Armadillos in the News

Hi everyone!!!! Sorry for the lull in action, but Nikki grounded me from using the computer because Tasha and I ate her clover, then Tasha threw up all over the floor, and I didn't clean it up like I said I would. Honestly, how she can hold a stuffed armadillo to the same standards as a living armadillo is beyond me. Nikki is insane. But!!! The terms of my imprisonment are over, and I'm starting off strong with a great story about one of my cousins in the South.

Brazil has announced that its native three-banded armadillo will be the official mascot for the World Cup in 2014!! The "tatu-bola," as it's known in Brazil, is an endangered species, which is a pity, because it's so cute! (See below)

Tatu-bola was chosen because, when frightened, it can roll itself into a tight ball...like a soccer ball! How appropriate!

New Family Member

Hiya! Quick blog post about a new addition to my family.

This new member of our family came courtesy of Steve as a Christmas gift for Nikki:

His name is T-Rex, and in addition to having his own Tumblr documenting his adventures, he also has his own comic strip (that he shares with a couple of his dinosaur friends). He's ENORMOUS, and Nikki's made me promise to let him occasionally be featured in some of my travels.

OUR APARTMENT!! Part 2 (friggin' FINALLY)

It's raining pretty hard today, which is completely unusual since it's been sunny and clear almost the entire time we've lived in Denver. While the gloom is a little lame, I can tell that Nikki likes it. Seems to remind her of gloomy days in Baltimore. She's a strange bird. However, the nice thing about rainy days and Nikki is that she's more inclined to do things she's been putting off for a while...like editing photos and helping me update the blog! The first one I wanted to post was the "thrilling" second half of the apartment tour. Once everyone sees how SWEET our place is, maybe they'll be more inclined to visit! So without further ado, I present to you: OUR APARTMENT!! Part 2 (friggin' FINALLY).

We begin the second half of our tour with the master bedroom. The French doors are especially cool, I think. The beads hanging from the door are Nikki's "Ravens rally beads." She wears them in public along with a Ravens jersey and...well...you'll see in the next pictures...

Nikki here. This is my prized possession as far as furniture is concerned. It's an antique dresser in the most gorgeous shade of mint green you've ever seen. The top part folds down to reveal four drawers and a shelf where I keep things like my memento boxes and underthings. It's made of this great hardwood and is just scuffed enough to feel worn in. I got it for free from a crazy woman when I lived in my first apartment. She had a bunch of furniture to get rid of, and as long as I could get it out of her apartment and over to mine, I could have it. I especially love it because my mom wants to own it BADLY, but I refuse to give it up. Along with our TempurPedic mattress, this was the only other piece of furniture I insisted we bring across the country with us.

Ok, see the weird panda thing behind that picture of Nikki and her mom? That's what Nikki calls her "pandahatmittenscarf." Her friend Genny bought it for her because Nikki has a pandahat that she wears to football games (and around the house for no other reason than to embarrass me, I think). I've included two photos below of Nikki in her get up so you can see what I have to live with during football season. (The pig, by the way, is a humidifier. In this dry climate, without one of these, you wake up all cotton-mouthy. ...Hee hee. I always wake up with cotton mouth!)

Picture One:

Picture Two:

This is Nikki with her friend Tia IN PUBLIC at a Ravens game last year!! She tells me that everyone in the stands loved the hat, but I don't believe her.

 

Back to the apartment. This is the master bathroom. Tons of storage space, and Tasha does her business under the counter top.

Across from the counter is a bathtub, which makes Steve very pleased. He's the type of guy that likes to soak his weary bones from time to time, and having the option to either take a shower (behind that door in the back) or a bath makes him happy. Nikki always says that she doesn't like baths because, like the Gypsies/Roma, she believes that sitting in a tub of water of your own filth is gross. I just think of it as a small pool. I've tried to get Tasha to take bubble baths with me, but she doesn't like water. :(

Nikki's jewelry corner. She wants me to let you know that 95% of her jewelry is made by her "awesomely talented friends."

The master bedroom walk-in closet. Smaller than some closets, bigger than most. A great place to play hide-and-seek. Tasha runs here (or under the bed) in the rare instance there's a thunderstorm.

Back in the living room. Nikki's had this bookshelf since college, and it shows, in the back of it is only held on with two nails. :P Selected reading: The Collected Poems of Pablo Neruda, The Origin of the Species, The Poisonwood Bible, and The Art of War. Can you guess which are Steve's books and which are Nikki's? Steve's friend Jess Knowles drew that picture of him back in college. He says that it was her first ever commission. Who knew he was such an art lover (and an egoist)?

I showed you the kitchen in the first apartment blog post, and now Nikki's gotten a chance to decorate it a little! She took the photo of the cone flower on her first trip to Colorado, and she won the bamboo, fish-shaped cutting boards at a green wedding raffle.

