On our first or second visit to the building, we met Ruby. When we came in the door she says to Jason, "nice tats!" It's amusing because she's a 60ish year old black lady and I can't imagine she says "tats" all that often; but she says it like she's pretty hip to things. Who knows.
The day we came to see our actual unit Ruby knocked on the door and asked if we were thinking of moving in and told us that it's a wonderful place and that Arin, the property manager, was also wonderful. Ruby is the welcome wagon.
But I'm getting ahead of myself...
As of January 31st, we were out of the old apartment, everything was in storage (or mom's....or the car) and we didn't have anywhere to go. Thankfully, some generous souls offered us their 2nd bed for as long as we needed. I've said it before and I'll say it again...the people with the least are often the quickest to offer what they have, where the people with the most want to impose conditions. I understand but still. Interesting, isn't it? These guys have a little 2 bedroom apartment that is filled to the top with their beloved possessions, their angsty dog, a fish? I think? It's not ideal for 4 adults to live in an apartment but it was perfectly comfortable because we felt welcome and at home. Jason even had limited sneezing. Maybe angsty dog hair is less allergenic than other dog hair. We slept amazingly. Maybe it was the exhaustion from moving things for weeks and worrying for months and the end of it all just came upon us and that was that and we were at least somewhere with a bed. So we slept. We thought we'd have to ask them where they got this seemingly fancy bed so we could some day save up for one of our own. It came in a box from Walmart. Magic?
So we made the best of the situation and explored Lakewood, traveled Colfax, took Jason to Casa Bonita for the first time, found a place with peanut butter burgers, and got Voodoo Donuts. It was like a very odd vacation.
Skip past all the phone calls, all the waiting, raised hopes, dashed hopes, incompetent people, and lots of crap and running back and forth.
We found an advocate among all the zombies. She actually, get this, did her job to the best of her ability and made a damn difference. What a pleasant surprise.
We had to jump through the last few hoops and we finally had a place to move. It's only for a year but we'll make the best of the year.
We're now residents of The Suites in Longmont. It's a former hotel that nobody seems to know is here. We've moved from the northside to the southside. It's practically like a different city.
The made an exception to get us in here. The timing all had to work out exactly the way it did for us to get in here. Had things worked out really in any other way, it wouldn't have happened. So at least all the bull shit in between had a purpose, right? Plans fell through, new plans had to be made, many a plan was made that was left behind, and Jason did the job of about 5 people to get everything done in time. It's a specialty of his.
Feb. 17th was our first night. The place is fully furnished but we didn't really need the stuffed birds on the wall or the decorative giant wheat. We do like the leather couches and the king size bed. Oh the bed...it's so giant. I don't know if we can go back now. Ditto for the tub. It's a jacuzzi. I can do without the jets but I've never had a bathtub I could actually take a bath in. We have all this extra pizzazz in our room because we got the Presidential Suite. It's the biggest place in the building. They don't generally rent it out but someone convinced them it was needed so here we are. We are lucky people.
For such a large place with such an....eclectic group of residents, it's very quiet. (Usually.) There have been a couple interesting bits.
I saw this young guy walking through the lobby in his phone. I overhear "I'm clean now...I'm not even high..." I don't think much of it other than, hey good for him. He was like a blonde Harry Potter...with non-magic troubles. Later, as we're walking to the elevator, we see him getting in with a couple LPD officers, as he says "thank you for doing it this way." No other information on what happened there but I'll wonder for a while. We talked to the lady who is on-call at night and she says "Did you hear the fire department here last night??" Um...nooo. "Oh, they were on the roof, checking the HVACs and stuff." I assume all was well because that's all I heard of it. So in the first 2 or 3 days we got a visit from the police and the fire department.
The downstairs neighbors we're having quite the violent-sounding quarrel but it seems to have calmed since them.
Other than Ruby, we've had to nickname some people. There's Sad Santa, the Smoker, the shuffling lady, the lady with the fancy hat (there might be two of those...one hat is brighter than the other one), and Ethel...who is actually Ethel. She's got to be 80, we met her in the elevator.
So far, so good, here in the Suites. I look forward to the pool opening and seeing what other interesting sights await us.
