backinpgh

Since my trusty 98 Dodge Neon has been faltering lately, I’ve been taking the bus around town a lot more often. It started when I still worked in Robinson; I would hop on the 28X (which has since been replaced by the G2 to Robinson) on the East Busway and travel all the way through the West Busway to Ikea. Then I’d hop on the RideACTA shuttle which would ride me directly to my job free of charge. While this added about an hour and a half to each end of my commute, I found myself really enjoying my bus ride. I got to relax, listen to my favorite music on my mp3 player (as opposed to through my barely functioning car speakers), and take in the beautiful scenery of our city. I even looked forward to my daily walk nearly a mile to the busway. It was nice to get up and moving, get some fresh air, get my blood pumping.

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…it’s been quite awhile since I’ve written. I will resist the urge to write a novella on what’s been going on in my life over the past couple months. Suffice it say that I have had trouble arranging my thoughts coherently amid the whirlwind that has been my life.

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I am very, very happy to announce that our apartment search is over. As of April 1, we will be proud residents of the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and we can barely wait.

Our search was certainly not without trials and tribulations. I probably pored over hundreds of thousands of Craigslist ads and sent hundreds of emails. Many landlords didn’t bother to return my calls or respond to my messages. Many apartments were take just hours after they were posted. We went to see probably a dozen apartments, but not many really stood out to us, and a few others were simply overpriced. We were growing very frustrated; our tiny room in my mom’s house was starting to feel smaller and smaller.

At one point we thought we had nailed down a nice rowhouse in Lawrenceville. We had found it while just driving around the neighborhood and happened to see a “For Rent” sign in the window. As luck had it, the painter was inside the home and showed us around. We loved it…it was a two bedroom with a basement. We put in an application the next day. But the some other person swept in and put a deposit down before the guy even ran the credit check. Mr. backinpgh was particularly upset…he was even more uncomfortable living with my mom than I was, given that this wasn’t his childhood home.

So we were back to the drawing board. I kept making fruitless phone calls and emails to landlords. We finally went to see a nice apartment in Bloomfield. We didn’t get to look at it for long, as the tenants were home at the time, but I knew when I walked in that this was it. It had beautiful new wood floors, original dark wood trim along the walls and doorways, and the kitchen, though a bit outdated, was huge. Although Mr. backinpgh was still sad about losing our original place in Lawrenceville, he knew this place was great too.

We put in an application and waited and waited for a response. The landlord finally called to let us know we had been approved…with conditions. The ridiculous Landlord Service Bureau reviewed our application and almost priced us out of this place…they recommended that we pay two months’ rent for a deposit PLUS a month’s rent pet deposit PLUS the first month’s rent to move in! They claimed this was due to my not having a rental history, which was rather interesting considering I lived in three different apartments while we lived in Detroit, and all that information was included in my application. I’ve concluded that the Landlord Service Bureau is a totally useless organization that does nothing more than run credit checks. I was furious, and so was Mr. backinpgh. He decided to call the landlord back to see what was going on. He managed to negotiate what we needed to move in, so we decided to take the place. So next week we will happily be moving into our first Pittsburgh apartment.Now I’m only hoping to convince the landlord to update the appliances. I mean, when’s the last time you’ve seen a dishwasher with wood paneling???

But in the end, I’m just excited. After all, this is what we came here to do. I love my mom, but living in an 8×10 foot room with my husband is hardly my idea of paradise. It was getting cramped, both physically and mentally. It was even putting a bit of stress on our relationship; Michael and I found ourselves getting into little spats about absolutely nothing. Now we can live in the city and experience Pittsburgh the way we’ve been waiting for. We’ll be just blocks from Penn and Liberty and all the action in the East End. Michael will be just a short walk away from his job in Lawrenceville, which will save him a lot of commuting. This is where we want to be, and I have a feeling that our new life in Pittsburgh is going to get really exciting really fast.

Now my time on Craigslist can be spent in search of really cool secondhand furniture.

