Apartment Life #368

 

This is a weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell  Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 26 years that I've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 26 years here in a weekly blog post.  

Monday morning around 6:30AM a guy staying with the guy who lives 4 doors away started yelling, picked up a chair, said "F*ck you" and threw it through the window of the apartment of the guy he was staying with. The cops came, arrested him and made him go to the ER. His roommate said someone gave him drugs 3 days ago and he's been acting crazy. His friend was trying to calm him down before the police got here.

The broken living room window.

He had been acting crazy for the past few days. I kept hearing him yelling randomly for a few days. 4 cop cars showed up to get the guy in handcuffs. And even when they had him in handcuffs he was yelling and acting crazy.

He was handcuffed, loaded on a stretcher and put into the ambulance on his way to the ER. 

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On Wednesday that same guy was out of Jail/ER and was back. He was loud, acting crazy, slamming the door, threatening to beat all their butts if they didn't shut up ect. The police came again but by this time the people who live there were all inside the apartment with the door shut and were being quiet, the guy who had been shouting was elsewhere. 

So the police left. If the police had come an hour earlier they would have seen him acting crazy and being loud.  

Later that evening around dinner time that same day the police came again when the guy came back and was yelling at his friends who live in that apartment 4 doors away from mine. 

The dude was arrested again! But this time his friends who live in that apartment pressed charges and wrote statements out for the police. His friends kept yelling at him to leave and he refused so they had no choice but to call the police and have them remove him. 

His friends who live in that apartment told my daughter that he was recently diagnosed with bi-polar schizophrenia and that they asked the psychiatric hospital to keep him the other day but they let him out the same night he threw the chair through their window. 

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 On Tuesday I watched the guy on the left in blue on the bicycle ride up to the 4 homeless people who are behind the white car and sell them what I figure is drugs. I've seen bicycle guy sell stuff to people in cars that pull up, get something from him and take off. 

After bicycle dude was gone, the 4 homeless people sat in the grass across the street, pulled out their crack/meth pipes and did their drugs. Right there out in the open without a care in the world as to who saw them doing it. The homeless people who were over there was married guy (Jeff)- his girlfriend cordless drill woman, long haired guy, Jessica and another guy I don't know. I've talked about Married  guy, cordless drill woman and long haired guy before a few times like in this post. Jeff used to live across from me until he had a fire in his apartment. I called Jeff married guy because he was cheating on his wife with cordless drill woman years ago when he and his wife were still together. The girlfriend used a cordless drill to get into the maintenance shop in my complex so they could have some sexy alone time together years ago, hence the nickname I gave her. lol 

Long haired guy is the guy that the guy drug dealer tried to kill by shooting him a few years ago. Thankfully drug dealer was evicted a while back. So as you see all of these homeless people have been around for years and are well known.

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I got a picture of the Fire Department ambulance as they drove by on their way to the alley across the street.

The Fire Department's fire truck drove by on their way to the alley across the street just a moment later. I couldn't see what happened when they were in the alley. 

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Tuesday morning I noticed one of the flags that maintenance installed 2 years ago that I told you about in this post, had been busted and thrown on the ground. This is the second flag that someone has broken. The flags were installed to try and prettify the grounds I guess. I don't know who it is that keeps destroying them. 

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The high this week was 95F/35C

The low this week was 59F/15C

So that's it for this week's Apartment Hell  Life! Be sure to come back next week for more.

Saturday Vittles

 

My Daughter and I are trying to eat more healthy so I thought I would share some pictures on Saturday's of what we've made. 

Baked Chicken Thighs with Lentils and Sauteed Vegetables

What You Need: 

2 Chicken Thighs

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Salt and Pepper

McCormick Roasted Garlic and Herb seasoning

McCormick Chipotle and Roasted Garlic seasoning

McCormick Montreal Chicken seasoning

1/2 Cup uncooked Lentils

1/2 tsp. Chicken Bullion powder

1 Carrot- sliced

1 Cup Broccoli florets

1 Cup Fresh spinach- chopped

10 Mushrooms- sliced

6 stalks of asparagus

No Calorie cooking spray

What To Do: 

Add chicken thighs to a baking dish and sprinkle whatever seasonings you like to them. I wrote what seasonings I added above. Cook uncovered in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour.

