Because Home is Where the Heart Is

And today, my heart is with my friends Kira and Travis in Ohio.

Normally, my blog is a place where I share what I find to be the frequently overwhelming and hopefully hilarious stories of finding, buying, rebuilding, and creating something that feels like home. My aim is usually to be entertaining, or at the very least informative, in my posts. After all, why else would you be here?

That's not the case today. Today, all I have to offer is a very sad story told in an attempt to help the aforementioned friends.

Kira and Travis are fantastic, intelligent, compelling people with warm hearts, wonderful senses of humor, and the sort of opinions and ideas that open you up to a whole new world of things you might never have even considered until you discussed it with them. I have many, many happy memories of time spent at their old apartment here in Pennsylvania before they moved out of state for Travis to pursue his graduate degree. Although I haven't had the chance to meet their new dog, many of those happy memories included their two cats, Faustus and Mika, whom they have had since college. In fact, the very first time I went to their house, I ended up sleeping on their couch and waking up bleary-eyed to Mika cuddled up against me on one of the pillows. He has always been a wonderfully loving and patient cat, curious about everything our pack of friends were doing in the livingroom, tolerant of all the times we plopped Kira's handmade jewelry on his head to dress him up as Pharoh cat, and more than a bit of an affectionate, purring mooch whenever one of us had nummy-smelling food.

Sadly, Mika has spent the last several months fighting a very aggressive form of kitty-cancer. Tragically, Mika lost his fight last night. To quote Travis, "He fought for life with a courage and ferocity and grace that will inspire me for the rest of my life. Those we lose will live on in that way, in our choices and actions, the thumbprints made while shaping our character." Travis can be incredibly eloquent like that.

Mika of the Big Eyes

Mika will be sorely missed by many who knew and loved him and, as a long time pet-owner myself, I know all too well the sort of hurt that my friends are experiencing right now. You see, that's the thing about pets - they fill our lives with laughter, and happiness, and comfort, and love. They wiggle their furry way into our hearts. And, eventually, they break them. The fact that, knowing this, we continue to bring them into our lives and forge that amazing bond is a testament to all that they give to us. Often, we do all that we can to return the unconditional love that they show us. Sometimes, it feels like it isn't enough.

In Kira and Travis's case, they tried to return Mika's love by giving him all the time that they could.  While I wish that these sort of things could be fought purely with the love and support of friends and family, the reality of the situation is that they require medicine. And as someone who works for a pharmaceutical supplier, I am keenly aware of the fact that medicine costs money. Heath care costs are not, much to my dismay, something that can be paid with loving messages, or hugs, or tears of sympathy and support. As a result, they have taken on - and I quote - a "staggering" amount of debt to cover the cost of Mika's veterinary bills and are now still left with that even though sweet Mikachu is gone.

And so, when I sat down and thought about what I could possibly do to help them from several hundred miles away, what I came up with was this. It isn't much, but here it is:

In an attempt to offset the debt which they took on in order to care for their cat, Kira began a special line of jewelry dedicated to Mika that she sold through her jewelry business, Anima Metals. She also started a blog about the process, The Mika Project, which can be found on Wordpress. The Mika Project, like all of her jewelry, is lovely. I own two of her necklaces and two pairs of her earrings. One of these sets was given to me as a Christmas gift and, every holiday season, I find myself gravitating to it again and again. I'm pretty sure a fair portion of holiday pictures taken of me by my boyfriend's family are ones in which I'm wearing something that Kira made.

Keeping that thought in mind, I feel compelled to say that not only is her jewelry physically beautiful, but it's been created by a fantastic person in a gesture of love made towards a dear member of her family. I can't think of a better Christmas gift than that.

If, in the course of the coming holiday season, you have a gift to buy for your wife, or girlfriend, or sister, or mother, or aunt, or nana, or good friend, I'd like to ask you to consider buying something from Kira at Anima Metals. I certainly will be. And if the heart-felt emotion behind both her work and this request isn't enough to convince you? All of her items are handmade, sold through a small business operated entirely in the United States. You can find her work  to view at the following sites: 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/AnimaMetals
www.flickr.com/photos/animametals/
www.facebook.com/animametals

Click on them. Give them a look. See if anything shiny catches your fancy. For purchase, please use the Etsy site.

(Note: Kira has kindly informed me that although she does not have many items in her shop right now - due, presumably, to both having to travel for her day job and her need to care for her beloved cat - she intends to spend the next several weeks creating more jewelry dedicated to Mika. If you don't see something that strikes your fancy now, please continue to check back throughout the holiday season.)

In the meantime, rest in peace, Mika. You will be missed.

Kira and Mika in the Jewelry Studio, on a Happier Day

Image Credits: All images are copyrighted to Kira Scott and/or Anima Metals. 

Meet the Baconator

Bill and I went shopping in Delaware for tiles today. On our way home, we stopped at Target to get groceries. I found this:

It's absolutely hideous. It was 99-cents. I couldn't help myself. We decided to adopt this poor, hideous creature and name him Heroin Bob. (If you don't get the reference, you're on the internets. Go look it up.) The downside is that Heroin Bob makes me miss my days of pink spiked hair, studded leather, and purple faux fur coats. The upside is that I now get to refer to saving our change as "feeding a porker's smack habit".

The Thing About Toilets, Part Deux

I swear, I really do post - and think! - about other things. But since toilets apparently seem to be the running theme for my week, that's what you, my dear audience, get to read about.

The toilet in my current apartment is not flushing properly. It isn't clogged. We just live in a building that was built in 1925, one which not only has fabulous architectural details, but which has its original electric and plumbing. The latter two give us frequent trouble, ranging from frying our computers to barfing water all over the contents of the cabinet under the kitchen sink. This weekend, we got air in our pipes. Hence the not flushing. Unfortunately, the old trick of turning on every faucet in the house starting from the top floor down doesn't work. I live in a building with 115 apartments. Even trying to do that would take a very long time and involve annoying a very large number of neighbors.

So, after a long afternoon/early evening of looking at tile and shower curtains and other such things for my bathroom at the new house, I decide to stop at Lowe's. I thought they might have a better selection of vanities and vanity tops than Home Depot and that I could get a plunger while I was there. Efficient shopping that eliminates stops?! AWESOME.

Except somehow, what should've been a half hour excursion into Lowe's at the absolute most turned into me spending an hour and a half in the store. Unlike Home Depot, there was no overly friendly saleswoman to ask me far more questions about FLUSH POWAH than I had ever considered. No, no. There was instead one salesman who was busy placing a special order for another customer. Since I found a vanity cabinet I liked but was hoping I could get it without the hideous sink, and since I also couldn't find the plungers, I decided to sort of meander around the bathroom cabinet area looking at other cabinets while I waited. It turns out that the gentleman placing the special order had a lot of questions, so it was taking a really, really, really long time...

...Aaaaand cue ignorant ass with an iPad! Despite the fact that I was visibly waiting in the help desk area, and had been for some time, this man in his overpriced hipster glasses that were an attempt to make him look younger and with-it-er (yes, that's a word now) than his silver hair would indicate swooped in just as I was opening my mouth to ask for assistance. He shoved his iPad under the salesman's nose and announced indignantly, "My faucet is leaking. It's this one!"

The salesman looked at the picture, then proceeded to give Mr. iPad a blank look. There conversation went something like this:

"Do you know what model it is?"

"No. It's this one." Cue pointing of photo at his home bathroom, like the salesman has an encyclopedic knowledge of every faucet ever made stored in his brain.

"...Okay. Do you know if it's the hot or cold line that's the problem?"

"No."

"...Okay. Do you know what part of it is dripping?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it dripping from the tip of the faucet or from the handles or from underneath the part attaching it to the sink?"

Insert exagerrated sigh from Mr. iPad. "I don't know! But there's water on my counter." Clearly, this is a travesty of epic proportions and one with which the salesman should be incredibly concerned.

At this point in the conversation, the salesman takes Mr. iPad around the counter and down an aisle, out of both earshot and my line of sight. I don't know what the ultimate resolution of the situation was, but I sincerely hope that it involved the salesman informing Mr. iPad that he's both ignorant and incomptent and should've called a plumber instead of inflicting himself on the general public. Whatever the ultimate result was, though, the salesman never came back. Ohh, I hunted for him. I hunted another Lowe's associate down, seeking help. I was informed that he didn't work in plumbing and would I please go wait by the sales desk while he paged his co-worker? I went back to the sales desk, where I proceeded to stand around becoming increasingly agitated by the fact that I had two simple questions and, at this point, I had been waiting to have them answered for almost forty minutes.

My anger must have been visible on my face, because as a stock boy who must've been working his first after-school job walked by, took one look at me, and stopped dead. I immediately felt somewhat guilty despite being entirely justified in my anger because it wasn't his fault that I'd been waiting for so long and because, well, my facial expression was apparently the sort that inflicts the same sort of sudden shock and fear as, say, walking into your back yard to discover a bear mauling your childhood dog, Mr. Wiggles. He tentatively asked me if I was alright, to which my response was a very blunt no, and then offered to help me with my two, eventually three, ridiculously simple questions. Can I get this vanity without the sink that's being offered in a package deal? No.  Not even as a special order item? No, sorry. Where are the plungers? Three rows down, in Aisle 20. There. That wasn't so hard! I thanked him and was on my way.

Admittedly, I probably could've found the plungers on my own, eventually. But then I still wouldn't have an answer about the vanity.

Over in Aisle 20 was a selection of plungers, including one that comes with a white caddy so you don't have an ugly plunger laying around plainly visible in your bathroom. Win! I decided to get that one. Except on my way to cash register, walking through the plumbing fixtures aisle, the handle popped off, right there in my hand. At this point, my patience was thin. Despite reading a lot of Raymond Chandler lately and wanting to be more ladylike and stop my born-in-New-Jersey-where-fuck-is-a-comma swearing, I let a few words out. And who else should be standing there to see my sudden rush of irritation? Mr. iPad, looking as snarky and condescending as ever. I really need to work on my psychic powers because not only did my laser-beam-death-glare fail to melt his face off, he didn't even look vaguely uncomfortable. So much for consolation prizes.

Sigh.

