A Quick Trip to Virginia.....May 2017

**Here's a small trip I made back in Spring of 2017 I started but never finished writing up.  I finally got it done so here it is. **

My brother's mother in-law lives with him and his wife.  Unfortunately she has medical issues that make it so she can't be left alone for any length of time.  She is "non-compliant" and tries to do too much and thinks she can walk better than she can sometimes and has issues with falling. as well as falling out of bed in the dead of the night.

This means that for the last 5 years she has lived there, my brother and his wife haven't taken vacations together.  Someone has to be around and the sister in-law really can't afford overnight nursing care for her.

So being the selfless wonderful sister I am(ha!)I volunteered to go down to their house and "mother in-law" sit so they could take a resort vacation in the Dominican Republic if they paid for my gas and tolls to get down there.

Now my brother is a tad to the right of frugal.  Ok, he can be miserly when it comes to spending his money.  I am sure he got the "Deal of the Century" on this trip to entice him to part with the cash to pay for it.
That and the swim up bar and the all inclusive(including alcohol)feature of the resort got him to spend it.  ;-)


This trip also gave me a change of scenery and a respite from dealing with Daughter's dog and my usual chores at home, including meal planning and cooking(both of which have become a real pain recently).

So I left home on Sunday, Mother's Day.  The ride down was awesome.  The weather was good(no rain or snow), though it was 42 Degrees F here and foggy as all get out when I left.  The traffic through Philly was marginal, it being a Sunday.  I guess everyone was still in bed or at church at that hour.

Once I got down to MD I made a quick stop at a Walmart right off of the highway I have to travel on.
The greeter was handing out these small cards to all the women as they came in.

This and the card I quickly tore out of the envelope from Hubs before flying out of the house at 7 am was the extent of my Mother's Day tokens from any family.

I stopped at Walmart for two things-sunscreen and a whistle.
The sunscreen because once I got past Philly the sun was brightly shining and my left arm was getting too much sun on it. (I burn just thinking about being out in the sun....oh! the struggles of the whitest white woman on Earth!)  The other need, the whistle was to give to the mother in-law to wear and use at night so that if she did need me during sleeping hours.  I am a very heavy sleeper so I needed something she could rouse me with.  If she just called out from her bedroom I'd never hear her.

I stopped for a sandwich at lunchtime somewhere in lower DE or MD at an Arby's for a quick food break.  Seeing as we don't have an Arby's nearby at home I stopped there.  That and I wanted to try a Pork Belly sandwich they were promoting at that time.
Don't waste your money on that Pork Belly sandwich unless you like eating a FAT SANDWICH.  It's hardly pork belly....bleck!

So I got off the bridge tunnel around 3:45 pm.  And then I sat in gridlocked traffic for 30 minutes!  Finally inching along I finally got to my brother's house 45 minutes later so it took me 1.25 hours to get from the bridge tunnel exit to the house!  It's only a 20 minute ride usually.
I guess everyone was on the road down there taking their moms home from a dinner out.

I arrived a half hour before my sister in-law had planned to have a Mother's Day dinner on the table.
And the temperature when I got in there at 5 pm?
84F degrees.
Ick.  Not a "bad" temp but going from 42F degrees that morning at home to that?
No thanks.
Especially since my brother is mighty tight with using the a/c.

So we all had dinner.  It was only me, my brother, sis in-law, her mom and some older gentleman my sis in-law knows(who also drives Uber).  5 people for dinner.  The sis in-law served-TWO hams, cornbread, potato salad, cabbage and something else I can't recall now.
Two hams for 5 people.
Needless to say there was a TON of food leftover which turned out to be a good thing for me.  The mom in-law loves leftovers so she ate for a week on that meal and I didn't have to cook a lick for days! 8-)))

So brother and sis in-law left in the wee hours of the next morning.....not before waking everyone else in the house getting out the door though.
And not before my brother gave me all the directions on taking care of the cats from hell.
Oh yes, they have four cats........

Two "free range" indoor cats.
Slingshot......

Baby Socks......

There is an outdoor feral cat, the one that belonged to my oldest brother who passed.
This one is named KitKat.....

