After three years of looking*, we finally found a house we liked - no, scratch that, loved. We jumped for joy. We discussed it at length. We mentally arranged furniture, giving away our kitchen table happily because the black granite breakfast bar was worth the pseudo-sacrifice.
Our realtor came over the next night, and we spent four hours with her learning about septic systems (ick), the implications of getting one's water from a well (no fluoride), and tree ordinances (can't cut 'em). We read a mountain of seller disclosure forms about things like whether or not the house contains any lead paint (doesn't know), or asbestos (doesn't know), or if the hot tub works (it doesn't).
We made an offer. We celebrated.
We were declined.
Not even countered, but just flat out declined: the seller's realtor informed us that no one in their right mind would accept an offer that was contingent on the sale of another house.
Okay, but as these people are willing to part with this house - my dream house - in the first place, they are clearly insane, so what's the problem?
The problem was that there was another offer that was not a contingent offer.
Sadly for the seller, that was the first clue: apparently the buyer, who didn't have a house of their own to sell, isn't really into owning houses - they just like making offers, something they have done quite a few times recently. So when the seller countered their offer, that buyer just walked away, something they have also apparently done quite a few times recently.
And the seller came back to us, and we thought, awesome! And we made the very best offer we could afford to make, very close to the asking price, because having lost our dream house once, we weren't going to lose it again. We waited optimistically for their reply, mentally re-arranging furniture and debating the relative merits of various paint chips to pass the time.
Our realtor called within hours of our signing the new offer to let us know there was yet another offer on the table - also not contingent. Our offer was being used as leverage to negotiate with the other prospective buyer, before it expired.
Our hearts fell a little bit, but we held on to some hope, because the first buyer walked away, so another buyer possibly could do the same - in the end, the house wasn't actually sold. But we tempered our hopes this time, by reminding ourselves that even a dream house has its flaws:
"A double oven is a fire hazard, really."
"The barn probably had rats."
"The property was so big, you'd never get to know your neighbors."
We didn't want to be disappointed if the realtor came back and told us they'd accepted the other offer - which, a day later, is exactly what she did. So we mentally returned the fire extinguisher to the store and stopped mentally choosing names for the barn cat we were going to adopt from the shelter, and got on with life.
My husband took a long bike ride. I took a long nap. And Emma got an invitation to go to a movie with her friend, whose mother kindly came to our house to pick her up, and then backed right into our neighbor's pillar. That's the seventh time in five years, for anyone who's keeping count**.
*But who's counting?
**But who's counting?
... for the literate flightless marine bird.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Review: No One Would Listen, by Harry Markopolos
My recent forays into real-life financial thrillers have been handsomely rewarded: House of Cards, about the demise of Bear Stearns, read like first-rate Clancy - I could not put it down, despite knowing how it ended before I bought the book. Same with Michael Lewis's The Big Short, whose characters and anecdotes were so compelling that I rooted for them even though the mortgage market collapse, which they stood to profit from, was maybe not such a positive event for the rest of us. Thus, I had high hopes for No One Would Listen, written by Harry Markopolos, the man who discovered Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme years before it was exposed and repeatedly tried to alert the SEC, the media, and the public - to no avail.
Like many people, I have a lot of questions about Madoff, including: How did he get away with it for so long? What were the warning signs? Why were they ignored? No One Would Listen does not really seek to answer any of those questions, but it does address another question I've had for many years, specifically:
Could there be anything more irritating than a sanctimonious math geek?
The answer, you will be surprised to learn, is "yes": A sanctiomonious math geek with a chip on his shoulder* who is proved right and now gets to spend the rest of his life telling everyone I told you so.
On every page of No One Would Listen, Markopolos reminds his readers that Madoff comitted the largest fraud in history, as though we've somehow all forgotten it since the last page. This is mildly insulting to begin with - I can retain a thought for a whole five minutes, sometimes longer - but as the book progresses, it's a bit like being nagged by the most annoying mom on the whole entire planet. Yes mom, I know. Largest fraud in history. Got it.
And there's the rub. I realized about 25 pages into the book why no one listened to Markopolos - no one likes to be nagged and criticized constantly; typically, they start to tune it out. Some people were sympathetic to Markopolos and tried to help, but they too received quite an earful for their trouble. For example, Markopolos calls one SEC agent weekly to launch into tirades about the agency's incompetence: "Your agency sucks! Your people ... are barely capable of catching a cold in winter ... most of your staff barely respond to heat and light." Although Markopolos is mystified that no one would hear his complaint about the largest fraud in history, I found myself more often than not wondering why some of these people continued to take his phone calls - and many didn't.
It is quite apparent that the people around Markopolos are responding to his personality throughout the book, a fact that frustrates him but doesn't motivate him to change or try a different tack. At one point, he leaves his job to go pursue Madoff and fraud cases full-time, and try to collect SEC whistleblower bounty payouts. He gives five months' notice to his company, and when they find a replacement after two months, he is asked to leave within two weeks. On another occasion, he goes marketing in London with some colleagues; they take him to meetings but fail to take him to social events where business is also conducted. Markopolos asks about it, and when his colleagues try to defuse the situation with a bit of humor, he responds with a remark calculated to offend.
Markopolos confirms that at least one SEC investigator was "skeptical" of him. Among her observations were that "she thought he was kind of condescending to the SEC." She also questions his motivation, since she believed he was out to collect a reward - not really a stretch since he had quit his job to pursue fraud cases in hopes of collecting SEC bounty money. His response? "Because these people weren't smart enough to understand my message, they decided the problem had to be with the messenger."
So what was his message, anyway? Markopolos spent a lot of time using mathematical models to try to recreate Madoff's investment returns, and couldn't. In his initial complaint, he made six key points: 1) Madoff could not generate the type of returns he claimed using the market strategy Markopolos believed him to be using; 2) there aren't enough options in existence for Madoff to have been using the strategy he was believed to be using; 3) a perfect performance chart doesn't exist in finance; 4) since Madoff's reported returns could not have come from the market strategy or options hedging, and Madoff didn't say what strategy he was employing, it was clearly fraud - the largest fraud in history; 5) Markopolos's own company was incapable of replicating Madoff's returns with their own products - thus the returns were impossible; and finally 6) Madoff had only 3 down months in an 87-month period, while the market was down 26 months.
All of the above is a theory - a very interesting theory and one that we now know was correct. Unfortunately, without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it isn't the one thing that was really needed: Evidence.
It probably didn't help that everything Markopolos says is stated in absolute extremes; there is no grey area in his universe. Added to this is his unfortunate propensity for overblown melodrama: he ended his SEC complaints with dire predictions of what would happen if he was proved correct, such as the total collapse of the world financial markets, a Congress up in arms, and so on. Meanwhile, if the SEC does manage to not be so stupid (and Markopolos will do all the work for them - he's handing them the largest fraud in history wrapped in a bow), they will gain prestige and influence beyond their wildest dreams.
Midway through the book he decides that he is really living a thriller: having discovered the largest fraud in history, Markopolos firmly believes his life is in danger. No evidence is provided for this assertion - it's another interesting theory - but he spends almost as much time reminding his readers of this very great threat as he does letting them know that he is trying to put a stop to the largest fraud in history.
The incessant whining does nothing to build the suspense or tension needed to make the story into the really good thriller it could have been: Bernie Madoff, the charming sociopath swindler, is uncovered by a nobody (Markopolos) who becomes obsessed with trying to expose the massive fraud he knows is being perpetrated against countless innocent victims. In the right hands, Markopolos could be Agent Mulder of the X-files or that Jimmy Stewart character in Rear Window. Thrilling!
Unfortunately, Mr. Markopolos chose to tell his own tale, and it is sadly simple to see how Bernie Madoff got away with the largest fraud in history for as long as he did.
*A chip the size of Montana.
Like many people, I have a lot of questions about Madoff, including: How did he get away with it for so long? What were the warning signs? Why were they ignored? No One Would Listen does not really seek to answer any of those questions, but it does address another question I've had for many years, specifically:
Could there be anything more irritating than a sanctimonious math geek?
The answer, you will be surprised to learn, is "yes": A sanctiomonious math geek with a chip on his shoulder* who is proved right and now gets to spend the rest of his life telling everyone I told you so.
