Progress Report...

We are under way. At last. The new house is essentially empty, and the old house is a war zone. But we are experiencing forward motion.

I am bonding with the house; it is becoming mine with every visit. I notice things: the red maple that sprawls astride the patio, the small magnolia that peeps through the red branches, the pine that lines up nicely to filter the hot western sun in summer. There is a crape myrtle, too, visible from the living room sofa—when there IS a sofa there.

I am puzzling out the complicated geometry of rugs and furniture, and performing the calculus of perceived volume versus actual, delving deep into my bag of trompe l’oeuil tricks.

I bounce between houses like a grasshopper on speed, and I schedule workmen as if I were orchestrating D-Day. Daily, I thank God for the ‘Speaker’ setting on my cell phone that allows me to multi-task while on hold. Occasionally, I even find myself humming snatches of elevator music that entertains the weary caller placed on hold.

The old house is naked. Sofa and chairs have disappeared to be fitted with their new raiment; even the dining room chairs are being refurbished and sit, seatless, around the table. Rugs have gone to the cleaners, and the whole house seems echoing and empty, except for the stacks of boxes and piles of pictures and maps that have descended from the walls. Jake searches vainly for a soft place to nap, settling resignedly for an empty Trader Joe’s bag on the coffee table. Moving is hard on pets, but I can live with his reproach.

I have spent days calling…the HVAC people, the plumbing contract people, the gas, the water, the sewer, the electric companies. The city is on my list for parking permits, and personal property, and change of address. I have suffered through the DMV and voter registration, and visited the Comcast store. Which was not so bad. My new best friend, Brian, a schlumpy guy whose picture is found in the dictionary under “nerd”, managed to set up the account for the new address, maintain the current account in service till we move, arrange for it to be terminated when we DO, and schedule an installation technician at the new place on Monday (with me having rejected tomorrow, Friday, or Sunday as possible appointment days. But maybe he was kidding about Sunday. It’s hard to tell with these guys..)

I am currently researching patio doors (I haven’t had an aluminum-track sliding glass door with a charley-bar since…uh, six houses ago? and gas logs. And in the odd moment, I cruise the garden center, looking for inspiration for my new tiny patio.

My to-do/ to buy list includes trashcans, both inside and out, since the city does not collect in our development. Wood screws to re-attach the seats to the dining room chairs, cushions for the windowseat, low shelves for the living room that a TV might perch on—and, oh, a new TV, since ours was written into the sale contract. All this while deciding what, if anything, requires painting, and what color that might be. And where do the returning rugs go and should I buy pads for the ones without?

Suffice it to say that my brain is buzzing like a hive full of angry bees, each one vying for the attention of the queen.

I think that’s me.

April

Again the sun-bright days:

the gentle greening of hedge and tree,

the newborn herbs tucked in their beds,

and geraniums packed snugly

in their boxes by the wall…

once more, the transformation

from bare twig to budding flower,

from silhouette to three-dimension..

Bird and bee and burbling fountain

celebrate their homecoming,

and animate the garden

with sound and movement,

as it takes a breath and steps

from sequestered chill

to spreading sunshine.

The earth is new

(or so it seems)

and I am likewise

resurrected.

The Timeline (for those of you who need a scorecard..)

To all friends (Facebook and real-time) and relations who have endured the constant back and forth of my posts this year...thank you. The end of all this kerfuffling and despairing and recovery and backtracking and paper-shuffling and scanning and signing...is nigh. So--here it is: the tentative timeline for where we are and will be for the near future (with annotations):

From last May till this point: We have had a room added to the San Diego house--which leaves us now with a fully furnished 2 bedrooms, a wonderful little library and a new, more open feel in the house. The house has been repainted inside, a tankless hot water heater installed, and new lighting put in for the library. We have replaced a garage roof, a garage door, blinds in LR and bedrooms, a new floor and blinds in the office behind the garage. We have had our DR table refinished, our hunt board repaired, a new fence put in, bougainvilleas drastically pruned back (except for one that, for unknown reasons, the garden people spared), trellises reinforced and straightened, and the back yard re-aligned with pavers taken up and a new walkway installed. We are waiting on a new design and plantings. Also waiting on a new roof for the house (see below) due to an unexpectedly wet winter here that produced some serious leaks in two rooms. And now....

