Patrick and Lisa

I met Patrick and Lisa on a Sunday afternoon more than a year ago. Well, I didn’t exactly meet them – I didn’t even learn their names – but I did say hello, at a house open for sale in the neighborhood. I was considering putting my own house on the market and I wanted to scope out the competition. It was a nice house, with obviously new granite countertops, an immediately attractive feature, in the bathrooms and kitchen. But the house had an equally obvious disadvantage: a spiral staircase, which is discouraging to potential buyers with vertigo or those with small children. Or people thinking of having small children. An attractive young couple, Patrick and Lisa were prowling the upstairs as I was surveying the garden where I decided that my house was more saleable even though it didn’t have new granite nor Japanese stones oh-so-carefully-raked just beyond my living room windows. We left the house at the same time and on a whim, I said hello and asked if they were interested in buying a house. They said yes but politely refused my offer to show them mine because they said they were meeting someone and were already late. They smiled and thanked me for my courtesy. I smiled and said, as we do, “perhaps another time,” and we each went our separate ways.

“Another time” came sooner than expected. I decided to list my house and the first people to look at it were Patrick and Lisa, properly introduced this time by my real estate agent. They loved my house, she later reported, but they needed to sell their condo and were only in the preliminary stages of their search. A few weeks later, Patrick and Lisa returned for another look. They’d put their condo on the market and were now more serious about buying. They still liked my house, especially its easy access to the outside where Patrick liked to grill their dinners. But they couldn’t commit. The market wasn’t good – “it’s not a good time,” my agent said – and after six months, I took my house off the market. I lost track of Patrick and Lisa.

A year later, just this last May, I reconsidered. My knees were worse and I could no longer work in my garden. I had some trouble going up and down stairs. And the responsibilities of maintaining a house 35 years old grew tiresome. But the clincher was my learning that an apartment like the one I had wanted at The Fitzgerald was about to become vacant. The Fitz would hold it for only two weeks beyond the current tenant’s move-out date, which meant that at the most, I had a 30-day window of opportunity. I consulted a new agent to whom I explained that I would list my house with her but if I lost the apartment, I’d have to take the house off the market. Was she willing to take the house under those circumstances? She was. We agreed on a price, substantially below my previous one, but then, it’s not a good time. I asked my new agent if she could contact those who’d looked at my house before. She could, but none of them was interested. Well, how about Patrick and Lisa? My agent said they’d sold their condo but had decided to rent for a year. She’d lost track of them.

As you know, my house soon sold and only a week after a young woman looked at it, I had a contract. I rushed to The Fitzgerald and got the apartment I wanted. I went back to all my old plans for the apartment and started gathering together the things I’d need to convert a colorless environment – albeit one with granite counter tops – into one where I will hope to be comfortable and content. Among the changes was a plan for a wall of Ikea bookshelves in my bedroom. I bought the shelves and had them delivered to the apartment. As the men were leaving the building’s garage and consulting a map of the city, I asked if they needed directions to wherever they were going next. “Oh, no,” they said. They could find it easily enough. I went back to my apartment, admired the many boxes that were to become my bookshelves (all the while wondering if I’d bought the right finish) and drove back toward home. Coming down Lanvale Street, on my usual route, I could see the Ikea truck parked on Mason, at the edge of my townhouse community, obviously unloading another order. On a whim, I stopped to say hello to the men and to compliment them on their handling of my own delivery, thinking it quite a coincidence that they had just come from a place where I was going, to a place that I was leaving. Even stranger was seeing Patrick come out the front door behind one of the men. We said hello and I asked if he and Lisa and had bought the house. “Yes,” he said. Ever since seeing my house, they’d wanted to live in the complex and they’d been lucky to get this house at a price they could afford. Patrick explained that they were putting in an Ikea kitchen. “Where are you moving from?” I asked. And he answered that they’d been living in The Fitzgerald and he started to explain where the building was. We laughed at the coincidence that they were moving to where I’d been living and I was moving to where they lived. “You’ll love the building,” Patrick said. “We’ve been very happy there.” And I went home, to my house on Linden Green, marveling at the strangeness of the world.

My installer came to my apartment in The Fitz to put up the bookshelves and when he got to the last cabinet in the row, I realized it wouldn’t fit. I had measured the wall improperly, quite unusual for me, but due to a projection at one end that wasn’t on the floor plan (a poor excuse; I should have measured more carefully). So I went back to Ikea to buy a like cabinet but in a smaller size. While I was at the delivery-arranging service desk, I saw Patrick through a window into the return area. The paperwork necessary to my delivery and return was vexing the earnest young man from Ikea so while he was trying to figure it out, I went over to Patrick to say hello. He was as surprised as I was. “Didn’t you like your kitchen?” I asked him. That wasn’t it, he said; Ikea had delivered the wrong color. But how nice it was to see me, and how strange that of all the people at Ikea on a Saturday afternoon, we should run into each other. “And I understand you’re moving to The Fitzgerald,” he said. “Into what apartment?”

