One step closer to reality

In newsrooms, there are numerous cliches likely to elicit a groan from an editor -- among them phrases like "Rain didn't dampen the spirits of those in attendance at (fill in the blank with lame parade/festival/county fair you didn't want to cover)" or "More and more people are doing X" (because I'm supposed to write about needlepoint/sudoku/amateur porn and because I've noticed it, it must be a trend that's on the rise, or why else would I be writing about it?).
One of those groaner phrases typically comes out of covering something like a city council vote on some new development: "Blah blah blah is one step closer to reality following yada yada meeting."

But since I'm a suit now, I got no editors. Our landing an apartment is one step closer to reality following a productive meeting with Nick at 2 Lincoln Square, who, it turns out, actually exists.

It's a long, ridiculous story, but Brett twisted Nick's arm into setting up an appointment for Tuesday night, only to have him later start back peddling, saying he had a doctor's appointment that conflicted. You understand, all those last-minute 6 p.m. doctor's appointments can be a real hassle.

I show up about half an hour early, to see if I can get into the apartment before his "appointment." Nick startles me by being there. I was working up my righteous indignation about getting stood up the whole way there, and didn't get a chance to use it. He takes me up to the apartment, which is great, we have a nice long conversation about the building and the apartment and our tight time constraints ... whereupon he agrees to forego redoing the hardwood floors (they don't really need it) so that we can move in faster. AND he offers, without me asking, to take the rent down because of that.

Brett hasn't even shown up yet and I'm dumbstruck because I've seen the apartment, I have a lease in my hands and a volunteered rent reduction. When Brett arrives for our scheduled meeting time, I greet him in the lobby with the lease in my hands. Victory is mine!

Well, almost. Now I have to fax it to John, get his signature, and set up a time to take it and our money to Nick, hopefully tonight.

In the meantime, I celebrated what feels like the end of this quest over dinner with Brett and some of his pals at an Italian restaurant where the food was lovely and I had entirely too much red wine. I was pacing myself reasonably until I found a bug in my wine, the waitress brought a free bottle ... now I'm suffering what Mary Jean and I have referred to as the emotional hangover and trying to reconstruct everything looking for signs that I was the embarrassing midwestern girl. If only red wine didn't taste so good, I wouldn't have this problem.

The Michigan connection

Rick Lucas, a Michigan evening MBA who graduated this spring, accepted a job with MTV the same week I accepted with AP. He called me on I think Tuesday of that week to find out if I was in New York, and I sulked because I hadn't heard anything yet. By the end of the week, we were both preparing to move from Michigan to NYC.

I emailed him early in the day Sunday to check in, see if he's here yet, suggest that we should catch up. Then I packed up some stuff to go enjoy a beautiful afternoon in Central Park.

Walking up 8th Avenue, I hear a familiar voice next to me. It's Rick and his wife. They were heading to Central Park from their apartment a few blocks south of where I'm staying. We hung out in the sheep meadow for a few hours, soaking up vitamin D and chitchatting about relocation.

In a city this big, how weird is that?? Apparently the Michigan connection runs deep if you can just will someone to bump into you by thinking of them.

Keep those cards and letters coming
Even with an apartment (hopefully!) set up, it'll likely be two weeks before I get back to Michigan to supervise movers. This period of being in a vanilla furnished apartment on my own is starting to wear on me.
I want my wardrobe, my kitchen supplies, my husband ... it's one thing to be on vacation in a hotel room for a few days, but a month of living in a place that's purposely beige and inoffensive while flying solo is too much. At least at Ben and Gabrielle's in December, we were together and that place felt pretty darned homey.

Sooo... I've gotten cards from Mary Jean, Rob and Lara, Jeff and Rachel, and I've got a fountain pen, a whole load of notecards and a book of stamps searching for a purpose.
Email, write, call, whatever. Once the apartment search isn't taking up every spare moment of my life, it's going to be a long two weeks until I get back to A2. Help keep me entertained?

Memorial Day weekend

We had a big, all-day meeting Thursday, and still coming down from the intensity of that, everyone got early dismissal Friday -- the practice there on Fridays before holidays. I'd never heard of such a thing before I got to University of Michigan, but apparently U-M didn't just make it up. It's some sort of unwritten rule they don't tell you about in business school.

