New Jack City

My mom came to visit me to celebrate my new job and to go with me to the new city to check it out. So we drove to the new city and had a great time. It was quite the fun "free" time with my mom. She used her miles to fly up here and I used my points for us to stay in the new city. We got upgraded to the "concierge" level and proceeded to mooch all the free food - it was awesome.

The trip basically included me driving, mom trying to navigate and us getting lost as the new city is laid out on a grid, however, it's a numerical grid both north/south and east/west. So it's 2nd avenue running north/south, and 2nd STREET running east/west. Good times.

Aside from all of that it has enabled me to eliminate some areas in which I thought I wanted to move to. I'm a little nervous about the new city due to the weather, the new city is in the frozen tundra. Supposedly it can get to -20 in the winter. That's right, MINUS 20 sans windchill. To compensate the majority of apartment/condo complexes have underground HEATED garages. This is key on my list of requirements. Seriously, can you see me out there, scraping and scraping my car and praying it will start every day? Ugh...

The entire time we are playing in the new city, no one wants to see my cute house for sale. But of course, yesterday, the 4th of July, the day of our country's birth, a national flipping holiday, someone wants to see my house from 12:15 - 1:15!!!!!!!!! SERIOUSLY! I was so angry. We had just put the ham in the oven, were getting everything ready for our fun lunch only to be called with 30 minutes to clean the house up to leave. It just goes to show you how much of a buyers market it really is...no consideration for the sellers.

Because it pisses me off that they ask for a minimum of an hour window only to show up and half the time they just walk in and walk straight out of my home, I've started staking out my house. Unfortunately, my stake out managed to freak out one of my neighbors. I knew I freaked her out the last time I staked out the house as she kept looking at me and kept her dog really close. So yesterday, Mom and I are hanging out in the car, under my designated tree reading magazines drinking our coffee waiting on the rudeness to glance at my house, my neighbor walks over to the car to ask what the hell I'm doing.

As I am spending more and more time in my car these days, which is great because gas prices are only getting better, NOT! My poor little car has really taken a beating since I bought her. Poor Martha. I haven't even had her a year and she's already been rear-ended, technically sandwiched between two cars, completely violated. Then she was side-swiped in the Costco parking lot by a ginormous SUV that was probably angry that I get better gas mileage. And finally, while my mom was here, the third and hopefully final shoe literally fell on Martha. It was Saturday morning, the first morning my mom was here. I went for a coffee run, and of course, as it's just around the corner from my house (well, 10 blocks) I drove in my pajamas there and forgot to bring my cell phone. On my way back, I had the windows down and the sunroof open, I'm driving down the road minding my own business, when I pass this home that has two guys trimming trees. All of the sudden a HUGE LIMB comes out of nowhere to fall on my car!!!! First I feel lucky that my sunroof was open because it could have shattered it. Then I think what if it had been just a few inches over and it fell into the car through the sunroof and hit me on the head?!! Instead it hit the roof caused two dents and managed to shatter and break off my passenger side mirror. I pull into the home's driveway, talk to one of the guys who could care less, got his name, number and address. I should have called the cops, but I just wasn't thinking and I didn't have my cell phone and I was in my pajamas. The two guys of course aren't part of a company, it's just two random guys...I'm never going to see my money and you know it's going to be just under my $500 deductible so no point in declaring it.

Sigh...poor Martha. I shudder to think what will happen to her in the frozen tundra after I move. I think we are going to be together for a long time.