Rinse the lentils under cold water. Add to a pot and add 1 cup of water. Add chicken bouillon powder and bring to a boil. Then turn temperature down to medium heat and cook uncovered for 20-30 minutes until done. Set aside. You can add a little salt to them at this point if you want to. 

Spray a non stick pan with some cooking spray. Add vegetables, except for the spinach and saute over medium heat for 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add spinach and saute for 2 minutes until spinach is wilted. I added the same seasonings to the vegetables that I put on the chicken. I didn't put the amounts since I just sprinkle some on. 

I put 1/2 Cup of cooked lentils on my plate and put some vegetables on top of them. I mixed it together to eat it. I like lentils mixed with vegetables but you don't have to do that. 

This dish has 350 Calories per serving and 25 carbs. 

Would you eat this?

Freebie Friday!

 

Welcome to another weekly Freebie Friday post, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too. Someone asked me why I do a "Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things. So I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to great samples at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received: 

A sample of La Roche Posay Vitamin C serum.

A sample of OGX shampoo and conditioner. 

Both were fine. I didn't care for the scent of the shampoo and conditioner but it works fine. Vitamin C serum made my face feel soft but that's about it. 

Did you receive any samples or freebies this week?

And because we had 3 days of rain this week and I took a few sky shots, I thought I would share those too. Cloudy days always make me happy. 

I was standing across the street from my apartment complex.

This big cloud on Saturday produced a little bit of rain. I thought we would get a lot from it. 

I decided to walk to Mariana's Market to do some shopping on Sunday. I was in my alley here and took this picture.That fenced in place is where Cal Ranch keeps their big items locked in the fenced in area.

You can see how close I live to the Cal Ranch right next door. Only the alley wall separates us.There were some big clouds this day.

Once I got out into the parking lot for Mariana's which is right next door to Cal Ranch I took a couple of pictures of the clouds over the mountains since it was raining over the mountains. We got a bit of rain a few minutes later. Mariana's is just across the parking lot. It's pretty convenient. 

More sky pictures while I walked across the parking lot.

On my way home after shopping the clouds were covering the mountains and we started getting more rain. Mariana's is the big building on the right of the picture.

Monday afternoon. More clouds and rain. It was a lot cooler at least. 

Monday morning it was raining over the mountains. And we got rain on and off that day and Tuesday.

I hope you enjoyed the clouds as much as I did. 

Book Review: Holidays With Hades by Brenda Trim

 

Book Description

Popcorn strands, holly berries, and twinkly lights. Add a little magic and the holiday season will be perfect, right?

'Tis the season and I'm setting the stage. But even with all the trimmings, I know better than to think everything will run smoothly.

I've promised an invitation to Fate and it's never a good idea to keep such a powerful being waiting, but my festive frenzy keeps getting interrupted.

Removing curses and humoring carolers are the last things I should be doing when I've also just learned that I have to make room at the Yule Dinner table.

For whom? Oh, just Hades, God of the freaking Underworld and father of the man in my bed.

I didn't have time for the normal chaos in my life, but this is a new extreme. It's impossible to make a good impression when I barely remember my name.

My power is hours away from turning me into a vegetable, my house is a mess, and suddenly my ex-husband has some demands of his own.

Not today, Satan.

Nothing will ruin these holidays for me and my family.

My Review

Phoebe and Aidoneus are dating. She's human but a witch and he's the son of Hades. Makes for an interesting family get together especially when someone comes to Phoebe for help with a curse and the curse gets transferred to her. Now instead of getting her house ready for Hades visit, she can barely remember who she or her family is. 

With the help of Aidoneus and his father, Hades they get to the bottom of who is responsible for the curse and how to get rid of it but that revelation comes with some sad knowledge because there's nothing worse than getting stabbed in the back by someone you thought was a friend.

With all this going on the anxiety of having Hades visit was put on the back burner until he just shows up and they have to deal with him and his nasty attitude about his sons love interest. But while everyone else is scared of angering Hades, Phoebe isn't and let's him know it. Hades actually likes her attitude which is one reason he decides to help her, much to everyone's surprise. 

This was a fun book and I liked Phoebe and her family. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week And Falcor Turns 11 Years Old Tomorrow

 

This is what the mountains to the West of me look like on a clear day.

And when we had a bunch of clouds one day, I took this picture back in March. This is what the same mountains look like covered in clouds. They got a bit of snow that day. 

