The living situation

I live in a "basement" apartment of a three story house.  I put basement in parentheses because it is not what I traditionally think of as a basement.  The entrance is only 4 steps below ground level.  To me, a basement is an entire floor underground and cold, dark, dreary, and concrete.  Mine is warm, has hardwood floors, and not really that dark.  I have my own kitchen, bathroom, and living room.  Above, there are four rooms rented out and they share a kitchen, bathroom, and living "area".  I've never quite lived in a situation like this and, so far, I'm really enjoying it.  Rocky loves it.  Everyone has been great about him.  Whenever Byron, one of the housemates, comes home Rocky barrels upstairs and they have a lovefest for about 15 minutes.

Even though I like hanging out with everyone, on my anti-social days, I can basically lock myself into my apartment and never see anyone.  That's really nice.

Anyway, having all these different people in the house makes for some interesting situations.  For example, I came home late the other night and heard Byron in the kitchen upstairs.  The kitchen is right off of the stairs to my apartment, so I decided to run up and say hi.  I was a little more than halfway up when Byron, without even looking in my direction, says, "I don't think you should come up here.  You're not going to like what you're going to see."  I do what everyone would do in my situation would do, I run up the stairs even faster.  I get to the kitchen and see Byron pulling a dead mouse of a white bag that I know for a fact sits in the freezer.  I ask in a horrified voice what exactly is he doing with frozen dead mice and why is he putting them in water.  "I'm defrosting them for the snakes."  I guess this is a good time to mention that Byron has three snakes.  After a couple of minutes of light conversation, the defrosting of the baby mice, and a tour showing off all three snakes (including the mean one), I called it a night and went downstairs.  As I was getting ready for bed, I couldn't help but think that I just had an encounter that I would never have had in South Carolina.

I'm liking DC more and more.