Last night we sat before a dozen or so total strangers and they looked deep into our souls, and then decided as a group that we were welcome to spend our own money in the pursuit of living next to them and sharing their bills.
To you blessed people who have no idea what I’m talking about, we were approved to buy an apartment in a New York co-op. Aside from my genetic predisposition against anything ever done by committee ever (because “committee” is really just a few letters away from “commie”!), this is very, very exciting. Well, mostly it’s exciting in that way that watching snails race across Montana would be exciting.
Because, people, buying an apartment in a co-op building, it’s SLOW. It’s slower than snails. Here’s how this whole thing started.
Back over the New Year, Stuart and I house-sat for Beth and Eric and the indomitable Dexter. This accomplished several things – it made me love Method cleaning products, and it convinced Stuart and I that moving to a new neighborhood might be really fun. Also, having a dog is the bomb.
Putting aside the gut-wrenching agony that is leaving a neighborhood that I love so much it’s almost a character in my life, we started looking on the web at places to buy. Yes, BUY.
A few weeks later on a rainy Saturday in January (yes, four months ago), Stuart and I very grumpily got off the subway in eastern Sunset Park, near 8th avenue, and started towards our first visit together. We got there and trudged up four flights of stairs in a simple, well-built light brick building, and the realtor opened the door and showed us, basically, this.
preview
[For those of you who crave more, here's my steady but fast video and Stuart's thorough but Blair-Witch video.]
It’s a pre-war beauty with parquet floors, french doors connecting the living room and office, a fully renovated separate kitchen, with high ceilings and beautiful walls, it’s a block from Sunset Park and 15 minutes from Park Slope, and we fell head over heels in love. So in love that we didn’t want to see anything else.
We did. We saw about 17 other apartments that week. The following Saturday, we did another tour of the Sunset Park one (the one we kept referring to as “ours”) and we realized we’d been right the first time. We made an offer the next day, and it was accepted. And here we are, four MONTHS later, with all the straggly little pieces finally coming together for a closing. Oh, that blessed closing! When, incsh’allah, we will get keys to this beauty and it will be totally ours.
People, we are moving. The snails are crossing the finish line soon and I am so freaking excited.
Plus also, now we can get a dog. Which, you just KNOW, is the real reason we’re moving.

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