March 31: Fly back to Alexandria from San Diego (sigh) leaving behind only a few unfinished projects, namely a new roof for the house (under contract) and a re-do of our yard., and a closet installation to be done when we return.

[500 S Fairfax is sold, but we are renting back--as part of the contract--till June, so will be living there till the new house is vacated by the sellers, who are renting back from US.]

April 3: Walk-through of the new house--121 Madison Place--in Old Town. A bit north of King St, and a block closer to the river. Think 'near the Sport and Health club'. Measuring tape and rug and furniture placement brain-mode at the ready.

April 7: Meet with move estimator to get price and schedule a firm date for our move.

April 15: Tentative move-out date for the folks at 121 Madison Place...subject to change.

April 15 thru May 9: Total chaos of packing, changing utilities, address changes for every possible contact known to man, including all magazines and newspapers, cleaning, donations, trips to the dump, disposal of books (yikes), renewing commitments to Folger, Library of Congress, Map Society, and scheduling doctor and dentist and assorted appointments therewith. Additionally, seeing friends who we have sadly neglected while in CA,  Also, arranging move, reserving parking for moving van, getting new parking stickers, rug cleaning, arranging for removal and rebuilding of Murphy bed, removal and rebuilding of map cabinet, repairs at new house (as needed), possible painting (ditto), repairs as needed at 500 South before turnover, self-moving of fragile items, cleaning of new place, shelf-lining in kitchen, establishing HVAC maintenance agreement...and (as they say on TV) 'but that's not all...'

May 10: Tentative date for move. It may go earlier or later, depending on some or all of the above.

May 10 onward: Same chaos, only in reverse. Sort of the Ginger Rogers quote.."backward and in high heels".

May 23: My own personal deadline for being moved in and totally unpacked. Followed by a well-earned trip to NY to see 'War Paint' and the revival of 'Hello Dolly!' with Bette Midler.

June 1: More realistic deadline for being moved in and totally restored to normal life.

July 3: Kay and family arrive for a week-long visit!!!

And then, there follows a weekend in late July at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WVA, a week at Chautauqua in early August...and THEN....

Back to San Diego. And, believe it or not, the end of the year from hell, March 15, 2016 to mid-August, 2017. Normal life? What's that?

You realize, I have left out all the everyday errands, the hours and events at the Folger, the movies, the dinners, the cooking and cleaning and daily maintenance, both personal and domestic, the driving,  the meetings, the lunches..well, the LIVING that we do in between all of these events.

All in all, it looks like a busy summer. But...we're still standing. Maybe propped up a little, or leaning to one side, but standing, nevertheless.

Home Stretch

It looks like it might just happen. I have crossed all fingers and toes, have not canceled my email subscription to realtor.com (just in case that might be interpreted as excessive confidence), have not canceled our homeowners’ insurance and replaced it with renters’ insurance, have not given out our potential new address, or even had change of address cards printed. It hasn’t happened yet. The papers are not signed and in my possession, and therefore it has not—in my mind, at least-- happened yet.

Maybe it is just that we are not on the spot watching it all progress; or maybe it’s just that we have had so many glitches along the way that they seemed (at times) insurmountable. I have never been so close to walking away from a sale or purchase in our 40+ years of selling and purchasing. It has been a grindingly long process from last March’s optimistic schedule to this March’s weary agreements and addendums. But it looks like it might just happen. Finally.

Today our buyers are signing the papers and the money is changing hands. Not into OUR hands, of course, but into the hands of the next closer of the next deal, with our name and loan number written on the tag. I’m not sure we will even see any money, other than numbers on a HUD sheet (or ‘closing document’ as they are apparently now called), where the proceeds from our sale are balanced against our obligations for the purchase, and found to be approximately equal. Funny how that works.

In any event, if the papers today are shuffled just right, and the papers two days from now are likewise stacked and shuffled, we will give up one set of keys for another, rent back for a month or two, and start arranging a move for the month of May. I can file all the emails and texts and documents and information and addresses that have decorated my laptop for far too long. I can move on to more decisions, more scheduling, more accommodations. The lady at City Hall who arranges moving van permits has probably not forgotten my name, and I bet I can remember how to pack china.  I suppose I should be nostalgic, but I’m not. I’m simply ready to move on.