She's wild but she lets my brother handle her and bathe her on occasion.  I only saw her from a distance mostly while I was there.
(KitKat passed away a few months after I left.  She was quite old.)

And number four cat is the anti-social one that never leaves my brother's bedroom.....

Lilli the psycho-bitch cat.  She's the most evil cat I've ever been around.  Even after cleaning up hairballs, her turds and feeding and watering her for 2 weeks she still tried to scratch and sink her fangs into me.
Nice kitty my ass......

Turns out these four were more work and bother than the mother in-law ever could have been!
And no, I don't like cats to begin with so there is that too.

So what did I do for two weeks while I was down there?
Not much it turns out.
Which was awesome! 8-)

I did a little shopping for discounted food and unusual stuff I can't find here.
A little Rite-Aid shopping.
Some wine and beer shopping for Hubs and the kids.

I took a childhood friend out to lunch.
I got a Sonic slushie on one really hot day.
I bought the mother in-law and myself a fish dinner on one Friday and a bucket of KFC another day.
I did a boatload of cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming rugs and cleaning up cat puke.

My son and his now ex-fiancee came down after work on Friday to stay over until Sunday morning.

They went to Trader Joe's on their trip down to the oceanfront and I gave them $$ to pick me up a case of their 2 Buck Chuck wine(ok, it was $2.39 Buck Chuck).  I use it for cooking.
And I took them out for an early dinner which cost way too much for what it was(burgers).

After dinner we talked and the now ex-fiancee said some things that made me sad and it became clear to me that their relationship was going to fail(and it did 3 months later).
They left early Sunday morning.

But other than all that and watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with my brother's mother in-law I hung out and read books for 10 days.  I think I read 3 whole books......"The Revenant", "Ragtime", a Fannie Flagg novel I can't recall the name of right now, and started the one about the Hatfields and McCoys(which I finished up in June 2017).

The biggest PITA was the cat Slingshot.  A few days before my brother came home I was putting trash bags of cat poop/used litter into the garage before the city came to pick up the garbage.

Here's a shot of what their 2 car garage looked like then.............

I was leaving the bags of poop on the stairs until the garbage pick-up and I could put it into the cans on the side of the house(before moving them to the street).
Slingshot, true to his name, shot past me into that mess and wouldn't come back into the house.
If I had tried to catch him amidst all this my dead body may not have been found until after my brother returned. It was a bit what you can imagine the "Collier Brothers" house looked like. (Google them.)

So I just closed the door and figured Slingshot would get tired/bored/hungry and eventually come to the door and want to leave.

I checked on him a few times and once he was perched on the top of a refrigerator in the back left side of this photo.  How he ever got up there I have no clue!
The next morning Slingshot was at the door meowing and ready to come out.

My brother has hoarding tendencies like our oldest brother who passed away.  He never throws anything out.
This is the room that was his office when he was still working..........

Now this was 2017 but if I had to hazard a guess, the room has more crap in it now. lolz

It's a shame because this is a half a million dollar home with 3 bedrooms, a month in-law suite, a 2 car garage and a loft apartment with a bath over the garage.

This is what the apartment looked like back then.  At least the bedroom loft above this main floor was usable although either the heat or a/c didn't work(I can't remember now which.)

And since land is so valuable down there, the lots are super small and the neighbors are super close together.  These expensive huge houses don't belong on such tiny postage stamp sized lots!

While I was mom in-law sitting the idiots behind this fence decided to throw a party and I had to listen to loud rap music for 2 days--the first day rap music and loud power equipment while they fixed shit up and all day the second day and well into the night(about 1 am?) while the party was going on.

You would think with the houses being so close together that a considerate neighbor would knock on your door and let you know, "Hey! We're throwing a party so you know and we'll be done by 11pm(or whatever).  I hope that's ok."

Nope.

Oh and here's a shot of my brother's front porch.........

Half of it is piled with junk.  I spent a lot of time on that lawn furniture reading.

Then Kit Kat the outdoor feral cat left me a present on the back deck. lolz

After my brother and the sister in-law returned we went out to my old favorite bbq joint for lunch.......

Jake's closed up earlier this year.
I will miss it that meat......sniff...........

And then it was time to hit the road and come home after an overnight stop at eldest son's place along the way.
My brother had to check my car before I left.....because he's a car guy and that's how he shows love.

We did a selfie before I took off for Fredericksburg.

Nothing much happened at my son's apartment....we had dinner, we talked and I went to sleep.
5 hours after leaving the next morning I was back home.

And 5 minutes after getting home and  Daughter's dog let me know how glad she was that I was home, this is what my pants looked like..........

Husky Hair pants anyone? lolz

And thankfully mother in-law didn't need that whistle the whole time and we got along well.
The cats are another story but it was overall a good adventure.



Sluggy

Sluggy Goes to Virginia

We left bright and early last Sunday morning.
The mission was to secure an apartment for Eldest son and his GF in the Fredericksburg, VA area.
We had 4 appointments lined up for Monday plus any that Eldest might hear back from before we left town on Tuesday.

Bur first of the agenda was stopping for Lunch along the way outside of Baltimore to meet/visit with a fellow blogger who use to write the 444 Express Blog but now writes at Grapes Writes . 
I guess I can use her name since she's now a contributing writer on the CBOE .
We met Meredith and her Hubs, Dave, at the Padonia Ale House.

Of course I brought Meredith a present, a sack lunch...........

Ok, inside joke here.
Inside the bag was a jar of my homemade pepper relish and that was no joke.
Just a little something I share with friends.

It was also $6 Burger Sunday so guess what we ate?

My "Ricky Bobby" Burger with a Boulevard Brewing "Dark Truth" Stout....Mmmmm

We had a great time chatting and before you knew it 2 hours had gone by.  So much for making Fredericksburg by 3pm! lolz

Then Meredith did something sneaky......she paid the bill without us knowing it!  I appreciated it but you didn't have to do that. ;-)

 

They are a fun couple and Eldest and I had a good time with them, even if Dave couldn't resist making bunny ears on me in the photo......

We were back on the road after a lingering lunch.
Traffic around DC wasn't bad until we hit I-95 below the Beltway.
At least we weren't in the clusterf**k of northbound traffic heading from Richmond to DC.
Jay explained that much of that on a Sunday is all the DC area folks heading back home from the beach/etc. at the end of the weekend.

Speaking of Jay........we met up with him for Dinner at Poco Loco in Thornburg, south of F'burg.
He got snared into a multicar pile up heading out of Richmond so we had a little bit of wait for him to arrive.  A nice meal and conversation over Mexican cuisine and beers(iced tea for me)ensued.

Eldest took our photo before we headed back to F'burg for the night.

Nice to see you again Jay!

Eldest and I got a swim in at the hotel pool before turning in for the night.

Monday was occupied with apartment viewing.
But first a hot breakfast compliments of our hotel......

 

Eldest with a cup of bacon, breakfast of champions!

Then it was off to King George County(east of F'burg)to an older complex on a nice wooded heavily treed property.

 Living room with exposed brick wall and patio door

 Small kitchen with room for a table and chairs

 This place had 2 bedrooms and hardwoods throughout.

But no storage space other than bedroom closets.  The other 3 apt. residents in this 2 story building used the area under the stairs to the 2nd story as a storage area(which wasn't secured).  And there was no dishwasher and it was furthest from the school Eldest will be commuting to.  Other than that it was a good deal(even had a community pool and small exercise room).

Eldest submitted their application and the manager after finding out his employment situation(teaching contract)waived the credit check(fee)and said if he wanted the apt. she'd take his personal check as a deposit on the spot. 
But Eldest wanted to see all the other possible places first so we moved on.


Then it was off to get more coffee(not me)at the hipster coffee joint..............

Local Starbucks with hipsters on their electronics at tables with electrical outlets and USBs.
The skies opened up while we were in there so we sat for awhile before going to the next appointment.


Then it was off to see a complex a few miles from his school.....

 Carpeting throughout

The appliances were newish and there was a dishwasher.  Also a washer/dryer in the apartment.

 A HUGE walk in closet in the only bedroom.  Closet big enough to put an inflatable mattress if you had an overnight guest tho. lolz

There was a storage closet(that locked)off the patio-ed living room.

This was a large complex with 3 story buildings.  There was a larger pool and a huge exercise room with equipment and a sauna.  Also attached was a clubhouse with tv and a coffee bar.

