Settling in

Okay, I know it's been forever since I have last updated Azuki's blog. A lot has been going on since we have moved to New York. First, I spent about more than a month just looking for an apartment...it turns out that you cannot really find a nice apartment without a broker here, and it just happens that during the time that I was looking the rental market was the tightest that it has ever been in a very long time, at less than 1% vacancy rate. This is on top of the already normally difficult and ridiculously expensive Manhattan real estate.

Of course, our options were further limited by a very furry four-legged member of the family. First, we limited our neighborhood choices because I strongly felt the need to be near parks where Azuki can run around and act crazy. Because if she doesn't do that outside, she would run around at home and act all crazy. That basically meant we could only live uptown. And because we were not yet billionaires we could not afford to live in a townhouse off of park avenue, we really had only one option left--the upper west side.

Also, because the market was so tight, many landlords opted to just simply not allow any pets for their unit---because, as the broker put it, if you were the landlord, and you can choose between an applicant with a pet and an applicant without a pet, which would you choose? If I were the landlord? I would allow pets but only if it was goldfish.

This would be the perfect time for a sidenote that although looking for an apartment was completely exasperating, it did help that my broker was an extremely good-looking ex-model who once posed topless for the Lord and Taylor catalogue, in boxer briefs. How do I know that? Because my friend Jimmy googled him and sent his picture to me.
What was even better was that the pleasure of working with a tall, dark, and handsome man was in fact completely guiltless due to the fact that he was a tall, dark, and handsome gay man. Matt and I debated on this subject, because he felt that the broker had a slight possibility of being straight. To solve this issue, I put forth the question during a brunch with my friends, and as soon as I mentioned that the pretty broker also lives in Chelsea with two cats, the answer was pretty much settled. For those of you who do not know, Chelsea is almost like Castro in San Francisco, which, for those of you who still do not know, it's commonly known as the gay district. And the two cats? Just icing on the cake.

To make a long story short, we, I meant, I, finally found an apartment for us. Although this apartment is substantially above our initial budget, I am happy to say that the location is great, we are between not only one, but TWO parks!

After finding an apartment, I then busied myself with coordinating the move, as well as furnitioning our new abode. Since we, or, rather, I again, decided that it's time for us to have an adult apartment, one in which we decorate with both style and functionality, I gently prompted my usually very frugal husband to splurge on some nice furniture. Or, perhaps I just went out and bought a bunch of new things and then he found out when the credit card company called to make sure that there is no fraud going on since the amount that was charged in a single day greatly exceeded any of our previous monthly balances, combined. heheh I am just kidding. Sort of.

I am proud to say that although our apartment is still a work in progress, it is coming together nicely, and really beginning to fit into at least my vision of a simple but sophisticated urban dwelling. It's nothing fancy, but it's very comfortable and definitely a place that we want to spend many nights cooking in and watching our very large flat-pannel high definition TV and free HBO for (it pays to be nice to the cable man, who might just give you a few months of free movie channels!). Yes we paid a supremely high price to live in New York City, and we should go out more to explore...but I really think going out is over-rated anyways, and really, is there a greater joy then sitting on the couch in my PJs, snuggling with my dog and my husband? I highly doubt it.