NYC: Easy Breezy.

The apartment I had been staying in was busy. My host tended to bring her clients and work home with her.

Like this one:

And this one.

And these two

And this one

And then there were the permanent residents

And of course, my dog, a guest.

I started looking for a sublet. I did the usual and looked at Craigslist. I zoomed in on one in particular that read:

"sublet dec till april".

All lower case. Unassuming. Typo. I clicked on it. Studio. Upper East Side. I sent a email. Two days later, no response. I assumed it had been taken. Then - a response. Apologies, the woman had been busy. She told me where the apartment was. Sent photos. The apartment was down the street from Carl Schurz Park and Gracie Mansion. The apartment was painted in garish colors. BUT, it had its own backyard.

I went up to see  it. Garish colors and all, I said yes. She said yes, but the apartment wouldn't be ready until the 20th of December. Oh.

A call was made.  I  decamped to an apartment further uptown. A friend of a friends. I would have it for Thanksgiving and through the month of December. Just me and my dog. By ourselves.

On my way uptown, I was walking with my dog, and unbeknownst to me, money fell out of my pocket. $20.00 here, $5.00 there.

A man  who couldn't speak a word of English caught up with me - I had heard someone yelling, but chose to ignore it. The man was handing me the money I had dropped.

The old New Yorker in me thought, OMG! I'm about to get mugged. Or scammed. Is this for real?

This is for real.

One ad I responded to, and I had a place in a neighborhood I wanted to be in. One call, and I had temporary housing. Dropped money? No problem, it was returned.

NYC was fabulous.

See?