The wonderul Dee Davis joins us today! (And be sure to scroll down for another post from Nancy Prianti, a blog reader who needed to slay a few demons of her own, too!

You know how a song can instantly transport you to a certain time or a certain place? Just three notes and you’re back in college on the ratty old sofa in your boyfriend’s apartment. (Well, okay so we won’t go there.) But you know what I mean. It’s sort of an instant time travel device?

Well for me, my things are like that. Knowing where my things belong, where they fit, is important. See, I’ve moved all off my life. Every two years. My dad turned down a commission in the army because my mom didn’t want to move so much. So we think he went out immediately and found a job that meant moving more than the army. I definitely get my passive aggressive tendencies from my father. (But like the sofa, that’s another story.)
What we’re talking about here is demons. Or more specifically slaying them. And my demon is and always will be starting over. In any capacity. Thanks to all those years on the go, I’m a sucker for permanence. And so when I found out recently that we had to move apartments, suffice it to say that I went ballistic. My poor husband can attest to the fact, and it wasn’t even his fault we had to move. No, this one landed squarely at the foot of our now ex-landlord -- the guy who called and wanted to raise our already choke- on-your-dinner-when-you-say-it rent even higher into the realm of you’ve-got-to-be-kidding rent.

But I digress.

It wasn’t the sudden nature of the move that got to me, it wasn’t even the fact that I’d moved just two years earlier, half way across the country and the Mason/Dixon line, from a four bedroom house on land with a pool, to a two bedroom apartment with a kitchen the size of a closet and closets the size of a shoebox. (I’m told real New Yorkers store shoes in their ovens and other things in their shoeboxes.) What scared me was the idea that I was going to have to go out there and find an apartment. And not just any apartment – I had to find the apartment – again. Talk about demons.

To be honest we still hadn’t recovered from our last move. I’d just located the Christmas stockings (six months and one Christmas after they were needed, but hey, I’d found them). I couldn’t move. I absolutely under no circumstances could move. And I announced that in the overly dramatic, I’ll slit my wrists if you don’t agree to my demands way that I’ve perfected over the last forty years and which no one – including said landlord – ever listens to.

My husband, bless his little heart, did agree to the extortionist rent. But our loving landlord (I’m being kind) decided that, no, we hadn’t been tortured enough, he was going to sell. SELL. That meant we now had less than a month to find an apartment and move.
On some level this is probably not a frightening thing. I mean there are probably people out there who would have thrown up their hands, shrugged philosophically and laughed about how they really needed to clean house anyway.

I am not one of those people.

I make lists. And then I made lists of my lists. I plan. And so I prepared for my apartment hunt as if it were the latest campaign in a lifelong war. I take the idea of slaying demons quite literally. It’s them or me, I figure. And I didn’t watch all those John Wayne movies growing up, for nothing.

But nothing is easy in New York City. Nothing. You’d think that in a city with literally hundreds of apartments on every block it wouldn’t be that hard to find one. Unfortunately you’d be wrong. You see there are always mitigating factors.

In our case, he weighs 45 pounds, resembles a sausage with big ears and barks. His name is Max. At least half of the buildings in New York don’t accept tenants with dogs. Cats, yes. Dogs, no. And then another third, I’d say, of the remaining buildings don’t take dogs that weigh over thirty pounds. I should put Max on a diet – really I should – but no way is he going to lose fifteen pounds. Not going to happen.

Then once you whittle those apartments away, we narrow it further by requiring an elevator and a doorman. I mean a girl has to have standards, right? Now add in a middle-school aged child – who needs to be close to her friends (her mother already moved her once) and her school, and we’ve narrowed the field yet again.

Enter the broker, who shows you things that are too small, too expensive, too -- shudder – dirty, too ornate (you should have seen the French Rocco one) things you don’t want, things you can’t have (because someone rents it five minutes before you’ve seen it), things that are missing major parts – like kitchens or closets… well you get the idea.

And then, after three weeks of looking, you finally find it. An admittedly low floor unit, that despite its height impairment is huge, with – wait for it – a terrace. It’s everything you’ve ever dreamed an apartment in New York City should be. A great building. A dining room (hey I downsized, remember – and I’m southern. I need a dining room). And closets, EIGHT OF THEM.

Okay, I’m hyperventilating trying to get my hand to hold still long enough to sign the lease, and thinking to myself that maybe this moving thing was for the best after all. Only then, because after all this is a cruel city, our broker (yes, you have to have a broker just to rent an apartment – and more credit checks than I ever had buying a house) -- anyway, our broker walks in with a disappointed shake of his head and informs us that the building is going condo.

CONDO.

