Great Weekend

I took off Friday to pick up my fabulous girlfriend, who lives in LA, from the airport. It was so wonderful to see her. I haven't seen her since she left which was about a year and a half ago. I miss her so much. I picked her up, and I took her back to my apartment, so she could meet my lovable cat, Peter. She said he was great because he acted like a dog, not a cat. He's a cat-dog. He doesn't have that bad feline attitude like most. He's just a cool guy who likes a lot of attention. She gave him lots of love and affection, and Peter was thrilled to have her around.

My friend and I had a great day together: window shopping on Newbury Street, having a lovely lunch alfresco, and catching up, since we haven't seen each other in a while. It was nice spending the day with her. She's such a wonderful person, and I know that she will remain a good friend for life. There are very few people you meet that you can say that about, but she is definitely one of them.

Saturday, J and I went to sign the lease on our brand, new apartment outside of the city. My real estate friend found it for us, and it's everything we are looking for. I'm really excited about it; not only, will we be paying less, it's also bigger than our current place. It's also very close to the subway, so I'm quite happy about that. Commuting should be a breeze.

Today, I am relaxing at home, waiting to meet up with my girlfriend. She had a wedding last night, so I know she's probably tired and hung over. I don't expect to hear from her until around 1pm or 2pm when she finally wakes up from her stupor. Later, J and I will take her to the airport. I'm sad to see her go. It was so hard to see her go the first time when she moved away from Boston. I cried for a week. I just want to see her happy. I hope she finds everything she is searching for in LA. I miss her terribly, but if this is where she needs to be at this point in her life, then I wish her nothing but the best.

I've Come to the Conclusion...

That most apartment owners are total fucking morons. J and I have been posting several ads on Craigslist about twice a week. The only responses we got were from complete idiots. Take for example the woman who had a condo she wanted to rent, but she never got back to me, even though I e-mailed her twice and talked to her husband (he said it was still available). Then, there were the people who would e-mail me one sentence: "I have a great apartment in (fill in the blank)." Okay, that's awesome and all, but I forgot my crystal ball at home - so you need to tell me a little more than where it's located.

There was one crazy woman who responded to my ad by telling me that her apartment was like being in the country and there were a lot of birds. Great, will those birds be flying me to work by any chance because I'm looking to know how close this place is to public transportation, not how many Tufted Titmouses land in the birdbath! I e-mailed this woman twice asking how much rent was, and every response was vaguer than the next. Her last one was: "You have a cat, right?" I imagine she'd be a great landlord. I would call her because the pipes had burst, and cluelessly she would ask me who I was and where did I live, and if I had seen the Goldfinches this season. This is the reason why we have decided to go through a realtor. And, that's another rant altogether.

Apartment Hunting II, Vol. I

I've spent the day frantically e-mailing leasing agents at various apartment complexes and cruising the pages of Craigslist like it's my job. I've also received a few responses to my ad - all of them were really, really bad. Some guy wanted to know if my boyfriend and I would like to share a house with a random couple. Another guy wanted to know if I wanted to live in a town I've never heard of.(I wonder if it's close to public transportation, ha ha.) I'm so determined to find a nice place for our little family - J, the kitty cat, and myself - that I will stop at nothing!

Also, it's been so tough seeing pictures of HUGE apartments, compared to our current shoe box, and then being able to close the page when I see that it's out of our price range. I start daydreaming about having a place for all my stuff, and it makes me so happy. Right now, I have all my books and knick-nacks in boxes. We didn't have enough room for them. I just keep hoping that one day we will have a beautiful place that's big enough for everything I own and cherish. I love my things, and I want to be able to see them again.

Apartment Hunting, Vol. I, Part II

Apartment hunting sucks. I've been perusing the pages of Craigslist, hoping to find a nice apartment, and there's zilch out there. I've also responded to several realtors, the majority of people who post ads for apartments, telling them exactly what my boyfriend and I are looking for and to please contact me if anything comes up. Nobody responds. You wouldn't believe the shitholes people are trying to rent nowadays. And, I love seeing an ad for a place that doesn't even have a dishwasher in the apartment or a washer/dryer in the entire building. The best is when an ad says: "Laundry close by", which basically means if you want to get any of your whites done, you'll have to walk a few blocks to the local laundromat. Bish, pls! I stopped going to laundromats in my 20's. Or, it says: "has laundry hook-ups". We rent for chrissakes. Do you think we have a full washer/dryer set that we just cart from apartment to apartment?!

I also like seeing "no utilities included", and then you find out that this old, drafty apartment with high ceilings and shitty windows from 1957 is heated with oil. Oh, great sign me up! I have a $700 old gas bill from my LAST apartment that I'm still paying off because the place had god-awful windows and the ceilings were very high. The place was freezing cold all frigging winter, and yet our gas bill was $400 a month. I bet those ceilings were toasty warm though.

Also, nobody wants to live in your shitty apartment with the indoor/outdoor carpeting. It's gross.

Apartment Hunting: Volume I

J and I have to move out of our place by the end of August (thank God). I don't think either one of us can take those four flights of stairs any longer. Last weekend, the realtor called me and told me that he was showing the place to a couple who really wanted it after seeing pictures. This was on Friday. I rushed home from work early, busted through the door, immediately started complaining to J about what a shithole the place was. The bathroom was filthy. There were crumbs all over the kitchen counter. The floor needed to be vacuumed. And, my boyfriend's recliner is so gross. It has stains all over it. It reminds me of that show, Frasier and how much he despised his dad's ugly, old recliner. Well, I absolutely detest this monstrosity of a chair. It looks like something right out of a trailer park. We have a nice place, and this disgusting chair just doesn't fit with the whole look I'm going for. Usually about every three months, I'll go off on a rant to him about his chair. I can't wait until we have enough money, so I can finally get rid of that thing once and for all. Mwhahahaa!(evil laugh)

Friday, I was right out of my mind, trying to get the place into tip-top shape for these people. I got the apartment looking so great that even I couldn't believe how warm and inviting it looked. Apparently, the couple couldn't as well, and they decided to take it. Poor bastards. They have no idea what they just signed up for. Four flights of stairs seems great at the time, but then the first time you try to carry groceries up, you're ready to kill somebody by the time you get to the top of the stairs. Also, these people can expect a 7am wake-up call EVERY morning as the restaurant behind the building has their dumpster emptied by a huge BFI dumptruck. Think crashing wine bottles, lots of beeping, and booming. It's really relaxing, especially when you're trying to sleep in on the weekends or even holidays! There was one time the dumptruck got stuck on the dumpster, and we reveled in the dumptruck guy's misfortune.

Now begins another chapter where we have to check out a bunch of places, which are usually overpriced shitholes and get all stressed out because we can't find anything decent. The plan is that we are going to start looking now, so it won't be as stressful and soul-crushing as it usually is. Last Sunday, we drove up to a huge apartment complex outside of the city, where we had agreed to meet the real estate agent. When we got there, we were about an hour early, so we parked the car and observed the people going in and out. Yikes. Let's just say, we were less than impressed with the tenants. It was a downright scary crew, definitely not people you want to be living next to. Needless to say, we didn't stick around. I called the agent and told him it wasn't for us.