Yesterday being May 31st, the last thing on my list was to give one of my male roommates his “walking papers,” so to speak. That had been on my list since February or March, but I was getting ready for Paris and Hawaii, plus taking Italian classes, so that was my excuse for not doing it before. Now I have no more trips coming up until August and am not enrolled in Italian this semester. It was time. I texted both of my roommates yesterday to ask if we could meet at the apartment around 7:00 p.m., as I needed to speak to them. The unsuspecting outgoing roommate, N., answered quickly, saying that he’d be around, but asking what we’d be discussing. I could already detect a bit of an attitude. A few minutes later, he texted “I’m not in trouble am I?” I didn’t respond to either text; was waiting to hear from the other roommate, K. To make a long story short, K. got back to me much later in the day, couldn’t be there at that time, asked if it was urgent and asked if we could discuss via telephone; that was fine with me. After work and prior to meeting N., I met up with C., D. & D’s little girl, S., at Osha at the bottom of my office building for a “cup of courage,” as C. put it. I wasn’t expecting N. to take it well. A cute side note is that, while we were at Osha, there were 5 possibly Irish people sitting next to us with the most adorable little boy named Louis. He was possibly 2 with big brown eyes and the sweetest disposition. Much of the time he’d walk over to the edge of our table with his toy motorcycle, run it along the edge of the table, then stare at all of us as if he’d never seen women before! S., who’s 5, was really good with him. She got out her crayons and paper to let him draw. He tried munching on the crayons instead, though. He also took a liking to her baseball cap emblazoned with France. We put it on him (he looked darling, of course), then he took it off and tried to put it back on S. At one point, S. was at the other table entertaining them with her drawing and her antics, while Louis was at our table simply staring like he was in love with us! I’m not usually a fan of children (as most of them have been subject to bad parenting), but I wanted to take Louis home with me! As it was, C. had to leave, but D. and S. actually came home with me. S. had never ridden the cable car, which is my normal mode of transportation home from work, so she was pretty excited about it. Once at home, I opened a bottle of wine for D. and me, got some water for S., heated up some chicken tamales and arancini for them to munch on, then took care of the business at hand. I went into N.’s room, handed him the Thirty Day Notice and said that I needed a change in the apartment. He seemed a little shell shocked, asked what it was that he’d done and asked if there was anything that he could do to change it and stay. I explained that once my mind is made up, that’s it. Plus, he’d already been in the apartment about 4 months longer than was necessary, due to my trips, classes and the Treasure Island thing. He was quiet. I said that I didn’t want the last month to be uncomfortable, just had to do what I need to do to make myself happy. I also asked that he try not to take it too personally. We’ll talk more this weekend about when he’ll be around for me to show the room, or whether he’ll just leave it unlocked. I also need to take pictures of the room to put up on Craig’s List. He wanted to know whether the other roommate, K., is staying. I said “Yes,” but explained that K. is going to have to figure out what he’s going to do about internet. N. has been the one whose name the internet is in, but I’m getting my own “Jetpack” from Verizon at the end of June, when my landline contract runs out. They said it would increase my monthly bill by either $10 or $30, depending on how many gigs I wanted/needed. Now that everything has been cleared off of my Dirty Business List, I feel incredibly relieved. I’m ready for new things this year. Let a new and brighter light enter my life!