So, back to Aisle 20 I went to trade my plunger for a different one. That one made it all the way to cash register, where a bright eyed young man asked me how I was doing that evening. In an attempt to avoid a repeat of terrifying the stock boy into paralysis, I gave him a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed smile and, as I was halfway through a Venti Chai from Starbucks, answered in a chipper voice, "Frankly, I am pissed off." This must not have been the answer he was expecting, as I once again paralyzed a Lowe's employee - this time with laughter. He blinked twice, cracked up to the point that he had to catch his breath and wiped tears from his eyes, and then thanked me for making his night. Well, at least that's one of us in a good mood, I told him!

I eventually made it home across the Delaware/Pennsylvania state line with my tile samples, my design books, and my toilet plunger. Of course, at this point I had made it the rest of the way through my enormous chai and was on the verge of doing the kindergartner potty dance. But my toilet still wasn't flushing, so to work I had to go with the plunger.

I spent about twenty minutes in the bathroom, working the plunger while muttering to myself about how, as a renter, this is one of the things I shouldn't have to be doing until I move into my new house. No, that's what maintenance is for, except calling maintenance in my building might result in my landlord calling me back on Wednesday and sending a plumber next week. And in the meantime, would I mind using the bathroom in the empty apartment down the hall? (Yes, that was seriously their solution the last time my plumbing broke, which was the time I couldn't wash dishes in my sink without water flooding the kitchen cabinet and leaking into the apartment below.)

Now, having to spend that much time staring into the depths of my toilet while pumping away at the plunger would've been bad enough - ohh, hey, I never noticed that slight stain near the rim! - except that I forgot to close the door. And my boyfriend and I have three very curious, very friendly, very affectionate, very clingy cats. Clingy to the point that two out of the three of them will follow me into the bathroom every single time, like a pair of miniature perverts in fur coats. One of them has even been known to stare curiously then decide to use his own litterbox while you're in there, regardless of what you're doing. Showering. Blow-drying your hair. Performing the second half of Mozart's "Don Giovanni". It doesn't matter what you're doing - to him, it's like it's some sort of communal bathroom activity. I don't know what's wrong with him. We suspect he's seriously brain damaged. And he was once spayed. Yes, spayed - but that's a story for another day.

So, I'm standing there plunging away at the toilet when the smallest and clingiest of the three decides he wants my attention. This is relatively normal. He likes to interrupt a lot of daily activities by literally launching himself at my boyfriend or me and then digging his claws in, waiting for us to catch him and cuddle him like a baby. Except I was bent over, so he landed on my back. To give you a mental picture of what this looked like, imagine this 5'3" girl with a bright red pixie cut in a black sweater and jeans flailing around her bathroom and shrieking yet more New Jersey swear words, swinging one arm violently behind her in a futile attempt to get the cat off, and trying to keep the plunger steady in the other hand so it doesn't drip clogged-toilet-water on her bare foot. All the while the other cat - the one that thinks bathroom time is communal - was staring up at me in confusion, trying to determine what the appropriate response to this shrieking and flailing should be. Ultimately, he made a decision. Which was, naturally, climbing into his litterbox and proving to me how much less complicated his toilet is than mine.

The Thing About Toilets Is...

...There's apparently a lot more going on there than I ever really thought. I think that's pretty scary. After all, I'm not the stereotypical helpless girl that sees a jiggly handle and shrieks, "There is no God!". I've done some minor plumbing fixes myself - replaced a cracked seat, reattached the chain in the tank, replaced the chain in the tank when it rusted through, tightened a jiggly handle. But despite my amazing Fem-Power muscles and Ms. Fixed-It-Herself title... well, there's a lot more going on there than I ever really thought.

I had my meeting with my contractor and my consultant yesterday, to review the renovation work to be done on the house. We went over the time-line and the budget. I signed yet more papers. Included among them was an allowance sheet and an unnaturally large number of house-minutiae that I have to pick. My contractor's list of things to choose included a number of items which I, as an apartment renter, really never gave much consideration to. "Hey! It's a faucet! Water comes out of it. Call the landlord if it begins vomiting water all over the floor!". Honestly, it's a bit overwhelming. But armed with Tony's handy-dandy list, off to Home Depot I went. I figured I'd start with the bathroom. It's the smallest room in the house, so it couldn't possibly be that bad, right?

The lovely lady who was taking inventory in the store last night proved me entirely wrong. Even what I thought would be the simplest decision turned out to have far, far more components than I anticipated. I think our conversation went something like this:

"So, what sort of toilet are you looking for?"

"A white one."

"That's it?"

"Well, a white one, yeah. Maybe one of those new low-flow ones that doesn't use so much water it sounds like an airplane is landing in your bathroom might be nice. Are those expensive?" (I am, after all, on a government-reviewed budget. When the money runs out, they don't magically give me more. I'm not a too-big-to-fail bank.)

"Well, do you want luxury height or standard height? Do you want a round or elongated bowl? What sort of tank style do you want? Have you considered FLUSH POWAH?!?!?" (Which she didn't really say that way, but that's how it came out in my head.)

