I hadn’t posted it here, so I thought even a case of Copy/Paste would be better than complete silence. Right?
As you may know–I think I’ve squeed about it repeatedly–My Love moved to Greece on the 20th of June and the two of us made ourselves at home in the apartment I’ve been trying to fix up for what seems like forever but has only been a couple of months. In order for this post to make some semblance of sense, I’ll break it up in sections.
The Apartment:
1) The apartment is almost ready. The apartment has been almost ready for two weeks now. What I mean by that is that the main bathroom does not have a sink. You see, the people who made the wooden piece of furniture we have in the bathroom (on which I will elaborate in the next paragraph) ordered a piece of glass, on which the sink will be placed, three weeks ago, but their supplier keeps delaying the delivery. That means that if you wanna use the bathroom in the morning you go to the guest bathroom, where the sink is kind of tiny, water gets splashed everywhere, you step in it, then leave marks all around the house… and Sotia gets upset. When generic “you” IS Sotia, because Sotia wakes up first in the morning to go to work, Sotia is grumpy all day.
2) The piece of furniture (I KNOW there’s a better word for it, but I can’t think of it) in the main bathroom is a piece of crap (there’s my better word). It was supposed to have a different design, but then my dad spoke to the carpenters, and since he was paying for it they didn’t think to consult me on the changes, so I walked into the bathroom one day and saw something completely different to what I’d asked for. The main reason I’d wanted it was so it would fit a full-length mirror, but the outcome won’t allow for one. Can you say, “Grrr?”
3) The apartment is almost fully furnished. It’s still missing two bedside tables and the dresser and mirror in the bedroom (the lack of full length mirrors in the house is getting to me, by the way), a frame-like thing that’s to hold the TV and its paraphernalia mounted on the wall in the living room and the buffet thingy in the dining room.
Buffet thingy
You understand, of course, that in the meantime TV, paraphernalia, and my mom’s china, that she insisted we had to have, are on the floor–the latter in boxes, which is something I hate having in our living room.
Also, we have no kitchen chairs.
4) Other than that, the apartment is AWESOME! The balcony has a view to a park, the neighborhood is quiet (well, we don’t really add to that), it’s cool at night despite the lack of AC at the moment, the colors of the walls are exactly what we were aiming at, and the bed and couch are to die for.
[ETA: The apartment is now fully ready except for curtains, which will be delivered in two weeks]
The Wedding Plans
1) The dress is one size (at least) too small. I ordered it when I was 7 kilos (about 14 pounds, roughly) heavier than I am now. I went for the first fitting when I was 4 kilos less than when they first took my measurements and it needed another palm of fabric to close. I had back-cleavage, for fuck’s sake. The lady who sold it to me says it’s the right size. She wants to mend it, but I want her to order a bigger size. Meantime, I’ve had more yogurt (it’s replaced dinner) this month that in all my life. I HATE YOGURT. Everything else is going according to plan… I think.
[ETA: The wedding dress… “lady” didn’t know who she was messing with when she decided to pull that “the dress is the right size” crap on me.
A day before I went for a rehearsal last week, I went online and found the measurements for sizes 12-16 (I’m a 16 in tops in UK sizes, a 12-14 in pants) for the specific dress I’d ordered. According to those measurements, the size 16 she kept insisting she’d ordered should have been 10 cm (about 4 inches) too big for me, and the 14 should have fit me perfectly.
I took printouts with me to the rehearsal and, naturally, let her rant about how I’d asked for a 16, so that was what she’d gotten me for about 10 minutes before I showed her my evidence. You should have seen how she went from yelling to apologizing in zero time. She, of course, blamed the whole thing on the importing company who’d written size 16 on the invoice that had come with the dress, and got them on the phone.
They said Greek sizes are different than UK ones, and that the Greek 16 is a UK 14.
