TansEmpire

March 07

March - what a month it has been. I would love to start with comments about the improvement in weather (spring has sprung!) but we have had a month of horror and fear. Horror in the form of a fire in our apartment and fear in the form of constant theft and break-ins. So that’s where I will start.

It was mid March and Andrew and I had returned from the ER (my 2nd home) after I was treated for a torn buttock muscle and hamstring (don’t even get me started on that, more later) and we had fallen fast asleep around 4am to be awoken (thankfully as the smoke alarm failed to go off!) around 8am by this awful smell and ran around the apartment, well Andrew did whilst I hobbled, trying to work out where the smell of smoke was coming from, either inside our place or from another apartment. I finally opened the door to the water furnace to find flames billowing out of it. I closed the door and told Andrew who by this stage was on the phone to 911 for the Fire Department where it was coming from. They advised him to shut off the power to the apartment which instantly stopped the fire, leaving only smoke coming out of the furnace. We are eternally grateful for the placement of our air vent return (directly above the furnace) which allowed the smoke to flow into our bedroom and awake us and eternally pissed that the smoke alarm which is placed above the door to the furnace failed to do its job. We are also pissed at the new management of our apartment complex as all apartments were examined as part of the hand over and no-one noticed that the temperature on our furnace was set way too high. It was a fire just waiting to happen, we are just lucky it happened whilst we were home so that we could prevent the spreading of the fire and not lose all our belongings and put the lives of others at risk. The fireman did all they could (not much at this stage as the fire was out) and then the maintenance crew from the complex arrived and began to fix the furnace. Needless to say the smell throughout the apartment was appalling so an equivalent of a stink bomb was placed in the air vent to rid the smell of smoke but then we kept smelling that all day. Thankfully it was a nice day so we were able to air the apartment out. I know all of this sounds quite clinical, it felt that way at the time with shock not setting in until after everything settled down and everyone had left. I feel very grateful for being on the ground floor with 3 windows in our bedroom allowing us to exit during such emergencies as the furnace is located outside our bedroom door leaving us trapped in here had it been much worse.

So to the other major event, crime! Granted we live between two of America’s highest crime cities, Baltimore and Washington DC, but in the county regions we live in and are surrounded by are known for being safe family environments. So much to our dismay, very shortly after the change in management, one apartment was broken into. Then came a spate of stolen cars, tyres being stolen and cars being broken into for parts. Most of this occurring right outside our bedroom window, no more than 10 metres away! It has the residents up in arms at the lack of response from the management in terms of providing additional security for us, despite the premium we are paying for living in such a complex. Our apartment block is at the back of the property so there is no drive by traffic and we are blocked off from the streets in terms of visibility by trees so we are certainly susceptible for such crime. But it is unheard of in this area and is starting to unsettle us and worry Andrew to the point of knowing that because I am in the apartment so much that if we were broken into I would most likely be here. So there is talk from the residents of breaking their leases and leaving, something Andrew and I continue to discuss and will leave up in the air for the time being. I will keep you posted, hopefully this is the end of it and the criminals are spooked enough by the residents who seem to be conducting their own patrols which I encountered last night when I came home after 11pm to find a guy wandering around looking at all the cars. I actually stayed in my car trying to work out whether he was a criminal or not and he kept looking at me wandering why I wasn’t budging from the car, it was a strange Mexican stand-off.

So to Andrew and I. We have started having our date nights again now that I seem to be back to nearly normal health. It has been nice to get back to basics and enjoying being together outside of the house. We have decided that each week we will take turns in choosing something to do so for the first one I chose movies and bowling of which Andrew didn’t know I used to do often and even played in a weekly league with my brother (not that great though!). So that is where I managed to hurt my buttock and hamstring for those of you whose mind was in the gutter. I felt it tweak at one point but it didn’t actually tear until later in the week during something as simple as attempting a bath. Anyway, the night was great as after 10pm they have Cosmic Bowling which is where they turn down the lights, play music and have a disco atmosphere. We had a great time and were looking forward to the next date night for which Andrew decided we would go ballroom dancing, but thanks to my buttock and hamstring we have put that on hold until April.

I have been getting out and about and meeting people through many varied events. One was a dice game called Bunco in which a group of women gather (mainly for the hell of it and a good time really) and play in groups which rotate until you get to the end of the night and are left with 4 women playing for the win and the pot of money. It’s too hard to explain the rules and I found I didn’t understand it until I actually played it, but by the end of the night I found myself at the table of final 4 but didn’t win. I have also joined several groups through a website called meetup.com which allows people to form groups of something of interest to them and for others to join in. I am attending a knitting club, board games, another Bunco group and continuing to find more interests each time I log on. I have also looked into volunteer opportunities and now have a list of several groups that interest me which I will follow up next week and help out where I can, especially where animals are involved!

I also attended my first book club meeting and we had a great night discussing the book and generally having fun. There are several women in the group who have experience living overseas due to their husbands careers so the talk ultimately turned towards that which helped me voice some of the feelings I have been having. Essentially one of the ladies summed it up best, that whilst living here there are moments in the lives of my family and friends that I will miss (such as Jarrod starting school) and never be able to experience and that in time people will not forget us but learn to not remember to include us as much and that sucks but can’t be changed, and that I need to focus on what experiences I can have here with Andrew and hopefully soon a family of our own and realise that unfortunately it’s a trade off. But we have made this move for our reasons and I need to remind myself of that each time I feel like I am missing something or want to go home. So keep emailing me and keeping me informed of your lives, so I can feel somewhat in touch with the homeland.  

To the weather, we experienced daylight savings 3 weeks early (no idea why) and the weather seemed to change overnight. One day I was walking around with my winter coat and hat and the next in short sleeves. Today it is 20 degrees, the bulbs are starting to flower and the cherry blossoms are fantastic. It’s nice to see people out and about and walking around at nights and it encourages me that life here will begin to settle down soon and that Andrew and I will gradually establish roots and form a network of friends and hobbies. We have become members of the Columbia Association which allows us access to several gyms, pools, golfing ranges, batting cages etc and are looking forward to getting a routine together for whilst he isn’t travelling. Right now as I type this he is in Miami again training at Fedex. During April there will be 2 trips to New York which I am looking forward to as I have never been. There are no new photos posted as not much has happened warranting photos (the furnace isn’t exciting to look at) but with the trips to NYC coming up look out for photos in next months posting. 

So that’s all for now, I hope you are all well and look forward to hearing from you.

1 comment March 28th, 2007