On every page of No One Would Listen, Markopolos reminds his readers that Madoff comitted the largest fraud in history, as though we've somehow all forgotten it since the last page. This is mildly insulting to begin with - I can retain a thought for a whole five minutes, sometimes longer - but as the book progresses, it's a bit like being nagged by the most annoying mom on the whole entire planet. Yes mom, I know. Largest fraud in history. Got it.
And there's the rub. I realized about 25 pages into the book why no one listened to Markopolos - no one likes to be nagged and criticized constantly; typically, they start to tune it out. Some people were sympathetic to Markopolos and tried to help, but they too received quite an earful for their trouble. For example, Markopolos calls one SEC agent weekly to launch into tirades about the agency's incompetence: "Your agency sucks! Your people ... are barely capable of catching a cold in winter ... most of your staff barely respond to heat and light." Although Markopolos is mystified that no one would hear his complaint about the largest fraud in history, I found myself more often than not wondering why some of these people continued to take his phone calls - and many didn't.
It is quite apparent that the people around Markopolos are responding to his personality throughout the book, a fact that frustrates him but doesn't motivate him to change or try a different tack. At one point, he leaves his job to go pursue Madoff and fraud cases full-time, and try to collect SEC whistleblower bounty payouts. He gives five months' notice to his company, and when they find a replacement after two months, he is asked to leave within two weeks. On another occasion, he goes marketing in London with some colleagues; they take him to meetings but fail to take him to social events where business is also conducted. Markopolos asks about it, and when his colleagues try to defuse the situation with a bit of humor, he responds with a remark calculated to offend.
Markopolos confirms that at least one SEC investigator was "skeptical" of him. Among her observations were that "she thought he was kind of condescending to the SEC." She also questions his motivation, since she believed he was out to collect a reward - not really a stretch since he had quit his job to pursue fraud cases in hopes of collecting SEC bounty money. His response? "Because these people weren't smart enough to understand my message, they decided the problem had to be with the messenger."
So what was his message, anyway? Markopolos spent a lot of time using mathematical models to try to recreate Madoff's investment returns, and couldn't. In his initial complaint, he made six key points: 1) Madoff could not generate the type of returns he claimed using the market strategy Markopolos believed him to be using; 2) there aren't enough options in existence for Madoff to have been using the strategy he was believed to be using; 3) a perfect performance chart doesn't exist in finance; 4) since Madoff's reported returns could not have come from the market strategy or options hedging, and Madoff didn't say what strategy he was employing, it was clearly fraud - the largest fraud in history; 5) Markopolos's own company was incapable of replicating Madoff's returns with their own products - thus the returns were impossible; and finally 6) Madoff had only 3 down months in an 87-month period, while the market was down 26 months.
All of the above is a theory - a very interesting theory and one that we now know was correct. Unfortunately, without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it isn't the one thing that was really needed: Evidence.
It probably didn't help that everything Markopolos says is stated in absolute extremes; there is no grey area in his universe. Added to this is his unfortunate propensity for overblown melodrama: he ended his SEC complaints with dire predictions of what would happen if he was proved correct, such as the total collapse of the world financial markets, a Congress up in arms, and so on. Meanwhile, if the SEC does manage to not be so stupid (and Markopolos will do all the work for them - he's handing them the largest fraud in history wrapped in a bow), they will gain prestige and influence beyond their wildest dreams.
Midway through the book he decides that he is really living a thriller: having discovered the largest fraud in history, Markopolos firmly believes his life is in danger. No evidence is provided for this assertion - it's another interesting theory - but he spends almost as much time reminding his readers of this very great threat as he does letting them know that he is trying to put a stop to the largest fraud in history.
The incessant whining does nothing to build the suspense or tension needed to make the story into the really good thriller it could have been: Bernie Madoff, the charming sociopath swindler, is uncovered by a nobody (Markopolos) who becomes obsessed with trying to expose the massive fraud he knows is being perpetrated against countless innocent victims. In the right hands, Markopolos could be Agent Mulder of the X-files or that Jimmy Stewart character in Rear Window. Thrilling!
Unfortunately, Mr. Markopolos chose to tell his own tale, and it is sadly simple to see how Bernie Madoff got away with the largest fraud in history for as long as he did.
*A chip the size of Montana.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Review: Superfreakonomics
I know what you're thinking: This is supposed to be a book blog, and you haven't reviewed any books since you trashed the Sex Dungeon book back in May. What gives?
I apologize profusely, dear reader. I've been caught up with genealogy, and perhaps more important, trying to get to know my father, and we've got 41 years to catch up on (give or take), so it's consumed a lot of my time and energy. Not that I have a lot of time, what with work and being a mom and making offers on houses so that sellers can reject them.*
The end result of all this is that I have neglected my reading, and thus, have neglected you, my readers.
Since I currently have the attention span of an ADD-afflicted gnat (on espresso), I figured it was best to try to read the type of book I normally reserve for airplane reading - no complicated plots for me to get lost in, no subtle subtexts to confuse me. So when the library informed me it was my turn to read Super Freakonomics by Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner, it seemed like a wise choice.
I love these books, because they're filled with the kind of entertaining yet fundamentally useless facts and trivia that can restart a conversation lull at a party, or perhaps more important, divert a political conversation that's about to turn ugly.
Example:
I definitely enjoyed the climate engineering discussion, in part because now I can keep up when my husband joins a climate discussion with, "I was watching a show on the Discovery Channel and ..." The ideas seem crazy, and yet - it's kind of nice to know they're out there.
*It wasn't really that great: I mean, a birdwatcher might enjoy watching all those birds from the wraparound deck or hot tub, but certainly not me.
I apologize profusely, dear reader. I've been caught up with genealogy, and perhaps more important, trying to get to know my father, and we've got 41 years to catch up on (give or take), so it's consumed a lot of my time and energy. Not that I have a lot of time, what with work and being a mom and making offers on houses so that sellers can reject them.*
The end result of all this is that I have neglected my reading, and thus, have neglected you, my readers.
Since I currently have the attention span of an ADD-afflicted gnat (on espresso), I figured it was best to try to read the type of book I normally reserve for airplane reading - no complicated plots for me to get lost in, no subtle subtexts to confuse me. So when the library informed me it was my turn to read Super Freakonomics by Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner, it seemed like a wise choice.
I love these books, because they're filled with the kind of entertaining yet fundamentally useless facts and trivia that can restart a conversation lull at a party, or perhaps more important, divert a political conversation that's about to turn ugly.
Example:
- In the pre-auto era, horses, the primary means of transportation, produced more toxic emissions than cars - not to mention created more noise and public health problems.
- The busiest day in hospital emergency rooms is Monday, and the peak hour is 11 a.m. The number of patients being admitted for human bites is more than double the number being admitted for dog or cat bites.
- In the nineteenth century, women were sixty times more likely to die in childbirth in a hospital than at home.
I definitely enjoyed the climate engineering discussion, in part because now I can keep up when my husband joins a climate discussion with, "I was watching a show on the Discovery Channel and ..." The ideas seem crazy, and yet - it's kind of nice to know they're out there.
*It wasn't really that great: I mean, a birdwatcher might enjoy watching all those birds from the wraparound deck or hot tub, but certainly not me.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
On the Move! House Hunting, Part 2 of a Seemingly Endless Series
As I mentioned the other day, we've been house hunting for some time. Sounds fun, right? Well, at first it is, of course. Each new house is exciting and filled with both potential and decorating ideas - and even if the ideas are mostly Decorating Don'ts, it's all useful and fun information to have.
But when you've been looking for a house for ooooooh three years and still haven't found the one you can afford and want to live in - it's less like entertainment and much more like a burdensome chore. I've never cold-called for a living*, but I imagine it's a lot like this. Knock on door, take a look around, wait for fatal flaw to appear ... and then walk away saying, well, maybe I'll have better luck at the next house.
Initially, when we started looking, it was just as the real estate market was coming off its peak - so we looked at lots of fun McMansions with all the bells and whistles, usually with pitifully small lots next to streets even busier than the one we are currently live near. Many of the bells and whistles were things we didn't really value (built in wine cooler!), while others struck me as either a safety hazard or a cleaning nightmare (leaded glass windows on door to the family room!), depending on my mood.
Also, the sudden, precipitous drop in asking prices was offset by a sudden, precipitous rise in interest rates, so we couldn't really afford any of them anyway.
So we waited, and poked around from time, and waited some more.