I thought I would show some nice things I saw in my neighborhood this week. The apartment complex down the street from mine planted a couple of Birds of Paradise plants. This one is blooming.

Our Oleander bushes are big and blooming. I figured I should get a picture of it before maintenance comes by and hacks it to hell and back and all the flowers are gone. 

Monday morning the clouds looked like a painting. I didn't use any filters or enhance this picture in any way. This is just how the clouds looked that day.

This is also from Monday morning at the same time but I pointed my camera in a different direction.

Same time that day. The clouds just looked very fun to me. Later on that day the clouds all disappeared but they were nice while they lasted. 

It rained for 3 days this week so some of the sunset's were really cloudy and nice.

Happy birthday to my little boy who turns 11 years old tomorrow.

My little 12 lb dog who still has all the energy of a puppy. lol 

Book Review: Thunder Game by Christine Feehan

 

Book Description

Two broken souls find a love worth fighting for in this captivating GhostWalker novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan.

Diego Campos has come home to die. The GhostWalker is tired of walking a dark path shaped by countless losses. There has never been a moment of good in his life that wasn’t followed by something bad. But as he makes his way to his family’s homestead in the Appalachian Mountains, his plans are interrupted by a violent ambush that sets his life on a new course.

In between fighting off a small army of assailants, Diego is struck by a beautiful, brutal warrior woman unlike anyone he’s encountered before. Compelled to rescue her, Diego uses his psychic gifts to make Leila’s broken body whole again and save her from certain death. With each new breath she regains her strength, showcasing her humor, intelligence and courage as she reveals the truths of her past and inspires feelings Diego never thought his heart could experience.

After a lifetime alone, in the middle of firefight, Diego has finally found a light to guide him through the darkness—and one brief touch is enough to set them both aflame.

My Review

Diego has come home to die, he's had enough of life and goes to the one place he knows his brother will find him and carry out his last wishes. Diego is a Ghostwalker- an enhanced and experimented on soldier who thinks he's not as good as his brother. Ghostwalkers are men who had volunteered to be enhanced psychically so they would be more use to their country. But Dr. Peter Whitney also performed experimental gene coding on them without their consent or knowledge. And because of his connection and the government who wanted his enhanced soldiers, he was pretty much untouchable and continues to experiment on people.  Diego and his teammates are more like family to each other and will help each other out. 

 Before Diego can get to his cabin, a bunch of soldiers come for his elderly neighbor who is an ex Ghostwalker. But he's not alone, his two nieces are with him and one gets kidnapped while the other gets hurt. Diego has to trust Leila and show her some of his psychic gifts that no one else knows about in order to save her life. 

Leila is a surprise because he's never had such a reaction to a woman before and he feels a pull towards her. Once they have both rested and she is healing and feeling better they want to go after her sister but more soldiers show up. Diego and Leila work together to take them out and keep each other safe. But when Diego's brother finds out what's going on and finds out some secrets that Diego has been keeping, the rest of the Ghostwalker team make their way to them to help out. 

Diego and Leila's romance was a slow burn because neither of them had ever felt anything like the instant attraction they felt for each other. They let themselves get to know the other as they grew closer and tried to find a way to rescue her loved ones from Whitney before he could experiment on them more. There was so much action in this book, so much fighting so we get to see Leila and Diego in action. 

I really liked that the rest of the Ghostwalker team shows up and we get to see how his teammates, the characters from past books and their families are doing. I really loved that. It's nice to see how characters from previous books that you really liked are doing. This is the 20th book in Christine Feehan's Ghostwalker series and I can completely recommend this book as well as this series. But I would read the books in order to understand what has been happening and how it all started. This was a great addition to the series and I am looking forward to reading more. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Disclosure: I was given an e-ARC of this book via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

April 4th was World Rat day and it sure looks like he was about to enjoy the day. lol 

*All pictures this week are courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #367

 

This is a weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell  Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 26 years that I've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 26 years here in a weekly blog post.  

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On Monday around 7:30PM we heard about 8 gunshots. Sounded close like it was coming from the alley across the street. But someone over there shoots their gun off probably in the air all the time. At 8PM I took Falcor out for his last walk of the night and the two apartment owners that own the building across the street were out walking. They saw me and asked if I heard gunshots. They came across the street to talk to me and I said yes I heard them. The taller guy asked me if I was scared to walk around here alone at night and I pulled my tazer out of my pocket and said no. 

