I don’t normally write blogs, but I felt the ability to finally speak of 2007 in past tense merited some reflection… And if this feels good… I might just make a habit of blogging. Who knows?
2007 started on a fairly innocent note. I had six months left to plan the wedding of my dreams. Six months being an eternity to a serial procrastinator. I had just started a new job in September, and despite a few rounds of layoffs to surrounding strangers – I was enjoying it immensely… Being challenged daily.
We were renting a house in
As the wedding neared, the pressure mounted. Any bride will tell you that planning a wedding is, in it and of itself – a part-time job. Factor in that we were planning this event while residing four hours away, that my event-planning mother lived six hours away, and that I’m a horribly stubborn perfectionist – and you have the recipe for anything but a smooth planning process.
Come April (2 months before the big day), my Bay Area counterpart gave her notice, successfully reducing my company’s amount of marketing personnel in
During this time, as if we didn’t have enough to do, we started our search for the perfect house to purchase. This had been a dream of mine since I was 17… A place of my own again, where when we move in and set our belongings down, we wouldn’t be forced to move them again in 9 months after our lease had expired. Where I could paint the walls, and personalize my space freely. Where I would finally be putting money into an investment, and not into someone else’s pocket……….
The end of April brought the descent of our depraved landlord into our personal lives. We knew this woman was a bit batty – but for as long as we had lived there, we hadn’t really had the need to encounter her more than a few times. Things were peaceful… Until she had apparently become victimized by the media’s assault on the housing market and decided that she immediately needed to list her house for sale – with four months left on our lease. …Being two months from our destination wedding, in over my head with my new professional responsibility and with Matt suddenly working weekends – we were not prepared to research our rights on proper realtor access and landlord liberties. Needless to say, over the next three months, we were essentially subjected to 7-hour open houses, where realtors were given permission to freely enter our home with or without us there on the weekdays (and 6 hours on the weekends). When we went to object, this bat-shit crazy motherfucker only became more aggressive in her behavior, eventually screaming at Matt about what a pain in the ass we were and how we were hindering the sale of her property. Numerous correspondences were traded between us, flanked by false accusations and deliberate attempts to lay the groundwork for something beyond a peaceful lease execution.
Once our Big Day was approaching, we asked Matt’s sister to stay at our home with Thelma for the three weeks we’d be gone. We informed our landlord of this and let her know we expected Anna to receive the same rights we had requested (mainly a 24-hour notice before any realtor or landlord entry). She said she might call with a courtesy notice…. Upon our return, we learned that she had held an open house on a Sunday, only after rifling through our belongings and shoving things in cabinets to “straighten up” without our consent. There was one incident in particular where Anna had reasonably denied a realtor entrance after a 4-hour notice was given, and it was past the agreed upon visitation hours. This led to the 3-day notice we received 9 days after we arrived home from our honeymoon. When Matt called to speak with Fuckface, she laughed and said “I’m evicting you… And I suggest you leave before I fuck up your credit."
…To backtrack slightly – on May 19, we had put down a deposit on a new home in
So. We high-tailed it out of there in a total of 6 days. We packed up a pod in 107-degree heat on the fourth of July with the help of Matt’s gracious family. We found a shoe-box of an apartment in
And for the next four months, while our home was being built, we lived in a third-story, one-bedroom apartment with a dog whose bladder is the size of a peanut, and with two-thirds of our belongings in storage... living off paper plates (my brilliant idea so we didn’t have more stuff to move), and were accompanied by approximately one bed, one table, two fold up chairs, a tv and stand, and eight of my ill-fated plants. It was like college again. But worse.
Twenty days later, we learn our landlord managed to use every last dime of our $1,950 in security deposits to replace her carpet and patch her walls. After 10 months of residency. She also delightfully declined to return $964 in prorated rent after cashing our July rent check on July 2nd, the same day we were served with a 3-day notice. She’s a peach, ain’t she?
In the mean time, I am on layoff round #9… Still trucking. Matt is also seeing his company start down the shitter. I think we’re both amazed to see that we’ve made it to 2008. ……Why not leave the industry, you say? Why not find some more stable ground? Well, if you’ve been asleep for the past 16 paragraphs, I was not about to rock this vessel any further, for I would surely have drown. And secondly, we both absolutely adore this industry. Yes, it has many flaws – mainly its constant decline… But real estate and housing/property is something we are both extremely interested in and eventually want to invest in and profit off of! I guess you could say, we have this deep down hope that the industry will turn, and we’ll still be around – ripe for the picking for management, since all of them got laid off months ago. Idealistic? Sure. But you’ll learn that this is my only frame of reference. So I am terminally set up for a life of dissatisfaction. Don’t think I’m not aware.
My wedding was AMAZING. I made it a point to stress about anything and everything up until three days before. After that, there was nothing I could do about it anyway. An
d that was the best planning decision I made. When my day rolled around, and the day before I learned my make up artist was fired, and I ended up with this horrid women who didn’t know the first thing about cosmetic application – I took it all in stride. Nothing was going to ruin my day. I applied my own make up, and it turned out pretty good, dammit. 54-degree weather and clouds accompanied our rehearsal the night before, but on the 9th, we were graced with 67-degree heat and puffy clouds. The skies opened up.
...And I got to promise my life to my best friend. And follow it all up with two glorious weeks in paradise...
Jumping past the torture that was apartment life... On a 
surreal November 6th afternoon, we got the keys to our new home. ...And for the first time, we promptly shut the front door and started rolling around on our brand new living room carpet. (Get your mind out of the gutter!) …….It’s been two months now and I still stare in awe at it every day.
On November 23rd, we welcomed a new addition to our family – Wynona (pronounced WINona… None of this Wyyyynona country crap)… A boxer/lab (a "boxador", if you will), brindle-coat puppy, rescued from a
On December 11, Matt and I started GMAT prep courses, to ensure us passing our MBA program entrance exam on the first try. We look forward to (and are really nervous) about embarking on our new educational journey in the Fall of 2008.
So, yeah. 2007. I survived. And 2008 can (and will) only be better. You might be wondering how a year where a girl gets her dream wedding, a promotion, a new home, AND a new puppy could be one of the most trying of her life… And I honestly wonder the same thing. I can only chalk it up to a year of extreme personal ups and downs. A year I wouldn’t relive if you gave me a thousand dollars. …Maybe a million.
Without sounding like a total cheeseball (which I will surely fail miserably at)… My husband is the reason I can write about this and not just can it up and be bitter about it for the next 40 years.
He has been my rock over the past few bumpy months and I am so thankful I had someone by my side to share in my grief and misfortune (sorry baby, but I am). Weathering this together has only made our relationship stronger, and just reaffirms all the reasons I coyly asked him out for a drink over the salad station in the kitchen of that Olive Garden so long ago. I love you with all my heart. And thank you.
Last, but not least, our small claims court date to retrieve funds from our favorite landlord is on the morning of February 1st. Wish us luck!! That bitch is going down…