Albert, one of my MBA media pals, also got out early from his job at VNU, but apparently they're on this kooky New York thing called "summer hours" -- he's going to get out early every Friday this summer. Wow. We had plans for dinner after work, so we both killed a little time before finally having an old people dinner at about 5:30.




That was pretty much the extent of my plans for the weekend. I was just lazing around the apartment Saturday when Jeff and Barbara invited me out for a BBQ that night.

It was something of an adventure, since they live in New Jersey and getting there involves going to the Port Authority to hop on a little white bus that heads under the Hudson and into Jersey. They barbecued and had a bonfire and about a dozen of us enjoyed a perfect summer evening.
Jeff was John's roommate in San Francisco, and the way that I know Rachel, who I mentioned in a recent post. See how even in New York, our social network all connects back and around?


Cecil Shepherd, king of the Michigan business school alums in NY, said he's thinking of heading to the beach Sunday, so maybe I'll tag along. Who knows? I'm just taking the weekend as it comes.

I'd kind of like to find a place to watch the Tigers-Yankees game Monday afternoon. Not that I'm a huge baseball fan or anything, but just my luck -- I leave Michigan and the Tigers are having an amazing season, so it might be fun to root for the home team against the Yankees. Of course, if I was a guy, that sort of thing might be grounds for getting my ass kicked.

Anchors away!

Walking home from work tonight, 9th Avenue was awash in seamen. Seamen, people. Sickos.
It's Fleet Week, which means everywhere you look, there are sailors in white uniforms trying to chat women up with lines that probably didn't work when On the Town was fresh comedy. Will I take your picture? Are you serious? Let me guess, I look just like someone you know.

If I were a Sex and the City character, I'd be out drinking cosmos and twirling my hair at sailors.
Instead most of my social life has involved MBAs -- who, while interesting in their own way, don't have sexy uniforms and jaunty little hats. (Their shoes are often well shined, though, so they've got that.)

Last Saturday, Chris treated me to dinner at Citrus and we hung out at a cool bar near there until late into the evening. He peer pressured me into taking my first cab this month, rather than waiting for a subway at 1 in the morning. It was good call. Girls who've been drinking probably shouldn't stand on a subway platform for half an hour alone.
Chris graduated ahead of me by a few years in the evening MBA program and he's been in New York since then, so he said he was acting as the welcome wagon. Guess that means I've got to pay it forward to the next Michigan MBA who comes to the city.
Sunday it was dinner with Rachel, a friend we met when she dated an old roommate of John's. They broke up but we didn't. She recently finished her executive MBA at NYU and she's got a kickin' job at Warner Music. Who gets to go to the Grammys for work?
Tomorrow I'm meeting up with Albert, a UCLA MBA I met at an MBA media and entertainment conference a few years ago. He got a job here just a few weeks before I got mine at AP. We're going to share some war stories about apartment hunting and settling in to a new job, and probably throw around phrases like win-win and core competency.

Maybe once John gets to town, we'll socialize with people who don't wear suits or know about Porters Five Forces.

I live in the greatest American city

and I'm sitting on my couch, laptop open, watching American Idol for the first time ever. Even a city girl's got to have some downtime, right?

If I had a death wish, I'd call Katie right now to ask her what she's doing for her birthday on Friday. Katie is more into American Idol than anyone I know and the finals are tonight. Figured I should watch so I can participate in American society.

But since I don't really care whether it's the grey haired guy or the super-styled girl, I can half watch while I post some more pictures.
I'll start with a photo of me on my way off to work on my first day. When I was growing up, my mom had a tradition of taking a picture of me on the first day of school and the pose was always the same: carrying my book bag, at the door, with my hand on the door knob. I would have done that on my way to my AP job, but since John went back to Ann Arbor the night before, I had to figure out how to shoot it myself. I borrowed John's trick of taking my own picture in the mirror.













Here's what my new office looks like, and the view from the east-facing windows in my office. In the foreground is some sort of vent thing in the roof of the next floor down, and the Empire State Building is just right of that thick, black building in the right third of the photo.





























This is roughly what our kitchen will look like if we get the place at 2 Lincoln Square. All new appliances, a pass through counter and swinging doors that shut the kitchen entry off from the foyer. It's actually a better set up than our kitchen in Ann Arbor, especially if we have people over. They can hang out at the counter instead of trying to crowd into our little galley kitchen.










