Mouse Trapped

Once a point a time (as in 3:30am last night) I was staying up late to work on an article when I heard some shuffling in the kitchen. The shuffling was soon followed by abject squeaking and more shuffling. Without a doubt, I knew we caught a mouse. I freaked out a bit because I certainly didn't want to go touch it and dig the trap out from underneath the dishwasher.

Fortunately, the boys next door were back from some party and they tipped over what must have been a barrelful of beer bottles. I ran out to our balcony. At first they thought I was mad at them about the noise and the mess. But I was like, yeah, whatever. Than I dragged one of the drunk boys, James, over to our side and asked him to get the trap out for me. He was fine with it either because, a) he was too drunk to oppose to it, b) he felt guilty about the mess, c) he didn't realize the mouse was still alive. I told him to just chuck the trap over the balcony. But before he did, he notice some movements and went, "Holy fucking shit! It's still alive!" It was kinda funny the way he freaked out.

This morning, I went downstairs and checked the trap. Out of morbid curiosity of course, and found it there, on the grass, where it landed after being overthrown from the 4th floor balcony. The mouse was long dead. I think it had more to do with the chemicals on the trap than the height. Nonetheless, notice how the corners were all chewed up as it tried to escape. Gross!

Oh well, 1 down, god knows how many more to go.

My new and not so crappy crap shack

August 30th was a day I'll never forget. It was the day that I feverishly packed up the last of the annoyingly small things I wanted to take from my Crap Shack and moved them over to my new apartment, which I can't really even call a Crap Shack. Maybe it can keep the name, but lose the capitalization. crap shack. Okay, that works.

Anyway, I could take some parting shots at my old apartment, perhaps by mentioning how they kind of (totally) fleeced me on the damage deposit by making deductions that they didn't tell me about...which I'm pretty sure is illegal, but I won't do that. I'll be the bigger person. If, however, I were the smaller person (no offense to any midgets who may read this), I could post a pictoral tribute to the 13 floors of dank smells, cigarette butts,

graffiti

and collection of white trash that was ever-so-slowly transported throughout the building by the worst performing and simultaneously dirtiest elevator known to man/womankind

and give thanks to any possible higher power that may be out there that I've left the Crap Shack and convenience of living downtown behind me for an apartment that will probably be nicer than anything I'll ever live in again. I'm almost certain that the preceeding was an attrociously long run-on sentence. Hopefully the pictures kept you from noticing that.

With all of my posturing out of the way, behold: the new and partially furnished crap shack!







I've got what I think is a ridiculously hot idea on how I'm going to display my shoes. I just need to get some regular work before I can carry the plan out. I'll share the development with you guys as soon as possible.

Seacrest out.

Mouse Trap

As I mentioned in a recent comment, we have a mouse problem at the Crap Shack Boston Chapter.

I'm wondering, had I name our blog the Carp Shack, would I been able to avoid a fate of super-intelligent mice and their uncanny ability to snatch pieces of chicken and cheese out of mouse traps without setting that thing off. The trap moved, so I knew they were there. And I can't believe that thing didn't snap because I managed to flip that little bugger on my fingers multiple times when I tried to set that thing.

Hopefully, they choked on that piece of chicken. Actually, I take that back. The one thing that's more disguisting than vermins running rampant in our apartment would be a dead mouse decaying underneath the floor boards. In fact, I smelled something funky by the couch that other day. (And by funky, I don't meant the pot smoke that's been wafting around the neighbourhood since the day I moved in.) Either the mouse died—gluttony is a cross-species sin—or one of my roommates have wedged a piece of salmon underneath the couch. OR, the boys next door fucked up and the smell is from their side of the balcony. I can't figure it out! And it still stinks after I moped the whole place and Lysol the shit out of the couch.

I can't stress how creeped out I am of the rats. I'm vacuum-sealing all my food from now on. Maybe even my sweaters and shoes, too. I read something about the plague on the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report last week. Also, I just wrote a story on toxoplasmosis. So ... TOTALLY FREAKING OUT HERE!!!

(Carps on the other hand, are docile and are not likely to rummage through your garbage at night. Therefore, less creepy.)

My ridiculously good-looking siblings

Last Saturday after spending the day checking pulses and learning the proper maneuvers for transporting casulties in and out of various models of stretchers, I made my way out to Lamont, which is a tiny, tiny town about 20 minutes out of Fort Saskatchewan, for a wedding. There was no cross-over between blogs, unless conversing briefly with Leah's parents counts. But since I went to a wedding, as did my other two roomies recently, I thought it would be blog-worthy. It was a Ukrainian event, so I basically just went for the food and ended up taking at least a week's worth of leftover cake, sour cabbage rolls and perogies home with me to Edmonton to store in my freezer. Anyway, my whole family was there. My ma, bro and my sis. I just thought I'd post a picture of me and my siblings in the Kaban family's signature "Looking Towards Tomorrow" pose (patent pending), mostly because I talk about my sister way too much and I thought that this would be proof that she actually exists and that I'm just not making her up. Also, she requested this post because she thinks she's the best looking one in the picture. I disagree. Oh yeah, and that's my brother Dustin. He's going to be a plumber one day.

