About a week before our move, in the last apartment I started noticing these tiny little bugs around the kitchen and kitchen window. They were no bigger than a sesame seed and were reddish-brown in color. And worse: they had WINGS. Eventually, I started seeing them flying in the bedroom and bathroom. I had no idea what was causing them. At first, I wondered if it was because of fruit I purchased that I left on the counter. After this, I started spraying all fruit on the counter with boiling water before leaving them there (everything else goes in the fridge, but alas, you are supposed to let mangoes, kiwis, and stone fruit ripen at room temperature). Then, I inspected my spider plant a few times to ensure that it was not the root cause and found nothing. I just couldn’t figure out the cause. Then finally, yesterday, while moving a plastic storage bin with pantry item foods, I discovered at least 10 of them in the bin! Something in the bin was causing this nonsense!

Through process of elimination, I separated out all canned and bagged items. I inspected the plastic bagged items for holes. And finally, I found the culprit: it was my dried Mexican chilies that I’d purchased at a market in Corona, Queens, last year. The beetles were crawling around, gnawing their way at the chilies; it was just awful. I immediately wrapped up the chili bag and tossed it down the shoot. Then, I sealed the plastic bin to contain any beetles and hopefully suffocate them.

I read about these drugstore beetles online, as I’d never heard of them before or noticed them. They are specifically drawn to spices, particularly CHILIES and PEPPERS, and they are like cockroaches in that they just keep multiplying and are super resilient. They can go days and days without food or water and still survive. It’s just hideous. I’m confused, though, because I’d had these chilies for so long, and they’d never had any bugs before until now. I have no idea where these disgusting critters originated from to begin with…?!

Some of them unfortunately got out in the new apartment. In the last couple of days, I’ve had to kill at least 5-6 every day. Today is the first day when I haven’t seen any. Fingers crossed I killed them all. Bug infestations are truly the worst. Now, I’m trying to remove almost everything like rice, flour, etc., out of their original packaging and into sealed glass or plastic jars/bins. I also threw my other chilies and peppers into the freezer (plus all my rice flours because I’m paranoid now) temporarily to kill any potential bugs. I cannot have this happen again.

Regardless of where you move and what kind of building you move into, whether it’s single family home you rent or buy, an apartment in a dingy walk-up or in a luxury high-rise, inevitably you will discover some problem with it. Some will be small and easily fixable, others may require more time, money, and effort, while others will just be… flat out disgusting.

We did an apartment inspection with the building super on Wednesday and called out a few things that needed fixing or touching up that they missed. But one area that I didn’t check (that I also did not think I even NEEDED to check) was the garbage disposal and drain in the kitchen sink. And well, clearly, they missed this, too.

When I went to clean the sink yesterday, I pulled out the plug and noticed… not only a very off, sewage, moldy smell, but also… MOLD PLANTS growing on the kitchen plug. There were three of them growing and sprouting leaves. It was the most hideous thing I’d ever uncovered in a new apartment. I was particularly appalled because we’ve been living in this building for four years now, and I’d never heard or seen anything so gross. Plus, this is supposed to be a luxury building in New York City. All I could think was, WTF?! I wiped them off and sanitized them. One of the porters came up and did some additional drain cleaning for us, but it still wasn’t enough to get rid of the smell. I’ve had to apply a baking soda and vinegar solution to let the drain soak to try to get the smell out. While it’s helped, there is still a faint moldy smell every time I take the kitchen plug out of the drain. Not happy.

This afternoon, we went through our new apartment unit to do an inspection for things that may need fixing or additional touch ups. It’s strange to think that this will be our new home. Not that it’s far away or different in finishes at all from our current place… it’s one floor up, just in a bigger unit. The kitchen is exactly the same; the bathrooms are designed the same. But it just seems like a lot of space for the two of us. Fingers crossed that all goes well and it won’t just be the two of us for that much longer, but still feels strange to finally have an apartment where there is “free space,” as in a second bedroom for at least the next 8-9 months, will pretty much be unoccupied other than having my work space in it. Ideally, I would like the baby to stay in our room for at least the first 6-8 months, so it’s not technically planned as “just” the baby room for now.

The views of the unit are also much different. For some reason, every time I look out these windows, it feels so much farther away, even though it’s in the SAME BUILDING. It’s a different perspective for sure.

Although President Biden and the CDC have already stated that masks are not necessary if you are fully vaccinated, I am not feeling quite that confident. With the delta variant close at bay and the number of positive cases still at a considerable rate in this country, I do not feel comfortable going unmasked in indoor situations, particularly in crowded spaces. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have gradually increased their max capacity numbers, so I can feel that it’s definitely getting more full in those stores during shopping. Given that the vaccination rate here in New York City is quite high, it’s surprising to see that the vast majority other than maybe one or two guys are wearing masks when I go grocery shopping. This is almost like peer pressure for myself to wear a mask, but I’ve already been entering the stores masked. I’m sure that the vast majority of these shoppers are vaccinated, but they’re wearing a mask just for extra protection and to help everyone else. That’s what it really should be about: making small sacrifices to help everyone else. We’re supposed to be a community.

