Transition Part 2

Ottawa was hot.  Very hot.  Sweating, exhausting, brain frying, sticky, icky hot. (Yes, Taylor and Veronica, I made you wait in suspense for that!)  Lianne picked Lane and I up at the airport, and we headed off in the direction of the apartment. While Lane caught up with all his family news, I madly phoned Amber to find out when she’d be arriving, and the rental agent, to see if we could still get keys at 6 in the evening.  After not  getting very far with either one of them, we decided to just try going to the apartment.  I ran between the buildings and the car, trying to find the rental office, and the management office, and let Lianne know what was up without calling long distance.  Eventually, I signed a paper, and the keys were in my hands! Lane helped me take my tote and suitcases up the elevator to my apartment on the 15^th floor.  He waited at the elevator while I went to open the door.  I slid the key from my pocket into the lock, turned, and pushed the door.  Nothing happened.  I pushed harder – and it was opened enough to let a brilliant light come through, but that was it.  My heart was racing in anticipation.  My cheeks were burning with heat and embarrassment – I’ve always had door problems, but this was ridiculous! I stood in the hallway and watched Lane fiddle with the knob and push on the door.  Finally, it opened.  Light poured out into the hallway, and we stepped in to my first apartment.  This was a moment that I’d hoped to soak in, to breathe deep, to allow my excitement to build in me, bursting through my smile and my quickened steps as I raced around my new home, trying desperately to capture each image and thought into perfect, happy memories.   But in the heat, after a long flight and a long fight with the door, I was too overwhelmed to intensely feel anything, except my phone beginning to vibrate and ring in my pocket.  Amber was downstairs.  We dropped everything, locked the door, and went back down to the parking lot.  Lane and his mom left for home, Amber said goodbye to a friend that had driven her from Toronto, and together, we entered the building, steped into the elevator, and made a fateful turn down the hall.

Yes, fateful.  When Lane and I had come up, we had turned left, and found the apartment in the corner.  So, Amber and I got out of the elevator, turned  left, and began trying to open the door.   But the lock wouldn’t budge.  After my initial struggle with the door, I wasn’t surprised, and so we kept taking turns trying to get it to move, but with no luck.    We saw a woman in the hallway, and asked for her help – but she too couldn’t get it to move.  So as she left, she volunteered to send security up to help us, and asked which room number.  That was when we looked at the door.  I thought my cheeks were red before!  What I hadn’t considered, was the fact that there are elevators on both sides of the hallway.  When I came up with Amber, it must have been on the opposite side of the hall.  Laughing at ourselves, we pulled Amber’s suitcases to the opposite end, where after only a little pushing and shoving, we made it in to the right apartment.  

And it was warm.  Nice, bright, laughing, smiling, story-to-tell-the-grandkids warm. 

To be continued…