I'm sorry Ross, for using the C-word that one time when we played slo-pitch

Before Chris goes ahead and post pictures of his new NOT-crap shack, I just need to get this off my chest.

This sudden bout of guilt can be attributed to the dickwad that I came across today. I decided to head out to Cooliage Corner this evening after I finished posting my last entry. Now Boston is obviously a big city and, not surprisingly, people have big city temperaments. They drive erratically, they honk when ever things don't go their way, and they're crazy mo'fos—which means they not so different that people in Hong Kong, of which I'm used to. And while my neighbourhood is undergrad heavy, and the 19-year-old boys will go "hey baby" at you at every corner, I've never felt disturbed or unsafe with the places that I've been so far.

EXCEPT TODAY.

As I mentioned, I was heading towards Cooliage Corner, which is even less sketchier than my neighbourhood. In fact, it's one of those nice neighbourhoods. Somewhat comparable to the Girl House neighbourhood. Anyway, I was minding my own business, walking down the street, when the guy—this middle age, average-looking guy—drifted towards me and mumbled "You're a cunt" as he walked pass me. I was shocked!! Seriously, shocked and aghast. (Upon reflection, he might have said "I want to smell your cunt" which was still disturbing nonetheless) I did a double-take and he kept walking but turned around to leer at me. That was such a horrible moment that I have never felt so lost and alone in my life and I hate being in that defensive mode.

So yeah, being called a cunt is certainly unpleasant and Rossy, I apologize for calling you that during one of our games last year when you refused to run to third base and made us lose that inning.

There was a silver lining though. There was a young couple walking behind me at the time and they saw the guy whispering something to me. Upon seeing my shocked expression, they asked what he said. After I told them, they turned around and called the guy a fuckwad. Loudly. I was a little touched by these strangers standing up for me. Solidarity amongst strangers = appreciated!

You don't buy clothes at the IKEA, bitch!*

You can, however, purchase $2.99 IRIS dish towels at IKEA!


And wrestle the entire university student population and their trolley-full of BILLY bookcases and SULTAN mattresses, too.


Miraculously, we somehow managed to transport my full size mattress by jamming it into Emily's Focus. We tried our best and it took us an entire hour to do this. Emily and I had to pull our seats to the very front for the 45-drive home. Afterwards, we managed to drag that beast all the way to 4th floor. I swear I need to get into better shape.


The fire trucks came on the very first night we moved in because some prickjob decided to set one of the abandoned couches on the curb on fire. Interestingly enough, Emily slept through most of it. I've since been put on fire alert duty to make sure she wakes up the next time there's a fire.


The burning couch mark.


The official party house of the neighbourhood. How would I know that? Well, the flag kinda gave it away. Also, the frat boys who live there, which is right across from us, would congregate on their balcony every weekend and holler at the girls along the street. Sometimes, calling them "skanky ho" works because the girls would giggle a bit and then proceed to join that partying at the pirate house. Modern day anthropologists should have a field day studying the mating behaviour of the teenagers on our street.




I forgot to include this in my Red Sox post. I like how the most note-worthy moment of Paul Konerko's baseball career isn't baseball related at all. It's his appearance on Oprah. From a year ago.




We live next door to 3 undergrad boys and we have a shared balcony. Suffice to say, beer pong is the activity of choice for Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. We'd like to hate them and their noisy parties. But they're nice boys and they made orange chicken last night and invited us over. I made rice. Dinner was delicious.



This is what they do to Ford F-450s down here.


After two weeks, you think I'd be accustomed to the trash, the stepped-on dixie cups and condom wrappers littered around my neighbourhood. However, nothing can prepare me for the sight of an empty bottle of lube underneath the bushes. Planned spontaneity meets utter disregard for public spaces. Only in my 'hood.

That's all I have for now. Picture of our crap shack to be followed later. Here's a teaser, much like Chris's old crap shack, there's a gaping hole in our kitchen cupboards where the drawer should go ... because the drawer collapsed for no reason at all last week.

(*Overheard in front of Target. Spoken by a ghetto-licious 7-year-old girl.)

Fancy or Ladysir? Or Fancy-Ladysir?

TBOAH II (Two Blogs, one Adjoined Heart, part II)

In keeping with the theme of members of The Girl House and The Crap Shack going to weddings in exotic locations together, Chloé and I packed our bags last weekend and headed off to sunny Fort McMurray to see my good friends Adrian and Claudette tie the knot. The weekend was, in the words of Jim Lahey, a shitstorm—the good kind of shitstorm though.
Our initial plan was to leave the city by noon last Friday. At 3pm, after dealing with a credit card setback for the car rental and then fighting through ridiculous traffic and a staggering amount of slow drivers, we were finally on the highway. The drive up was highlighted by the sighting of an enormous wolf. Its back must have been four feet from the ground. That's a big wolf. No one else has been as impressed with this gigantor wolf as I have, but it's my blog post, so I'm sharing it with everyone.



