Do you want my friend's email, flea? She could probably give you a realistic picture of what to expect.

rental housing *starts* at $1800 US a month for a 2br in an older high-rise and the American school is $20K US a year for *kindergarten*, oy.

Yeah, that would be rough on $50K, but if you could work, doable?

Apparently apartment prices are negotiable.

We've been looking at apartments like crazy - it's a very weird system. Most of the apartments are empty - they just leave them the way they were when the people moved out. Extra furniture that is the owner's and the people were using; junk the people left behind; curtains sometimes half down. If the tenants had been there awhile or the owner hasn't updated the apartment in a while there might be much older fixtures like ceiling fans, lights, faucets, washer/dryer, countertops, etc. They do not clean the apartments up or fix them up in any way before they show them. So you go in, look at it, see if you can manage to see beyond everything; then decide whether you want to make an offer. They have a starting point for the rent. You look at their starting point and then decide what all you'd like done to the apartment - cleaned, painted, new fixtures, new appliances, etc. Then you give them that list, plus what your offer is to pay for rent. Then the haggling - oh sorry , the negotiations - start.

I've vacuumed mopped and dusted the 4 worst offending shelves. Only 8-10 more to go! Except I'm out of good dust cloths and motivation. It'll get done before the end of the week, I think.

I hate dusting so much and I have so much stuff to dust!

I think I want to plant flowers tomorrow.

I have a knitting question. I have a pattern that goes:

cast on 5
row 1, k2 YO knit to end
row 2, k1 kfb, knit to end
repeat rows 1 & 2 until 4" - place markers
continue in garter until there are 50 stitches

do they mean 50 rows, or do they mean continue repeating rows 1&2 until there are 50 stitches on the needles?

Well, I'm home, and it's damn cold here! Tampa was in the 80s last week, and Philly was around 70 while I was there the past few days, but I return to Chicago to find rain and upper '30s. Blah.

I will say that the guy who sat next to me on the plane back was probably one of the biggest fuckwads I've met recently. Older man, early '60s, who looked up as we were pulling out of the gate. I pointed out the glad fact that the only empty seat on the flight was the one between us, and he looked me over and said, "We're going to need it." I was not too sure I had heard what I heard, and then he reached over, tapped my stomach, and asked if I was doing anything about the weight. I looked at him rather flabbergasted, and he said, "I'm a doctor," as if that made such outrageous rudeness all right. I stammered something about swimming and treadmill, and then he actually asked me how much I weighed. I finally pulled myself together and told him that I didn't feel comfortable answering that since he wasn't my doctor.

He left me alone after that.

Oh Kathy, I am so sorry. Clearly his asshole attitude and lack of manners or basic human decency needs its own seat.

OMG, Kathy. I cannot even fathom.

TAP HIS CROTCH AND SAY "TOO BAD YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT "

Oh, Kathy. What a fucking ASSHOLE. I wish I could have been there to kick him in the balls. I'd have risked an air marshall for that.

Fucking hell.