just for sara

una mas

i couldn't help myself!

a keeper

I had my dad's car over the weekend and since my mom thought I was going to return it on Sunday, she left some food for me and Josh, as well as milk that would go bad this week and some yogurt she made, because even though I have a yogurt MAKER, i still suck at life. so monday morning, i drove to my mom's, dropped the car off, took the green line to work, took the green line back, and planned on walking to my mom's, where Josh would meet me after work with all the food, and then we would drive home together. By the time I left work, the rain was coming down in buckets. Boo.

Instead of waiting at my mom's like we planned, however, he drove to the T station and every time a train pulled up, he got out of the car and looked for me before I darted home the back way. For a half an hour. In the pouring rain.

When I asked him why he didn't go to my mom's and stay dry, he just said he didn't want his baby to get all rained on.

practice baby

well, i think it is safe to say that josh and i will not be having kids anytime soon. or dogs. 

we took care of melody's new puppy over the weekend. although he was so cute, so adorable, so playful, he was so. much. work. he needed to go out about every two hours, starting at 5:45 am. as a puppy, his energy level is through the roof, so we needed to keep his attention or he would go looking for trouble. he peed in the house, twice. we ended up taking him for wicked long walks and then napping when he did. more then once did i wake up to a big black nose in my face. josh and i are exhausted. i fell asleep for about 4 hours after melody and kevin came to pick him up, and josh went to bed at 7. 

i also learned that because he was always swirmy, it was hard to get a good picture. below are some that i managed to get. the others are from my walk home last week. i have started to cut through the park and then walk up charles, circumventing two green line stops and park street. the sun was working against me that day. maybe a class will help me work with sun - something i may look into if we don't buy a house this summer...

we also finally donated the piano to the music school my dad helped found. here is one last look. 

!!!

So, while out to dinner with three lovely young women at a little French bistro last night, I looked over at the couple seated next to us while we were waiting for our dessert. Wow, I think, that guy is really cute. He looks exactly like Rob Lowe. Wait. He IS Rob Lowe.

"OMG! Is that Rob Lowe!!" Four heads turn simultaneously.
"I can't tell!"
"I can't either!!"

From where I sat, however, if I turned my head slightly, I would be looking right at him. (He was one table over (no one between us) and "across" from me on my right. So while he was talking to the waiter, I turned and stared, maybe squinting a little to try and figure out if it was really him. And then he looked at me, smiled and crinkled his nose.

(hushed screaming) "AHH!! It's totally him! He just crinkled his face at me!!
(more hushed screaming) AHH!H!!

Then giggles.

Then we went back to our conversation.

another one bites the dust....

so yes ANOTHER house has slipped through our fingers. here is the saga of the "fixer upper".

we check it out. it's in bad shape, but the price is right. the kitchen is HUGE, it has a decent sized bathroom, tons of sunlight and a great view of the city. with two porches, a HUGE unfinished attic and yard space, this place was screaming for a remodel and some love. we were excited to make it our own.

haggle haggle over the price. we went a little higher than we wanted to (about $5K), but in the end, we were happy. oh - back story. so it is a two family owned by an old lady and her son. they tried to sell it off last year as a set, but had no luck, so now they are trying to sell it off in pieces. which means they need to convert it into a condo, which is time and money and paperwork. they didn't want to go through all that until they had a solid offer on the place. fair enough. we were a solid offer.

since we would be owning it with this lady until she sold the lower unit, we wanted to make sure that she was ok with maintaining the place (the gutters need work, the roof needed some work, the steps were crumbling and needed to be patched- all small stuff). we asked that we put some kind of clause that they will be open to fixing the things that need fixing, since we knew they wanted out. we got a big fat no. they didn't want to put any money into the house because they were selling. now, there was a family with FOUR kids under the age of 5 living in a 2 bedroom, one bathroom downstairs (renting). we went in for that open house and walked right out. it smelled like garbage, stuff was everywhere. it is never going to sell as long as those tenants live there. so josh and i were scared that we would be stuck with these co-owners for a long time, co-owners that were unwilling to put anything into the house. this would have been our HOME. and all the wonderful equity we would add to the inside would mean nothing if the outside is falling apart. so we were like - this is unacceptable, we are walking if they say they won't make ANY changes with us.

ok ok - they said, we will make changes. then our lawyer calls. THEIR lawyer says they will still not make ANY repairs. we are shocked. emails are forwarded, and it turns out that the lawyer had not talked to the sellers in a week and didn't know that they changed thier minds. this has all put a very sour taste in our mouths.

things are cleared up. they are willing to maintain the place with us. so now how to tackle the money? they came up with an idea of setting up a reserve at closing; we would both put some money into a pot and just use that. fine. good. they said $2500 each. it seemed like a lot, but we would use it anyway, so it was fine with us. great! settled! let's move on!

then the weekend. we get a call from our lawyer Monday. the seller wants to get estimates for all the work before she puts in $2500. fair enough. i get some just on my own, bc i am control freak. I send them on. one day. two days. now she wants to extend the P&S date to the following Monday to get her own quotes. we are now approaching our early May closing.

Monday comes along. she has not gotten any quotes. her handy man has company and can't do it until Wednesday. She needs a few days to "think about everything". She claims she doesn't have the money to do the maintenance required.

we then decide to walk. our real estate agent says that she doesn't understand the concept of co-owning, she is old, she needs to adjust. we come back with, will every change, every condo fee check, every little thing that needs to be fixed be like this? why should we break her in when there are so many other properties out there? the only way we have made an progress is by threatening to walk, and we won't have that leverage when we own with them. she seems to be so hard up for money that she will never kick those tenants out, which means, that place could be on the market forever.

oh - and she STILL has not done anything with the conversion. which means that we would still have to wait on that, negotiate condo docs and THEN close.

for a place that had so much potential, could have been our place, with a new kitchen and new bathroom and all that sunlight and maybe a finished attic, the deal was off because we couldn't get into business with a women who had no intention of helping us run the place. who is letting a wonderful property go to waste. it's such a shame.

umm.. helloo?

So this happened on "My Name is Earl" last week:

The crew is all asleep in Earl's room when the Indian doctor returns and says all they can do is wait for Earl to wake up from his coma. Joy says they want a second opinion from "a real doctor, a Jewish one." The doctor replies, "I'm Indian. We're the new Jews." Darnell: "I thought that was Koreans." Dr: "They wish."

Umm.. i TOTALLY wrote a paper on that senior year of college. Indians ARE the new Jews. Deal with it.