The market finally stabilized (sort of**) and interest rates came down and we started looking more actively again.
The first house we looked at seemed perfect from the listing: You know what they say about real estate - location, location, location. Unfortunately, literally everything else about the house had to change, starting with jackhammering a backyard out from under a layer of concrete (low maintenance landscaping!), moving walls on the second floor to create the number of bedrooms we needed, and also moving walls on the ground floor, although we couldn't quite figure out how - but that brand-new bathroom they'd put smack in the middle of the room wasn't going to work for me and had to be removed.
I did decide that the quiet cemetery behind the house was a vast improvement over the noisy street we currently enjoy, but I'm not convinced the rest of my family agreed.
We were excited when another house came up in that same neighborhood, on a nice, quiet dead-end street that didn't back directly up to the cemetery, and rushed over to see it. In the listing it looked like there might be power lines behind the house, but, as I said to our very patient realtor, I don't mind power lines as long as they aren't directly over the house.
Can you see what's coming? Sure, I knew you could.
I commend the owners for taking what some would consider a design flaw (giant power line poles right in the back yard) and making it almost a virtue (attaching basketball hoops to the poles and putting a playing court in the yard). That house was fun to look at, since the downstairs had been completely renovated and added to and contained no fewer than eight pinball machines, in addition to a movie theater, pool table, poker table, and full bar. Yay for fun people! I felt like quite the party pooper when we passed on the house.
Other fine design features we've encountered include:
*Thank you, dear lord.
**I hope.
But when you've been looking for a house for ooooooh three years and still haven't found the one you can afford and want to live in - it's less like entertainment and much more like a burdensome chore. I've never cold-called for a living*, but I imagine it's a lot like this. Knock on door, take a look around, wait for fatal flaw to appear ... and then walk away saying, well, maybe I'll have better luck at the next house.
Initially, when we started looking, it was just as the real estate market was coming off its peak - so we looked at lots of fun McMansions with all the bells and whistles, usually with pitifully small lots next to streets even busier than the one we are currently live near. Many of the bells and whistles were things we didn't really value (built in wine cooler!), while others struck me as either a safety hazard or a cleaning nightmare (leaded glass windows on door to the family room!), depending on my mood.
Also, the sudden, precipitous drop in asking prices was offset by a sudden, precipitous rise in interest rates, so we couldn't really afford any of them anyway.
So we waited, and poked around from time, and waited some more.
The market finally stabilized (sort of**) and interest rates came down and we started looking more actively again.
The first house we looked at seemed perfect from the listing: You know what they say about real estate - location, location, location. Unfortunately, literally everything else about the house had to change, starting with jackhammering a backyard out from under a layer of concrete (low maintenance landscaping!), moving walls on the second floor to create the number of bedrooms we needed, and also moving walls on the ground floor, although we couldn't quite figure out how - but that brand-new bathroom they'd put smack in the middle of the room wasn't going to work for me and had to be removed.
I did decide that the quiet cemetery behind the house was a vast improvement over the noisy street we currently enjoy, but I'm not convinced the rest of my family agreed.
We were excited when another house came up in that same neighborhood, on a nice, quiet dead-end street that didn't back directly up to the cemetery, and rushed over to see it. In the listing it looked like there might be power lines behind the house, but, as I said to our very patient realtor, I don't mind power lines as long as they aren't directly over the house.
Can you see what's coming? Sure, I knew you could.
I commend the owners for taking what some would consider a design flaw (giant power line poles right in the back yard) and making it almost a virtue (attaching basketball hoops to the poles and putting a playing court in the yard). That house was fun to look at, since the downstairs had been completely renovated and added to and contained no fewer than eight pinball machines, in addition to a movie theater, pool table, poker table, and full bar. Yay for fun people! I felt like quite the party pooper when we passed on the house.
Other fine design features we've encountered include:
- A house completely re-floored with bumpy rock-type tiles. I mean, completely: the kitchen (goodbye plates!), living room, dining room, hallways, stairs (seriously - careful on the stairs). This house had the added virtue of having the formal dining room located up the hall from the kitchen, so if you actually used the formal dining area, you would have many opportunities to accidentally rid yourself of unwanted china.
