Living at Stephanie's

Our friend Stephanie is out of town this weekend, and she offered to let Jeff and I stay at her house and borrow her car. It's worked out really well, it helps a lot to have a little space and be able to just spend the day in one spot - doing work and watching a little TV. 

I mentioned before that our clothes are mostly ok, though they have some soot on them. This is a good example - this T-shirt of Jeff's was on the top of the pile of folded clothes - you can tell the square area that was on top - it's a light shade of gray instead of white.

At Stephanie's, we did a bunch of loads of laundry, so now we have clothes that don't smell like smoke. It's a somewhat odd collection, though, since we just have whatever was folded in one of our three closets. Jeff has T-shirts, sweaters, shorts, socks, and underwear. I now have pajamas, T-shirts, sweaters, and cardigans. Neither of us has any pants, other than the ones we were wearing.

Stephanie packed me a bag of clothes to complement what I picked up from my place. So now I do have some jeans to wear, along with other things. She also put together a package of things from Target - toothbrush, toothpaste, deoderant, etc., which was really thoughtful.

Also, Stephanie has two dogs - Petey and Snaffle, that are both really cute. Petey never gets tired of playing catch. 

Good News, Bad News

Again, I’ll include the whole story here, but here are a couple main developments:

The Good News: Jeff and I have our laptops back! And they work! Yaaaay! (And thanks to Dave's magic internet-tethering phone, I have internet!)
The Bad News: The apartment management is now estimating that it will be six to nine months before people on the ninth floor can live there again.

So here’s the whole story:
Though there’s not all that much I can do about the whole apartment situation, it’s still been incredibly disruptive and distracting, making it really hard to get normal work done. I haven’t been all that sad about the possibility of losing all of our stuff or having no access to our apartment, but I got pretty upset today just due to the frustration of not being able to focus on normal things I need to get done. I just want to be able to sit down and focus on one thing, and not be thinking about when I’ll go back to the apartment, under what contingencies I’ll stay where, or looking up places to stay in the future. I think the best word to describe the situation is just overwhelming.

I did manage to get some work done today, but there were also lots of new developments with the apartment situation. Jeff and I originally thought we might stay with his parents in Baltimore. It would be nice to see his parents, we’d be comfortable there, and some of our stuff is already there. But, it’d be almost impossible to make the trip to DC every day, and when we did go to College Park or DC, we’d probably need to borrow a car, and Jeff and I would need to coordinate.

Then Brendan called me and said that the Space Foundation, where I work, would pay for me to stay in an extended stay hotel or some type of corporate housing for a few weeks until I can move back into my apartment. That would be really great, because then we could stay in the DC area without having to take over a friend’s living room.

Around 7pm, we called the apartment to check the status of things. They said we might be able to get some things if we came by soon. So we ran over there immediately. When we got there, it turned out that our wing of the ninth floor was still completely off-limits (though the other wing was able to grab some of their stuff today). Our wing would maybe have access by Monday.  However, Niyi, who we keep talking with at the apartment, said that we could make a list of a few things and he would go up with some of the construction/ clean-up people and try to get them, which was really, really nice.

Trying to make a list of the ten-ish things that you would like from your apartment, not knowing when you might have access again, is a really crazy experience. It’s like one of those hypothetical questions you ask during icebreakers (e.g. If you could have ten of your belongings and nothing else, what would they be?) They also had to be things for which we could describe the location. Here was our list:

1. Suitcase(s) - We added this as an afterthought, because Niyi suggested it.
1. Laptop and cord - My computer on the coffee table
2. Laptop and cord - Jeff's computer on the kitchen table
3. Camera (SLR) - Under the couch - could definitely have been damaged by water
4. International Economics Text Book - I have class on Monday!
5. Black wool winter jackets - Mine and Jeff's - it's getting cold!
6. Camera charger - Might as well, if I'm getting the camera.
7. White box (this has our passports and other valuables) - Probably better to have get these somewhere safe
8. Boxes of Jewelry - Jeff's grandma just gave me that necklace, and I knew it was in here.
9. Any clothes that will fit in suitcases - We didn't know how describe what to get, we figured we'd just take whatever they could grab.
10. Garage opener and bike keys - Jeff's bike was in the garage, but not usable because he couldn't unlock it.


So Niyi went up and managed to get everything on the list! Yay! He actually filled a giant garbage bag full of our clothes – he grabbed everything from one of the closets.

