A Running Tally of Metaphysical Phenomena

Pop Quiz!!
Which of these houses are we about to move into?

Is it the slowly-exposed, attractively lit, tastefully columnar villa A?

Is it the ridiculous, Jetsonesque, will-look-dated-by-later-today B (click for more)?

Or is it the stately, understated, modest elegance of C?

Of course, if you’ve been paying any attention at all to pretty much anything ever, you know that it’s none of these. It’s our comfy, happy little this guy:

We’re getting a lot closer now, so I think it’s getting to be more appropriate and timely now to spill some of the house-related beans we’ve been holding onto. Not so much out of secrecy, it should be noted, but mainly because we sort of didn’t believe we were actually going to get a house, especially not on the sort of time frame this thing has run on. But we’re closing on Friday, most likely (more on the possibility of delays in a moment), so I guess it’s time for a little more of the story and then an update.

First, I mentioned that the time frame of this was kind of unexpected. I have all of the e-mails and everything, so I can sort of reconstruct the way it all went. It was something like this:

March: I got a new job, with a bit of a raise (yay!), and a couple of people said, “hey, maybe you guys could start thinking about getting a house now that your family is growing and you could maybe actually pull it off now if lots and lots of celestial bodies align just right, etc.” To which we initially responded with “eh, yeah, maybe in a couple of years or something.”

April: “Boy, it sure would be nice to not just dump money into a hole in the form of paying rent every month.” and “Hey, look, our herbs are growing well in the window sill. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an actual garden some time?”

May: “Sometimes I think about how great it would be to have a little space for my artwork that wasn’t also our dinner table.” and “Hey, it’s only not quite midnight. Let’s go online and look at the oldest cities in the world, the progress of the Virgin Galactic project, trailers for movies we probably won’t get the chance to go see, funny cat videos, and real estate listings.”

June: “Wow, real estate around here has really dropped in price!” and “Did you know it’s an actual credit on your tax return and not just one of those inscrutable deduction things?” and “Have you seen how easy it is to map and filter stuff on Redfin? That’s pretty cool.”

First part of July: Got a pre-qualification estimate just for fun and looked quickly at two places that we ruled out just about as quickly. Sat out of the game for a bit and then considered actually finding a real estate agent to have a stab at things. Who knows? If we can get in something by the end of November, we can do that tax credit thing. Otherwise, we’ll just wait another year or two, and hopefully things will stay low.

July 20/21 (Monday/Tuesday): Met with two realtors, picked the second one, went home, looked online again, and sent three listings—two reasonable possibilities and one much more remote possibility—to the guy we decided to work with. Set an appointment for the two on Thursday.

July 24 (Wednesday): “Oh, look, that other one was just reduced in price by sixteen thousand dollars!”

July 23 (Thursday): Went to the first house, called the realtor to ask him to skip it and meet at the second one. Took ten minutes to look at the second one and got ready to go home. But it turned out the one that was just reduced was right around the corner from where our realtor lives, so we were able to take a few minutes to go have a look. Short version of the story: “We’ll take it!” ([Much] Longer version: lots of paperwork and running around and concern over whether we’d be able to, etc. Because obviously, “we’ll take it!” is to home purchasing what “I declare bankruptcy!” is to actual chapter 11 filing.)

August 5: After some strange events, we had an accepted offer.

Between then and the beginning of this week: Probably the closest I’ve come, in terms of pure volume, to hand writing and publishing a book. The fax machine in my building greets me by name now. Also, in the process of everything, the seller (a bank; it was foreclosed) opted to pay for the roof replacement rather than reducing the purchase price, which made the roof completion a prerequisite for closing the deal.

This week: Suspense! Will the roof be done on time? Will the delays become too much to handle? Will Kent have to go smack the roofer (figuratively speaking)? Will the appraiser be able to come out and verify that it’s been done in time to close on the planned date? Watch this space!!

Once we actually get the place, we have a ton of work to do*, which is actually going to be a lot of fun. We were able to afford the place mainly because of the work it needs to have done, and we got this nice streamlined purchase/rehab loan (it’s called a 203(k) loan for anyone interested) to let us do it all up front over a few months rather than a piece at a time over several years or something. I’ll put pictures up from time to time. The first steps are to take out the carpet (and, simultaneously, the cat smell) upstairs and seal the floor downstairs (it’s slate), and then patch some drywall, paint, and put floors back down upstairs. We’re hoping to get that done by next weekend, when we move. If closing happens Friday, we might just pull that off. I’ll keep you all posted.

Closing in on nine months here! That’s pretty crazy. That means Greta’s been alive outside the womb for just about as long as she was alive in Kirsten’s tummy. Outside certainly seems like it’s gone by a lot faster, at least to me.

I thought this was a really funny expression.