- A house whose numerous additions including a four-car garage, but more important, a rec room with full wet bar whose primary design feature was a vintage grand piano turned on its side (keys toward the floor). That house had a movie theater too - painted completely purple, with a Jimi Hendrix-meets-Star Wars decorating scheme. Also, what is it with basketball courts in the backyard? Note to anyone who thinks this is a good idea: We short women will pay less for this "feature," not more.
- And last but not least, The Cave. No, not a man-cave, nor a Batman-themed house, nor a house built in a cave. No, this house, which gave a whole new meaning to the word "custom," contained an actual cave: The end of an old mine shaft, which connected directly up to the completely finished basement. Rather than wall it off (why be dull?), the owners converted it into a shower, and then decorated the entire rest of the downstairs in a Gold Rush theme.
*Thank you, dear lord.
**I hope.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
On the Move! House Hunting, Part 1 of a Seemingly Endless Series
We're going to look at houses today. We need to move for an assortment of reasons, including space constraints, an improved commute*, and we're going to take another crack at public school for my daughter, but in a different school district.
We'll miss our neighbors when we move, of course. There are eight houses on our street, although you'd never know it on Halloween, because we're the only ones that decorate, and for a long time, we were one of only two houses that turned the lights on and admitted to being home. Only the most intrepid and dedicated teenage sugar fiends crossed our busy street to come claim the candy - although we tried to make it worth the trip by giving them giant handfuls and hoping they'd remember us next year. No, they didn't.
Did I mention there's a really busy street behind our house?
Our neighbors are fabulous, of course, if by fabulous you mean memorable and yes, I'm trying to be tactful here in case any of them knows about my blog. First, there's the old Russian guy, who introduced himself as we were moving in by yelling at us for having a moving truck on the street, because his wife wouldn't be able to back her car out of the garage if she wanted to - even though the truck wan't anywhere near the garage and as far as I could tell, his wife wasn't actually attempting to drive anywhere.
Then, of course, there are the Pillars of our Community - the people whose house faces ours and whose driveway is almost, but not quite, directly lined up with our own. The "not quite" part is important, because what this means is that the little decorative brick pillars with the brass light fixtures that stand on either side of their driveway don't line up with the sides of our driveway - rather, one of them lines up perfectly with the second stall of our garage. No, you can't see it when you back up.
We also learned this the day we moved in, when the cable guy's truck knocked it clean over.
Of course, that was several years ago, but we remember the event annually when the pillar is once again knocked over, usually when we're not home to point it out to people before they start backing up. Our neighbor apparently considers that to be the only possible solution to the problem, when she came over to discuss it with me the one time someone hit it and didn't politely go over to them and offer to pay for the repair.
We say: design flaw. They say: people should be more careful, and it's up to you to make them so. We say: Safety hazard that should be removed. They say: then we won't have two matching pillars.
I've considered offering to remove the other pillar with my own car, but I don't think that would help the situation.
But far and away the most memorable house on our street is what we refer to as The Jungle House. We don't know the neighbors in that house, which has a Willy Wonka quality to it - nobody ever goes in, nobody ever comes out. We know people live there as we sometimes catch furtive glimpses of them through the thick layer of vegetation that they've planted around the house, which you can barely see behind it all. My personal theory to account for all the shrubbery is that it's a Knights Who Say Ni retirement facility.
We wondered about The Jungle House for several years, until about a year or so ago, when it went up for sale, and we went on line to get a sense of property values on our street**. Suffice it to say, the inside of their house is just as unique as the outside: there's a pool table in the living room, for example, and a hot tub in the garage.
In the garage, you ask? But isn't that kind of an unpleasant place for nine people to sit in a jetted tub? Well, in other three-car garages, sure, but this garage has been completely finished with amenities including a giant television with surround sound, an extra shower, and wallpapered in - what else? - a delightful jungle-themed paper.
Some people might be confused by putting a garage to such a purpose, but we looked at the pictures and suddenly understood why they chose to park their van on their front lawn, concealed behind all that shrubbery.
No, we'll miss our little neighborhood when we move, although it doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon at the pace we're going.
* For my husband, not me. My commute improved a lot when I started working from home - there's no traffic in the hallway, although I usually manage to trip over the dog on my way to work.
