A blog, a gameshow, and a vacant apartment walk into a bar...

(*Punchline: gee that must've hurt. b'dum dum.*)

Three news tidbits to share!


First, I received an email from Steve, a newcomer to this blog. He found me because our blogs have the same title: "The World According To Me." Thinking about it, all blogs are the world according to someone, it's just not everyone's choice of title. You can now find Steve blogrolled in the right margin - do pay his World a visit!


Next, my brother David tells me that my most favorite ever game show - Kenny Vs. Spenny - is running new episodes in Canada! I can only hope that means they will run them here in the US soon. Being close to Canada, we do get a couple of Canadian tv stations, but so far I do not see it listed. Don't fret your fuzzy heads about me, I have my Tivo wishlist set and can burn them to DVD once I snag them. But you - you need to see tis show. It is hilarious & unique, which as you know with a bajillion channels and nothing to watch, is a rare rare thing.


Last tidbit du jour, we rented our vacant duplex apartment! Weeks ago when I was in the hospital, our tenant gave notice. Great new job for him in Colorado; bad timing for us. Since he had been living there from before we bought the place, we never had an in-depth assessment of the apartment's condition. Mostly it was in great condition, but there is some water damage we are repairing now. We decided not to wait until that repair was all done to show the place - just kept the tools and torn up section of floor very minimal and everything else was perfect to show. This is where the world gets divided into two groups: the first group who knows about repairs like this and realizes it only takes a few days, may even be happy to see a landlord who keeps up with repairs depending on who they have rented from before; and the second group who sees hole-in-floor, tools, scary! scary! run away! What we did not expect was the huge response to our apartment listing. It kept reminding me of the mid-1990's, when the little 1-bedroom at my Mom's place came vacant during the height of the dot boom. If you were not in Seattle during that time, let me tell you, there were no apartments to be had, anywhere, for any price. The vacancy rate was a record low one-half of a percent. People moved here for high tech jobs and lived for months in expensive hotels. The day the ad came out for Mom's 1-bedroom, the phone rang so much I finally changed the message with directions to an open house and unplugged it. People showed up 3 hours early, throwing hundred dollar bills under my nose like I was a NYC doorman at a rent control building. Desperation was in the air. Last week with our cute 2-bedroom duplex was not in that category, but it had elements of it. I posted the ad at 11 PM Thursday night. When I checked my email on the way to bed at 1AM I had 5 emails. 5! In the middle of the night! Oooohkay. Next morning there were 9 plus the phone started ringing. It never stopped ringing, all day, all evening. Call waiting beeped while talking with someone. More email poured in. I gave tours of the place all day long, which for me was the longest physical day I have had in months. I realized too late that after I shampooed the carpets, none of the windows had screens - so I did not want to open them, as even one flying insect in the house makes people think "Eeew bugs!" The rugs looked great, but there was a slight musty smell from all that evaporation indoors. So I baked cookies in the oven - viola! - instant home comfort smell, plus handy snack. When my body finally said, no more!, my brother gave the last few tours. At day's end we had two credit checks! The first folks passed and signed the lease yesterday.

As a bonus on giving the tours of the apartment starting to early in the morning, we learned we have baby birds in the backyard. (*Everybody: Awwww! Cuuuuuute!*) At first I thought they were black capped chickadees because we kept seeing the proud parents. Then we realized there are more baby birds than two little bird parents can produce, so we think there are also brown chickadee babies. Friday they forayed out of the nest onto nearby tree branches and the neighbor's roof, where they sat flapping their fuzzy wings and practicing the idea of flying. Saturday, they testing short range flying, to other trees in the yard, the birdbath, and bird feeder. Today they sat on different branches in trees all over the yard and posted themselves at the feeder until it was filled to capacity - one bird on every perch, plus two or so on the shepherd's hook waiting their turn. They are eating 3 inches of sunflower seeds every day! They must drop a lot of seed, because Mr. Squirrel looks so happy in his spot under the feeder.

That's all the news for the moment. More soon!