The search continues. Today during my lunch break, I popped out of my office to see an apartment right on Park Avenue South between 35th and 36th Street — centrally located, walking distance from my office and from Chris’s future office, and on Park Avenue — a yuppie’s dream. Yes, until I entered the building.

The gym, which would be an extra $25/person/month, looked like a cramped room where a bunch of treadmills, Stairmasters, and ellipticals were thrown in haphazardly; little space existed to get between machines, and no stretching area was to be seen. The one-bedroom apartment unit I’d seen in the photos was not what the realtor showed me today; this had about half the counter space. There also wasn’t central air conditioning or even AC units put into place.

“Where are the AC units?” I asked. “This building (which is pretty new) doesn’t have central AC or even units placed?”

The realtor smiles (See the pattern? They always smile when they know the question should have the opposite answer it does). “AC units are not included; they will need to be brought in and installed by the renter.”

Yeah, right. I’m not sticking an AC unit out of this window on the sixth floor. You people should be doing that for me at $3,995/month.

I pointed out to her that the counter space in the kitchen was not the same as the listing I’d responded to. This space was about half, which was not desirable for someone like me who loves to cook.

“But there are so many great restaurants nearby,” she laughed. “Who needs to cook when you have so many good options nearby?”

“I like to cook,” I responded simply. Then, I walked out.

This is why I can’t stand sales people in general. Know your audience, people. If I told you originally that I like to cook, why would you try to talk me out of that and insist all the good restaurants nearby would somehow take away my desire to cook? I may be a young urban professional, but I still like to cook. If you want to sell me something, sell me something I told you I wanted, not something you are trying to push on me quickly to get a commission from the management company.

This woman had no emotional intelligence and insisted she send me an application. Good luck to her.

The search for a new apartment may or may not go on, but this week, it’s definitely on. I have so many appointments lined up all the way until we leave for our trip this Friday. I’ve done three days of hunting and I already want to stop. Searching for an apartment in this city is the worst.

You know it’s really bad when you tell the real estate agent that you’d love an open kitchen, and what she ends up showing you, supposedly at a name-brand, reputable building in the low 60s on the Upper East Side, is a kitchen… that is situated RIGHT NEXT TO THE BEDROOM. I already have to close the living room door when I cook now. With the kitchen literally right next to the bedroom, it would be like roasting a chicken in bed. Who wants that?

People settle for the craziest crap in this city. Why do we settle for this?! Why?

Today, I visited an open house three blocks from our apartment of a penthouse for rent on the 11th floor of a luxury building. In this case, “luxury building” just means it’s a newer building with a doorman; there was no gym, pool, or lounge area to speak of. In fact, there wasn’t even a lobby with a sitting area like you usually see when you go into these ridiculously priced buildings. The apartment was going for $4800/month for a one bedroom, not-quite-one-bath (shower only; no bath tub) and boasted a huge wrap around terrace. When I stepped foot inside, I realized the terrace was the only bragg-able feature.

The living room was a living room/kitchen; the kitchen was a single wall with a deep sink… and only two burners on the half stove. The refrigerator, freezer, and dishwasher are hidden inside cabinetry for the all-white look the apartment was going for. “Where is the oven?” I asked the realtor. “Is that hidden, too?”

“No, there’s no oven,” he said smiling. “Just a stove and a small microwave oven right up here.”

That’s not a microwave oven. That was just a regular microwave. What is this guy, a total moron? Does he think a two-burner stove and no oven is real? This is worse than the crappy East Village apartments my former roommate and I looked at back in 2008 that had college-dorm-sized refrigerators. At least those places were cheaper and meant to be cheap; this is a penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side, and it has NO OVEN AND ONLY TWO BURNERS?

The terrace space was huge, though, and had views of downtown Manhattan. The terrace space was probably bigger than the interior of the apartment itself; perhaps even two to three times as large. What a stupid apartment. Whoever rents this place will be a rich idiot.

Chris had his first home-cooked meal for days at home today — my “chicken” garlic scape pesto quinoa rotelli. He already wasn’t that happy when he found out the rotelli was made out quinoa instead of wheat, but then he came across another surprise: the fact that the “chicken” in the pasta was actually not chicken, but Beyond Meat soy and plant-based protein cut into cubes.

“This pesto is very good…. The pasta is good,” he said as he chewed. “But why does this taste so healthy…? This is chicken…? Is this meat….?! Babe…..” He eyed me suspiciously as my face broke into a big smile.

