Inspection imminent

My apartment complex is getting inspected soon. I had a feeling this was going to happen, what with the new CO- and smoke-detectors they put in last February.

I came back from fetching my camera from the UPS depot two weeks ago to find a typed-up letter from the management (we all got one) warning that the maintenance folks would be in and out of apartments for a while, doing pre-inspection inspections, to see what needed fixing before the Code Dude (not his official title) came to look things over.

It's hard to take a person seriously when they write you a letter asking you to make sure your apartment is kept in a "clean and tidy manor." Spell-check strikes again.

So anyhow, that's where I've been for a week and a half, furiously cleaning my apartment. The usual image of my mother standing on her hips looking disgusted has been replaced by one of a faceless bureaucrat with a clipboard--someone who really is an authority on pig sties.

The bathroom looks great, the kitchen pretty good, the living and sleeping areas are a nightmare. I have come to a conclusion: I have too much stuff. Just when I think I've got a handle on things I find more crap. DVDs, CDs, magazines (mostly about embroidery or jewelry-making), yarn, embroidery supplies, jewelry-making supplies, books. Good Lord! The books! They're everywhere! I am officially not allowed to buy one more book until I read everything I have.

I also need to stop hanging onto clothes that are too big for me. I don't ever want them to fit again, so why are they still there? And why oh why do I have so many socks? I probably won't need to do sock-laundry for the next two months. They're all white. All about the same length. Where did they all come from? I thought you were supposed to lose socks in the laundry, not find them. Or maybe this is what happens--at one end of a wormhole is a clothes-dryer. At the other, a closet floor. The socks get pulled through the wormhole and pop out the other side, having lost all color and distinguishing features.

Or maybe every once in a while I go buy socks, thinking for some strange reason that I don't have enough.

I have an entire shelf in my closet devoted to jigsaw puzzles. I haven't put together a puzzle since I got the computer, mainly because the computer sits on the only surface I have that's large enough to accommodate puzzles. Oh wait, I tell a lie. I remember buying a difficult one the week my Grandma was visiting. She was staying at my parents' place, and I went upstate for a visit, puzzle box under my arm. We spent most of our time chatting and putting that thing together. My mother was grateful. She always felt at a loss for how to keep her mother-in-law entertained.

I need that shelf space. I think a coworker of mine is going to be inheriting those puzzles, because she foolishly told me a few weeks ago that she's just recently picked that up as a hobby. I'll make sure I only give her the ones with all the pieces, though. I'm desperate, not cruel. Well, not today.

The cat is trying to figure out what the blue blazes is going on. The first few days, she hid every time I started to head off for work. If you'll remember from the post I did on cleaning back in February, the next step after cleaning is wrestling the cat into the pet carrier, to keep her from getting underfoot of whoever's coming that day. But she's not hiding anymore, because I haven't tried to crate her. I think she's decided that I'm just going crazy, and that I now enjoy spending my spare moments taking apart and slowly putting back together the various set-ups in my teeny little apartment.

Inspection isn't for another month. It was supposed to be this week, but the complex was granted an extension because they had a lot of things to fix. Whew. That gives me more time to get things organized. Although it means once I'm done, I'm not allowed to touch anything until the end of June. Hmmm. We'll have to see how that goes.