The One With the Sweet Apartment

(Please note: these posts are a collaborative effort a-twixt Kami and myself. She’s here, too, I just happen to be the one who signs in and posts these).

Abilene, TX

May 2004 

Foreshadowing alert: I moved back to Abilene after nine months in Nashville, so that I could be with Kami. Five months after moving back to the home of my alma mater, Kami and I were married. We’ll save the story of our first apartment for another time, but in May 2004 we moved into what is still probably the coolest place I’ve ever lived.

I worked at The Grace Museum, in downtown Abilene. Two blocks up from The Grace was an old hotel – the Wooten – that was being renovated by a firm in Austin and turned into apartments, three to a floor. As a professional development treat, the staff was invited to tour the building as it was in the process of the renovation. Before I had toured one apartment – which was all still steel beams and drywall – I was on the phone to Kami saying, “We HAVE to live here.” 

On the way out of the tour I asked for an application, and we filled out all the paperwork – the first ones to do so.

When we got everything approved and whatnot (like they were going to turn us down – we were begging to almost triple our rent for a 700-square foot apartment), we were assigned Apartment #1201, but it was going to be a good six weeks before we could actually move in.

Prior to that, however, we decided to paint the living room red, the bedroom this sort of sand color, and the bathroom and kitchen green. It wasn’t the easiest thing we’ve ever done, because the ceilings were 14’ tall, or something like that, and I’m not the most patient of cats at the best of times. Kami is clearly the one in the relationship blessed with visual artistry. And patience.

So, painting done, we were ready to move in. They had an elevator – thanks be to God – so we wouldn’t be carrying things up twelve flights of stairs. But there was one problem, however: the key didn’t work. No matter how hard I tried, how dangerously close to breaking the key off in the door I came, I couldn’t open it. So I went down to the office and explained that my key to #1201 did not work. After checking our paperwork, it was determined that something had gotten messed up somewhere, and we were actually in #1101.

The key worked on this apartment, and the moving in commenced, early in the morning. The view was absolutely breathtaking, you could see forever. Our apartment faced north, and at one point we could see a storm rolling in that didn’t actually arrive until two hours later. From our best estimates, we could see for fifty miles.

Having moved in – which the process of moving is the closest thing on earth to what hell will feel like (Sweat, Frustration, Weeping, Despair, and Eternity, all rolled up into one process) – we realized that we were the only ones who actually lived in the entire building. For one night, at least. There was a doctor moving in the next day.

The way that the apartment building was laid out, we had the smallest apartment size they offered. Come on, I worked at a museum and Kami was still in school. So we couldn’t exactly afford a bigger apartment. But the 693 sq ft apartment in #1101 was bigger than what we were used to, so it was fine. Anyway, the elevator stopped on the landing, there was a door to the right where there were two other – bigger – apartments, and our front (only) door was right there in front of the elevator.

That first night, after we had taken a shower without a shower curtain – who doesn’t provide a shower curtain!? – we fell asleep…for a little while. We kept getting awakened by the sound of dinging. At some point in the middle of the night we got up and went out into the hallway, where we could hear the elevators moving periodically from floor to floor. Did I mention that we were the only ones in the building? 

After the doctor moved in, things calmed down a touch...for a little while. We would periodically hear a banging on the outside of our apartment, like it was on the windows - but only at night. After this had happened a few times, we talked to some people who knew Abilene pretty well about what it could be.

Back in The Day, the Wooten was in rough shape, like many old buildings in Abilene. It was, at various times, a crackden, a house of prostitution, and a Squatter's Paradise. Occasionally it was all of these things at the same time. About ten years before (from what we can tell, and the source was pretty reliable), a "gentleman" had taken a "lady" up to the 12th floor for a "good time." Apparently it wasn't <i>such</i> a good time, because he strangled her, and then hung her out the window, where her body hung limply - as dead bodies tend to do - swinging in the west Texas wind all night and banging against the windows of the apartment below. Our apartment.