Lara and Rob responded to my angst about corporate fashion with a little gift -- a little pink furry coat with coordinating high heels and purse.
They are now decorating my printer.















Finally, Brett only learned this week that he's got a starring role in BigAppleBound. To welcome our Wolverine alum real estate agent to the blogosphere, here's a little gem Google turned up on the U-M business school web site: Brett and his family at a New York alumni function.




Now that I've embarrased him a little, here's the plug -- Brett has probably shown me 20 apartments and I don't even want to know how many times he's called the guy at 2 Lincoln Square trying to badger him into letting me see the apartment there.
Need a NY rental agent who'll do what it takes to get you the apartment you want, including driving you all up and down Manhattan in his Cooper Mini and dialing a building so many times he memorizes the number?




2224 Frederick Douglass Blvd
New York, NY 10026
P (212) 678-7233
F (212) 326-3061
E brett.grabel@corcoran.com
http://www.corcoran.com/agents/profile.aspx?region=NYC&userid=BGRABEL

OK, Brett, now the pressure's on... :-)

Finally! Pictures!!

For the second time, we came to NYC without the cable that connects the camera to my computer -- but today, hurrah! John sent me the cable and it arrived today, so I can finally share some photos.

Blogger's not so great with showing me how photos and text will work together, or with wrapping text around pics. In Netscape, this should look OK, but in Explorer, you might have some gaps between photos.

First, some pictures of getting ready for New York.

Our garage sale to cast off some of our Midwestern furnishings that won't fit in our New York apartment.

























































Then, some pictures from our going away lunch with my Aunt Glennie, her kids and their spouses -- the group we loosely refer to as "the cousins."






























Me and John with my dad on Dad's 60th birthday -- the night before we left for NYC.










This is us at the airport the day we flew to New York.










Here's my home away from home -- the corporate apartment where I'll live for my first month in the city. After the interior shots is an image of the view off my balcony.














































Here's me and JT on our first full day in town, enjoying an afternoon respite by the water, then having a strategy talk about apartments at the Soda Shop, my fave little hangout in Tribeca.
























Here's me in Central Park on our six-year wedding anniversary, May 13. Right after this, we saw a bride and groom getting their wedding photos taken near the fountain so we went and congratulated a couple that'll share our anniversary.














I've got more, but that's got to be more than enough to bore you for now.
For now, a teaser of the next installment: My First Day at Work

Upper west or Tribeca??

I think our rental agent, Brett, is spending more time with me than his wife. I may have to send her flowers to apologize for being a demanding client hogging up his time.

We met this morning at 8 a.m. to look at 2 Lincoln Square but -- quelle surprise!! -- the ever-elusive agent for the building didn't show up. We sat there for half an hour waiting before I finally had to catch my train to work, but Brett managed to get the guy on the phone to set up an appointment for Tuesday before work. I remain skeptical.
Then we met after work down in Tribeca to look at a condo at Greenwich and Chambers, where the owner is renting it out privately. Man do I dig that part of Tribeca, and the condo, while being the same standard issue layout that seemingly every post-war one bedroom has, was nice. Living room is painted soft green, bedroom is pale yellow, and there's even the tiniest balcony known to man.

Now John and I have a decision to make. The apartments we're looking at are, for all practical purposes, the same. The prices are pretty close. It comes down to the real estate mantra: location, location, location.

John says upper west has the edge for him. I totally see the appeal. If we were at 66th Street and Broadway, right across from Lincoln Center, that is about the coolest, most city experience I can imagine, plus it's only about a five-minute walk to Central Park. Even the lobby and the doorman are fantastic.

My heart is still in Tribeca, probably leaning toward Tribeca Pointe if I can get a viewing there, but otherwise, Tribeca Park. (John's too wary of renting from a private individual, who could decide to sell after we've been there a year.)

We left it at this -- I'm going to trust my gut when I go to Lincoln Square in the morning, and we'll talk again later in the day. If I have applications in at two or three places and then decide, so be it.

Wish me luck tomorrow. I'm not worried we'll make a bad decision. I just want to make the best decision we can, based on our budget, our timeline and what's available.