Niyi also took pictures of our apartment. Everything looks almost completely normal. From what we can tell from the pictures it looks like there was probably standing water on the floor. And based on the things Niyi brought out for us, there is a thin layer of soot on everything. Also, everything smells like a bonfire, which is weird, but probably fixable with a couple good trips through the washing machine.

The pictures are also really strange for Jeff and I to look like, because it's such a moment-frozen-in-time sort of feel. There's a coffee cup sitting out next to the couch, a tie on the kitchen table, dishes to be done, etc. Lots of things that are not the way you would leave them if you knew you'd be gone a long time. In a weird way it reminds me of the pictures of houses in Pompeii, where people left in the middle of what they were doing.

We also got some updated information while talking to Niyi. The apartment management is now estimating that it will be six to nine months before anyone can live on the ninth floor. So essentially we need to find a new place to live.

However, the management will replace one week of hotel stays at either the Double Tree of the Washington Hilton while we look for new housing. Also, they’re reimbursing everyone for the November rent as quickly as possible.

The Double Tree was full, so Jeff and I head to the Washington Hilton, since it was already getting pretty late. When we got to the hotel, the first thing we did was flip open our laptops – and they both work! Soooo lucky! And my DSLR camera, which I keep under the couch, also seems to be completely functional! Here you can see some of the soot I wiped off my computer - not too bad.

Also, I’ve been trying to keep my status message up to date on gmail and facebook so people know where we’re at. And I have to say, Jeff and I have the most amazing friends ever! Seriously, so many people have offered us a place to stay or tried to help in other ways and it has been really, really heartwarming. We’re very lucky.

Here’s the current plan:
Things aren’t set yet, but here’s what I’m thinking at the moment.

It’s hard to do work at the Washington Hilton, because there is no (free) internet in the room, and we can’t cook any of our meals – which gets expensive. Also, we’d like to be able to do some laundry. So I think we may stay at Stephanie’s house over the weekend. She and Rosalie are both gone, so there is plenty of space for us, and Stephanie is lending us her car.

During that time, in addition to doing some school work, Jeff and I will look into new apartments to rent. We don’t want to change locations completely, and we don’t want to spend much more per month than we were before. One possibility, actually, is that we’ll move into an empty apartment within our same building.

It’s unlikely that any units will be available (even in our same building) until December, so we may still need to take my work up on the offer to do some extended stay living.

Hopefully by December at the latest we’ll be set up in a new apartment, and back to normal.

Weeks, Not Days

So, I'll put the whole story down here, but the main new piece of information is that it's probably going to be weeks, not days, until we can live in our apartment again.

I stopped back at the apartment yesterday after work, but was told that the ninth floor was still completely off-limits, even for just taking a look or grabbing a few things. The building still looks pretty crazy - there are clean-up trucks all over the place. There is still glass all over the courtyard, and there are burnt pages of books and other papers fluttering around.

So Jeff made a Target run, picking up some essentials (socks, underwear, toothbrush...), and then Jeff and I stayed with Kris and Emma (thanks guys!). We had a nice time with them - they took us out to dinner at Lauriol Plaza, which was super nice (and tasty!).

This morning, Jeff and I went back to the apartment, thinking we had a good chance of getting in, at least to get a few things things. But they told us the ninth floor was still a no-go. We talked to Niyi - one of the people in our building management. He's been there practically 24 hours a day since the fire, keeping everyone informed.

Nobody was being allowed onto the ninth and tenth floor at all. He said there is soot all over the hallway and lots of water damage. In the other wing of the ninth floor, they're currently pulling down the outer half of the hallway walls (the sheet rock that faces into the hallway). They haven't even started to deal with our wing. With all this damage, it's not possible for people to live there, and won't be for a while. Niyi said that he will try hard to get us up to our apartment today or maybe tomorrow to see it and to pack a bag worth of stuff, but that it will probably be weeks, not days, until we can actually live there again.

However, he said that the damage within particular apartments varies quite a bit, and while he didn't remember specifically what 902 looked like, he said that, "Some of the apartments on your floor weren't devastated." He said he guessed that there is probably soot on things, but things like the computers should be ok.

In the building, you can still see the damage, even on the first floor. There are machines for sucking up water, and there is tape and coverings on the walls where there must have been water damage.

