Abandoned on the street, No. 4

A single shoe hoisted upon the wrought iron fencing which fronts the building where our first rental company has its offices, the corner of NW 21st and NW Everett in Portland's Alphabet District.

I took this photo on July 24, 2010, while I waited for the bus to work.

Now for what I consider a giant kick of irony. That first rental company, Bristol Equities, managed our first apartment which was in Southeast Portland--it's the one Mama took a walk from with Duncan and found the "Free!" items mentioned yesterday. We moved there in June, 2006. Size of apartment, perfect. Location, perfect--four blocks from Lamont and Leland's place and about eight minutes by bus from my work. By September, 2006, notification came that the building had sold through no fault of Bristol Equities, would be turned into condos by the new owner, and we had to move out ASAP even if we wanted to buy a condo because remodeling was the step before ownership. Talk about a couple of unhappy campers! We had absolutely no intention of owning ever again. Ever. We did have an ace up our sleeves, though, a six-month lease, so the new owner offered us a financial incentive to get out ASAP in order to expedite the remodeling. After thoughts of purchasing a generic-building-owner voodoo doll, I finally found us our new apartment in Northwest Portland which ended up being one block west of the offices of our first rental company!

We moved there by the middle of October, 2006. So for a while in the beginning when I waited for the bus to work in front of the wrought iron fence you see in the photo above, my mind clouded with unhappy thoughts about the hassle we went through of packing every single piece of stuff (see yesterday's post for mention of our stuff) AGAIN, moving it all AGAIN, and then unpacking it all AGAIN. What would we have done without my sons? Put our heads down and sobbed, at the very least. Anyway, we loved our new place so much, were very happy there except for the lack of parking, and never once entertained the thought of moving. Until.

When Mama died last January, my sons sweetly asked me to consider moving onto the east side of the river to be nearer them, preferably to an apartment building with available on-street parking. Remembering that our original rental company handled vintage buildings with hardwood floors, I got online and found my new place in no time at all. So, now I don't wait for the bus in front of their offices, but I am once again connected to Bristol Equities in a good way.

Speaking of connections, I wonder why the other shoe wasn't on the fence? Did the two of them ever come together again and regain their connection to their owner?