Speaking of new decorations, the bar got a bit of a facelift since the last time. The pineapple keyholder is for Steve's keys; the basket is for Nikki's keys. The bird is actually a foam puzzle that Nikki got from a (now-closed) store in Rehobeth, DE when she was in middle school. I took it apart and tried to put it back together again, and let me tell you, that tail is a lot harder to figure out than it looks!

And now, the artwork that is currently gracing our walls. I'll let Nikki give you the specs.

This was a page from a fairy calendar I used to have. It's based on the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is my favorite play. (I've acted in it at least four times.) I had a coupon for a steep discount on custom framing at Michael's craft store, so I decided to have it professionally framed.

My Baltimore photo collage. All photos are Nikki originals. From top left: Stieff Silver factory, Broadway Market in Fells Point, Bertha's Mussels in Fells Point, Domino Sugar factory, The Cat's Eye Pub in Fells Point, rowhomes in Waverly, and Locust Point, as seen from across the Inner Harbor. I had originally tried to sell the piece, but not having any takers, I decided to keep it to remind me of home.

This print is one of a set of two. My brother James, a chef, has the other one. When I lived in Cockeysville, MD after college, I saw a middle-aged couple put these two paintings gently on top of the community dumpster. Then then loitered a bit in the parking lot, as if waiting to see if anyone would take them. Being Italian and poor, I thought that the pictures would make an excellent addition to my apartment's decor. So I reached in and grabbed them, dusted them off, and took them home with me. To this day, I don't know if they were alarmed or pleased that someone dumpster dove for their discarded artwork.

I'm going to end this entry with a picture of Steve playing Rock Band, because it makes me laugh.

WE HAVE A NEW APARTMENT! (pt 1)

Nikki finally got most of the apartment clean enough (for her) that she let me take some pictures, showing off the new place. She said the other rooms that aren't shown here (bedrooms, bathrooms) are still too messy, so I'll have to wait to show you guys the rest of the place. Let's get this tour started!!

 
This is our kitchen! It's nice and big and has a lot of cabinets. There's also two circle rugs on the floor, partly for color and partly so when Nikki cooks at the stove, her feet and knees don't hurt. (So she says.) There's a dishwasher and an electric stove. You see the sink on the right? The counter it's on is open to the dining room, which is open to the entryway and the living room. Nikki, like all good Italian women, likes entertaining people and feeding them. This way, she can cook in the kitchen and talk to people in the living room at the same time.

[Nikki Note]: The nicest part of our Baltimore apartment was that the huge kitchen opened up (more or less) to the living room area. We had an apartment before where the kitchen was tiny and closed off, and it made hosting parties really difficult sometimes. Hard to socialize with people when you're stuck in a kitchen the size of a hallway.)

Our super-cool fridge! Representing Baltimore with Steve's Orioles magnets. We also have a lot more magnetic poetry words, but Nikki hasn't put them all up yet.
 

There's a closet in the kitchen that houses a washer and dryer. It's a weird place for a washer and dryer, but Nikki says she's just glad they don't have to take all their stuff to a laundry room somewhere else in the building.

Tasha's food and water bowls: the most important part of the kitchen.
 

The dining room! Well, the area we have the table and chairs. A great Craigslist get! The sixth chair was busted, so Nikki and Steve only got the five. Luckily, we have four more from their old dining room set, so it all worked out.

[Nikki Note]: Now we just need friends to come over and have a meal with us, and we can finally use the table as more than a catch-all for mail!

Steve didn't know what this part of the entranceway was for when we first moved in. When you come into the apartment, there's a coat closet to the left; the doors are mirrors. Then there's this next to it. Nikki finally figured out that it was a BAR AREA!! Like, for booze and glasses! How classy!

[Nikki Note]: Note the two different kinds of coconut rum. ;) The glass mugs are from my friends Kelsey and Chris's wedding; they had them custom-made. STILL don't know where the wine glasses came from. We've just always had them. Margarita glass from my friend Audra...even though I don't drink margaritas. ;P The little basket holds our keys. Always having a regular place to put them makes them easier to find.
 

 

A REAL, WORKING, WOOD-BURNING FIREPLACE!! I can't wait until it's cold enough to use this! Tasha and I have already decided we're going to make s'mores.
 

LOOK AT THIS AWESOME COUCH!!! Do you remember the heinous couch we used to have at the Baltimore apartment? The one that Steve's mom bought for him from Goodwill when he was in high school? The one that was torn up and dirty and hideous? THIS IS NOT THAT COUCH! There's a loveseat, and a little corner nook (where I'm sitting), and a couch long enough for Steve to stretch out on (mostly). Still needs some breaking in, but it's so much better than what we used to have!

[Nikki Note]: It was a total steal too. Seriously, it may have fallen off the back of a truck. We bought it from a liquidator. They lost the original carton with our set inside. They reordered it and delivered it, about a week and a half after we made the purchase. They're lucky I didn't have to get all Baltimore on them!
 

Surprise! The ottoman opens up to reveal a storage bin full of Nikki's art stuff! (And an armadillo.) Now instead of having books and coloring books and markers and sock monkey supplies and magazines in various stages of being read spread out all over the floor in the living room, they can go in the ottoman. ...Let's see how long this plan lasts. ;)

 View from our super-big balcony. We're on the second floor, and there's two ponds with fountains right outside. Lots of trees and plants. It's a nice place to sit.

Best part of the porch: since it's got a concrete floor, we can have a propane grill right on it! Steve put it together, but we haven't used it yet. Hopefully it actually works.

Tasha LOVES to spend time on the balcony. Since the slats on the fence are too close together to allow her to jump out, all she does it poke her head out and survey the land below her. Sometimes, she just lays out there, chillin'. I think she likes just being outside because she never got to do that out in Baltimore.

[Nikki Note]: Just an FYI: Steve and I always check on her and make sure we know where she is at all times when she's on the porch. She's been very good about not trying to jump to her death, and we've reinforced that by yelling at her and carrying her off the porch if it looks like she's going to try to hop on top of the ledge.

 

I'll finish up the tour (for now) by showing you some of the community amenities that we have here. This is a pic of me, chillin' poolside. Armadillos in general may like to swim, but I don't. If I get wet, I go into the dryer, and I always get dizzy when I'm in the dryer.

There's a small gym near the pool. Steve likes to work out here all the time. Always comes home smelling terrible. ;) Personally, I don't exercise. I don't need to, not just because I'm a stuffed animal, but also because armadillos don't have a lot of body fat. Go ahead...be jealous!

Once everywhere else in the apartment is more "acceptable-looking," I'll be sure to take some more pictures for y'all.

Homecoming

Tasha and I have safely returned (escaped) from the kennel. I think Tasha and I both have colds, so Nikki's going to make vet appointments for the both of us on Monday. She kept profusely apologizing when she picked us up, because it was obvious that both Tasha and I had given up all hope of her ever coming back.

The first couple of days weren't so bad. It was just me and Tasha, hanging out, not doing much other than sleeping and eating. I kept asking the kennel "care"-takers if they'd mind letting us out so we could wander around and stretch our legs, but apparently, no one there spoke armadillo. On the third day, a Persian named "Mr. Fluffyface" (that poor, poor cat) joined us in another cage (cell). He was an ok conversationalist but tended to brag about his pristine living conditions up in the mountains. After she couldn't take it anymore, Tasha finally asked him why, if the mountains and his house were sooooo great, he was stuck in this kennel by a damn water park like us? That shut him up, which was both good and bad. We had sort of gotten used to his nasally intonations. He left a few days after and blew us a raspberry behind his owner's back as she carried him out the door. Good riddance.

By day six, we were convinced that Nikki was never coming back. She had said that she'd visit us, but we later found out that the staff had told her that it'd be "too confusing" for Tasha and me if Nikki came to visit and then left without us. I can see their point, but it's rough being far from home and surrounded by unfamiliar people and the haunting noise of howling dogs echoing from wherever they housed the dogs.
FINALLY Nikki came to get us, apologies spilling from her lips. It took about 45 minutes in traffic to get to our new apartment, and Tasha was a PSYCHO the WHOLE RIDE. She just wouldn't shut up!! I started to worry that she had forgotten who Nikki was, but I think she was just so elated to be out of the kennel that she couldn't sit still and couldn't keep her mouth shut.

It's taken Tasha a few days to adjust to our new home. It's a huge two bedroom apartment with a big living room and....A FIRE PLACE!! How cool is that!!?? I'm totally roasting marshmallows when it gets cold enough. There's also a great, big deck attached which overlooks some trees and a pond. Tasha is enthralled and loves being outside, something she never really got to do when we lived in Baltimore. Of course Nikki doesn't really trust Tasha as far as she can throw her; my cat friend must be supervised at all times to make sure she doesn't see something interesting and throw herself down two floors to the brush below. Honestly, I don't think Tasha's stupid enough to escape, but I DO hold her in high esteem, so...we'll see. So far so good.

Nikki says that since they still don't have all their new furniture and the place is basically still kind of a mess, I'm not allowed to take any pictures of the new place. BUT!!! I had Tasha take this one when Nikki wasn't looking.

This is from my first day back. I was shocked that they had so much stuff, and that Nikki and Steve managed to get it all into the apartment on their own!!

Nikki assured me we should get most of the new furniture this weekend, so keep an eye out for me giving you all the grand tour!!

To end this blog on a super happy note, here's a postcard that Nikki's mom Diane bought for me:

The resemblance is striking.