At that point, I realized that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. At all. Nor was I especially concerned about any of these things. As I said, I wanted a white, relatively water-efficient toilet that wasn't particularly expensive. As long as it performs its essential function, the rest is bells and whistles I'm not especially concerned about. So I gave her this sort of confused look and then proceeded to explain to her that given the price range of toilets and the allowance permitted by my contractor, I would like a "nice" one. This narrowed it down to four as opposed to well over a dozen, although there were apparently still decisions regarding bowl shape and seat height to be made. Please excuse me while I ask, "Who the eff cares?"

Cue helpful boyfriend, who spends entirely too much time on the internet reading Cracked.com articles, informing me that although the "luxury height" one - which, by the way, apparently means it's the height of a regular chair as opposed to lower down - had a fancy looking tank, the standard height ones that are closer to the ground are "healthier" for the user. Why he knows this? Aside from the generic "INTERNETS!!!" excuse that also explains why I know a lot of things I really shouldn't know and would probably rather not consider? I can't really say. Either way, I'll spare you the gross details that Cracked.com included, which it seems he felt the need to share with me. Let's just say it involved the words "muscles" and leave it at that.

The ultimate result of this is that somehow, my complete and utter lack of any sort of real knowledge regarding plumbing combined with my apparent lack of enthusiasm for toilet aesthetics turned me into a raccoon in headlights, entirely too paralyzed to make any sort of rational decision. After all, what if I pick the wrong one?!? This really shouldn't be bothering me all that much. As I said to my friend Marian last night, "....It's a toilet. It's sole purpose is to make poop and other yucky things not be in my bathroom. Does this toilet do that? Will it continue to do that without having some catastrophic failure some time down the line? THEN IT'S FINE."

My sole consolation in all of this is that although I appear to be lacking some sort of fundamental girl nesting gene, I'm not the only one. Thank you, Marian, for reassuring me that you don't care what your toilet looks like, either.

Miracles of Science

I swear to God, my new space heater is some sort of high-tech wonder created by NASA. It has to be. Or it was made by God, for me personally. Nothing else makes sense.

One of the many reasons I've wanted to purchase a house is how absolutely and utterly miserable my apartment is in the winter. While the building has some fantastic architectural details, it also has (numerous) drawbacks. Most of the windows are single-pane glass. The insulation is pathetic at best and non-existent at worst. Shortly before we moved in, the gas radiators were removed and replaced with electric baseboard heat. Not only is electric heat incredibly expensive, if it's ineffective in largely uninsulated spaces. I've literally spent $300 trying to heat a one-bedroom + den apartment and, if I'm lucky, can get my apartment up to a toasty 55*F. Lovely!

I've tried everything. We have thermal curtains in our bedroom. I've put plastic on the windows, though mostly that just gets shredded by our cats. My mother has generously given me some bad-ass industrial style space heaters. (Ones which our ancient electrical system fried in a single season, thanks to a lack of ground wiring in our building. What that has down to our computers, my friends' TVs, etc. is a whole different story....)

And then, with this weekend's snowfall, I got desperate. It was down to 51*F in our bedroom on Saturday night. I was freezing, despite flannel PJs, multiple blankets, and two pairs of socks. In an act of desperation, I went out to by a space heater I saw advertised in Target's weekly flyer for $59.99, plus tax.

And I swear, this thing has left me feeling like Moses on Mt. Sinai. I'm half-expecting the heavens to open up and beam of light to shine on my face while the voice of the Metatron announces, "And lo, on the eighth day, God created this space heater. And it was good."

You might suspect this is hyperbole. You'd be totally freakin' wrong.

I brought this space heater home and plugged it in around 11PM last night. It was so warm and comfy, I proceeded to fall asleep on the couch. I didn't even make it to bed, I was so snuggly-toasty-puddlefied. I almost regretted leaving for work this morning. And then when I came home from my classes + science lab tonight, it was still on...

...And my apartment was so warm, I was almost uncomfortable. The heater has been placed in the largest room in my apartment, which is this weird conglomeration of kitchen/living/dining that leads through an archway into our den. Two rooms over, through the bedroom, is our bathroom. It is, without fail, the coldest room in the house. It's combination of the single-pane glass window that doesn't shut quite right and the tile floor, I'm sure. And it was 64*F in there. I know because I have a fancy-schmacy clock from Walmart with a theromometer. And it read 64*F -  a full thirteen degrees warmer than it was in my apartment the day before and a solid ten degrees warmer than I can usually get it with the baseboards cranked to high. Bear in mind, the space heater has settings from one through seven. It was set dead-center, on four.

I don't know what my electric bill will be. I'd like to pretend I won't care. (Although it's far more likely I'll cry than not.) But for the very first winter in the three-plus years we've lived here, my apartment is warm.

I don't care if it's blasphemy. My new space heater was sent by God. Try to convince me otherwise and I will you stab you with one of last year's icicles from the bathtub faucet.

Because a House Isn't a Home Without a Dog...

...My boyfriend and I adopted one about a month ago. Since we're sadly not allowed to have dogs in our apartment, he's been living with my parents and will be staying with them until the renovation is finished. It's very generous of my parents to take care of him for us. It's also totally their fault. You see, the way some people are crazy old cat ladies? My mom is a crazy dog lady. No, this is not an exaggeration.

