Life has been crazy busy – I should be planning my wedding(s) but shit keeps preventing me from doing so (probably my un-diagnosed ADHD…). Seriously though… not having concrete plans for Venice is stressing me out at the moment.
We recently came back from a two-week vacation/seeing his parents in Venice. Vacation was amazing, although not necessarily restful. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful and much needed break from the daily grind here in New York. We purchased a small fortune worth of wine and cheese during our three-day sojourn in Tuscany, which we shipped to our Brooklyn Apartment, with DHL, the Friday before the Sunday we flew home. The wine was from a small winery that is owned and operated by a father and daughter who are also artists – they don’t advertise or distribute. In fact, they don’t even directly ship abroad…
Flash-forward to less than 48-hours after we shipped our packages, using DHL in Venice, to Sunday afternoon: we were at the Copenhagen airport for a long layover, in a long line to get our passports checked, when we got a call from DHL saying that they were downstairs (yes, in NYC) and needed a signature. LESS THAN 48-HOURS after we shipped…
Usually, our packages take at LEAST two-weeks to even clear customs when they ship. We were dumbfounded. We told the DHL driver we weren’t even in the country yet, and asked him to bring both boxes (the cheese and the wine) back onto the truck. He said he would…
We got home that night at midnight (NYC time). The next day (Monday morning) my fiance checked the tracking, and saw that both packages had been “delivered”. The DHL guy forged a signature and lied following our conversation. The packages were dropped in the lobby of our apartment, after he signed on behalf of my fiance. They never made it back to the truck, and we live in a shitty neighborhood.
We asked management to review the camera footage, and someone’s food delivery guy (dressed in an orange, Hawaiian shirt) stole both packages at around 8:10PM. They’d already been sitting in the lobby 6 hours, we got home 4 hours after they were stolen.
Each package probably weighed 25 lbs, and they were in discreet, yellow, DHL boxes, so I’m not sure why he was so tempted to take them. He didn’t even secure them on his moped, and we are convinced that the big box of wine he put on the back of the scooter probably fell off and smashed on his journey. They were also so heavy, that he pushed them out the building door. My blood boils even thinking about it three weeks later…
It took countless posters plastered all over our 6-unit building to finally get the info we needed from the neighbor who ordered that night. After 10 days and through process of elimination, the neighbor who ordered finally gave us the info we needed to give to the cops and contact the delivery service.
I doubt we will get the wine or cheese back, or even be compensated in full. We are still waiting for news of a resolution. I hope he has at least been fired so that he doesn’t keep stealing from every building he delivers to. The most infuriating thing, is that the wine we shipped is from a winery that doesn’t distribute, and the magnum had a hand-painted label from the artist we met, who had just recently incorporated a new color from a hand-made pigment to honor the memory of her late sister.
We only knew about this winery by word of mouth – the suggestion of another winery in Montalcino area.
It was pure luck that we went to that winery – they only do two tours a day, and when we called, they were booked and said they’d call if anything changed, and they could get us in at 4PM.
We got a call at 2PM, and were super excited to check it out. We met the owners of the winery – a father and daughter (around 72 and 45 years old), who are both artists, and use the winery and vineyard as an artist retreat. They lost a daughter/sister, and now devote an entire vineyard to her memory… they gave us a tour and drank wine with us. It was one of the best days of my life. At the end of the tour and wine tasting, we bought 6 bottles, one of which was a magnum with a hand-painted label….
Yes, the wine and cheese was expensive, and expensive to ship too, but the real blow is the fact that it was one of the best days of our life, and we were looking forward to saving it for a very special occasion (wedding, birth, promotion…something special).
Anyhow, this is what began the streak of bad luck…
“We” (he…) bought a house in June, that we have been working on and spending most weekends (aka Sunday – Tuesday morning) at, and which is now ready to rent on Airbnb. Yes, it is an investment property… we both wish we could live there full time, as we are so over this city. But we need money to help pay the mortgage and hope to make some profit in doing so… We also have to be at our respective jobs in person (him slightly more so than me), otherwise we could give up this shitty apartment in a shitty neighborhood that we pay way too much for and risk our lives living here every day.
Anyhow, we were supposed to have our first AirBnB guest last weekend, when the well pump at the house conveniently shit the bed, four hours before their arrival. We were ready to spend a relaxed Sunday together in Brooklyn for the first time in almost 3-months, when we got a call from our rental management agency (who went to make sure the house was in order), saying the water wasn’t coming out of the faucets. When we left the Tuesday prior, the water was working just fine. They had their plumber come take a look, and then we sent another plumber to assess the situation. Meanwhile, we lost about $1,400 with the cancellation.
I can’t even imagine how pissed off that the first guests were, getting cancelled on 4 hours before they were due to arrive. But, I guess that’s what the rental management company is for – dealing with these situations, and hopefully able to recommend another property they manage close by.
We got in the car (a 2003 Subaru Outback) to go take a look ourselves, and about 1 minute down our street here in Brooklyn, the check engine light came on, and the engine started making thumping noises. Thankfully, it wasn’t a cat in the engine (which I guessed it might be, because I follow too many local cat rescues, and because it was a rainy day). However, the car, which is 20 years old, just needed the second cylinder replaced. 
