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hurricane season [05 Jul 2009|07:04pm] So we've been in New Mexico a little bit more than a week (well, two-thirds of us, anyway) and it feels like we never left Florida. Not the house. The house is fabulous, and I swear I'll post pictures before too many more days go by. It's just still upside-down -- we decided to paint a couple of rooms before we totally unpacked, which means there are still boxes in just about every room of the house. But the weather! It's rained almost every day, and the last couple of days it hasn't fallen so much as come in sideways. I thought we were in the desert, but this crazy precipitation is threatening to prove me wrong. About two hours ago, for example, a ginormous thunderstorm blew up from out of nowhere. Seriously, we were driving around and running errands under a sunny blue sky, we got home, and frickin' Hurricane Andrew shows up. When I ran out to get some food for dinner, the hill at the entrance to our neighborhood had basically washed itself entirely into the road. Oh well. At least we can't get washed off a peninsula into the ocean here. 3 comments|post comment

a couple of trip notes [25 Jun 2009|08:50am] I've spent a lot less on gas than I expected to so far. I'll probably have to fill up two more times, making it a total of five -- and I had planned on six full tanks for the PT. It burned up over 13 gallons driving the 272 miles to Tallahassee, so I was surprised when it made it to Slidell, LA (about 350 miles) on less gas. Until I realized that once you get out of Central Florida, the gas is no longer cut with ethanol. Governor Charlie Crist, in an early pander to the ethanol lobby, passed a bill that permits stations to sell E10, and most of them do -- they get it cheaper and sell it for the same, even though it cuts your mileage by something like 10 percent. It's funny how in Tallahassee, though, where Crist lives, the stations all sell full-petroleum gas. We're trying to eat at local restaurants on this trip. Aside from the two Whataburgers, we've had pretty good success. We grabbed shrimp po' boys and fried okra from this little shack in Pascagoula, MS, where we were the only non-black customers. We ate at a cajun restaurant in Lafayette, LA, where a live zydeco band was playing. Last night, we ended up at the fabled Salt Lick in Round Rock, TX. Then this morning we're going to hit a local Hill Country breakfast joint, probably for breakfast tacos. I guess I'll have to get my chicken fried steak at lunchtime, and of course we have to hit a Dairy Queen before we get out of the state. Our hosts at the Salt Lick last night were none other than lyssrose, mr2ev, and hobbit_max. Lyss and I have known each other through the depths of Thee Inter-Nets since 1996, and finally we actually got to meet. No, nothing caught fire, at least as far as I've seen. And I must not be as ugly as I think, because Max came right up and gave me a hug. The food was good, the company was better, and maybe next time we can spend longer than a couple hours hanging out. We've been staying at La Quintas all the way across the country. They're consistently clean, they have free no-strings Internet access, and they allow dogs, so I haven't see any reason to change it up. This one, though, out in East Bumblefuck, Texas, cost as much as the other two put together, the wireless connection is spotty at best, and they have a pet policy which I am currently breaking. When we checked in, they made me sign a paper that says I don't have more than one dog and said dog is not more than 20 pounds. So by the terms of this paper, I'm not actually allowed to have more than half of Angel in the room. But I wasn't going to scramble for a large-pet-friendly room in a strange town at 11 at night, so I brought them both in the back way. What can they do now? Kick me out? On the bright side, this is the only hotel that has had a hot tub. Hell yes, I used it. TONIGHT I WILL BE IN MY NEW HOUSE 4 comments|post comment

hot potato [22 Jun 2009|11:53pm] It was so hot today that when I tried to access the temperature on my car's dash, all I got was "---°F." The next time I got in the car, it told me it was 100 degrees. Yes, I live in Florida, where it's warm all the time. But I've owned this car for close to a year and a half now, and even through last summer the thermometer never either registered triple digits or got too hot to work. And bear in mind, please, that factoring in the constant 90% summertime humidity, the heat index generally rests ten to fifteen Fahrenheit points higher. Clearly, it was a good day to leave Orlando. Our moms were here last week, both for Sed's graduation and to help us pack the remainder of the crap I didn't manage to put in boxes after I reached critical burnout. It just got to a point where I couldn't decide what needed to go where, or whether it was in fact ready to go there or we were going to need it. I needed outside motivation (and a couple of extra hands) to get it all done, and we were in fine form. Rather than deal with the supersized game of Tetris that is loading a truck, or injuring any of our backs trying to lift our big-ass TV, we hired professional moving help on Sunday. They spent four hours carefully arranging and packing all of our worldly belongings into a 26-foot trailer, which is about eight hours less than it would have taken us to do it, thereby freeing our afternoon to drink margaritas and take a nap. I put Avery and her nona on a plane this afternoon, and took off in the car with the dogs (my brother following in the other car) this evening. It was actually harder to say goodbye to Sed than it was to Avery, even though I've been with the latter pretty much every minute of every day since drum corps season last summer. Then again, my relationship with Sed has taken up over a third of my life at this point. It's a combination of things, I guess, and I know I'm going to miss the hell out of both of them until I see them again. We made it to Tallahassee just as planned (albeit a little later), and right now it's quiet time as both Mike and I splash around on the InnerTubes. Up until we actually got here, it still didn't feel real that I'm moving away from Florida. I've done enough driving around this state that it just sort of felt like another road trip, and even sitting in a hotel with my dogs it hasn't fully sunk in yet. I guess I expected to be more emotional about leaving the city that's been home for the last four years, the way I had a breakdown last time I was driving around Albuquerque and realized it wasn't my home destination. But also, we've been planning to leave Orlando ever since we got there. I had a hard time letting myself get attached to anything there, which may be why it's easier to leave. Plus the new city puts us that much closer to our parents, our extended family, our friends -- the old bonds that never broke even though we were 2000 miles away. In three days, I'll be in my new house, the first one to step foot in it while we live there. (OK, technically Angel will probably be first. That dog has no leash manners.) I'm psyched -- but it's not going to really feel like home until the rest of my family is there with me. 5 comments|post comment

