Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Give Me Wood

OK, those of you who couldn't contain a snicker at the title of this blog can just get your minds out of the gutter right now. Unless you're a trumpet player in the Sauerkraut Band, in which case I know you can't help yourself, but also if you're a trumpet player in the Sauerkraut Band, odds are that you can't really read and I guess someone is reading this to you. (I love you guys, you know it.)

This is a perfectly clean blog. It's titled as such because wood is the traditional five-year anniversary gift.

And no, I haven't been married five years, or married at all, for that matter. But this Thursday, November 16th, is the five-year anniversary of my being a homeowner. For on November 16th, 2001, the Poderosa became mine, lock, stock, and barrel, well, with a little help from First Century Bank.

I waited a long time to bind myself in the holy bonds of Podownership. Because I'm hinky that way. I was always sure that I'd buy a house, lay down my closing costs, sign on the dotted line, then I'd lose my job, some sneaky snake in the grass would bilk my savings and checking accounts dry, and that house, along with all my other possessions, would be taken from me by Government People, and I'd be forced to live in a refrigerator box on a plot of dirt right outside the landfill.

But all of a sudden, just one day, it seemed, I got the idea that the time was right and I may possibly have been adult enough to own my own home. I started out by thinking "condo." Condos are nice, you own them, but you don't have to do a lot of the work. I like that "not doing a lot of the work" part. Yeah, a condo was for me. Until I started looking at condos in my little burg.

There are really only two sets of condominiums here. One is outrageously expensive, and the other is, well, near-outrageously expensive but one little section of those are cute as bugs' ears, they're made like little bungalows and I'd loved them since they were built. And one of those came up for sale, and I went and had a look.

It's funny how, when faced with the rest of your life and all the money you have and will ever own, bugs' ears aren't really that cute anymore. This little bungalow was no bigger than a small apartment, and while it had a fireplace and a bedroom with a big sliding glass door overlooking some scenery, it also had a kitchen that was so small a person could barely turn around in it, a kitchen with raincoat-yellow formica fixtures in it. And a second bedroom that had "a problem." "Now, this may be a problem," my realtor (I had a realtor, well, I almost had one, the less said about that the better) said when we walked into the room.

"Yep, that may be a problem," I replied when I looked at the floor of that room and saw that a quarter of it had some serious water damage. After I got home I called a client of mine who does work like that, and because he's a very nice man he went and looked at it for free and gave me a run-down of the thousands I'd be spending to have that little problem fixed. It took me not long at all to realize that the bug's ear was going to be someone else's problem.

Then I got two calls from my realtor (well, almost realtor, but the less said etc etc) about two houses for sale in my old neighborhood. One was not the worst house in the world but certainly not the best, full of little boxy rooms and with two neighboring houses practically on top of it, and it was a little steep in the price department. The other was gloriously cheap, in fact so cheap the conversation went like this when I told Mr M & DeepFatFriar the price:

Them: Does it have a roof?
Me: Yes
Them: Is it on the top of the house, or in the yard?

And while it did have a roof, it also had a myriad of problems, not the least of which was the refrigerator blocking the entrance to the kitchen, forcing one to basically, when going in for a snack, go out the front door, walk around the yard to the back door, get the snack, then go back out into the yard to the front door, and while I love my snacks, in the middle of January I imagined this to be a rather dicey proposition. So cheap isn't always good.

Finally, my almost-the-less-said-etc-etc realtor called me back to the condos, to one of the "other kinds" this time. The other kind being the two story row houses in the lower section of Condoland. There was one for sale that a little old lady was moving out of. She was a nice lady, and had a nice condo to boot, but I knew going in that this would be more than I could afford and I was right. About $30,000 more. I fretted over that one. I fretted over it and the fact that I apparently wasn't going to be a homeowner any time soon.

But then as I was going to work one morning, I passed the Poderosa, which wasn't the Poderosa then, it was Mrs Cassell's house, and there was a "For Sale By Owner" sign in the yard. And I was smitten, it was love at first sight, and I called up the Cassells to ask if I could look around. The Pod was me, I knew it, the price was perfect, and I made that scary trip to the bank, where my friend Brenda said the mortgage would sail through without a hitch, so I got going on the whole thing, with nary an almost-realtor-etc-etc in sight.

And Brenda was right, with one slight exception. Four days after I was approved for my loan, a little something called September 11 happened and interest rates suddenly became not what I'd planned, but it still wasn't insurmountable, and it looked like I'd be a homeowner before the end of that year. And I was, surrounded by buddies, Brenda and Louise from the bank, the Cassells, who were clients, the people I knew at the law offices, it was like a big party at the closing.

