RIFLES AT DAWN

THE GREAT ADVENTURE: Part 3, The New Place

We decided that when it was time to sell the Compound and move east, we’d lease a “luxury” apartment rather than buy a house or a condo. No maintenance, no mowing, no shoveling, no HOA fees, no hassles. In January, my wife bought a ticket to fly to Connecticut and spend the first week of March with our daughter and her family. She'd go apartment-hunting during the day. Or so we thought.

By mid-February, we were concerned about the feasibility – and, the possibility – of her actually making the trip. To avoid the incredible hassles of flying to LaGuardia or JFK airport in NYC, we’ve always chosen to spend a few bucks more and fly to the Westchester County Airport in New York, which is about a 20-minute drive from our daughter’s home in Fairfield, CT. By the second week of February, we were seeing news reports that Westchester County was rapidly becoming a Coronavirus hot-spot.

By the first week of March, we knew that the trip was off. New Rochelle, NY, a short distance from the airport, had been declared the hottest Coronavirus hot-spot in the nation. The mayor had closed the city. So, my wife began her search for a new place for us, relying completely and exclusively on the internet and a lot of phone conversations. For weeks, we evaluated properties she’d deemed viable. In April, we pulled the trigger on a luxury apartment in the very nice Black Rock neighborhood of Bridgeport, which is the largest city in Connecticut. We’d be about 10 minutes away from our daughter’s home in neighboring Fairfield.

We did the deal sight unseen, having reviewed a lot of photos of the inside and outside of the place, and relying on our daughter’s assurance that it was a nice place. She said it was just a few blocks from the office building where she and several other psychotherapists had established their practice.

The little blue ‘x’ on the photo above marks the spot where we now live. That big body of water a few blocks south of us is Long Island Sound, i.e., the Atlantic Ocean. We’d checked out the place, from the outside only, when we first arrived in Connecticut early in the evening on April 29^th. We held our breath as we turned off Fairfield Avenue onto Ellsworth Street, and took a deep breath of relief when we first saw the exterior of the place in person. It looked very well-maintained and quite nice.

We got our first peek inside on April 30^th. The management company said they’d have a representative meet us at 5 PM at the building to give us the keys. We made the short trip from our hotel in Norwalk to Bridgeport and waited in the lobby at the appointed hour. The representative from the realty management company showed up, appropriately attired (as were we) in mask and gloves. She handed us a large envelope and said, “here’s your keys and stuff; if they don’t work, let me know. Take the elevator to the fourth floor and turn left.” And with that, she turned on her heel and went back to her car.

We didn’t expect to have a long, guided tour of the building and all the amenities. And we were starting to get used to the brusque style of people in the NYC metro. But to just hand us the keys and walk off, without even a “so sorry that because of the plague I can’t give you a fully guided tour, but I know you’ll love the place” – even by New York City metro standards, that was not much of a “welcome to your new home” speech.

We took the elevator to the 4^th floor, turned left, discovered that at least one of the sets of keys worked, drew a deep breath, and unlocked the door. Thank heaven, we loved the place. It was even bigger and more spacious than it looked in the photos. Brand new coat of paint in every room; brand new, never-been-used high-tech appliances; woodgrain floors throughout; and tons of closets and storage space.

I hugged my wife and said, “you done good, dear!”

During the next few days, waiting for the moving van to arrive with our furniture, we made several trips from our hotel in Norwalk to the new place in Bridgeport. We stocked the new, hi-tech fridge and the pantry. We talked about which things would go where, once the furniture arrived.

On Sunday, May 3^rd, we finally got to see our daughter, her husband, and their two kids. While none of us put on masks or gloves, we were careful to observe the social distancing guidelines. My wife and I stayed in the car with the windows down, visiting with them. Among other things, we talked about what we were going to do once the plague had been mitigated and the rules had been relaxed.

Even though it had only been a few days since we started “living” in the hotel in Norwalk, we’d sort of fallen into a routine. Days were spent doing preliminary set-up work in our new apartment, breaking for a burger or chicken sandwich at noon, and learning the streets around our new home. Our evening meals consisted of either stopping at a drive-though on the way back from Bridgeport to Norwalk, or having food delivered to our hotel. It’s truly contactless delivery – they call you when they’re in the hotel lobby; you go meet them and they place the food somewhere that you can pick it up while maintaining social distancing.

We got the bad news from our moving van driver on Monday, May 4^th, that he wouldn’t be in Bridgeport with our furniture until early Wednesday afternoon. Something about a delay with a load he was dropping off in Lake Placid, NY. Nothing we could do about it – United Van Lines had an 8-day window to deliver, and they were still in the middle of the time window.

We checked out of the hotel in Norwalk late Wednesday morning and drove to the new place. We were excited about actually moving in!

To kill time while waiting for the van driver to call, my wife stretched out on the bare floor and caught a quick nap. Finally, the phone rang and Mike, our van driver, said he’d be backing in with our stuff in a few minutes. His crew of three hard-working young men made short work of lugging 5,100 pounds of our stuff up three flights in a tight stairwell. 

The property management company had warned us – and United Van Lines – that using the elevator to move furniture was strictly verboten. They pointed out that one of the many cameras surveilling the interior and exterior of our secure building was inside the elevator and was being monitored to make sure the movers didn’t use the elevator.

The crew helped us set up the huge sectional, my overstuffed recliner, our king-size bed, and the other big, bulky stuff. My wife carefully checked off every box and item as the movers brought it in, to make sure all our stuff was unloaded.

As we signed the Bill of Lading, Mike told us that in the past two days he’d had four cancellations. People were re-thinking their plan to move in the middle of the plague. He wished us happiness in our new home, and we thanked him and wished him safe travels.

There were boxes piled high in every room. Now we faced the task of opening the sixty-odd boxes of stuff we’d packed in Madison, and starting to find the right place for everything.

But, we’re retired, and with the tight restrictions in the New York City metro because of the plague, there’s not much else for us to do. We’re tackling it in bits and pieces, and before too long, we’ll have everything where it’s supposed to be.

Meantime, two weeks in, we’re enjoying life in our new digs, as the last great adventure continues.We look forward to the day when we can explore the museums, restaurants, and other attractions around here. Most of all, we're anticipating the day when we can actually hug our daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren.