“Busy!”
The house stager arrived on Monday. After asking us to remove the “clutter”, the stager replaced it with a different kind of clutter that didn’t appeal to me at all. I weeded some of that out and we’ll live with it. Diana would have had a fit if she was here.
In addition, the window washer arrived and spent several hours making all the panes shiny inside and out. The window replacement guys also replaced two foggy windows in the bathroom. Lots of coming and going for me to coordinate while working.
I received this picture from colleagues in Guatemala. Upside down lighting from a volcano close to Antigua – the one that is usually spouting every ten mins or so when we visit.
Here’s an article that explains the phenomenon:
The pictures for the various home selling websites and flyers were taken on Tuesday. The guy seemed to know what he was doing and was very thorough.
Wednesday was attacked by nature day. One of those ridiculous doves flew head first into a living room window – not used to them being so clean and shiny. Then I had to kill a wasp nest on the arbor – amazing how quickly they construct their homes.
The house went live on the listing services on Friday evening, and I quickly received two requests to show it on Saturday – the first at 10am.
Kenny teased me with this video of the Saturday night happenings at Le Bon Temps Rouler. Hopefully we’ll be there very soon.
There was an Open House for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon, so I had to vacate the premises again. There were three cars parked outside before the doors even opened, and a lot of interest.
I picked up Diana and Alicia at the airport on Monday, and we quickly received some good news – an offer at above asking price, with no contingencies, and full pre-approval on the buyer’s mortgage. “We’ll take it.”
The inspector arrived and the only thing they wanted fixed was the pool heater – we haven’t used it in several years and had no idea it wasn’t working. First folks who looked at the house are now all set to buy it – closing on August 9th.
With all this good news in hand, I decided to make a trip to New Orleans to look for a new home. I looked at five houses and thought two were good possibilities. I treated myself to this amazing po’boy sandwich at the New Orleans airport. Mopho has an outpost there. Yum!
We submitted offers on those two homes the next day. The counter offers were disappointing, and so we decided to do nothing further until Diana could look with me. We planned that for the following Tuesday – driving down and then looking at places on Wednesday.
Diana’s mom had some significant health challenges over the weekend that had us very focused on making sure she got the care and support needed. In between dealing with that, we were working the logistics of what to take down and leave in New Orleans, and what to leave home, given that we’ll be homeless soon. Valuables were organized to go in a safety deposit box in a bank vault in New Orleans on arrival.
What a whirlwind, but I don’t think it gets much easier than that when it comes to selling a home.
My book this week was “The Door to Door Bookstore” by Carsten Henn. What an excellent read. Just a beautiful book all around. I don’t have it with me as I write this post, so can’t share some of the quotes that I dog-eared. You should read this right away! Here’s the online summary:
“Small-town German bookseller Carl Kollhoff delivers his books to special customers in the evening hours after closing time, walking through the picturesque alleys of the city. These people are almost like friends to him, and he is their most important connection to the world.
When Kollhoff unexpectedly loses his job, it takes the power of books and a nine-year-old girl to make them all find the courage to rebuild their bonds with each other.
A bestselling phenomenon internationally, Carsten Henn’s The Door-to-Door Bookstore is a feel-good novel about books and friendship.”
Here’s something quite different. Oryema was a Ugandan musician who had to escape during the height of the Amin rule. He became part of Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD tour and his first three albums were published on Gabriel’s label.
And here’s a classic from the wonderful Joan Armatrading:
Coexist peacefully, with kindness and compassion for all!
Monday was a sad day. I took Penelope for an inspection requested by Rick, a prospective buyer. They found a couple of issues, but nothing too bad. Rick and Lisa came over and closed the deal on Monday night. So sad to say goodbye to my companion of over 10 years. Logically, it was the right time to sell, with almost 80,000 miles and about to lose a lot of resale value. Emotionally is a whole different story. The whole sales process was very quick and smooth. Hoping the same for our house.
The painters started on Friday morning. All the colour is gone, to be replaced by “Worldly Gray.” That’s the colour of the family room and kitchen, and now the majority of the rest of the house. Rodrigo, Maria, and Jesus did a great job and were very kind. They will finish up on Monday.
While the guys were battling the pool table, a work buddy, Sean, was building a garage. Some folks just have a load of hidden talents. I can’t imagine taking on securing those roof trusses.
On Monday, Diana was upset that the under-sink garbage disposal hadn’t been replaced while she was in California. I rarely use it, and so hadn’t even thought about it. Never mind – a quick order from Amazon and I was ready to tackle replacement. Not having done this before, I made sure to read all the instructions carefully. The flange from the old disposal didn’t accommodate the new one – ugh. I just couldn’t figure out how to get the old one off. Youtube to the rescue – there’s a hidden spring clamp inside the assembly. Ahh – two seconds later and it was off. Now it was time for problem number two – the replacement unit is too fat for the space available. Back to Amazon and a new unit showed up before 6pm. That was quickly installed and all is working well for now.
Finn turned 30 a week ago on Saturday. We took him to Drake’s Old Hollywood in Dallas for dinner. What a wonderful new place. Beautiful old school design and wonderful food and service. We started with lobster escargot – like escargot but with lobster, puff pastry and garlic pesto. Finn said the appetizer meatball was the best he’s ever tasted. Diana and Finn both had the Chilean sea bass and loved it. Then the sparkler topped chocolate mousse. I think Finn had a very nice time. He just told us some big news a few days ago – he has a girlfriend that he really likes and they also celebrated his birthday.
We celebrated our 6th (iron) anniversary when we got home – letting Finn have the dinner be just his celebration.
After a long wait in bed at the surgery center on Wednesday morning, I was finally wheeled to the operating room around noon. Can you believe the size of the screws that were in there? Here are before and after x-rays.
Diana worked miracles, putting in 14 to 16 hour days of packing and sorting. The first truckload left on Friday – all donations to the women’s shelter and other charities. Now on to the stuff that’s going into storage while we show the house. It’s a lot of stuff, and includes all of the pictures on my office walls.
I posted Penelope for sale on Facebook Marketplace on Friday afternoon, and wasn’t sure what to expect. Immediate interest. I showed it to a guy on Saturday afternoon and he seemed very interested. More to come next posting. I did find this entertaining picture of the day I bought her, a little over 10 years ago. She’s been such a good car.
“1 Dead Attic – After Katrina” by Chris Rose was my book this week. A shocking collection of articles that Rose wrote in the aftermath. These are tremendously well written by someone who lived through the early days of recovery in New Orleans. Chris was married to our friend Kelly at the time this was published (Kelly actually self published it and remembers how successful it was financially) and it’s interesting to read her account of the impact all of this had on his mental health and overall physical wellbeing.
I finished up “Foregone” by Russell Banks. The last third really dragged for me, disappointing after the initial positive impression.
My next book was “Our Man in Havana” by Graham Greene. I’ve enjoyed everything from Greene that I’ve read, and wish I’d come to this book sooner. I thought it was fantastic. Some of the best dialog that I’ve ever read. It speaks volumes that this tale from 1959 still reads like a current novel. Here’s the online plot summary:
The latest release from Tipitina’s record club showed up on my door step this week. Always an exciting event. The new record is solo Dr. John from 1984. Back when jazzfest was held in the Riverfront park, there were after shows aboard a riverboat. This is a live recording from one of those shows in 1984. Just the Doctor and a stand up piano. This is a great album that I’ve been enjoying all week.
The only interruption to my peace was from the idiotic doves that seem to come and visit every year about this time. A few years ago they built a nest on top of the patio speaker above the door. They attempted to reprise that stunt while we were gone. I ultimately had to take the speaker down as they just wouldn’t give up on dive bombing in to take their spot atop it. Undeterred, they decided to try the other speaker. So annoying. I took that speaker down as well and have had the ceiling fans on all the time. That seems to have done the trick. They can no longer perch on the fan and have their meetings about where to try and nest next.
I did venture out a couple of times. First for lunch at Mexican Cactus and then for Sunday lunch at Tacodeli. Their migas royale platter is so good, and a great value.
Diana and Alicia hosted Will, Christine and Adamo’s crew on Saturday evening. Will took Adamo and the boys for a spin in the fancy BMW M2, and they watched the whales at sunset from Adamo’s home. I hear that Alicia made some yummy tacos.
Another birthday for me showed up on Tuesday. They just keep coming! I received a lovely song from the New Orleans group in Roatan, Honduras. Denny reported it was very nice but very hot and humid – something coming from a New Orleanian.
A walk by the beach on Thursday offered pretty flowers and great views of several pods of migrating hump back whales. After the walk, I used the Dinosaur’s gift certificate from Caroline to buy one of their yummy Portobello sandwiches.
Andy and Jude joined us on Friday afternoon and we enjoyed listening to music and telling stories. Always so fun to visit with them.
On Saturday it was time to cede Birthday Week privileges to Alicia. She had requested a 70s theme, and Diana did a great job of coordinating flower colours and decorations to that request.
My book this week was “Solar” by Ian McEwan. Here’s what The Guardian had to say about it:
I was tickled by the array of gear in the equipment cabinet to power all the smart touchscreens and audio gear. I also enjoyed the grand piano tucked beside the stairs.
We all met up in downtown SLO for the Thursday night Farmer’s market extravaganza. There were loads of food tents set up in front of the strip of restaurants and bars. I loved my Indian vegetarian sampler. I’m not sure Mawmaw was thrilled with the concept of eating standing up. We took her into Nick the Greek for a seat afterwards.
And then the cake cutting. Another performance:
The reception finished relatively early, and the core group made a stop at The Sidecar (the guys that were doing the mixology), followed by the Lofts.
In the afternoon we drove over to John and Maddie’s house for dinner – a wonderful smoked and barbequed selection from John. It’s always impressive to spend time with their kids, Lilly and Ben. So well behaved and interactive. The night finished with some kind of four dimensional Connect Four variant – way too much for me.
Denny was moving slowly on Monday, so we picked up Sean and Sheri for the afternoon. We made a stop at Octavia books so that I could pick up Kevin Griffin’s “The Greatest Song.” He gave a talk and played some songs last Thursday when we were having dinner at La Petite Grocery. I was sorry to miss the event, but happier to have dinner with the group. The book talks about how to ignite your creativity, using songwriting as an example. Griffin is the lead singer for Better than Ezra, and was in town for some performances between jazzfest weekends.
Sheri was hungry so we drove over to the Columns to get some snacks before they stopped serving lunch. It was very pleasant to get some quiet time to really catch up with the Meeksies. I worked in a couple of quick work calls from the lovely garden tables.
My book this week was “Network” by L.C. Shaw. I picked this up randomly at the library and hadn’t read any reviews or recommendations. Here’s the online summary:
I flew back to New Orleans on Wednesday morning, entertained to see an outpost of the Saxon Pub at the airport. I arrived back in time to make a lunchtime visit to the chiropractor.
The food was better than ever – blue crab beignets appetizer and then my favourite – alligator Bolognese. The group was fired up and ready to go after dinner. We started with a stop at DMACs – apparently there was an entertaining band playing – I ended up sitting outside and chatting with some locals. Back to the condo to freshen up and regroup. Then Denny talked us into the Soul Rebels in the tiny back room of Le Bon Temps Rouler. We ended up getting our cover charge back as it was way too packed to even get to the back room.
After lunch, we made a visit to the Sazerac House – this is a very interesting and free museum about the Sazerac drink and associated other liquors. Highly recommended way to pass an hour or two – the building has been beautifully restored.
Some entertaining people watching ensued back on the Magazine Street balcony. A new white Rolls Royce pulled up and parked in front of the Buffalo Exchange thrift shop. I suspected a musician in town for jazzfest, but didn’t recognize the lady who exited the back door to head inside. Also didn’t recognize the man who joined her about 20 minutes later. He didn’t look like a chauffeur and didn’t open the door for her on return. Just interesting that she rides in the back while he drives. This is how we pass our time on the balcony…
On Saturday evening, Denny had arranged for us all to see Low Cut Connie perform at Gasa Gasa on Freret street. This is a small club and it was sold out. The piano player and lead singer was a terrific showman and we thoroughly enjoyed the show. Kind of a cross between Gerry Lee Lewis and Brian Setzer.