Both of the options so far had washer/dryers in the apartment and allowed pets(they have a cat.)yet this apartment wanted a Huge nonrefundable pet fee(plus a deposit and a monthly fee for having a pet).  I guess all that carpeting accounted for the nonrefundable fee.
Both the 1st and 2nd apartments would be $900 a month.  Electricity and cable/internet were not included but water, sewer and trash removal was included in that $900.

We went to our 3rd appointment at noon, only to find the office door locked and a sign that they would return at 1:30pm.  He left a voice message on the office phone about his appointment and that he would return at 1:30.
So we had a leisurely lunch nearby at Friendly's and went off the trade-offs/ pros and cons of the 2 places we had seen.

Back right at 1:30pm to #3 apartment complex(an older one than the last place but also a few miles from his school).  The person manning the office told him they had no apartments available.
He set this appointment up 2 WEEKS ago via phone from Pittsburg so why the hell didn't they call him and let him know this!?!  We could have saved ourselves another trip to this apartment complex and moved on to the next possibility. 
Funny how their website still had apartment availabilities when I checked later that day........
Thanks a lot for wasting our time Camden Hills Apartments!
Even if you had an apartment available after the lack of professionalism on the part of your office staff, I wouldn't allow him to rent there.  It would have been no different dealing with any issues had he rented here.

So we moved on to the place in Milford VA Eldest found on Craigslist.

You can see the listing HERE.

In case it gets taken down, here is what it says......


$850 / 2br - **All Utilities Included Affordable Apartment **

 

Very affordable apartment for rent. 2 bedrooms. 1 bathroom. All utilities included!

Monthly rent is only $850. Convenience store within walking distance. Friendly neighbors!

Address is 15421 Antioch Rd Milford VA 22514.

 

Sounds like a great deal, right?

First off it's in the middle of nowhere, not anywhere near Richmond or Fredericksburg.

And the "convenience store" is in the first floor of the building where the apartment is. lol  The only other things around are a post office next door and a similarly run down auto parts store across the street(also owned by the guy who owns the convenience store building).

 

We lovingly refer to apt. #4 as "the shithole".......

 

It was in an old brick building above a convenience store.  The stairs were the first obstacle...rickety and I just knew I'd take a tumble going down.

 That "porch" area once you got up the stairs was rotting plywood with some linoleum tiles still intact on it.  Filthy dirty too.

 

Here is Eldest standing in the larger of 2 bedrooms(still not every big with a tiny closet).  The air conditioning for the whole apt. was this window unit in the bedroom.  The windows looked original to the 1930's/40's area building.

The main bedroom looked like a crime scene before the cleaners arrived.  The carpeting was ripped and patches missing(in both bedrooms).  There was mold on the wall underneath the dirty hand prints and graffiti.  No attempt had been made to clean anything in this shithole.

 

 The whole place smelled of mold and funk.  That is why Eldest has his shirt over his nose and mouth. lol

 This was a large drawing a previous tenant(or vandal)had made on the wall.  It also looked like someone had smeared poop on this wall.

 

 

The kitchen counter and cabinets looked old, damaged and smelled of mildew.  The fridge dated from the 60's or 70's and the linoleum in the joint kitchen/living room was also ripped up and curling.  The one redeeming feature was this newish stove/oven.

 

 

Under the stairs was a concrete slab with assorted old junk sitting on it.  You had to walk past a dumpster to get from the parking lot to the stairs.  It was almost as bad smelling walking by that as what the apartment smelled like.

 

 

So you take out the $100 or so your electricity would run if you were paying for that like in any other apt.,and the apartment slumlord wanted $750 a month to live in this shithole  There were also no smoke detectors in the place or a lock on the door!

 

And the worse part of this(other than smelling and seeing it)was that there was another identical apartment next door to this one and someone was living in it!!!

It must be a crack head living next door to not notice the deplorable living conditions here!

 

Let's see.......far from work, filthy, no washer/dryer facilities(nearest laundromat was 3 miles away in Bowling Green VA) for $50 less than a nice clean convenient apartment near work.

I don't think there was must of a decision to make here, do you?

 

Eldest decided at that point that we had seen enough and he had 2 good choices so it was just a matter of conferring with the GF as to her desires that evening and going back the next morning to fill out paperwork and secure the apartment they wanted.

 

So we drove around a bit so Eldest could get familiar with the area.  Of course that meant finding the liquor stores.  lolz

They have a Total Wine & More store in Fredericksburg so we went to check it out.

This one wasn't as big as the one Hubs and I hit when we go down to OC but it will do.

After wandering the aisles for a good 45 minutes Eldest found a few things to buy he can't get in P'burg plus found he could get his favorites here too.  Even better is they have a rewards program which he signed up for!  Discounts on beer?  Yes, please!!
 

That evening he told the GF that he wasn't coming back to P'burgh, he's just stay here and wait for her to move down.

I think he's going to like this town.......

 

We also found a World Market(more beer but most of the same stuff as Total Wine)and checked out the grocery stores in the area.  There is a nice Walmart too in case the GF transfers to this one from her part time job at the WM in P'burgh.

 

We saw this antique car license plate on an old Toyota in the parking lot.....it only looked to be a 1970's model.....

 

Are there any Toyota's old enough to be designated antique cars? lolz

 

Back to the hotel for a swim.  I get my suit on and walk down to the pool entrance to find this.......

 

"Closed for Maintenance"

Back to the room to call the front desk to ask when the pool would reopen.....I am thinking an hour or two, right?
Front desk person says it may be reopened this weekend.
WTF?!?
It's Monday!
Had I known the pool was going to be unavailable for more than half my stay I would have gone elsewhere for a room.  Part of the reason I paid this much and at a hotel WITH a pool was to be able to use said pool!'

I let the front desk know just how unhappy I was when I checked out the next morning.  They didn't seem to care a single shitlet however.  Just wait until I use all the online outlets to let them know just how UNHAPPY I was with them!
As my kid is going to living in F'burg for years to come and in an apartment with no room for guests, guess which hotel just lost a buttload of my business?!
The Sleep Inn, that's  who.

But enough of my ranting...........

Eldest wanted Waffle House for dinner so we went back out later and I treated him to Steak and Eggs.  We had a drink back in the room and I watched cable tv(haven't had cable for 10 month now at home so this was a dubious treat, I think?)and Eldest played some WOW on my computer.

 

On Tuesday morning before leaving Fredericksburg Eldest went back to the #2 apt. and put in his application and by Wednesday morning, after they did the credit check, he had the apartment.

 

We are slated to move them from Pittsburgh to Fredericksburg the end of this month.  8-)))

 

So we had an early lunch before leaving F'burg on Tuesday at the Blue & Gray Brew Pub .....

 

 Here is my brew, a pint of Stonewall Stout.  Appropriate name if you know the history and geography of the Fredericksburg area.  I especially like their slogan for this stout......"I'd give my right arm for a Stonewall Stout!"  ;-)

Since it was Tuesday I also got to take home the glass it was served in.
Score.

 

 

 

Eldest son got a flight of their beers. He was partial to their lager and their coffee stout.

 

 

The view of the tanks from our table.

 

 

We each got a sandwich and shared half with the other.  Eldest son's choice was a Muffaletta and I got a Pork Barbecue.  My bbq sauce was made with some Stonewall Stout and the handmade mustard on the Muffaletta was made with their Red Fred(an Irish style ale).  Tasty!

 

 

They had an art exhibit in the Brewpub consisting of longhorn steer skulls that had been bedazzled.  I posed with this one.  At a price of $500 it stayed on that wall and didn't come home with me.....

 

 

The t-shirt was tempting but I got Hubs a bomber bottle of beer instead.

 

The trip home was pretty uneventful.  We bypassed DC and Balto. on the way back, heading north on 17 toward Winchester and then I-66 West to I-81 to home.  A tiny bit longer route but little traffic compared to I-95 to I-83.

The "big move" comes the week after this.  Not sure if I'll be going though as I really don't have the muscles to move heavy stuff.  I'd just be supervising where boxes and furniture go and/or be the lunch bringer for the real help.  It's about 13-14 hours total from here to Pittsburgh to Fredericksburg and back home but it would be stretched out over 3 days I suppose. 
More fun times ahead it seems......

Sluggy