporarily, since he had to switch out the handles of the faucet. He had dismissed me, saying it wasn't leaking. Yesterday he accused me of explaining no such thing, and called me a liar.
I take this accusation very personally. It started when my mom remarried, and my step dad turned out to be a total disciplinarian. He would accuse me of lying when I would get confused at what he wanted from me, and try to talk my way out of being in trouble. When I initially told him an account of "what happened" it wouldn't be good enough for him, and he'd ask me the question again. I thought he would be looking for something he missed the first time, so I would go into more detail the next time around. When he saw my two accounts didn't match each other exactly, he would accuse me of lying.
Later, when I was training for the Army, and Drill Sergeant Moffitt caught me rolling on ecstasy, I didn't want to go to the MP (military police) station, and so I made myself pass out in the process of saying my social security number. This sent my body into a very real shock because MDMA raises the user's metabolism and I was trying to stay totally still. I refused to disclose what I had taken, nor would I admit that I willingly ingested anything. I only opened up about it to the medics when they told me they'd have to pump my stomach if I didn't tell them.
After that incident, another DS, who was in charge of all the other Drill Sergeants, said that if he sent me outside to report to him about the weather, he'd have to go and check himself because I lacked integrity. In other words, a liar.
I wanted to tell him, just because I hide something from authority figures does not make me a liar.
In the case of yesterday, I simply lost it with my landlord. I couldn't find my check book because he'd upset me so badly. When he had gone outside, my anger overtook me. I stormed outside and walked briskly toward his truck, shouting his name. When he opened the door I told him never to fucking call me a liar ever again.
He had the tenacity to say, "Don't say fuck."
"I'll say whatever the fuck I want to! Don't call me a fucking liar, because I'm not! You're not getting that rent check until you get that faucet fixed!"
"I'll give you an eviction notice," he said. His eyes were still hard, but the look on his face said he really wished I would stop yelling at him out in the street where everyone could hear it. It couldn't look good for a very pregnant woman to be outside yelling at an older man.
"You do that and I'll report you to the housing department! In any case you have to give us 30 days! And don't think I won't call your wife again and talk to her about what's happened!"
Later on, he left a voice mail to say that he'd called a plumber and that I should sort out a time to have him come fix the sink. This whole situation has left me asking, why does it take something so drastic to get something fixed in an apartment?
Another case in point: last year we rented an apartment in a house that changed ownership, and the new owners decided to have Coldwell Banker manage the property. My husband and I now refer to them as Coldwell Wanker because that's about all they do. There was pink mold growing on the floor in our shower stall, within a week of scouring it with bleach it would be back. It took the managers three phone calls and finally a written notice of negligence for them to do anything about it. Even then, the problem wasn't fixed, just patched.
Isn't the whole point of renting a property supposed to be having someone else handle maintenance and repair of permanent fixtures and appliances? Or is this neo-feudalism, where land owners collect taxes from the residents with no obligation to maintaining the land or property?
Cats have it easy. I think I'll just keep nuzzling, petting, and caring for them. Maybe if I handle my struggles with less emotional stress (I totally broke down in tears after my landlord had left, and almost had a panic attack), I'll work enough karma to be one next time around.
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