Moving is a pain

This my first real move. I moved away to college. I moved home. I moved into a house down the road from home. But I've never moved-moved. I've never done the kind of move where I'm never coming back again. (Note: by never, I mean in my adult life. I've done plenty of that moving, but that was all before age 7)

You know what? It's a pain in the ass.

There's finding a new place to live. A new job. Then there's buying furniture and food and stupid household items you never thought you'd buy... like scotch tape.

There's all the little things to do, the loose ends to tie up. I spent 2 hours in the DMV today (for the SECOND time) to get a NY driver's license. Did you know you need more proof of ID to get a NY license than you do to get a Social Security Card? I kid you not.

Story: I lost my SSC years ago, and didn't bother to get a new one - what do I need one for? Besides, I'd just have to get a new one when I eventually get married. So D and I head down to the DMV 2 weeks ago armed with various points of identification - AZ licenses, passports, pay stubs, credit cards, school IDs, etc etc etc. Without a SSC, I was flat-out refused service. Apparently, in New York you cannot simply swap your CURRENTLY VALID LICENSE FROM ANOTHER STATE.

So, the next week I ventured to the social security office. I was, I swear, the only American in line - everyone else were immigrants. Do you know what it took for me to get a brand new social security card, the freakin holy grail of American Identification???

A valid AZ drivers license.

Yes, you read that right. It required more identification to get a New York drivers license than to get a social security card. Does this strike anyone else as utterly ridiculous?

Anyway, I waited a week and got my new SSC in the mail, then went back down to the DMV and presented my pretty new card along with a bank card, a pay stub, a bank statement, a birth certificate, and a W2. I needed 6 points of ID to transfer my VALID drivers license... New York is ridiculous!!

The best part? NY doesn't give you a license right away. You go through all that trouble, wait at the DMV for 2 hours, blah blah blah to only be issued a "temporary license" which is nothing more than a piece of paper. I currently have zero forms of photo ID, since they confiscated my AZ license. It takes 2-3 weeks for your new license to come in the mail. For the last time, New York is ridiculous!

In the end, though, I'm almost done with all these silly little things. It will be nice when everything is done and we can finally be settled!

How you can tell I'm not from New York...

I've noticed something about New Yorkers. Or, I've noticed how you can tell New Yorkers from non-New Yorkers.

New Yorkers don't look at anything. They are surrounded by a fabulous, dynamic city 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and seem to be completely immune to this. They don't care about the 50-story high buildings or the random sidewalk art or the street vendors or the countless other interesting things you can happen upon in this city.

I, on the other hand, look like the classic tourist... I want to look at everything. People literally trip over me because I'm walking so much more slowly than they are, gawking at everything. I just can't see how anyone can ignore brownstowns on a tree-lined street, or a sea of yellow taxis that WILL run you over if you get in their way, or how you can't see the tops of buildings when you stand at their base (see below). I'm absolutely fascinated, and that means I don't fit in one bit here.

Patriotism... of the non New England persuasion

D and I had decided to use last Saturday (I know, I'm a little behind here) to head down to Ground Zero. We thought, Hey, we live here... we should definitely go at least once. People we talked to advised us against it. "Its just a big hole in the ground," they said. Nevermind that, we still wanted to go. So we did.

Our friends were right. It IS a big hole in the ground. The most incredible, sobering big hole in the world.

So, since there used to be two huge towers here, the site takes up about an entire city block. You can see in the pictures that everything around the street is heavily blocked off so people can't see in. Every so often you could catch little glimpses in. We walked all the way to the back, where there is a PATH station (train to/from New Jersey). The station used to go right into the World Trade Center, but after 9/11 a new station was rebuild right next to the sight. The sides of the station are metal grating, which are covered by huge construction-style blankets. Where two blankets overlapped, there was usually something securing them together so people couldn't peek through, but we found a spot where we could pull back the blankets a bit.

In the pictures, you can see a bunch of construction equipment working at the bottom of the pit. Apparantly, the 'excavation' stage is complete and all work is being done on creating the memorial. I don't buy that... Its pretty obvious from the pictures that there is still quite a big of debris and building material that needs to be removed.

The plan for the memorial is pretty neat though. The whole site is going to be full of trees and benches, and it should be nice and peaceful. There will be a museam/memorial building, and two fantastic waterfall things. Basically there will be 2 square recessions into the ground, one where each building stood, and water will flow down into these holes. In the center of each hole there will be an opening where water flows down, and they will go down pretty deep. From the plans, it looks like a pretty fitting memorial.

In NYC you find a lot of tributes to 9/11. As you would epect, every fire and police station in the city has plaques, statues, etc. The really touching things, though, aren't at police stations. The most meaningful things are the ones you stumble on while walking down the road, like D and I found near SoHo. There is an intersection that has 3 through streets, so one corner is quite thin. There is nothing in the space between the streets; its just been fenced off. And along the fence, the entire length on both sides, we found this:

Its a project that has been going on for years in memory of 9/11. Basically, anyone can create and send in a tile and it will be put up on the fence. People from all over the US and world had sent in all sorts of tiles... Some have names of lost loved ones, some have inspirational messages, some say "God Bless America", some are just pictures.

And my favorite...

The red one with the blue writing... it says "Love is the Answer"

A Story about Barbeque Sauce

I have a story about BBQ sauce. Ready?

One of the worst things about moving into a new place, especially from so far away, is that there's no food in the house when you get there. In fact, there's nothing in the house. We were fortunate to have D's parents on the East Coast for a wedding the same week that we moved in, and to have Costco right around the corner. Hooray Costco.

I couldn't go on the run because I had a job interview. I was a bummed I had to miss it - who doesn't love free samples - and I didn't know exactly what D was going to come back with. In true D fashion, we are now fully stocked with cleaning supplies. It wasn't all bad though. We have a full year's worth of pasta and sauce, craisins (yay!), and bottled water, among other edible things.

I opened the fridge one night as I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Contents of the fridge: 6 bell peppers, 3 English cucumbers, 1,00,000 bottles of water, 1 loaf wheat bread, 1 bottle BBQ sauce. I closed the fridge and made pasta.

On Sunday night we were driving back from Rhode Island when it struck me: BBQ sauce. BBQ sauce? WTF? So I asked D what the heck he was thinking when he chose, out of all the condiments, out of all the choices, BBQ sauce. 2 enormous bottles of BBQ sauce that will take us 17 years to go through. Why not ketchup? Why not mustard? We actually eat those things.

So we're driving along, having a laugh about BBQ sauce when we miss our exit on the highway and head mistakenly toward end-of-a-long-weekend traffic into Manhattan. Bad idea. Luckily, our trusty GPS managed to save us (again!) and we headed home to our BBQ sauce. The end.

Moral of the story: buy a GPS.

Starting Out Now

Its been almost a month since we set out eastward from AZ. We are having a great time so far; there is just so much to see and to do in NYC. We have been exceptionally busy with apartment-finding and job-hunting (and beach-going) but are finally starting to feel settled in the new place.

Before we left, a good friend instructed me to write everything down for two reasons: 1) I'd forget otherwise, and 2) Nobody else would get to hear about all the neat things I'd be experiencing. And yes, I do want to make you jealous... jealous enough to come visit!

So, I gave in. I created a blog. Then I wrote in it. The whole time, I wasn't sure if I felt more dorky or house-wifey. Currently, the house-wifey is winning out. D is at work making the big bucks, while I'm at home mooching internet.

I have a whole very busy month to catch up on, but thats just not going to happen right now. It doesn't get nearly dark enough to sleep in this city, so I have shades to hang.