The kitchen floors were this stone tile. If you so much as moved a chair it sounded like an angry rhinocerous. We would hear furniture moving from the guy above us. And he moved his furniture more than an interior designer off their Ritalin. 

Now we're not ones to complain. But this was getting preposterous - the guy was moving his kitchen table all the time. And I mean, all the time. So we went down to the office and talked to the manager, or whatever she was, and asked if the guy was alright, or if he was sick, because of all this moving. It was the most passive-aggressive way we could have done it. The manager pulled up her files and said, "1201? No...he's been in Iraq for the past six months. No one is living there now."

And that was that. We didn't do too much investigating after that. It was still an awesome apartment.

The One Where I Kinda Sorta Asked Kami On Our First Date

Baytown, Texas

July 2002

Kami and I met while I was working at Lakewood Church of Christ for the summer. I was a youth intern, about to go into my senior year at ACU, and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to it. Having been an intern for the previous two summers (in Hilton Head, South Carolina and Cedar Hill, Texas), I really enjoyed the “work,” which consisted most days of playing ping-pong, going to baseball games, and amusement parks. It’s not that I didn’t want to work at Lakewood, either. My parents were moving to Seattle, where The Father would be preaching at Bellevue Church of Christ, in the middle of the summer. That’s why.

But still, it was work I enjoyed, felt was important, and got paid decently enough. I had known Mitchell, the youth minister for a long time, and I would move in with my roommate and his parents in La Porte once my parents moved off to Seattle. Everything was settled, and I began my final summer as a college student driving to Baytown each morning.

We’ll save the story of mine and Kami’s first impressions of each other for another time, but she was/is gorgeous, and I wanted to go out with her.

A funny aside, not really deserving of a separate post – since it took place before Kami and I met – I was lucky to get the job. When I interviewed for the intern position, I was supposed to teach class on a Sunday morning over Christmas Break in December, 2000. Except my cousins Jeremy and Adam and I decided to take a road trip to Mexico on the Friday before. On this road trip, we got behind a truck loaded up with the dirtiest pigs you can imagine, but in the middle of this pack of piggies arose a blond, clean-as-a-whistle pig. He was the Golden Pig. We hatched a plan to drive alongside the truck, one of us jump on to the back of it, grab the Golden Pig, jump back into the car, and demand the Golden Pig give us our three rightfully-earned wishes. We also listened to Abba’s Greatest Hits start-to-finish about three times, and that’s when I was introduced to the Jayhawks. Jeremy was also concerned that we’d get to Mexico too early, and we wouldn’t be able to get in. After explaining that it wasn’t like Disney World, and that there wouldn’t be fireworks when we left, everything was okay. We also all pretty much got food poisoning. So on the day that I taught class, I was concerned that I would water my pants from the sullied tacos we all ate.

I’m not much on the theatre, but there was a play coming to Jones Hall for a few nights from London where it played on whatever their version of Broadway is (“Broadwaye,” I like to think of it) called The Woman In Black. It got good reviews, seemed creepy enough, and I wanted to go.

I especially wanted to go with Kami.

But I wasn’t sure how to ask her. It’s very important for me to let you, dear reader, know that Kami WAS NOT IN THE YOUTH GROUP. She was going to be a sophomore in college, and chaperoned a number of youth group activities, and I spent a couple of weeks with her at camp – again, that’ll come later – and really liked her. But I didn’t know how to ask her.

So of course I bought two tickets.

Going into the church secretary’s office, I asked, “Hey do you know if anyone likes the theatre?” I was rebuffed, but I said it loud enough that David – Kami’s father – overheard me.

He walked into the office, where I repeated, “Do you know anybody in the youth group who likes the theatre?” And he sat his pen down and said, “Well. My daughter is in to that sort of thing.” Which is exactly what I wanted him to say.

Slyly, I responded, “Yeah? Do you know if she’s doing anything tonight?” He goes, “You’re probably going to have to call her and ask her yourself.” Which was not exactly what I wanted him to say.

