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Hooray for Bar Stools!

19 Jul

No one ever tells you how difficult it is to decorate an apartment, especially when you’re not the savviest of designers. But today I can cross one to-do off the decorating search list: I got bar stools! (Actually, I ordered them about a month ago, but I picked them up today.) It only took me three months to find the right pair (and by the way, they look better in person than they do in that photo). They’re nice: comfortable to sit in, they swivel, and they’re made of microfiber, so they’re easy to clean. And, now I have the option of sitting at my kitchen table or sitting at the counter when I eat. And when I use my computer, now I don’t have to stand. Oh, happy day. Thank you, Chair Fair. Now if I could just find some nice things to put on the walls (other than Amanda Bynes posters, thank you) … then my new place wouldn’t seem so “new” anymore. But hey, what’s the rush? I’ll find stuff I like all in due time.

Who You Callin’ Chicken?

18 Jul

I like an awful lot of things about my new apartment, but if I had to pick one thing I definitely do not like, it’s my local food options.

I think I’ve now tried every pizza and sandwich shop in Cleveland Circle — Pino’s, Presto, Eagle’s Deli, Roggies, etc. — and I’ve basically had the same thing at every one of them: a chicken cutlet sub. (Often it’s parmigiana.) I have to say, not a one of them has left me feeling satisfied. I mean, how hard is it to put a couple pieces of chicken on a toasted roll, and add mayo and lettuce.

It’s simple, right?

Well, Thursday night I tried Eagle’s Deli for the first time, and that may have been the worst one of all. Continue reading →

What Time Is It?

17 Jun

So here’s what I don’t get: Why a store that advertises being open until 9 p.m. doesn’t stay open until 9 p.m. Ever since Boston College‘s graduation, the stores in the strip near the T stop never operate with consistent hours. Yes, I know a large portion of their business is away for the summer, but if they’re going to have shortened hours, why don’t they just put up different signs, instead of telling customers they’re still open until 9 p.m. and then closing early whenever they feel like it. Take College Sub, for example. A couple weeks ago I got home from work around 8:30 and thought I’d stop in for a quick sammidge instead of cooking dinner. I walked in, saw the guys behind the counter cleaning up, and they yelled out, “We’re closed!” Hello? The same’s true at Flat Breads, which I don’t think has stayed open until 9 p.m. once since early May. I’m fine with these places closing early. I just don’t understand why they won’t put it in writing so I (and other people like me) don’t expect them to be open when they say they will be.

I’m Home

16 Jun

Finally. Of all the random mailings I got soon after I moved into my new place, the one thing I didn’t get that I actually needed was return address labels. Not that I have a hard time remembering what my new address is or anything (unlike, say, my new phone number, which I still don’t know off-hand), but it’s always so much easier to just stick a sticker on an envelope with my return address than to write the damned thing out every time I need to mail a bill payment or send a card. But more than a cure for my laziness, the labels mean I officially live here, in Chestnut Hill, and I have the official return address stickers to prove it. More so than my brand new driver’s license, these say to me, “Martin, you’re home.” So to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, thank you. Look for one of these stickers to arrive in your mailbox soon, with a token of my appreciation inside the envelope.

Just What I Need: More Junk

28 Apr

The funny thing about moving into a new place is that people all of a sudden want to give you stuff. No, I’m not talking about the housewarming gifts I’ve received from family and friends. I’m talking about the endless stream of junk mail that’s arrived in my mailbox ever since I first put my key in the door a month ago. Within days of activating my mail, I was receiving “welcome to to your new home!” mailings from the U.S. Postal Service, Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, Whole Foods, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Welcome Wagon, Welcome Neighbor U.S.A., and other companies and organizations filled with coupons and other special offers and tchotchkeys (like a magnetic message board) just for moving to a new condo and being a homeowner. And that doesn’t include the endless mortgage protection mailings I’ve been sent, informing me about what will happen to my mortgage should something tragic happen to me, or the postcards telling me about blinds and drapes specialists or gardening companies or other servicefolk who offer things I don’t need.

Don’t get me wrong: I like getting mail. I may subscribe to a lot of magazines, but other than that, my mail is generally just bills. Still, I assumed that one of the benefits of moving to a brand new place (not just for me, but completely brand new) was that I wouldn’t be on any pre-existing mailing lists and thus, I’d be safe from the catalogs and other direct-mail stuff I got at my old place. No dice. I suppose when I was signing all those forms at the closing, one of them must have read “Please add me to all the mailing lists that exist for residents of Newton.” That’ll teach me to read what I sign.

It’s nice that people want to give me stuff, even if it is coupons and discounts for things I don’t really need. But if these companies really wanted to earn a new customer, they’d give me something I actually want, like a high definition TV. Oh, how I wish that would fit in my mailbox. Oh well.

