* Put our house on the market two weeks ago & get 6 offers. Navigate the process of a bidding war & accept an offer; then realize we'll very shortly have no place to live. * Pack 3.5 month old Bean into car and make our way to our new city (totally last minute--after discovering all the rentals in Our New City are only available in June or August because of the way students gobble up all rentals).
* Make last minute reservations at DAYS INN (a.k.a. hell hole) because EVERYTHING else (even the "HO-HUM MOTEL") is booked due to the fact that it is Memorial Day weekend AND the nationally renowned Marathon that draws Olympic qualifier hopefuls.
* Arrive at DAYS INN amidst an abysmal rain storm. Our room is in the basement and smells like mold. The tub and toilet are chartreuse green ceramic. The carpet clearly hasn't been vacuumed. We are totally depressed.
* Venture out to look at the first of many rentals we've contacted after spending hours at home surfing the online version of the Our New City newspaper. The first one we see is a complete pile of shit--the only thing it's missing is the actual pile of shit. DH goes to look at it while I try to calm a very sweet but totally frantically starving baby by shoving a boob in his face while hunched in the back seat of our car.
* Meet Tim. Tim's rental is in a huge yellow Victorian. The first apt. we see is on the third floor and you can't see the floor because of all the crap the current occupant's have on it (students). The bathroom has clear patches of mold on the shower ceiling and walls. There is sludge in the bottom of the bathtub. The kitchen is dark and tiny. We want to run away. The second apt. he shows us in the same building is on the 5th floor. Exterior stairs only!!! I try to navigate the stairs in flip flops while holding Bean. DH listens politely as Tim tells us about the previous occupant. "He never wore shoes, man, which was cool and everything. I think he was a farmer, you know? When I'd come by to check on things he'd be washing vegetables in the shower, and I'd be like, 'cool man' and he'd offer me fresh apple juice." We run away.
* Eat dinner outside and are overrun by muscled marathoners eating pasta. A band plays in the restaurant next to us so loudly the entire street seems to reverberate. Neither of us can think straight. Bean's eyes are the size of eggs.
* Sleep, all three of us in the king sized bed, and DH & I can't get the story his dad just told us out of our heads--about him getting crabs once while at a hotel just by sitting on the bed naked while watching TV. (First of all, who wants to imagine this about their father in law??? Secondly, we are now imagining this about ourselves! We sleep in our clothes.)
* Leave the hotel at 7 a.m. and drive around town looking for a parking space--but of course, they're all taken. There's a marathon happening here, today, remember? Several times we come to an intersection only to have a cop come and plant a cone in front of our car before we can turn. We get front row seats to watch the disabled "runners" (in reclining cycles) start off. Finally we find a spot in a parking garage. It's so narrow we have to unload first. It takes DH five minutes to angle in between the two poorly parked minivans. We get breakfast.
* Meet our next apt. rental buddy, Dave. He says he's a rental agent, and speaks with a heavy Boston accent. He has long hair, a baseball hat and very dirty jeans. He says he'd like to shake our hands but, "I've just been checking my cat's ears for mites, so I don't want to get anything on your baby." We nod, dumbfounded. He shows us two places--one, a 2nd story apt. that is thankfully vacant and therefore cleaner than anything else we've seen, but is located across from a condemned building. The other is the house of an old lady who is being moved to a nursing home. Both depress us.
* Meet Bill. We actually like his apartment. The apartment is above a Japanese restaurant however, and has no parking or a washing machine/dryer. These are the things that are actually issues to people who are now parents who have acquired not one, but two cars and a the need to wash pooped on apparel at least once a day, at our convenience. We consider the apt. anyway. We are desperate. We call several other places, but it is Sunday and no one is around.
* Go to North Hero House--on North Hero Island (where we were married) to spend the night in more plush accommodations. During our stay I get stuck with Bean in the hammock while DH is on the phone. It isn't pretty. We also get in a fight (executed all in whispers) on the veranda the next morning over breakfast. Neither of us is really sure what we're fighting about. Both of us are fairly certain we won't ever find a place to stay.
* On Monday we find a gorgeous rental in the bottom story of a restored Victorian. We can't believe our luck. The owner is there, putting down hardwood floors. Everything is newly painted. It has a back yard, garage, laundry. The owner is our age and has an 8 month old named Wyatt. We swap stories about living with these incredible little people. We put in an application & he tells us he'll choose someone that evening.
