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Monday, June 30, 2008

The housing scare..

As many of you know, we received an offer for an apartment from the campus housing office. As most of you also know, there were many things about this offer I was less than excited about. There were no W/D hookups, the nearest laundry room was two buildings away, it was listed as a three bedroom that was less than 800 square feet, it was on the third floor, and they were giving us three business days to pay them over $800 for an apartment we couldn't even move into until mid August. Yeah, I was pissed.

So, like the sane, reasonable people we are, we told them to keep their panties on, we were going to drive over on Saturday and look at said apartment. They said great, call when you hit town and we'll have someone meet you. Sounds so simple, doesn't it?!?!

Unfortunately, simple was not what it was. We left Saturday morning and things looked good. The kids were doing well, Corb had lots of toys to keep him busy and we waited to leave until Linc was ready to sleep so he lasted about ten minutes or so and passed out. It was warm, but not too warm and the car was happily tuned up and running beautifully. We stopped at a lake of some sort on the way over to let the kids out and Corb happily threw rocks and driftwood and we hiked a little ways up the river feeding the lake and basked in the cold air the rushing water provided. We even dipped Linc's toes in, but he didn't like that. Oh well, we tried. After a short jaunt we headed out again, stopping to grab some lunch. We hit town at about somewhere between 1 and 2:30 and called the housing office. Guess what? They couldn't meet with us until 8. That's right, if we wanted to see an apartment we had to wait until 8pm! I was, needless to say, a little annoyed. Do these idiots not know that my kids go to bed at 8:30?? Grr. But, what choice did I have? So we said fine, decided to bag all responsibility and drove to the coast.

The coast? FREEZING!!! The temperature was measuring a high of about 101 degrees in Eugene so it was nice at first. We had to buy sweatshirts at the coast as we didn't know we were going to be there and hadn't packed anything but extra shorts and t-shirts for the kids. After blowing about fifty dollars on crap off the clearance racks we headed for the beach. We got the children all bundled up (luckily, I did bring a million blankies and so Linc was wrapped up like a burrito in his stroller) and wandered down the beach. With the wind chill I figure the temp was somewhere between 35-45. It was seriously cold. We didn't stay long, jumped back in the car, cranked the heater and headed to Dutch Bros. We loaded up with coffees and cocoas and drove back to Eugene. The kids were still doing great in the car and I was starting to become a little nervous about it. How long could this last?

We got back to Eugene with a little time to spare, found a grass courtyard at the apartment complex and let Corb play while Linc snacked on a blankie. Incidentally, the best place for Linc to sit and be ignored is on a blankie on the grass. He hates grass so much you couldn't get him off that blankie with the promise of a million sharp things to put in his mouth. So, Linc snacked, B and I talked and Corb filled his pockets with play yard sand. Eventually, the housing gal showed up. Her name, I kid you not, was Abra. As in, Cadabra. I swear. She walked us around the complex, which looked decently clean and nice. I was even impressed with how many families were out playing on the grass at that hour. Then she showed us an apartment. I suddenly understood why all these people were outside. One must go outside when one must escape the depression brought on by the darkest, most cramped little caves possible to live in. There were five tiny windows, one in each room. I got an impression of the color of the carpet, it looked dark but I can't be sure. The kitchen was about one quarter of the size of my current kitchen and the living room was about one third the size of my current living room. I'm not sure our queen bed would fit in any of the bedrooms but by way of consolation Abra informed me that none of the closets have doors so you can put shelves and things in them. Huh. The only thing in the apartment that looked normal size was the bathroom. The ceilings were low and the living room and kitchen windows failed to give off any light because they were directly under staircases. The floors were that unforgiving combination of carpet over concrete and the entire place was just dark, cramped and depressing. We waved Abra off after thanking her profusely for her time, got back into the car and just sat there for a minute. We turned to each other at the same time and said "NO!"

We got something to eat and headed home. The kids fell asleep after about twenty minutes in the car and slept the whole way. B and I talked and watched the lightning storm we happened to be driving under. We decided that since we are allotted the same amount of money for housing whether we live in campus housing or not that we are going with not. After some online research it's very obvious that there are much better, cheaper places to live and some of them are actually pretty close to campus, and come with a washer, dryer, dishwasher, yard and so on. All within our budget and all places the Flintstones wouldn't feel at home in. We even found a three bedroom HOUSE that has a two car garage, a huge backyard, a fireplace and all appliances that is well within our price range. So yeah, no hole in the wall for us.

All in all, a very educational trip. I got to see why this university is the way it is and I learned that my youngest loves being in the car.

Not bad, really.

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