Say "Cheese"!

Three statements you just won't hear in NYC:

1. "I just can't get enough of the vegan pizza here"
2. "Good thing there aren't any decent cheese shops in Manhattan"
3. "Give me a pumpernickel bagel and hold the cream cheese"

What's one thing that pizza and bagels have in common? Where's the best celebrity watching in Manahattan and also where I have a $50 gift certificate to from my BFF? What was I looking forward to saying to "Randy" my fictitious neighborhood bagel monger every day?

"Hey Randy, give me a pumpernickel bagel with veggie cream CHEESE!".

I suppose if I asked you to guess what food item I just found out I'm ridiculously allergic to you would be able to guess pretty quickly. CHEESE!

How can you move to Manhattan and be allergic to cheese? How will establish I my friendship with "Randy"? What will I say when someone comes to visit and asks "Where's the best pizza"?.

Food is a major part of my life. Eating is more than the thing I do too keep from passing out. It's an absolute passion. Cooking, shopping for it, reading about it and of course eating it. And I am planning to do a lot of it in NYC, starting with pizza and my favorite bagel monger. So this little discovery is more than a set back. it's like some sick joke! Basically the same as moving to Seattle and being allergic to salmon and coffee. What's the frickin' point already?!

I'm slightly devastated. Well on the bright side, I guess I will just have to turn my street food intentions towards hot dogs or falafels. I am officially now accepting your favorite NYC street food alternatives!

My First Meltdown

I'm an obsessive planner. I love to plan things and then proceed to make myself crazy doing it. Lately, almost every person that I talk to asks the same question "How's the move planning going", to which I reply with complete composure, " Great! We are just moving along as planned. It's really busy but its coming along just fine". And then I just hope no one but me can hear the screams of panic inside my head as I try not to go off the deep end in public.

Well, it happened. Thankfully not in public. We all knew it would, especially MDHK (who now more than ever deserves the "D" in My Darling Husband Kent). Last Friday night we were enjoying a quiet, intimate moment, nuzzled together in an after-work nap when I had to go and ruin it by bringing up my current source of stress and obsession; the estate sale. Feeling much like I've been working in a vaccum on this project because MDHK has been extremely busy at work I had it all planned out in my mind. Unfortunately I forgot to inform him. So when I said, "Are you ready to start going through the house and setting up for the estate sale next weekend?" he acted like I had just landed from Mars. Not the reaction I was looking for. Of course I responded like any level headed, rational, adult, female would; I FREAKED THE HELL OUT! Not just a little but a lot (super unattractive and really bad for your complection I might add).

Once I calmed down long enough to ask MDHK what he needed to get on board with this program a few things became very clear:

1. I was not from Mars

2. All he needed was to see it in a schedule, which he promptly produced in Microsoft Project

3. He was not only on-board he was ready to kick into high gear, which we have for the last 3 days.

4. I was going to owe him one really special dinner of his choice (which turned out to be paella Sunday night).

5. As suspected and repeatedly learned, we own a lot of stuff!

And if you are curious about our estate sale and want to see what it looks like to get rid of 60% of your belongs in one weekend you can visit our listing http://www.nwsource.com/classifieds/scr/detail/?id=15761873

A Girl's Prerogative

Isn't it said that a girl's pregogative is to change her mind? (first you have to know how to spell it!). Ok, so I've changed my mind.

Through a friend, of a friend, of a friend (got that?) I have found THE place to live in NYC. However, it is not in TriBeCa. It's on the Upper West Side. Kinda a ways up there (West 71st) actually, by my standards. But I'm sure that there's a bagel place around the corner and if his name isn't Rodney it's something like Marcus or Len. I have my priorities.

SERIOUSLY, this place is IT. It's huge by NYC standards at a lofty 1,000 sqr ft with 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, updated kitchen and now, it's a block from 'The Park' (for those that don't know, that's Central Park). But here's the clincher. The bedroom has one whole wall of closets! Three of them to be exact. Two for me and one for MDHK, of course. Its so gorgeous and so perfect I can hardly type straight. BUT.... (you had to that was coming) its currently listed for sale at a price that is probably twice what my house in Seattle is worth. BUT...she is considering renting it for maybe what we might be able to afford.

ok, I know what you are thinking, "Snap out of it". I don't even live there yet and I'm already broke. Oh, but you have got to see it. Come to think of it, when you do, let me know if its all 'that'!

