Hurricapocalypse 2011

Evacuation notice on our elevator.

Eh.

Not much to really report, aside from some cool pictures from around the city..... none of which, I might add, were taken by me.

For instance, this lovely shot of an empty Grand Central Station.

Or this shot of the Manhattan skyline this evening.

Or this shot of Penny being displeased.

Not really much to report. We packed our bags and prepped the apartment, pulling things off the floor and laying towels along the windows and the patio door to keep any water out. We have a tiny semi-clogged drain in our patio which serves as the only drainage, so that should be interesting. I did not bring my purses or anything like that, since we were expecting to have to make a 30 minute walk with a crap-ton of stuff, but all of that is up high.

We went out for lunch only to find that everything was closed, obviously, so we decided we might as well head out. Matt took a bunch of pictures of our disaster of an apartment, we finished our packing, and off we went!

It was pretty quiet on our end when we headed out. We managed to snag a cab, which was awesome, but with the flat-rate hurricane fees we ended up paying MORE than usual by about $2. When we got to Laura and Tino's building, we ran into Tino at the elevator. He was coming back from a failed grocery attempt, with one store being closed and the other having a line that wrapped around back into the frozen foods section.

We've pretty much just sat here all day watching the news. We took a break from that to watch a documentary about street artists called "Exit Through the Gift Shop," which was pretty interesting, but other than that it's been a pretty meh day. Lots of NYers complaining, lots of news coverage... little else.

Oh, Penny and Mr. Big (one of Laura and Tino's cats) had a brief love affair. They were sitting nose to nose separated by a semi-translucent sliding door, Mr. Big's little heart all aflutter. But alas, it was not meant to be. Penny hissed vehemently and sent her suitor packing, leaving Mr. Big a broken cat forced to take solace in the comfort of my feet.

I'll update more once we start to float away. Matt brought his camera. Hopefully we'll catch a good shot of some kayaking or something. If we don't get any good pictures, at least Matt has an awesome shirt for when we become depraved lunatics and start looting TVs.

The end of the world and stuff...

Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any to make a post.

We got a notice this morning asking us to pull everything off of our patio, so our already tiny living room is covered in patio furniture and plants.

As far as evacuations and such go, there are three hurricane zones: A, B, and C. As you can see from my lovely map, we are in Zone A.

They have already started evacuating hospitals and nursing homes in our zone, but we won't have an official word on if we have to leave until Saturday morning. The subway system will be shut down on Saturday, as will the Metro North train that would normally take us to Greenwich. Matt's aunt and uncle live just outside of the border of Zone C in No-Zone Land, so if we don't head for Greenwich tonight (which seems likely since his aunt and uncle and a bunch of other people are already there and there's probably no space), we've got a key to the building and we'll head over when the order is given (or when we feel like we should).

Where we'll go, in case you're wondering.

They have ordered everyone off of Long Beach Island, so all the menfolk went down to the beach house yesterday to get it ready before the island is closed off. It's a barrier island that is only about 10 lots wide at its widest, I think, so we'll see how that goes.

In other news...

• Penny hates the air conditioner
• I've not heard back from Etsy yet, although I imagine they're busy trying to figure out a hurricane plan since they're in Brooklyn
• My DBA paperwork FINALLY came in, so I have to have it notarized and mailed back to them so they can process it. Not sure if that's going to happen before next week...
• We watched the Formula One documentary 'Senna' last night at the movie theater, and it was very good. It's about Aryton Senna (you may/may not have heard of him), a famous Brazilian race car driver who died in 1994. If you can find a place that is showing it, you might like it.

Oh well, I suppose after the press conference today we will know more, so I'll keep you updated. <3

No Longer Homeless!!!!

Well, we finally closed yesterday!! Matt had to sign his name about 30 times - most of which he swears he already signed. The painter will hopefully start this Friday and be out by next Tuesday night. Unfortunately, because you can only have contractors in cond-ops Monday through Friday from 9am-4pm, he can't do any work this weekend, but hopefully it won't take too long.

When you walk into the apartment, you have the kitchen immediately to your left, with sliding doors covering the pantry and (ZOMG) wine shelf to your right. All of these shelves are movable, so we can arrange the pantry closet any way we like!

The kitchen is very narrow, but still pretty great. The fridge is the exact same one Matt had in San Francisco. The stove is gas. We also have a microwave and dishwasher, and gorgeous counter tops. Tons of storage, although not a lot of counter space. There is an opening overlooking the bar and the living room, with shelving above it.

The living room is spacious, with just a couple weird angles to deal with where it meets the bathroom. We're looking to put the TV in the corner there on the bottom picture, with the sofa across from it, and then the small amount of space that will be left next to the sofa may go towards my sewing set-up.

Oh hey, it's the bathroom. Looks like work has been done on the leak the inspector found. Note to self: always use inspector. The couple hundred dollars is worth the peace of mind (and saves you the cost of paying for repairs yourself later on). Oh, and by the way, we have a peacock shower curtain! Muahaha!

The bedroom is going to be interesting. The bed is huge, the dresser is huge, the bookcases are huge........ we'll just have to see how everything fits. We're pretty sure Penny is going to love the huge windowsills.

And finally, last but certainly not least, the patio!! The previous owners left behind some great patio furniture, and from our 2nd floor balcony (that's right, Momma, we're on the 2nd floor!), you can see the courtyard below and the Highline Park off to the left.

We should hopefully be in sometime next week! If you're interested in the paint colors, they are by Benjamin Moore:

Paper White (OC-55) - living room
Green Tint (2139-60) - bathroom and kitchen
Misty Gray (2124-60) - bedroom

We got a huge tan-ish rug with an interesting texture for the living room, as well as a chair from LoveSac (bahaha!), and then a long shag rug with brown, blue, gray, and tan for the bedroom called "Dandy Dan".

More pictures to come once we're in!