nightmare in the elevator

except for the fact that my last apartment was less than 400 square feet, i really liked it.  it was on the first floor, it was quiet and best of all it had a back yard. the building had 20 units and 24 people lived in the 73rd street apartment house.

as sweet as it was, what you will see below was pretty much the entire floor space in the living room

this was my office in it’s entirety (in living room on opposite the wall with door in picture above)

and the bedroom was so small, this was all i could get in a photograph:

the bed was solidly tucked in to 3 of the bedroom walls with just enough standing room to – well, stand.  ivan would take a running leap in from the kitchen to get into the bed at night.

the building was over 100 years old and people were much smaller back then.  if you stood in the middle of the hallway and raised your elbows to the sides, each elbow would easily reach the walls.

living on the first floor gives you a kind of freedom to come and go a lot easier and quicker than having to do the stairs; especially when there are 5 flights of them (see 5th floor living).

now i live in a 600 square foot studio in a building with 137 apartments, approximately 250 people and 2 elevators and i’ve come to find out that elevators are over rated.  last night for example, ivan had to go out and he needed to go out quickly.  he had been suffering from an upset stomach for the last couple of days and although i had been taking him out every 2 hours, apparently it wasn’t enough.  as we waited for the elevator ivan held his tail tight between his legs and looked at me with wide eyes telling me he was trying as hard as he could to wait for the elevator.  he seemed to be panic stricken as i assured him the elevator was on it’s way and would be here any second.  finally that second arrived. the elevator doors opened, we jumped in, i pressed the lobby button and the doors closed.

the whole process took at least 5 minutes and ivan just didn’t have that kind of time.  i will spare you the details.

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama