Life has returned to normal after the departure of my parents. Normal? Well, maybe not exactly “normal”, if there ever was such a state in our New Zealand existence.
What became the Links Ave. nightmare is finally over. Mostly. We moved into our new flat a few days ago, and I’m pleased to say it’s like a breath of fresh air. It’s refreshingly tidy, refreshingly friendly, and refreshingly mature. Two of our new flatmates, Wendy and Ruth, are adults in our age bracket who hold down fulltime jobs. Sky, flatmate number three and Ruth’s 11 year-old daughter, is more mature than our former loose cannon flatmate Justin. In fact, Sky is a really cool, sweet, articulate, and mature kid. Old flat vs. new flat… night and day. Betsy and I feel like we can breathe again.
The nightmare is mostly over. We owe money for expenses (utilities). Fair enough. We were finally notified of this fact, after 2 months of living there, roughly 3 minutes before we left. No exaggeration. One day later, Justin wanted to know, via text message, when he would get his money. One day after that, Justin, in all his wisdom, decided to almost double the amount he thinks we owe him. And set a “due date”, after two months of dragging his feet.. After being very, very unimpressed with his behavior during our stay there, we’re not too surprised at his behavior now. We intend to pay the original amount he billed us, in 8 weekly installments. We’ve chosen to pay in weekly installments because this was the time interval we originally bargained for. Even after we’ve moved out, Justin the Terrible is still giving us headaches.
Work is holding stable at bearable. Some days are still very boring, while others involve writing letters! Yes, my secret identity as a competent letter writer has been discovered. Among my body of work is a letter to a New Zealand immigration official. It was written on behalf of my boss, for a coworker seeking an extension to her work visa. The application was faxed and approved two days later. Also on my resume is a letter to the owners of our building, again posing as my boss, asking for permission to install electric heaters for the outdoor portion of our café. All this while I’m on the clock. Getting paid to write letters, I guess you could say I’m a professional writer now!
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Always knew you were a writer! I would love to see your blog turn into a fiction novel, and, of course, Justin the Terrible needs to be a wonderful children's book on the importance of being kind! Congrats on your new flat!
ReplyDeleteKMcC