Reality Check 1.01 THE UPDATE

I ask you; Does this look like the face of someone who is living in baby exile? Week 1 of the BFF's new baby, a.k.a. Calla Marie Rihnsmith. The lovechild of our best friends Annie and Ethan. As you well know by my earlier post "Reality Check 1.0" I have spent 9 months waiting to be put in baby exile when Annie had her baby. Instead she arrived and I realized that my moving to NYC wasn't such great timing afterall.

Well, let's just say after one week we are all smitten with Calla, The BFF still remembers my name, I got them a webcam for their laptop so we can Skype, and I might not be such a looser afterall for leaving so soon into little Calla's life.

Or at least I hope not.

Yes, Naomi I guess I can believe that I'm moving to NYC

I've been going to my esthetician for about 7 years. Not even your hair stylist can know 'your business' the way an esthetician can, especially when she's giving you your monthly Bikini Extreme wax (we all have our indulgences and necessities). Naomi knows the business of half of Seattle. She's that good and that discreet.

Mid-way through tinting my eyebrows she just stopped and said "I can't believe you are moving to New York". YOU can't believe it? What about ME?! It's like a dream come true everyday. So much of a dream come true that I shared with her my complete vision of how my life will be and what it will look like. Right down to my fictitious neighborhood bagel dude who will be named Rodney.

It goes something like this:

"I live in a 750 sqr ft apartment in TriBeCa with a rooftop deck. It has a small updated kitchen in an open format with a bar/counter and a view of the living room. A small but efficient bedroom and an even smaller office/spare bedroom loft space with a wallbed that converts to a desk.

Every morning I go to the bodega for a coffee (small problem here, I don't actually drink coffee anymore) on my way to the bagel shop where I'm greeted by Rodney (why I've decided to call him Rodney I don't know) who lives with his grandma Gracie in Queens. Rodney doesn't bother to call me by my name. No, he has his own name for the lady from Seattle. He says to me each day "Hey Smiley! What'll it be? A pumpernickel bagel with veggie cream cheese today for ya?". To which I reply "You bet Rodney. How's Gracie doing today?". And so it goes...

On Saturdays MDHK and I wake up at 9:30, go for a run on the West Side Highway, come back, take a shower together, make love (because we don't have any house maintenance to distract us), go visit Rodney for bagels and catch flick at the local cinema."

So, YES Naomi I guess I can believe that I am moving to NYC.

Reality Check 1.0

For nine months I've approached the impending arrival of my best friend Annie's baby with the attitude that it will be as if she moved away. She will live an alternate universe from me on a different planet and in a different time zone. Being of the child-free-by-choice variety it seemed that I was the one staying the same and she had made the decision to 'move away'.

Today was that day. Little Girl Rihnsmith arrived as Calla Marie. She's beautiful. I mean it. In the midst of feeling love and joy for my best friends I felt a tremdous amount of sadness. I realized that its not Annie that is departing for the alternate universe. Its me. I am moving away at the begining of Calla's life and the biggest adventure of Annie's. I feel like I am letting her down and that I will be missing out on something very special that I will now have to view via Skype and a webcam. Lame.

Our move to the Big Apple has felt like a dream come true until now. Suddenly it feels like a very grave departure from something extremely dear. Reality check 1.0.

Twister Puked on My House

As I mentioned earlier, we have 13 years of accummulation in our house. As if that wasn't enought we just completed (almost) a year and half long basement remodel which included buying additional new furniture for the living room. And now I have to reduce all of this down to a small New York apartment.

Obviously multiple estate and yard sales will be in order, but where to begin. It occured to me to ask my friend Tricia Wells who recently helped her mother move from their large family home into a smaller retirement community home. She and her husband also live in a very small and efficient condo on Queen Anne. I just had a hunch she'd have some ideas and she did.

You know those packs of Avery colored dots you get at any office supply store? I don't know what their original intent is but they've become a brilliant way for me to organize everything in my house based on its fate. RED=sell, GREEN=take to NYC, YELLOW=donate, BLUE=dibbed by a friend. I spent all day identifying, sticking and a little tossing too. Next time you have a lot of stuff to organize turn your house into a Twister party aftermath.