Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Aftermath and an Explanation

So before I go into my glowingly happy review of my loooong training weekend in Lake Placid, I'll briefly explain why in the heck I've been progressively getting more and more lax about updating this darn thing.

Really, I blame the bedbugs.

What started out as a problem on the first floor of the house where Robbie and I reside in a teensy attic apartment moved its way upstairs floor by floor. In March, just in time for Robbie's birthday, we had our first infestation. Some of you may know the drill: move every bit of clothing and fabric out, wash and dry on high heat. Exterminator comes in, steams and sprays, life goes back to normal. This happened in March, and until June, it really had seemed like the problem was gone. Then, with my birthday just around the corner- the say after Rev 3 to be precise- I woke up with bites. Last time, I had avoided getting bitten for some reason. This time, Robbie and I were both getting bit. Not great. We tried to write it off as allergies, but we both ended up with infections, and doctors confirmed that they were bedbug bites. Enter the exterminators for round two. Again, everything moved out, cleaned, steamed and sprayed. We figured this had to be the end of it- the universe was clearly testing our relationship, but rather than growing apart and getting in fights, if anything it cheesily brought us closer together. We have a united front against bugs!

So, last Tuesday, we moved back in. Wednesday as I woke up for work and woke Robbie up to say goodbye, he looked at his arm. "Crap." 2 lovely new bites. These are some kind of evolved species of bedbugs or something, a superstrong variety, probably robots put in place by government agents, set up to look like devilish bedbugs but really a ruse to get DNA samples... or maybe we've just been watching waaaay too many seasons of the X-Files.

Of course, this happened less than 24 hours before I was leaving for Lake Placid for training for 4 days, but I was mad as hell. That day, we decided to tell our landlord that we were leaving. The upshot is that we called him when I got back from training, and he agreed to let us out of the lease in September. He's a pretty nice guy and we felt bad about having to leave, but we can't stay there. However, clearly this presents a problem: we move out now, but can't move anywhere else until September, so all of our stuff needs to go to our parent's homes. And since we can't afford to pay 2 rents, we're stuck without our own place until September, assuming we can find one by then. Fantastic.

So, now that I'm 23, the year my best friend's dad once told me was the best age of his life, I'm somewhat homeless. Or rather, we've sort of become vagabonds, shifting from Robbie's parents house to mine. Not the way one wants to go about Ironman training- especially since this limits my pool access a bit.

The worst part about all of this- other than the bites and the inconvenience of moving- is just how crappy it makes you feel, being embarrassed to admit that you have bugs in your house. Even though we did everything right, have a nice clean place, followed the exterminators instructions to the letter, we can't seem to get rid of these godforsaken bugs. They're obviously in the walls, and god knows our apartment is pretty substandard in terms of construction. It sucks to feel like something is your fault when you know you've done all you can.

Yesterday was a whirlwind of moving and the rest of the week will be more of the same. In the meantime, I have pictures and tons of great stuff from Lake Placid, and I'll get them posted soon!

That's really the long and short of why my posting has been so erratic for the past few months- it seems like every time we fix one thing, another minor crisis ensues, so it's been damage control pretty much daily. I find myself wishing I could skip the next couple of months- even though it's summer vacation and my favorite season- and just get everything over with so we can just be settled in somewhere again. Before either of us has a nervous breakdown.

1 comment:

Jford said...

Hate to hear about the bugs! And good luck find you a place soon!