When I received my rent renewal notice a few weeks ago, I discovered that my rent would be increasing by $200 per month. (Yes, after only one year, which is ridiculous. I’ve lived in plenty of apartments over the years and I’ve never had my rent increase by that much. Stupid Archstone.)

Here’s a glimpse into the pros and cons I considered while going through my decision-making process:

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Pros:

For the same price as what my increased rent would be, I can move into a 1-bedroom apartment in another building. (Granted, the building probably wouldn’t be as nice as the one I’m in right now, but I’m okay with that sacrifice.)

I’ve been thinking about moving into DC for a while, so that’s what I’m going to do. Most of my friends live there anyway, and that’s where I tend to be if I go out after work and on weekends, so I might as well be closer to the action.

I’m looking forward to having a non-studio apartment again. Even though I’ve liked my current building, I always felt weird about inviting people over when my bed was just a few feet away from my living room sofa. I know there are tons of people who live in tiny apartments and still entertain, but I just never got into the habit.

I’m trying to move into a rent-controlled building, so I can be assured my rent won’t balloon drastically out of control in another year.

Cons:

Having to pack all my stuff again. Last year I asked my mom, stepdad, two brothers, and nephew to help, but for this next move I’ve decided to take my friends up on their offer to assist (it seems like a lot to ask the same group to make the 2-hour drive from Richmond only one year later). Luckily, living in a studio apartment means I don’t have a TON of stuff that needs to be moved…but it’s still a pain. Collecting boxes, packing and unpacking, etc.

Having to change my residency from Virginia to DC. Most of that inconvenience has to do with my car…having to pay to register it in the District…changing tags and insurance and so forth.

Address changes! Verizon Fios for cable and internet, credit card, bank…oh, my.

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Oh, and here’s another big deal: I gave notice of my intent to move out this week…and I don’t know where I’m moving yet! I know the area where I’d like to be in DC, and I’ve looked at several buildings, which narrows things down a bit. The problem is, my current building requires 60-days notice, while all of the buildings I’ve looked at in DC only require 30-days notice. So basically I should know in the next month or so where I’m going (hopefully). That freaks out my planning-self a little bit, but I’m confident I’ll be able to find something I like before my lease-end date of 8 January. (The Christmas/New Year’s holidays aren’t a popular time of year for people to move…right?)

In the end, the reason I decided to move is because I think it’ll be fun. A bigger place, continuing to live a short walk from a Metro station, seeing my friends more often and being able to entertain them at my apartment instead of always going to theirs, not having to worry about another huge rent-jump when my lease comes up for renewal again, etc. I’m moving because I think it’ll be better for me in the long-term, even though I know I’ll have some short-term inconveniences.

My only complaint is that the Shirlington Oktoberfest attracts more people than can comfortably fit in the designated space — trying to walk around involves constantly weaving and squeezing through the crowd. On the bright side: it’s a terrific spot for people watching.

Dana took some photos of us throughout the day, but I like these two pics of me and Elissa the best:

(Old Town Alexandria waterfront)

(Enjoying our beer at Oktoberfest)

Bedbugs have been in the news lately. I’ve read about outbreaks in large U.S. cities which infect entire apartment buildings and temporarily shut down retail stores. I’ve read about the one group who isn’t complaining about the surge (exterminators). I think I pay attention to these stories with more interest than the average reader because I’ve had to deal with bedbugs myself.

My incident happened over three years ago, in the summer of 2007. I never wrote a single sentence about it on this blog while it was actually happening, which was purposeful on my part. I didn’t want anyone to know.

It was because of the stigma. Even if the bedbugs aren’t your fault, even if you aren’t a dirty person, even if you innocently happen to pick them up from a hotel and they multiply on their own…there’s still a stigma. I didn’t want anyone to think negatively of me or wonder if the infestation was somehow my fault. So I told very few people.

I don’t know how I got bedbugs. The worst part is, they had to have been there for weeks before I put all the pieces together and realized what was going on.

