i got pulled over last week.* i got yelled at at work.** i got in a huge yelling screaming crying fight with a guy on my condo association. i’m moving, i’m stressed, and things just don’t seem to be going my way. i’ve vowed to be a better person and a harder worker. i am trying, i just can't figure out why karma is biting me so hard in the butt.
this is the saga which i hope to have a happy ending for soon (or at least one i can live with): paul and i decided to move in together! hooray (a whole story about how we are even back together possibly coming soon). i put my place up for rent and of the 6 people/couples who saw the place, only one couple pursued the rental application – a young couple with two dogs (a saint bernard named kitten, so must be sweet as pie, right? and a beagle named fiona who likes to sleep on top of kitten, so they must be well-behaved dogs who get along smashingly with no barking, right?) i let my last roommate get a dog and wrote a quick note to the association that there was now a second dog in 10 hideaway lane. i heard nothing so assumed this procedure was the correct one.
come may 5 when i’m trying to follow all the correct procedures in being a landlord and inform my association of the four new tenants (12 legs in total), i’m told that the second dog must be approved by the board. request and appeal both denied by may 20. 11 days for me to find new renters and for kitten, fiona, and their owners to find a place that will let them all live.
do you think it’s fair that out of the 22 units in my association there are only 3 board members? do you think it’s fair that 2 of the board members live in my building? do you think that the wording of the by-laws, “a second pet must be approved by the board,” implies that a second pet is a possibility?
scene: board member one is pulling out of hideway lane, i am pulling in. we both roll down our windows and he informs me that the association has instructed him not to speak to be about the matter any further. “the association will handle me from there on out .” which means what? they will sue me if I let the renters move in? they will fine me? it’s my friggin’ house,” (i didn’t say friggin’ or any other expletive, after all, i am a lady), which board member one loudly reminds me that “it’s not just mine, we all share the building.” i try to appeal to his compassionate side (which i don’t think exists): “but they have no where else to go.” this does not budge his decision that only one dog be allowed per unit. and anyway, “this issue isn’t his problem, it’s mine, i’m the one who didn’t follow procedures in a timely process, and he would never do anything to put himself in jeopardy of being split from his dog, and he also was tired of wasting his valuable personal time on this matter.” to which i replied, “well you’re the one who chose to be on the board,” and then i said some other emotionally, irrational things and burst into tears. (i called later to apologize, after i called fiona & kitten’s parents to tell them they’d been evicted even before they’d had a chance to move in).
so, i’m looking for new renters, with only one pet allowed (though maybe they could be annoying in some other way that doesn’t go against association by-laws, so that my neighbors still won’t have peace & quiet). oh well, the board members can enjoy their little condos while I bask out here in the sun on the lake where my dogS can run free. i’m not bitter.
but see, that’s where karma creeps in. how to be a good person, try to do everything right, get bitten on the butt, and then not want retribution for that? but then I need to remind myself that i’ve hurt others in other ways, and life hasn’t always been fair for other people when it has been for me. an eye for an eye, a heart for a heart. not one of the golden rules.
i just hope fiona & kitten’s parents find a place soon… (because I felt so terrible I told them they could live at hideaway lane FREE for the month, without one dog that is, until they find a new place). anyone know of a place where two dogs can stay? anyone know of anyone who needs a place to hideaway?
how's your karma? it comes and goes for me.
craig's listing: http://burlington.craigslist.org/apa/1199398276.html
* amazingly, i only got a warning.
** i'd asked for permission to use flash photography and received it, and then got yelled at by someone else not to use the flash. get your stories straight people.
last year, jennie and julie trained for their respective parts of the half together, but didn’t like not getting to run together. So, this year, they enlisted the collins brothers to run the other half of their halves, so they could run together.
The less daring (stupid? masochistic?) members of my extended family chose to split the 26.2 miles five ways. lynn (derek’s mom), danielle (derek’s sister & my good friend), stephanie (jeremy’s wife & my childhood friend), chris (derek’s best friend & my former swim teacher), and i each ran a portion of the marathon. 
it was a rainy day, which i preferred for my 5.6 miles, though the spectators weren’t as keen to get soaked. baxter, paige, emma, marg, jon, and alan were fair weather fans and chose to spend the rainy morning napping and playing indoors, and left soon after the starting whistle blew.
paul, the super spectator stuck it out on his bike and made sure to place himself at prime cheering locations. 
before i ran my leg, i asked bax for any strategies he might have. he had run his first race on Saturday – the YAM (youth athletic movement) scram for ages 4+. 
he ran his .5 mile race with the same determination and facial expression as his father (who may or may not have had tears in his eyes when he pinned his sons bib on). 
the proud parents ran with their son, and the proud aunt suz looked just like she did in the birthing room – camera in one hand, video camera in the other, racing from one side of the loop to the other for a glimpse. 
penne pomodoro, garlic bread a la julie & tim, and salad & rhubarb crisp a la derek’s garden, fueled us for Sunday, and the after party at jennie & derek’s (featuring beer can chicken and mom’s famous turtle nut cake) helped us replenish all the calories we’d burned. 
tidbits that you hopefully didn’t miss: the woman who came in under 3 hours who had poop running down her legs, the bloody nipples of many of the men 
(jeremy tried his best to stop the rubbing, but it was hard to run 13.1 miles holding his shirt away from his chest), 
and the portapotty signs that said, “flip me over when out of TP.” lynn and i didn’t know how we were going to possibly flip over a portapotty, but paul set us straight when he showed us how to simply flip over the sign.
Still fighting the fight!!!
9 years ago