I said that A) I couldn’t give a flying fuck, since they had my measurements and should have sent the right size size, and B) I should have fit in the UK size 14, too. Then we measured the dress and it turned out it was 5 cm (2 inches) smaller than what they said Greek size 16 should be (by the way, I don’t get why the fuck Greek sizes should be smaller than UK ones.)
They said that it’s commonly accepted that there’s a 2 inches variation between items of the same stated size.
I said… whatever.
Since I had gone prepared, I told the lady at the store she could shove the dress and give me back my deposit, since according to the mother company’s site it’s every store’s responsibility to check the measurements of a dress within a week of delivery, and she hadn’t. She started whining and saying she was on my side (WAS SHE ON MY SIDE WHEN SHE CALLED AND ASKED IF I’D LOST A KILO?), and that she wanted the best for me, and the best was that dress… blah… blah…
Then she started calling other stores in Europe, looking for the same dress in a bigger size.
Now, I know where to find that dress. There is a store in London… heh… I didn’t tell her, though. I was too pissed off. I told her she had two days to come up with a solution I approved off, or I was getting a dress elsewhere. The next day she called me to tell me she convinced the mother company to tailor make a dress to my size plus half an inch for each measurement, and have it sent to Greece by the 27th of July. The conversation went something like this:
Bitch: They never do custom work, you know.
Sotia: Yeah, they do. I read it on their brochure in your office.
Bitch: Well, they don’t do it on such short notice. And I’m not even gonna mention the extra cost.
Sotia: It’s 170 British pounds. I read that in their brochure, too.
She didn’t say much after that. I told her I wouldn’t be paying more, and that if the dress was a day late she’d be stuck with two dresses and no buyer. The next day I went to Pronovias and found two alternative dresses, in my size, in case she doesn’t make good on her promise.
That’s a weight off my chest, I tell you.]
Living With a Boy
1) I knew I was a weirdo, but never knew how much of one until My Love and I moved in together. For the first 3-4 everything set me off. If things weren’t done the way I had it in my head they were supposed to be done (in my head, mind you; I wouldn’t tell him what I expected), I’d go ballistic. I’d see a spot on the floor and want to mop the whole apartment. Yeah… I’m weird… Things have settled down now though.
2) My Love is a hero. He IS. Not only didn’t he tell me to go screw myself when I was being entirely irrational, not only did he not complain when I had one issue after the other, he kept calming me down and doing everything he could to smoothen things out. Plus, yesterday he cleaned the whole place. I mean scrubbed the bathrooms and all. I came home from work and found the apartment sparkling clean.
3) Once I got over the oh-my-God-I-want-my-mommy stage, I’m at the happiest phase of my life 😀
Writing
Hadn’t written a word in more than ten days, but yesterday I went over the last six chapters I’ve written on Cherry Stem and changed some things. It all makes more sense to me now, and I think I’m back in the groove. I’ll be going to our summer-place for the weekend, and I’m planning on avoiding the beach in leu of writing while the whole family is away. Knowing RL, I better not aim too high. Sigh. Thing is, I feel like there’s hope I’ll be writing, whatever that writing is, which is definitely of the good, so YAY!!!
[ETA: I WROTE!!! I’m currently so close to the end that I’ve started looking into agents and query letters, and synopses, and… oh my God!]
The Dog
Last weekend we were at a wedding out of town, so we had to leave our two dogs (“our” meaning the family’s, which officially belong to my sister and me but are still living with my parents and my sis and I only walk from time to time since I moved) to a dog-hotel. When My Love, my sis and I went to pick them up on Sunday afternoon, a dog escaped and ran to us to be petted. He looked a lot like my first dog, only bigger, and I asked, “Who’s this cuttie?”
The people at the dog-hotel told me they’d found him sleeping under a truck, that he’s already about 20 kilos (~ 40 lbs) and will probably grow to be 40-50 (~ 80-100 lbs), and that they’re looking for someone to adopt him because he’s adorable, and easy going, and it’s a pity he doesn’t have a home.
“Do you want him?” one of them asked.
“Yes!” I replied.
And that’s all for now.
Love,
Me