My mom is involved in dog rescue. She has been for years. She used to help transport dogs out of shelters with high kill rates, largely in the South, and puppy mills in the Midwest, mostly in Missouri. (Although there's plenty in Pennsylvania. And, if you live here, you support legislative efforts to shut them down. They are horrible, horrible places and I could tell you more heartbreaking stories than any one person has the right to know.)

Ultimately, my parents decided this wasn't enough. They started fostering dogs for rescues and, eventually, opened one of their own when I went off to college. It was called Love-A-Lab rescue and, in the year that it operated, my family personally rescued and found permanent homes for about sixty dogs. This doesn't include the ones that my family ultimately kept when we had to shut the rescue down due to my grandmother's failing health, who lived with us at the time.

Being as I'm an only child, I suspect this was my mother's manifestation of empty-nest crazy, as I came home from school to discover that I had been replaced by a pack of slavering, half-wild wildebeasts otherwise known as my parents dogs. And it's only continued since then, long after I moved home for a few years and moved back out. My parents have a ten acre property in a fairly rural/suburban area and a massive house, so they can manage things like this, but it's almost impossible to walk around their house without tripping over a furry butt, or stepping on a tail, or having some little beastie pounce on you in an attempt to OMG PLAY. And if you're going to visit? You'd best stock up on lint-rollers.

Warm-hearted, generous, mushy people that get in way over their heads in their attempts to do good. That's my parents. That's how they've always been.

So it shouldn't have come as a surprise when I got a gleeful phone call from my mother one day, announcing "I found you a dog!". You see, I had found my breed. While my parents love labradors, and golden retreivers, and papillons - and while they're all good dogs - they've never been the breeds for me. I prefer my dogs a wee bit more independent. After all, my boyfriend and I? We have cats. So my breed was the shaggy, lovable, mud-tracking, slobbering mess known as the Old English Sheepdog. They're smart dogs. After all, they're working dogs. They're painfully loyal to their families. After all, they were bred to spend their days with their shepherd. They're independent thinkers. They have to be, given the tasks they were designed to do.

The trouble with the OES - also known as bobtails for their distinctly docked tails denoting their working status in 18th-Century England, which is a practice I wish they would ban in the US like they did in the UK - is that there's not many of them up for adoption. At least, not in this part of the country. Most of the ones up for adoption are out west or so far north they could probably bark across the Canadian border. And given my family history and all I know about rescue animals? I flat-out refuse to buy a dog. Not when there's so many that need homes. So my boyfriend and I settled on the next best thing - a pitbull.

Yeah, you read me. I said a pitbull. There's tons of them up for adoption in the Philadelphia area and despite what you've heard on the news? They're good dogs. I had one when I was little, named Pete. That dog used to let five-year-old-me feed him his kibble one piece at a time, bare-handed. I dressed him up in my ballet tutus. At one point, I decided he needed "more colors" and the big brute sat patiently still while I colored on him with Sharpies I found in my mom's desk. (The dog was brindle and white and red and blue for a week, at least. My dad still laughs.) Pitbulls are actually so good with kids they used to be called "nanny dogs" and, at the turn of the 20th century, if you couldn't afford a governess? You got a pitbull to help mind your kids. No, I'm not kidding. There's an article on it here . The US even used them as our mascot in WWI and WII. My boyfriend and I had made up our minds. But my mother...


Well, if you tell my mother you're even thinking about getting a dog? Congratulations. She'll find you the perfect furry bundle of love in some sad shelter somewhere. And then she'll thrust photos and heartbreaking stories and guilt-trips that could be in the Guiness Book of World Records at you until you cave. In less than a week and a half, "I found you a dog!" became me clamoring into the back of my parents' pick-up truck with my boyfriend to drive an hour away so that we could meet a professional dog transport service - apparently, there's people who do this for a living! - that had brought him up from a shelter in Missouri. We've heard he came from a puppy mill. We've heard he got dumped at a shelter by an old man taking care of his grandson's dog while he was serving overseas that "just couldn't deal with him anymore". Frankly, nobody knows. He was dirty, and smelly, and rambunctious. And he kissed my face the second I met him. I feel horrible for not adopting a pitbull desperately in need. I still want to, even though we don't have the space...

...But I'm in love. Wildly and absolutely. We've named him Tybalt, after the character from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He's going to be living with two English majors and three cats. If you don't get the joke, read more. Books make you smart.

We were hit with a nor'easter over the weekend, complete with sleet and slush and freezing rain. And so here's a picture of a very dirty Tybalt, playing in his very first snow. It took fifteen minutes to get that dark, blurry picture. Because apparently, to Tybalt? Pictures should never be taken. Cell phone cameras are not for pictures. They're for licking. I hate having my picture taken, too, so I suppose that's fair.

Exercises in Not Swearing at the Top of Your Lungs

So, I realize that I haven't posted anything to this blog in quite awhile. Frankly, that's because there hasn't been very much to post. Ohh, things had certainly progressed...

Armed with the report of defects from my home inspector, I was able to go back to the seller regarding the issues with the roof. This was of particular concern and upset to me because the disclosure reported that it had been replaced in 2009 - only two years ago, when rubber roofs are supposed to last for approximately 20 years. (Fortunately for me, the seller agreed to pay for half the cost of replaced the roof via a credit to my closing costs. Whee, monies! Which, as I said, makes the world go round.)

