An Unwelcome Coincidence

The building today, September 16, 2012

And here we are.... Back in Western Mass after 33 years.

I'm told this apartment building is the former 'Chesterfield Hotel'. At what point it was turned into apartments I haven't discovered yet.

Now I've mentioned some coincidences between my former residence and this one. Both are former hotels and both are owned by similar organizations. The reason I had to move out of the Endicott was because they decided to do a major renovation (and upgrade) of the building and that required all the tenants to move out.

Last letter from CATCH / MB Management regarding moving out.

For the previous several years I had been entertaining the idea of moving back to Western Massachusetts. By the time my father passed away in April of 2006 I'd already stopped my security blogging on the Concord Monitor Online website and really had nothing significant tying me to New Hampshire. My mother was suffering from Alzheimer's and though I knew moving to Mass would mean a significant increase in my cost of living I'd be able to visit her much more. Unfortunately I was still waiting to hear from the management of Nash Hill Place when she passed away in March of 2010.

Fast forward two years to March 2012. I've just recently moved into this new apartment and I'm trying to settle in. I need stability and absolutely hate the disruption associated with moving. So imagine what it was like to get this letter:

Deja vu?

Seriously, what are the odds? Of course nothing was mentioned to me about this when I was shown the apartment or when signing the lease nor at any time in the month (or so) prior to receiving this letter. I don't know if it would have made any difference because Nash Hill Place still didn't have any openings (and couldn't/wouldn't even tell me where I was on their waiting list..), I hadn't found anything else and I felt I was over-staying my welcome where I was staying. This place was suddenly available, the price was right, and despite being further away than I'd hoped it is a nice quiet place (well, except for occasional sudden heart-stopping outbursts from my neighbor's autistic son next door). I have birds singing and wind rustling the leaves (& a collection of wind chimes down on the porch) and crickets and peepers to listen to instead of the sounds of city traffic in downtown Concord, New Hampshire.

No, compared to the noise* of a busy city intersection with buses & trucks, amateur drag racers, motorcycles (especially during the Loudon race week), and every four years politicians and their supporters literally banging drums out in front of my building at 8 AM with those "Honk if you support _________" signs, this place is wonderful..

I recently heard that the grant for the renovation was not granted but then just the other day I received another letter implying that the process was ongoing, and if renovations do occur it won't be until early 2014. Maybe by then I'll have finally moved all the belongings out of my storage unit in Easthampton (it's a long process when you have no help and try to do most of it using a Toyota Camry).

So there you have it, my first blog post in ages.. It feels good to start writing again. I think it might be the weather picking me up. This first real taste of cooler dry air is nice.



*Of course the narrow space between my building and the recently built office building 20 ft away worked to amplify those sounds and *especially* the emptying of the dumpster every day around 7 AM.


Edited on 9/28/2014 (I added 1 word and added a space between sentences.)