Archives for September 2004

So here’s the sitch: I gave my month’s notice at my apartment.

I have done something either incredibly smart, or infinitely stupid. We’ll just see. My realtor thinks the lender is happy with me, and that I’m getting funded, and that I’ll be a homeowner in less than a week and a half.

I’ll believe it when the key is in my hand.

But today is the last day of the month. If I don’t give my notice today, then I lose over a grand in another month’s rent. As I can barely afford toilet paper right now, that’s not the best option. If I really do get the condo (o joy), then I’d like to be out of here on November 1st, not December 1st.

My realtor said I should give notice. She trusts her lender. She also trusts me, apparently, since I’ll be moving in with her family if this all falls through. I didn’t tell her that, of course, but I’m sure she won’t mind. I won’t get in the way. They won’t mind the cats….

Jeesh. I feel, I feel…. I feel too much and too scared, and in situations like that I tend to just shut off, shut down. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m pre-writing this so that it posts at the moment I’m picking Em up at the airport. And then, peeps, I’m not blogging for a week. I mean it this time. I DO! I know I always say that, and then I pop in for just a few minutes which turns into fourteen paragraphs. Not this time. I might not even check email. Just fancy! I’m just going to be ferrying our Em around, showing her this grand place I live, eating, drinking, knitting, and being happy. Like we were in School Products in New York:

ArtFibers, here we come. (Hey, speaking of ArtFibers, who were the two Canadians who came in the store and knew who Kira was through my blog? Fess up! I thought that was cool.)

And Mom and Bethany are coming in to town on Sunday night, so it’ll be a partay! I can’t wait. It’ll be good to have my brain switched off for a little while – La’s been doing a good job distracting me (ahem) and Em will do a good job, too. A different job, to be sure. (Stop it. This is how rumors start. Bad bloggers.)

I’ll miss you. Mwah!

Best cell-phone quote heard recently:
“That’s such a waste of a perfectly good trip down the Amazon!”

I came THIS close to spinning around and demanding to know more. What a stunning sentence. But I was in the grocery store, and I needed to buy a metric ton of ice cream. And how. You know that feeling? It’s when you need chocolate brownie ice cream with that caramel/butterscotch hot topping and you need it like ten minutes ago and god forgive the little old lady who cuts in front of you in line because there is NO mercy shown even if she is wearing the most fabulous yellow fluffy duck slippers you’ve ever seen. I put it off all day Sunday, and it wasn’t until the evening when I finally had to give in. Moral? Give in earlier. Works for many things, says I.

I don’t actually have a metric ton of ice cream. A simple half-gallon is all. Well, considerably less by now. But if anyone in the Bay Area needs eggs, would you please let me know? I was supposed to bring three dozen hard-boiled eggs to the run site on Sunday morning. What I didn’t tell you was this: I didn’t run on Sunday. It was only an eight miler, and I chose instead to feel the pain of my shin splints. Not that they’re much worse than they ever are, which is to say they’re painful, but nothing out of the ordinary, but I was on VACATION. And there was a GIRL involved. And the lack of a POT. See how large letters increase the whinge factor? (Seriously, the biggest pot I own would comfortably boil about five eggs, or a quarter-bag of spaghetti. Shows you how much I know. It would have taken a LONG time to boil 36 eggs, no? Aren’t these grand excuses? I like ‘em all.) But I had already bought the eggs. They now overwhelm me every time I open the fridge door. Devilled egg, anyone?

Next Sunday is 20 miles, and I can’t escape that madness. The Divine Ms. Em will be in town for it, so she’ll be able to vouch for the gimpiness that will follow. [Dude, ants IN the keyboard are so not okay.]

Today is for cleaning (Em might not understand how friendly the ants are in the bathroom—I swear Oakland is just one big-ass anthill) and knitting. I’d love to finish up the Rowan sweater I’m workin’, and I’d also like to cast on something easy and small, like socks or something. I have a feeling I’m going to be knitting and talking a LOT in the next few days. O joy divine.

(Several links I’m loving: Iris does The Rachael, the Em, and models the new Iris Pose in her fabulous new sweater, Clairedelune. And Ryan writes the tell-all-end-all If You’re Thinking About Blogging article. It’s wonderful. Check.)

Whew. Escrow is open. And I’m freaked out. They’ve already called me and said, “Don’t you have any more money? Anywhere? We thought you had more money….” Sigh. I DON’T have any more money. I really want Taco Bell right now, but I’d feel too guilty.

But I did go thrift-store shopping after opening escrow (because if I can’t have any fun a’tall, I’m not good for anything). And I so scored. Check:

50% wool, 35% silk, and 15% linen, this Old Man sweater is SO soft and light and warm. It’s way OMS (Old Man Style), so I lurve it. And if I end up hating it, it’ll be excellent stuff to rip and remake. I think it was a dollar ninety-nine.

And these:

$5.99 Docs, baybee. And they sparkle a little from the greenish/goldish paint. I like sparkle.