movin' on up [17 Jun 2009|03:30pm] Wow, it's been something like two weeks between entries. Remember when I used to post every day? Me neither! The place is just about to turn into a madhouse, in my defense. My mom got here last night, Sed's mom gets here tonight, my stepfather arrives Friday, and my brother comes Saturday. The truck will be delivered Friday, and the movers will be here Sunday to load it. Then my parents leave Sunday, my mother-in-law takes off with Avery on Monday, and my brother and I drive off with the dogs that evening. In between now and then, we have to pack what's left in the house, donate or toss the crap that's not worth packing, give the place a cursory cleaning (nobody's taking it over after us, but we don't want to leave it a hole), close out our remaining local accounts, attend Sed's graduation, and say goodbye to the friends we've made here. It doesn't sound like a lot when I write it that way, but it sure feels overwhelming. I think it'd be easier if Sed didn't have to work right up until the last second. Without her around, it feels like I'm shouldering all the decisions, and even though I know she trusts me to make good ones I don't want to screw them up. It's a lot of pressure picking what to move and what to toss when I'm only half of the household decision making team. Considering she got on my case about tossing the garlic press I've never used and she's gotten out maybe twice in four years, it makes me nervous about everything else. PS. Go Penguins! And good run, Magic -- let's give it another shot next year. 6 comments|post comment

headline news [09 Jun 2009|10:47pm] So a lot of stuff happened today. 1) Shortly after I woke up this morning, a delivery guy brought our closing paperwork to the house. So basically as soon as Sed got home, we had to turn around and drive back to the hospital so her notary public office co-worker could oversee the signing of said necessary paperwork. If you've never bought a house before, I'm not sure what else there is to which I can compare the sheer number of dead trees involved. I thought I'd signed a lot of stuff already, but this was easily as much as everything else put together. It didn't help that Sed had a rough night at work and was grumpy the entire time we were doing it. At 1:30 this afternoon, I took it to a FedEx office to be overnighted back to Las Cruces, and once the seller signs we'll officially own a house. 2) After I sent off the paperwork, I felt comfortable buying a fridge, washer and dryer for the house. We'd picked out the ones we wanted, but I didn't want to jinx anything by putting down a credit card number before signing the papers. We already have a washer and dryer, of course, but we bought them four years ago thinking they'd be good enough to last four years. And even if the fridge didn't belong to our landlord, it wouldn't look good in the kitchen with all the rest of the appliances being black. 3) The change-of-address postcards I ordered arrived. If you want one and don't think I have your address, share it. (Comments are screened.) 4) I finally got a haircut after like three months. Whew. 5) The Penguins won, and the Magic are winning. Whoo! post comment

on the bandwagon [07 Jun 2009|04:11pm] When I was a kid, I loved the NBA. It's hard not to, when you're growing up in the era of Jordan and Bird and Magic and Kareem and Ewing and Drexler and Olajuwon and Barkley. Of course, sports is not a long-tenured career, and one after another these guys retired, to be replaced with new guys -- who had a very self-centered, scoring-focused interpretation of how to play the game. About ten years ago, I gave up. I could no longer handle what the game had devolved into -- no defense, no passing, no offensive rebounds, just one isolation set after another, one guy dribbling a lot and trying to drive on everybody. When Allen Iverson is your marquee player, you know something's wrong with the league. It didn't help that my team at the time, the Portland Trail Blazers, stopped playing basketball right around the time Scottie Pippen retired and instead decided to collect every single professional player who had been or would be going to jail. When you're watching drug dealers, wife beaters and drunken drivers lose by 30, it's rather difficult to enjoy the game. So I wrote off the Jail Blazers, along with the rest of the league, and stuck to college hoops. Easy enough to do in Albuquerque, where the Lobos are the only game in town. Not so easy in Orlando, where the Magic is the only professional team within a 100-mile radius. During basketball season (or at least after the end of goddamn Gator football) the sports section always features the Magic. The games are always on TV at one end of the dial or another, and eventually you're going to run into someone who cares how they're doing. Of course, it took longer to find those people when we got here -- the Magic were still climbing back from posting a league-worst record in 2004, figuring out how to replace a ship-jumping Tracy McGrady, reeling from wasting a No. 1 pick on a guy who decided to stay in Europe rather than play for Orlando, attempting to get the ball out of Steve Francis's friggin' hands, and conditioning a skinny center straight out of high school who they'd taken instead of Emeka Okafor (fresh from leading UConn to the NCAA title). I don't think that skinny center caught anybody's eye until 2007, when he got shafted in the All-Star slam dunk contest. Remember when Dwight Howard put a sticker of his own face on the backboard, 13 and a half feet off the ground? It was enough to pique my interest, get me watching a few Magic games. And I liked what I saw. They still had a shoot-first point guard in Jameer Nelson, but he was adept at swinging the ball around, and Howard managed to draw enough attention in the paint that the team's shooters got looks. And when Stan Van Gundy took over as the coach, they only got better -- more fluid, more cohesive, more like a team. It made me wonder -- what's going on with the rest of the NBA? When you're not paying attention, all you hear about is Kobe and LeBron, even though somehow the titles are going to Detroit and San Antonio. But when I tuned in, I recognized that the aesthetic of the league had changed. Teams were teams again. Allen Iverson is rehabbing in Detroit, Steve Francis had his contract bought out so nobody had to deal with him, Stephon Marbury is buying tickets to games for which he's getting paid to not play. And the guys who are playing are passing, rebounding, making steals, blocking shots. Even Kobe and LeBron are bellwethering a new movement -- the "point power forward," if you will, a guy who can drive and create his own shot with high accuracy but doesn't hesitate to pass to the open man. So I guess I'm back on the NBA horse. And yes, I have a new favorite team. You may call me a fairweather fan if you must, but at least this time when I picked a conference champion I actually lived in the city where they play. Go Magic! 1 comment|post comment

