In which apartments are habitated and puppies are visited.

Moving is a royal pain. While hardly a daring statement, it's undeniably true and today was no exception. Everything which went wrong could- for instance, I ran my cell phone through the laundry. My mother, lovely lady that she is, bought me some Ikea furniture- and when we arrived, I learned that the neighbors had put out a massive pile of the SAME Ikea furniture for free on the corner. However, despite these petty annoyances, it all worked out. Two hours of rebus- based Swedish furniture manufacture later, my room was complete in what is... The Best Apartment in Union City! (it says this on a plaque above the door, signed by the last 3 mayors and President Gerald Ford.) My rent is hyper-reasonable, the neighborhood is that sort of cute, family-oriented multiethnic kind of place which has cheap rooms and safe streets. I'm a block away from the seething pleasure-pits of Hoboken, half an hour from Manhattan, and am literally enmeshed in a web of convenient bus and train routes. The local pizza is exquisite.

On top of that, I have a completely unblocked view of the Manhattan skyline from my bedroom window- and from the balcony off the kitchen. In fact, every room in the house has such a view! There is even a fat, adorable muskrat who I can see rooting around in the backyard looking pleased with himself, whom I can bear no ill will. Additionally, today I briefly played with a puppy! It's like karmic backlash for this morning's stress.

One of the bonuses I advertised to my roomates as a good reason to take me on was my technical proficiency, such as it is. Today, I got a chance to prove my bona fides, when I figured out why their wireless router doesn't work. The reason? It's not, in fact, a wireless router. That's why their signal was so bad.

Finally, I got to go for a run through Hoboken, which was an absolute pleasure. I will continue to champion "The Paris of New Jersey" as a title for that city, until such time as it enters the public consciousness.