writer. singer/songwriter. techie geek. princess of random.

Ninja Girl Shirt from InkRain at redbubble

Having just watched Ninja Assassin, I was reminded to write this post. Forewarning: While it may have some bad puns like the movie, it’s not really gonna have blood and guts flying around.

Generally, the most exciting aspect of me doing laundry is to wonder for a few minutes how much I might ruin a shirt that says “dry clean only” or “hand wash” by adding it to the pile of clothes that has a similar shade of color. But due to the physics of my apartment laundry room, I have had to begin my training as a laundry ninja.

The first few times of doing my laundry I had no problems, but in hindsight this was probably part of the training too – becoming too acclimated to the setting is never a good thing. Rule #1 Be Aware of Your Surroundings.

To give myself some credit during these initial visits to the laundry room, I had noticed off the bat the item that would become the enemy. Rule #2 Know Your Enemy.

The laundry room fits one dryer, one washer, a sink, and a trash can. By ‘fits’, I mean that this takes some creative arranging. The washer and dryer are arranged in this L-shape – the washer is propped to the right of the room, it’s side slightly away from the wall. Meanwhile the dryer faces the door pressed against the wall. This L-shape ultimately leaves a rectangular shaped hole at the wall. When I first did my laundry, I noted to myself that I had to be careful putting my clothes in the washer as one bad swoop of laundry, might result in it falling into that hole.

So naturally, with this observation, I would then do exactly that a few months later.

Of all things to drop? A slightly, awkwardly rolled sock. Therein lies Rule #3 Learn How to Jump, Rule #4 Walk Quietly, and Rule #5 Be Invisible. These were the skills required of me to look at what had fallen in the laundry room hole. I leapt onto the dryer, tip-toed on to washer, (hoped that no neighbors would be walking by) and peered over the side to see this slightly balled up sock on the lint ridden floor of the laundry room.

I sat perched on my washer for a moment thinking and tried to reach out for the sock. This would have worked if my arm was twice as long as it actually is. After another moment of contemplating, I went to my apartment and grabbed a hanger.

Perched on the washer, I tried grabbing the sock with the hanger like a cat trying to swipe the fish from the fish bowl. But it was still just slightly too short.

Then I went to grab my generic Swiffer type mop (ninja bo?). Sitting on the dryer, I used the swiffer stick to hook onto the sock, pressing it against the machine for leverage. I make it sound easy, but this took about ten minutes of it dropping repeatedly.

But Round 1 of Ninja training was achieved and the sock was placed into the washing machine for that day’s wash.

A few weeks later I would encounter the same problem of overzealous placement of laundry into washing machine. Another sock in the space between the dryer, washer, and wall. Perched on top of the washer, looking down, I realized Rule #6 Be Aware of Your Size Within Your Surroundings.

So with a bit of Rule #3 Learn How to Jump, I found that I could fit inside that space, pick up that stray sock, and jump back out.

I am Laundry Ninja.

-cct.

The Trap

You know when you live life and suddenly something just appears?  Something you’ve been waiting for and let slip from your mind?

I wish this post was about the appearance of something great, like love or an inheritance or the cure to a health problem, but I’ll take what I can get.

Despite the zaniness of yesterday (See La Vida de Caridad: The Cricket), that’s exactly what happened with the cricket.

I was working from home all day, occasionally annoyed at the chirping coming from my tv.  At one point, I pulled my TV cart out and stared evilly at the mess of cords that I couldn’t see beyond, sighed, and then pushed the TV cart back.

But the evening rolled around and I glanced over to the right and saw this tiny bug sitting on my grey carpet, as if saying “Hello.  You’ve been looking for me?”

It wasn’t like I was able to catch it right then and there.  There was a couple of close- calls, some jumping, a few minutes of waiting, and finally a stare down.

Finally, I was able to get it in my trap: Tupperware and my clipboard with Monet’s Woman with a Parasol.

I let it go in the parking lot in the back to the chorus of chirping crickets in the evening.

Maybe I let it go to find true love.

-cct

The other night I stayed up watching documentaries on Netflix and working.  When I’m up late I know better than to watch paranormal anything (though I make an exception for anything with cryptozoology because I don’t think Big Foot exists in urban Los Angeles and Nessie is obviously not going to attack me).  Not that my documentary choices weren’t a little spooky – The Miracle at Fatima and one about English castles (did you know there’s something called Wood Henge and that castles used to be made wood?).  But they weren’t anything to make my hair stand up on end.

I got settled into bed and then I heard a strange noise in my apartment.

I tried to wave it off, but the problem with independent living is you have to tackle strange noises in your apartment…independently.

After about five minutes of laying in the dark and kind of freaked out, I thought I heard the strange sound again – possibly coming from my kitchen or my dressing room.

I sat up and turned back on my lights and didn’t hear the sound again.

Still, it worried me.  So of course, I did the next logical thing – I grabbed my red katana from Little Tokyo and prepared to make an inspection.

Red katana in tow, I moved toward the kitchen and turned on the light.  Peeking inside, I didn’t see anything suspect.

I moved toward the dressing room, opened the door wide, and turned on the light.  Peeking inside, I didn’t see anything odd there either.  Walking slowly through the room toward the bathroom, I turned on the bathroom light and there was nothing.  The blinds weren’t even moving.

Turning off the bathroom light, I closed the door.  Then looked around my dressing room again and closed that door.

I walked into the kitchen toward the dining area and saw nothing and then looked at my filled dish rack.

Could that be the culprit?  Was my fear seated in a bunch of clean dishes overflowing in a blue two-dollar dish rack from the bargain store?

I began to unload the dish rack – I was up and paranoid after all.  Dishes unloaded, I turned off the kitchen light and went back into living area.

I wasn’t going to pull a Ziva (from NCIS who sleeps with her gun underneath a pillow), but I carefully propped my katana near me.  With a sigh, I closed my eyes and then proceeded to hear noises outside (I live in the city!) and something shifting in my apartment, which might have been my steamer pot attachment that I had a difficult time putting in my cabinet.

I then proceeded to turn my desk light on as a night light and open up my computer to do some work and to troll around the internet.  If anyone was in my apartment, I would SEE and then whack them with an expensive piece of computer equipment (yes, these are the preparations of a paranoid mind.  And yes, I have thought about how I would parry an armed person with my katana to disarm them).

At around 3 am, I saw something pop up on the LA Times twitter regarding Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis collaborating on a screenplay.  They were going to write a screenplay about the Vanity Fair article on the Golden Suicides.  I emailed my friend Jon about the partnership since I knew he liked their work, and hey, what else was I going to due trolling the internet and paranoid at 3 am?

But in emailing the article, I ended up finding the original The Golden Suicides Vanity Fair article (linked previously), which was ironically about – paranoid people who meet an untimely demise in their own hands (it’s a Van Sant and Ellis project, what do you expect?).

Luckily, I am just an overly imaginative girl with a red katana who eventually fell asleep with her desk lamp on.

-cct