“432,” I said. He seemed shocked. “We live in 431.” And then he added, laughing, “This is really getting weird.” And I agreed.

Stay tuned

Be Careful What You Wish For

At times when I’ve had no plans for the weekend and am feeling just a little abandoned by not having been invited to some one of my friends’ dinner party, I plan a unique dinner party of my own. Unique in that it’s just for me. I buy something special at Eddie’s – maybe lamb chops or a crab cake – and plan a meal around that, with accompaniments like broccoli, roasted new potatoes with rosemary, a green salad, apple pie with ice cream. Before dinner, I have a very dry martini (shaken, not stirred) with olives, and turn on some music, maybe Bass Norton at the piano in the Savoy in London. On these occasions, I build a fire in the fireplace and take my martini and maybe some expensive cheese, like a French epoise, into the living room where, mellowed by gin and enveloped in Cole Porter, I sit in different places in the room, checking to be sure the order of things in the space is always pleasing, no matter where a guest might sit. Sometimes I make a small change by straightening a painting or moving some item to a different location. But usually, I find the room very satisfactory so I bathe in the ambiance and listen to the music until my martini is gone. Then I serve myself in the dining room, with the lights just so, candles on the table and a real linen napkin. I selfishly luxuriate in my house.

So I suppose it’s not surprising that as the house begins to come apart in preparation for my move to The Fitzgerald, I’m experiencing some melancholy wistfulness, a kind of what-have-you-done-Phil-feeling. I know I’ll miss the fireplace into which I’ve stared so many times in winter, wondering about my life, my past, my future. What’s it all about, Alfie? I’ll surely miss the two-track lighting system in the dining room, which has allowed me to produce just the right mood for so many dinner parties. And even though I can no longer get down on my knees for proper work in the garden, I’ll miss the daffodils and tulips in the spring, the chrysanthemums in fall and the rhododendrons that always wilt in the heat of August, telling me when the garden needs an extra jolt of water. I’ll be leaving all that behind. I tell myself this doesn’t matter and I’m sure, in time, it won’t. I’m moving on to a whole new way of living, maybe even a new life, surely a beginning, not an ending, and certainly not just a going-on. I tell myself that this is good, and I pack another box.

I’ve always thought the two most stressful times in life (at least for me) have been starting a new job and moving to a new location. I guess I’m now beyond a new career, or even a splinter of one, and this will probably be my last move. So I labor on, approaching the move as just one more project in a long line of projects I’ve undertaken in my professional life. Plan the bookshelves for the bedroom and buy them from Ikea. Arrange to have them delivered. Find an installer. Plan the lighting and see how much of my current track can be used in the new location. Find an electrician. Plan the shelving in my new pantry and ask my handy man if he will put that up. Plan where the furniture I’m taking will go in the new apartment; measure all the walls. Plan the distribution of my art: what to take and what to ship to auction. Find an auctioneer. Evaluate quotations from several movers and decide on one. Throw away what I can. Have a yard sale. Give what’s left to Goodwill or The Salvation Army. Notify so many people of my new address. Change my insurance. The lists grow longer. And at this age, I carry around bits of paper and a pen to make note of things to do that I will surely forget if I don’t write them down.

When I first thought of putting my house on the market, my real estate agent looked around my environment and said to me, “Be careful what you wish for. It might come true.” Okay, I got my wish. The house has sold. Now I’ll make a new wish, that I’ll be as happy at 1201 Mount Royal Avenue – although I’m sure in an entirely different way – as I have been here on Linden Green. Onward!

Stay tuned.

On the Road Again, Again

In early May, I stopped at The Fitzgerald, the apartment building where I had wanted to live, just to visit with the personnel in the office and maybe tug at my desire strings one more time. Or maybe my visit was just fate. But to my surprise, the office told me the apartment under the apartment I had wanted – it’s exactly the same size and layout but just one floor below - would become available at the end of May. But, they said, it was the last un-rented apartment in the building and even with a deposit, they could only hold it for two weeks beyond the exit of the current tenant. I gave them a deposit and decided to put my house on the market yet again.

I consulted a new agent, very highly regarded for success here on Bolton Hill, telling her I’d be happy to list with her but if I lost the apartment in The Fitzgerald again, I’d have to take the house off the market. Was she willing to accept such a challenge? We arrived at an agreement about payment for the new photographs to accompany the listing and at a listing amount that while more then ten percent lower than the price at which I had previously listed my house, we thought an acceptable compromise between her recommendation and my check book. Objections to the house before had been the dark colors I had painted the rooms to show off my art so she suggested I make an allowance for painting part of the contract. I consulted a painter or two and Jessica and I agreed on an allowance we’d build into the selling price.