Some background: I had a boyfriend at the time, and he was staying over at my place quite a bit. The bedbugs must have liked his skin more than mine because we started noticing what we thought was a rash on his back…however, I never noticed the same rash on myself. (The same thing happens with mosquitoes. I never use bug spray, and I very-very rarely get a mosquito bite, even when others around me are getting eaten-up.) So maybe if I had been the one covered with unknown bites, I would have been more concerned about the source? Hmm…

I discovered the infestation at a good time, relatively speaking. My boyfriend had just moved into a new apartment, and because he and I were spending so much time together, I was invited to move in some of my stuff as well. (In other words, he and I were basically living together, but I still had a few months remaining on my apartment lease so I wasn’t moving all of my stuff out at once.)

So…I was moving some of my stuff out, which involved packing boxes and clothes and such. And taking all the bedding off my bed.

I was horrified by what I found. Completely horrified. There’s no other way to describe it.

They had been hiding under the bedskirt, between the bedskirt and the boxspring. The bedskirt completely hid the Bedbug Party that was happening underneath.

I have said on multiple occasions that I don’t have the best memory, but that particular moment is burned into my mind. When I removed the mattress, I saw just a few bedbugs crawling on top of the bedskirt. When I removed the bedskirt itself, they were everywhere. I was in the apartment by myself at the time and I was completely freaked out.

The first thing I did was grab the vacuum cleaner. I sucked up a few of them before I saw the futility of what I was doing and reached for my phone instead. I called my boyfriend and he arrived not long afterward with a friend in tow. They put on plastic gloves, then threw both the mattress and boxspring off the balcony that was attached to my bedroom (so they wouldn’t have to track it through the rest of the apartment, across the public hallway, and around the building).

I spent many hours dealing with the bedbug problem even after the bedding had been disposed of. I read recommendations online that said I should treat all of my clothes, linens, and towels in high heat, which involved me taking a huge pile of stuff to the local laundromat (they had multiple dryers, so it was easier and quicker that way). Once there, I shoved many, many bags of dry, clean clothes into the dryers and put them on full blast for the full cycle. And then I had to re-fold and re-hang everything.

When I moved out of the apartment to stay with my boyfriend, I left behind most of my furniture. There was a couch, chair, coffee table, and sofa table (all of which had been purchased less than a year before), and a few smaller tables and a dresser I’d had for a few years longer.

I contacted the rental office to let them know of the issue, and they sent an exterminator. I went back a few weeks later to check on things in my apartment, and I could still find random bedbugs crawling on the carpet. I reported the issue once again, and the exterminator was sent out a second time.

Less than a week before I was due to move everything out of the apartment for good (my lease was almost up), I went there again to check out the situation and found a live bedbug on the sofa. That’s what I made the decision to leave ALL of the furniture behind. I estimated I was leaving behind several thousand dollars worth of furniture, and while I realize not everyone would take such an extreme measure, to me it was worth the peace of mind. I’d been at the other apartment for several months with no bedbug incidents, and I didn’t want to risk a new infestation.

The rental office ended up settling my issue with their insurance company (and also dealt with the removal of the furniture), and I received a check for $500. It wasn’t close to the amount that the furniture was worth, but I wasn’t interested in prolonging the fight.

I saw a report not long ago that said DC is on the Top 10 list of most-infested cities for bedbugs. Honestly, if I ever had to deal with this again, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d figure it out somehow, I suppose, but really…it’s a nightmare.

Speaking of nightmares: I had them. For months and even years afterward, I would dream about discovering them in my bed. (I haven’t had a bedbug-dream in about six months, and I’m hoping it stays that way.) They weren’t nightmares in the sense that I was being attacked by a giant bedbug or that I woke up and they were crawling all over me — but they were horrible all the same. Usually they just involved the discovery of bedbugs, and in my dream I knew what they were and knew I’d had the problem in the past. The feeling of dread, and all the work I knew I’d have to do — that was nightmarish enough for me.

Even to this day, three years later, I check under the mattress and bedskirt every single time I take off the sheets to be washed. There’s still a sense of foreboding as my eyes make the scan, and a feeling of relief when there’s nothing there.