The lease of my worries

Yesterday I made about a zillion phone calls all over town, just cold calling apartment buildings asking about June availabilities. Brett told me some just don't show up in his database, and with the clock ticking on my month in corporate housing, I was feeling panicky.

After burning off a lot of minutes on my cell phone, about the only lead I had was at Tribeca Park, where they had a one bedroom available for June 15, but the rent was more than we wanted to pay.

I wanted to head downtown anyway for Taste of Tribeca, so I figured I'd make it a multitasking trip and take a look at the apartment.

A funny thing happens every time I go to Tribeca. As much as I like the rest of New York, Tribeca casts a spell over me. It's like that flush of infatuation when you're 15. I want to write Tribeca's name on the front of my folder and dot the I with a heart. TLF. TLA.

Taste of Tribeca was pricey but it's a fund raiser for art in public schools, so I got to do a little philathropy while nibbling on goodies from some of the best restaurants in the city. Lenny and Anne would have shaken from food orgasm on the spot. Enjoying the street fair vibe with live music and a perfect sunshiney day, I had an heirloom tomato salad by Tribeca Grill, miso-marinated black cod with shredded filo by Nobu, a smoked trout cake and fresh berries with creamy something or other by Blaue Gans, and a chocolate egg cream from my pals at the Soda Shop. (among other things. I meant to remember it all but alas, I my taste buds distracted my brain)

Belly full, skin loaded with vitamin D, I strolled the few blocks down Chambers Street to where it dead ends at River Terrace. All along the Hudson River is beautiful, bucolic Rockefeller Park, popular for everything from picnics and frisbee to wedding photos and kite flying. The whole area was redeveloped after Sept. 11 and it's so lovely. You walk across the West Side Highway and it's like a residential oasis. No sirens. No graffiti. No panhandlers. Just new apartment buildings, new retail, and loads of baby strollers.

I sat in the sun with the river breeze blowing in my face and I got giddy about Tribeca all over again. River Terrace is probably more appropriately Battery Park City, but developers are trying hard to cash in on the cache of Tribeca so they're naming all the buildings Tribeca Park or Tribeca Pointe or I Can't Believe It's Not Tribeca.

In this frame of mind, I put in an application on the most expensive apartment we've seen. At the time, I was delirious about being in that area and happy that the apartment on a perfect timeline to get me out of corporate housing.

Now I'm having buyer's remorse about the rent. An application doesn't obligate you to sign a lease, so worst case scenario we could walk away from our $100 application fee.

Still, it's reassuring to think that I'm at the front of the line on an apartment. When I looked at a place last week, the agent there told me that vacancy rates on 1 bedrooms is something like .7 percent right now, and that put the fear of God into me. As I was filling out the application yesterday, I thought paying more than we wanted is preferrable to being homeless.

There are still two other places I want to see before we sign a lease anywhere:
-- 2 Lincoln Square -- I finally have an appointment there tomorrow before work. Assuming it's the same basic layout most of these highrises seem to have, then the decision basically comes down to neighborhood and price.
-- Tribeca Pointe -- they have a 1 bedroom for significantly less than the rate at Tribeca Park, and it looks like the view would be better, too. (The Tribeca Park apt. faces the city, but at Tribeca Pointe, the 1 bedroom they list as available faces north, so that look up the Hudson)

Those are the three finalists at the moment, and Brett doesn't see anything else coming up for June or July move in. I think any of the three will have lots of upsides, so stomach knots this morning notwithstanding, I think we'll be happy with any of the choices.

OH! And we have an offer on the house, with a buyer who wants to take occupancy by June 15! It must be those great photos showing off our friends.

Who still reads newspapers?

If you're reading my blog with your Sunday paper, maybe you'll appreciate this email joke Parker shared. I've seen it make the rounds before, but now that I'm responsible for American newspapers that are AP members, it seems even more timely.
(insert standard disclaimer here: I didn't write it, the views expressed here may not reflect those of management, any similarity to persons living, dead or in the White House is purely coincidental)

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country--if they could find the time--and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who is running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. None of these are read by the guy who is running the country into the ground.

