Home!

After MUCH drama, we have arrived in our new home in the West Village, and it appears that our things will arrive from Portland at the end of this week. PHEW!

The timeline went something like this:

4/26: Erika tries to pick up the keys and is told by the super that the apartment will not be ready for "2 or 3 months". Panic ensues.

4/27: Building owner and super cannot agree on our move-in date. Building owner refuses to sign our lease. We are told to call back on Monday (4/30 or the last day of April) to find out if we can move in on 5/1.

4/28 - 4/29: Erika and Martin tour Brooklyn, find a *lovely* home in Clinton Hill for 2/3 the West Village rent, find decent BBQ in Williamsburg (Fette Saue) and feel slightly better with Plan B in place.

4/30: After some wavering over whether or not we even want this West Village apartment, Erika and Martin venture down to the leasing office to get the news. Building owner calls super and confirms that we can move in to the West Village apartment and signs the lease at the end of the day. We pick up the keys from the super that evening and all is well. We spend the night at a sublet in the East Village after Erika, Andrew, and Martin make a few trips up and down the 5-story walk-up to move our few things in to the apartment.

5/1: Erika moves me and my things into the apartment, getting a parking ticket in the process, and promptly locks herself out. The super's wife cannot open the door. The handyman cannot open the door. The property manager cannot open the door. I panic, hearing Erika on the other side of the door, and begin meowing desperately, which makes everything worse. Eventually, after many trips up and down the 5-story walk-up to retrieve various sets of keys, the handyman goes up on the roof, down the fire escape, through the window, and opens the door from the inside. Erika bursts in, relieved, until she realizes that I am nowhere to be found and the window is wide open. Real panic ensues, with Erika, the property manager, and the handyman racing all over the house trying to find me. Just as the handyman is climbing out onto the fire escape, Erika opens the cupboard door under the sink to find me cowering silently in the corner. The property manager had inadvertently closed the cupboard door as I hid.

All in all, the apartment is lovely. It is a corner, top-floor unit that receives an abundance of sunshine. The clock tower on what we call the "courthouse" (apparently this building (Jefferson Market) has served as a courthouse, branch library and even a women’s detention center at one point in the early 1900s) is visible from every room, so we always know what time it is. The building itself is set back from the street, so we get very little street noise. The noisiest thing around is the birds who inhabit the trees that grace each window. The five flights of stairs will take some getting used to, but Erika and Martin needed some sort of fitness regimen anyway. All we really need now is furniture.