Justin, Shannon, Brandon, and me:

I wasn’t happy to hear that a fresh layer of snow will be dumped on the ground tonight and tomorrow, but I’ll survive. I did some grocery shopping last Thursday before the first storm, but the fresh fruit and veggies I bought have all been consumed. I have enough food in my apartment to get me through the next few days, but my options are kind of boring: oatmeal, bran cereal, microwave popcorn, canned soup, canned tuna, frozen veggies, egg whites that can be scrambled, pickles, and some protein bars.

I was able to hang out with friends in DC last Friday night, but Metro shut down access to above-ground stations at 11pm so I had to make my escape back to Virginia before then. The above-ground stations remained closed until this morning, which is why I stayed home and didn’t try to go anywhere. Although they reopened those stations this morning, like I said…we’re expecting another major snowfall later today. So it may be another few days before I can use the Metro again.

This also means my car is snowed-in. If there was an emergency or somewhere I had to be, I could dig it out — but since that isn’t the case (except for being limited to boring food options, which I can handle), I’ll leave my car where it is. Plus, when I went outside today (I finally decided to venture out so I could buy some sushi for lunch) I noticed that the roads outside my apartment (they aren’t major roads; I’ve heard those are pretty clear by now) are still packed with snow and ice.

See? This is my snowed-in car as of a few hours ago (the one in the middle with the blurred-out license plate). At least this photo proves I’m not the only person who hasn’t extricated their car from the parking lot.

The non-work friend who’s coming with me on the tour is J-, someone I’ve mentioned on this blog in the past. He’s also my current swim instructor.

(Have I mentioned that J- is teaching me how to swim? I’ve had one lesson so far and the second will be this Sunday. Since I said almost a year ago that I really needed to do this swim-thing, I’m proud of myself that I’m finally following through.)

I’m wearing my zebra-striped dress on the White House tour tonight, because I wanted to be highly Zan-appropriate. This is a shot of the dress that was taken last month in Chicago:

Since 1956, the U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle Corps and the Marine Corp Silent Drill Platoon, have been performing during the summer at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington.

My friend Foggy Dew sent out an email last week, asking if anyone would be interested in attending. It ended up being him, me, one of my co-workers, and a few other ladies.

They have special reserved seating in front of the Memorial for VIPs and invited guests, but anyone can sit on the grass, or bring chairs or blankets to sit on.

Here’s the cool part: we had just spread out our blanket to sit on the ground when we were approached by one of the uniformed Marines who was helping with the reserved-seating section. When the reserved seats aren’t full, apparently they’ll go around and ask random people if they’d like to sit in them — which is exactly what happened to us. So instead of sitting on the ground, farther back from where everything was happening on the lawn, me and two other ladies got to sit in the second row of reserved seats, almost smack-dab in front of the Memorial.

It was awesome. The Drum & Bugle Corps played first. And it wasn’t some boring thing where they stood in one place the entire time — it was like those band performances you see at special events, like the Super Bowl, where they play their instruments while weaving around each other and creating different formations, constantly on the move. (And somehow they never collide. I don’t even want to know how many hours it takes to perfect something like that.)

After the band performed, the Silent Drill Platoon arrived. Just like when the band entered the area, the Marines marched out from behind the Iwo Jima Memorial, half on each side, came down the stairs, and met on the lawn in front of the Memorial.

I’d heard of the Silent Drill Platoon before, and I’ve seen them on YouTube, but I’d never seen them in person — so I was very, very excited to see their performance. They’re an extremely specialized group that performs without any music or commands; the training is intense and only the best of the best are chosen to perform.

I wasn’t at all disappointed. Their performance was flawless (at least that I could tell). I even found myself getting all teary-eyed at one point — you know, it was that whole “Wow, these guys make me feel really proud of my country” kind of feeling.

Specifics:

When does this happen? Tuesday evenings, for a few months during the summer. There’s only one more performance this year — next Tuesday night, August 11, from 6:30-7:30pm. If you aren’t able to catch it next week, make sure you do so next year.

How do you get there? You can drive or Metro to Arlington Cemetery and take a free shuttle bus. Or you can do like I did and take Metro to the Rosslyn station, then walk a short distance from there to the Memorial grounds.

[Note: These photos are courtesy of Foggy Dew.]

John McCain arrived just before everything started.