preptacular [02 Jun 2009|10:50pm] So apparently all it takes is for everybody involved in the sale of a house to call my mortgage agent before she says anything. I called twice, my realtor called and e-mailed, and the title company called her today. Sheesh, you'd think she was enclosed in a bubble with her little paperwork. But the good news is we should be good to go for closing next week. HOLY CRAP NEXT WEEK I'M BUYING A HOUSE. The house in Florida is looking empty yet cluttered. Today I boxed up decorations from the kitchen while Avery and Mallory played together. (She came because her mom had to go to Tampa for a graduation. I actually love it when Mallory comes over, because she and Avery entertain each other and I can do stuff in the background.) Of course, I had to take a break to be referee when Avery tackled Mallory into the rocking horse, and then to be sandman because it was naptime for each one at different times, but the tower is one more box higher. I also got going in the process of organizing a garage sale. My car is in the driveway while I store stuff in the garage -- in two piles, things to sell and things to keep. The keep pile is a lot smaller, since that's just stuff from the garage anyway, like my ladder and my toolbox. But we're selling furniture, TVs, bikes, stereo components, all kinds of crap that has either not seen the light of day in four years or has reached the end of its usefulness for us. I placed an ad in the classifieds to run over the weekend, so plenty of people should see it and be ready to clean us out. Speaking of my car (which I did, in that last paragraph, remember) I need to stop lollygagging and get the bumper fixed. I may have mentioned this before, but probably not -- when my brother and his wife were here in August, I snagged the front bumper (which seems to have been perfectly designed for this purpose) on a parking block at the Contemporary and ripped the retaining edges off. So it's clinging on by whatever bolts in the middle are there. I don't really want to take my chances driving a broken car across the country, so I'm working on estimates. Apparently nobody ever wrecks a PT Cruiser, so junkyards don't have the part, which leaves me to price new body work. Ugh. Well, at least our closing costs look like they'll be low enough for me to afford to fix the car. OK, enough rambling. I really ought to try to go to bed before I collapse on the floor again. 6 comments|post comment

the Internet? is that still around? [31 May 2009|08:24pm] I really need to be better about this updatery nonsense. As of tomorrow, we have just three weeks left in Florida. It's going somewhat more quickly than I expected. The real difficulty is doing the packing that I can without impinging on our lifestyle while I try to close up everything else that needs tying off. We've actually been buying crap rather than getting rid of it, which is sort of backwards, but after all you can't get Disney World souvenirs in Las Cruces. The lamest thing I had to buy was a new tub faucet. You could probably smell my dogs all the way across the Internet -- it was way past time to bathe them. I had this hose that was supposed to snap over the faucet and work as a shower attachment without needing to install a shower attachment. I say "supposed to," because it was decidedly less than a snap. Attaching it took some ten minutes of wrestling until it was on snugly enough that I could get a trickle of water from the shower, because turning up the pressure any further would have blown the whole thing right off and forced me to start over. Today's wrestling match led to me snapping the entire tub faucet right off the wall. Luckily, they're not expensive, and I also found a sprayer that screws in behind the shower head so I can throw that other stupid piece of crap away. We also signed up for the MagicJack. If you haven't seen the infomercial, this is a VoIP device that charges $20 a year for unlimited calls to English-speaking North America. We decided that since we have to be able to call Canada regularly, and that since neither of us can even contemplate downgrading to dial-up Internet ever again, we might as well give VoIP a shot. The MagicJack got a good review from the local tech columnist, and when they started selling it in stores, the returnability factor was one more stroke in its favor. We signed up for a New Mexico number (they didn't have Cruces numbers yet, so we're on an Albuquerque area code/exchange) and so far it seems to work very well. The next step is buying a multi-handset unit so we don't have to run to the computer every time we have to answer the phone, but I'll wait on that until we reach the other end. (We need a new cordless in a serious way anyway. The current phone is so tore up you have to lean all your weight on the "on" button for it to register.) I got to see my oldest friend this week (and shop for more Disney crap at the same time, natch). Jenny came with her boyfriend as an end-of-school vacation, and she left with her fiancee. He proposed in front of Cinderella's castle the night before Avery and I went to hang out with them. I was happy for her, and he snared a catch, although I'm not quite sure he deserves it. I couldn't decide whether he was a jerk or whether he was being uber-opinionated to impress me or to scare me off or whatever, but it was probably something of the latter. After all, Jenny and I have been friends something like fifteen times as long as he's even known her, and that can be intimidating to a guy. In the grand scheme of things, he treats her well and they're happy together, and I can get down with that. Let's see, what else did we buy? Oh, yeah -- Sed and I jumped on the Magic bandwagon earlier this year, and now that they're in the finals it's better late than never to have some team merch. Of course, just about everything on the Internet is sold out. But we managed to find a shirt that Sed liked and a hat that I'd be happy in. So yeah, hooray, more junk being shipped to this house! Oh well. I am genuinely making progress with the packing. My tower of boxes has gotten taller, although not by as much this week as last. But I took down my white board from the study and put it in the packing corner so I can stay on task with what needs to be done. Of course, the whole move is assuming I ever actually hear back from our fricking mortgage officer about whether we've been approved for it, since the entire deal is contingent on having that by tomorrow. Damn distance not letting me go slap her in the head and tell her to hurry up. 4 comments|post comment

