Well, it wasn’t always the dorm. But it is now. It just sort of happened. Like the financial downturn just sort of happened. Except this is much better than the down turn, and the down turn had something to do with it.
Actually for many years the Dorm was the home for me and my 2 kids. But the kids grew up and moved into their own homes. I love New York and I stayed here with my cats and dog. There were 2 extra bedrooms. One became my office and the third bedroom became the guest room for my friends who liked to visit New York City.
More recently the guest room became a room rented out to young people who were Medical students, in NYC as part of their rotation, graduate students, or recent college graduates here in the city for their first job. The renters and I shared the Living Room, Dining Room and Kitchen and we each had our own bedroom and bathroom. But that wasn’t the Dorm.
OK, so I’m and independent Sales Agent for a few Italian textile companies and I have been working out of my home for about 15 years now. Before that I had an office in midtown, in the Lingerie district on Madison Avenue in the 30’s. So once my kids moved out, I figured that I didn’t need to pay that kind of rent for an office since I had 2 empty rooms at home. Being self employed is great when the money is gushing in. It is not so great when the money trickles in.
During the leaner years, I rented out the Guest room. Then it started getting even leaner because Asia was producing some of the commodity fabrics at much lower prices. The exchange rate between the Euro and the US dollar made the dollar worth less and the fabrics I was selling, cost more. And then there was the economic downturn beginning in 2006/2007. I wasn’t quite ready to sell my great apartment, so I rented out the Guest room as a source of additional income.
Originally my nephew rented the room during Medical School while he was on rotation. Then there were a few other female friends of his from Medical School. My nephew was the only young man who was a renter. I really liked having him here, but as far as renting to strangers, it had to be women from that time on. Then there was a wonderful graduate from Northwestern who was doing her 2 year stint with Teach for America. She was a friend of my friend’s daughter. So far, all referrals.
Next came Craig’s List. I wanted to attract someone responsible, independent, relatively quiet and in their 20’s. So I advertised that a young Grandma wanted to rent a room in a big Upper West Side apartment to a student or recent graduate. I figured anyone who was willing to share an apartment with a Grandma would be the person I was looking for. Well, I am a grandma, but I am not old. I mean I’m not 30, but I’m pretty young at heart, I’m pretty easy to get along with and I’m moderately pretty. So, not the old Grandma type. It worked.
First there was the young woman from Iowa (perfect) who was taking a year off after her freshman year, to decide if she was interested in the fashion industry. She had a 9 month internship with a sportswear company. After 9 months it was back to Craig’s List. Then I found Claire. She was a graduate from the University of Tennessee, who was enrolled in a one year graduate program in Fashion Design at Parson’s. I checked out her references and everyone thought she was exceptional. They weren’t wrong.
In the meantime I had been talking to Meredith, who I have known for years, but more about that later. She had been running a division of a garment company located in Texas that had gone under. There were prospects of starting a new company under the auspices of a large corporation located in New York. She didn’t want to move her family to the New York area without knowing how this new venture would work out. So she needed a place to stay that was less expensive than renting an apartment. My guest room would be perfect. But nothing was finalized yet, and it probably would take several weeks. Claire was ready to move right in.
Sooooo, I bought a sofa bed, moved into my office, gave my room and en suite bathroom to Claire. The Guest room would be for Meredith if that worked out. If not, well, there is always Craig’s List.
Claire is great. She is tall, slim, looks like a model, has a good sense of humor and has a southern way about her. She has a wonderful way with clothes. She moved in with even more clothes and stuff than I had moved out of my room. Wasn’t she supposed to be here for only a year? It looked like it was a permanent move to me. That would be OK, we just hadn’t discussed that. We’ll see.
Merideith and I kept talking. She would come for a day or 2 while negotiations and meetings were going on. Surely this was going to work out, but what was taking so long for the final arrangements to be made? Meredith was ready and anxious to get started. A few weeks turned into months. Yeah, finally, it was going to happen. Meredith was going to move in. But it wasn’t Meredith. It was Meredith and Ruby. Well, OK, two for the price of one. But neither of them would be here full time, just both of them here part of the time. So it was sort-of one to one after all.
It was doubly (pun intended) OK because I had known Ruby almost as long as I had known Meredith. More about that too. The Guest room, as it was, could sleep 5, so there was plenty of room. The 3 of us would be sharing one bathroom. Now I’m really glad that I decided I would only rent to women.
Originally, my kids shared what is now the Guest room. When we moved in they were 2 and 3. I asked friends who had a construction company to design a room for the 2 of them. There were 2 bunk beds, joined by a drawbridge on the upper level. Each kid could draw up their half of the bridge if she/he wanted to keep the other out. Good idea. My son liked the bunk bed idea, so he slept up, and there was a built in desk beneath his bed. My daughter wanted to stay grounded, so her upper level was a play loft. Then there were book cases and chests of drawers that separated their halves of the room.
Now the 2 upper bunks are still there, one twin bed and a queen size bed where the desk had been. That adds up to 5. Meredith has the queen size bed and Ruby has the twin. Is there some significance to that? Anyway, I’m not planning on filling the other spaces, right now.
So we have 3 experienced (in every way possible) ladies and one young southern lady living together. How was this going to work? We are all pretty congenial, luckily. As far as food is concerned, Claire is a vegetarian, but we don’t hold that against her. Meredith and Ruby and I eat just about everything, and Ruby is definitely a carnivore. She needs meat. At first we sort of cooked for ourselves. Claire moved in first, so sometimes I would fix vegetarian meals, I always have, and we would share a few dinners. When Meredith and Ruby moved in, the 3 of us took turns cooking carnivorous meals and Claire would fix something veggie and we’d eat together if it worked out that we were all at home at the same time.
Meredith is a wonderful cook, we all are, really, but Meredith is special in that she can cook a full delicious dinner in 2 and a half minutes. I don’t know how she does it. She thinks fast, she works fast and she cooks fast. The rest of us are normal.
Ruby just e-mailed and asked what my definition of normal is. It depends upon the situation. In this situation, normal is human, Meredith is super-human.
--Anna