So much for trying to incorporate more vegetarian meals into my husband’s life. I was going to tell him afterwards if he couldn’t tell himself…

Our lease is ending, and this year, Chris thinks that we should seriously look for a new place — at least, to see what is out there and if it’s worth moving. We still have some time to let our landlord know if we’d like to stay for another year, and knowing me and my laziness, the chances are high that we will stay. But this year, we’re actually going to really invest time in researching to see what we could get for different price points. We’re very lucky as New Yorkers, since while most everyone else we know complains about rent and says they pay way too much for what they have, we actually pay far, far less than what people assume we pay, and we’re saving at a very attractive rate. The cheap side of me wants to continue saving, but the side of me that is getting older is silently saying, I want more space. I want a bigger kitchen. It would be so great to have better natural light.

So this evening, we started looking at some places online and calling to make appointments. Then, I remembered what I hate the most about looking for an apartment: dealing with real estate agents, even if they are no-fee (on the renter’s side). I’m sure they are busy, but they always have this air of “you need to accommodate my schedule.” Um, no. You will accommodate our schedule because guess what? We don’t need to move, and therefore we don’t need you as much as you need us and your commission.

Well, the fun is about to begin.

After my dentist appointment today, I took the train downtown to Union Square to hit up the Greenmarket before dinner, and I picked up some garlic scapes and beets. I was so excited; I had been reading about garlic scapes in the last week in a food blog I follow, and I had no idea that the tops of garlic, garlic scapes, were edible and good for cooking. I purchased just shy of a pound of them and went on my way home.

On my ride uptown, I thought about all these vegetables and fruit that you never get exposed to shopping at regular grocery stores and super markets, things like garlic scapes, rhubarb, golden beets, jerusalem artichokes, kohlrabi, dandelion greens, the literally hundreds of varieties of apples, potatoes, squash, eggplant, and yams. If all we did was shop at grocery stores, we’d be ignorant to all the amazing variety of produce out there. It’s no wonder people get bored of grocery shopping and cooking. If you don’t have variety that keeps changing, then what’s fun about it, and what’s there to look forward to?

I went to dinner with my friend tonight, and we were discussing all the times he’s had to fire people on his team for being poor performers. I told him that the thought of firing someone in today’s gun climate made me feel somewhat paranoid… because you never have any idea how that person will react to you and if s/he will try to come after you. When devastating events happen in one’s life, like a job loss, people are kind of capable of anything.

He said he didn’t blame me, that it’s hard to not have the thought in my head, especially given the very recent Orlando mass shooting. “Just make sure you have ample security when it needs to get done,” he advised.

It’s been a grim last few days. In light of Christina Grimmie’s murder, the mass shooting at Pulse night club in Orlando that left 50 people dead and about 53 seriously wounded, all my social media feeds are flooded with debates regarding who is to blame: guns or ISIS? Democrats or Republicans? It’s been miserable to read the news and see the back and forth that has been happening.

When I was younger and I’d hear about people dying from shootings or murders, it was always terrible news, but I didn’t feel it as much as I do now. It felt sad, but it also felt distant. I feel it a lot now. Sometimes I read the news, and I catch myself getting choked up by all these deaths and the victims’ loved ones reacting to the tragedies. Maybe it’s because I lost my brother to suicide three years ago, and I’ll never fully get over his death. Maybe it’s because I realize that these scary events could very likely happen to people I know and love in the places that we actually frequent. These shootings aren’t all happening in far away places in far away lands to far away people; they are happening right here, under our noses. Maybe it’s because I think.. even though we are strangers across states, across the world, on the train, walking on the same sidewalks and streets, we’re all united in that we’re all just trying to live and do something with our lives. We may be strangers, but we don’t want bad things happening to each other. In our minds, we don’t think that the guy sitting next to us on the subway train will get shot and killed the next day. We think that he will go to work, eat out, have fun. He will go about his day as we will ours. Or, so we think. We never know what will happen next.

It is a sick and sad week in the world. I don’t want to read the news anymore.

I got a deal for five classes via ClassPass for only $19 in New York (this is really, really cheap here), so I am using it for the rest of the month, especially on Sundays when Chris will be traveling. Today, I did a barre core fusion class at a swanky spa/workout studio a few blocks from my apartment, and I remembered yet again why small classes are so important. Our class had about twelve students to one instructor, and our instructor was extremely attentive. She learned (and remembered) every woman’s name, and she came around very regularly to check and correct form. And when she corrected form, you could feel the correction.

The class focuses on building strength and working on form, so there isn’t a lot of cardio involved. But I know just from how I felt after the end of the hour that I will be extremely sore tomorrow morning.

The instructor did make me wonder why Crunch personal trainers, who are supposed to be very focused and do 1-on-1 time with you, don’t help with correcting form. They will tell you how to correct it, but they won’t show you or touch you to do it. Maybe they are just anti-touch and are scared of getting slapped with some harassment case