beachy keen [22 May 2009|12:30pm] Having hurled ourselves headlong into packing, it almost doesn't seem real that we had a vacation this week. One of the things we wanted to do while we lived in Florida was stay at a place on the beach. Sed wanted South Florida, I wanted the gulf coast, so when she found Sanibel Island it was a perfect marriage. She took her last vacation from residency this week, and we found a hotel right on the southern shore really cheap for Sunday and Monday nights. Sanibel-Captiva is technically a chain of islands just off the Fort Myers shore. It's a natural, low-key, quiet community populated by millionaires. Nothing on the islands is taller than three stories, but most of the houses are ridiculously expansive. We picked up a real estate book just for fun, and pretty much everything that wasn't a condo cost over $600K. It even cost six bucks to drive across the bridge to the island. Our hotel was awesome -- old Florida funky (in a good way) and feet from the water. Sanibel is one of the top places to hunt shells, and it was clear why -- the beach was lousy with them. Avery had a blast hunting for different colored shells and piling them in her bucket. She also had fun jumping in the waves, which made me glad we were on the gulf side and they were significantly smaller than at Cocoa, our usual beach spot. The difference in the waves also meant that the seafloor doesn't drop off anywhere near as sharply. I probably waded out more than 50 feet to get up to my shoulders. And it was warm, even though the weather was cool and windy. (We got pretty lucky in that the storms didn't keep us inside until mid-afternoon.) If we'd wanted to, we could have stayed on the property the whole time, as they had a pretty nice restaurant and a tiki bar by the pool. But we wanted to do some exploring, see some of those behemoth estates as well as eat at some recommended seafood restaurants. Most of that sightseeing came from inside the car, though, since it was raining in the afternoons. There's a nature preserve on the island that would have been nice for hiking. Oh well, can't have everything. We got back on Tuesday evening, driving more than half the way back through the crazy rains. Nothing says end of a vacation than battling a storm. Unless it's arriving home and immediately starting to pack boxes. Talk about a buzzkill. post comment

two stories about bedtime [16 May 2009|10:46pm] 1 I sing Weird Al songs to Avery at bedtime, between stories in the chair and stories in bed. Not just because I like Weird Al, but because I don't really know the lyrics to any other songs. I could learn some children's songs, I suppose, but then I'd have to sing eight instead of two due to sheer length. So we're sticking to what we know. I do try to change it up from time to time, though, rotate the tunes so she's not always listening to the same one. I also try to give her a choice, ask which song she wants to hear. The two don't always work together, I know, but if she refuses or if I can't understand her, it's Dad's pick. In the last month or so, she's been asking for the "teddy bear song." I spent a good while racking my brain, trying to figure out which song has a teddy bear in it. Even though Weird Al is not offensive to little ears, he doesn't really sing fluffy, sugar-coated songs either, so no teddy bears there. The only two I could come up with were the Elvis song and "The Teddy Bear's Picnic," neither of which I really know so maybe her mom sang them to her. Independent confirmation revealed that yes, Sed had thrown her a couple verses of "Picnic," so that, I figured, was the end of that. Two nights ago, though, she asked for "Teddy Bear" again. Rather than brush it off, I said, "Sweetheart, I don't know what 'Teddy Bear' is." She looked up at me and tried again. "Baby loves teddy bear any more." She was asking for "My Baby's In Love With Eddie Vedder." Huh. I didn't know flannel was in at Build-a-Bear. 2 If you spend any time trying to get Avery to sleep, pretty soon you'll encounter her trick to stay awake. She's certainly not the first toddler to stall, and she won't be the last, but it impresses me how quickly she's grasped what works for her. As I've previously stated, our routine is two or three stories, two songs, and then she climbs in bed and I read her a novel until she falls asleep. To wring out every possible second she can of wakeful time, Avery will attempt to manipulate me into only reading stories or singing songs that she knows, so she can follow along and keep herself from drifting off. Take tonight, for example. She'd been up since 12:30, so going to bed at 10:15 I knew she was exhausted, but she was determined to fight. As ever, the first story she asked for out of the Disney storybook was Lady and the Tramp. We've read that story so many times in so many different books that I could probably tell it to you with my eyes closed while having my brain choked of oxygen. It's her favorite. When we got to the end, I asked if she wanted to continue to the Rescuers (which we usually read because it immediately follows Lady and the Tramp) or if she wanted something else. Guess what, Dad? "Rescuers!" She was still alert (or faking it brilliantly) at the end of that one. And if it were up to her, she would have had me read through to Bambi, another one she knows. Instead, I flicked ahead to Robin Hood, which we've only read once before. She was out by the time Robin won the archery contest. All I can do, really, is look back on those nights when I was up reading with a flashlight until 2 or 3 in the morning and realize that yes, she truly is my child. Hopefully fifteen years from now she's not falling asleep in her math class the way I did. 1 comment|post comment

mortgage madness [13 May 2009|07:32am] Whoa, it's seriously only been three days since my last update? Feels like longer. Probably that's because I've been running so hard to get everything tied up and sent in for the house. I had to dig up records and sign forms for the mortgage, initial about three trees' worth of documents for the sale, get in touch with our insurance carrier about coverage for our new home, then scan and e-mail everything to the designated representative. I know, wah wah, I had to shuffle paper and push buttons, but remember when I used to get paid for that? And I swear yesterday I did more actual work than I did in the final six months of my last job. Plus we aren't even considering the objection about the roof yet. It sounds so legal and official and scary when you say it that way -- we filed an Objection, Resolution and Waiver form requesting replacement of the roof at seller's expense. But I forgot New Mexicans are a lot less threatened and more easygoing about such trivialities as financially binding documents. They agreed right away, probably relieved we didn't ask for more. In fact, they asked us to sign the paper confirming the agreement and send it back before the end of the day, probably so if we tried getting the stucco they could be all, "Nuh-uh, dudes, you agreed on just the roof and we have your signature on it." Really, we aren't worried about stucco -- my father-in-law is like the World Polyelastic Stucco Sales Leader, and as such he has contacts that will give us good service at a good price when it comes time to fix it. (Which will be relatively soon, granted.) But the roof has to be fixed before the bank will loan us the money to buy the house, which is no doubt an impetus for the seller. And now that we've got an agreement, the roofer says he'll have it done by the weekend. The whole process made me even more glad that we didn't try to pursue that other house. You remember the one, where the dude countered our offer with more than the listing price? It's a lot nicer working with people who are reasonable and agreeable and actually seem to want to sell their house. Did I mention I did all the paperwork and scanning and phone calls and racing around while a frantic two-year-old refused to nap? That was a lot of fun, and I highly recommend pulling out fingernails before you ever consider it. Avery actually fell asleep around 8:30 last night, a solid two hours before usual, and she's still asleep right now. So why am I up? Good friggin' question, imaginary Internet wiser me! I actually bolted awake at 5:45 with merely the fear that Avery might be ready to wake up, and couldn't get back to sleep. Yay! Let's see who's frantic today! Pictures of the house. 6 comments|post comment

homecoming [10 May 2009|08:11am] I spent a few more days in New Mexico this week. That's the biggest pain about buying a house -- you have to, like, be there to buy the house. Well, it's technically possible to do it without being present, but you could have an unscrupulous buyer's agent who sends you pictures of a mansion and sells you a shack. Thanks to the kindness of my parents, Avery and I were able to fly into Albuquerque, where she played with Grandma while I spent a day driving to Las Cruces and tagging along with the inspector. The guy was very forthright and thorough, and most of what he pointed out was very minor. However, the roof does need some pretty serious repair work, and the stucco on the outside is starting to bubble and crack where the desert sun beats down on it. It's not a breaking point in the sale, but we will expect the seller to work with us to get it repaired. This is why we have a realtor -- better to have someone experienced in making these agreements than trying to do it ourselves and screwing everything up. While I was in the state, I took the opportunity to tie up some loose ends with the mortgage. Our loan advisor actually works in Albuquerque (which, I suppose, is how the friend who recommended her knew her), though on the diametrically opposite side of town from where my mom lives. That was basically half a day to drive out there and do administrative bank things. It's good, though -- we're down to three conditions on our loan approval, two of which involve faxing things. Plus I opened an account, which knocks off like half a percent on the interest rate. Driving around Albuquerque, I was struck pretty hard with the sudden realization that it wasn't our destination. It's always been home to me, and I've always operated (subconsciously, at least) under the assumption that we'd be going back there. Now, though, we're buying a house in a different city, preparing to settle our family there -- possibly for good. Albuquerque might not be my home again, and it might never be Avery's home. I know, things can change -- there's a whole host of experiences we haven't had yet, and Las Cruces might, in the long run, not fit our family. But honestly, I'm sick of being itinerant. I'm tired of expecting the next move, of not knowing where we're going next, of not feeling at home. Our house in Albuquerque never felt like home, because I knew we weren't going to live in it beyond Sed's med school. Florida never felt like home, because I knew we were going back to New Mexico after four years. That's eight years of impermanence -- nine if you remember the year I spent in Japan. That's a long time to feel homesick. It's way past time to put down my roots, and I really think I can do it in Las Cruces. Plus, if that's where we settle down, it'll be easier to convince Avery that she needs to get away for college (read: not go to New Mexico State). This is all starting to feel real. I guess I better start packing. 3 comments|post comment

flip that house [04 May 2009|02:34am] You would think that, being as I don't actually have a job outside my house, stuff going on wouldn't feel quite as crazy as it does. I've spent all weekend and most of last week with -- surprise! -- more guests from out of town. Actually, Sed's dad and his family were staying at Disney, so Avery and I basically had a five-day vacation at the theme park. Technically, it's a vacation I could ill afford, what with home buying and home cleaning and attempting to tie up some freelance work, but I really wanted to spend time with the family, so we did it. You would have too, if it was your little sister (OK, "-in-law" on a technicality) sick and weak and visiting. The trip was Lourdess's wish -- yeah, she got a second wish, seeing as she had a second bout with the leukemia. Of course, this time she's quite a bit weaker, as the recovery and treatments following a full marrow transplant are a lot harsher than what she went through before with the chemo and radiation. She had to rest a lot and couldn't move faster than an amble, which I know was frustrating for her, watching us absently race ahead to the next attraction or having to sit in the wheelchair for so long. But as ever, her spirits are high and her personality is fiery, so nothing's over yet. Did I mention we got the house? Well, pending inspection and a final loan portfolio and whatever else people need in order to buy a house. They kept us on the hook for a little while after our offer, but the counter they came back with was very reasonable -- our bid was a bit of a lowball, and their number was in the ballpark of where we actually wanted to be. We both figured that the house was good enough that further haggling to knock down a couple thousand bucks wouldn't be justified, so we took it. Now I'm flying out this week to oversee the inspection, make sure that the certified, trained professional doesn't overlook anything glaring that indicates the house is going to fall down or whatever. Plus I need to call the bank about what more we need to do for a mortgage, so it'll be done within the month. Then, barring a catastrophe, we have a house. Having this under way really solidifies that we're done with Florida in two months. And now is the time for a freakout in D minor. You know what's packed so far? Half the CDs. That's IT. Sometimes I think it's not going to be so bad, that we haven't really accumulated a whole bunch of stuff in the last four years -- which is true, it's not self-deluded wankery. But then, the stuff we have has just spread so much, into all the far-flung corners of this joint. There are closets with stuff I haven't seen since we moved in. And don't even get me started on the attic. Argh. OK, so next week I need to start the Grand Clean and Purge, which will make me feel better. In other house news, we might have a future renter on the hook for this place. An incoming intern expressed interest, and she's coming Tuesday to check it out. Which means I need to, like, vacuum and stuff. The cleanliness quotient of the house is not high after hosting last weekend's party and then being neglected for a week. (Yes, I've done dishes and taken trash. We aren't total slobs, you know.) So tomorrow I can bust some ass around here and make it nice enough to show. Hopefully she wants to move in -- it'd make our landlord's life a lot easier. And that's my life right now. I'm not feeling overly stressed yet, but just give me a month or so and get back to me. 3 comments|post comment

I ain't your bailout [26 Apr 2009|11:15pm] Something as big as buying a house isn't going to be as easy as picking up milk from the store, I guess. Still, it surprised us a little when our offer took the turn it did. As I mentioned, we'd been looking at a place out in the mountains, on a couple of acres with a smallish kitchen but a lot of living space, character and potential. The market analysis had it priced higher than other comparable houses in the area, though, even bigger ones built at the same time. So we figured an average price per square foot on what had already sold and bid based on that, figuring the seller was going to come back a little higher but still basically splitting the difference. The original deadline for a counteroffer was Wednesday night. That morning, the realtor called and said the seller needed an extension, until Friday. The way she explained it, he worked long days and wouldn't have a free moment until Friday morning to consult with his lenders. (Yeah, plural. I'll come to that.) We said sure, that's fine, signed an extension to the offer and e-mailed it back. Friday afternoon, we learned that the house was going into foreclosure. This was never disclosed anywhere -- apparently, the seller's agent didn't know himself. The dude was into two loans with two banks on this house and hadn't made a payment in several months. But by some regulation or other, the banks had to give him a certain time in which he could sell the house and pay down his liens before they officially foreclosed on it. Obviously, the bank doesn't need a house, so they want the dude to sell it, but he asked for another extension, this time just until Saturday. By this point we were starting to get frazzled, but we gave him the day. We heard back on Saturday morning -- and the counter was absolutely ridiculous. We figured that pretty much any seller would want to move up closing from our proposed end-of-June date, but not quite so quick as mid-May. Plus, instead of taking money offered him when he can't pay his mortgage, or making a reasonable compromise, the seller decided to get us to cover all his bad debt and not even agree to throw in the appliances. He actually asked more than the listing price of the home, which was at our predetermined limit in the first place. The claim was that asking for half the closing costs affected his ability to sell for lower. Sed and I batted this insult around for a while. On the one hand, it was a nice place, we could afford it, and we liked the area. But then again, if the seller didn't disclose imminent foreclosure, what else is he hiding? We talked for a long time and came up with three possible options: Split the new difference, keep the changed dates, and ask for the fridge. Add the requested amount for closing costs to our original offer and throw it back in his face. Walk. Ultimately, the last of those was where we felt most comfortable. The whole situation left a bad taste in our mouth about this house, and even if we did get it I imagine we'd spend the first year or so waiting for the other shoe to drop. Certainly, it was the one we liked the most, but as I previously mentioned, there wasn't really a house we walked into that made me want to immediately set up shop. And in the end we didn't want it enough to play games with someone who doesn't have his finances (and who knows what else) in order. So we're placing a bid on our second-choice house, the one in the subdivision with the smaller yard but bigger kitchen and dining area. It needs work, and our bid reflects that, so the seller might be insulted and not even counter fairly. But you know, as much as I want a place to call my own, if they try to gouge I'm OK with walking again and finding a short-term rental. It's gotta be easier to buy when we're local, anyway. 8 comments|post comment

