Housing prayers

I noticed on hip2b's blog that she was recently up at 5am, wondering if the pregnancy insomnia could have set in already (she's due when I am). Now here I am at 5am, too, having lain in bed awake since 3:20 and finally deciding to get up. It could be pregnancy, or it could be the less-than-premium-grade Wawa meatball sub I ate last night. It could be Frank Rich's recent column about how our biggest concern now isn't that the Bush administration has shredded the Constitution and conducted a more criminal White House than Nixon, but that in so doing they've left us as vulnerable to terrorism as we were in the summer of 2001--and in fact, the recent string of attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey looks suspiciously like the lead-up to 9/11. All I can keep thinking is that at least I didn't have a child in 2001. So it could be that.

But since I can't do much about Al Qaeda, let me return to the main subject racing through my head for the last two hours and pin this bout of wakefulness on our threatened impending homelessness. We are now 16 days out from the end of our lease, and we don't have anywhere to move. We've been trying for several months to find a place, Tom leading a gallant search, and so far we're coming up short.

What we've learned so far is that in the last six years we've collected all the accoutrements of real grown-ups (dog, two kids, piano, big desks, china, etc.), but that we're still expecting to live like students. That is, we're still imagining a life in which at least one of us can walk, bike, or ride a shuttle to campus or church. We still would like to live in a place that is as well-maintained as student housing, with at least a modest amount of accompanying green space for kids to run around and dogs to get walked. For that matter, we'd still like a landlord who accepts pets.

What we're finding is that real grown-ups in central New Jersey have it tough. They don't live within spitting distance of downtown Princeton--at least, not grown-ups in our professions. They buy a second car, shut their eyes to their carbon footprint, and move 10 or 15 miles out, committing themselves to spending several hours a day sitting in traffic. They go home to complexes where builders have mowed down all the trees and grass to make room for the cars that surround the buildings on every side. They pay all their own utilities and wish that they could afford a place with real insulation around the windows and doors. They don't have too many windows, though, because the aparments are all cheek-by-jowl in big, cheaply built complexes. They have all the crowdedness of urban living with none of the amenities--no street life, no walkable commercial districts. The internet sites list pages and pages of renters' complaints about the lack of maintenance. And they count themselves lucky, because they live in reasonably safe, reasonably quiet places.

It turns out that real grown-ups also don't drop to half-time work in order to have a baby. They don't breastfeed, and they don't plan childcare in which they'll be going back and forth to home, because they leave their kid at 8am and get home at 6. They sell their grandmothers' pianos.

And if they have pets, they buy a home. Period.

This is Edith's blog so I should post about her, but my thoughts about her in this repsect just give me pangs. She went to see one listing with Tom, which turned out to be the nicest place we've looked at. It also turned out to be a good 30% more than we'd calculated was our maximum. After asking the real estate agent her one question--Where's the chimney for Santa? (answer: in the playroom)--she went off to find her bedroom. Later that evening she wanted to take me back to see "our house." Since then she's been asking now and then when we're going home, and it always turns out that she means that house. She thinks it's ours. It has been like living with Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street, knowing that she has that real estate ad for the little Long Island bungalow folded up in her nightable, patiently waiting for the day when she and her mother will get to move to "a real home." Except I'm not Santa Claus.

We've subsequently taken Edith to see other apartments, and she has gotten sad and quiet. She sat silent while Tom and I debated the merits of one place (a block behind our church, well-maintained, good rent for downtown ... but a three-story narrow walk-up that would require jettisoning the piano, much furniture, and probably our dog). Then finally she said quietly from the backseat, "No, it has a smell." She was right: The stairwell smelled like cigarette smoke, and the apartment smelled like cat litter.

Last night we drove out to a place that was advertised as being in Hopewell (for non-locals: about 10 miles away, but at least a pretty little burg with a real little Main Street, and a picturesque rural commute to Princeton rather than a highway one). Hopewell Township it may technically be, but the actual adress proved to be approaching Pennsylvania--about 16 miles, definitely not within walking distance of the pretty little burg. As we slowed to a crawl along the highway where it was supposed to be located, peering at mailbox numbers and realizing we'd somehow passed it...then passed it again...Edith piped up hopefully, "It looks like there's nothing to see here. No house. Let's go home!"

Kids all over the world live in much worse situations than Edith will wind up in, wherever it happens to be. So I can't let my mama love get the better of my sentiments.

But I also can't seem to do much about the insomnia. Or the approaching July 31 deadline. So please do send your housing prayers and best thoughts, if you've got any to spare. Thanks.