Okay, no more spending money. All right? I’ve got to save a little bit for when Em is in town. (We’ll be thrifty, darling, but we’ll still have FUN.) Instead, I’ll leave you with a pic of some free fun:

That’s Lala’s wonderful Miss Idaho, a five pound long-haired chihuahua (and I don’t want to argue about it). I tell you what, holding her makes you a rock star. Every single person who walks by wants to talk to you and ask you questions and tell you their stories. And if they don’t, they’re not human.

And La with the dog of her heart, Harriet:

These were taken at the Berkeley Old-Time music festival, at the free string-band contest. Did I mention I had a great weekend?

It’s been a busy weekend, and this is just a note to say if I owe you an email, please hang on a bit. This vacation stuff is great, but I’m not getting anything done. Oh, but I’m having fun. And more fun is in store—my own Em will be here soon, and then NEITHER of us will be blogging much.

Oh, and woot! My offer on the condo of my dreams was really accepted! We open escrow tomorrow morning (Monday). I’m trying to remember that escrows fall through ALL the time (it just doesn’t seem right to pluralize that word: escrows. Huh). I’m trying not to get too excited until (if and when) the key is in my hot and sweaty nervous hand. But I’m letting myself dream a leetle bit more now. I was at a party last night eyeing their paint job….

I’ll just quickly give you one snippet of my weekend: Last night, I was sitting in the living room of a hundred-year old house realizing again that everything comes full circle. I have been in living rooms where music is being played a million times. Okay, almost a million. I was raised in the living room hearing Dad sing “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” and thinking vaguely that it was a little strange—it wasn’t what the other kids were doing. We didn’t have cable. We read. We made things. We hung out with the grown-ups while they sang. And last night, I sat next to Lala at this house-warming party. She had her banjo, Alice had her guitar, and Jerry knew almost every verse of every standard folk song and played great guitar and harmonica. There were eight of us, and we must have sat around singing and jamming for a good two hours at least, jumping in with any words and harmony we could remember for Joni/Bob/Joan/Lucinda/Dolly/Alison songs. This was after the party had moved in from outside, leaving the belly-dancing rug out in the cold. It felt right. Y’know?

Hey, this Mary Gauthier album is insanely wonderful. Go have a listen. Mwah!

It’s possible they’re going to accept my offer on the condo I fell in love with yesterday.

I’m freaking OUT.

But okay. I’m brave enough to go into this. I am. I think.

Tap tap tap tap. Those are my toes tapping the wall. It’s always more interesting for toes to tap walls, I think. They’re so used to floors. Gets boring. (Speaking of toes, I just trimmed the cats’ claws, and there was no blood anywhere, on any of us. It’s just a damn good day.)

Tap tap tap tap.

A friend pointed out the other day that I’m:
1. Falling in love (well, I done fell, ackshally)
2. Buying a home
3. Training for a marathon
4. Finishing a novel (or I should be: get on it, Rachael!)

All at the same damn time. Holy cow. And I’m knitting a lot. I HAVE to be knitting a lot, don’t I? If I weren’t, I’d take up smoking again, I swear I would.

Have a great weekend, all. I’m going to be busy, and I’m going to have fun. I hope y’all do, too.

I just got back from looking at a condo. Lord, I was all a’flutter even before I opened the door (okay, my realtor’s brother opened the door because they NEVER let me use the keys. But I was hot on his leetle heels). I know the golden rule of house hunting is not to get your hopes up. But someone (was it Maggi?) pointed out that I’m strong enough to bounce back easily enough if I’m disappointed. This place, yes. I’ll let myself dream a little. It’s only a four-unit place, sixty years old, and small, and has a claw-foot tub and real wooden floors, and I could only keep about six balls of yarn in it (hello, ebay sale!), and my heart, mind, and soul feel happy and rested and good when I think about it.

But we’ll see. I’ll land on my feet (or stay on them here) just fine. Deep breath.

Lala likes her gauntlet whatchamacallits! They keep her warm at work! That makes me happy. She totally played hookie with me yesterday and we had one of those perfect unexpected days, wandering Telegraph and stepping over trippin’ kids from Marin, shopping for CDs and books, doing a whole lot of nothing and having a completely wonderful time. This is a fabulous vacation. Why have I never stayed at home for vacation before?

Well, that’s probably because I thought it would end up like today did—running errands all over Oakland, waiting in line at TWO smog check stations (oh, you’ve been randomly selected to go to a Test-Only station. Sorry you waited behind three cars for us to tell you that, but you have to go to Berkeley, good thing you brought your knitting), paying bills and cleaning up after ants (boy, are they messy when they throw their little ant-parties—all those teeny tiny beer bottles and spray cheese everywhere…). But yesterday totally made today’s errands worthwhile. (Along with the errands, I got to see Celia, who works at the same place Christy does. Go say hi to her. She’s cool. And Christy gave me cookies! She’s the BEST, I tell you.)