Apartment Hunting in DC

So, its been a couple weeks and I've been searching for a place in DC. I haven't been searching too hard - I've sent out several emails to people who have posted places on Craigslist and I've gone to one open house and visited one apartment. I've been a bit lazy :)

I have to say that I'm not a huge fan of the Open House - its just not a good way to pick a roommate because there's just too much confusion and awkwardness. And it almost feels like a sorority/fraternity rush event. There's way too many people there at the same time for you to even remember who is who and most of the time, I can't tell who the current roommates are from the other idiots like myself who are looking for a place to live. You know why? Its because the other searchers keep striking up conversations with me about where they're from and how long they've been here and they want to know how long I've been here and what I do. I start talking to them and turning on the charm, only to find out 5 minutes later that they don't live there and have no bedroom to offer me.

Making appointments with each person is definitely the way to go. Last night, I saw an apartment on Conn. Ave in Van Ness and fell in love! First of all, the location is perfect! 2 blocks from the red line and in a really nice area! Its not downtown at all but close enough. Second, the apartment itself is really nice. Its not too new (since I hate new places) and not quite old enough, but its nice. The room is a decent size - it would fit my bed, dresser, nightstand and perhaps a desk. Third, the price is REALLY good! And 4th - the cherry on top, if you will, is that the roommates seem really great! One of them works for an NGO that helps women in developing countries and the other works in Education. They seem very mature and worldly. They were friendly, without making it seem like we had to be best friends and do everything together if I moved in or go out and get "wasted" together. AND they offered me a glass of red wine - they like to unwind with a glass of wine after work - sound like my kinda girls!

I just hope that the 15 minutes they spent with me were enough for them to realize that I'm their best choice for a roommate :)

Taking the Plunge

Over the last week, I've been searching for housing in D.C. Yup, that's right - the District of Columbia. Austin, TX is a no-go and it looks as though I'll be in the area for a while. I might as well take the plunge and move in.

I've always wanted to live in the city and some roadblock always managed to stand in my way. But now is the time. I'm not scared of being stranded in the city, or of having to live in a teeny tiny room and pay an pay an exorbitant rent or of running into the boy I used to date with his arms around a new girl. Things are different now - I can afford higher rents and I like old places and quirky neighborhoods. I have a car so if I feel suffocated by the city, I can leave any time I want. And the boy? He's still the same boy who hasn't changed so I'm not scared of him any more either.

Yup - its finally time. The only question is where? Adams Morgan? Cleveland Park? Mt. Pleasant? Columbia Heights? I'm going to have to do some exploring.

Stay tuned....

If I Celebrated Christmas...

this is what I would have on my list.

Whole New Ballgame...

So, I've tried not to blog about this topic and for the most part, have been quite successful. I didn't want to sound like a broken record or for this to be a "Sex in the City-esque" blog but I should have known it was inevitable. This blog revolves around my thoughts about various topics that enter my mind and as a single girl in her 20's, it was going to come up sooner or later.

Why does it seem like most of the guys who want to date me need a manual or a guidebook? Newsflash, fellas - if you are interested in a girl and you get her number, CALL HER AND ASK HER OUT!!! Guy meets girl. Guy likes girl and wants to get to know her. Guy asks for girl's phone number. Guy asks girl to go out to dinner. Seems pretty simple, right? Well, you would be surprised how few men in this area actually get that. I feel like I need to clarify what a date is.

This message especially goes out to the overgrown frat boys - you know who you are in your flip flops, backwards baseball caps and Abercrombie t-shirt that is obviously too small....

A date, typically, involves dinner and/or drinks, maybe a movie or a walk or bowling or ice cream or going to a museum (if you live in a big city) or a concert. Think along those lines.

A date is NOT texting her to see if she wants to go to 1223 later that night, it is not a bar crawl in Bethesda and DO NOT under any circumstances ask her if she wants to come over to your filthy apartment and watch reruns of "Family Guy" on your ridiculously large and expensive flat screen/HD TV while you and your roommates roll up a joint and proceed to get stoned.