**Not because we're nosy or anything.
We'll miss our neighbors when we move, of course. There are eight houses on our street, although you'd never know it on Halloween, because we're the only ones that decorate, and for a long time, we were one of only two houses that turned the lights on and admitted to being home. Only the most intrepid and dedicated teenage sugar fiends crossed our busy street to come claim the candy - although we tried to make it worth the trip by giving them giant handfuls and hoping they'd remember us next year. No, they didn't.
Did I mention there's a really busy street behind our house?
Our neighbors are fabulous, of course, if by fabulous you mean memorable and yes, I'm trying to be tactful here in case any of them knows about my blog. First, there's the old Russian guy, who introduced himself as we were moving in by yelling at us for having a moving truck on the street, because his wife wouldn't be able to back her car out of the garage if she wanted to - even though the truck wan't anywhere near the garage and as far as I could tell, his wife wasn't actually attempting to drive anywhere.
Then, of course, there are the Pillars of our Community - the people whose house faces ours and whose driveway is almost, but not quite, directly lined up with our own. The "not quite" part is important, because what this means is that the little decorative brick pillars with the brass light fixtures that stand on either side of their driveway don't line up with the sides of our driveway - rather, one of them lines up perfectly with the second stall of our garage. No, you can't see it when you back up.
We also learned this the day we moved in, when the cable guy's truck knocked it clean over.
Of course, that was several years ago, but we remember the event annually when the pillar is once again knocked over, usually when we're not home to point it out to people before they start backing up. Our neighbor apparently considers that to be the only possible solution to the problem, when she came over to discuss it with me the one time someone hit it and didn't politely go over to them and offer to pay for the repair.
We say: design flaw. They say: people should be more careful, and it's up to you to make them so. We say: Safety hazard that should be removed. They say: then we won't have two matching pillars.
I've considered offering to remove the other pillar with my own car, but I don't think that would help the situation.
But far and away the most memorable house on our street is what we refer to as The Jungle House. We don't know the neighbors in that house, which has a Willy Wonka quality to it - nobody ever goes in, nobody ever comes out. We know people live there as we sometimes catch furtive glimpses of them through the thick layer of vegetation that they've planted around the house, which you can barely see behind it all. My personal theory to account for all the shrubbery is that it's a Knights Who Say Ni retirement facility.
We wondered about The Jungle House for several years, until about a year or so ago, when it went up for sale, and we went on line to get a sense of property values on our street**. Suffice it to say, the inside of their house is just as unique as the outside: there's a pool table in the living room, for example, and a hot tub in the garage.
In the garage, you ask? But isn't that kind of an unpleasant place for nine people to sit in a jetted tub? Well, in other three-car garages, sure, but this garage has been completely finished with amenities including a giant television with surround sound, an extra shower, and wallpapered in - what else? - a delightful jungle-themed paper.
Some people might be confused by putting a garage to such a purpose, but we looked at the pictures and suddenly understood why they chose to park their van on their front lawn, concealed behind all that shrubbery.
No, we'll miss our little neighborhood when we move, although it doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon at the pace we're going.
* For my husband, not me. My commute improved a lot when I started working from home - there's no traffic in the hallway, although I usually manage to trip over the dog on my way to work.
**Not because we're nosy or anything.
Friday, July 2, 2010
A Brief Tirade About Sports
Let me begin by telling you an important thing about me: If there's one thing I hate more than camping, it's sports. I'm not biased about it - I hate all sports equally. That said, I will go to sporting events (since there's generally beer and camaraderie involved) and I never pass up a superbowl party (because there's generally beer, camaraderie, and food involved).
But sports, in and of themselves - I don't care and am generally oblivious to it all. I would not have even known the World Cup was going on if Webkinz World hadn't launched a new soccer game that is only available until the World Cup ends.
Until today.
If you've been paying attention, and I know you have, then you probably remember that my ex-husband is Dutch - not by ancestry, but he in fact came from, and ultimately returned to, the nation of Holland, after deciding that life there was better than life here, in the good old US of A. I never knew how patriotic I really was until I spent several years listening to someone from somewhere else find endless fault with my own imperfect, but wonderful country.
I try not to dwell on this, mostly because my daughter is half Dutch and I consider her to be a pretty awesome apology.
