The joys of renting

At first I thought I wasn’t cleaning my sink well enough, or taking out the trash often enough. But when I woke up one night with a buzzing in my ear, I knew there was a bigger problem than my kitchen’s cleanliness.

Earlier this summer, my apartment became overrun with gnats, fruit flies, whatever you want to call them. Tiny little black bugs were everywhere. They flew around my kitchen and they dotted my shower curtain and bathtub. I swatted at them while I watched Parks & Recreation. Around this same time, my apartment was also starting to smell dank, damp and musty, like a basement. I didn’t put the two together though.

Living with so many bugs flying around was a nightmare and began to wear on my sanity. I googled tips for getting rid of gnats, which included vinegar traps (didn’t work) and soap traps (worked). I learned that gnats can’t resist a bowl of sudsy water. They get trapped in the suds and die. Sort of similar to the way spider webs trap bugs? You can start calling me Charlotte.

I began a nightly ritual for about a week or two of leaving out two to three bowls of soapy water in the sink. In the morning the suds had disappeared, but there were about a dozen or so dead gnats in the bottom of each bowl of water. I’d dump them out, and repeat. (If you’re good at math, you’ll know that meant I was getting rid of anywhere from 20-40 gnats each night. Yep. Gross.)

After doing my laundry one afternoon in my actual basement, which had also become noticeably smelly and musty, I realized there were significantly more gnats down there than had become my roommates upstairs. Clearly this was not just the result of an overflowing trashcan.

I called my maintenance guy, who came out the next day and fogged the basement. He said he thought the source might have been an old fridge down there, left long ago by someone else, and that the problem should get better. It did, slightly, over the weekend. Then it got worse.

A few days after the basement fog, I was inspecting things around my apartment and realized that around my floor vents were hundreds of black specks—dead gnats from the fog that came up through my vents when I ran the A/C. Disgusted, I vacuumed them up, combing my floors for more piles. Then started going after the still-living gnats flying around. “Gotcha, bitch!” I’d think each time I sucked one up. For a moment, I thought I was in the clear. But an hour later, it was worse than before.

I demanded an exterminator come out. He and maintenance guy quickly learned the fridge was not the source and said they needed to look for something “stagnant.” The search took them out of the basement, which is in the rear of the building, and instead into the crawl space that is in the front of the building—directly beneath my unit.

Maintenance guy alerted me that apparently, at some point in the past (months? years? Before my time, he said), faulty plumbing had created a sewage blockage in the pipes under my apartment. Keep in mind this was right around the time the weather began getting very hot. Just let that sink in.

“I don’t want to use the word cesspool,” he said, “… but it was pretty bad.”

It took about a week, but plumbers and exterminators fixed the pipes and cleaned up the cesspool. I still had plenty of dead gnats to vacuum up after I got back in my apartment, but the nightmare, the smell, the soap bowls and the paranoia of feeling like bugs were everywhere were all gone.

Ah, the joys of renting. I couldn’t have prevented—or even known about—the shitstorm I was living on top of, but at least I didn’t have to pay for its cleanup.

Spring 2011 Market Openings! | RVANews

I am VERY excited about this. Hooray for spring in Richmond!

Spring 2011 Market Openings! | RVANews.

One of my favorite things about living in smaller, more rural towns were their farmer’s markets. I felt like such a grown-up — waking up early on a Saturday and walking through town, a canvas bag in hand, ready to buy my week’s worth of fresh, local produce. I simply cannot get enough squash in the summer.

Going to the downtown market always made me feel like a part of the town, too. I’d see people I knew and think, “I know people here! And people know me!” It sounds silly, but when you’re a new resident somewhere, a friendly face can go a long way. And although I have my share of friends in Richmond, I’m eager to feel more like a part of the local community. Which is why I’m so excited that despite living in an urban part of the city, markets are plentiful.

On a balmy evening earlier this week I went for a walk in the Fan, armed with my new green sturdy canvas tote. It was around 7:30, so the cute shops in my neighborhood were closed, but the Strawberry Street Market stays open late and I bought a few apples and a falafel wrap for dinner. As I peered into darkened windows, I was most excited about returning to the area this Saturday morning when more shops would be open amid vendors at the annual Strawberry Street Festival. (In addition to markets, Richmonders LOVE their festivals.)

I just found out about this festival last week and although it’s hosted by the local elementary school (and geared toward families), I’m pumped.

(Have I mentioned I love this town?)

Question for RVA residents: which market is best? Leave it in the comments.

Watch out, RVA

A few months ago, I left Danville for the “big city” of Richmond, yet I recently found myself at Phil’s Continental Lounge, the most blue-collar bar in the west end. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was back in Danville.

Let me back up a bit. On New Year’s Day, I moved to Richmond for a communications job at my alma mater. After three loyal years of newspaper service in Danville and Culpeper, I decided it was time to move on.

The seductive world of politics kept me in Danville—and in journalism—for a while, but even so I began to feel that familiar itch to do something new, something different. Working at newspapers brought me immeasurable professional and life experience, but I (and my editors) always knew those posts weren’t permanent for me.