deuce [25 Apr 2009|11:30pm] Today was Avery's second birthday. Holy crap, my kid is two. I can't believe it's been that long. It seems like just yesterday that we were moving to Florida, saying, "Let's wait to have kids until we're back in New Mexico and closer to our families." Now, honestly, I can't imagine having done it any other way. Familial support is awesome, true, but if we'd been close enough to reliable sitters that I could have kept my job, or even so that I worked part-time, Avery and I would never have the bond that we do simply from sheer time spent together. We understand each other, we trust each other, and I think both of us are willing to stretch our comfort zones a little bit more than we would if we didn't spend so much time together. The love would have been there anyway (at least from me), but what we've got is so much deeper than just that. We threw her a party, of course. And went ahead and tacked on the Cinco de Mayo theme, since after all it was her due date. I grilled fajitas, made enormous pots of beans and rice, stirred up a vat of margaritas, mashed up eight avocados' worth of guacamole, and baked two kinds of cupcakes -- chocolate mocha and blue margarita. I used box mixes because frankly I don't have the time, but I threw in my own personal touches and of course iced from scratch. (Watch my Nibbledish page for the Margarita Azul Cupcake recipe.) We set up chairs outside, tuned the TV to the XM salsa radio station, cleaned up the outdoor toys so the kids could have fun with them, and rigged up a piñata for fun with vandalism and violence. I can unequivocally state that this is the most successful party we've ever thrown, in terms of attendance as well as food eaten. Over the course of the afternoon and evening, I'd say some 25 or 30 people came and went through our house. We even had a guest who was a friend I'd made with no help from Sed, which is probably a first in Florida. Yeah, I had giant containers of rice and beans left, but almost all the fajitas got eaten, and there was absolute zero guacamole left. (Which is always the case -- no matter how much guacamole I make, there never seems to be leftovers.) Plus over half the cupcakes were gone, which is a bonus since I pretty much eat what's left over the course of the week following a party. Of course Avery spent pretty much all day eating junk. It was her birthday, so I wasn't gonna push too hard, but she basically had tortilla chips for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She had parts of four cupcakes (she ate the icing off the chocolate ones and the stumps off the margarita ones), a couple of lollipops, a slice of banana bread, several fistfuls of rice puffs, and I think she had a piece of a tortilla at one point. Oh, and let's not forget the baby carrot. Don't want you thinking I don't give my child well-rounded meals. But hey, it doesn't hurt to take a day off from healthy eating. It hurts to take EVERY day off, but that won't be happening. Oh, and we heard about the house. That's a whole other post I'm not ready to write yet. Suffice to say we're not at an agreement yet and are considering all our options. Except any that don't include moving to Las Cruces. Sed did sign a contract already, after all. 4 comments|post comment

home on the range [20 Apr 2009|04:09pm] The bid for our prospective new home is officially in the seller's hands. I ended up looking at 20 houses. The realtor came up with a couple more that she thought might appeal to us, so after we finished our preliminary list we hit these ones. The first was one we'd ruled out based on the pictures, and when I walked in I remembered why -- from the front door, you can see out the back windows, over the wall, and into the living room windows of the rear neighbor maybe forty feet away. Too close for us! We didn't bother going through the rest of it, nor did we even enter the neighbor. Two more were on the other end of town, and while they had the privacy they wanted the plots of land they were on were impractical for kids and dogs to play. The last one was on three-quarters of an acre, but it was on the only flat spot on a hill with about a 40 degree incline. I finally narrowed it down to six finalists. We saw seven because I forgot about one I'd told the realtor and then ruled out because of a weird flow. Of the others, one would have required way too much work, one was beautiful but cramped and intimidating, one was beautiful and warm but too small for a growing family, and one was totally awesome but encroached on a city-owned easement that would have required more time than we have to resolve before we could move in. So that left two: both spacious, both well-appointed, both with fenced yards big enough for pools, both with plenty of storage (and three-car garages), both with unobstructed mountain views. The newer one is on two acres in a natural community with no neighborhood association rules, but has a small kitchen; the older has all the rooms we want (including a huge functional kitchen and a separated dining room) but is in a subdivision. It was a hard decision. We both liked the unique house with the space, but the kitchen was a sticking point for me. That's my workplace -- I'm in there for a couple hours every day, and I need to be comfortable in there. Granted, this one would have more functional area than where we are now, so it certainly wouldn't be a downgrade, but after seeing the other one with yards upon yards of counter space, I struggled. What it finally came down to was the whole thought that we don't want to move again. We might change our minds, but Las Cruces looks like a cool town, a good place to raise our kids, and a comfortable location to settle down in our elder years. The house that we buy could be it -- ever. With that in mind, we picked the more spacious house, which really in the greater scheme was the one we liked the best. Our realtor submitted the bid this morning, even though she doesn't actually have our earnest money. I felt pretty dumb when I realized we'd shown up to buy a house and didn't bring along the accepted method to pay for it. On the other hand, in the twenty-first goddamn century, why is there not a way to electronically transfer that money to the title company? I sent it FedEx overnight, so they'll get it tomorrow morning. And now we wait. The seller has until Wednesday to counter our offer. Once we hear back, we'll know where to go from there. 6 comments|post comment

las cruisin' [16 Apr 2009|08:51am] So I've been in southern New Mexico for almost two days, but it feels like more. Part of that is that Sed's not here and I miss her. Part of it is the always-on status of parenting on my own. But most of it is how much we've jammed into this short time. The flight wasn't so bad, actually, even though we rode two planes for a total of almost five hours. I bought Avery a seat this time -- I might have been willing to squeeze out one more free fare before she turns two if Sed were along for the ride, but let's see you wrangle a toddler into one person's seat space, particularly when you yourself are currently occupying to its fullest extent. (I'm a big dude, what can I say.) The flight out of Orlando was surprisingly packed for a Tuesday late morning. I thought tourism was down. We ended up leaving late because of tornadoes in west Orange County, and that's fine with me -- after all, I wanted to go to Las Cruces, not Oz. I spent the trip squished between a sleeping businessman and Avery's car seat, which doesn't count as baggage if she sits in it, but which is a little like sitting next to a fat guy who has uncomfortable protruding edges. Fortunately, the leg to El Paso was just a little over half-full, so we were able to take up a whole row. She mostly wanted to read, except for the two hours the laptop held a charge when she was watching Lady and the Tramp. Twice. This is officially her new favorite movie. I mean, how can you go wrong -- it's a cartoon about dogs. I'll have to introduce her to 101 Dalmatians next. I thought she'd nap on one of the planes, but she didn't fall asleep until we were in the car on the way to Alamogordo. "Alamogordo?" you're asking. "I thought you were going to Las Cruces." Good call, Internet! But our best friends live here, about an hour away. Yeah, it's a lot of driving, but gas is cheaper than a hotel room, and we can also feel more comfortable in a house than in a little box that doesn't have a fridge for Avery's milk. Plus Coop agreed to come along and help cast a critical eye on the houses, being a recent veteran of the first-time home purchase. We met with our realtor yesterday and spent all day driving around town looking at potentials. And when I say all day, I mean it. We looked at FOURTEEN HOUSES. Including lunch and pit stops, we weren't done until 7:15. I fell for a couple, and see potential in some others, but nothing really blew my socks off and shouted in my ear, "PUT YOUR THINGS IN ME." We've got three more from our preliminary list to look at today, and then the realtor is going to make some more suggestions based on what we've looked at and commented on. Sed gets in Friday evening, so Saturday we'll be looking at the finalists and coming to a decision. There's a lot of pressure on me to pick quality places, since she's only going to be looking for one day before we make an offer. Still, I think (especially with Coop's help) that we've made some good picks, and that whatever our decision, we won't regret it. HOLY CRAP I'M BUYING A HOUSE. 4 comments|post comment

