Somewhere a Place for Us

Speaking of cats, our friends are going to come home to find seven feet worth of claw marks on the walls leading out their front door, from where M. had to drag me out of the apartment to make the return trip to Manhattan. It's been that nice. Like, two-days-feels-like-five-days, been-on-a-caribbean-cruise, pass-the-Uncle-Louie-G's-holi-cannoli-ice nice.

The good news is that I've officially reassessed and retracted my red alert bulletin to get the Hell Out of Dodge, having realized that all that stands between me and a saner life in New York City is a spacious two bedroom apartment on a quiet tree-lined street with a private back yard in Brooklyn.

The bad news is that I have retained enough conscience to know that It Would Be Wrong to follow through with my plan to frame our friends for a semi-lethal misdemeanor and have them extradited to Istanbul so that we can squat on their apartment long enough to legally call it our own. Bad for my karma, bad for the cats, bad for our friendship.


We did see one studio in Carroll Gardens this afternoon, masquerading as a one bedroom, which was actually pretty sweet albeit Too Tiny For Two, plus there was the crazy unabomber child molester co-tenant who gets a break on his rent for showing vacant apartments and handling minor tasks like sweeping the hallways and burying his neighbors under his sink, not to mention a gigantic backyard laying a mere three tempting feet below the living room window which was completely overgrown and designated No Entry due to some sort of vague "insurance reasons".

We also saw a gigantic two bedroom in Prospect Heights, which we loved for its size and sunlight and quirky amalgam of oddly-shaped and -sized rooms, but hated for its dingy elementary school gymnasium linoleum tile flooring throughout the entire apartment.

So we'll wait until something better comes along, and in the meantime we'll recall our wedding vows and remember to be happy with what we've got (and that's a lot), and the insanity of 9th Avenue will be tempered by the secure knowledge that A Better Place Exists and, for now, the cats will keep their home.