This weekend I celebrated
ONE MONTH of my spanking new life
in Norfolk, Va. I’ve made 3 major moves in my life: from home/college/JMU
to Washington, D.C. in 1984, New York City in 1995… and now, some 18 years
later, a truly arbitrary relocation… as I recognized the time was
ripe to
renew, challenge and indulge a gentler quality of life.
I’ve discussed all the
why’s that I was ready to leave NYC
previously, so let’s pick up four weeks ago, shall we? Unfortunately, it’s not
all pretty.
Leaving New York was a living hell—not emotionally, but
logistically… The Thursday eve before I was closing on my Brooklyn Heights
apartment, I hosted a casual finale gathering at Central Bar, a familiar haunt
from my Billboard mag days. It was perfection: dozens rolled in and offered a
farewell toast.
Ready for this? When I got home that night (here’s the part
I’ve never publicly shared, because it’s too damn depressing), I was feeling
all warm & fuzzy and went to bed, looking forward to moving ever closer to
wrapping up my apartment sale the following Tuesday. And then, at 1:15 in the
morning, I awoke to the sound of rain—only instead of coming from outside, it
was clearly INSIDE my apartment.
Turns out the apartment above me—after single-digit temps
the week before—had a radiator within a wall and as temps warmed up and the
pipe expanded, it BURST, creating what ultimately became a
4-hour WATERFALL in
my kitchen. I scrambled to wake the resident (who, ironically, suffered NO
damage in her apartment) and my super and the building’s coop president…
Ultimately, while the water in the entire building was turned off, it just kept
raining and raining from the ceiling.
I sat on the floor scooping water into a trashcan, trying
like hell to keep it from flowing overtop the saddle that separated my kitchen
from the rest of my home. Had it seeped over the top, my hardwood floors would
be ruined, not to mention my furniture, carpets, etc. Let’s just say my entire
apartment would have been fucked. And so too, would I be.
There were times I simply paused, wondering if the water
would ever stop coming down—if using the dog’s food dish to scoop 8 ounces of
water at a time was laughably futile. It rained through my kitchen pantry,
through the ceiling drywall seams (which melted away), and then THROUGH the
ceiling fan and along the edges of the walls. The wall outside the kitchen
bubbled up like a fat man, filled with water. The wood moldings began to swell…
This, of course, is within the week that I am set to sell my apartment…
One friend termed it beautifully: “That is just UNFAIR.”
Indeed, it was well after 4 a.m. when the water slowed to a drip… and somehow I
did manage to scoop scoop scoop scoop scoop for
3 hours and keep it from
tipping the edge into the rest of the apartment… as I sat on the floor,
drenched, in an inch of cold water, wondering if this was going to sabotage the
sale of my apartment and ultimately short circuit everything that I had been
planning since September.
The next day my coop, thankfully, moved into high gear, as I
discovered that not only was my kitchen wrecked, but the first-floor unit below
me, into the basement, where dozens of storage units were also flooded. Can I
mention again that the rez above me that wreaked all havoc had a small paper
towel kinda puddle in her apartment? Yeah, thanks a lot…
But then, as is typical in a New York cooperative, things
became... difficult.
At first, management sent a drywall dude (DD) to start
tearing down the damage in my ceilings and walls. Miraculously, my cabinets,
granite counters and ceramic floors were unharmed… but, of course, everything
was drenched. So over the next 4 days, DD returned again & again to try and
deal with the disaster, which took days to even begin to dry out and be ready
to repair… that is, until…
On day
4, my building manager contacts DD and tells him to STOP
working in my apartment, cause there are insurance issues and the coop has
decided that I am re$ponsible for $ome of the en$uing work. Okay, fine. But it would have been constructive if you'd told ME, before calling DD and telling him not to show... as it's now TWO days before my buyers' scheduled walk-through.
In the end, on Sunday, I begged DD to return to finish the
work, and ultimately paid him a small fortune out of pocket so that when my buyers
came in that Tuesday, they would see that all good
faith had been pursued to SOLVE a problem, instead of presenting them with one
(of course, I notified all parties of the disaster Friday morning).
Oh, but it gets worse (before it gets a lot better). TO BE CONTINUED!!
As I wait for some, ahem, legalities to be cleared up before I continue my One Month In Norfolk tome, let's dispel with so many words and take a pictorial triptych through the first five weeks in my new home. The word, cool cats, is BLISS! I am blessed, I am happy and I am having a blast in this house that, to me, is a work of art. *
Leaving New York was a living hell—not emotionally, but
logistically… The Thursday eve before I was closing on my Brooklyn Heights
apartment, I hosted a casual finale gathering at Central Bar, a familiar haunt
from my Billboard mag days. It was perfection: dozens rolled in and offered a
farewell toast.
The Thursday before I departed NYC for Hampton Roads, I invited friends from two decades-past to join in a final toast at Central Bar—where I used to hang nearly every Friday with my pals during the Billboard days.