crunch time [09 Apr 2009|09:22pm] We've been entertaining guests this week, pretty much all week. My parents were here over the weekend, and the day after they left Sed's aunt and uncle arrived from the dead center of Saskatchewan. (Almost literally -- they live on a farm some 45 miles north of Prince Albert.) So of course we had to see some of the local culture. We've been to the Magic Kingdom, we've been to local restaurants to share in good seafood, and we've been to the beach twice. Avery's familiar with the beach, and she enjoys it. We go often enough that she knows she likes digging, collecting shells and running from oncoming waves. Today, though, she got a bit of a rude surprise when she stuffed a fistful of sand into her mouth. She's eaten sand before, sure, but never quite in this quantity. The look on her face quickly shifted from "This is gonna be great!" to "I have made a huge error." As she attempted to conjugate the next step in Operation Grit Spit, she locked up -- only her eyes continued to rapidly shift back and forth, assessing her alternatives, frantically looking for her way out. Fortunately I'd brought along some water, and three or four rinses got her clean enough to deal. Of course, most of that ended up on her shirt, which summarily had to be removed. So for an hour and a half or so, Cocoa Beach was Avery's own personal St. Tropez. What the hell -- if you can't do it when you're two, when can you do it? 1 comment|post comment

insomiac [07 Apr 2009|03:37pm] According to all the books, sleeping is a skill, and it can be taught. You lay your children down when they're sleepy and let them get the rest of the way to dreamland in bed. I'm not sold. I think it's a talent, that you are born with the ability (or inability) to go right to sleep. I pretty much have to -- if I thought that the way I wrestle with Avery for hours was the norm, there's no way I'd be willing to have another until I could train myself to go without sleep ever, much like the ninja. Right now we're working on her ability to self-soothe. I know, like a year and a half late, but what do you want, I've never been a parent before. Besides, it's not like this is the first time we've tried it -- it's just working better now than it has in the past, now that she understands my ultimatums, which I detailed previously. It seems to be working out as far as length goes, for the most part. Rather than sleeping on her own for two hours and coming to bed with us, she'll sleep for four or five. This could also have to do with her napping in her own bed more often, too, getting used to it. Of course, the two-year molars are being disruptive, as is their wont. This week she's been waking up more often because of them, which of course drives her to our bed. And since Sed and I sleep like rocks, we don't even realize it when she climbs up with us. (In fact, Sed doesn't even realize most nights that she helps Avery up.) A few nights ago, when the dogs woke us up barking at a raccoon at 2, she was in our bed. So I took her back to her room, read the book, sang some songs, and walked out when she seemed asleep. Then I walked her back to her bed when she instantly got up and followed me. Rinse and repeat as necessary. Finally at 4, I left the room, came back, left, came back, left, came back, and she didn't move. So I excused myself to the bathroom. By the time I got out, she was in our bed again, staring at me triumphantly. Whatever, kid. I'm up now. Kick your mother instead. 7 comments|post comment

joke's on me [02 Apr 2009|03:46pm] Three crappy things happened yesterday. 1) The landlord called and said she can no longer afford to sell the house. Apparently, market value in this area for a house this size is so low that it would double her tax liability (which is already sizeable) if she sells for a loss. I'm trying to work out in my brain how they justify charging her tax on a property she lost money on. I guess because technically she borrowed the money from the bank and still owes it, and if the bank calls it a loss the money belongs to her. 2) Avery's gym is closing. The owner said he can't afford the rent in his current location, so he's moving to a new space. Of course, that space isn't built out yet, and who knows how long it'll be before it's up and running. By the time it's back, we might have moved. 3) My backboard broke. A couple years of abuse by the neighborhood kids caught up with it, so when one of them threw a ball at it the plexiglass finally shattered. As I was taking it down, I noticed several small cracks and at least one small bullet hole. I never know how far to believe things on April Fool's Day. But all of these things went too far to be just jokes. The landlord called twice about the matter. The gym owner told everyone the same story after me. And the kids came to my door to apologize with pieces of the backboard in their hands. I guess someone can be a fool without merely being tricked. Of course, all of this has a silver lining. A broken hoop means one less thing to move in a couple months. No more gym class will certainly save us a few bucks. And can you imagine if we'd actually succeeded in buying a house four years ago? 4 comments|post comment

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