I’d wanted to move back to Richmond ever since graduation. Something about this city calls to me, although I’m not sure what exactly—the history, the architecture, the je ne sais quoi, the culture. Also: the food! The baseball! People from smaller towns might scoff at Richmond for its hazards; others from bigger cities might scoff at it for its shortcomings. But I suppose that’s not specific to this city.

For three and a half years I longed to move here. To live and work here as an adult, on my own, enjoying the city. Of course it didn’t hurt that I had friends, family and a fabulous boyfriend here, too.

I don’t mean to imply I was unhappy before; Culpeper and Danville will forever occupy prime real estate in my heart. But they were always stops on my way back to Richmond.

And now I’m here.

It took me a few weeks of settling in before I believed that I actually lived here and wasn’t just spending a long weekend visiting B and friends. “I live here!” I’d think. No more long distance dating, no more going through two tanks of gas a week, no more anxiety because someone hated a story I’d written. Of course, that also meant no more getting access to [insert politician’s name here] at a moment’s notice, no more Daily Farmer’s Market—and—no more Erma’s.

Perhaps that’s why I found myself at Phil’s, a working man’s bar, which unfortunately will be no more. Even if I’m in a big(ger) city, I still seek out those places with character. (Of course, I was also at Phil’s because it’s a UR hub and the Spiders played that night in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in 23 years. We lost—but VCU kept Richmond humming with hoops fever through the Final Four.)

Places like Phil’s tucked into the high-end Grove and Libby neighborhood are what make Richmond stand out among other, bigger, cities. Richmond is able to (almost) seamlessly blend the new with the old—the hipster hangouts and upscale boutiques with the longstanding local institutions.

Sometimes it doesn’t work—like trying to throw in that statue of Arthur Ashe with the likes of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. But most of the time it does. And hopefully it’ll work with a twenty-something writer living in a 1940s row house* in the Fan.

Here’s to my life Richmond.

*I have absolutely no idea when this house was built.**

**Update: see comment below.

Bringing the cheerful calamity back

If I have any readers left after a nearly three-month hiatus, I apologize for being MIA. I’m not exactly sure why I haven’t been writing. I posted on facebook a while back that I was “too busy being a cheerful calamity to write about being a cheerful calamity,” which was true. But it’s also a lazy excuse because the things that have been happening in the last three months are exactly what I should have been blogging about.

I think I lost inspiration to write sometime last fall and simply got in the habit of not writing. But lucky for you, my loyal followers (if you even exist), I’m hoping to fix that. Let me catch you up to speed.

I wasn’t supposed to work one Monday back in late November — I had the day off. But because there was an event that my editor asked me to cover. And because this was kind of an important event, I made sure to look professional. I knew there would be at least one TV reporter there and, well, newspaper reporters are notoriously schleppy. So, donning my favorite black pencil skirt, heels and a patterned cardigan, I did my best to look at least on par with the other media.

There was nothing noteworthy about the event itself, but the two-minute conversation I had with a stranger afterward has vastly affected my life since. Thank goodness I dressed up that day.

Without going into detail about the specifics of the event (because for the purposes of this blog, they’re inconsequential), a guy I didn’t know approached me and said the following:

“Excuse me, but have we met before?”

What I said: “Um, no… I don’t think so.” What I thought: “Nice try, buddy.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we’ve met before. Do you know (insert name of my college roommate here)?”

Me: “Uh… what?? YES I know her! She was my roommate in college for three years! Wait, how do you know her? And how do you know that I know her?”

Turns out the guy — I’ll call him B — is from Richmond and went to high school with my college roommate/one of my closest gal pals. He’d noticed the UR sticker on my car and, knowing she also went to UR, figured he’d chance it and see if the connection was there. Lucky for him (and me), it was.

We exchanged cards and — perhaps against my better judgment — I emailed him 23 minutes later. Turns out my lesser judgment was the winner in this scenario, because we began an extensive gmail conversation — “just like ‘You’ve Got Mail’! a friend told me later — and by the third email, he’d asked me out.

Two weeks later I found myself in Richmond “to go Christmas shopping” but really, to go on that date with B. And today, about six weeks after that first date, he’s sitting here snowed in with me in Danville for the weekend.

When I had to leave Culpeper last year, I didn’t understand why. Why I’d lost my job, why I had to move — or most of all — why I had to move to Danville (no offense to a lovely city I now have grown quite fond of). But I’d made great friends, I’d won awards for my writing — and ultimately I felt like it was all in vain. I didn’t know why it all happened, but I also knew that I’d figure it out. There was a reason behind the shit, but I just had to be patient and open to the possibility that there was something better for me, beyond the life I had.

I’m not going to be overly dramatic and say that B is the answer to all of my problems, because 1) it’s not true and 2) that would be a simple-minded way to think. But I also know now that meeting him — and in such a serendipitous way — was one of many of the reasons I was supposed to come to Danville when I did.

Another reason I know I was meant to come to Danville (totally unrelated to the previous) is the fact that I have found this niche for myself in political journalism that I never knew existed. I’ve become passionate about Virginia politics and I love covering it more than any other beat I’ve had. I’m not sure I would have discovered that had I not moved here. I still don’t really have any idea what I want to ultimately do with my life, but now I at least feel like I’m moving in a general direction rather than simply wandering.

