This post may seem somewhat disjointed, but that’s mostly because I have a bunch of things to say and I didn’t feel like making three separate posts for it.  First, Andy and I had a somewhat traumatic experience today in the apartment.  I was on a conference call with my boss when all of a sudden I heard a key twisting in the lock.  Andy was studying in bed for his final exam (which is tomorrow), so I knew it wasn’t him.  I ran to the door and saw that it was a realtor and a couple coming to show the apartment.  I yanked the door out of her hands and slammed the door in her face.  I was livid.  Not just because she came into the apartment without our permission and without giving any notice (or even knocking, which I feel would be a polite first step), but this was the second time this has happened under the same circumstances.  The first time it happened, I politely asked the realtor and her clients to wait outside while for a second while I made sure the place looked presentable (making sure there wasn’t underwear on the floor or something similarly embarrassing).  I told her that she needed to call ahead of time and that I didn’t mind her showing the apartment, as long as I was given at least a couple minutes of notification.  When they left, I called the landlord and he said that he had told them they weren’t allowed to enter without our permission and that he’d call them again and make sure they were clear on that.  Well, when it happened again today, I was so mad.  I refused them entry to the apartment and once I’d slammed the door in their face they seemed to get the message and left.  I understand that under the Florida statutes of landlord and tenant that the tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord to enter the dwelling unit from time to time to exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers.  However, the landlord wasn’t informed of this showing – rather it was by a third party agent from the building – and the Florida statute mentions “reasonable notice” to enter the dwelling unit.  So to all my almost lawyer friends (attention: Erin, Taylor, Greg, etc.) – does the third party realtor have any right to enter my dwelling?  Does the conversation we had with our landlord when he stated that he would give us reasonable notice if the realtor was showing the apartment constitute a verbal contract?  Obviously we aren’t going to do anything about this except maybe tell the landlord and this realty company how completely impolite it is to enter someone’s house without even knocking, but it’d be nice to say they violated a contract or statute so they get the message and this doesn’t happen to the next tenants of our condo.

After this little scene, I was seething so I had to go to the gym because I couldn’t focus.  6.1 miles later I felt quite a bit better and was able to refocus on work (I really will miss our gym).  Andy spent much of the day studying in various locations (living room, bedroom, business center of the building).  The semester is almost over now; the final exam tomorrow and one final paper are all that’s left before we go back to Nashville.  Because he still has to work on his paper, I have no idea if we’ll have any time for celebration tomorrow, so for anyone wondering about birthday plans, at this point everything is still up in the air (and it may be a game time decision).  The last few years my birthday has always managed to fall during an exam period for Andy, so I don’t know why I would expect anything different this year.  As a side note, I wanted to say thank you to both sets of parents for the gifts and the cards – they are very much appreciated.

I’m going to leave everyone (especially my dad) with this final thought.  He always tells me I’m ungrateful about having lived in the Caribbean, that there’s no way I could have hated it that much.  Well, last night I had a dream that Andy and I were living in Dominica again.  I woke up with my heart racing and in a cold sweat because it was such a terrifying nightmare.  No “paradise” can elicit that kind of reaction in a dreamlike state, so to those who think I’m exaggerating about how much we didn’t like Dominica, the proof is in the fact that even a dream about living there is literally a nightmare to me.