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Monday, July 30
Limbo:
After the quiet of last week I finally got hold of the owner... The word of the flood plain derailed him and none of the required work on the house was done. I talked to him that we'd push ahead with the closing and have the flood zone revoked with any luck, but before the bank would make that desicion they'd have to send out the auditor one more time and the repairs that he said he'd make had to be done, so apparently he did them all over the weekend. The adjuster was just there today, and we expect the bank to make thier descision soon... Until then....
*sings* Anticipation... Anticipa-a-ation....
posted by: Skeeve @ 11:53 AM
Friday, July 27
Zero's Friday Five
Space Harrier II
Tommy Lasorda Baseball
Last Battle
Thunder Force II
Altered Beast
posted by: Zero @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, July 25
Too Fast
Between thoughts lie clever Thoughts
(heir) apparent inside a child;
bringing unkind silence
with adult truth
and desperate, potent dignity.
posted by: Bliss @ 11:22 PM
Monday, July 23
Swimming in the river:
Let me re-cap my last week for you.
So, let's see...
Monday: Get a message from Mortgage broker. In a "super happy friendly used car sales man voice" he tells me that the mortgage company did their assessment of the new house and it's on a flood plain. Oh boy! He tells me to call our ins agent and get a quote and to make sure that I am "sitting down". So I do. I also call my real estate agent to let him know and see if he can't call the seller and see if he was aware of this, even tho in his disclosure he claims the property is not on a flood plain, only to discover that he is on vacation for TWO WEEKS (The two weeks RIGHT before our close! Only the most important part of the house buying process) and will return on the 30th (a DAY before our projected closing (which by the way he was supposed to ask if the closing could be moved up to the 26th the last time I talked to him.)) and I have an agent from the company who will be assisting me in his absence. Uh-huh. GREAT. At the end of day get ins quote for flood ins at $777 a year. Over a 30 year loan? Yeah, that's only an extra $23,000. I call my mortgage broker and tell him I want to fight it. He suggests I pay for a survey.
Tues: Sick as a dog... But somewhere in there an epiphany hits... I have a disclosure from the seller saying that the house is NOT on a flood plain. Is this actionable? I call lawyer, leave message (he's at a conference) and call stand in agent who is rather brusque on the phone, as she is driving, and she suggests calling my lawyer.
Wed: BUSY day... Went into work to get the new webserver up and running at 4am. Worked my ass off till after 3 and started calling. Got my lawyer and he told me that my insurance co should have a map with flood information on it, as well as the building dept at the village and that with the disclosure we might have some recourse to get a concession from the seller to offset the need for flood insurance (Which in addition to the high overall cost would lower the property value and make the house harder to sell eventually.). I call the Ins co and they say that their info said that the property qualified as flood insurable, so now my only hope is the village, or a professional surveyor who can prove that the foundation is above the high water mark. Ok, so i call the clerk, and at 15 minutes to thier closing (5pm) they have thier phones already forwarded to the nighttime voice mail (And can I tell you how infuriating it is to be told that thier office is open till 5 at 4:46... ARGH)
So, still reeling from the news that we might have to eat the flood insurance I get a call from the temp Agent who tells me (At after 5pm!!!!) that today was our mortgage commitment date, and did we have the commitment letter or were we planning on filing an extension? WTF!?!? This is information that I could have used on Monday!? Or yesterday!? So... What happens if I don't have this extension in my hand right now? Are we screwed? What? AUGH!
So, after all that the Temp agent called back, kinda made fun of me for worrying, and said we'd hadle it in the morning.
Thurs: I talked to the Director of the Saratoga Environmental concern council and he got me FEMA map readings of the area and I provided GIS maps that fairly accurately plot the flood plain... Soo... Looks like we have enough ammo for fighting the flood ins. (Image here and a better view of the lot and the flood plain is here, and the lot with the 2004 satellite images showing the houses placement in the lot is here.)The paperwork from the Environmental council should back the web pics up.
The extension was filed...
Fri: I sent the pics to my Mortgage broker who is now taking them to the underwriter at the bank and fighting the floodzone designation. I got good news at work about something that's been stressing me out.
We had a Garage Sale over the weekend and made a little $ and more importantly got rid of a bunch of stuff so as not to have to move it now.
One week to go...
posted by: Skeeve @ 9:52 PM
Friday, July 20
Zero's Friday Five
So, I'm sitting here, listening to "Oh My God, Whatever, Etc..." by Ryan Adams, and syncing some new tunes to my little black iPod. It's a pretty chill Thursday night. Soon, it'll be officially Friday morning (at least on the East Coast), and that means I really need to get on getting on with this week's Friday Five. This week, in honor of the fact that my bowling league is having a fun little party, I've decided to do a bowling themed Friday Five: The Game. Now, with the age old game of 10 pin in mind, see if you can't wrap your heads around this:
Grape, Lemon, Strawberry, Lime, Orange
posted by: Zero @ 12:41 AM
Wednesday, July 18
A Good Evening to You.
The moon
hangs pregnant in the sky,
full and with a cut off curve
as of a bare breast,
the woman face down and sheet-tangled
sleeping post revel in the dimness,
flesh the texture, color, warmth
of a ripened peach.
posted by: Bliss @ 8:02 PM
Monday, July 16
Two weeks and counting.
