Chances are great that the following stories I’ll be whispering to you in this post should not be spoken in such a public place.  However, that has never stopped me before, so why should it now?  The parental unit has been in Flagstaff since Thursday (Mom)/Saturday (Dad) after a minor setback on Thursday night where the engine of the Spazteca threw a rod on the drive up the mountain.  I left work early to fly down the mountain with water and ice for Dad as he waited for Zac to get there with a car dolly in 110+ degree weather and to transport Mom back up the mountain with me.  Since their arrival they have been feverishly helping me finish the cleaning and moving out of my old apartment and last minute touches on the new place.  I probably wouldn’t have needed their assistance if a certain unnamed roommate would have contributed more than just a light dusting of her bedroom with a watery sponge carried out by her boy-fling and current boyfriend on two separate occassions.  Drama, much?  At least, our last week together was spicy, and by spicy I mean, thank goodness (for the first time in four years) I was not the one she was blaming her tears on.

Anyway, we’ve been cleaning and organizing and throwing stuff away and taking all of the necessary steps to return a two-bedroom apartment that has survived over two hundred weekly Kid’s Clubs, four Thanksgiving Dinners and Haunted Houses, and more events than I can even count back to the ‘original move-in state’.  If you’re not currently rolling your eyes, you should be at the preposterous notion that there is a shred of a chance of that apartment looking anything like it did in the summer of 2004.  Let’s be honest… they should feel lucky that my unnamed roommate didn’t burn the place down while creating her culinary nightly masterpiece of Pasta Roni and steamed broccoli stems.  You think I’m joking, but ask anyone.  Girl CAN live by Pasta Roni and Vitamin Water alone.  I found four Tupperware containers of proof in my fridge.  Oh, and if you want/need any sugar-free Instant Oatmeal, vanilla cook & serve pudding mix, or fat-free spray on vinaigrette, I’ve got you covered until 2019.

Ok, moving on… literally and figuratively.  With only a few tasks left to finish up at the old place, I headed in to work today after my parents volunteered to finish up for me.  I’m not quite sure how effective they were with five children under the age of eight expecting them to play jump rope with them and fix their bikes, but now they know how my life has been for the past four years and exactly what I’ll be missing.  By the time I got off work today, Zac had arrived from his drive up and was helping to hang my quilts and wall decor in the new apartment.  (Now, I can finally show you pictures!!!) With the sun setting and everyone exhausted, we headed out to procure some nourishment at the local New Frontiers store.  There’s really truly nothing in the world like four country-folk stumbling into a organic hippie store and trying to appear civilized.  It just doesn’t work.

Finally, devoid of our pride and stuffed with everything but steroids and pesticides, we headed back to my place.  With less than two miles left in our return journey, Mom casually asked if I had my housekeys which I did not because I had given them to her on my way out the door to work this morning so they could come and go as they pleased.  Reminding her of this fact, she quietly confessed that she didn’t have them and had forgotten them when we left for dinner.  Now by this time it was almost nine in the evening and there was no trace of sunlight to be found.  Of couse, the office was no longer open, and I had yet to have a spare made.  So in true family fashion we did what any new resident would do and broke into my new house by removing a shutter and giving Zac a ‘butt-boost’ into th living room window while hoping that no one around us would call the cops on the four loud family members who were bickering about the ‘best’ way to break the law.  It wasn’t until a good hour later that I realized the irony in the relief we felt at the lack of effort it took to get into my apartment.  As you can guess, the number one priority for tomorrow is beefing up security in this place and finding my secret defense mechanism… an oar.  I feel safer already.  Don’t you?