* Just in case he doesn't pick us look at rentals in adjacent cities. We meet a lady who has renovated an old historic house. She says that technically we are THREE people and she would prefer just two, and eyes our baby leerily. She has also painted the walls of the rental in specific shades of ecru and beige that are supposedly accurate from a historical standpoint. Her office is in the barn behind the rental, and though we love the claw foot tub and the fact that it's nicer and cheaper than anything we've seen we can't imagine her as our landlord. We call Wyatt's dad to grovel--saying we really loved the place. His wife calls us back and tells us they are going to check our references--but that they liked us and really, the apt. is ours.
* We breath a sigh of relief. We are totally overwhelmed. I want to wrap my body around Bean to protect him from all the noise and tumult and I want to stop putting him in his car seat! He has started to arch his back and wail in protest now, when we put him in it--he's been in his car seat probably 18 our of the last 24 hours. We are going to hell for being irresponsible parents.
* We drive back to CT. It is still raining. I nearly dislocate my shoulder trying to reach around behind me so that Bean can suck on my finger. We arrive home dazed.
* Tuesday DH works and I try to find out about private health insurance. I'll be officially quitting my job this summer and doing a stint as a SAHM while taking graduate classes for the next year +. The only agency that actually contacts me is one that FOX News has just done an expose on--apparently they're a total scam. I am off to a good start.
* Wednesday we go to Manhattan, to see my sister and her husband. This makes us certifiably insane on many counts (more on my sister later). It's fun to see her however, and we go to the Natural History museum where we see a prehistoric mosquito the size of a small dog, and of course, the dinosaurs. By the time we are ready for dinner, Bean once again has huge eyes, and looks completely worn out. We leave before dinner. Getting our car out of the parking garage proves to be quite the ordeal. We wait in line for the parking attendant to bring it to us--although we can see it from where we are standing. It takes us 15 minutes.
* We haven't heard from the Wyatt's dad and we are sure they hate us and don't want us to get the apartment. We're dreading going back up to Our New City to look for more rentals. Finally we call them. They apologize profusely for acting like air heads & promise to fax us the lease in the morning. They say they have been very busy. We try to believe them--and do, when the fax shows up on time in the morning & we sign the lease. We are sooo happy to know we actually have a place to move to that isn't seventeen stories up rickety stairs or roach infested.
* Thursday we get back in the car and drive up to Lake George. We are staying at the Sagamore with DH's parents--DH's mom is a meetings planner and her company is doing a convention there and have comped her the rooms.
* The Sagamore is gorgeous, snobby, and has a dress code. We haven't packed a single item of clothing that is appropriate (i.e. we've only packed flip flops and shorts, rather than dresses, blazers and topsiders---seriously, who calls those things topsiders anyway???) DH & I go for drinks on the veranda in the evening anyway, wearing jeans & flip flops. No one gives us dirty looks. The stars and the lake are exquisite. People's voices and live music carry out across the water. The mountains look like the silhouettes of old dinosaurs napping. We sit in Adirondack chairs drinking margaritas and kiss.
The following morning I am treated to a massage by the gay masseuse, Karl. It's lovely. I am totally relaxed as I lie face down looking at his little feet (he really does have tiny feet for a man--they're smaller than mine) work their way around me on the bamboo mat flooring. When I return to my room, DH sees a bright red spot on my neck that looks like a bulls eye. We fear the lyme tick. We call security--who is more than happy to come to our room, prod me, and then call in the on-staff EMT, who takes all my vital signs and is thrilled to tell me about how, down south, "there is a spider called the brown recluse that leaves a bite that looks just like that, but after a day or so the poison eats through your flesh." I am delighted with this piece of information. We decide to go to the Urgent Care clinic to get it looked at. Two hours later, the prognosis is that they're not sure what it is, and that I should get a lyme test in 6 weeks. By then the disease will have reached critical mass in my system. The doctor does tell me that it probably isn't lyme if the bulls eye doesn't get bigger. We watch the bite gradually fade over the rest of the weekend, and are eternally thankful.
* Spend the following two days biking up mountains and kayaking. I get sunburned. We contemplate having sex on a tiny little island where we've stopped for lunch, but the a boat named "The Stripper" (no joke) comes by and tells us to leave, it's private land. We play with our baby, who can now hold his head up and prop himself up on his elbows. He rolls over. We are absolutely amazed. We're totally drunk on love for this tiny little person who flashes us wet drooly grins and sucks on everything he can get his hands on.
* On Sunday we drive home. Bean is REALLY SICK OF HIS CAR SEAT.