Honey, I’m Home!

6 Apr

If there’s one thing I learned this weekend during the move, it’s that I, Martin Lieberman, am quite good with the spatial relations.

You see, all was going pretty well Saturday morning. Other than some early-morning mist, the rain mostly held off. The elevator in my building was on the fritz, but somehow it worked until the last load had been brought down, and then it died.

The movers got to me a little bit later than expected, but it gave me some extra time to take care of some last-minute packing I didn’t do the night before. So it was all good.

But when we got to my new place and started to unload the truck, my couch wouldn’t fit through the apartment door. The movers tried multiple ways of fitting it through the door, but none worked because the doorway was too thin, the stairway was in the way, and the sprinkler system was inches too low from the ceiling.

They were giving up, and the couch was going to have to go down in my storage unit; I would have to buy a new one. Continue reading →

Movin’ On Out

4 Apr

One last post before I pack up my computer here at 110 Babcock — or simply “The ‘Cock,” as someone called it last night. The apartment is pretty empty; other than furniture and books, most everything else has been moved to my new place. As expected, packing has been a fun experience; I’ve found all kinds of stuff I hadn’t seen since I moved in (old photos, a bag full of Louis, etc.) and taking a week to move in gradually before the actual movers came has turned out to be a great idea.

After more than six years in one place, it’ll be a real adjustment to have my life centered elsewhere, but I’ll be fine (of course). There’s a lot I’ll miss about this building (the location, mostly), but in the end, I’m very happy to be moving on (thank you, violin players and noisy, insensitive neighbors and price-gouging management company). In fact, it gives me immense pleasure to know that I’ll be going out with a bang — my movers are scheduled to arrive at 8 a.m. tomorrow. Now, you know how I feel about noise on Saturday mornings when I’m trying to sleep late. But after all these months of tolerating the violins and the flutes and the pianos and the loud talking and smoking outside my window and the late-night phone calls next door and the smelly cooking and all the shoes left in the hallway and the rude neighbors who don’t hold the door open when you’re right behind them and the heavy-footed upstairs neighbors and the folks who park their minivan next to me and don’t know how to open doors without hitting my car and the side doors being propped open, etc. etc. etc., it only seems right that I disturb my neighbors for a change. So, goodbye 110. I’ll miss you. (But not too much.)

Past Meets Present

2 Apr

It’s been a week since I bought my condo and I’m somewhere between halfway and two-thirds of the way moved in. I’ve been packing up and making daily trips over, dropping off breakable and easily-movable items — partly to make it easier for the movers (who come early Saturday morning) and cheaper for me, and partly because I just can’t wait to live there full-time. All my CDs, most of my clothes, just about my entire kitchen and bathroom … it’s all there. I’ve run the dishwasher a few times, I’ve done one load of laundry, and I’ve even done some cleaning. In short, I’m doing everything all according to plan and so far it’s working out just fine.

There’s lots to like about my condo, but I have to say, one of my favorite things about it is the boiler room. Yes, you read that right. You see, I bought a place in an older building that’s been rehabbed, refurbished, redone, etc. All the amenities are modern and new and clean. And yet, in the boiler room there’s a pretty cool bit of history on one wall, where all kinds of former residents wrote their names. Some of them dated their signature, and the years go as far back as the 1930s and ’40s. The most recent date I saw was 1987. And being a sucker for nostalgia and stuff like this, I just find the signatures give the building a lot of random, hidden, unexpected charm. It’s really impressive that over the years, and despite extensive renovation, these names have remained on the wall. Perhaps it’s because I’m not alone in appreciating this aspect of the building. One day I’ll have to sign my own name on one of the bricks. For now, though, I am eager to share in the history of this place I’ll soon call my home.

It’s Mine! All Mine!

27 Mar

Funny thing about closings: They’re pretty anti-climactic.

The hard work and discussion and heavy lifting had all taken place earlier as the process moved along.

All that was left was for me to hand over some money and sign lots and lots of documents.

So, I sat there at the table on Thursday signing page after page, initialing here, giving my full name there.

Meanwhile, my broker and my lending agent just sat and watched.

The whole thing took about a half hour and was really no big deal. We laughed, we joked.

It was actually fun.

And then, without warning, my lawyer stopped passing documents my way and I actually had to ask him, “Is that it?”

And that was it.

Without fanfare or a marking of the significance, I became a homeowner.

Just like that.

Not that I expected trumpets or balloons or even confetti, but, you know, this is a pretty big deal and it pretty much just passed. Continue reading →

With Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore

26 Mar

‘Twas the night before closing
And all through my place,
The boxes are sitting here
Taking up space.

They’re all in the way,
There’s nothing inside.
“You’ve got to start packing!”
My family has cried. Continue reading →

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