“I drink pop, not soda. I eat hoagies, not subs. I push a buggie, not a cart when I buy groceries at Giant Eagle. It’s a crick, not a creek. I don’t do the wash, I do laundry. A thorny bush is called a jagger bush. I run the sweeper instead of vacuum. I wear tenner shoes, not sneakers. I use gum bands, not rubberbands. I emphasize my O’s and that’s normal. When I walk into a room, I ask what yinz guys are doin. I eat at Eat ‘n Parks, not shitty diners. I drink Iron City. I can name all three rivers. I stay true to my Stillers even if they suck. I am from Pittsburgh.” Read more…

So when we first moved back to PA, I had an interview at Hotel X for a front desk position. It seemed very positive, the manager seemed to like me and was excited about my background. He said he would call me back in a week or so. I didn’t hear anything, so I sent him an email asking if they had made any decisions. I got a corporate form letter in return stating that they were not hiring anyone for the position at this time. Ok, so it turns out they don’t have the money to hire right now, I didn’t let it discourage me too much.

Well fast forward to this past Saturday…while browsing job boards I came across a posting from Hotel X for the same position! I log into my account and send my info again. The manager called me back just a few hours later and said he had hoped I would see the posting because my info had been accidentally deleted from the system. Well now I’m excited…he remembers me and he hoped I would call! I had what seemed like a positive interview with the general manager the following Monday. Well, today I get another form email that they would not be hiring me at this time.

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Mr. backinpgh got a job today! It’s not the best paying job in the world, but it’s definitely a start. I’m so happy for him, although I’m also a bit sad we won’t get to spend as much time together now…it’s been nice to have him by my side nearly 24/7. But I knew that bliss would only last so long! Tomorrow he goes in to do paperwork, then I think we will go out for dinner to celebrate. Read more…

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I know some people despise this holiday, but really…how can you hate celebrating love??? I know it’s become an overly commercial circus, but I much prefer to invest my holiday hatred in the destruction of Columbus Day (which I commonly refer to as National Remembrance of Slaughtered, Enslaved, and Tortured Native Peoples Day) …but that’s another post altogether.

Mr. backinpgh and I actually don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day; our “dating anniversary” falls on February 11, so we save a few bucks and a lot of hassle by continuing to celebrate on that day, even though we are now married. But because of the occasion, I thought this would be a good day to tell you about our love story.

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Snowpocalypse 2010: A view from my neighborhood

Wow, what a week! Friday, February 5 left in its wake over 20 inches of snow and total chaos. Given the usual exaggerations of local weatherpeople, I totally called their bluff when they forecasted over a foot of snow; BOY was I wrong.

Mr. backinpgh was stranded at his parents’ house in Swissvale after work, leaving my mother and I to brave the storm on our own. The power went out around midnight, leaving me squinting at my cell phone screen’s internet browser in the hopes of finding something interesting to read or browse. Being without internet OR cable is near torture for a media whore such as myself. I gave up a short while later and went to bed. The next morning we put some pots of water on to boil (after figuring out how to light my mom’s pilotless stove) and went out to shovel a path to our cars, my only goal to get my phone plugged into its car charger, so I could continue reading all the amusing Tweets about the storm.

The power returned luckily around noon. Unfortunately, my mom, who runs a wedding-related service, had a wedding to do that evening! Read more…

If you’ve been following my Twitter feed (follow me @backinpghtweets), you know that we’ve been having the worst time finding something suitable to sleep upon. We started out with a Coleman airbed, purchased by my caring mother. This guy was comfy, but low to the ground. I often found myself sitting in bed in the morning to avoid having to hoist myself up from off the floor. Mr. Coleman lasted about three weeks before he sprouted a hole. “Let’s buy a patch!” we thought. Off to Walmart we went, bought a patch kit, applied and waited. We refilled the bed and everything seemed fine. That is, till we woke up at 4am with our butts touching the floor. We spent the rest of the night on the sofa in the living room.

So we went to JC Penney and picked up a new airbed. We found a nice once that was tall and on sale, so we went for it. We blew it up and it seemed nice…it was the height of a regular bed, which solved the problem of having to hoist my un-fit self off the floor. This one only lasted a couple hours before it started deflating. Another night on the sofa! We chalked this one up to a defect and exchanged it. On attempt two, it stayed inflated and was rather comfortable. The height was so much easier on us. But a week later we were sitting on it watching TV when a familiar hisssssssss reached our ears. This is when we decided we had had enough of air beds!

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