I touched base with the realtor again in the morning. He said the unit should be ready in the early afternoon and that he would call me. We checked out of the hotel in the morning so I just needed to keep the boys busy until we could get into the apartment. I decided to wait until noon before I called him again. Noon came and went with no contact. I re-set the deadline for 2 pm. Matt had been saying he was tired of eating out so I decided, as an act of faith, to go grocery shopping. There is a Fresh Market about 25 minutes away that has a big organic section. After dragging the boys through the store, we had a van full of groceries. The 2 pm deadline also came and went. A 2:30 pm phone call went unreturned. Now I was panicking a bit. We went back to the marina where I bought bags of ice to try and keep things cool. Finally, I decided I would just go down to the realtor’s office at 4:45 pm and, if necessary, beg. Thankfully, he was there and said that one of the showers wasn’t working well and they had been repairing it. We were in by 6 pm.
The first order of business was getting the food in the fridge. I opened the door, gasped, and yelled to Matt, “You have to see this!” “What?” he asked. “It has shelves … and drawers … wow, and even shelves in the door. And it has lights so you can see everything inside. And there’s a freezer and even one of those things that make water and ice! This is amazing!” I gushed. It’s just a standard fridge but I was in awe for at least three days (I mean, really, … cubed or crushed ice?). I swear that putting away groceries that night was a spiritual experience. The small washer/dryer, a full size stove with 4 working burners and a full size oven also seem incredible – as does the fact that there is heat and AC. It’s a 2 bedroom condo with a wrought-iron spiral staircase to the bedrooms on the 2nd floor and has 2.5 baths. It feels like a mansion. We can actually have the kids in bed and be downstairs with the lights on and talk in normal voices, rather than be crammed in our postage stamp-sized berth whispering to each other. As Matt said when he saw how beautiful the apartment was, “Maybe we are not cut out to live on a boat.” I don’t think this is true but I am definitely going to enjoy this comfortable interlude.