snippets

-My landlord is driving me insane. Lease renewals start up around February because this is a University town and all the students will be gone by Juneish. I have told her via email twice and in person at least once that we want to renew our lease. Wednesday I got a very terse email saying "we don't have your renewal form yet, but here's another copy. send ASAP."

Funny, we never had the form in the first place. I checked. Another copy, my ass. So we signed it last night, I'll mail it today.

Only to get another email today saying "Since you didn't sign the form, I won't be renewing your lease."

This woman sends the bitchiest emails, but she's a complete marshmallow in person. She's also a bit of a ditz. She can't keep track of all the units she leases. If I didn't hate moving so much, and if we hadn't had a discussion with her about how we'd probably be here for years, I'd gladly jump ship. Having a landlord with memory issues is troubling.

There. I needed to vent. I sent her a rather pointed email and will still mail the form today. We'll see what happens. Thankfully I keep all my correspondance with her because I know she'll pull this stuff.
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-Like brightly colored beetles, the students scurried under a rainbow of umbrellas, trying to escape the rain. From the third floor the comparison was obvious, with red and blue and black shells dancing below.

-I paused outside the building where I teach to admire a type of flower I didn't recognize. Huge tall conical spikes, nearly as tall as I am, thrust out of the soil. Nestled in little green crevices were tiny purple or coral flowers. A sudden movement caught my eye as I stood there, the rain playing percussion on my umbrella. A tiny emerald hummingbird hovered there, not just admiring the flowers, but drinking deeply. I had never seen one of these amazing avians so close before. I could have reached out and touched it, or provided it shelter with my umbrella, but I did not. I just watched and was enchanted.