very simple

So, I’m in full “gearing up to go home” mode now, shipped out a bunch of boxes yesterday, and I fly home on Sunday. The office had a little bon voyage (or buon viaggio, to be a little more local) party for me tonight, which was very nice, a little too much prosecco maybe, but who am I to complain about that (I mean I had a little to much to drink, not that there was literally too much wine!). I’m obviously looking forward to going home, and to add to my list of things that I’m excited to see, add the Bethesda Fountain Terrace Arcade. I’ve walked or bicycled on top of the arcade a million times – I don’t think I even knew that there was something actually underneath because it had been in disrepair since 1984 when they removed the tiles for cleaning. Well, now, 23 years later, it’s been completely restored.

Oh. And in other, weirder news, I may be getting some crazy new neighbors!

A tipster informs us that Tom Cruise is in contract for an apartment at the Dakota….

So that’s…interesting. That should make it even easier to get to the subway in the morning, because the combination of John Lennon death junkies and architecture freaks don’t make the sidewalk crowded enough (although, to be fair, most of the architecture freaks stand on the other side of the street to be able to actually see the building). Even more incentive to skip the subway and walk to work!

Had the day off today for Yom Kippur. Of course, I’m still in Rome, so I didn’t get to go to temple, but I did fast (and just finished dinner). While I was reading the Times online today, I did my periodic perusal of the real estate listings to see if there had been any new apartments in my building put on the market.

There’s one which has an identical layout to my place, but has the crappiest furniture I’ve ever seen (and yes, I realize that this is just "stuff" from the realtors so that people can gauge what furniture will look like, but you’d think they’d pick something not, so, fugly, or lay it out in a way that didn’t cut off half of the living room).

And then I saw one thatt’s new to the market, and I’m pretty sure the building was still renovating it before I left (it’s a flip to market – the sponsor renovated it themselves to sell it for the first time). And instead of the standard kitchen renovation that the building has done to all vacated apartments to date, which involves standard sized (and ugly) white appliances and weird sink that is only two inches deep and sits on top of the dishwasher, I notice that they’ve got my stove! and the special extra-small dishwasher (of course they didn’t splurge for the one that actually matches the rest of the appliances, but still!)…the fridge has a similar look too, but it’s not the same (it can’t be, since my model was discontinued about 30 seconds after I bought mine). It’s a different layout generally, because it’s a 2-bedroom apartment, but it made me laugh.

I did notice when I was in the stairwell before I left that there was a box for the same stove that I had bought – now I know where it went!

I suppose enough building handymen (not to mention the super) saw what I did in my kitchen in all of their trips in and out to approve things and got inspired to do something a little bit nicer than what had been done to date.

heh. what’s funny is that I spent months obsessing over how to do the kitchen so that it wasn’t as space-wasting, inefficient, and ugly as the ones the building had done themselves. I guess they agreed with me.

I cooked dinner in my new apartment for the first time this week, thanks to the installation of kitchen plumbing and my stove. I’m still waiting for the electrician to come back and hook up the electrical part of the dishwasher, but other than that, and a few touch ups to the paint job here and there, it’s about done.

Just as a reminder, this entry has all the photos of what the apartment looked like before my dad and stepmom moved out…

Like I said, it’s almost there. It’s certainly "home" now, and I’m getting used to the new neighborhood. I did have to go back to the old ‘hood this morning for a haircut (I’m certainly not changing hairdressers for a 3-mile move), and it was kind of weird. Particularly to walk past my old building and realize that I had no reason to walk in…

This is the first day in quite some time where I actually refuse to do anything apartment-related (OK, fine, I’m doing laundry at the moment, but that’s something I’d need to do whether I was moving or not).

I got my new mattress yesterday, and then proceeded to go a little nuts at Bed Bath and Beyond…Just because all I needed were some new sheets, didn’t mean that I shouldn’t buy a new comforter, isotonic pillows, regular pillows (for the decorative shams), an anti-allergen mattress cover, and a whole bunch of other stuff that required me to have everything delivered. So, there was that. And I bought knobs for my cabinets, got my intermittently crashing cable box replaced, and received a fresh direct delivery with many cases of water and diet coke.

My countertop is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday, which means that I should have a fully-functioning kitchen by the end of this week. So now, I finally downloaded all of those pictures that I took during the move and the immediate aftermath. Click on the image in order to see a larger version…

Here’s what my old apartment looked like before I moved out (with the lamp that the movers "lost" featured prominently amidst my stuff…

Then, once most of my stuff got moved out…

Oh, and here are some final photos of the construction next door – The additional four floors are nearly complete…

The kitchen, finally getting put into place…

The evolution of the bathroom…

I’d show you photos of the rest of the place, but the only ones I have are just pictures of boxes stacked up against the walls. The next installment will be what the apartment actually looks like now that I’ve unpacked (and put away) almost everything.lightbox

I spent over 12 hours today unpacking and cleaning my new apartment. And I’m not done yet.

It was apparently over 100 degrees today in the city, which would explain why I wanted to cry when I had to walk all of two blocks to the Radio Shack to pick up some adaptors. At one point, I thought I had (in my delirium) accidentally stood on top of one of those steam grates, that blows hot air on you. And then I realized that, no, it was just the air.

Tomorrow I’ll head back over for another round of cleaning – now that I’ve gotten rid of a ton of boxes (other than a few miscellaneous things, I’ve unpacked just about everything but books) I can maneuver. I did save the "best" for last though – tomorrow I get to clean the bathroom…

And the cable got hooked up today, which was great – the service guy was actually awesome – it turned out that the wire running from the hallway into my apartment was completely frayed, and instead of making me wait for a "construction" rep, he just fixed it himself. Which took quite a bit of effort, thanks to the fact that the hole through the wall was bizarrely dug – the hole in the hallway was actually about six inches above the one inside my apartment, meaning that we spent almost two hours trying to snake various objects through what was essentially an "s" curve (for some bizarre reason the "canal" dipped down first before it snaked back up) in order to pull the cable through (i’d need Board permission to do anything else). And when I say "we", I actually mean "we". Both of us on stepladders, on either side of the doorway, with wire coathangers, kitchen knives, screwdrivers and various other miscellaney. The coathanger was the thing that worked.

Anyway, I’m now completely wiped out. I just took the longest shower in history and I can still barely walk. I keep thinking that this was easier when I moved to the city six years ago, and then I remember that…

…I was six years younger then…
…I didn’t renovate anything…
…I was renting a shoebox…
…oh yeah, and the bulk of my worldly possessions consisted of a mattress, a tv, a futon couch and a beanbag chair.

I suppose I deserve this for deciding to buy "real" furniture rather than crap from Ikea when I decided to upgrade…

and I have too many books.

Pictures soon – I swear!!