Okay it’s definitely a plot. I’m not a happy camper. After my husband peels me off the floor, gets me home and sedated, we decide to be really brave and hit the pavement on our own. There are maybe six buildings that meet our criteria in our part of the city that are no fee buildings (read you can do it the old fashioned way – yourself).

Well, I’m incapable of doing much of anything at this point except lift my arm to drain the martini glass. But my husband, bless his little heart, manages to find not one but three options for us. All of which are really great. And so after a couple of days of mulling over the choices (and sobering up from the martinis) I finally make my decision and we go to the building to sign the papers.

Except that, oops, in my sobering up time, the apartment has been rented. Much cursing and unprintable stuff goes on next. Said demon is winning – big time. So I go home and pull out my floor plans and furniture cut-outs (I told you I was anal) and start trying to cram our furniture into one of the other two apartments.

And after much teeth gnashing and a couple of broken pencil tips, I manage to get all the little pieces of paper furniture on the graph paper sized version of the apartment. We call the apartment people again – and set the appointment. This time when I arrive, it’s to the news that the original apartment (the bigger one) is available again. Seems the guy backed out at the last moment (probably buying my condo).

So the moral to the story – and I’m not even going to go into what happened with the actual move – is that perseverance wins the day and vanquishes the demons. I think inertia is the worst thing we can do in times of crisis. Just getting out there and doing something – anything -- seems to be the best offense.

And in my case that’s the only way I managed to be sitting here looking out of my wall of windows at the most beautiful sunset in Manhattan, surrounded by all my things, each of which reminds me of some moment or time in my life when I was happy. And together – well together they make me happy, wherever I might be. And based on life so far in New York – there’s no telling where exactly that will be next. But for the moment, we’re here. Living in the moment. Demons vanquished – at least for the time being!

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I'm taking the opportunity to write Dee's bio, since she didn't think to send me one and I'm her critique partner and, thus, am entitled to gush! Dee Davis is the author of lots of wonderful books, including the fabulous Last Chance, Inc. romantic suspense trilogy (the third of which - Exposure -- is coming out in just a few weeks!). She lives in Manhattan (obviously) with her family and, having seen her apartment, I can say that it really is awesome and was worth all the trouble. For more info, visit her on the web at http://www.deedavis.com

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And now, another demon is slain by Nancy Prianti (a demon I completely understand and sympathize with. Thanks for the post, Nancy!

From Nancy: I'm so angry, I could spit (ok, that's not exactly what I'd like to do, but I'll leave it at that.) I've got my fair share of issues to deal with regarding my son. Well, I was just reading posts on my favorite RVing board and someone posted that they were upset that they got the last non-handicapped site at a campground, which was uneven and simply not as nice and flat as the unoccupied handicapped site next to him. He asked the park ranger (this was an Army Corps of Engineers site) whether he could move to the level handicapped site since it was unoccupied, and the ranger told him no. He didn't think it fair that it was sitting there empty while he (a tax payer!) had to make do with an uneven site. That promped five pages of responses till the moderator closed the thread.

Here's the problem. So many people who posted were incensed at all the "able-bodied" people who use handicapped parking spots. I wanted to post that not everyone who qualifies for a handicap hangtag is in a wheelchair.

Chris has a handicap hangtag because he's visual impaired and cannot walk without orthotics (braces). We did not used to regularly take handicapped spots unless we couldn't find a spot that was a reasonable distance for him to walk. Now we do regularly take the handicapped spot because he is getting harder and harder to control with his autism and additionally he often has a seizure while we're shopping and I end up having to carry him back to the car (the seizure will knock him out for about 1/2 hour). At 8 1/2 years old and 70 lbs, this can be next to impossible, especially while watching his younger sister and making sure she doesn't get hit by someone zooming into an open parking spot. I've also had someone yell at me, "That's a HANDICAPPED spot!" as we were getting out of the car after parking in a handicapped spot with our hangtag displayed on the rearview mirror.

Oh, if I could only trade in his handicap hangtag for relief from just ONE of his disbilities, I'd gladly do it! But the fact of the matter is, although his problems aren't readily apparent, although he looks able-bodied, although with the help of his orthotics he can even jump (ok, not so very high but he gets off the ground) that hangtag has probably saved his life. He has darted out in front of cars that he hasn't seen because they were coming from his blind side. He has fallen on the ground of the driving area in front of more than one store due to his poor balance and coordination. He has thrown an autistic fit in that same area, and thrown himself down on the ground while I panicked that a car would run him over.
Yet with the prevailing feelings of most people, I still feel guilty parking in those spots and using that hangtag. I know it's hard for people who aren't touched by disabilities to understand, but I still wish they did.

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Hugs, Nancy. And good luck to you and your family