But I do allow myself small, petty thoughts from time to time, one of which is this: Every time the Dutch get taken out of the World Cup, I smile. When they don't win the European Championship, that's fun too; but, I know one or two things about sports* - and when it comes to soccer, the World Cup is what it's all about. I don't go looking for this news - it comes to me, mostly from friends who like sports and like me and continue to hold a grudge on my behalf.
You have to root for someone, I'm told, and this seems like a reasonable way to pick teams, at least to me. One of my former coworkers once won the office football pool by choosing all the teams with animal names - also a valid strategy, and one I applaud, mostly because she was so surprised and thrilled that she bought me lunch with her winnings.
If you haven't been following the sports news (and I can fully understand why you wouldn't), then you might not have heard today's big news: The Netherlands beat heavy favorite Brazil in the World Cup quarterfinals.
Now according to Time, it isn't so much that Team Orange won, as that Brazil lost. And although it's comforting to think this might be true, and even more comforting to know that there's at least one other blogger out there who's as peeved about this as I am, the fact remains Brazil must have lost for some reason, and since this is obviously all about me, I'm wondering what exactly I did to offend the fine nation of Brazil so gravely.
Was it the cool orange handbag I bought in New York? Or the cool orange nailpolish I got at yesterday's manicure? Brazil, they meant nothing to me. I'm sorry. Please accept my apology, and then I'll accept yours.
Who am I kidding? No I won't. The sun hasn't been seen in Seattle since last November, which is making for some mighty sour grapes in this part of the world.
But fear not, dear reader, I have a plan: When they announce who's playing the Netherlands in the semi-finals, I'm going to go out and buy that country's exports** like they're going out of style. I'll get my nails done in one of their national colors.
I draw the line at face painting, though.
*Literally, one or two things.
**Please, please let it be Italy. I need another handbag.
But sports, in and of themselves - I don't care and am generally oblivious to it all. I would not have even known the World Cup was going on if Webkinz World hadn't launched a new soccer game that is only available until the World Cup ends.
Until today.
If you've been paying attention, and I know you have, then you probably remember that my ex-husband is Dutch - not by ancestry, but he in fact came from, and ultimately returned to, the nation of Holland, after deciding that life there was better than life here, in the good old US of A. I never knew how patriotic I really was until I spent several years listening to someone from somewhere else find endless fault with my own imperfect, but wonderful country.
I try not to dwell on this, mostly because my daughter is half Dutch and I consider her to be a pretty awesome apology.
But I do allow myself small, petty thoughts from time to time, one of which is this: Every time the Dutch get taken out of the World Cup, I smile. When they don't win the European Championship, that's fun too; but, I know one or two things about sports* - and when it comes to soccer, the World Cup is what it's all about. I don't go looking for this news - it comes to me, mostly from friends who like sports and like me and continue to hold a grudge on my behalf.
You have to root for someone, I'm told, and this seems like a reasonable way to pick teams, at least to me. One of my former coworkers once won the office football pool by choosing all the teams with animal names - also a valid strategy, and one I applaud, mostly because she was so surprised and thrilled that she bought me lunch with her winnings.
If you haven't been following the sports news (and I can fully understand why you wouldn't), then you might not have heard today's big news: The Netherlands beat heavy favorite Brazil in the World Cup quarterfinals.
Now according to Time, it isn't so much that Team Orange won, as that Brazil lost. And although it's comforting to think this might be true, and even more comforting to know that there's at least one other blogger out there who's as peeved about this as I am, the fact remains Brazil must have lost for some reason, and since this is obviously all about me, I'm wondering what exactly I did to offend the fine nation of Brazil so gravely.
Was it the cool orange handbag I bought in New York? Or the cool orange nailpolish I got at yesterday's manicure? Brazil, they meant nothing to me. I'm sorry. Please accept my apology, and then I'll accept yours.
Who am I kidding? No I won't. The sun hasn't been seen in Seattle since last November, which is making for some mighty sour grapes in this part of the world.
But fear not, dear reader, I have a plan: When they announce who's playing the Netherlands in the semi-finals, I'm going to go out and buy that country's exports** like they're going out of style. I'll get my nails done in one of their national colors.
I draw the line at face painting, though.
*Literally, one or two things.
**Please, please let it be Italy. I need another handbag.
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