You better shop around

John and I just celebrated our six-year wedding anniversary, and we were together a few years before that -- so it's been a long time since I grocery shopped and cooked for one.
Add to that the consideration of what I can actually carry home from the store to my aparment, along with trying hard not to end up with an entire duplicate set of everything from soy sauce to peanut butter, and you might understand how I could spend an hour wandering Whole Foods tonight to buy one bag of groceries.

Being in NYC stag has also changed some of my shopping habits because my breakfast routine is all thrown off. John and I had this great ritual of getting up to exercise, then while I was in the shower John would make coffee and the most fantastic omelette or yogurt with bananas and walnuts. Yes, I admit it. I'm terribly spoiled.
Now I've got to actually think about breakfast, and buying something to eat for it, since my omelettes aren't as good as John's and even if they were, it'd add another 20 minutes or more to my morning routine. That's sleep I don't want to give up, so PB&J it is.
Earlier this week, I made the discovery that the walk from my building to the subway stop is just long enough to eat a PB&J, which was helpful since I was paralyzed in front of my closet figuring out what to wear.

Dress for success

No, it's not the most important consideration in career success -- but how you dress does matter. As the new kid worried about making the right first impression, I've tried hard to make sure I'm wearing the right thing.
Part of the challenge is that I work in a small group where there aren't many women. The guys wear a shirt and tie with nice dress slacks and loafers every day. I think most of the other executive-level men dress the same, up to the CEO, and there aren't enough women to feel like I can really generalize. For example, one woman my age dresses really nicely, but I can't tell if I should follow her lead or if she's just fond of suits.
What's the female equivalent of shirt, tie and slacks? Lenny suggests sweater sets and even says they're sexy. I always thought of them as sort of prim suburban soccer mom, but sexy? Who knew?
Finally I cracked and asked the well-dressed woman what she thinks the dress code is for women. She laughed and said it really varies -- from suits or blazers to blouse and skirt or blouse and pants.
Thus far, it feels like most of my News Service work wardrobe is too casual for work. Yesterday a sudden downpour soaked my favorite utility work shoes and this morning they were still sopping wet so I was forced to wear my brown velvet spider flats. (bad packing = lots of casual shoes, not enough work shoes) I felt so self conscious walking in because it's not so much of a funky place, but fortunately my pants were long enough and I spent enough of my day sitting down that I'm not sure anyone really noticed.
Still, I need to do a little shopping. Yes, need. The sacrifices I make for my career.

Walk the line

Rule of thumb in NYC is it takes about a minute to walk a block on a north-south street. East-west blocks are longer, so those might be more like three minutes.

I'm staying about 20-some blocks north of work, and a few blocks over, so my crude math was that it should take me about 30 minutes to walk. That's part of how I ended up cutting it so close the first morning -- I assumed (wrongly) that if I could walk there in half an hour, surely it would take less than that to take the subway straight down two stops. I was wrong.

I decided to conduct a semi-scientific experiment and time myself walking home, and compare that to the subway ride. My first attempt flopped, since I foolishly chose 8th Avenue as my north-south route, taking me straight through the center of Times Square tourist log jam hell. Tonight I chose 9th Ave. instead, and confirmed that it's about a half hour walk, making the subway a choice purely about laziness, not time.

My experiment also helped me understand one reason midwesterners think New Yorkers are rude. It is damned near impossible to get a good stride going on a sidewalk in NYC without constantly bobbing and weaving around people in the middle of the sidewalk at a dead stop with a map out or someone smoking a cigarette outside a bar or a couple holding hands and blocking most of the sidewalk walking slooowly.

Let me put it in Michigan terms for my pals back home: imagine you're on your commute on 696, and every lane in front of you is clogged by people out for a Sunday drive 10 miles under the speed limit. One unexpectedly stops in front of you. How patient do you feel?

New Yorkers don't walk to enjoy the great outdoors. It's transportation. They walk like Detroiters drive, looking for openings, cutting around slowpokes, getting frustrated when people in front of them clog the flow of traffic.

Advice to visitors: if you want to check a map, fumble for your cell phone, look for an address or generally not move along, take a second to pull over. Step in toward the buildings, or out toward the curb, so you aren't a big speed bump right in the middle of traffic. Or prepare to have people brush by you on both sides, maybe even grumbling a little as they go by.

If you stopped in the middle of the highway during rush hour, you don't think you'd get honked at?