Jeff and I went around the back of the building to see if we could tell anything about our apartment from there. The good news is that the window of our apartment was not blown out - it's still in tact. The apartment right next to us, one apartment nearer to the fire-apartment, also has its windows in tact, but every other apartment between that one and the end of the building (where the fire was) has plywood windows now. So I guess we fared better then those people, but we're still pretty close to places with significant damage. It's impossible to tell anything further just looking at the window... but we tried.

Our Apartment (circled in red)

Our Window

So what now? It works to crash in someone's living room for a day or two (thanks, again Kris and Emma!) but it seems unworkable to do that for a few weeks. So I think Jeff and I may try to move back to his parent's house outside Baltimore and work remotely from there for a while. That way, we'd have our own room, some of our clothes and other things are already there, and we could probably borrow a car to get back to DC when we needed to. That's just the thought at the moment... still not really sure what's going to happen.

Apartment Fire

Last night there was a big fire in our apartment building around 5pm. Here's the rundown of what happened from Jeff's and my perspective, and where we're at now...

I went to work in the morning and then straight to class in the afternoon. Around 5pm (while in class), I got a call from Jeff. This was odd, since he knows I'm in class at that time, so I texted him to see what was going on. He texted me back, "There's a fire in our building. 9th floor at the end of our hall on the other side." I asked if it was a big one, and he said, "The windows in that unit were all blown out and it was really burning, but now I don't see any flames. I would not be surprised if we have some serious smoke damage though." We continued texting back and forth a bit.

(These pictures I found online.)

Jeff had been at class, come home around 4:10pm, showered, and then went out to get a few groceries from Whole Foods across the street (probably around 4:30pm). In retrospect, he says he thinks he may have heard the alarm going off in the apartment down the hall (in our building, first a smoke detector alarm goes off in your own apartment for a while, and then the whole building alarm goes off), but he thought it was just the beeping of the dryer, so he ignored it. He shopped at Whole Foods for about 20 minutes, and when he got back to the apartment a little before 5pm, there were flames billowing out of the windows of an apartment on the ninth floor. (We also live on the ninth floor - the fire was in 908, and we live in 902.)

Also, my cousin Liz called me, because she'd seen a traffic alert that said there were street closures because of a fire at 1444 Rhode Island. My friend Lewis saw the same alert and emailed. At this point I was pretty distracted, so I left class to call Jeff and Liz. But since no one was being allowed even near the building, I figured it made no sense to hurry back, so I stayed for the rest of class.

I got back to our neighborhood around 8pm. The street was still completely blocked off and there were tons of firetrucks everywhere. Jeff and a lot of the other people from our apartment were in the lobby of the Miramar - an apartment around the corner from us that is owned by the same management company. They were doing a pretty good job of keeping everyone updated with the latest information.

They told us that they had broken the locks on all the doors on the ninth floor, to search for people, so those all needed to be fixed. Also there was water all over, especially in the hallways. The apartments themselves don't have sprinklers, but all the common areas do. They also had lots and lots of tests they needed to do, both to re-set the fire alarm system and also to check everything (gas lines, electrical lines) to make sure it wasn't damaged by the water used to fight the fire. They estimated that it would take a few hours, but that eventually, later that night, most people on the lower floors would be able to go back home. They said that most people on the 8th and 10th floor would not be able to go back, and that no one on the 9th floor would be able to go back tonight. If you had emergency medicine, depending on which apartment you lived in, they would either escort you up, or they you would have to describe where it is and they can get it. Other than that, nobody could go up there.

They ordered pizza for all the people waiting around, and the fire department people interviewed a lot of people who were in the building at the time of the fire (including Jeff). Our next-door neighbor (in 903) was the one who discovered the fire and called the fire department, so they had lots of questions for him.

Eventually, Jeff and I decided to call it a night, since it seemed like there wasn't any new information coming, and since we knew we definitely wouldn't be able to even get in and look at our apartment. We had very generous offers from a lot of our friends to give us a place to stay (Emma & Kris, Jaisha, Liz, Stephanie - Thanks, guys!), and also the management company said they would reimburse hotel rooms for the night. One of the building managers that we know told Jeff and I to go to the Hotel Helix (which is three doors down from our apartment building), which we did, and the Hotel Helix gave us a free room for the night, which was really nice. Overall, everyone involved was really nice, helpful, and efficient. People were working really hard to make the experience as smooth as possible and to keep everyone well informed.

