An email to my mom
The landlady story got weirder and then less weird lately.
I don't know if I told you, but last week I would notice sometimes a curtain would be slightly open when I came home when I knew I left it closed that morning... or my bed would be made nicer than I left it... but then I was clearly missing toilet paper for a while and that never got fixed... so someone was going into my rooms while I was gone, but I wasn't sure why they were going in there if they weren't going to replace the toilet paper.
[An aside on the toilet paper: I went to the grocery store and bought what I thought was toilet paper when mine was on its last few squares only to realize when I got home that I had actually bought PAPER TOWELS, not toilet paper, and because I'm an idiot that can't read hebrew I couldn't tell the difference from looking through the top of the package, the only part that was see-through. I've been embarrassed about this, but paper towels really are kind of LIKE toilet paper, so I've been using them and hiding the package so that no one else will know. But the toilet paper roll is CLEARLY gone, and I even left the brown paper roll there just to show everyone that it's gone.]
I don't know who I told about the dryer, either, but 1) there's only a dryer, no washer, 2) it's about 2 foot square (no seriously. Maaaybe 2.5), and 3) there are groceries all over, on top of, in front of, and inside it. It is the only part of the house that is not immaculate.
The weirdest is this phantom roommate that shows up at night sometimes to pay rent or make a phone call or hang out in the kitchen or make a sandwich. I thought this guy lived in the bedroom whose door is always closed across the hallway from my door, but then there's no bedroom for my landlady. So... he must live somewhere else. Or something.
She is always cleaning. Always. I come home, she is cleaning. I leave for the day, she is cleaning. She has tile floors... I don't know how she can clean them as much as she does.
Last night I finally decided, screw it, I'm cooking in the kitchen and if she doesn't want me to touch her stuff then she'll just come down and yell at me. So there is this pot and pan that just live on the kitchen counter (along with one coffee cup and a set of plastic forks and knives and three plastic plates and then other random stuff that isn't always there like a real knife and a pyrex bowl and a kettle for making coffee) so I decide I'm making spaghetti with the pot. I've been using her real plates and silverware this whole time, which are in the cabinets/drawers, and she hasn't said anything about caring about me going through her drawers, so I figure, ok, now that I'm making spaghetti, let's look for a cutting board to use so I can chop up this pepper and throw it in the sauce. Except that... there's no cutting board. In the entire kitchen. And then, if I wanted to be dishonest and steal her oil to fry a pepper in, I couldn't, because there's no oil or butter in the house either. I also inexplicably can't find a ladle, a top for the pot (or any pot), a strainer, or even just a big spoon. Eventually I got the noodles out of the boiling water by just gingerly pouring the pot and praying that the noodles wouldn't avalanche into the sink. But the weirdest thing is that I know that this lady cooks because she made an entire 9x11 pan full of something that looks like spanish rice with peppers on top of it. So she must hide her ladles in her bedroom along with the other tenant.
Today I come home and my landlady is saying sorry, sorry, sorry, the paper is all over and they're fixing it. She holds out her hands apart as if to say "about two feet wide." I say, what? This guy who actually speaks English comes out of my room with a tape measurer and says, oh, we're measuring your room so that your landlady can sell her house. I say, what? (again) My landlady says she's moving out in two months to this new house that she bought. I say, great, good for you, where is it? She says downstairs. So, uh, my landlady is moving downstairs. Or maybe she means downtown or maybe she means in southern Israel or maybe in a apartment just down the mountain? I actually don't care. She says, after a second of nervous thought, you in Tel Aviv? And I say, no... I go Tel Aviv maybe yes maybe no NEXT weekend, not today. And then it dawns on me that she planned this mass measuring while she thought that I would not be here. I was trying to make conversation with her last weekend and mentioned that I might go to Tel Aviv sometime and she must have thought I meant today. And she's having my entire room measured, including my pajamas that are just laying on the floor (thank God not my underwear), and was going to just not tell me that two guys were in here all afternoon. This is why she's been fanatically cleaning every second of the week, to get ready to sell her house. And then I realize, shit, she's been showing this house to potential buyers, and this is why my curtains are always not as I left them. These unknown strangers want to see what is outside of my window.
So now I don't care if my landlady doesn't want me to cook spaghetti in her pot or use her gas stove or sit on her plastic covered white couch or use her saran wrap covered remote control (yes, read that one again because it's true). And at night I'm going to not care how long of a hot shower I take. Because if she can be in the middle of my stuff I'm going to be in the middle of her stuff. At least someone is paying her for the privilege of me being here and having her boundaries invaded.
