Moving on up.

One week after getting an "eviction" notice Chris and I were officially settled into our new house. Yup, we decided to put the ball back in our court and just get the hell out of that nasty apartment. We weren't about to just sit around and twiddle our thumbs waiting for the apartment people to come and arrest Harlow and kick us out on the streets. In true Topeker style we packed up all of our shit and moved out in the middle of the night. Well it was actually a day and a night, and unlike the other neighbors who usually just throw their garbage bags full of personal belongings over their balconies onto the ground we actually hired some movers, but still it was only a matter of 24 hours and we were gone. The apartment kiddos I had grown so fond of sat on their steps and sadly watched as the rich white folk moved away all because of little Carlos the puppy. When I walked Harlow out to the car for the last time I let the kids say good bye, they were quite upset. They asked if I would bring him back to visit. I looked at them very kindly and politely said, no of course not. And then I got in my car and drove away to our new neck of the Topeker woods.

We moved into a little white house that is about thirty seconds away from Chris's office. The house is tiny, but very comfortable. It has really great features that our apartment lacked, such as a laundry chute (very retro!) a basement that has all the makings of a perfect man cave, and most importantly, a large fenced in backyard. Har Har is just in heaven, it's definitely a dog friendly neighborhood. To our left is Gus the Boxer, he's a real feisty guy, and on the right are two little poodles Lilo and Jewels, they're snotty at first but now Harlow is on their good side. And the opposing back yard is the home of an incredibly active German Shepard who spends his entire day running along the fence side. He and Harlow hit it off right away, I bet it has something to do with their similar Hungarian/German back grounds. But if I ever catch them drawing Swastikas in the dirt or pretending to give the Nazi salute I'll cut that friendship off immediately because that's just not right.

So after not even being in our home for a week, Chris took off for St. Louis for meetings and I took off for Council Bluffington for presentations. Whenever life has me down I always like to visit CB. It's a place that really makes me count my blessings. Especially today, as I got the pleasure of speaking in an alternative high school for students who have been kicked out of their normal high schools. Boy, they were a lively bunch. And they sure were excited to have me there, apparently they'd never seen a real life-pretend Chef before. They loved my knives, and my chef jacket, and especially my Chuck Taylors. They weren't, however, too excited when they heard I was making a salad rather than something fried. One girl even looked at me right in the face and said,

"I don't eat nuffin dat aint fried."

So I responded by asking her how she will be celebrating.

"Celebratin what?" She asked.

"Well the one year reunion since your big win at the Academy Awards for Precious, of course...."

Okay, so I didn't say this. But I thought it. I thought a lot of things today as I heard these kids speak to each other and saw the way they treated each other. It was pretty disgusting. But since the teachers didn't bother to correct them, I figured I shouldn't either. I found it best to keep to myself, and keep my knives even closer.