I picked a contractor. Of the three I attempted to meet with, he was by far the best. He showed up on time, worked around my schedule, answered my questions, had the lowest estimate, and came highly recommended by my builder. The photos of his work were fantastic, as were the videos. Yes, videos. My contractor was featured on an episode of HGTV.

I submitted my paperwork to the mortgage company. To my surprise and dismay, it was decided that the property wouldn't qualify for a 203K streamline loan and had to be submitted as a regular 203K loan. This involves taking on a 10% contingency to the project in the event of problems and hiring a consultant to oversee the work done by the contractor before payments (known as "draws") can be made. And that was right about where the swearing started, because this change was announced to me by a consultant calling me at my office telling me he'd been hired for the job - by my mortgage broker, who neglected to tell me any of this. Needless to say, I was upset to the point that several of my co-workers here in cubicle land probably know way more about my finances, my home repairs, and my grasp of four-letter words, both foreign and domestic, than they ever needed to. Fortunately, it turns out that this consultant also came highly recommended by the home inspector, who it turns out the broker had called on my behalf. Now that I've been working with him for awhile, I actually like him a lot. And, lucky lucky me, he seems to have long-since gotten over the fact that I shot the messenger when he called by basically demanding, "Who the hell are you and how did you get my phone number?!?"

And then... everything ground to a halt. What was supposed to be a 45 day closing was pushed back three times. They needed this piece of paper. They needed that piece of paper. They needed that other thing over there that I had already submitted three times. At one point, when my boss asked how the process was going, I told him that I was expecting the mortgage company to ask me for my tax returns from 1979, bearing in mind the fact that I was born in the day-glo days of the 1980s. There were multiple agitated emails and phone calls to my mortgage broker who, although apparently fantastic at pushing paperwork through and cutting fees, seemed to have no concept of returning phone calls. Or emails. Or texts. At one point, the processor at his company actually told me he was no longer working there, less than a week before settlement, and that was why no one could answer my questions or explain my closing costs to me. (I think that was the point when I finally went "WHAT?!?" and actually yelled at someone on the phone. And once again, I'm sure my co-workers had a new-found discovery of my ability to morph into Megabitch, the Mortgage Mashing Monstrosity.) My closing costs had ballooned to almost twice what they were estimated to be and totalled more than I actually had in my bank account. There were at least three tearful phone calls to my mother, one massive blow-up with my boyfriend that almost resulted in him moving out, and more panicked texts to my realtor than I'd really care to count. (Thank you, Verizon text-messaging plan!) I had to threaten to back away from the deal more than once, probably gained close to five pounds from the sheer force of freak-outs messing with my eating habits, and got at least half a dozen stress pimples - which is the only time I have problems with my skin, which seems to be the one good gene I inherited from my parents. (Thanks, Mom!)

Things were pushed to the wire to the point that I was literally at the bank 45 minutes before closing to get my certified check, because that's when I found out what my closing costs were going to be. The office where I needed to go to settlement? Half an hour away. With my realtor waiting in an agitated panic outside, texting me to see where I was! And it turns out my closing costs were still wrong, thanks to them forgetting - despite three reminders - that I had paid the 203K consultant out of pocket and not to include that cost in my totals. Ultimately, the mortgage company owes me $700 for that and I keep making cracks about how if they don't pay up, I'm going to foreclose on them like this fabulous couple that foreclosed on a bank, found here. I think most of the problems I encountered can be traced to the processor and her spotty record keeping and, needless to say, I'm more than a little tempted to shriek that if this what every home-buyer has to deal with, it's no wonder the housing market is tanking. Frankly, it's a wonder I'm not bald from practically pulling out clumps of my hair. (Really, the woman deserves a good ear-blistering fit. Everyone involved in the process has looked back at her communications and record keeping and pretty much gone, "Umm. What the hell?" ) After all, this little blurb is just a tiny summary of the sheer amount of - let's be blunt here - bullshit I had to go through as part of this process.

But in the end, though, as of about 2:30 PM on October 25, 2011... I officially own a house. Let's hope it was worth it!

PS - A big thanks to the following for not choking the crap out of me while I was going on my Godzilla rampages through Philadelphia:

My Boyfriend, Who I Literally Shrieked At for More Minutes Than I Care to Count
My Mother, Who Doted and Fretted and Consoled Me Through All My Tearful Phone Calls (And Offered to Let Me Move Back Home)
My Realtor, Who Dealt With Every Fit-Throwing Text With Aplomb and Grace
My Mortgage Broker, Who Must Have Worked Some Kind of Space-Magic on Keeping My Closing Costs Low (Even After All My Cranky Emails)

You can find my realtor, Deb Nye, at Elfant Wissahickon Realty. 

She's an awesome lady and, if you're buying a house in the Philadelphia area, should be your go-to girl!

The Eye of the Storm

Dear Hurricane Irene -


While it would be totally fantastic and super awesome if you could please not send the tree directly outside the apartment crashing through our windows, it would be equally fantastic and unequivocally awesome if you could please not destroy the house we're currently trying to purchase.


XOXO,
Melanie


PS - I'm also pretty fond of my car. I mean, after three years together, Lucille and I have bonded. We're pretty tight. Also, she's only halfway paid off. It'd be nice if you could not send her floating down Burmont Road and into the creek.