Anyway, if I find the ladle I'll let you know.
I don't know if I told you, but last week I would notice sometimes a curtain would be slightly open when I came home when I knew I left it closed that morning... or my bed would be made nicer than I left it... but then I was clearly missing toilet paper for a while and that never got fixed... so someone was going into my rooms while I was gone, but I wasn't sure why they were going in there if they weren't going to replace the toilet paper.
[An aside on the toilet paper: I went to the grocery store and bought what I thought was toilet paper when mine was on its last few squares only to realize when I got home that I had actually bought PAPER TOWELS, not toilet paper, and because I'm an idiot that can't read hebrew I couldn't tell the difference from looking through the top of the package, the only part that was see-through. I've been embarrassed about this, but paper towels really are kind of LIKE toilet paper, so I've been using them and hiding the package so that no one else will know. But the toilet paper roll is CLEARLY gone, and I even left the brown paper roll there just to show everyone that it's gone.]
I don't know who I told about the dryer, either, but 1) there's only a dryer, no washer, 2) it's about 2 foot square (no seriously. Maaaybe 2.5), and 3) there are groceries all over, on top of, in front of, and inside it. It is the only part of the house that is not immaculate.
The weirdest is this phantom roommate that shows up at night sometimes to pay rent or make a phone call or hang out in the kitchen or make a sandwich. I thought this guy lived in the bedroom whose door is always closed across the hallway from my door, but then there's no bedroom for my landlady. So... he must live somewhere else. Or something.
She is always cleaning. Always. I come home, she is cleaning. I leave for the day, she is cleaning. She has tile floors... I don't know how she can clean them as much as she does.
Last night I finally decided, screw it, I'm cooking in the kitchen and if she doesn't want me to touch her stuff then she'll just come down and yell at me. So there is this pot and pan that just live on the kitchen counter (along with one coffee cup and a set of plastic forks and knives and three plastic plates and then other random stuff that isn't always there like a real knife and a pyrex bowl and a kettle for making coffee) so I decide I'm making spaghetti with the pot. I've been using her real plates and silverware this whole time, which are in the cabinets/drawers, and she hasn't said anything about caring about me going through her drawers, so I figure, ok, now that I'm making spaghetti, let's look for a cutting board to use so I can chop up this pepper and throw it in the sauce. Except that... there's no cutting board. In the entire kitchen. And then, if I wanted to be dishonest and steal her oil to fry a pepper in, I couldn't, because there's no oil or butter in the house either. I also inexplicably can't find a ladle, a top for the pot (or any pot), a strainer, or even just a big spoon. Eventually I got the noodles out of the boiling water by just gingerly pouring the pot and praying that the noodles wouldn't avalanche into the sink. But the weirdest thing is that I know that this lady cooks because she made an entire 9x11 pan full of something that looks like spanish rice with peppers on top of it. So she must hide her ladles in her bedroom along with the other tenant.
Today I come home and my landlady is saying sorry, sorry, sorry, the paper is all over and they're fixing it. She holds out her hands apart as if to say "about two feet wide." I say, what? This guy who actually speaks English comes out of my room with a tape measurer and says, oh, we're measuring your room so that your landlady can sell her house. I say, what? (again) My landlady says she's moving out in two months to this new house that she bought. I say, great, good for you, where is it? She says downstairs. So, uh, my landlady is moving downstairs. Or maybe she means downtown or maybe she means in southern Israel or maybe in a apartment just down the mountain? I actually don't care. She says, after a second of nervous thought, you in Tel Aviv? And I say, no... I go Tel Aviv maybe yes maybe no NEXT weekend, not today. And then it dawns on me that she planned this mass measuring while she thought that I would not be here. I was trying to make conversation with her last weekend and mentioned that I might go to Tel Aviv sometime and she must have thought I meant today. And she's having my entire room measured, including my pajamas that are just laying on the floor (thank God not my underwear), and was going to just not tell me that two guys were in here all afternoon. This is why she's been fanatically cleaning every second of the week, to get ready to sell her house. And then I realize, shit, she's been showing this house to potential buyers, and this is why my curtains are always not as I left them. These unknown strangers want to see what is outside of my window.
So now I don't care if my landlady doesn't want me to cook spaghetti in her pot or use her gas stove or sit on her plastic covered white couch or use her saran wrap covered remote control (yes, read that one again because it's true). And at night I'm going to not care how long of a hot shower I take. Because if she can be in the middle of my stuff I'm going to be in the middle of her stuff. At least someone is paying her for the privilege of me being here and having her boundaries invaded.
Anyway, if I find the ladle I'll let you know.