Musical street theater

Tonight I decided to walk home because the clouds finally parted and it seemed too beautiful not to long a few thousand steps. It took a little more than half an hour, which is close to how long it take to ride the subway.

On the way, about a half dozen blocks from home I started to hear loud music. At first I thought it might be a car driving by with its stereo cranked up, but it was louder and clearer than that. A band? I looked around and couldn't see anything, so I kept going.
When I got back to my apartment, I opened the door to the balcony and heard the music crystal clear. From the balcony way up here, I could look down and see that an apartment building about a block away was having a party on its outdoor deck. So I enjoyed dinner sharing their sort of Caribbean-sounded live music.

That's part of what I dig about NYC. It's like free street theater all the time.

Which reminds me of two things related to theater:
-- Last night, I was coming home from a b-school alumni meeting, walking through Times Square when I overheard two guys talking behind me. One was describing how after he got his first show, A Chorus Line, he took his paycheck and treated just about everyone he knew to dinner at a restaurant that's gone now. He felt like a big spender because some of the dancers were so poor they could barely afford apples and peanut butter. I loved picturing that NY moment.
-- Over the weekend, John and I were walking around after dinner. A lot of the theaters are just south of me, so we happened upon a big crowd standing outside a stage door after a show ended. Then we realized it was The Odd Couple, which is the show Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane are doing now. So like tourists, we stood around and waited. A few of the supporting cast came out and signed autographs, then Matthew came out and talked to people, got pictures taken, generally seemed really gracious with the eager fans, before he was chauffeured off. Sadly, the security guy told the still-waiting crowd that Nathan had left already. Somehow, the little squealing giggle that he did in The Birdcage has become part of our lexicon so JT and I were hoping to see him. At least we got a good celebrity sighting.

First day

Today I raced through the rain to get to work on time. By the time I got there, my shoes and skirt were soaked and I was a few minutes late. I worried this was not a good start to the day.

To be sure, it was not completely smooth -- first my email account wasn't working, and I still can't access the CRM database -- but I'm still in disbelief at how great it all seems.
I have an office with all wood furniture -- no '60s U-M property disposition filing cabinets -- with windows that look out on the Empire State Building and Madison Square Garden.
I'm one of only three people working with U.S. newspapers, and every time my boss introduced me as a new executive on his team, I got weak kneed.
I'm going to get to work on some really interesting projects that make use of my newsroom background, and maybe one or two that tap some of what I learned at Argus. They feel like things where I'm not just coming in cold, trying to assess the data, and that's exciting.

JT tried to send me flowers at work today, but apparently the florist he picked, which is on the same block as AP, screwed up and never delivered them. Still, since he's not here for my first day, it was a really sweet thing. I'll just imagine that I have flowers in my office.

Oh, and here's the link for 2 Lincoln Center. We're still hoping to get an apartment there, as they have two vacancies at the moment.

Mother@#%$er

Mother's Day weekend was a hassle years ago -- I'd have to do something with my mom, and with my stepmom, and my dad's birthday often fell on that weekend, too. Especially once my dad and stepmother got divorced (when I was in college), that meant three stops with three gifts and three people all vying for my time.
When that changed, it changed fast. My mother and my stepmother, who my dad married when I was 5, died within about two years of each other.
Now I find the whole Mother's Day ritual a hassle in a different way. I have to steel myself for chipper questions about whether I've called my mom yet today, peppered with questions about whether I'm a mother. Finding a polite way to reject both repeatedly is a little exhausting.

John's boarding his flight home right now. I'm on my own in the city. Tomorrow's my first day at work. It's a drag that when I leave for work, John won't be here to send me off.
Thankfully, we won't be separated for long. Robin's having an open house today, and with luck, the house will sell quickly.

The other part of the equation is finding an apartment here.
Today we looked at 2 Lincoln Square, which was perfect. Perfect. The apartment was good, with lots of closets, a great kitchen, immaculate bathroom. The location is unbelievable. Right across from Lincoln Center, with such energy and vibrance and all kinds of amazing shops, and just a block or two from Central Park.
We want that apartment! Brett's trying to make it happen but we don't know yet if it's ours.
Then right after John got in a cab, I looked at a place at 360 W. 55th. This isn't the apartment I looked at, but it's the same building. It was good -- nice layout, good closets, nice kitchen and bathroom, hardwood floors, full time doorman -- but not as good at 2 Lincoln Square. It'll be a good backup, if 2 Lincoln Square falls through.
But we're crossing our fingers that it's 2 Lincoln Square. It feels like home.