Needless to say, we did NOT make it to the house upstate, and spent a very somber Sunday at our apartment here in Brooklyn, wondering what brought us such bad karma (I don’t think it was anything I did, but maybe it was some ill-intent I’ve been harboring towards a coworker who is never actually working or in the office…).
As if this that Sunday wasn’t bad enough, we had rain all week here in NYC, leading up to torrential downpours on Friday morning and afternoon. All of NYC and the five-boroughs had flash flooding in various neighborhoods. We happen to live on the top story of a five-story building, and have had issues with our ceiling leaking in the past during heavy and persistent rainfall. We were assured by management that the issue had been resolved the last time that it happened, like a year ago.
Cut to this Friday, when I am working from home, and my fiance was dealing with a separate, work-related, shit-maelstrom with the accounting department at his job. The living room ceiling and light fixture (YES, the LIGHT FIXTURE) in our apartment living room starts leaking profusely. Rusty, orange water… since the wiring is obviously FUCKED from prior water damage.
I had a fucking meltdown, as I was working, sending urgent emails to building management, calling the super, etc., and my fiance was still sitting in bed screaming obscenities, in Italian, at his laptop and phone about the incompetent accountant. He was not at all concerned that our leaking light fixture was a fire hazard, on top of being another mess for me to clean, as he was only concerned with his work issue. I had to lay down magazines and a big mixing-bowl underneath the fucked up ceiling to catch and absorb the water. Meanwhile, the sound of constant dripping was driving me INSANE, as my phone and laptop pinged non-stop with work emails. I had a bit of a mental breakdown as a result of my stress, and we got into a heated argument as a result.
Women readers: you all know how it is. We have to handle everything on top of work, on top of regular cleaning and house maintenance, on top of being the social obligations gate-keeper; caretaker of pets, mother (if you have kids). One more stressful situation thrown into the daily mix (especially on top of the shit week we were already having…), and I fucking blew.
At least the rented apartment technically isn’t our problem – someone else has to pay for repairs and coordinate help.
Needless to say though, between the well pump, the car, and the apartment ceiling (the apartment where we spend most of our time), it was a very stressful and expensive week.
I drove upstate alone, with the cats, on Saturday morning (as my fiance had to work on Saturday night – as usual…), as we had planned to finally have my entire family (immediate and extended) over to the new house for a BBQ, about three weeks back. I wasn’t about to cancel, even under the current circumstances.
When I arrived, and after the well pump was replaced on Thursday for $2,000, the water did NOT turn on. The well pump switch was turned on, so I was pretty fucking distraught. I got on facetime with my fiance, who told me I needed to turn up the pressure gauge, which I did, to the same location it had been set at prior to the new pump installation.
Now, the first thing I did when I arrived at the house, alone and with the cats in tow, and after a 2.5 hour drive alone, in the pour rain and in a shitty car with shitty tires that caused me to hydroplane on Pallisades, was take a pee. I discovered the water wasn’t on in the first place, since the toilet didn’t flush. After I turned on the water pressure, I went upstairs to flush the toilet I had peed in, and then turned on the washing machine in the basement.
I kept hearing water running, and thought it was the toilet running for longer than usual after I flushed it, as toilets are sometimes prone to do. About five minutes later and after the sound of running taps continued, I noticed water pooling on the floor in the downstairs bathroom, fast and furiously, outside of the sink cabinet. I opened the cabinet doors, and water (hot water) was spraying from under the sink.
I went into another meltdown (keep in mind that at this point, I was running on 4 hours of sleep having gone out and drank approximately 2 gallons of alcohol the night before with a friend I hadn’t seen in months, had been dealing with emergency situations all week, and was at the house alone, to clean up another wet mess (having spent hours dealing with a leaking ceiling the day before)).
I was on facetime with my fiance when this was going down, as I ran to the basement to shut off the well pump switch, turn off the pressure gauge, and desperately unplug the washing machine. I went back upstairs and the bathroom had 1/2 an inch of water covering the floor. I went back downstairs, and the ceiling tiles in the basement ceiling tiles under the bathroom were totally soaked and leaking onto the carpet.
Meanwhile, in typical man-fashion, my fiance was telling me to “calm down” when I was the only one there to clean the mess, having dealt with water damage the day before, and running on no sleep, and having been arguing all morning to the point that we didn’t kiss goodbye when we went separate days earlier that day.
In fact, I was there that early and alone, just to be there for the chimney sweep to clean and assess the wood stove. He came about 30 minutes after this fiasco, meanwhile my fiance had to call another emergency plumber to deal with the flooded bathroom/sink.
It was not a good day. There was no water while the plumber fixed this shit, and even after water was restored, it was muddy and brown, since the well pump was just replaced. I was thirsty as fuck, and hadn’t thought ahead to bring or buy spring water.
I was also dehydrated from going out the night before and had a raging headache from stress and alcohol consumption and no sleep.
The plumber deduced that the 30-year old gasket under the bathroom sink had blown when the pressure came on. Lucky us.
I took a bath in muddy, brown water that night, since I smelled like an old billy goat’s nut-sack and had no other options. My family came the next day for the BBQ, and we had a great time hosting, despite the tap water still being sligthtly brown from the nuew well pump.
Thank god for my family. I don’t know what I would do without them.
The High Heeled C*ntessa 