As an aside, this has left me wondering - when purchasing an estate property, which is currently sitting empty, how concerned should I be about the house sitting empty? Will the executrix of the estate go to the trouble of bringing the patio furniture inside? Would it be inappropriate for me to go over to the house and do it? What if the drain out back clogs and the basement floods? What if the roof leaks? Oh, noes!!! And the place isn't even ours yet. It may never be, if the seller chooses to back out thanks to the extremely extended timeline handed to us by our lender today. It may be fruitless to be so deeply concerned but, being a first-time home buyer, I will - come hell or high waters (haha, see what I did there?!?) - find something to freak out about.


Note #1 - So far this week, we've had thunder, lightning, an earthquake, and now a hurricane. I'm waiting for fire and locusts.

Note #2 - If the house manages to survive all of this, I'm going to declare it impenetrable. We will be totally set for the zombie apocalypse. And, to quote my boyfriend, "Zombie Apocalypse - ALWAYS A CONCERN."

Top 10 Ways Not to Get Hired

#1) Don't show up.
#2)
#3)
#4)
#5)
#6)
#7)
#8)
#9)
#10) ....Does it really matter after you've decided not to show up?

I met with the first of three contractors we were planning to obtain estimates from first thing this morning. He was extremely knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful. He showed us beautiful pictures of some of his previous work. He assured me that I ought to give him my "pipe-dream" list, because if I didn't, I'd be calling him later to redo the estimate once I saw how far under budget he was going to be. He comes very highly recommended by my inspector. He gets most of his projects, roughly two or three per month, as FHA 203K rehabs. He was on an episode of HGTV's "Save My Bath" in 2006. He didn't even take offense to my occasional sarcasm or mock my occasional drooling stupidity, which I am known to indulge in every now and again, especially that early in the morning.

I like him very much - to the point that, barring some ridiculously overblown estimate, I think I've already made up my mind as to who I want to hire to do my renovations. And I would feel bad about that, feel guilty for wasting the other gentlemen's time...

...If not for the fact that I spent an hour standing around outside in the late summer sun waiting for a contractor who not only couldn't be bothered to show up, but couldn't be bothered to tell me he wasn't coming. Brilliant! Of course, it is possible he called my office number after I already left work to meet him, but what good is that going to do if I'm standing out on the front stoop for an hour, being stared at by all the neighbors? Not much.

On the upside, I did have the chance to meet several of my neighbors while waiting, including the block captain of our neighborhood's civic association and her co-captain. Neighbors are endlessly useful sources of information, providing such tips as:

1) Trash pickup is included in our property taxes. They pick up in the alley behind the house, not in the street out front, so get your car out of the way on Monday mornings if you want to get out of your garage.

2) The city doesn't bother plowing either the alley which leads to the garages or the streets in the event of a snowstorm, unless it's declared an emergency. If you have a snow-blower, everyone on the block will like you.

3) A total of four (yes, FOUR) city police officers, as well as firefighter, live either on our block or on one of the two cross streets. We couldn't have picked a safer block unless we bought a house next to the police precinct.

4) Several of the ladies in the area do their flower-shopping together every spring, which is part of why the tiny little lawns are all so lovely and compliment each other so nicely. And once a few people start planting, the whole neighborhood gets into it.

5) There's a block party on September 3rd and a civic association meeting on September 7th. Although we haven't even closed on the house yet, we - as in my boyfriend and I - have been invited to attend. So much for my father's fears that we wouldn't be welcome, given that we stick out like sore thumbs!

Lesson of the day? Since today seems to be a day for lists, lets go with another one of those!

1) You're not going to get hired if you can't even show up.
2) Sometimes, what seems like a massive waste of time can turn out better than you expected.
3) Always - always! - make nice  with the neighbors.

PS - While showing the contractor around the property, we also discovered a glow-in-the-dark rosary hanging up in one of the closets. It's a perfect match to the glow-in-the-dark Virgin Mary in the kitchen. Apparently, it's becoming something of a theme in the decor.

Money Makes the World Go 'Round

Or so sang the ineffable Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli in "Cabaret". With that said...

It's entirely possible that I may have already lost a portion of my sanity to this quest for home. Why do I say this? Because I'm currently watching "The Wolfman" on HBO and can't help but draw a few mental comparisons between Benicio del Toro's character and this property. It seems entirely average from the exterior - harmless, perhaps even charming - until it explodes into a furry, slavering monster hellbent on savaging the locals in its lust for blood. Or, in this case, my wallet.

In short, the inspection was not everything that I hoped for.

Of course, I was expecting that. What I was not expecting was to receive a forty-one (41!!) page long report on the condition of the property, complete with three full pages of bright red "defects". I can only imagine this must be what parents feel like, when they receive negative comments on their child's report card - a bit dazed, a bit crushed, and completely in denial. (What do you mean, there's a sewage line leak?! We never felt the need to correct Johnny's little potty-training problems. Besides, you get over the smell!) Included among them are a complete replacement of the plumbing stack, in case I hadn't just made that obvious. For those of you who don't know, the plumbing stack is responsible for removal of waste from the property. Turn the shower on for two minutes? The garage floods with bathwater. Sexy! Also included among the necessary repairs is a complete replacement of the furnace, which won't turn on at all, and of the roof, which was supposedly redone in 2009 - which is exactly why, regardless of what the seller's disclosure says, you always get a home inspection. Even if you want to cry a little bit inside while handing over a check for $300-$600 dollars, depending on the tests you elect to have done, all while thinking about how you could be replacing your creaking and lumpy couch or buying a shiny new Xbox with that money.