Nikki Post: We Live Here Now

First of all....WE HAVE AN APARTMENT! We haven't signed the lease yet (Friday), but we put the hold deposit on it, and our applications have been approved, so I'm going to go ahead and celebrate a little. It's almost in Aurora, which is a suburb of Denver (see map), but the complex (yes, I gave in, so we're living in a complex) is just inside Denver city limits. It's a nice place, a large two-bedroom, two-bath with a HUGE living room and open kitchen, wood fireplace, large deck overlooking a little pond area. It has a shower for me and a bathtub for Steve, and all new appliances in the kitchen. Unfortunately, it has an ELECTRIC RANGE, which I'm not thrilled about, but the rental manager said that for some reason, Denver apartment complexes just prefer electric ranges. SO. I'm going to have to learn how to cook without the ease and adjustability of using gas. *le sigh* We're moving in on Saturday, which means we'll rescue Tasha from the kennel on Sunday, probably. Maybe earlier, depending on how the move goes on Saturday. (Rob and Pam are out of town this weekend, so it'll just be me and Steve hauling our stuff into our second floor apartment. Thank God there's an elevator!) Once we're finally in, I'll let Claire give you her impressions of the place. She'll probably complain about the lack of furniture. ;)

From our area of Aurora to downtown Denver

(Aurora location not exact for privacy reasons.)

I took these pictures last Friday, when we first arrived in Denver/Evergreen. I was just...in awe...of how gorgeous everything was and how COMPLETELY different this area is from Baltimore. Hell, I'm still in awe of it!

 Every city sign in Colorado tells you what the elevation is. It's kind of adorable in a way.

 This is not the only sign like this I've seen in my travels. Also, the signs in Colorado are pretty funny. There are some coming down the mountains on I-70W I'll need to share with all of you.

You really need to click on these next photos and see the larger versions to get the total feelings of jealousy they're meant to invoke in you.

 
Abandoned mine. I'm not exaggerating when I say that these are EVERYWHERE in the countryside. Steve says I'm not allowed to explore in them. :(

 Rolling hills leading up to the mountains on I-70W

In my new apartment, I'll only be a little over an hour away from the mountains. And no matter how much the drive up those steep inclines KILLS my hybrid battery, it'll always be completely worth it to get another view like this.

Nikki Post: We've Arrived

Spoiler Alert: We didn't die in a tornado.

We all arrived safely in Colorado on Friday (8/5). My aunt, uncle, dad, mom, and Steve all helped pack the storage unit with almost all of our earthly belongings while I was left to drive Tasha to the kennel for a short stay away from Pam and Rob's place. (Apparently, I'm not considered fit for lifting.) Claire, along with the stuffed mouse (Mousey) that came with Tasha from the SPCA and the purple fairy blanket that she loves, is with her at the kennel, so the rest of the entries will be from me for a while. I can only imagine the stories she'll tell when she returns.

Here's the scoop: we're staying at Steve's aunt and uncle's place in Evergreen (see map below) until we find a place of our own in Denver.

From Evergreen to Denver

Chris and Lori (my "aunt" and "uncle") peaced outta town right after helping us put everything into storage, while my parents stayed until early this morning. We took them driving through Rocky Mountain National Park (pictures to come). They explored downtown Denver on their own. Rob and Pam had them over for dinner last night, which went rather well, I thought. Of course, having two different sides of the family meet for the first time is always nerve-wracking, so I babbled much more than I usually do (which is A LOT). But everyone seemed to like each other, and the meeting was a success. I dropped my parents off at the airport this morning; Mom cried, which I figured she'd do. They arrived safely in Baltimore this evening.

Steve and I spent about six hours today looking for a place to live. Either the places were too expensive, didn't allow cats, or were in sketchy neighborhoods. We left some voice messages and sent some emails, so we'll see how that goes. We originally had this long list of requirements:

- 2br, at least 1ba

- cat and dog friendly (we want to adopt a dog soon)

- gas range on the stove (b/c neither of us can cook very well on electric, having never grown up using it)

- guaranteed parking

- NOT in an apartment complex

- prefer single-family home or townhome

- no more than $1150 (and that's pushing it) with at least some utilities included

After only two days of serious searching, and four days on a guest bed without our cat, we're starting to drop our standards. We want to keep the 2br so we have a guest room/office, and the price range has to stay the same. If we can't adopt a dog, so be it, but we need the cat approval. We'll learn how to cook on an electric range, and if we have to live in an apartment complex, then fine. We'd at least like one with high approval ratings on ApartmentRatings.com. Having lived in a fantastic apartment in Parkville, MD for so long, I had forgotten how AWFUL and frustrating it is to find somewhere new to live.

I have a final job interview tomorrow at a local university, so I'm going to iron this shirt I dug out of one of my boxes of clothes and call it a night.