Too late

Someone already got Central Park West. We were too late. The quest continues.

Tomorrow is our six-year anniversary, so maybe that'll bring us extra luck in finding the right place for us.

I'm in love

Yesterday U-M alum Brett Grabel, an agent at mega real estate firm Corcoran, showed us seven apartments in about four hours. Amusingly, when I'd like one, John wouldn't, and vice versa.

The one I fell in love with was at 370 Central Park West. This isn't the apartment we saw, but it shows the building. It's this funky Tudor building across the street from Central Park, with a subway stop right outside the front door, and the kitchen is probably bigger than ours in Ann Arbor.

Sadly, someone else already put an application in so we're the backup but we're crossing our fingers. While we wait to hear from Brett, we went back up to the 90s for dinner last night so we could check it out. We started at the Dive Bar, apparently a softball team hangout, then ate with John's old roomie Jeff at Cleopatra's Needle -- a jazz club/ Middle Eastern restaurant that's been featured on the Food Network. (you know, like all those jazz clubs with falafels back home)

So today we're waiting to hear from Brett about what to do next: go see more places today or wait and see.

Oh, and yesterday we went to the grocery store for some minor necessities like catsup and coffee filters. It cost $80. Gasp.

And pedometer total: 16,000.

Beginning the apartment hunt

Earlier this year, as part of a University of Michigan push to get people off their lazy behinds, I got a pedometer. On a normal day, I did about 4,000 steps, which equates to about two miles.
Yesterday, I put 26,000 steps on my pedometer looking at apartments in lower Manhattan and exploring the neighborhoods after dark.
John and I looked at apartments at:
-- the Verdesian, a crunchy-granola environmentally friendly building with fantastic views of the Hudson River, west of Tribeca and just north of the World Trade Center site.
-- 22 River Terrace, the only building closer to the Hudson than the Verdesian
-- 99 John Street, where it would be very easy for us to remember our address. This financial district apartment had windows facing three directions, with some great views of the Brooklyn Bridge that make JT's heart go pitterpat.
-- 10 Hanover Square, which is so far south, it's even below Wall Street. The apartment was swank, but the health club was swanker, with a two-story climbing wall, a physical therapy room and a huge display of T-shirts, shorts, socks and such, in case you come to the gym straight from work and didn't bring your workout clothes.

We liked the feel of the financial district apartments better, but we ate dinner downtown so we could check out the neighborhood after dark and it felt pretty dead, not surprisingly. There's tons of residential redevelopment going on down there, so it could be on the cusp of becoming a great place to live ... but that's what we thought about our house in Ann Arbor, and that neighborhood still feels more redneck than we like.

To cut to the chase: on average, we looked at 800-square-foot one bedroom apartments for about $3,300. Gulp.

Nothing we love yet, so the chase continues today.

This time, it's for keeps

John and I arrived at my executive housing apartment this afternoon. Since I'm not going back to Ann Arbor, except maybe to sign papers to sell our house, I guess that makes me officially a New Yorker.

The last few weeks have been a total whirlwind -- cleaning out layers and layers of stuff we won't be able to cram into a Manhattan apartment, having a garage sale with mucho help from our fabulous friends, and getting the house squeeky clean for our first showing. Tonight!

Sadly, we brought the camera but not the connector cord, so no pics until I get that resolved.
Instead, a description will have to do: my apartment is on 56th and Broadway, on a floor with a balcony that has a view of the Hudson River. I was on the phone with my dad this afternoon and got drowned out by cruise ship horns blasting out on the water.
My apartment has all kinds of little necessities of life, including brand new pot holders, a measuring cup and measuring spoons ... because lots of execs in temporary housing bake in their spare time?

Tomorrow we start looking at apartments. We'll soon find out exactly what you get for your money in Manhattan.

John and I have got to find some food. What to eat on my first night as a New Yorker?? Dang, we forgot our Zagat guide, so we'll go an old fave, or maybe check something out in our neighborhood on menupages.com.