We were able to walk by and look at the apartment later - the apartments in the front of the building have floor to ceiling windows, and those had been blown out by the fire, so there was glass all over the ground, and it looked like there was just a whole wall missing from the apartment where the fire started.

It was really weird not to have any of our stuff - no computers, no books, etc. Though, we were relatively lucky. Jeff and I were both out of the house during the fire, so we had our wallets, phones, etc. Our neighbor from 903 (and I'm sure others) evacuated the building in a hurry, and didn't have anything - no wallet, no phone, etc., and now they can't get back in to get them (if they're even still intact).

So, we bought a bottle of red wine, rented a movie (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) from the hotel entertainment system, and just relaxed.

This morning, Jeff and I showered, got ready (though all we had was yesterday's clothes), and walked over to our apartment to see if we could get in. I really figured we'd be back in by this morning, but they were still keeping everyone on the ninth floor out. They said that maybe they'll be able to escort us up later in the day to get a few things and/or just check the status of our unit.

So then Jeff and I went to the Caribou Coffee on the corner and had some coffee and breakfast, and talked over our plan for the day. It was no use just sitting around near our apartment with no computers and no phones, so we decided to go to school and work. Jeff headed off to Maryland so that he could at least access his school computer, and he planned to stop at Target and buy a phone charger. I went and bought a change of clothes at Ann Taylor, a phone charger from Staples, and then went into the office, which is where I am now.

It really is crazy how quickly all your plans can get turned upside down. Before Jeff called, I had written myself a little "To Do" list of things to do that evening. It said:

*Phone Call with Vada @ 8pm (This is one of our potential wedding photographers, I talked to her and explained that this wasn't a good time for us to discuss wedding photography)

*Look at wedding photographer galleries and group comments (This requires my computer...)

*Hang up clothes (These were in a pile on the floor next to the couch, and may be ruined now from smoke and water...)

*Organize Papers (Things also don't look good for all the papers I had spread out on the desk...)

*Scan Econ Papers (Those were on the floor of our apartment, near the scanner. Not the safest position if water got in our apartment...)

*Exercise (Probably still could have done this, technically, but I guess I forgot)

*Blog - Anniversary (I did that today ;) )

*Find save-the-dates (These were also on the floor of our apartment... along with all our labels and stamps.)

I'll write more if there's any news.

Seven Year Anniversary

November 1st was Jeff's and my seven-year anniversary - Seven years since we officially started dating! It's also our last anniversary (on November 1st), since we're getting married in the spring, and from then on we'll celebrate May 29th as our anniversary!

We had dinner at Zaytinya, which is a great restaurant. Every dish we had was amazing.

Doctor Who Christmas Special

The other day, I was trying to think of a SciFi movie that was also a Christmas movie. Nothing jumped to mind, so I googled it. I didn't have much luck finding a Christmas-SciFi cross-over, but I did come across these articles about the Doctor Who Christmas Special, coming out in a few months. Apparently, it's going to be "the most Christmassy [Doctor Who] Christmas special." Yay!

The article I found had even more to say:

'This year's Christmas special will be Doctor Who's clever twist on the much loved A Christmas Carol.'

'Moffat clearly had a jolly time writing it: "Oh, we're going for broke with this one. It's all your favorite Christmas movies at once, in an hour, with monsters. And the Doctor. And a honeymoon. And ... oh, you'll see. I've honestly never been so excited about writing anything. I was laughing madly as I typed along to Christmas songs in April. My neighbors loved it so much they all moved away and set up a website demanding my execution. But I'm fairly sure they did it ironically!"'

I know it's Halloween today, but I'm already excited for Christmas!

Wedding Photographers

Jeff and I spent about three hours today paging through about 40 different photographers' websites. We've narrowed down our list to a few photographers that we really like. Feel free to check out their websites and let us know who you think is the best!


Studio 360 - http://studio306.com/
Vada Photography - http://www.unexpectedfolio.com/adriana/index2.php#/text_5/2/
Noah Wolf - http://noahwolf.com/index2.php
Live and Love Studios - http://www.liveandlovestudios.com/weddings/site/#/home/
La Vie Photography - http://www.laviephotography.com/galleries.html
Clewel Photography - http://clewellphotography.com/