Why?

I spent the last hour ransacking my apartment in search of a very important paper that I put in a very special place. That seems to be the root of the problem. You see, I take after my mother when it comes to these 'special places'.

My mom is someone I love dearly, but she has this knack for putting items somewhere, and then never being able to find them again. These items range from Christmas presents to car keys, her purse, and many other miscellanies. Sometimes these items are found after a good round of searching and sometimes it takes months. I have received gifts meant for Christmas in July of the year after. A set of car keys was once found after the spring snow melt — presumably dropped the winter before. These things happen, and the "special places" have a certain notoriety in our household.

I seem to have inherited this from my mother. I have been known to misplace driver's licenses that I had out moments before. I tend to put paperwork in random places only to discover it again months later, repeating this pattern week after week. This time though, I managed to create one doozy of a very special place ... and it makes me want to alternately scream and shoot myself in the foot. You see, I lost a receipt that clearly lays out charges that my rental company needs to reimburse me for. I NEED this piece of paper more than I have ever needed a piece of paper in my life.

I located the initial receipt — the one I signed when the movers came to pick my stuff up, but I can't for the life of me find the one they gave me when they finished unloading the stuff. The one with itemized charges and stars to show what exactly the rental company was covering. The thing is, I knew this piece of paper was uber important, and so I put it in a place worthy of its import. Do I remember where that place is? No, but thank god I can kinetically remember doing it. Funny how my muscles remember the motions, but my brain can't remember the place.

I guess I will go dwell on the frustration as I try to fall asleep, and once I do hit slumberland, I am sure my sleep will be plagued with anxiety dreams of searching for the paper. I am sure these dreams will not shed any light on the situation as I have searched every feasible place I can think of. But it doesn't hurt to hope, does it?

moves, views and thunder oh my!

It has been a while since my last—and as fate should have it first—post. Sad but true. I am not sure what this says about me as a person, and a procrastinator, but let me start by saying that it has been quite a month. My last post discussed my upcoming move. Now the big apple is known for nightmare moving tales, but nothing prepared me for the disaster my move was (floors not only three weeks late, but I get a call while the truck is loading that the place is not ready, store stuff overnight and camp in old apartment, get into new place to find an unfinished disaster area . . .)


But, that is all in the past now. I can safely say that I am settled into my new place and I love it. Basically I went from a fourth floor walkup microscopic cave with views of the apartment across the airshaft to a spacious light-filled sixth floor elevator unit with city views and many closets. In the morning the daylight gets me out of bed and at night the twinkling lights of the Upper East Side lull me to sleep. I love the light. I love the space. I love my apartment.

* * * * * * *

Tonight I stepped out of my local grocery store, Food Choice—a place I prefer to call "Food Lack of Choice"—to find the rain-slicked streets of Spanish Harlem alight with the sickly green color that precludes a thunder storm. I hurried home, groceries weighing down one hand, umbrella clutched in the other, hoping for a glimpse of lightning bolts from my new apartment.


My new digs happen to be on the sixth floor of the tallest building in the area . . . this makes for amazing city views at night and the unusual ability to see lightning. In New York City, thunderstorms are mostly heard. The thunder claps bounce through the streets, the sound amplifying as it echoes off high rise after high rise.


For pedestrians scurrying in the rain at street level, thunderstorms are heart-stopping medleys of cacophony that only make the rain that much worse. Not only do you have to dodge puddles, umbrellas that are forever trying to stab you in the eye, and the inopportune splash of taxi and bus slop, but now you have to worry about the noise of thunder scaring the shit out of you as well . . . and all that without the pleasant warning flash that, in most places on earth, precedes the rumbles. The same buildings that channel the sounds of thunder into intense rumbles also ensure that lightning is rarely seen. Occasionally, a flash of light makes its way to street level, but most often there is no visual warning for the ruckus of Mother Nature's fireworks.


All of this changes in my new place, where one can see for miles. And thus it was with the excitement of a child at Christmas I rushed home, only to be disappointed. Tonight's promise of thunderstorms from both the weathermen and the greenish glow of the sky never came to fruition. And so I sit listening to the patter of rain against my window, still waiting to see the zig-zag of light coupled with the Upper East Side skyline . . . maybe tomorrow.