The worst part? That's not even half the list. It goes on, and on, and on. What's important to note, though, is that some of the problems which are included in the list of material defects are relatively minor things. It may seem overwhelming to see "reverse polarized outlets!" and "loose wiring!" written all over the inspection in blinding red, like a book report turned in to a particularly picky teacher, until all the details are absorbed. For example, the fact that repairing a leaking supply line to a washing machine costs about $50. A good home inspector, like the one that I used, will include these rough estimates of repair on the report for you. Sometimes, that number can be reassuring. Others, like when you need a brand new roof, it can make you want to cry.

So, armed with my list of necessary repairs - which has been added to my list of desired upgrades - there's nothing else to possibly do besides meet with the contractors and get bids for the work. That will begin bright and early tomorrow morning, thanks largely to the fact that the contractor which came recommended to me has agreed to meet me at 7:30 AM, despite living much farther away from the property than I do. I take that as a good sign not only because misery loves company when getting up at the ass-crack of dawn, but also because it indicates he's willing to work around my schedule and my requirements. A second contractor will be coming late in the evening and a third on Thursday night. Once I have the multiple bids in hand, I can make a price comparison in addition to judging my comfort level with each of the renovation companies.

All I can do is pray, perhaps with the help of my new glow-in-the-dark Virgin Mary, that their estimates come in within the construction restrictions and  budgetary limits of the FHA 203K Streamline program. Otherwise, the bank that had agreed to provide my financing won't be able to qualify me under any of their loan options and I'll be forced to either try to find an alternate bank or back out of the deal.

After all, as the title says...

Groundbreaking...

...And I mean that figuratively, not literally.

I thought it best to make my inaugural post to this blog tonight, as the home inspection on my very first house is at 10AM tomorrow. Well, 10AM today, technically, but as I said - I thought it best to make my inaugural post before the inspection! And I haven't slept yet, so it still counts.

What am I hoping for at the inspection? The same thing that every home-buyer, especially first-timers, hope for - a glowing report describing my potential residence as a worry-free domestic dream. But the plain reality of the situation is that it simply isn't going to happen. I'm not going to get what I want. Every home has problems. This is true regardless of whether you're buying a hot new-construction condo, a Victorian mansion, or - in my case - a little brick townhouse built right on the edge of Philadelphia during the post-war boom.

Cute, right? I certainly think so.

Don't let appearances deceive you, though. This house was built in the 1950s, decorated during the 1970s, and hasn't been updated since. Guests walk through the front door to be greeted to not only wood paneling as far as the eye can see, but wood paneling paired with Pepto-pink-turned-faded-salmon-pinkish-brown carpet that, frankly, smells a little funny. This breath-taking decor continues on into the dining room, from which the kitchen - and its glorious grey and orange tile - can be viewed. Separating the two rooms is a greasy-spoon diner style counter, to which has been added a number of white shelves boasting their very own - I kid you not! - glow in the dark statuette of the Virgin Mary.

What can I say? I have spectacular taste. And seriously, I love that tacky Mary more than words can possibly convey. We may just have to keep it.

Continuing upstairs, we have yet more wood panels in each of the three bedrooms. Not only does it cover the walls, but it seems that some enterprising couple at least two owners prior decided they were so fond of the brown-on-brown scheme that they actually attached it to the back of what otherwise seemed to be beautiful, solid-wood doors with those wonderful, old-fashioned glass handles. I can't say I blame them. Once you close the door to any of the three rooms, it really completes that "trapped inside a corrugated cardboard box" feeling. Farrah Fawcett would feel right at home.

Finishing off the upstairs is a surprisingly immaculate bathroom. The tub is positively pristine. It's also a particularly eye-searing shade of turquoise which, when combined with the Pepto-pink (that color! again!) tile and complimentary turquoise and pink wallpaper, makes it look sort of like the newborn department of a Babies 'R Us exploded in one very small room. There's even a blue sink and blue toilet to match!

(Hint: The number of exclamation points in the above paragraph indicate that I am REALLY EXCITED about the retina-imploding horror that is this bathroom.)

Continuing down into the (sort of?) finished basement, there's - you guessed it - more wood paneling, as well as asbestos tile coating the floors. Though it's an unfortunate combination of yellow, orange, and tan, it fortunately isn't friable and therefore shouldn't be a health hazard. The look is completed by a washer and dryer that's probably as old as I am and an exterior door with a particularly special paisley-and-bright-yellow-flowers motif to the curtain covering it.

Still, there's something about this house that says home to me, even with all of the cosmetic nightmares that it presents. It feels solid. It feels right. It feels like buried deep under that "My Mother's High School Wardrobe Crawled in Here and Died" decor, there's good bones, a solid foundation, and a place I can call my own.

Let's hope the inspector agrees.