Since we got on the highway so late, we missed the wedding rehearsal on Friday night. The original plan of getting drunk with my friends that night was shifted over to my family, who picked up the slack well. Five hours of travel and five drinks did me in. Sadly, there are no pictures to document the family fun that took place.

On Saturday morning, my sister brought over her now 9-week-old baby before the wedding. It was only my third time seeing her. Every time I see her though (through pics or in person), she looks completely different. I like the little Elvis curl of hair she has on her head. Highlights of hanging out with baby Claire included lifting her up really high to make her stop crying, not changing diapers and enjoying the nice baby smell.



The wedding started at 2pm on Saturday. Since he's never been a man of tradition, Adrian took it upon himself to cry during the ceremony (I was in the wedding, so no pics available). His groomsmen belittled him for this for the rest of the day, especially when Janelle, Claudette's sister/bridemaid, handed Adrian the hanky she had brought for Claudette. Claudette remained dry-eyed throughout. After eight years of dating, I had the wrong partner pinned as the gangster in the relationship.



We went from the church to the small but nice quad area of Keyano College for pictures and drinking in a limo in between pics. When nature called, things got a little greasy. We were in a public place all dressed up in tuxes at 3 in the afternoon; peeing outside was not an option. When faced with the option of peeing in our pants or using the only bathroom in the area, our hands were tied. Five tuxedo-wearing men walked into Showgirls on Franklin Ave that afternoon, catching the attention of all four people in the club. It was so early that there was no on-stage entertainment. We made friends with a guy who went straight from work (still wearing his Carhartt coveralls and workboots) to the strippers, downed a shot or two of jagger and went on our way to the reception.

At the reception, Adrian's best man Kirk gave his speech and told the story of how a 15-year-old Adrian was the first one in the dumpster when he learned that convenience stores through their porn out on a specific day. Upon finding some smut rags, he climbed out and said, "I just want to get laid so bad...I don't care who it is." A funny moment. From there, it was time to take advantage of a toonie bar and get an all-too expensive cab ride back to my parents' place. Here's the best of the pics from the reception:

"Two Soxes?! That's so retarded! This is why I hate America."

You know what else is even more retarded? Puting the game time as 2:05pm on the ticket when, in fact, game starts at 7:05pm. Lame! This is why I hate America!

So my roommate, Emily, and I ended up reaching Fenway 5 hours early and wondering what happened to the notoriously loyal and excited Red Sox fanbase that inspired the (shitty) movie Fever Pitch. We whittled down these 5 hours by braving the crowds at the campus Barns and Nobles (and came out without any textbooks because the line was really really LONG) and went home to make some chicken tikka marsala and couscous. for lunch/dinner. I took a nap, too, while Emily scanned through the copy of Boston Globe that I stole from the front door. (To be fair, it was 4:00pm and it had been sitting there all day and I doubt the party-heavy undergrads in our condo actually read the Globe.)

When we left for Fenway the second time, we were actually on time and were promptly swallowed by the sea of Sox fans the moment we stepped out of the Subway train. Sorta like the LRT during Oilers game day. But with more people.

(Though I didn't get any beer, I did get one of those 4-dollar hot dogs. I'm only doing it because it's part of the ballpark experience.)

The seats we got were surprisingly good. We sat in row 40 behind the midfield. (Too far to make any possible Ben Affleck sightings though.) The first 7 innings were possibly the most boring 2.5 hours of my life. There were a few wicked double-plays and at one point, the Red Sox had the bases loaded. But just like our slo-pitch games—but for different reasons—nobody made it to home base. No wonder they have gimmicky stuff like the 7th inning stretch (sponsoreded by some corporation, just like everything else about the game) and semi-mandatory sing-along to Take Me Out to the Ball Game (which was like bad karaoke with 36 000 people). We also did the wave a few times. Somewhere along the way, the White Sox was ahead 2-1 and our spirits were a little deflated.

Then, just like those tear-jerking sports stories (or those Oilers-Red Wings playoff games), the Red Sox tried to mount a comeback during the 9th inning. Manny Ramirez stepped on to the plate, the fans worked some hat voodoo:
And then, miraculously, the Red Sox managed to tie the game during the bottom of the 9th inning! That was both exciting and un-exciting at the same time as the game had ran into its 3rd hour and it was getting chilly. Also, the cotton candy that I ate was killing me.




Fortunately, we can always count on the nutbags to bring something interesting to the game. The picture is a little low quality. But the sign read "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor"

Is that suppose to be an inside joke? A reference to something? An indication of the poor job that the American school system is doing to its youth? I don't know.

Good thing we didn't have too much time to overthink this poster though, because magic happened once more during the 10th inning and after some dude hit the ball into the stands, the Red Sox won. And this concludes my first ever baseball game. All in all, it was a pretty fun and exciting introduction to my first MLB experience. But I think I'd rather check out a Bruins game next time.

I still have more (fun!) pictures from around Boston. However, I'm currently stealing wireless from some dude downstairs and I don't want to dwaddle. So, I'll save that for my next post.