When friends love and appreciate you, they shower you with gifts for every possible event possible: birthdays, Christmases, Hanukkahs, housewarmings, baby arrivals, engagements, weddings, anniversaries — you name it. Sometimes, some friends can be efficient with gift giving (asking explicitly for what you want, wish lists, etc.), some friends can be frugal (waiting until around New Year’s Day to give you your Christmas gift so she can buy it once it’s gone on sale after Christmas). I get it: it’s done out of love. I’m definitely not complaining about it and am grateful when I am gifted items because it means someone’s actually thinking about me. What this inevitably means is… the more friends you have, the chances are high the more stuff you will accumulate. Between Chris and me, we definitely do not have a high quantity of friends, yet somehow, we’ve managed to accumulate so many items that are still brand new, never opened, and never used.

Among the gifts we uncovered during our move: fancy, hand-crafted, made-in-France cheese knives, cutting boards, excess blankets, never-used bowls and plates, a single-scoop ice cream maker, cheese knife-and-board sets, a wine rack, books on random topics. In addition, I’ve also uncovered things we’ve purchased or been gifted that we really just are bored of and have no use for anymore, including popsicle molds, DVD sets, and a picnic umbrella (I am still confused as to why my husband, who is a self-proclaimed picnic hater, not only owns a very large plastic picnic blanket, but also a MASSIVE multi-colored picnic umbrella). We’re creating a pile of items to sell and wondering what we will actually get back for these.

The downside of moving into a larger space is that when you have more space… you will inevitably get more things to fill it up. When you have more closet space, you will find ways (or your family/friends will find ways) to help you fill it up. I hope we do not accumulate too much clutter in this new place and focus on buying/accepting gifts of items we will actually use.

When you are getting ready to move, even when it’s just to another unit in the same building, it makes you start going through all your stuff and realizing how much crap you’ve accumulated since the last time you moved. Even though this will be the easiest move of our lives given it’s in the same building, I still want to cull a lot of the things we have, especially things we do not use at all. However, even with places like the freezer, stuff accumulates that you just forget about. Here are some things I found that I totally forgot about on the bottom of the freezer: minced lemongrass and chopped lemongrass stalks; Trader Joe’s frozen chicken burritos, Trader Joe’s frozen charred corn; frozen banana and pandan leaves, two frozen barramundi fillets, one frozen chicken drumstick. Some of these items already have freezer burn. That definitely sounds delicious. This is one of the fun activities that’s a part of moving — discovering food items you’ve neglected.

Chris booked us the third weekend Friday night show operating at 100 percent capacity at the Comedy Cellar, which we hadn’t been to since before the pandemic began. Just as I remembered, we were all crammed super close together in the basement of the venue, with just enough room between seats to… well, rub shoulders against the stranger next to you. And while most of the time, that’s an annoying thing in New York with its teeny tiny venues and barely enough space for petite people like me to get around, it actually felt refreshing and nice. We can actually BE close together again! The only different part of the operations was that the Comedy Cellar required us to show our actual vaccination cards when showing our IDs. They’re making sure we’re not lying and that everyone will be safe. I’m on board with that.

As always, there’s a lineup of comedians each set, and of course, pretty much all of them commented on the city re-opening fully and COVID in general. One of the funniest lines I heard was when one of them lamented how dumb we are as a country, as the best example of how dumb we are is that we cannot seem to count all the way to 20; we need to be told to sing the song “Happy Birthday” twice. For whatever reason, I never really thought about that until that second, and I could not stop laughing. I remember all the times I was on company all-hands meetings at my last company, and our CEO and CPO would say constantly each time, “20 seconds! Sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice, people! It’s not too hard!”

I guess we really are that dumb, aren’t we?

One of the funniest things about living in an urban, “concrete jungle” like Manhattan vs. a stereotypically green, picturesque suburb setting is that in Manhattan, you can pretty much walk everywhere you’d like, and it’s super easy. In suburbs regardless of where in the world you are, you are more likely to get in your car to travel a distance that may even just be a couple of blocks. Because of this, you probably will do more steps and get more “natural” and incidental exercise by living in an urban vs. suburban area. Most of Manhattan is set up like a grid, so it’s pretty easy to navigate. And you’re unlikely to own a car if you live in Manhattan, so you’re reliant on your feet, the subway/bus system, or the occasional ride-share.

I was thinking about this tonight when I met up with a friend for dinner in the East Village. After we had dinner, we walked to a nearby spot for some bubble tea, then decided, what the heck, we might as well just walk home. He lives in Midtown West, and I live a bit further north, and since my shoes were comfortable enough and I was in no rush to get home, I figured it would be good additional exercise and air. In total, that was a distance walked of about 3.6 miles.

It’s also something I’ve thought about while lightly browsing potential baby strollers. Everyone’s use case is a little different, but there’s no doubt that with our lifestyle, we’re going to be on city streets and sidewalks a LOT. We also want the stroller to be easy to break down to set up in a ride-share/rental car, and similarly, the lowest possible hassle getting on and off a plane. It will be interesting to see what we end up moving forward with.

This morning, I went to CVS to get my second COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine. I was a little wary of getting it, especially after hearing that some people had really adverse reactions ranging from chills to muscle aches to even fever. Fever during the first trimester of your pregnancy can be pretty damaging to your baby; during this period, your embryo is growing and developing its brain and basic body structure, so it’s been said that a mother having a fever can actually result in brain damage to her unborn child. So based on this, any expectant mother would do whatever she could to avoid getting a fever.

I didn’t have any adverse reactions to the first dose, which sounded relatively normal based on what I’d heard; I just had soreness at the injection site. With this shot, it took about 4-5 hours for me to develop soreness where the shot was administered, but somehow at the end of the day, I still feel fine. I wonder if this is actually going to last. And this better not hurt my baby in any way.