There’s a quote from the charming aforementioned “You’ve Got Mail,” in which Meg Ryan’s character says:

Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life — well, valuable, but small — and sometimes I wonder: do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave?

That completely describes my thoughts about my life in Culpeper. I was willing to stay there and settle because it was comfortable and easy. I think now, after everything, I much more like the idea of being brave.

The Great Richmond Region Adventure

They should have named it Sweatfest 2009. But it was worth it.

My college roommate (known here on out as “Bingy”) is getting married in August, so her family friends threw her and her fiancee a “Stock the Bar” party on Saturday in Richmond. Since I’d be in town for that, MWM signed me up for “The Great Richmond Region Adventure,” an “Amazing Race”-style competition around downtown Richmond Saturday afternoon.

Good thing I had trained for and participated in the Ukrop’s Monument Avenue 10k last month — my first 10k ever, thank you very much — because this was no leisurely scavenger hunt. Team Macaley (me, MWM, The Artist and The Artist’s boss) pretty much booked it from stop to stop, solved the clues in what we considered to be record time and finished the race in an hour and a half. The winning team finished in 58 minutes; the time limit was three hours. So I’d say we did a fine job since this was our first time competing.

Our journey started at the Edgar Allen Poe museum, where we got our map and clues, printed on aged scroll paper. There were five stops, with five corresponding clues in poem form. The objective was to solve the clues at each stop and get a postcard. Once we had all five postcards, another riddle would direct us to the finish line. We didn’t have to go in any particular order, but we had to stay together as a team the whole time.

Hearts pumping, we headed to our first stop at the Holocaust Museum. With a little help from one of the race volunteers, we solved the riddle, which involved finding an artifact in the museum and deciphering a code from a set of numbers. Postcard in hand, we celebrated solving our first riddle and made our way to the next stop: Libby Hill Park.

Spectacular view from Libby Hill Park

It always amazes me how much of Richmond I’ve never seen, even after living there for four years in college. Well, that really shouldn’t amaze me all that much since anyone who goes to UR pretty much never sees anything except campus, the Fan and a handful of downtown bars. It’s unfortunate that we keep to our bubble, because the rest of Richmond is nothing short of fabulous.

After scaling a mountain to get to Libby Hill — ok maybe not a mountain but it was a huge hill — we retrieved our second postcard by counting the bales of hay in a painting on a sign and applying that number to yet another letters/numbers code. I don’t have many criticisms of the adventure, but one was that the answers to the riddles had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything. I was thinking the answers would have a theme, something related to the location of the clue. Basically, I wanted to pretend I was Nick Cage in “National Treasure.” Instead, the answers were simply a random word generated from solving a code, i.e. the answer to the Libby Hill Park puzzle was “SHAZAMBABY.”

Yeah, I have no idea. I guess they wanted to make it unrelated so that you couldn’t just guess the answer after seeing the first few letters. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. I also thought I’d be dead weight since I really know nothing specific about Richmond history, but thankfully that wasn’t an issue. It really was all about solving some crazy code while at a Richmond landmark.

On our way to solving the second clue

From there we headed to Church Hill, the Reconciliation statue and the Canal Walk. Our team worked effortlessly together, each of us providing a different way of looking at the riddles. Two water bottles each and buckets of sweat later, we happened upon the finish line at the farmer’s market. We’d gotten all five postcards, but could not figure out the last puzzle, which directed us to the end point. Ready to give in and ask for help, we walked past the farmer’s market and saw our contact. Hot damn! We asked him what the solution to the final clue was, and he gave us a funny look. “How did you find me if you couldn’t solve it?” he asked. “We just walked by and saw you here…” Whoops.

Turns out the solution wasn’t as hard as we were making it out to be, and I’m fairly certain we could have figured it out if we’d just tried out another theory or two. Oh well. It was blazing, and we were sweaty, tired and on the verge of getting a little cranky.

Celebratory drinks and documenting our adventures

So we didn’t win $1,500, but we had an awesome time tooling around downtown Richmond in 90+ degrees and pretending to be treasure hunters. The four stellar members Team Macaley will definitely compete again next year. Afterward, we lunched at Cafe Gutenberg, where we devoured burgers and downed cool, crisp celebratory beers. Except The Artist, who left her ID in the car.

The Artist and I spent the rest of the afternoon cooling off in her apartment. Although, we weren’t that cool because her AC wasn’t working. But we prepped for Bingy’s party — my gift was the ingredients for my fav drink, the G&T! — and spent the evening catching up with college pals. It was great seeing my sorority sisters, especially my little, who confessed to obsessively stalking this very blog. That’s my girl!

The weekend was perfect, except for MWM’s adorable new pup who suffered from some seizures after apparently getting into some shrooms in the yard. But he’s better now, thank goodness. Welcome back, Maury!

And to anyone interested in competing in next year’s Great Richmond Region Adventure: watch out. You’ve got some stiff competition. Wear running shoes if you want to keep up.

Team Macaley. And the only photographic proof that I even competed in this race.