Lights, Camera, Inaction!

We finally got cracking with our apartment search. My time challenged spouse, P, got all activated and has been looking up new places for us to live.  Considering we are going on holiday to the mother land in a matter of days, I was less proactive. My motto is, finish the holiday, then look carefully and move. When did I become the practical one? Did I wake up in another dimension?

Perhaps that’s why, as I type this, we are without electricity here in our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building. Maybe it read our thoughts and is protesting. Well, not really.  Turns out a wire is down and the entire block is in the dark.  Between the lack of lighting and my early morning stupor, it was rather entertaining getting my four year old, Lanes, ready for school.  I hope I brushed her teeth and not her nose. Luckily, I made her lunch last night.

Yesterday, she requested that I cut her apples the same shape and size as her friends. It took forever for her to even look at fruits, so I would have spent a month of Sundays to cut the apple to look like Barney in a tutu, if it meant she would eat it. If only she knew! This morning, I was left to figure out how to cut an apple in the dark.

If you ask anyone I know well to name five things I shouldn’t be left alone with, they would include but are not limited to: matches, knives, my thoughts, a certain aging Canadian rock star, and super glue.  I’m as clumsy as a seal trying to play Nintendo. Considering I might as well have handled a knife blind folded, I did good.

Of course, I could have just cut the apple in the living room where there was some light despite it being a gloomy day. Never mind. At least I qualify for the Darwin Awards. Aside from that, the good news is that the generator in the building is kind of working.

The one elevator that’s not jammed up is in service  and  brave (read: foolish) tenants are using it.  We have one light on in the hallway of each floor.  Last time a line went down, the generator was not working (well, I’m just impressed there is one).  Between it being pitch black in the hall that day and the obstacle course that is the strollers full of recycling our neighbor keeps by the stair well, we had a time getting out.

Any old how, for some reason, P was all motivated to move. I’ve made my peace with ghetto fab.  I’ve grown accustomed to the madness. This place grows on you—like warts or barnacles.  Lanes asked me this morning while we were waiting for her bus, ‘mamma, how come you talk to everyone who is coming out for the building?’.  So I guess I’ve got used to our neighbors as well. P, on the other hand, couldn’t pull out neighbors from a line up.

Curious to find a place with laundry en suite as per my request and no elevators as per Lanes' request, Lanes and I went along with P’s quest to find a new home.  If all fails, we get lunch out of the deal.   We looked at places close by because we love how green this neighborhood is. By that I mean we like looking at the green from the comfort of our sofa.

You won’t catch me camping or running through meadows barefoot—much to the relief of park rangers, forest rangers, and the fire department. I’d do something like feed a bear, adopt a skunk or drop a match. Perhaps I’m the one who needs supervision. But I digress, point is, we looked at stuff near our ghetto.

We tagged along, keeping an open mind. One thing living in ghetto fab has thought me is that one should always look up at the ceiling for tell tale signs of cracks, water damage or mold. I tried to pretend I was my mom or my aunt, who would have made stellar building inspectors or detectives had they not stayed home to raise their brood. 

Place number one was fabulous, not a single flaw in its structure, but they want an answer by Thursday. There were three bedrooms, en suite laundry, but the bathroom was tiny. I’m not sure I fit in sideways. Then there is the whole thing about being on the ground floor.  Even I could easily jump in through the windows. I watch too much CSI and SVU so I was saying OMG, no way.

The second place just made me mad. The hallways were narrow and dark. You know how when people have near death experiences they say they see a tunnel and the light (assuming that’s Heaven or something?). Well, this would be the opposite.

The corridors were winding here and there and I feared we’d get lost.  The closets didn’t have bars on them, just a ledge to hang the hangers—crooked and not facing the way I like (not good for my slightly OCD self).  The closet doors were in a dismantled heap on the dark brown carpet in every unit we looked at.  

The ceilings were cracked  and even the locks were not fixed properly—they looked like giant peep holes. Might as well leave the door open. My mom and aunt would have run screaming from this place after telling the manager how to manage it.

Lanes and I were trying to fly out of there, but P kept looking everywhere! Seriously?  He is not one to be overly polite and stick around to appease the manager so I was wondering why he was even considering the place. He thought it had potential. Until he turned and saw that I had potential to spontaneously combust and take him with me. 

No offense to the tenants of the building, but everyone we met really looked like they just came back from the Jerry Springer show and were getting home to eat spaghetti out of a can. Plus there was a dead bee in the kitchen that still had cabinets from when the first Star Wars movie came out

Lanes sat on the floor in one unit with a toy and from that point on, all I could think of is disinfecting her and her little hippo figurine. I wanted to come back to ghetto fab and kiss the floor. Even as I sit here without any way to surf the web, cook a meal, do laundry, make a call or watch TV, I still prefer it to that place. I really don’t even know why they were showing those apartments to people. I can’t see anyone in their right minds taking them.

Any old how, now P thinks he wants to look at townhouses. Between packing, gift buying for the trip, and trying to find a place to have Lanes’ fifth birthday party next month, I really don’t have time for wild goose chases. So hopefully, by the time we go to the motherland and return we can worry about this. G is for ghetto, it's good enough for me.

More musings from BC next week, after I get my liver checked out, find a venue and date for Lanes' party and freak out last minute that I have not packed and have forgotten something important for our trip.

ps Those worried about the two old men I adopted--they survived the power outage and my attempts to feed them and are doing A OK.