Month: April 2008

Moving! Stage 1 of 2

With our move-out date (May 17) rapidly approaching, it became clear that we weren’t going to have a condo in time to move straight from our current apartment. We asked about moving to another unit in the same place and staying month-to-month, but they wanted a minimum 3-month occupancy, and $200/month on top of the market value for the privilege of not signing a lease. With the post-renovation price hikes, the result was that it would have cost us more to rent a studio than we’ve been paying for our 2-bedroom apartment. Not an option.

alenxa found a place just a few blocks away that does everything month-to-month, was reasonably priced, and isn’t in a scary part of town. We toured the property and filled out an application on Monday, and signed the paperwork this morning.

So we have a place to live!

Pros:

  • We don’t have to put all our belongings in storage and move in with my parents for a few weeks.
  • Once we find someplace permanent, we won’t have to break a lease to move out.
  • We already know the nearby grocery stores, restaurants, etc.
  • It’s quiet.
  • It’s reasonably located for my commute.
  • It’s on the ground floor.
  • Laundry room uses a card system instead of quarters.

Cons:

  • It’s smaller (1 bedroom), so we still have to move some stuff into storage. But even including the storage cost, it’s still cheaper than that studio would have been.
  • There’s no guest parking, and street parking is extremely limited.
  • There’s no dishwasher. I think I can deal with that for a few weeks/months.
Current Mood: 🙂relieved

Sound and Image

A month or two ago I dug out a bunch of CDs I hadn’t listened to in years, including some musical-related stuff, and started importing songs into iTunes. My plan was to play the albums first, then pick out which songs I wanted, but it didn’t quite work out, so I put a lot of stuff on just from memory, or in some cases just imported the whole album with the idea that I’d remove anything I found myself skipping. Some worked out well. Others… well the Man of La Mancha suite from Quantum Leap just wasn’t as good as I remembered.

So today, as alenxa and I were driving around to look at condos, Bernadette Peters came on, singing “Cupid.” It was a bit more easy listening-sounding than I remembered, but not cringe-inducingly-so… and then my brain stepped in to “enhance” it.

You see, we’re also working our way through the third volume of Animaniacs on DVD. I found myself picturing Rita (as in Rita and Runt) singing the song.

“Brain, stop it!” I said.

Katie: “Is yours doing the same thing mine is?”

“I think so…”

“On a fence post?”

“Yep.”

In house hunting news, we found a couple of good possibilities. Well, one good possibility, and one that was really nice, but the rooms were way too small. Fantastic view, though.

And then there was the place that had been trashed so badly that when I dropped my sunglasses, I refused to pick them up. Ugh.

Current Music: Cupid (still in my head)

Not Walking in LA

After Wayzgoose on Saturday afternoon (where we caught up with various fellow UCI alumni including wayens ), alenxa  and I went to see My Fair Lady that evening at the Ahmanson. It was a very enjoyable performance, though there were times when I couldn’t quite catch what people were singing — especially Higgins, in his sort of speak-singing numbers, and almost anything involving Eliza’s father. (Surprise casting: Marni Nixon as Mrs. Higgins.)

We finally decided to try having dinner in downtown LA instead of eating early or in the car. It turns out that a lot of downtown restaurants offer free shuttle service to the Music Center. The restaurant we picked was Cuidad, and was very good, though a bit pricey.

Coming Up

Things I’m looking forward to in the next few months:

  • Having a new place to live.
  • Going to see Bernadette Peters in concert.
  • Firefox 3 being released (I’ll get to use inline-block on websites!).
  • Our annual trip to Comic-Con.
  • Seeing my name in print as a contributor to The Flash Companion (about the comic character, not the animation format).

Things I’m not looking forward to in the same time period:

  • Getting that new place to live.  All the financial crap and wrangling.
  • Packing everything up to move.  I think I won’t mind the actual moving as much as the packing.
  • The possibility that we might have to move twice, if we manage to buy a place but it isn’t ready for move-in before we have to clear out of this place.
  • Possible shuffling around on projects at work.
Current Mood: 😡stressed