4.34pm, EST
It is decidedly autumn. Last week was Indian Summer, green trees and T-shirt weather. This morning I woke up to the wind blowing through the trees and the first scattering of leaves on the ground.

I am, for the indefinite future, in Boston at my parent's house. We flew out to NY the second week in September to find an apartment. We found a place that we loved the first day we looked. It was in the East Village, within spitting distance of the river, in a really cute building with a super who clearly took great care of the place. Plus, it was a true two bed and it had a patio. That was Wednesday, September 8th.

We spent the next three days gathering the 350+ pages of documentation they wanted: bank statements, credit reports, cell phone bills, electricity bills, tax returns, W-2's, pay stubs... The agent at the building told us on Thursday, when we brought in a deposit to take the apartment off the market, that we would know by Friday when we had our interview. At the interview, she told us there was actually another two levels of approval we had to go through (her supervisor and the city) because there was an income cap on the apartment. On Monday, after she'd told our broker that there was no way we wouldn't be approved, as we were driving to the airport to head back to SF, she called and told us were weren't approved because we made too much. Considering that I haven't been employed all year, and A only worked until May, we thought that was ludicrous.

The worst part was that they had all the numbers they needed the very first day, on the application forms. My theory is that they jerked us around for five days in hopes that we would get so frustrated we'd walk away and leave the deposit. The company, by the way, is gonofee.com. In case you're wondering who to stay away from.

I stayed in NJ with his parents another week, and we ended up signing a lease for the first apartment we'd looked at on Friday the 17th, a week after our interview with the place in the East Village.

A called the moving company to get our stuff sent out Monday. It took until Wednesday (9/22) to get insurance requirements straightened out with them. It is now Wednesday again, a week later, and they still haven't put our stuff on the truck. I am, to put it mildly, ticked.

My parents have been reminding me that at least I don't have two small children with me, like my mom did when they moved from Dallas to Boston. This is true. But, having just gotten off the phone with the woman at the moving company who has, by her own admission, no idea when a truck will be there to ship our stuff out and no idea how long it will take to get to New York, it's hard to feel like this could be much worse.

2.50 pm
I start work in 46 days. It sounds like a long time. It's going to fly. I spent a good part of today going through the rental homes on Long Island we're going to check out. We need some sort of schedule, because people want to know when we'll be there, but it can't be too rigid because I have no idea how long it takes to look at a house when someone's there to show it to you. When my mom and I looked at venues, they were almost all rented out, so all we could do was look from the street. It made the whole business go by very fast.

September must be some sort of cut off, since there were a fair number of people who said they didn't have tenants and would love to meet with us to show the house. There are a few I really like, but for the most part I'm trying not to make up my mind about anything until we 1) see the property and 2) verify that the owner realizes this is for a wedding and 3) make sure it's really in our budget. The "W" word has a strange effect on home owners - either the house is suddenly no longer for rent, or the price goes up exponentially. Understandable, but it makes the search frustrating.

2.57 pm
A and I are going to a cousin's wedding next weekend. Having failed to find seersucker in the Bay Area (we were informed it was acceptable garb for the rehearsal dinner), A did the next best thing and bought linen pants. White linen pants. With an orange shirt. He looks very dashing, but it gives the impression that he ought to be on a beach in Cuba with a mojito in his hand rather than standing on the steps to our apartment modeling.

I'll be wearing my $10 Asby-stolen-goods-market dress, which ended up costing $40 once it had been drycleaned and hemmed. Still not a bad price, considering that it's absolutely gorgeous and fits superbly.

This will be the first wedding A and I have gone to together. Strange, really, since we've been together quite a bit at this point. On the other hand, as someone pointed out to me this morning, who'd have thought five years ago that two kids living in the ghetto in St. Pete would be in Manhattan and getting married five years later.