I'll Miss You Least of All

A while ago I wrote about Derrick's and my housing search this winter, and just how disappointing it was turning out to be. As in, you want a master bathroom big enough to fit more than one person at a time? You had better be prepared to pay over one meelion dollars.

I am pleased to report that the real estate gods smiled upon the Prestons and landed us in a cute lil' cul-de-sac ranch in Westchester! We fought competed with three other buyers and were shocked when they picked us. We closed a few weeks ago and have been going up every weekend to scrape out every piece of DNA the previous owners left behind. I know all most a few of you are interested, so I will begin posting some before-and-after photos of the cosmetic transformation of House Preston! You will have to wait a couple years to see the kitchen. I need a miracle or a LOT of money, or both.

Our time here in the city is winding down and I am feeling rather bittersweet. Manhattan nostalgia is the very last thing I ever thought I would feel in my life. Honestly, I was not super stoked to move here (my childhood goal was and continues to be to live on a horse farm. Someday!), but being the positive and open-minded person I am, I decided to embrace NYC living as much as I could. So many people dream of living here, and I wasn't about to take that for granted, and I know I haven't. I have grown to love so many things about living here!

I've been trying to come up with a comprehensive list of things I'll miss about New York City and things I won't, but at this moment there is only one thing I hate more than anything else about life here (especially now that we are firing up the car every single weekend). The rural folks and suburbanites among you will not understand, but I hope you will laugh and thank whomever you worship that you do not have to deal with this. To you, it is totally banal, and you might tell me some people have real, actual problems. I agree, they do. This is not really a real problem. But to me, this situation makes me a prisoner, and while it isn't a real life problem, it's a giant headache and I can't wait not to deal with it anymore. It's unique to city living; we had the same issue in Philly as I'm sure many of my non-NYC urban readers can relate.

It is: trying to load/unload your car while it's illegally parked on a busy city street.

Imagine this, Cindy Lou reader living in Mississippi or North Carolina or wherever you are: you need to go to Target or Sam's, or you're going away somewhere relaxing for a long weekend of carefree pleasure. You leisurely load your car as you wish, at any time of day or night, because it's parked mere feet from your front door. Forgot something? No worries! Just pack things as you think of them! "Tra, la la," you sing, "What a breeze this is! A delightful breeze on a warm summery day!" Take your time; no one is honking at you. No one is waiting for you. No one is about to give you a parking ticket. 

When you live in a bustling city, this is so far from reality, and it makes you not want to go anywhere, ever. We park our car 5 blocks away. If we want to go away somewhere, we pile all our $#!t in the hallway, wait until we are minutes away from leaving, and try to load/balance it all on a rickety luggage cart. You only have one shot at this so you'd better get it right the first time! Derrick then makes the trek to get the car, and if he's lucky, the fire hydrant spot is vacant and he can squeeze in there for a few minutes. If he's not so lucky, he gets a ticket for parking there. If he's not so lucky not to be in the hydrant spot in the first place, he double parks and waits for the honks and middle fingers and shouting to start while we load the car as quickly as we can with all our crap. By the time you haul the rickety luggage cart down towards the car, at least 12 items have fallen, possibly the entire cart itself, onto the sidewalk where the local dogs relieve themselves. You saw the part about the fire hydrant, right? If you're lucky, the pee is mostly dried up, but you still know it's there. If you're really lucky, the things that fell off into the dog pee aren't things that typically go in your baby's hands and mouth, but you know what? Sometimes they are.

By the time you get buckled in and get moving, you are so freaking stressed out when you go to face city traffic and get the F--- out of there. Oh, but a carefree weekend of leisure and pleasure awaits! And then two or three days later, you do everything I just described all over again, except in reverse.

At least we have an elevator. I told you: I'm a positive person!

No, seriously. I'll miss you.