The shorter guy looked at me and said, "It doesn't surprise me that you would arm yourself. You seem like the type of person to do that." 

Now let me tell you, this shorter man does not like me. It might have to do with the incident a couple of months ago where he came rushing up to me when I was across the street and he yelled at me asking me if I had a poop bag for the dog, because he was tired of cleaning up dog poop from the grass. I pulled one out of my pocket and then I yelled at him not to ever aggressively rush up on me again and be rude. I might have told him if he ever yells at me again I would tell all the homeless people in the area I know to sh*t on his lawn. How would he like to clean that up? He waddled off when I said that. That might have something to do with why he doesn't like me. LOL 

Don't be rude to me, you won't like the response. 

So the taller guy said he had called the police and they were waiting for them. Right then 3 police cars showed up and they went to talk to them. I walked off with Falcor to finish our walk. On our way back the shorter man pointed at me and told the police officer that I heard the gunshots too. So all three of them walked across the street and I talked to the cop. 

He asked me if I heard the shots and I told him yes. He asked if I heard any screaming or yelling and I said no, that it was probably the same person who always shoots their gun off in the air around here somewhere in the alley. Then that little shit, shorter guy says, "She has a tazer too." I stared daggers at this little idiot. The cop said, "You're fine, just don't reach for it." I said I wouldn't. 

Shorter dude smirked at me as I stared daggers at his head. We were done talking so I walked home while they stood there talking to the police.  15 minutes after all the police left, the idiot with the gun shot off 3 more gunshots. Like a, F*ck you to the police and the person who called them. The police didn't come back, I doubt they were called again.

We had some windy days this week and one of the tree's across the street had some down and broken branches from the wind. They picked up the downed branches but this broken one is still laying like this days later. 

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The lady with the two dogs she can't control is still walking both of them at the same time. But now she carries a stick about the size of a ruler and smacks the dogs if they bark or tug on the leashes trying to get any any other dogs. They went after another smaller dog and she is holding both leashes in one hand so she can hold the stick in the other. Both dogs took off towards the little dog across the street and she lost one of the leashes and the Australian Shepherd got loose again. Thankfully the woman picked her little dog up and the bigger dog didn't try to get it before this woman made her way across the street to pick up the leash again. It's just ridiculous that this keeps happening. 

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Thursday night at 9PM the fire dept. and ambulance showed up on my street. My daughter went outside to see what happened and someone standing out there said they found a dead body. Don't know who and it had to have happened within the hour of the fire dept. showing up because I had just walked Falcor right there an hour earlier. The paramedics and fire dept. wrapped the person in a sheet and put them in a body bag before loading them on a gurney and putting them in the back of the ambulance. 

I asked some people in the neighborhood if they knew who it was and no one knows. I'll keep asking because I'm sure someone knows who it was. It could have been another Fentanyl overdose of one of the homeless people. Not sure.

Whoever it was wasn't there for long since I had just been walking there an hour earlier. I would have seen if someone had been lying there at that time.

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I noticed that the city was replacing some of the utility poles in the alley across the street. I walked by the alley to get a picture while the trucks were there. Some of these poles have been leaning over for years and so they are replacing them. So far they have replaced two of the utility poles. 

I walked one street past the alley so you can see how big that crane is. One truck has a grabber claw that was holding on to the old utility pole (it looks taller than the rest) while the other crane was installing the new pole. 

There were several other trucks sitting around my street while the new utility poles were being installed. These two trucks are from Cox Communications a cable tv and internet company. I'm guessing they had to hook stuff back up afterwards? Not sure. I'm actually surprised that we didn't lose power while the new utility poles were being installed but I don't know how any of that works. 

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On Friday my daughter's friend had an appointment with the apartment complex manager at 4pm. Manager didn't show up. This was the 2nd time the manager didn't show up to show her a vacant apartment. She called and left messages and the manager finally called her back almost 2 hours later. She finally shows up and shows her an apartment. Let's hope she is approved to rent the apartment. That would be one more normal person in my courtyard. lol 

The high this week was 87F/30C

The low this week was 54F/12C

So that's it for this week's Apartment Hell  Life! Be sure to come back next week for more.