A Strange Day on Planet Earth

Some days you don’t want to wake to the landlord outside your bedroom window.

Newly renovated apartments look so seductively turn-key. But turn the key (note the lock is missing the base plate), and you become a test tenant in a land of drying paint and missing doorknobs.

Outlets not work? Or need to be moved four inches to accommodate the new oven — which also does not work?

Radiator leak? Chimney leak? Ceiling leak? Can you see into the basement around the cold water pipe?

Today’s agenda: Fix doorbell. Install permanent sink legs. Discuss options for floorboard gaps. Schedule a time for the landlord to return … tomorrow.

And yet I love this apartment, for all its daily foibles. I loved it from the moment I saw it, a wasteland of drywall and sanded floorboards. And Victor was true to his word: it was beautifully redone.

I worship its gleaming hardwood floors, tiny tiled bathroom, old porcelain kitchen sink (which he kept for the love of it, while there is also a new, practical one where you would expect a sink to be). I adore its tall ceilings and proud air of, “No, they don’t make things like me anymore.”

The places you fight for, those are the ones that become home. This is an assuredly cozy-and-not-adequately-soundproof-for-two-adult-strangers home, but I’ve never lived in one so lovely. My favorite chair looks just-so in its corner, the bricks tell stories of older days, and there is soil for squash and sage seeds come spring.

And maybe, one day, the landlord will not be a daily visitor.