Traffic was slow. It’s not a good time. Everyone says that. Not only is the economy really discouraging to the sale of real estate, but by the time the listing went on line, we had passed the prime selling season for houses here on Bolton Hill. Still, Jessica was optimistic and I went back on “show time,” primping my house for every potential showing and putting those toilet articles back in a box – this time a carton for unsalted butter - on the counter so I could quickly hide it underneath when potential buyers came through. It’s not easy living on a stage set. But there was no option.

By the middle of June, two weeks after the tenant at The Fitzgerald had moved out, the leasing office told me they couldn’t hold the apartment any longer. I pleaded with them but while they were sympathetic, they had their own pressures and in the end there was nothing they could do. I’m sure they were eager to reach 100% occupancy and “my” apartment was the only one standing in their way. I told them of all my efforts to move the house and crossed my fingers, hoping no one would show up at the apartment building interested in #432. Jessica went on double-time.

On Saturday, June 18, I was backing out of my parking lot when I saw a couple of young girls (maybe in their late 20’s or early 30’s, which, believe me, is young to me!) wandering around the lot looking lost. In my Good Samaritan mode, I reversed my progress and wound down my window asking if I could help them find something. One of the girls waved a piece of paper in her hand and said, “Oh, thank you. We’re looking for this house.” She pointed to the paper, which she stuck in the window of my car so I could read the address. And it was my house. I smiled and said, “Well, it’s my house. It’s for sale.” The one with the paper said, “Yes, I know. I’d like to see it.” I told her she could see the front and back but if she wanted to see the inside, she’d have to call my agent. And I gave her Jessica’s name and phone number. I didn’t take this chance meeting as anything serious. I returned to my list of chores: the grocery store, the laundry, the hardware store.

But you should never pre-judge a buyer. On Monday, Jessica called to say a client wanted to see the house. Could she bring the client by that evening? Of course. Any opportunity to sell is worth the shoving of the butter carton under the bathroom counter. When the doorbell rang, there was Jessica, with the two girls from the parking lot. “You’ve met Rachel and her friend before,” Jessica said. I was very surprised. We all smiled and I left the house, as is customary, to have a drink with my neighbor. Two hours later, when I went back to the house, Jessica was still there with Rachel. “Rachel likes your house,” Jessica said, with a big smile. They left and I went on to my usual Monday night TV routine. I’d had several such encounters before, both during this listing and the previous one, so I still didn’t take the “like” as meaning very much.

On Tuesday, Jessica called to say Rachel would make an offer. She didn’t know how much. I called The Fitzgerald to tell them of the development. No; #432 had not rented yet, they said, but they couldn’t hold it, even with a now very real prospect of selling the house. I waited for the offer. It came on Wednesday and was way below my asking price. Jessica said Rachel really liked the house and I should make a counter proposal, which I did. Rachel accepted it so by Thursday, we had a deal. A verbal deal. But nevertheless, a deal. I let The Fitzgerald know. They would prepare the lease and I could sign it over the weekend. But I still had no formal contract. Still, The Fitzgerald said, they couldn’t hold the apartment and if I wanted it, I would have to sign a lease over the weekend.

Surprisingly, particularly in this market, Rachel would pay cash for the house. So no appraisal by a reluctant bank would create a delay. At Jessica’s suggestion, I made a slight concession to the buyer for this. And, Jessica said, the deal could be quickly finished. She only had to get a contract written and signed by Rachel and me before the weekend. I’m not sure, but I suspect Jessica worked both night and day to make this deal happen. By Thursday night, we had a contract. But it was still conditional on a satisfactory inspection Jessica had scheduled for Saturday. And then on Friday, Jessica called to say that Rachel had consulted some of her friends, as all of us do, and had come to the conclusion that despite paying cash – or maybe because of it – she wanted an appraisal. Jessica would try to get an appraiser there before the weekend but she wasn’t optimistic. I informed The Fitzgerald and they told me, again, that I could sign the lease over the weekend. While I tried to sound encouraging, there seemed no way we could conclude this deal by then.

By some miracle, Jessica got the inspector and the appraiser to my house early Saturday. The inspector said the only thing wrong with the house was the systems, particularly the air conditioning, which was reaching the end of its life. The buyer wanted me to provide a two-year insurance policy against any failures. It would cost about $1000.00. Jessica agreed to pay half. We both wanted this deal. The house passed appraisal and on Saturday night, we had a signed contract, pending only a termite inspection. On Sunday, I signed the contract at The Fitzgerald. I couldn’t help thinking as I was signing the papers how strange it was that I had been the very first person to look at the apartments in The Fitzgerald when the rental trailer first opened a year ago – I had to wear a hard hat to visit the building and wires were still hanging from the ceilings in the corridors – and now I was the last tenant to sign a lease. I suppose life has a certain rhythm, even it we aren’t aware of it. So now, I’m really on the road again, yet again.

Stay tuned.