Home 'n' hearth

I've been out of the apartment scene for awhile now, so I guess I didn't realize the importance of Dunkin' Donuts proximity as a selling point.

Boston Gal reports a Globe writer is putting together a story on people who grow citrus plants indoors. But she needs to talk to you this weekend.

Jennifer Forman Orth reports how she got a mail-order nursery to stop shipping ornamental plants to Massachusetts that were banned by the state Department of Agriculture last year as invasive species. Among them: Dwarf burning bush.

Jenny has begun apartment hunting. And she's turning up some prospective places that you can just tell it's killing her not to be able to take. Such as this Park Drive redoubt:

Do you hate to clean your apartment?

Do you love to play drinking games till you pass out??

Do you drink heavily on the weekends and sometimes the weekdays too?

Are you okay with moving into a place that is has just 4 walls and a ceiling?

Boston's refusal to give recycling bins to people in large apartment buildings collides with a cranky old lady and Heather Martin is right in the middle.

ChezNiki posts a diary of the fire alarm that got her and her neighbors up early this morning:

... 2:32am May 1st, 2007 ((siren, light and voice fire alarm go off, throwing nightgown on, sticking my head out the front door, seeing neighbor walking the hall, ringing small hand bell)) ...

After several years as a Green Line rider, Amy begins to get used to life on the Red Line:

... Once I get used to the toilets flushing the other way on the other side of the river, I think I'll be happy there.

Sure, you could hire somebody to take it away for $250. Or you could enlist a friend to help you bring it to work one weekend and put it in the company dumpster. Of course, some co-workers might get the same idea.

Kelly wins today's "And then what happened?" award by ending a post addressed to her daughter with:

Boy, sorry I couldn't talk to you earlier right when you called. The lawn was on fire.

Rob: If you live in Boston, and you don't have a car, you can't buy furniture.

I just signed a new lease for an apartment here in Boston and was thinking this morning about the rental market and how it differs so much from city to city, and even from section within city to section within city. Around here, if you see anything that even seems remotely passable at a decent price, you need to act immediately (as in same day), show up with check in hand, be pressured, give a pint of blood and some fingers, and then pay first/last/security/brokers fee in many cases. Read more

Lis Riba has a sick kittie who now only seems to consume liquidy stuff, like the water tuna comes packed in and the liquid that is not the gelatinous gloop that makes members of my nuclear family gag whenever I open a jar of gefilte fish (they're not so fond of the gefiltes themselves, either). So she asks if Boston-area folks could save the liquids, then contact her to arrange pickup.

While some neighborhoods deal with violent crime, other neighborhoods worry about sinking back into the primordial ooze.

For most of us, the ants get into the house by themselves. Not Jody. Her ants come in the mail.

Specifically, the one somebody stole from Juniper Pearl's front porch this weekend:

... listen, you murderous, plant-thieving scoundrel, i may never get my hands on you to pummel you soundly myself, but know that karma and i are tighter than a sausage and its skin, and she is on to you, buddy. if you haven't heard, let me tell you: the girl's got some moves. retribution shall be swift and thorough. prepare to rue the day, douche bag. ...

Christine reports that the mouse her family caught in the kitchen and planned to keep as a pet promptly died:

... I like to think that we gave him a few hours of care and comfort. Now I just hope he isn't carrying the bubonic plague or anything. That would suck. ...

Robothead muses on the guy who goes around his neighborhood rifling through the recyclables for returnable bottles and cans:

We heard the "tink-tink-tink" of the can man and Ali reminded me that we had a bunch of beer bottles that had not gone outside yet. So I ran downstairs to give them to can man. When I opened the door, can man was bent over. As he got up, I was surprised to see that it wasn't our regular guy, but some white can man. I gave the guy the cans and bottles and then went back upstairs. When Ali learned that it wasn't "Asian Can Man" she wanted me to "go get the bottles back." Now she wants to have some sort of way to insure that only Asian Can Man gets the recyclables. ...

Eeka has one (originally from Ameriquest, no less), and she's getting tired of lazy reporters blaring that everybody who has one is a no-account loser deceived by an evil loanshark:

... I was not coerced into buying a house I can't afford. I am in absolutely no danger of losing my home. I pay my mortgage on time every month without difficulty. I definitely did my homework regarding the different types of rates and am not going to encounter anything unexpected. I also am not a buyer with bad credit. ...

Third Decade reports that the steel pylons put in front of his home when a school bus crashed into it a few years back did their job last night:

... There was a loud bump outside last night and I was almost too lazy to get up and look out the window. I don't have a car and there's almost a weekly sideswiping on my part of the street, so it didn't seem worth it to look down from my third floor perch.

But, there was something about this bump which compelled me to get up and look. ...

International Adoptions should never work as in Wednesday without, out Thursday with.

I have a very very good friend who is trying to adopt a 15 year old girl in Russia.

But she doesn't have Angelina kinds of money.

I blogged it when I got home tonight. At times I think it is some of the more decent writing I've done this year. At other times, it sounds like a pathetic wail into the gaping maw of Nobody Cares.

But I thought I'd share it here with the U-hub peeps.

Apparently, there's a problem on Beacon Hill of people leaving their trash in front of other people's buildings.

Vlvtjones was one of the 50 people forced out of their homes by that North End fire last night. She reports:

... My apartment was not burned at all; however, water and smoke damage pretty much trashed the whole joint. It's not a pretty sight. The news stations and papers pretty much have the story, as well as the pictures of the damage. It's totally heartbreaking. ...

But her cat is safe.

Bad enough when you can hear your neighbors on either side doing stuff you really don't want to hear. Even worse? When they start talking to each other in the hallway outside your door.

Jay reports:

Someone took a wheel off of our truck in the driveway, replaced it with a brand new snow tire, left the Chevy hubcap sitting there, and didn't tighten the lug nuts up enough to drive safely. ...

He might have written something like The Parking Spot Less Parked In to explain why he was two hours late to work today.