So I called, and Kami answered, and I said to her, “Hey, so –“ (I should probably stop and note that Kami isn’t here right now, so she probably has a very different point of view on how smoothly this conversation actually went) “I have two tickets to the Woman in Black at Jones Hall tonight. Do you want to go?”

I can’t remember word-for-word what she said, but it obviously went well enough that I ended up picking her up and taking her downtown to the play.

But it backfired.

Because that play was absolutely terrifying. I keep hoping that it’ll make a run back in the U.S. again, or that I’ll stumble on a door in the back of a closet where I find a pile of money, and can take Kami to London to see it again, but so far, no luck. Anyhow, the premise of the play is that Gentleman A has had this terrifying episode happen to him, and he wants to sort of exorcise this episode. So he writes up what happened, and hires an actor – Gentleman B – to act out his script. Terror ensues. It’s fantastic.

And I get completely freaked out. I can barely talk on the way home, and when I drop her off it’s probably 10:30 at night and I have to drive the 20 minutes or so back across the bridge and into La Porte. So what did my smooth self do? Called her, and made her talk to me until I got home, because I was so scared.

Anyhow, we’ll revisit the continual courting of Kami another time, but that’s how it started. By me basically trying to get her dad to ask her on a date for me.

The One With the Skunk Attack

Cooperstown
September 2007

I had just returned from a work trip. Somewhere. I think it was New York City. Having just driven back to Cooperstown, it was a Sunday night, and I was anxious to see Kami. She was taking Gunther and Angus out for a walk as I walked up to the house with my suitcase in tow.

So I said I was going to put my things up and then join her for a stroll around the block. It was about 9:30 in the evening, and our dear readers in Cooperstown know that there's not a whole lot open on a Sunday night. Remember this fact.

I'm in the bedroom, hanging stuff up, when I hear shrieking and barking coming from the street. Of course I take off down the stairs and tear around the corner onto Pioneer Street.

What I find is nothing short of mind-blowing. Gunther is on his back legs, jumping and barking. Angus is barking, spinning in circles, and pawing at his nose. Kami is jumping up and down, vomiting, coughing and sneezing.

It would be a lie to tell you that I did not think - albeit briefly - "I could get in the car and be in Pennsylvania before she noticed."

Still, I mustered my courage and politely asked what had happened. "Angus got bit by a skunk!" was the reply. In my mind, I was calm and collected. A rational problem-solver, if you will. I later was informed that I was "Acting a fool."

I asked again, "What happened?"

Angus is somewhat spastic. He's an adorable beast and I love him with all my heart, but it's true. If something surprises him, he will dive at it. Allegedly, there was a skunk in the bushes, not a yard from where Kami and Los Perros were walking. Said skunk scurried into the bushes, and Angus dive-bombed him like the Red Baron. Kami was so close, she heard the spray. Imagine the smell. Go ahead, we'll wait.

I thought, "This is where watching cartoons has suddenly turned from 'pastime' to 'helpful.'" See, we know - through the miracle of animation - where the skunk sprays, and it's not out of his mouth.

I wracked my brain trying to remember what you're supposed to do to get skunk smell out, because Angus sleeps on the bed. Remembering that tomato juice was apparently the thing to use, I told Kami to stand outside with the dogs while I went to the Stewart's gas station - the only place still open at such a "late" hour - to buy tomato juice.

When I got back, Kami was green - literally - trying not to puke. I ran inside, grabbed a raggedy towel, picked Gunther and Angus up in the towel, and put them in the bathtub. I had already put the tomato juice in the bathroom and dumped six gallons of tomato juice on them.

Meanwhile, Kami was on the computer Googling "How to get rid of skunk." As I'm in the bathroom - in my boxers, to not infect my clothes with skunk -I hear Kami yell, "Wait!!!"

I look at Gunther and Angus, dripping with tomato juice. Gunther and Angus look at me, in my drawers.