It's been a storied five years, as most of you who read my blog know. I've had, let's see, ladybugs, bees, spiders, a snake, and Walter the mouse as guests. I've had a traveling magazine salesman come to my front door and proclaim his love for me. I discovered the first week as I was still setting things up that the town's Christmas parade comes right in front of my house, and I've watched it every year from my front porch. Around back, through my kitchen window, I've seen five years worth of ducks float past me in the creek. I hung, thanks to Mr M, my "Poderosa, est. 2001" doorplate on the door where it remains to this day.

I've had neighbors. Shirley, the lovely little lady who was there at the beginning, moved out about two years ago, and was followed by a wonderful succession of folks who included the quiet but unfriendly, the quiet but family members kept changing, the quiet but disappeared in the middle of the night without an explanation, the not quiet, rowdy, squatting, and drug-dealing, and the quiet but still friendly and had a cat who thought he lived at my house. They're all gone now, and the House To The North of me is empty once again, "For Rent" sign waving back and forth in the yard.

And I've never written about this, but within the past six months I've had a scary situation involving other possible neighbors in the House To The North. About 2 ½ years after I moved in, there was a re-zoning, where only two of us on the whole street showed up to speak to the town council to beg them not to re-zone our street and the council all but laughed in our faces, but that was for lots starting one to the south of the Poderosa. That's all basically business anyway. This past summer, the House To The North was in the process of being sold, which would have started another re-zoning battle for all houses on the other side of me, and put me in the position of facing a future where I could be the only residence on my street. A long story indeed, which is why I never wrote about it, but on the very day of the council meeting where I was planning to go and read my impassioned anti-zoning speech, a technicality stopped it all. I hope for a long time, but I have my speech in a very safe place just in case.

In the Poderosa I have the Mantrap, my purple bedroom, where nary a man has been trapped, I'm afraid, the Beast, the spare bedroom which holds more junk than any of you probably even own, the Egg, my yellow and gray kitchen with painted but still not sanded-down cabinets. (Mr M? Where are you, Mr M?) And in this Pod I love, I've had a leaking, carpet-soaking water heater, rain-damaged guttering, raised roof nails (this is an ongoing problem which is currently, well, ongoing), I have a heat pump that likes to unplug itself once every two years (which Jr and his son come to fix and they're both lovely people), I currently have a broken window in my crawlspace (on which I cut the hell out of my hand), and I had to have my crawlspace water pump replaced. I also have a dryer hose that likes to unplug itself (the repairman loves my plastic sandwich on the kitchen table), and thanks to having to replace the bathroom sink very early on, the whole Shower Wall Debacle (ahhh, Ricky Ricardo and your fine sons, I love you all), and a Friday Chill Night of painting, I basically have a brand-new bathroom.

I've been shown the love that is Mowing Boy, who oddly enough I spoke to on the phone today (he's not a boy anymore, he's all grown up), I've grown acquainted with Mowing Dad, and I've tried very hard not to lose my Cool Aunt Status griping over the recent acquisition of Mowing Nephew. San's husband Ziffel (no, he's not a pig, he's a very nice man) pressure-washed my house this summer and got it all clean, Mr M and ESP helped me paint the Egg's cabinets, Mr M painted the Egg's walls all by himself, and my sister helped me paint the rest of the Pod. My new TV came courtesy of Mr M and my wonderful comfy mattress came courtesy of Mom and Dad, who, if they could, would come over every night to stare at me while I sleep on it. Only last night I was gifted with my sister's ultra-nice kitchen table to replace the one I'd had since I moved in, which was limping along with one lame leg. I guess it takes a village to be a homeowner. And I'm grateful.

As I said in that zoning speech I wrote months ago and hope I never have to read, the Poderosa is my home. It's small and it's old, but it's mine. My home. My sacred space.

When events of the world are too much to bear, nothing beats coming home, closing the door, and curling up in the Comfy Chair. Or martinis in the bathtub, surrounded by the new tile. Or even a nap in the Mantrap. After my surgery a couple of years ago, I had to spend about four weeks of recovery time living with my folks again. On that wonderful day when I got to leave, my mom packed me up and brought me back here, where she said goodbye and we both cried. She cried because she couldn't stand to bring me back here. I cried because I couldn't wait to get back here.

So happy anniversary, Pod. It's wood for us this week.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners. So, what did you get Mr M for his birthday?
- Honorable Mention goes to LilyG, with her "He didn't ask. What's needed?" (In other words, she didn't get him anything.)
- Runner-Up goes to DeepFatFriar, with his "Haploid diatonic accordion with nanotubes." (Now, I gotta see that.)
- And this week's winner goes to Flipsycab, who knows the only thing Mr M really wants - "Harps, dirndls, and woodwinds - new!"
- Thanks to all who played - you've all done very well!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm crying happy tears at work now. I must visit your home....

3:55 PM  
Blogger Flipsycab said...

Happy Anniversary, B and P!!! I still get a huge kick out of the fact that the word poderosa in Spanish means powerful. Truly, it is!

4:25 PM  

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