An Orgy of Neuroses

Preparations are proceeding swimmingly.  Well.  Not really.

• A French woman posted pics of “our” apartment in Istanbul.  Without going into too much detail, the 48 flickr pics included moldy mattresses, cockroaches and wiring secured with packing tape.  I sent the landlord a link and an inquiry regarding the veracity of this and **shockingly** received no response.  A $500 loss and a truckload of wisdom later, we moved on.
• I found an amazing apartment in a better part of town for slightly more.  It is spacious, has a doorman and belongs to a woman who has been nothing but charming and helpful.  Her day job is singing.  Let me introduce you to my new landlady:

Exiting has been a bit complicated.  We placed an ad for our house and I am currently researching if being a dumbass is a legally protected group. (I remember why I wrote this about our rental.)

We did, however, get an articulate response within 36 hours of placing the ad: clear intentions and decent grammar. It was….wait for it…the Department of Code Enforcement.  Apparently they troll Craigslist and look for people who are posting rentals, then cross reference that with whatever evil little black book they have in their dank and musty basement office.  Turns out, despite the fact our house was a rental when we bought it, it was never registered as a rental. Several phone calls, one visit and one impending visit later, we have a punch list that involves hard wiring smoke detectors, etc.  The “etc.” meaning about 2 grand.  Shit. (I will say that, despite the annoyance, they were a remarkably helpful bunch.)

We have also had a slew of scam artists, from Guam to South Carolina, answer our ads.  Among them a poorly researched claim to be enrolled in the UVM graduate oceanography/marine bio program.  I am a bit disappointed in the uncreative attempts to part us from our money, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to having a bit of sporting fun with this. I am particularly proud of one email I wrote, which can’t be reproduced here, for reasons of propriety.

Among my current neuroses:

• I wake up at 2 am and realize I forgot to buy health insurance for us for 6 months.
• I worry that only people with incontinent cats and criminal records will rent our beautiful house.
• As I have just spent serious quality time with my kids over the holidays, I wonder if 6 months of it will make me rush home and file the necessary paperwork to make them all emancipated minors.
• I love to work.  What the hell will I do with oodles of time? (Matt knows me well enough to worry about what I will cook up.)
• I am going to miss people.  Many, many people.

We leave in a little bit over a month.  On the docket:

1. Find tenants that don’t make me convulse like a frog in a blender.
2. Oral surgery next week.
3. Finishing packing things up.
4. Finding tenants that don’t drive me to say/do/perform something illegal.
5. Sending Matt to a conference about something I don’t understand, but he seems to be very excited about (emissions testing, bla bla, transportation engineering, ramble mumble, multi modal, yadda yadda…).
6. Getting the education plans for the kids finalized.
7. Finding tenants who do not make me want to remove their fillings with rusty nails.
8. Exiting from projects at work (kind of a downer for me).

I believe that is the post-holiday, pre-Turkey update.  And if you are wondering if I am getting excited…yes I am.  Utterly in awe that we made this work and that we are about to leave on this crazy adventure.