It seems like a lot of guys in their 20s are just re-living their college years but with the added benefit of a salary from a full time job. I almost feel like its an insult to my intelligence when someone wants to set me up with one of these goobers. Maybe 2 or 3 years ago, I would have swooned at the opportunity for one of these idiots to get my number. I surely would have eagerly waited around for him to call or text me 3 or 4 days later, hoping for an invitation to dinner or some other cool, fun activity. I would only be slightly disappointed to receive an invite out to "the bar." And, I would have gone. After meeting at the guy's house or apartment to "pre-drink" and play beer pong, we would have made it to the bar (with a bunch of his rowdy friends) and then I would have the nerve to be disappointed when this guy doesn't turn out to be the intellectual, funny, sophisticated man I had expected.

Luckily, I've wizened up a bit.

So fellas, if you come across a lady that you find attractive and interesting, just call her and ask her out on a date - a real one. Show her that you're willing to think outside the box and put some effort into getting to know her. Meeting up at your local college watering hole, buying her cheap beer or rail drinks that are on special and then taking her to your bedroom in your shared house to hook up with her no longer works. Calling or texting her to hang out at your place to watch a movie is also lame for a "first date." We're not in college anymore, kids - its a whole new ballgame.

Aaron's Leg

This was just too funny to keep to myself. My friend, Aaron, is just starting graduate classes out in Nevada. During a game of Frisbee he scraped his leg up pretty badly. After practice he went to 7-11 to buy hydrogen peroxide, Neosporin and bandages. As you can see from the picture, they were missing one of these goods.

We were trying to decide if it was appropriate for him to wear shorts to class that day. When I said it was not a good idea, he complained and whined that it was 110 degrees outside. He also noted that the pad was adhered to his leg with some scotch tape. I contemplated what would be worse - showing up to class, in shorts, with a maxi pad taped to his knee or arriving in pants and having the bloody pad slip out of the leg of his pants.....

Buy Toyota? Maybe not....

So, after years of insisting that American cars were way better and way cooler than foreign ones, I started changing my mind. Instead of looking for speed and power and pure American muscle, I started looking for reliability and quality. Convinced by my aunts and uncles and mother and friends that a Toyota or a Honda was the way to go, I headed over to Darcars in Silver Spring to test drive a vehicle. When my uncle and I arrived, we met up with the salesman who had sold my family many cars in the past (at one point, my aunts/uncles bought 3 Toyota Sequoias in one month from the same man).

The first thing I told the salesman was that I wanted a manual Corolla in black or white. The first car he took me to was an automatic Corolla in some champagne color. I had to repeat the specifications about 3 times before he got it almost right. This time, he took me over to a “super white” Toyota Camry with a manual transmission. When I told him I wanted a Corolla, he looked at me, frustrated and said that for ever 300 cars they get in that is an automatic, one is a manual. At that point, I should have walked out of the dealership, but my uncle insisted that I test drive.

After 4 painstaking hours, I drove home in my brand new, Super White Toyota Camry. I finally had the coveted Toyota – this car was going to last me years, if I took care of it. The salesman was excited, my uncle was excited, the financier was excited. Everyone was excited but me.

My family and friends loved the car, upon seeing it. I started warming up to it. I need to explain that one of the main reasons I was apprehensive was because I had just signed on to a $17,000 loan!! I’m not one who spends feely so it was quite hard to sign on the dotted line (s).

“At least nothing will go wrong with this car” I told myself. Boy, did I speak too soon. After just 5 days of owning that BRAND NEW CAMRY, I noticed a crack in the windshield. Nothing had hit it – it just cracked. The crack started all the way at the end of the windshield on the driver’s side. I was crushed.

Through all my fears and apprehensions, I thought I was getting Toyota quality and craftsmanship. Upon seeing the crack, I called the dealership and spoke to someone in their repair shop. The woman was extremely unhelpful and told me that my warranty doesn’t cover glass and that they didn’t even fix glass and windshields in the shop.