U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle Corps

Silent Drill Platoon

Another shot of the Silent Drill Platoon

Granted, it is nice to see the furniture in person and get a physical feel for it. You can immediately see how big or small it really is, rather than trying to imagine it in your place while peering at the image on a computer screen. But I took the risk. I found something that I liked and I ordered it.

Here’s the semi-embarrassing part. I’ve been living in my current apartment for over a year, and I haven’t had a dresser in my bedroom the entire time. (I know. What???!!!?) I hang up what I can; I have out-of-season stuff in a plastic bin; I have a few (sometimes toppling) stacks of shirts, pants, etc. on the top shelf of my closet. And yes, a fair amount of stuff tends to make its way onto a chair I have in my room, just for the sake of convenience.

So I finally got tired of it! I want my stuff nice and orderly and put away. I’ve been looking on Craigslist for a number of months, but whenever I found something remotely interesting I had no idea how to get it from their location to my location. (I don’t know anyone in the local area who owns a truck! And I don’t want to be a bother!)

I was opposed to buying a dresser from somewhere like Ikea because I didn’t want to put it together myself. I assembled an Ikea dresser by myself when I was in my late teens/early 20s, and I don’t know whether it was user-error or shoddy materials (probably a combination of both), but it was always wobbly. I ended up throwing it away when I moved out of that apartment…I’m sure I didn’t use it any longer than a few years.

Because of that, I bought a dresser that was already assembled, and I paid a fee to have it delivered. The thought makes me very happy. It’s supposed to be delivered this weekend.

I arrived at the King Street metro just after 8am, and the platform wasn’t too crowded. However, the train itself was. A bunch of people must have parked at one of the two earlier stops on the blue line, because I was one of the last people to squish into my particular train car.

On the Metro, even though it took 1.5 hours to reach my stop (on a typical day, the same trip would take about 30 minutes), the mood was pretty jovial. Our driver kept things light by giving us frequent updates over the intercom, and he’d purposefully say things to make us laugh.

(Since I was standing near one of the doors, I joined my fellow door-standers in creating a non-moving wall of bodies so people on crowded platforms couldn’t force their way into our car. Some of our fellow passengers appreciated this gesture so much, they cheered for us!)

There was a mix-up in the information I received, so I got off at the Federal Triangle stop instead of Capitol South, which is where Brian disembarked (this is why we weren’t able to meet up and ended up walking around separately). You see, once I exited from Federal Triangle, I couldn’t re-enter that particular Metro — there were so many outgoing passengers, they weren’t allowing anyone to come back in.

I attempted to walk to another nearby Metro station, but once I walked a few blocks in one direction I’d find the street was blocked off and there was no way to progress any further. I’d try another direction, same result.

In other words, there were numerous factors that thwarted my attempt to see the Inauguration. But even Brian, arriving at the correct location, wasn’t able to claim his spot — after standing in line for a while at the security checkpoint, he was told he wouldn’t make it through in enough time to see anything.

After I consulted a number of Hot Uniformed Officers, they were able to direct me to a Metro stop that was actually accepting incoming passengers — L’Enfant Plaza. (Goodness gracious, there certainly were a lot of police officers and military guys standing around yesterday! I think the only advantage to being by myself was all the sympathy and helpful instruction I received whenever I asked for help. I’d like to give a particularly special shout-out to an officer from Massachusetts, stationed near 14th and Constitution, who noticed me wandering around and made sure I was headed in the right direction.)

Once I was finally on the right path (and temporarily free from any road closures blocking my progress), I hightailed it over to L’Enfant Plaza rather than attempting to watch the swearing-in ceremony on one of the huge Jumbotron screens. I knew that once it was over, an untold number of people would rush to this very location — and no way was I going to get stuck for another couple of hours. Luckily, I was able to board the very next yellow line train and I was soon on my way home.

Time of initial departure from King St Metro: 8:05am
Arrival at Federal Triangle: 9:35am
Waited for Brian until: 10:10am
Walked around, attempted to find my way: for another 2 hours
Boarded train at L’Enfant Plaza: 12pm
Arrived home: 12:45pm

My friend Brian found out yesterday that he has tickets, so off we go to join the masses. Wish me luck!

EDITED, 12:30pm
“Mission: Attend Inauguration”…failed. More details later.