part-time lover

as of today, that's what i am. (though not necessarily the type Stevie Wonder had in mind.)
in that i now work part-time and love it.
from now on, i work Mondays, Tuesdays and every other Wednesday. this now leaves me plenty of free time to obsess over wedding planning. and also to go shopping. and to have lunches.
so, yeah, life is pretty awesome. except that it's a little boring being home and unoccupied. however, it's amazing how little activity is required to stave off such boredom.
case in point-- today.
i woke up, ate some olives that the JadedBrother left here before he set off on a month-long roadtrip,
and then met with the contractor who is going to renovate my bathroom and also build an extra closet so that there will be some parity between my large closet and T's not-as-large closet. the olives and the contractor kept me busy straight through 11:36 a.m.

then i decided that i would embrace my inner-housewife and do some laundry, since i had been putting off for over a week. now, usually when T and i do laundry, we do it in the evenings or on Sundays. this is probably the better way for us to continue doing laundry in the future, since today i had a showdown with some of the cleaning ladies and am now none too popular in the laundry room.

here's the deal. our building has two laundry rooms--one on the second floor for "residents only," and one in the basement where cleaning ladies can go. i prefer the basement laundry room since it has more washers and dryers. (10 dryers and as many washers). the thing that i do *not* prefer, though, is when somebody does not keep track of their timing and leaves their unattended clothes in the dryers. when i got down to the laundry room, 6 of the dryers had finished their cycles and were still full of clothing. so, giving this "somebody" the benefit of the doubt, at best case scenario, these dryers cycled off the moment before i stepped into the laundry room. anyway, i go about my business, putting Oxiclean, Downy Fabric Balls, detergent and Shout Color Catchers into each of my machines and starting them up.

then i come back downstairs about 1/2 hour later, just as my machines are finishing up. the 6 dryers remain off and full of the same clothes as before. so in order to put my stuff in dryers, i have to empty each of those dryers into separate little carts, and then use the one remaining cart to transfer my stuff from washer to dryer. i do this and put my dryers up for an hour cycle.

with my hour of freedom, i go to the grocery store and purchase, inter alia, the fat-free salad dressing of which Thurston is so fond (and actually brings to work since his office cafeteria does not stock light dressings at its salad bar.) i return to the laundry room and the carts are *still* full of the dryer stuff and this is now approximately two hours after i first got down to the laundry room. as i am emptying my stuff out of the dryer, two cleaning ladies mosey in and start to assemble the clothes from the carts.

so i say to them (in the most charming way, natch), "you know it's really inconsiderate to leave your laundry down here for so long. other people need to use the dryers in the meantime." the cleaning ladies stare at me blankly, so i repeat myself. needless to say, after some back and forth, i get my point across. then as i am folding my laundry, the cleaning ladies keep throwing me hard looks and start blasting their transistor radio, tuned to La Mega NY (97.9FM). now this is something i have never seen. i mean how long does folding take, that you need to bring a radio with you? i mean, really.

anyway, i now know that i am even less a fan of La Mega than i am of people who leave their clothes behind for hours on end.

look, i *said* that being home was boring. tomorrow promises more excitement as Lola and i head up to Woodbury Common. and tonight i have dinner with the Bean, Lillers, Ivona, Mel and Jen, so that also should result in something. (cocktails and a subsequent buzz, most likely.)