And they're gonna fly.
The next couple weeks are going to be fast and busy, so this is the 10 minute warning. Week off packing went well, but I could honestly use 3 more. Sadly, there's just 2 more weeks till the closing.
Be well, see ya in 168.
posted by: Skeeve @ 10:27 PM
Friday, July 13
Zero's Friday Five
Buy more stock in roses.
posted by: Zero @ 8:30 AM
Thursday, July 12
And Yet -
Don't write about roses;
roses are overdone
roses are worn out
roses are a poetic cliche'
- Or so would a poetry teacher say.
But, bombarded with a nose-wrecking scent
from the street-boundaried bushes,
it comes finally to mind there must be a reason.
As stereotypes spring from unfortunate realities,
Likewise is it undeniably so that
roses have a unmistakable heady perfume,
nonethless comparable with cetain manmade musks;
that there is a velvety texture to petals,
reminscent of youthful female skin
(particularly of untouched upper thigh);
And the Aesopish fable of beauty in pain, and pain in beauty,
is ever exhibited by naturally thorny stems.
posted by: Bliss @ 10:14 PM
Monday, July 9
Vacation!!! (All I ever wanted!)
But, this is a working vacation. I'm seeing exactly how many boxes my stuff fits in. This is no science experiment either. if things go well in about a month I'll actually be moved into a new (to me) house. And THEN comes yard work, and house projects.
Seriously.
Bliss and I have a list.
We have a list of projects that we want to do on a house that we don't even own yet.
Of course, this house is better than some of the others. We had dreams on one or two of the houses we LOOKED at. (Oh, we'll raise the roof and add a room...)
*blinkblink*
We are obviously insane. There can be no other explaination.
So, the moving hell that we are in right now is books and DVD's and clothing. These are the things that seem to somehow have multiplied since we moved in here at the duplex. It's now time to go and toss out all the old things that we don't want to pay to move to the new place.
We have about 50 bankers boxes of books. I. Shit. You. Not.
We're picking up some larger boxes tomorrow... And then we have to attack the garage sale idea.
In more destructive news we lost our brand new canopy tent today in the storm. It broke 3 of the 4 legs.
Ok, getting back to the packing.... We're also off this week and leaving for Mass on Wed/Thurs... So we have to make the best of the time we have left.
posted by: Skeeve @ 11:35 PM
Friday, July 6
Zero's Friday Five
Scrapper, Scavenger, Mixmaster, Long Haul, Hook
posted by: Zero @ 10:25 AM
Wednesday, July 4
Polite Nod
I am a space alien.
He told me so,
leaning over the healthy
grass green
metal bus stop seat arm
that was the last bastion
of protection
against him pressing
against my side
against my will.
He told me so,
warm beer breath
shoving aside the cigarette smoke
that wafts from my camel,
wisps effecting an escape
and curling like my intestines.
The bridge of my nose
wider than his,
the lack of an Adam's apple on my throat
was how he knew I was
from outer space.
He told me so,
cold knobby finger delicately
alighting, birdlike, on my throat,
then his own throat
and thin nose bridge,
the indications of his humanity,
proof that he is an earthling.
I decipher enough mumbles
through the short, greying greasy beard,
to reply that
no, I don't cook Italian,
though my housemate
(who shares those damp, soft brown eyes
and scraggly black and grey chin-length hair)
does;
no, I'm not looking to get laid;
no, I've never been to Ethiopia;
and I'm terribly sorry you don't like your wife.
Back broken from hard labor
(he told me so),
he railed against socialists,
and other faceless folk
referred collectively to as "those motherf***ers."
As if I couldn't see it for myself
that he was hurting,
he told me so;
and insisted I was too beautiful
too be human,
shh, keep my spatial origins a secret.
I won't tell if you don't.
Wishing me luck on my mission,
my alien voyage to Earth and elsewhere,
cautioning me, earthling to benevolent visitor,
to be good,
he shuffled out to deposit
his two liter seltzer bottle
mostly emptied of a browner bubbly
in the trash can,
and I shuffled out to deposit
myself on the far side of the bus stop shelter,
acknowledging with a nod
the small discomfited and sympathetic smiles
of the two women standing sentinel.
My landlocked spaceship soon arrived,
to whisk me to the alien world of a college campus,
the most recent stop on my educational voyage;
and, slumping into the single cerulean seat
allotted me in exchange for my dollar,
I push away the quicksand feeling
that I would trade all the false sympathy
and escapism to make him happy and whole.
Watching the city and suburban worlds I pass,
I feel sick.
posted by: Bliss @ 10:37 PM
Monday, July 2
Happy goodbye stupid Puritan day!
I waited too long to get illeagal fireworks again this year. Unless I wanna run out to Ohio tonight, I suppose.
I should have had them delievered by now, so they'd be quietly sitting in my basement, cool and dry.
This is the last holiday we will celebrate at this house, if all goes well. We should be in the new house in exactly a month, pull our shit out of boxes and cursing Zung for losing our remotes again. And once we're in and at least a LITTLE settled... TKOP party! I promise!
So, yeah, In August we'll host a TKOP party in our own home in Ballston Spa.
You are of course, invited.
: )
posted by: Skeeve @ 9:19 PM
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