Now this is why Al Gore invented the internet: Kami found that tomato juice only makes the skunk-infected being smell like V8 Skunk (not that I can tell the difference - I hate tomato juice). So she tells me to wait while I hear her get the keys, and the door slams.

So I sit on the toilet.

While Kami is gone, Gunther and Angus start licking the tomato juice off each other, looking at me while they're doing it as if to say, "This is alright, yes?"

Fifteen minutes later, Kami bursts into the bathroom with hydrogen peroxide, liquid dishwashing soap, and baking soda. She had to speed down Chestnut Street to get to Stewart's, which closed two minutes after she got there - to buy those items.

The clerk asked what she was doing buying said items, and Kami said her dogs got sprayed by a skunk, and the clerk goes, "Wild! Some guy was in here like 20 minutes ago and bought us out of tomato juice because HIS dogs just got sprayed by a skunk."

Kami informed him that she did not have time for this, so she just ran out. Gunther and Angus are full of skunk and Heinz. So Kami whipped up this concoction, and we bathed them both.

Not kidding, Angus and Gunther slept in the bed with us that night.

Except every time it rained, if you kissed Angus on the snout, you could smell a more-than-faint skunk smell.

But we still kissed his snout.

The One Where Felicia Met a Watery Grave

The George Washington Bridge
April 2007

Back in the day before every phone had Google Maps, you would rely on this monstrosity that would hang from your windshield to tell you where you were. It would strategically come crashing to the dashboard just as the passenger (or your dogs) fell asleep, sending them into shock and putting said passenger in a foul mood for the duration of your trip.

The idea was simple enough: Have a satellite available to point you in the direction of a Starbucks, a specific gas station, or a water park. Except it never worked the way it was designed.

First of all, how Garmin or TomTom or whatever worthless company assigned their satellites was like America Online: they only had about three satellites per 5,000,000 units. And there was a mood sensor built in to the GPS, so that if you were going to work or church or anywhere that you already knew the location of, it would work perfectly. If you were agitated, lost, or had been driving with the gas light on for 60 miles, it couldn't acquire a satellite until you were upside down in a ditch with 3" of water.

And, if you didn't plug your GPS unit in and manually update, it wouldn't know a Phillips 66 from Studio 54 -and you can imagine the frustration if it took you to either one. We name everything. Our car is Julio (what? It's a Santa Fe). My phone is Joseph. Kami's old car was Olivia (may God rest its soul). This way, we don't feel so silly about getting angry at inanimate objects. We may be the only dictators to actually humanize our subjects.

nter Felicia. Felicia was the Garmin graciously given to Kami and myself from my parents, mainly to help us navigate the streets and roads of New England. Except we didn't have the software to update it.

Normally in Upstate New York that wouldn't matter -because nothing had changed since Washington Irving had written about it. But on the occasion that you drove to New York City, things could get a little dicey.

This is where our story continues. I can only speak in vague generalities because Felicia completely sold us out. I do know this: we were driving from Brooklyn back towards Cooperstown, and somehow ended up in the Bronx.

Kami and I are the type who appreciate and embrace diversity. But we knew we were not where we were supposed to be.

Stumbling on a gas station on our own while Felicia electronically cackled at us, we reset our destination to Cooperstown and then spent 45 minutes driving around the interstate but never actually getting on, taking fake ramps and side streets that looked like death waited for us at the end of each turn. Enough was enough, I'm not going to get pushed around by electronics.

Again, on our own, we made our way to the George Washington Bridge and prepared to go home. As we made our way over the Bridge, Kami looked at me. I looked at Kami. She nodded, and it was on.

I lowered the window and slowly released Felicia from her worthless cradle. I reassured her, saying, "Listen, it's not you. You just weren't updated as much as you should have been. It's not your fault, but you have issues, and your issues are negatively impacting me."

Like Ike Turner, I whipped Felicia out the window and into the river. The last word out of her mouth was, "Recalculating," which was the most fitting way for her to go.