A few days later, I drove the car to the dealership and spoke to the salesman who sold me the car – the same salesman who sent me pre-written “thank you” letters for choosing Darcars for my automotive needs, the same salesman who told me that if I needed anything, to just call. I told him about the crack and he didn’t even offer to look at it. Instead, he told me it would probably cost me a little over $100 to fix and offered to have their glass company call me.

I just signed up to spend $1700 on a car and wrote out a check for $2,000 as a deposit. Why would I want to spend another buck fifty on a new windshield!?!?! Alas, I awaited the phone call and it never came.

I’m going back to the dealership today to see if they will do anything for me but my high hopes have been dashed. I can’t say for sure but I feel like if I had stuck with American, the windshield would have at least held out for a couple years before cracking.

Update

This post is just so that I have all my thoughts/feelings written down and documented. Feel free to read or not read or just skim.


So, I spoke too soon and put way too much pressure on the rest of Saturday and Sunday to rise to my challenge of being better days than their predecessors. Saturday afternoon, I was at the hospital with all of my family members, tending to my grandmother, when I decided to call my father at the hospital. The CCU nurse told me that he wasn't able to speak because he had an oxygen mask on. This was startling because when I spoke to him on Thursday and Friday, he seemed fine and it looked like he was ready to leave the hospital.

So, my dad's nurse gets on the phone and starts saying something about oxygen and machines and I was very confused so I asked him to start from the begining - from when my father was brought into the hospital. He spoke for 15 minutes and I really didn't understand what he was saying most of the time. He went into a lot of detail - every turn of my dad's condition from his heart to his kidney (he has a donated one) and then, eventually, the current problem - his lungs. He would explain every medication they gave him and the result, but all of this in "doctor-talk," a foreign language that I don't understand. All I could gather from the nurse was that my father was in critical condition and while it was not necessary at that moment to fly down, if his condition did not improve within 24 hrs, a doctor would be contacting me because it would be very serious.

My family quickly nominated me to fly down to Tampa so I booked a ticket for that afternoon. Now, let me interject that it might sound like I was very together, when in fact, I was not. I was crying my eyes out and holding onto my cousins/uncles/mother/aunts for dear life when any of them reached over to hug me. Within a half hour, I was given more than enough cash to cover a hotel room, plane ticket and other expense while in Florida. Now, if these were normal circumstances, I would been ecstatic to have tons of cash (not my own) to spend while taking a vacation in Florida. Unfortunately, its not the case and I would give anything to be sitting in my room, reading a book on a typical, hum drum Saturday morning.

I said good bye to my family in my grandma's hospital room, including grandma herself and of course, I started bawling and so did everyone else in the room. I got home, grabbed a suitcase and started throwing random clothing into it, praying that I could turn some of it into a wearable outfit. My friend drove me to the airport, hugged me good bye and then I was on my own and a nervous wreck. To make matters worse, I got picked to go through the special security where I had to go through that machine that blows air at you and then a gruff looking security guard went through all my belongings with a fine tooth comb. Eventually, I found myself with an hour and a half before my flight started boarding and started to look for fun airport activities to calm my nerves.

Five minutes before I'm about to board, I've got a cup of coffee and a couple magazines (Ms. and Vanity Fair), a new pair of headphones and have started to calm down. My cell phone starts to ring and I look down and see it is my cousin, Asma calling. Thinking she is calling to tell me to have a safe flight, I pick up, cheerfully, trying to sound like the strong, responsible Aneesa they've sent to Tampa to take care of things. On the other end of the line is a tearful Asma who tells me my grandmother has just passed away.

Shit.

Now, I know that my friends have constantly joked with me about how my life often plays out like a television show or movie but this is starting to get ridiculous. I think that if all of these events happened to me within the span of 2 - 3 shows, the critics would say there's too much drama and that it won't make the ratings soar through the roof, as the producers had planned. It would backfire and there would be no Emmy nominations and no TV Guides that I would grace the cover of.

As my plane lands in Tampa, it is dark but I can still make out the palm trees, which gives me a strange feeling. Usually, whenever my plane lands any place where there are palm trees, I get excited because I know I'm in for a good time.

Ok, can't write any more. To be continued.