This is probably the most grown up thing she does now. Usually, climbing the stairs is sort of the finishing touches on getting her all tired out before bed. She has a great time, and we just can’t believe she can do something so big!

And this is from out back in the grass, which is just so exciting!

Have a nice remainder of your weekend, everyone!

We still have eyebrows. Some observations to keep in mind for next time, or if you decide to make some chili with this recipe.

• Next time, no scotch bonnet or serrano. There was enough flavor going on that it would still be just fine without these, and it was just a little too hot. I enjoyed mine, and Kirsten got through hers (big thanks to Tilamook for the gobs of sour cream!), but we went a few inches past Cousin Sarah’s Spice Enjoyment Threshold, and that’s no good.
• The cactus leaf was actually kind of boring. I was hoping it would taste a lot funkier, but the description I read about it tasting like a green bean was pretty much right on. It was good, I guess, but I just wanted it to be more weird and exotic. I sort of wanted to taste it and have to decide whether I liked it or not. Oh well.
• I added some ground cumin and dark chocolate before it was done. Probably about a tablespoon (and a half?) of cumin and four squares of dark chocolate. The cumin was just right, but it could have used at least double the chocolate. I tasted it in one bit (and only one bite, unfortunately), and it was awesome. Another possibility: use a porter instead of the lager. But then the whole Dos Equis thing… Nevermind. Chocolate it is.
• Dude! Those beans took forever to cook! I soaked them overnight (the black beans dyed the pinto beans purple, which was kinda nifty) and they still were dry and crumbly at 6 hours’ cook time! Amazing. They were good by the time we ate, though.
• Next time, I’m cutting the stew beef into smaller chunks. It was cooked enough to be tender and all that, but the flavors didn’t really go deeply into the meat the way I feel like they should.
• Need to find a way to make it less watery. The beer contributes a lot of the flavor, so I’m not sure exactly how to pull this off.

Bottom line: I think we have a keeper, but it needs some tuning to make it ready for prime time. A little toning down of the heat for mass market appeal, and some more thought put into differentiating (the chocolate is a good first step), and we may really have a winner in the future. If you want to give it a try (with the amendments here) and let me know how it turns out, I’d love to hear your story.

It isn’t Saturday, but since I’ve been off work since 4:30 PM this past Wednesday (hooray for five day weekends!), it might as well be. And in the spirit of days that are or might as well be Saturdays, I’ve taken it upon myself to experiment in the kitchen and see what comes out. I went to QFC last night and bought one of every pepper that wasn’t a bell pepper (because green bell peppers are the worst and the rest are fine but aren’t the sort you want when you make chili), as well as some other fixings, and I have a crock pot full of chili going now, which may or may not leave us with eyebrows. The ingredients list looks like this:

1 Anaheim pepper
1 cubanelle pepper
1 poblano pepper
1 tsp. minced scotch bonnet
1 tsp. minced serrano pepper
1 jalapeño, seeded
3 chipotles
1 nopal cactus leaf
1 [normal sized] bottle of Dos Equis
some sage leaves from the back porch
1 cup of dried black beans
1 cup of dried pinto beans
1 shallot
2 cloves of garlic
1 white onion
1 large and one small can crushed tomatoes
1.5 lbs. stew beef
Salt to taste
Chili powder to taste

That’s a lot of peppers, but I feel like they’re in the right proportions to make it a reasonable amount of spicy. My favorite parts are the cactus leaf, because that’s just great, and not something you eat every day, and the Dos Equis, because I don’t always put beer in my chili, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. (Stay thirsty, my friends.) I’ll put an update when I taste it. Hopefully it won’t destroy our insides.

Left to right, clockwise: White onion, Dos Equis, Anaheim, chipotles in adobo sauce, shallot, scotch bonnet, Cubanelle, poblano, garlic, jalapeño, serrano, nopal cactus leaf

Well, I said I’d put up some video of Greta crawling, but I forgot until tonight. We were all just sitting around minding our business when we looked over, and Greta had made it up to the second step! Of course, we had to see if she could do more. She’s always incredibly motivated by the Xbox controllers (“If I could just get to that thing and eat it, everything would be better!”), so I put one on the steps and then just kept moving it up one stair at a time. Of course, being as camera shy as she is, she managed to the bulk of the climbing when the camera wasn’t there, but we got the takeoff and landing. I guess the camera was supposed to be off during the rest of the flight (get it? flight? stairs? [gestures for a high five] anyone? guys?) anyway. You know, because electronics and all that. But anyway, she made it all the way to the top with no help at all! I was spotting to make sure she didn’t plummet to a clavicle break like my poor niece last night (I found out today, and I need a bigger :’(. Get well soon, little Rachel!), but she didn’t even need me. She nailed it. Maybe I can get the whole process another time, but here’s tonight’s video. Enjoy.

Climbing the Stairs! from Vimeo.