Philly So Far

Greetings from Philadelphia! We're currently packed into our little studio in Rittenhouse Square (watching "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything - Julie Newmar" - a long time favorite) with one very unhappy cat. Zeph is a good traveler, but not so cool with suddenly living in a room 12 floors up. Little buddy does not like heights and starts shaking every time I hold him and even remotely approach the window. He likes that we brought his favorite sweater, though, (we call it his mama - you can see how ridiculous this is here) and has finally become comfortable enough to sleep with it on the chair in the room, and not buried beneath the bed. I feel pretty terrible for moving him and taking him away from his birds. He used to like to sit on the counter in the kitchen of our Pittsburgh place and look over the back yard, I'll miss coming home from work and seeing him watching the finches and robins out the window.

But 48 hours in, we dig it. Chris and I spent our first full day in Philly weaving our way through the Italian Market area looking for "For Rent" signs and getting sufficiently sun burnt, maybe a little grumpy, tired, and hungry. But so far, so good. He found a great barber shop with the sweetest dog (see above), and we stopped into a little cafe in the same area for lunch that was cozy and -- most importantly -- had air conditioning. We've found a few leads for places, but we'll see. We both just desperately want to find an apartment and get settled in.

Today we're checking out a few more neighborhoods we've had on our radar and hopefully scheduling some more viewings together before I start work on Monday. I hate apartment hunting, and after this move, I feel as if we'll be settled for awhile. We better be at least, because, man I don't want to have to do this again. I hate how competitive it is, having to look at a place with a bunch of other people who are also desperate to find somewhere to live. Trolling Criagslist and Zillow and HotPads, and all the others constantly, hoping something new will turn up. I'm so thankful to at least be able to be here while we look, the temporary place is a godsend, but I know we just want something that feels like home.

This weekend we're planning to check out more places, but taking a break on Saturday to hit up the beach. I can't wait! It'll be nice to have a day to chill out a bit before I jump into this new position and before Chris hits the pavement on his own to look at apartments. I'm looking forward to packing up the cooler, grabbing my swim suit, and hitting the road early to get to the coast for a day at the ocean. If you need Zeph, he will most likely be chilling under the bed.